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suchandra

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  1. On Gays and Gay Marriage BY: KRISHNA KIRTI DASA Feb 04, USA — Funny how this coincides with the last email I wrote, in which I said that ISKCON should split. And then I received a number of concerned responses --some of them condescending. To the devotee who said he'd rather be a fallen devotee in ISKCON rather than a pure devotee outside of ISKCON -- being a "company man" has its drawbacks. You might actually get what you just wished for, but not in the way you imagined. Just consider this comment, as published on Dandavats, to the attached essays: "At the very end of last year in South Africa, a law was passed, sanctioning gay marriages. We cannot stop the advance of kali-yuga and we need to encourage everyone. However, by recognizing gay marriages in ISKCON, we endorse sexual activity not meant for procreation, which encourages ordinary married initiated couples to continue with fruitless sexual activities within marriage. If purity is indeed the force, shouldn’t our leaders encourage devotees to follow better and assist them in their struggle? We don’t need to give public lectures about it, but in small bhakti-vrksa groups and counselors groups, surely these things should be discussed and devotees encouraged to follow. We’ve had so many nauseating scandals. And krsna-kirti’s statement (approximate) that as time goes on, devotees who seriously want to progress will be forced to leave ISKCON is certainly a possibility we can’t dismiss lightly." (The rest of the comment can be read here) So, in finer detail, let me tell you all why I think it is a good idea that ISKCON split - one a liberal organization and the other a separate conservative organization. Ideas have consequences. HH HDG's radical ideas about sex have gone virtually unchallenged in the five years since he articulated them. That means that there are many, many devotees within ISKCON who are basing their understanding of Krishna consciousness on his views. Now we have gay blessing ceremonies. What is next? Hint: ideas motivate behavior. Because ISKCON's members increasingly disagree over fundamental precepts of our faith, the likelihood of internal conflict within ISKCON is already high and continues to escalate. If there is routine conflict, offenses will be routinely committed. When offenses are so easily and frequently committed, transcending material desire and making spiritual advancement will become all but impossible. laukika-lilate dharma-maryada-raksana stuti-bhaktye karena tanra carana vandana "To maintain the proper etiquette for the principles of religion, Lord Caitanya bows down at the lotus feet of Sri Advaita Acarya with reverential prayers and devotion." (CC Adi 6.41 trans) In an atmosphere of high conflict, it will be very difficult if not impossible to maintain the right mood for making spiritual advancement. The proper etiquette necessary to follow the principles of religion will routinely be neglected or broken. Although some devotees have asked me to "stay and fight", I believe that if like-minded others and I continue to do that, then sooner rather than later we, and our opponents, will commit mistakes that will hurt our spiritual advancement. This is where being not liberated makes a difference. Even as devotees on the right path, we are still prone to making mistakes, being in illusion, making calculations based on faulty and imperfect senses, and, yes, our cheating propensity can also mislead us, too. Yes, us non-liberated sadhakas still have a cheating propensity! All it takes is a single mistake to ruin anyone's spiritual progress. Because an atmosphere of high conflict maximizes the risk of making such mistakes, which often enough translate into offenses, separation rather than unity is therefore in the best interests of ISKCON's members and Srila Prabhupada's mission. Although there was a time when "stay and fight" was the virtuous thing to do, this has been going on for five years, now. The GBC knows about it, yet they have decided not to take any action. Maunam samiti lakshanam. The time is over for giving them any more benefit of the doubt. As there is no chance of rectifying this through ISKCON's official political channels, and the risk of creating offenses is too great, it is time for devotees who know better to strike out on their own and form their own organization. Of course, I don't expect such a thing to happen immediately. Devotee leaders who are disciples of Srila Prabhupada are just not going to leave unless they are deeply and personally offended by GBC officials. And I don't see that happening in the foreseeable future. Because of their advanced age, they will to try to avoid conflict and stay, whatever the cost. The next generation of devotees (my generation) will take over soon enough -- perhaps within the next 10 years. Because we are younger and more "idealistic", it is for us to make the decision whether to split or not. This letter is therefore not so much directed to Srila Prabhupada disciples as it is to devotees in my generation and those who are younger. Of course, like-minded others and I could be wrong about all this. Maybe we're all in maya. Who knows? However, what is indisputable is that things like blessing a gay wedding (or whatever you want to call it, "a rose by any other name is still a rose") are things that Srila Prabhupada himself clearly and unequivocally spoke out against. Do we want to live in an ISKCON that doesn't respect Srila Prabhupada's teachings and sentiments? Perhaps some do. I don't. Although I agree that Srila Prabhupada wanted ISKCON to remain together, I also believe that Srila Prabhupada would not have wanted ISKCON to become something show-bottle and sahajiya. I believe that Srila Prabhupada would prefer splitting ISKCON and having at least one group remain faithful to his teachings than seeing ISKCON remain united yet unfaithful. If anyone wants to see what a serious proposal for what a bifurcated ISKCON would look like, as made by a senior and respected ISKCON member (who wants to remain anonymous, so don't even bother asking me to tell you who he is), you can read about it here.
  2. Hospital holds patient for not being able to pay Luh De Suryani , The Jakarta Post , Denpasar | Thu, 02/05/2009 4:56 PM | Bali http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/02/05/hospital-holds-patient-not-being-able-pay.html Reflecting on the sad state of healthcare in Bali, a hospital has been detaining a patient from leaving for not being able to pay her medical bills. Rena Margalia, 19, has been prevented from leaving Bhakti Rahayu Hospital on Jl. Gatot Subroto, Denpasar, by hospital officials for the past two weeks because her husband, Dedi Mustain, 20, was unable to pay her surgical bills. The Jakarta Post found out about the situation after Dedi reported the situation to the Bali branch of the Legal Aid Foundation (LBH Bali). "This case can be classified as a hostage situation because the hospital has taken away a person's right to freedom," Agung Dwi Astika, director of LBH Bali, said Wednesday. "Even the police have to get permission before detaining someone, and this hospital is doing so without prior consent." He said LBH Bali had met with the Bhakti Rahayu Hospital management to strike a deal to release Rena, but had failed. Agung said the hospital rejected the offer of signing a debt agreement with the patient that stipulates criminal charges if the patient should fail to pay their bills. Agung said the hospital would release Rena if they could provide a letter from the provincial government proving their financially-poor status. However, this was impossible as neither Dedi nor Rena have a Balinese ID because they just moved here one month ago from Probolinggo, East Java. Agung said he would continue to talk with the management, though he plans to report the case to the police Thursday. Rena, who is pregnant, was under psychological stress, Dedi said. Dedi said the events began on Jan. 18 when his wife complained of a severe stomachache. He brought her to Bhakti Rahayu Hospital, where doctors told him that his wife needed to be operated on immediately. "They said my wife had an ovarian cyst and needed immediate surgery. They said I had to pay Rp 6 million (US$510). I didn't have that much money but I agreed because she was in so much pain," Dedi said. Rena was allowed to go home two days after the surgery, but was prevented from leaving later by hospital officials after Dedi was unable to pay the final cost of Rp 11 million, an additional Rp 5 million for an appendix surgery. "I was so shocked. I only had 5 million with me that I borrowed from so many people. They said my wife had to have an appendix surgery and that costs extra, but they never confirmed it with me," he said. Dedi said he had tried to talk to the hospital's management, bringing along his neighbors who would vouch for him, but failed. Bhakti Rahayu hospital management were unable to give any comment. "It's true that we have a patient with such a case, but the hospital chief cannot give any comment yet," Ni Putu Susanti, Bhakti Rahayu Hospital staff member, said. As for Rena, she said she could no longer withstand the hospital's treatment. "I'm too scared to even leave my room because I'm afraid they would think that I was trying to escape. We want to pay our bills but we just want time because we don't have any family in Bali," she said in her room.
  3. Ganges Rising: Salinization Threatens Holy River by Kimberley D. Mok, Montreal, Canada on 02. 4.09 Photo: Boy diving into Ganges (DCL/Ami Vitale) The Ganges is taking a beating. Considered one of India’s holiest rivers, as of late its health has been threatened by chemical pollution, an overload of raw sewage and the possibility that its Himalayan source, the Gangotri glacier, will dry up. Now, climate experts are warning that rising sea levels are causing salt water to flow into the Ganges, harming riverine ecosystems and transforming farmlands into unproductive soil. "This phenomenon is called extension of salt wedge," said Pranabes Sanyal, representative of the National Coastal Zone Management Authority (NCZMA) for eastern India. "It will salinate the groundwater of Kolkata and turn agricultural lands barren in adjoining rural belts." The sea is rising around 3.14 mm annually in some parts of the Bay of Bengal, compared to the global average of 2 mm – in effect, jeopardizing the low-lying regions of eastern India with the spectre of more severe natural disasters, famine and disease. The announcement came after scientists at Kolkata’s Jadavpur University found mangroves growing along the riverbanks of Kolkata. As plants that typically grow in brackish, saline coastal areas, their appearance in this area is worrying. "We fear what happened 6,500 years ago might recur and we have already spotted more saline water fish in the river," Sanyal said, referring to the fact that the Bay of Bengal’s waters once extended up to the northern fringe of Kolkata, a city of 12 million people. Reuters
  4. Ancient fossil find: This snake could eat a cow! <cite class="vcard">By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter, Ap Science Writer </cite> – <abbr title="2009-02-04T15:29:02-0800" class="timedate">Wed Feb 4, 6:29 pm ET</abbr> NEW YORK – Never mind the 40-foot snake that menaced Jennifer Lopez in the 1997 movie "Anaconda." Not even Hollywood could match a new discovery from the ancient world. Fossils from northeastern Colombia reveal the biggest snake ever discovered: a behemoth that stretched 42 to 45 feet long, reaching more than 2,500 pounds. "This thing weighs more than a bison and is longer than a city bus," enthused snake expert Jack Conrad of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who was familiar with the find. "It could easily eat something the size of a cow. A human would just be toast immediately." "If it tried to enter my office to eat me, it would have a hard time squeezing through the door," reckoned paleontologist Jason Head of the University of Toronto Missisauga. Actually, the beast probably munched on ancient relatives of crocodiles in its rainforest home some 58 million to 60 million years ago, he said. Head is senior author of a report on the find in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. (The same issue carries another significant report from the distant past. Scientists said they'd found the oldest known evidence of animal life, remnants of steroids produced by sponges more than 635 million years ago in Oman.) The discoverers of the snake named it Titanoboa cerrejonensis ("ty-TAN-o-BO-ah sare-ah-HONE-en-siss"). That means "titanic boa from Cerrejon," the region where it was found. While related to modern boa constrictors, it behaved more like an anaconda and spent almost all its time in the water, Head said. It could slither on land as well as swim. Conrad, who wasn't involved in the discovery, called the find "just unbelievable.... It mocks your preconceptions about how big a snake can get." Titanoboa breaks the record for snake length by about 11 feet, surpassing a creature that lived about 40 million years ago in Egypt, Head said. Among living snake species, the record holder is an individual python measured at about 30 feet long, which is some 12 to 15 feet shorter than typical Titanoboas, said study co-author Jonathan Bloch. The beast was revealed in early 2007 at the University of Florida's Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville. Bones collected at a huge open-pit coal mine in Colombia were being unpacked, said Bloch, the museum's curator of vertebrate paleontology. Graduate students unwrapping the fossils "realized they were looking at the bones of a snake. Not only a snake, but a really big snake." So they quickly consulted the skeleton of a 17-foot anaconda for comparison. A backbone from that creature is about the size of a silver dollar, Bloch said, while a backbone from Titanoboa is "the size of a large Florida grapefruit." So far the scientists have found about 180 fossils of backbone and ribs that came from about two dozen individual snakes, and now they hope to go back to Colombia to find parts of the skull, Bloch said. Titanoboa's size gives clues about its environment. A snake's size is related to how warm its environment is. The fossils suggest equatorial temperatures in its day were significantly warmer than they are now, during a time when the world as a whole was warmer. So equatorial temperatures apparently rose along with the global levels, in contrast to the competing hypothesis that they would not go up much, Head noted. "It's a leap" to apply the conditions of the past to modern climate change, Head said. But given that, the finding still has "some potentially scary implications for what we're doing to the climate today," he said. The finding suggest the equatorial regions will warm up along with the planet, he said. "We won't have giant snakes, however, because we are removing most of their habitats by development and deforestation" in equatorial regions, he said. ___ On the Net: Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature
  5. These people knew what is what, they got the details and agreed to follow Prabhupada's teachings. And: They sweared an oath to follow the regs. What they did afterwards is clearly a breech of agreement, criminal. Since Western Vaishnavas are rather neophytes when it comes to actual spiritual theology they are well advised how the church is dealing this question. The Pope has told members of his Vatican staff that saving humanity from homosexual or transexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction. I agree with the Pope - homosexuality is an evil perversion which must be crushed and destroyed in the best interests of a sound and civilised society. Brazil's Federal Council of Psychology (CFP) has announced that it will prohibit psychologists from helping the Catholic Church to screen out candidates to the priesthood who have homosexual tendencies. This is demomiac. Any country that allows homosexuals to roam and to seduce the young shall be destroyed. Vatican document: homosexuals should not be ordained or admitted to the seminary. Pope Benedict: homosexuals destroy themselves. Great Britain study says 43% of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals have a mental disorder. Canadian Bishop: The State must curtail homosexuality for the common good. John Paul II calls gay marriage part of "ideology of evil". Top Vatican Cardinal: gay marriage is "a crime which represents the destruction of the world". Expert research finds homosexuality more dangerous than smoking. America: Slouching towards Gomorrah: "As in Sodom and Gomorrha, mankind had gone down and given itself over to Satan. I ask you now, My children, to turn back from your road to destruction, for you will be surely destroyed as was the time of Sodom and Gomorrha. Homosexuality shall not be condoned. It is an abomination in the eyes of the Eternal Father, and as such, is condemning many to hell. When a country has given itself over to immorality and all pleasures of the flesh, and abominations of the flesh, then that country will fall! If you do not believe Me, My children, I say: You will read your history books, and you will find out that there was a Sodom and Gomorrha. And what did We do to that abominable city, Sodom? We destroyed it! And what did We do to Gomorrha? We destroyed it! And We destroyed all who did not follow the plan for their redemption." Saint Bernardine of Siena, a preacher of the fifteenth century, makes an accurate psychological analysis of the consequences of the homosexual vice: “No sin has greater power over the soul than the one of cursed sodomy, which was always detested by all those who lived according to God….. Such passion for undue forms borders on madness. This vice disturbs the intellect, breaks an elevated and generous state of soul, drags great thoughts to petty ones, makes [men] pusillanimous and irascible, obstinate and hardened, servilely soft and incapable of anything. Furthermore, the will, being agitated by the insatiable drive for pleasure, no longer follows reason, but furor…. Someone who lived practicing the vice of sodomy will suffer more pains in Hell than any one else, because this is the worst sin that there is.” (St. Bernardine of Siena, Predica XXXIX, in Le prediche volgari (Milan: Rizzoli, 1936), pp. 869ff., 915, in F. Bernadei, op. cit., pp. 11f) Saint Peter Damian’s Liber Gomorrhianus [book of Gomorrha], addressed to Pope Leo IX in the year 1051, is considered the principal work against homosexuality. It reads: “This vice strives to destroy the walls of one’s heavenly motherland and rebuild those of devastated Sodom. Indeed, it violates temperance, kills purity, stifles chastity and annihilates virginity ... with the sword of a most infamous union. It infects, stains and pollutes everything; it leaves nothing pure, there is nothing but filth ... This vice expels one from the choir of the ecclesiastical host and obliges one to join the energumens and those who work in league with the devil; it separates the soul from God and links it with the demons. This most pestiferous queen of the Sodomites [which is homosexuality] makes those who obey her tyrannical laws repugnant to men and hateful to God ... It humiliates at church, condemns at court, defiles in secret, dishonors in public, gnaws at the person’s conscience like a worm and burns his flesh like fire... “The miserable flesh burns with the fire of lust, the cold intelligence trembles under the rancor of suspicion, and the unfortunate man’s heart is possessed by hellish chaos, and his pains of conscience are as great as the tortures in punishment he will suffer ... Indeed, this scourge destroys the foundations of faith, weakens the force of hope, dissipates the bonds of charity, annihilates justice, undermines fortitude, ... and dulls the edge of prudence. “What else shall I say? It expels all the forces of virtue from the temple of the human heart and, pulling the door from its hinges, introduces into it all the barbarity of vice ... In effect, the one whom ... this atrocious beast [of homosexuality] has swallowed down its bloody throat is prevented, by the weight of his chains, from practicing all good works and is precipitated into the very abysses of its uttermost wickedness. Thus, as soon as someone has fallen into this chasm of extreme perdition, he is exiled from the heavenly motherland, separated from the Body of Christ, confounded by the authority of the whole Church, condemned by the judgment of all the Holy Fathers, despised by men on earth, and reproved by the society of heavenly citizens. He creates for himself an earth of iron and a sky of bronze ... He cannot be happy while he lives nor have hope when he dies, because in life he is obliged to suffer the ignominy of men’s derision and later, the torment of eternal condemnation” (Liber Gomorrhianus, in PL 145, col. 159-178).
  6. This was exactly the attitude of the Catholic Church, meanwhile they found out what great damage and havoc homosexuals caused to the church. And do the only right thing, to immediately kick out anything that looks homosexual.
  7. They played the exact same game on the Catholic Church but people, don't buy on celibate homosexuals - instead mass exodus of believers leaving the church. A homosexual is someone who is hopelessly lost to surrender to the dictate of his genitals but hates to rise children. His arrogance and egotism say no to responsibility, he only wants to enjoy the pleasure of sex. Therefore normal people just cringe at the thought what is a homosexual. Homosexuality and celibacy is never going side by side. It is incompatible. To have officially homosexuals within a spiritual institution is the sure path of having it spoiled. People rather become atheists than joining such a religion. Except it is becoming a place only for homosexuals, than it might go on, but not as Sankirtan Movement, this is rather something else. A homosexual who is actually 100% celibate cannot be called a homosexual.
  8. Quite strong article by ISKCON: The Putana Syndrome and the Second Coming of Adolf Hitler BY: BALA KRSNA DAS (ACBSP) Feb 02, SARANAGATI, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA (SUN) — All devotees are familiar with Putana Lila. Putana was, in fact, an extremely powerful demon - perhaps the most powerful of all demons at the time of Krsna’s presence on the planet 5,000 years ago. Even Kamsa could not defeat her and therefore, as demons are apt to do, he made an alliance with her. Although she was of the grotesquely ugly rakshasa race, she had mystic powers not normally available to humans. In modern terminology, she was a shape-shifter - she could transform her physical appearance at will and take on any form that the occasion called for. When Kamsa called on her to kill Krsna, she shifted her body into that of a very beautiful woman who could speak sweet words. By this tactic, even as a complete stranger, she was able to completely fool the inhabitants of Vraja, who allowed her to move at will through the crowd and into the home of Nanda Maharaj and Mother Yasoda, where she picked up Baby Krsna. Taking her actions and words at face value, it did not occur to the good-hearted devotees that it was actually her motive to kill Krsna. A similar phenomena in the Vaisnava world is currently taking place as an alarming number of devotees, especially from the second generation, are expressing endorsement and allegiance to Barack Obama. It is the Putana Syndrome once again, being captivated by a pretty face, big smile and sweet words - charisma that veils a sinister motive. (Of course, in the case Krsna Lila it was all due to the influence of yoga maya.) Even some devotees with a degree of understanding, who should know better, have said things like "Well, at least he’s not Bush", and "Well, at least it’s great to see such a new spirit of hope." No, he’s not Bush - he’s potentially far more dangerous; and what is the use of ‘hope’ if it is based on a lie? In fact, what use is ‘hope’ at all? Obama’s wife, Michelle, says that "everything begins and ends with hope." Utter nonsense! Hope is a meaningless emotion because its fruits are always in the future and, by definition, never in the now. Hope is like riding a carousel horse; no matter how fast you go, you never get closer to the one in front. The idea, however, is to persuade you to stay on the horse, in spite of the inevitable disappointment, in the 'hope' that things will change. But they don’t, because the very system is designed to prevent it. Besides ‘hope’, there are the other two mind-control trigger words - ‘believe’ and ‘change’. Obama’s mantras - his massively funded, record-breaking campaign has been based on these words - the same mantras and techniques used by Bill Clinton, George Bush, and Adolf Hitler in their ascent to power. “Hope” for what? “Change” what? and “Believe” in what? These are especially important questions for devotees of Krsna who supposedly have embraced the values and world-view of the Vedas as taught by Srila Prabhupada. Certainly the Vedic perspective will never be gleaned from a steady diet of watching CNN or other mainstream media. “Judge a man by the company he keeps.” Applying this principle, one should look at the people Obama has surrounded himself with. Virtually every single one of the whole network of advisors and controllers he has assembled are recycled power elites from previous administrations and institutions, and their policies and opinions are already in the public record. Virtually all of them are members of the semi-secret organizations: CFR (Council on Foreign Relations), Trilateral Commission, and Bilderbergers. Membership in at least one of these organizations has been a prerequisite to the inner circle of all administrations for the past many years, thus insuring that no real meaningful change ever takes place other than what furthers their agenda. Obama’s advisors are no exception - all of them are steeped in the art of manipulating minds, opinions and actions. Devotees of Krsna should familiarize themselves with the values and goals of these organizations. By doing so they will be better equipped to discern the “doublespeak” coming from the lips of Obama and the propaganda machines of the media. I can assure you the values of theism and “In God We Trust” will not be found in their world views. There are many advisors with various titles such as Economic Recovery Advisory, National Security Advisor and Chief of Staff. Details of the history of each of these personalities is accessible and can be researched. In doing so, a very different picture emerges than the one painted by mainstream media - and isn’t a pretty picture. <center></center> The whole Obama circus has been so successful because so many people live their lives in a permanent state of trance (and we are not talking about Samadhi here) - which brings me to the parallels with Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and similar regimes throughout history - and now fascist America. Obama may not look like Hitler, nor sound like Hitler, but the themes are just the same. Germany was in a terrible state economically and militarily in the 1930’s in the aftermath of the first World War, and the reparations imposed on the country by the Versailles ‘Peace Conference’ in 1919. From amid the chaos came the man that Germans saw then in much the same way that so many see Obama today. His name was Adolf Hitler and his oratory and rhetoric, supported by a ritualistic presentation founded in mind-control techniques, made him appear to be the German ‘messiah’, the German Obama… <center> </center> Hitler promised ‘change’, ‘hope’, and something to ‘believe’ in amidst the consequences of war and financial collapse. He spoke to the vast rallies of adoring followers and a mass movement emerged in support of Hitler’s vision of a new tomorrow. It has been pointed out that fascism in its true sense is not just a police state imposed by a tiny hierarchy. It may end up like that, but first it is brought to power by a mass movement from within the people, who have no understanding of what the 'change, hope, and believe' they are being offered really means. They just know that they want some because, as with Obama, they make it mean what they want it to mean. Only later do they see, to their horror, what they signed up for. One of Obama’s (and his controllers') prime targets are the young, just as they were with the Nazis and the Hitler Youth Movement. Obama said in a speech in July in Colorado Springs that he wanted a civilian national security force that would be more powerful and well-funded than the Marines, Navy and Air Force put together. He wants mandatory sacrifices and public service from all teenagers, wearing uniforms - straight out of Hitler’s workbook. Obama is a front-man demagogue for the same behind the scenes forces that controlled Boy Bush, Clinton, Father Bush, Reagan, etc., but the difference is that he has been hyped to such proportions that he will be allowed to get away with far more than they were - at least until reality dawns on the mass ranks of his hypnotized supporters. And clearly, that could take some time. Apart from ‘hope’, ‘change’, and ‘believe’, few have any idea what Obama’s policies will be . Public perception of him comes from having an image of him, not from the fine print, because Obama doesn’t do fine print. He is keeping it well hidden behind his windbag sweet words. There is an image that Obama is against war, but he most certainly is not. Again, without going into detail, read the fine print. We can expect even more foreign conflicts, with the troops sent to their deaths, and the deaths of their targets, on a wave of oratory. Obama claims to be a ‘uniter’, which is exactly what Bush said about himself before he came to office, but unity in and of itself is not the issue. Nazi Germany had unity in the early years of the war, inspired by the oratory of Hitler, but was that a good thing? What matters is what the unity is designed to achieve. Once again, read the fine print (and again you won’t find the fine print in the mainstream media). It can be used to ‘unite’ the believers in their opposition and condemnation of non-believers, which is precisely what happened in Nazi Germany with the book-burnings and violent suppression of those who challenged the Hitler regime. The potential for Obama Mania is endless when it comes to selling fascism as ‘hope’, ‘change’, ‘freedom’, and a new America. The framework for full-fledged fascism is already in place. Legislation implemented by recent administrations has cemented that. Meaningful democracy and the constitution are history. At this point I must pose the question: does anyone really believe that someone, ‘a man of the people’ could simply appear from apparently nowhere and run the slickest and best-funded presidential campaign in American history? Again, look at the cabal behind him and those appointed to his administration team to see what Obama’s ‘change’ is truly planned to be. Especially take a close look at his mentor and guru, Zbignew Brzezinski, a relationship going back 25 years to college days when he attended the Ivy League Columbia University, where Brzezinski was head of the Institute for Communist Affairs. Zbig went on to be Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor and he is also the co-founder, along with David Rockefeller, of the Trilateral Commission. Obama’s policies come straight from Brzezinski’s books.* Brzezinski is definitely one of the select high-priest acaryas of the Dark Side. Obama was selected - not elected - and he is their puppet. What ‘change’ can we really expect under the circumstances? Changing from Pepsi Cola to Coca Cola is no real change at all. Of course we will see some apparently good things announced, like the closing of Guantanamo, to give the impression that Obama means what he says. And there will be some apparently good environmental changes made, but you can be sure they will be superficial, not getting close to the issues and problems that real people the world over are having due to American hegemony. But keep your eye on the ball and you’ll see how the agenda for tyranny is introduced under the guise of ‘hope’, ‘change’, ‘believe’, ‘sacrifice’ and ‘coming together’. It may take two years or more before the Obama faithful realize that they bought a dream and got a nightmare. But devotees of Krsna should not be caught up in that dream or nightmare. The world view of devotees should be neither to the left nor to the right. A devotees’ world view should be entirely apart, transcendental to the illusory workings of this material world. Whatever happened to the revolutionary world view as taught, instilled and inspired by Srila Prabhupada - a social, political, economic and spiritual system called daivi varnasrama? When will devotees ‘come together’, make the necessary ‘sacrifices’, and ‘believe’ that such a transcendental dream can be realized? Let us ‘hope’ and pray that another 30 years does not pass and the transcendental dream of our beloved spiritual master fades into a nightmare of another mainstream religion. * Between Two Ages: America’s Role In The Technetronic Era
  9. Interesting article below, according math, random evolution would have required more time to come to present level of development. Douglas Axe: Bold Biology for 2009 Posted Februar 3rd, 2009 February 1st, 2009 by Douglas Axe: Do you see the problem? On the one hand we’re supposed to believe that the Darwinian mechanism converted a proto-insect into a stunning array of radically different life forms of termites, beetles, ants, wasps, bees, dragonflies, stick insects, aphids, fleas, flies, mantises, cockroaches, moths, butterflies, etc., each group with its own diversity well within the space of 400 million years. But on the other hand, when we actually do the math we find that a single insignificant conversion of binding sites would reasonably be expected to consume all of that time. It’s a big year for all things Darwin. This month, two centuries after his birth, we commemorate the man and his accomplishments. And in November, a century and a half after On the Origin of Species was published, we commemorate the beginnings of the theory by which we all know him. But how exactly should we think of his theory? Is it to be remembered the way we remember the man—as an important part of the past? Or is it to be remembered as something more than that—as an intellectual seed that grew into something that thrives to this day? Many, of course, would like to think of Darwin’s theory in these flourishing terms. But the growth of something else makes this view increasingly hard to hold. We refer here to the seldom discussed but steadily expanding body of peer-reviewed scientific work that refuses to square with Darwinism. Take a look at the recent Genetics paper by Rick Durrett and Deena Schmidt. [1] They’ve done the math to calculate how long it would take for Darwin’s mechanism to accomplish a particular kind of functional conversion. And their eagerness to “expose flaws in some of Michael Behe’s arguments” [1] shows that they think they’ve resuscitated Darwinism after Behe pronounced it dead. [2] Have they? Maybe the answer depends on how vigorous a theory you were hoping for. Part of what ails Darwinism, in other words, may be that people have such high expectations of it. If you think Darwinism explains how life acquired the great variety of forms we see around us (the grand vision that Darwin himself had) you’ll probably be disappointed with Durrett and Schmidt’s findings. Darwin’s vision is chock-full of conversions of the most profound kind—all complex life forms originating from one or a few simple forms. Whereas the conversions that Durrett and Schmidt examine are nothing like that. Theirs are conversions not from one body plan to another, or from one organ or tissue or cell type to another, or even from one protein molecule or gene to another, but rather from one binding site to another. These binding sites are DNA sequences about one hundredth the size of a gene that affect how a nearby gene is switched on and off. Conversion is accomplished by two point mutations occurring in succession: We think of the A mutation [i.e., the first] as damaging an existing transcription factor binding site and the B mutation as creating a second new binding site at a different location within the regulatory region. … We used the word ‘damage’ above to indicate that the mutation may only reduce the binding efficiency, not destroy the binding site. However, even if it does, the [ A ] mutation need not be lethal. [1] Now, there are two important questions to be asked here. The first, which Durrett and Schmidt address, is the question of whether this kind of two-step conversion can evolve in a Darwinian fashion—and if so under what circumstances. The second, which they largely avoid, is the question of relevance to Darwin’s grand vision. That is, even if we knew these binding-site conversions to be feasible, would that give us any reason to think that the more profound conversions are feasible? As things stand, scientific caution dictates a ‘no’ answer to this second question. The right kind of evidence could conceivably change that answer, but there are good reasons to think no such evidence will appear. The main reason is simply that converting one binding site to another accomplishes no significant structural reorganization, whereas transitions to new life forms would require radical structural reorganization. It’s not that a binding site change can have no effect (indeed, it could be lethal), but rather that it cannot have the required effect—the complete top-down reorganization needed for a transition to a substantially different form of life. By way of analogy, you might easily cause your favorite software to crash by changing a bit or two in the compiled executable file, but you can’t possibly convert it into something altogether different (and equally useful) by such a simple change, or even by a series of such changes with each version improving on the prior one. To get a substantially new piece of software, you would need to substantially re-engineer the original code knowing that your work wouldn’t pay off until it’s finished. Darwinism just doesn’t have the patience for this. Furthermore, returning to the first question, it seems that even humble binding-site conversions are typically beyond the reach of Darwinian evolution. Durrett and Schmidt conclude that “this type of change would take >100 million years” in a human line [1], which is problematic in view of the fact that the entire history of primates is thought to be shorter than that [3]. Might the prospects be less bleak for more prolific species with shorter generation times? As it turns out, even there Darwinism appears to be teetering on the brink of collapse. Choosing fruit flies as a favorable organism, Durrett and Schmidt calculate that what is impossible in humans would take only “a few million years” in these insects. To get that figure, however, they had to assume that the damage caused buy the first mutation has a negligible effect on fitness. In other words, they had to leap from “the mutation need not be lethal” to (in effect) ‘the mutation causes no significant harm’. That’s a big leap. What happens if we instead assume a small but significant cost—say, a 5% reduction in fitness? By their math it would then take around 400 million years for the binding-site switch to prove its benefit (if it had one) by becoming fully established in the fruit fly population. [4] By way of comparison, the whole insect class—the most diverse animal group on the planet—is thought to have come into existence well within that time frame. [5] Do you see the problem? On the one hand we’re supposed to believe that the Darwinian mechanism converted a proto-insect into a stunning array of radically different life forms (termites, beetles, ants, wasps, bees, dragonflies, stick insects, aphids, fleas, flies, mantises, cockroaches, moths, butterflies, etc., each group with its own diversity) well within the space of 400 million years. But on the other hand, when we actually do the math we find that a single insignificant conversion of binding sites would reasonably be expected to consume all of that time. The contrast could hardly be more stark: The Darwinian story hopes to explain all the remarkable transformations within 400 million years, but the math shows that it actually explains no remarkable transformation in that time. If that doesn’t call for a serious rethink, it’s hard to imagine what would. The truth of the matter, much to the chagrin of contemporary biology, is that Darwin’s theory should have been laid to rest some time ago. It certainly deserved all the interest it generated in its day, but at some later point that interest was transformed from the critical kind to the credulous kind. Regrettably, that change took hold before the most conclusive data came to light. But all is not lost—even wrong ideas can make big contributions to the advancement of science. Few biologists want to see Darwin’s theory filed in that category, but if that is its rightful place, then you can be sure that’s exactly where one bold generation of biologists will file it—someday. The timing of such things is hard to predict, but we suspect that many members of the bold generation will be in polite attendance at the Darwin celebrations this year.
  10. VATICAN'S VACATION FROM REALITY Church Blasted for Controversial Appointment http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,604360,00.html One controversy is apparently not enough for the Catholic Church. In addition to ire over his decision to rehabilitate a Holocaust-denying bishop, Pope Benedict XVI has now raised hackles by promoting a priest who welcomed Hurricane Katrina as "divine retribution" for New Orleans' permissive ways. Another week, another public relations disaster for the Catholic Church. While the furor continues swirling around the pope's decision to reinstate an ultra-conservative bishop who denies the Holocaust, the Vatican has once again raised hackles by promoting a controversial pastor to be a bishop in Austria. PHOTO GALLERY: CONTROVERSIES IN THE VATICAN On Saturday Rome announced that Rev. Gerhard Maria Wagner would be auxiliary bishop in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria, a decision that has angered many within the Austrian church and beyond. The priest has a knack for inappropriate comments, writing back in 2005 in a parish newsletter that Hurricane Katrina was an act of "divine retribution" for New Orleans' permissive ways. "This was not the sinking of any city but that of a people's dream city with the 'best brothels and prettiest prostitutes,'" he wrote. The same man warned children in 2001 against reading J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books because the tales of a boy wizard were "spreading Satanism." Then in 2004 Wagner said that it was no coincidence that the Tsunami disaster had occurred at Christmas, inferring that it was punishment for "rich Western tourists" who had fled to "poor Thailand." News of his planned ordination on March 22 has unleashed a storm of criticism from other Austrian clergy, with many complaining that the selection process was made without consulting them. Hans Padinger, spokesman for the Upper Austrian priests' council, told the Oberoesterreichische Rundschau newspaper he was "not very pleased" by the appointment while Franz Wild, a parish priest in Traun, said that he was "appalled" by the news. "I hope it's clear to the church that we're living in the 21st century and that it also has to live there," he told the ORF channel. RELATED SPIEGEL ONLINE LINKS Holocaust Denial Debate: German Jews Cut Contact with Catholic Church (01/29/2009) Catholic Controversy: German Far-Right Hails Holocaust Denier Williamson (01/27/2009) The World from Berlin: Pope Benedict 'Is Sabotaging Christian-Jewish Dialogue' (01/26/2009) The group "We are Church," which promotes reform, predicted that the appointment could lead to people leaving the church. Liberal Catholics now fear that the pope is steering the church in an ultra-conservative direction and there is increasing concern about his leadership style. In a commentary for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Catholic theologian Hans Küng said that the pope risked losing the trust of millions of Catholics across the world. Küng said that Pope Benedict XVI is obviously "so shielded and cut off from the real world, that he has no idea how disastrously his actions are received." Damaged Relations with Jewish Community The uproar over Wagner's appointment comes while the repercussions about the Vatican's decision to overturn the ex-communication of four bishops who were ordained by the founder of the archconservative Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) are still being felt. One of the bishops, British-born Richard Williamson, recently told Swedish TV that he did not believe that Jews had died in gas chambers and that only 200,000 to 300,000 Jews had perished in the Nazi concentration camps instead of the figure of six million that is accepted by mainstream historians. The pope had hoped that re-admitting the men into the church would heal the rift with the ultra-traditionalist society, which rejects the reforms that were implemented after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, including the decision to allow mass to be said in languages other than Latin. Instead, the lifting of Williamson's excommunication has severely jeopardized relations between the Vatican and the Jewish community, threatening to undo efforts by the late Pope John Paul II to build bridges between different faiths. The Israeli Minister for Religious Affairs Yitzhak Cohen told SPIEGEL that he had recommended "completely cutting off ties to a body in which Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites are members." In Germany there is widespread astonishment that the German-born Pope Benedict XVI would give the go ahead to rehabilitate Williamson. The vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Salomon Korn told SPIEGEL that Williamson's rehabilitation was "unforgivable.A German pope of all people ... has pardoned a Holocaust denier. And that just a few days before Holocaust Memorial Day," he said. Italian Priest Joins in Holocaust Doubt The Bishop of Hamburg Werner Thissen accused the Vatican of not doing enough research into the SSPX society and Williamson's views before overturning the excommunication. "Rehabilitating a Holocaust denier is always a bad decision," he told the Hamburger Abendblatt on Monday, adding that relations with Jews had been damaged. NEWSLETTER The Bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart Gebhard Fürst said in a statement: "It saddens me as a bishop and as a pastor that these actions have lead to the external and internal alienation of many believers from the church, to the loss of trust particularly of our Jewish brothers and sisters in the church as well as to a considerable breakdown in the Christian-Jewish dialogue." The Archbishop of Vienna Christoph Schönborn was also scathing. "Whoever denies the Shoah cannot be rehabilitated to a position in the church," he told the Austrian broadcaster ORF on Sunday. While Williamson posted a letter on his blog apologizing to the pope for the "unnecessary distress" he had caused he did not retract his comments on the Holocaust. And his does not seem to be not an isolated case within the SSPX. The head of the society in northeastern Italy, Florian Abrahamowicz, told the Tribuna di Treviso newspaper last Thursday that he knew "gas chambers existed as a means to disinfect, but I cannot say for sure if they killed anyone." smd -- with wire reports
  11. Good point, inmates of a prison unfortunately often go against each other. When jivas begotten of the marginal potency - tatastha sakti - forget the service of Krishna they are confined in the mundane prison house, the citadel of Durga. The wheel of karma is the instrument of punishment at this place. Even when some of these prisoners are about of being released from the material prison house, they still are conscious about their imprisonment and carefully performing their duties for the remaining days.
  12. 106-year-old enthrals Krishna devotees Varanasi, February 02, 2009 http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=HomePage&id=d77cbb9a-905a-4124-8b7a-5372ba90dd34&ParentID=32409e39-3467-4d8e-9036-d6b91efeddd1&&Headline=106-year-old+enthrals+Krishna+devotees Sohan Lohaka, with a flowing white beard and hair, dirty white dhoti and kurta and a signature red Rajasthani turban, is perhaps the oldest surviving singer in the world. He is 106 and is at present swaying the Krishna devotees for hours, signing Shayam-bhajans at the Shyam Mandir in Varanasi. Lohaka, who claims to have born in 1903 at a village near Jaipur in Rajasthan, is celebrating the 15th anniversary of the mandir with a two-day special bhajan programme that ended on Monday. Although he went to school for about a year just to learn Hindi alphabets and numbers, Lohaka authored 14 books of 2,500-plus shyam-bhajans so far. A sculptor-cum-blacksmith by profession, he took to full-time shyam-bhajan after his wife passed away six decades ago. Now, he uses his literate great grand children to pen the songs he composes, which he claims to have sold to singers in Mumbai and other places. Lohaka says, “since my eyes are still glowing, I’m not Surdas (blind Krishna devotee). I am Krishna’s Sudama (a childhood friend of Krishna), who wants to breathe his last singing for Shyam.” He claims, “And this I’ve been doing since I was a ten-year-old, when a sadhu (holy man) gifted a Bhagvad Geeta which I mastered reading daily with the help of literates in my village.” The singer, who claims to have sung before Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi before Independence, besides performing for free all over the country, says he has also performed at various temples in Nepal, including Indra Lok in Kathmandu. He said, “I’ve met Nehru, Gandhi and even Indira Gandhi when she was too small, but haven’t asked for help. I want only to give shyam-bhakti (devotion to Krishna) to society and demand nothing from anyone.”
  13. Very good points andy108, where have you been all those years? Yes, it is obvious, Krishna sent Srila Prabhupada. But as usual, conditioned souls say, no it is not Prabhupada.
  14. Nurse suspended for offering to pray for elderly patient's recovery Andrew Alderson – Telegraph.co.uk February 1, 2009 Caroline Petrie, a committed Christian, has been accused by her employers of failing to demonstrate a "personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity". She faces disciplinary action and could lose her job over the incident. Mrs Petrie, a married mother of two, says she has been left shocked and upset by the action taken against her. She insists she has never forced her own religious beliefs on anyone but politely inquired if the elderly patient wanted her to pray for her – either in the woman's presence or after the nurse had left the patient's home. "I simply couldn't believe that I have been suspended over this. I knew I hadn't done anything wrong. All I am trying to do is help my patients, many of whom want me to pray for them," she said. Mrs Petrie, 45, is a community nurse employed by North Somerset Primary Care Trust to carry out home visits to sick and elderly patients. Caroline Petrie The incident which led to her suspension took place at the home of a woman patient in Winscombe, North Somerset. "It was around lunchtime and I had spent about 20 to 25 minutes with her. I had applied dressings to her legs and shortly before I left I said to her: 'Would you like me to pray for you?'. "She said 'No, thank you.' And I said: 'OK.' I only offered to pray for her because I was concerned about her welfare and wanted her to get better." However, after the incident on December 15, she was contacted by the trust and asked to explain her actions. The woman patient, who is believed to be in her late 70s, is understood to have complained to the trust. Mrs Petrie will not disclose the woman's name or reveal the precise nature of her ailment because it would breach patient confidentiality. Mrs Petrie, who lives in Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset, said she was initially confronted the next day by a nursing sister who said the patient had been taken aback by her question about prayer. "I said: 'I am sorry. Did I offend or upset her?' The sister said: 'No, no. She was just a bit taken back. You must be aware of your professional code of conduct. I would be careful.' "But the next day my coordinator left a message on my home phone and I realised this had been taken further." Mrs Petrie said that she often offers to pray for her patients and that many take her up on it. She either prays with them or after she has left their home. The nurse has been a committed Christian since she was ten – after her mother died of breast cancer. Initially, she was Church of England but she switched to the Baptist faith nine years ago. "My faith is very important to me," she said. Mrs Petrie had previously been reprimanded for an incident in Clevedon last October when she offered to give a small, home-made prayer card to an elderly, male patient, who had happily accepted it. On this occasion, the patient's carer, who was with him, raised concerns over the incident. Alison Withers, Mrs Petrie's boss at the time, wrote to her at the end of November saying: "As a nurse you are required to uphold the reputation of your profession. "Your NMC [Nursing Midwifery Council] code states that 'you must demonstrate a personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity' and 'you must not use your professional status to promote causes that are not related to health'." In the letter, Mrs Petrie, who qualified as a nurse in 1985, was asked to attend an equality and diversity course and warned: "If there is any further similar incident it may be treated as potential misconduct and the formal disciplinary procedure could be instigated." Mrs Petrie said: "I stopped handing out prayer cards after that but I found it more and more difficult [not to offer them]. My concern is for the person as a whole, not just their health. "I was told not to force my faith on anyone but I could respond if patients themselves brought up the subject [of religion]." It is the second incident – the offer to pray for a patient – that led to the disciplinary action. She was suspended from her part-time job, without pay, on December 17. She faced an internal disciplinary meeting last Wednesday and expects to learn the outcome this week. At last week's hour-long meeting, Mrs Petrie says she was told the patient had said she was not offended by the prayer offer but the woman argued that someone else might have been. The nurse had her representative from the Royal College of Nursing present Mrs Petrie's husband, Stewart, 48, works as a BT engineer and they have two sons, aged 14 and ten. The couple attend Milton Baptist Church every Sunday and Mrs Petrie said: "Stuart and I have decided to put God first in our lives." Mrs Petrie, who has worked for the trust since February last year, has already taken legal advice from the Christian Legal Centre, which seeks to promote religious freedom and, particularly, to protect Christians and Christianity. The centre, in turn, has instructed Paul Diamond, the leading religious rights barrister. Andrea Williams, the founder and director of the centre, said: "We are backing this case all the way." A spokesman for North Somerset Primary Care Trust said: "Caroline Petrie has been suspended pending an investigation into the matter. "She is a bank nurse and she has been told we will not be using her in this capacity until the outcome of our investigation is known. "We always take any concerns raised by our patients most seriously and conscientiously investigate any matter of this nature brought to our attention. "We are always keen to be respectful of our patients' views and sensitivity as well as those of our staff.” www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/4409168/Nurse-suspended-for-offering-to-pray-for-patients-recovery.html
  15. Judging Personality in Hinduism Part 2 http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-personality-analyst/200902/judging-personality-in-hinduism-part-2 By John D. Mayer, Ph.D. on February 02, 2009 in The Personality Analyst This post continues a discussion of how wisdom traditions address the question, "How, and when, should we judge personality?" (See here for a post that sets the stage)... The book of Hindu teachings, the Bhagavad Gita, was written sometime between 500-200 BCE, probably drawing on an earlier oral tradition. The Bhagavad Gita distinguishes between Hindu ways of devotion and divinity, on the one hand, and the confusion and evil that results from ignorance of such teachings, on the other. Especially relevant to this series of posts, the Bhagavad Gita contains writings concerning how best to judge oneself and others. The Bhagavad Gita involves a conversation between Arjuna, a prince and warrior, who must decide whether to risk his life entering into battle to defend his family, and a teacher Sri Krishna. Krishna ultimately reveals himself as a manifestation of god. Krishna describes those who are closest to the divine -- those dearest to him -- and in so doing, implies how their judgments of their fellow men and women might differ from those who are evil and confused. Dear to me is the man who hates no one, who feels for all creatures, Who has shed thoughts of "I" and "mine", who is not excited by sorrow or joy. who is patient and serene, steadfast and subdued. Dear to me is the man who neither annoys nor gets annoyed, Who is free from excitement jealousy, fear and worry. Such enlightened individuals, Krishna says, are distinct from the unenlightened: The demonic confuse what should be done with what should not be done: they have neither virtue, nor good conduct, nor truth. Hypocritical, vain and fierce, inflated with overreaching ambition, They let their ignorance breed evil thoughts, and strive for the world's ruin. "...Today I enjoyed this, tomorrow I'll enjoy that; ...I know success, power and pleasure. I have untold wealth, I was born auspicious. What man is like me ?"... Vain, selfish, and obsessed with possessions,... insolent and passionate, they loathe the Atman in themselves and in others. Although the Bhagavad Gita does not address direclty how one person should judge another, the descriptions of the dear-to-Krishna and the deluded and confused seem highly suggestive in this regard. A person who is dear to Krishna and is balanced and near grace (sattvika), "who hates no one...feels for all creatures, neither annoys nor gets annoyed...[and is]...free from attachment," seems likely to judge with empathy, and in a detached, mild, and impartial manner. By contrast, someone who is deluded and confused (tamasika) is "vain...inflated...insolent," and asks "What man is like me?." Such a person will view others as less than him or herself and, as a consequence, would likely judge others negatively and with contempt. A person who is confused and deluded, in other words, is likely also to be harshly and negatively judgmental toward others. The followers of Krishna, in contrast, are more detached, less easily annoyed, and less likely to be judgmental. The followers of Krishna are instructed to seek out and understand their true inner selves, their atman. To do this often requires the help of a yoga (teacher). Teachers, however, in order to be successful, must themselves make judgments about their students and their students' characters, so as to help those students choose the proper path for learning. I will describe more about this in the next post on judging people in the Hindu tradition... * * * Click here for information about the Personality Analyst including schedules, earlier series, and policies. Click here for earlier posts in this series. Notes. As a general resource, I have referred to Smith (1991). The world's religions. San Francisco: Harper Collins. The quotes from the Bhagavad Gita are from Lal, P. (Trans) (1965). The Bhagavad Gita. Lake Gardens, Calcutta: P. Lal. "Dear to me is the man who hates no one..." From Chapter 12: The Way of Devotion (p. 49), "The demonic confuse..." Chapter 16: The Devine and the Demonic. p. 60. © Copyright 2009 John D. Mayer
  16. 02-02-2009, Courtesy - The Vedanta Kesari: When I talk about bhakti, I enjoy telling this story: One lady went to Sri Ramakrishna and said, 'I want to do japa, but whenever I sit for japa or meditation, a nephew whom I love very much comes to my mind.' The Master said, 'Very well, whatever you do for him—feeding, dressing, etc.—do with the idea that he is Gopala; have this attitude that God resides in him in the form of Gopala and that it is He whom you are feeding, dressing and serving. Why should you think that you are doing all this for a human being? As is your mood, so will be your gain.' We are told that as a result of doing so, she made considerable spiritual progress in a short time, so much so that she attained even Bhavasamadhi. (Sri Ramakrishna The Great Master, vol. I, p. 392) What a new approach! This reminds me of the story of a yogi who used to meditate under a tree. Once, atop the tree, some birds were making sound which disturbed the yogi. So he cast a fiery look at them, and the next moment both the birds were burnt to ashes. The yogi became very proud of his magical power. He went for bhiksha in the town. He came to a house whose doors were closed. So he stood there and gave a call for the bhiksha. Immediately he heard a reply, 'please wait, I am little busy.' So he had to wait. He waited but felt a little angry thinking, 'Why is this lady making me wait? She is not aware of my powers.' Inside the house, the lady was busy serving her sick husband. <table class="s8" width="140" align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="2"></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" align="left"></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"></td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td>The yogi was taken aback. He thought: what can I learn from the butcher?</td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td align="right"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> After some time, the lady came out. And on seeing the yogi angry, she said, 'here there are no birds to burn.' The yogi was surprised. He asked her how she came to know of this incident. 'Look here,' she said, 'I am serving my sick husband all the time. I look upon him as a representative of God. Just when you came, as I was serving him, I could not leave that in the middle and attend to your bhiksha. Hence I asked you to wait. This act of service must have brought some powers with it. I have not sought for it. If you want to know more about this, go and ask the butcher who owns a shop in the next street.' The yogi was taken aback. He thought: what can I learn from the butcher? But he proceeded towards the shop where the butcher was cutting and selling meat. The butcher welcomed the yogi and said, 'Yes, I know that lady has sent you to me. But please wait'. Then he went home, first served his sick parents and then he finally attended to the yogi. The yogi said, 'I am surprised how you were able to acquire all these powers.' Then the butcher taught the yogi about the Ultimate Reality. When you do your duty with devotion—whether it is serving the child or the father—with the idea of Shivajnana in jiva, it becomes seva. Service to mankind is service to the Lord. This idea can be followed wherever you are. It does not require any institutional set-up to do service. Only when you want do it on a larger scale, institutions are necessary. In family itself you can practise this and if you follow these principles, the whole family takes a turn for the better. We see in the metropolitan cities many broken marriages and broken hearts, and so many divorces. It is all because the right attitude is not there. So Karma-Yoga is to be practised. Whatever we do we have to convert it into Karma-Yoga, with the help of jnana or bhakti. Sri Ramakrishna says, in the age of Kali yuga, people are tied down to their bodies and Narada's way of bhakti is the most ideal. It does not talk about rituals. Just love for God. In due course life itself becomes an act of loving God.
  17. My dear Nimai Pandita, what You have said is all true. Our scriptures have developed only recently, and they are certainly not logical and philosophical. PURPORT The sastras of the yavanas, or meat-eaters, are not eternal scriptures. They have been fashioned recently, and sometimes they contradict one another. The scriptures of the yavanas are three: the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Koran. Their compilation has a history; they are not eternal like the Vedic knowledge. Therefore although they have their arguments and reasonings, they are not very sound and transcendental. As such, modern people advanced in science and philosophy deem these scriptures unacceptable. Sometimes Christian priests come to us inquiring, “Why are our followers neglecting our scriptures and accepting yours?” But when we ask them, “Your Bible says, ’Do not kill.’ Why then are you killing so many animals daily?” they cannot answer. Some of them imperfectly answer that the animals have no souls. But then we ask them, “How do you know that animals have no souls? Animals and children are of the same nature. Does this mean that the children of human society also have no souls?” According to the Vedic scriptures, within the body is the owner of the body, the soul. In the Bhagavad-gita (2.13) it is said: dehino ’smin yatha dehe kaumaraṁ yauvanaṁ jara tatha dehantara-praptir dhiras tatra na muhyati “As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. The self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a change.” Because the soul is within the body, the body changes through so many forms. There is a soul within the body of every living entity, whether animal, tree, bird or human being, and the soul is transmigrating from one type of body to another. When the scriptures of the yavanas-namely, the Old Testament, New Testament and Koran-cannot properly answer inquisitive followers, naturally those advanced in scientific knowledge and philosophy lose faith in such scriptures. The Kazi admitted this while talking with Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. The Kazi was a very intelligent person. He had full knowledge of his position, as stated in the following verse. Adi 17.169
  18. Heart of the Treasure Valley: Reflecting the light of God through service 'It's like watering the roots of a tree. When you water the roots, the leaves and branches automatically get watered' http://www.idahostatesman.com/life/story/653440.html Edition 02/02/09 She says: "Who am I? We're not the body. The body is just the covering of the soul; it identifies us. I am Aruddha, born in India but really, we are spirit - part and parcel of the greater spirit. " And then the part serves the whole, just like the hand serves the body. The purpose of our tiny soul is to serve the greater soul, which is God. That's where our happiness is. "This has been my underlying (foundation): Service brings happiness to everyone. It can all start with the family and then we can make the whole world our family." Twenty-two years ago, Arun and Aruddha Gupta moved to Boise. As was traditional in India, when the family moved into their new home, they created an altar devoted to Krishna. "Mostly in India, people are quite religious and pious. My parents were very similar. As a child, I would wake up at 6 a.m., shower, go to the family temple inside the house. As a family, we would pray together, chant, sing. " This became part of my life. When we moved here, it was already part of my life." The next step seemed only natural, which was to invite friends to join in the daily prayers around the family altar. Over the years, the gatherings grew in size until, one day, the idea for a temple was conceived. "It's like we could have a big, 100-course meal, but we couldn't be happy unless we invite others to share. With a big, 100-room house, we wouldn't be happy. The whole idea is when we share with others and serve others, we actually become joyful. "It is our nature to serve, so when we serve God, we become happy," Nine years ago, the Hare Krishna Temple and Vedic Cultural Center was dedicated. The golden dome gleams over the homes near the Boise State campus. Today, about a hundred people gather on Sundays for chanting, singing and studying. Aruddha and Arun are the ministers, caretakers and heart and soul of the temple. "Basically, this has been our life and the purpose starting the temple: Sharing, helping people both physically and spiritually, and sharing our resources and our culture." Aruddha's faith is such an integral part of her life that she home-schooled her sons, teaching them from devotional texts and raising them to follow the religious disciplines. "Practices are good to keep a sound mind and body. They aren't dogmatic; they're uplifting. "We follow the four principles: Don't eat meat, don't do intoxicants, no gambling and no illicit sex (outside marriage). Just these four principles will do much to improve our lives. There is more of a sense of freedom if we follow these." Aruddha wakes daily at 4:30 a.m. for an hour and a half of chanting and singing in the temple. "Chanting is like the detergent that scrubs the heart and lets the original qualities shine "Chanting is the reason we become peaceful, because we understand our true identity. Anxiety means we don't know who we are. Chanting helps us know: We are children of God." Afterward, there is reading and studying sacred texts, the Vedas and the Bhagavad Gita. "When we start the day like that, we can take the struggles that life has to give us very happily because of that inner strength." And then there is cooking. Aruddha disappears into her kitchen, just off the temple. She emerges with flatbread, vegetarian curry and rice and battered zucchini. It smells like heaven, and indeed, that may be so. Twice a day, she cooks and the food is offered to God, turning ordinary food into spiritual sustenance. It's called prasadam. "What I try to do in my life is serve in many areas. Through the temple, through food. For the last 20 years, I've cooked prasadam every Sunday for so many people. It makes you healthy; it also nourishes the soul." Some days she and her husband give tours through the temple, sometimes they teach classes in local schools and universities. The day is full tending the temple; and then there are prayers again at 6 p.m. "The first thing my parents taught me: Serve God and worship him. It's like watering the roots of a tree. When you water the roots, the leaves and branches automatically get watered." The spiritual disciplines also allow her to question deeply. She quotes Socrates: An unexamined life is not worth living. "Helping people examine their lives and understand the purpose of life helps to answer the deeper questions, like who am I, why am I here, what is the purpose of life. " If we ask the questions, we see the higher purpose." Worldwide, roughly a half billion devotees of Krishna make up the largest branch within Hinduism, a major world religion. Although they may follow many different practices, spiritual principles unite them - as well as all religions. "Hinduism says there are many paths to the top of the mountain," says Aruddha's eldest son, Ravi. "Our teacher Srila Prabhupada says it does not matter whatever religion you are. Christian, Muslim, Buddhist - but whatever you are, be a good one. The same ideas are in each. "God just has different names: Christ, Allah, Krishna, Buddha, Jehovah. (Worshipping) in so many different ways doesn't change the unity - all worship God and God is one."
  19. Guess modern evolution is best refuted by Irreducible complexity Irreducible complexity (IC) is the argument that certain biological systems are too complex to have evolved from simpler, or "less complete" predecessors, and are at the same time too complex to have arisen naturally through chance mutations. An "irreducibly complex" system is defined by the term's originator, biochemistry professor Michael J. Behe, as one "composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning". These examples are said to demonstrate that modern biological forms could not have evolved naturally. The argument is used in a broader context to support the idea that an intelligent designer was involved, at some point, in the creation of life, against the theory of evolution which argues no designer is required. In a manner of speaking, the IC argument is a definition of the "designer", or at least "what was designed", a definition that has proven elusive in the past. The most common examples used in argument are the complexity of the eye, the Blood clotting cascade, or the motor in a cell's flagellum. The flagella of certain bacteria constitute a molecular motor requiring the interaction of about 40 complex protein parts, and the absence of any one of these proteins causes the flagella to fail to function. Behe holds that the flagellum "engine" is irreducibly complex because if we try to reduce its complexity by positing an earlier and simpler stage of its evolutionary development, we get an organism which functions improperly. There are many examples of molecular machines, such as the bacterial flagellum, that are composed of numerous elements. Behe rightly points out that such machines are irreducibly complex in that if any one part were removed, the function in question would be instantly lost. How then could such a machine be built up gradually if it will not work to any selectable degree until all its parts are present in their proper order? Kenneth Miller, a well-known evolutionary biologist from Brown University, points out that certain subsystems of the bacterial flagellum would still be in working order if other parts were removed. The overall flagellar motility system requires around 50 different types of proteins (and underlying genes to code for them). However, it is quite interesting to note that 10 of these genes and the resulting structure within the flagellar motility system also code for what is known as a type III secretory system (TTSS). The TTSS is used as a toxin injector by some especially nasty bacteria that attack both animals and plants. Therefore, Kenneth Miller argues that it is mistaken to use the flagellar system as an example of a truly irreducibly complex machine since around 40 different parts could be removed from the machine without a complete loss of function. Miller also points out that the majority of the protein parts of the flagellar system have other functions as parts of other systems within bacteria.
  20. Science says that the Moon is currently drifting away from Earth about 1.5 inches (3.74 centimeters) every year. If the earth is 4.5 billion years old then the Moon should have already drifted out of sight. Astronomers have been measuring the size of the sun for 400 years. Our sun would have been so big that as little as 1,000,000 years ago all life on Earth would have been burned. This means there was not enough time for any type of Evolution to happen! The rate at which elements such as copper, gold, tin, lead, silicon, mercury, uranium and nickel are entering the seas is very rapid when compared with the small quantities of these elements already in the oceans. Therefore the oceans must be much younger than even 1 million years.
  21. Evolution of Evolution: "The New Theories of Evolution" http://www.clearevidence.blogspot.com/ A recent post at telegraph.co.uk purported to offer updated "proof" for the theory of evolution. You know, the "utterly proven" theory about the origin of the species that millions of scientists have dedicated their life to re-proving, much the way they do other "Laws" of science such as gravity, entropy, and displacement...er...oh, wait. Be sure to read his article before continuing. As proof, the author offered several contrived examples: from modern technology to insect and bacterial behavior to show how the evidence is mounting in such a way that, soon, even the "most hardened skeptics" will become convinced of the truthfulness of evolution. Waiting...waiting...hm...still no. The first absurd claim comes when the author claims that, "Computers have long been used to model biological evolution." Since I am a computer programmer, let me offer my opinion on this. The computer that could truly model even the splitting of a single cell into two cells has not yet been invented. No computer existing today has the memory or processing power that it would take to even begin the insanely complex task of modeling biological reproduction, the foundation for "evolution". Though you may read about today's super computers being used to simulate "protein folding", keep in mind that protein folding is to single-cell division what memorizing your ten decimal digits is to quantum physics and doctorate level calculus. The two can hardly be compared, even though the first is a building block to the second. Secondly, all digital system that simulate physical systems must do so a pre-determined "resolutions". In the world of 3D graphics, for instance, as a car speeds towards a wall, the picture of the car and wall may be drawn 10 times, 100 times, or 1000 times depending on how fast the "real time" engine is capable of satisfying the "geometry engine's" will to keep the car in the right place given the amount of time elapsed. For instance, if the computer can re-draw twice every second the complex vertices and shaders that make up one frame, then a very choppy presentation will show the car hitting the wall in 3 seconds. If the computer can draw 10 frames per second, the display will show a much smoother rendition of the car hitting the wall, but still in just 3 seconds. If the display can render 32 or more "fields" (half-frames, every other "scan line"), then the display will actually fool the human eye into believing that it is watching a "full-motion" rendering of the car hitting the wall. However, this isn't actually true. In fact, in 3 seconds time, only about 100 frames could be rendered at 32 fields per second. But it you've ever seen high-speed photography of a crash dummy hitting an air-bag or a bullet flying from the barrel of a gun, then you know that even at a million frames per second, small changes are reflected in EVERY FRAME! So how many states you choose to measure in a second determines how many states you capture, and take into account. In biological and physical systems, these states are the moments in time that you are watching. But between these moments, the vast majority of time passes without observation. If you're watching a tortoise crawl through the sand, then 32 frames per seconds will certainly suffice. You can pretty much guarantee that the tortoise didn't run off and get a burger and fry between frame 17 and 18. If, however, you're watching the blindingly fast reaction between molecules that make up proteins that make up a strand of DNA interacting with an mRNA strand, then a million frames per second doesn't really do it justice at all. The only way to model such complexities in our day is to elongate time. A former manager of mine used work for Amdol designing I/O bus architectures. He said that they ran a weeks-long software simulation of one of their chips, but only simulated a total of 6 seconds worth of actual I/O once the chip was finally constructed. Software is much, much slower than hardware. Even much more so, software is infinitely slower than the real world. No matter what resolution you choose to measure a physical system, virtually all time passes between your measurements. Any attempts to circumvent this method of modeling and optimize the output is merely a model of one's assumptions, not of the real world. The more optimized the output, the less of a true model it is and the more of a model of one's assumptions it is. All that to say this: if someone today claims to use computers to simulate evolution, you must parse their words. They purport to have modeled unspeakable numbers of creatures over eons of time and arrived at a result in short order. In order to do that, your "model" would have to be nothing BUT assumptions. Thus, if you write a program to tell you that evolution is true, then don't be surprised if it does! The second absurd claim is that network and telephony networks exercise "evolution" when passing data through them. Now, every network programmer knows what a "trace route" is. In windows, the tracert command echoes back the "route" used for data to travel from your computer to some remote computer and back and the elapsed time between each hop. Most also know that if you tracert the same host on different days, it will often result in a different route than before. If I'm getting data from a computer in India, the data might make 20-30 "hops" from one router to another along the internet backbone. The request for the data goes from my computer to my local router, usually in the same building. From there it "hops" to my internet service provider: Comast, Earthlink, AOL, or some other provider. After a couple 2 or 3 "hops" at Comcast, it goes out to the real internet and finds it's way to the host computer via a series of hops that tend to move it geographically closer and closer to it's destination. Finally it's received by their internet service provider, forwarded to their company's router and finally to the specific computer that has the data I want. The data then takes the reverse route, usually, but not always identical to the request route. But all those "hops" hit routers in between Comcast and say, Bangalore Electronics's routers. Those public routers are "learning" systems in that they are constantly measuring the response times from various other routers and re-routing packets of data around slower or over-burdened routers to keep the total "latency" (response times) rather low. When routers fail to auto-optimize routes, human administrators can go in and define "static routes" to override the router's artificial intelligence and assert a better plan. Breathe! Ok, now what Dr. Chimp is trying to hoist on the public is that this auto-optimization, similar in all digital networks, is proof of evolution!!! These systems were designed from the ground up to do exactly what they do, and this is proof of evolution! Yikes! The third absurd claim is that the behavior of colonies of ants proves evolution! Now admittedly, when he claims it proves evolution, he's talking about the tendency of randomness to produce an improved system. The problem is that the things he states as randomness could easily be rephrased as "applied design". The scent trail, foraging specialists, carriers, and sudden, mass, hunger-based movements of colonies that he observes are all programmed responses using intricate instruments that pre-exist the duration of his experiment. In this clever, misleading way, the bar for "proving evolution" gets set so low that a child cutting across a field to get home proves evolution!!! The fourth example is not any better. That bacteria in clusters suddenly change their behavior in a way that kills their host and thus, ultimately themselves is, by no means, producing a better system. I think he kind of lost focus towards the end of his chat. If this is what passes for proof of evolution amidst the echoes of learned professors in the higher halls of learning these days, then I'm not all that worried about a sudden shift towards the hopeless world view of evolution. And by the way, Steve, your article is misnamed. P.S. - Keep an eye out for Ben Stein's new movie, Expelled. It is documented proof of the slight of hand and scholastic intimidation that is commonplace in the scientific community today.
  22. The new theories of evolution http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/3300803/The-new-theories-of-evolution.html Steve Jones Last Updated: 8:23PM BST 16 January 2009 Darwin's ideas are being used by scientists to develop new drugs and plan phone networks, says Steve Jones Last week I found myself answering hard questions about evolution in the echoing halls of an organisation established by an anti-evolutionist. The Natural History Museum (founder: Richard Owen, described by the normally mild Charles Darwin as "spiteful, extremely malignant, and clever") was hosting a "question time". Beside me on the platform were the distinguished biologists, Richard Dawkins and Lewis Wolpert, and in front of us, beneath the vast skeleton of Dippy the Dinosaur, several hundred delegates of the annual GECCO meeting. Nothing to do with extinct and terrible lizards or their modern relatives with sticky feet, but members of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, whose main sessions were held at University College London. Computers have long been used to model biological evolution (and Dawkins himself has played a part in this) but Darwin would have been amazed at the ways his ideas are being used by computer scientists to solve non-biological problems. Evolution works, in the factory as much as the field; and military tactics, automatic music transcription and marine architecture - just some of the topics discussed - prove that Darwin's notion of unintelligent design can sometimes beat the most expert engineer. The theoreticians use evolutionary robotics, genetic algorithms and their relatives to mimic the notion of descent with modification. The equivalents of mutation, sex and natural selection crack challenges too complex for the fine scalpel of pure mathematics. A set of rough and ready solutions compete within the machine, are randomly changed and reshuffled until, after many generations of breeding from the winners, a vastly improved version emerges. On the wilder shores of algorithmia rest papers on The Induction of Fuzzy Rules with Artificial Immune Systems and on Using DNA to Generate 3D Organic Art Forms - a picture from the fertile computer of William Latham, of Goldsmiths College, London, one of the authors of that idea, can be seen above. A whole group of intriguing conference titles turns on the Biblical injunction to "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise". Much wisdom has emerged from studying those busy beings. Ant colony optimisation, as the technique is called, turns on the fact that such insects exploit food in what appears to be an intelligent, but is in fact an entirely mindless, way. One ant stumbles on a tasty item. It brings a piece back to the nest, wandering as it does, and leaving a trail of scent; a second tracks that pathway back to the source, making random swerves of its own; a third, a fourth, and so on until soon the active little creatures converge on the shortest possible route, marked by a highly-perfumed highway along which they scurry with every impression of planning. As the food dwindles, one by one the animals give up, and the track slowly evaporates. The computer scientists fill their machines with virtual ants and give them the task of finding their way through a maze or graph, leaving a coded signal as they pass until, just like the ants, the fastest route emerges. The technique is used in planning the most efficient design of a phone network, the best use of the gates at Heathrow and the management of wireless messages through a grid of receivers. In the phone system, for example, each message leaves a digital scent-mark as it passes through a node and, as it builds up, the fastest track soon attracts the most traffic. A few of the papers emphasised the lessons to be learned from nature; from real, rather than electronic, insects and, as a mere biologist struggling to understand computer-speak, that is a relief. Ants do behave in a remarkably digital fashion. The ground around a colony is at its busiest on a warm day, with plenty of food around. Its inhabitants decide en masse on the best strategy. A few go out as patrollers, returning to the nest only when they find some food. Back home, they are sniffed at by their fellows - and, as ant scent changes when they are out in the open the stay-at-homes can sense how many explorers are returning. However, those domestic types need several hits on a patroller, spaced a few seconds apart, before they will venture outside. A shortage of food, or a hungry bird, means that not many of the wanderers return and the colony stays quiet; but once a threshold is reached a hungry mass suddenly pours out - and woe betide any tasty grub that gets in the way. Even bacteria go in for a form of group-think based on mathematical rules. A certain bug that gets into many hospital patients does little harm until it indulges its unpleasant talent of forming a sticky layer over a wound or a lung, with fatal results. It's the swarming ant effect again: when the bacteria are rare there is no point in their holding hands with a neighbour to make a sheet because no more than a few cells would be linked. They divide instead. As they do, they pump out a chemical signal, and as numbers rise that reaches a threshold. The billions of individuals then suddenly join into an adhesive and lethal film. The latest idea, an exciting one in these days of antibiotic resistance, is to design drugs that block the signal molecule and might save the patient. Strangely enough, one candidate for the job is garlic extract - which for bacteria, as for Britons, sends out a chemical message of mutual repulsion. Genetic algorithms are already used in drug development and the mathematicians will, no doubt, soon be on the garlic case too. Evolution in the computer may soon overcome evolution in the real world, as bacteria and their digital equivalents use mutation and natural selection to defeat the challenges that human ingenuity throws at them. That should prove the power of Darwin's theory to even the most hardened sceptic.
  23. The actual symptom of someone having entered the path of genuine spiritual life is that he/she doesn't feel comfortable anymore in a material society, doesn't feel to be part of the materialists rat race. This is actual progress, the real meaning of becoming human being. As the Bible says, one cannot serve two masters. When a person tries to have sympathy for the material world and simultaneously to serve Krsna, his brain is actually making simultaneous forks in the road. It makes people go a little bonkers. But gradually we learn that we cannot split into two and then things become easier. It is actually very dangerous, one is trying to serve God and Satan at the same time, so he ends up as a dangerous cult person who has all kinds of mental problems.
  24. Burning Candles Can Cause Indoor Air Pollution http://www.wereyouwondering.com/burning-candles-can-cause-indoor-air-pollution/ I was interested to read the research out there. Long ago, I decided to stop burning paraffin wax candles in my home, knowing that they are petroleum derived and that burning petroleum products releases a whole host of carcinogens. Aside from my assumption, I knew very little about the actual danger associated with burning candles. The research out there is even scarier than I had originally thought. Lead In order to make the wicks more durable, candle makers have been using a lead or zinc core surrounded by cotton or other materials. When burned, this lead ends up in the air as particulate matter and settles on surrounding furniture. Lead is toxic to humans and there is a lawsuit pending against a retailer who sold a woman candles containing lead that subsequently produced lead poisoning in her family members. The lead concentration in her home, caused by burning candles with lead wicks was 27 times the safe allowable amount in her area. To avoid candles with lead wicks, gently scrape away a little bit of the top layer of wax at the base of the wick to look for metallic fibers. Unless the candle specifically states that it contains no lead, don’t buy or burn the candle. Zinc is used as a wick stablizer as well, but I was unable to find any specific health claims related to zinc; that is not to say that there aren’t any. Another way to check for a lead wick is to gently fan the fibers at the top of the wick and look for shiny metal mixed in. This also indicates and lead or zinc core. Another problem with burning candles containing lead, aside from the airborne particulate matter is the soot produced by the burning. If you are dusting your house and notice the cloth contains darker “dust” than normal, you may have soot build up. Whether you candles have lead or not, burning creates soot. When children put their hands in this dirty dust, then into their mouths, they are getting an even higher dose of lead and other burning byproducts. Smoke Anyone? The National Candle Association states that candles and other home products such as cooking oils are “everyday household sources of soot are not considered a health concern.” According to the EPA, however, paraffin wax candles, when burned are known to release benzene and tolulene - cigarrette anyone? When I was a child, my parents used to burn dollar store candles in the house to “burn the smoke out of the air”. Although it made no appreciable difference to the amount of cigarrette smoke, it probably made the situation worse! The soot from burning candles causes financial hardships as well. Heating and air conditioning manufacturers are successfully fighting law suits over apparently “deffective” units because the build up of soot from candles caused the equipment failure. So who to believe? Well, obviously both parties have agendas, but I am going to side with the EPA on this one. But, keep in mind, it was the soot from all burning candles; not just paraffin candles. Making Sense of Scents Another addititive to watch out for, in paraffin, soy and other candles is artificial scent. People with allergies have known for years that articial scents found in insense, perfume, air fresheners and candles causes their asthma to spike, their nose and eyes to water and their sinuses to become irritated. Many of the scents used make therapeutic aromatherapy claims. There are some companies that use genuinely good quality essential oils when making their candles, but many (probably most) don’t, and furthermore, need not disclose the ingredients used to generate the “tranquility” or “sensual” aromas they give out. The smell generated to “improve” the odour in your home serves only to mask other smells with a more powerful chemical smell. In addition, many artificially scented candles have been shown to release volatile organic compounds (VOC’s), another significant health hazard. A happy alternative would be to purchase good quality essential oils and place a few drops into boiling water to infuse your house with a natural smell. The American Lung Association suggests avoiding scented and long burning candles. Soy, Palm and Beeswax Candles: Are They Safer Alternatives? Both soy and beeswax candles burn at a cooler, slower rate and, according to the sources that I could find, produce much less soot than paraffin wax candles. Soy candle drippings are easily cleaned up with soap and water. My understanding is that anything that can burn, can produce unused carbon particulate matter. Soy candles are no exception. My internet research turned up the same conclusion. Any websites that made the “soy” is less toxic claim have been websites that sell candles. Hardly unbiased. Most sources that I read that attempt an unbiased opinion based on science say there is no real difference between the soot produced from soy candles and the soot produced from paraffin candles. All candles will produce soot, and all will produce soot in greater quantities when the wick is too long, or the flame is disturbed away from its normal teardrop shape. A tangible benefit to beeswax and soy candles is they both come from a renewable resource; whereas paraffin comes from crude oil which is non renewable. Some sites I visited claimed soot from parafin candles is equivalent to burning diesel fuel in your home; while others say there is no difference. The great debate continues. Beeswax candles produce a natural “honey” scent without the addition of chemicals. These are what I opt for in my home. Here is my conclusion, based on the research: all three kinds of candles produce soot which can clog air filters and deposit particulate matter into the indoor environment. Minimize the soot produced by trimming the wick to 1/4 inch, taking care to disturb the flame as little as possible. One of the biggest contributing ingredients to indoor air pollution in candles are their added fragrances. Most companies don’t divulge the exact ingredients that make up their special aromas. As I said above, I like beeswax candles because they naturally produce a honey scent when burned. I still feel uncomfortable burning paraffin candles in my house, simply because it is a non renewable, petroleum product (and the above claim that burning paraffin candles could be the same as burning diesel fuel). My research revealed no conclusive evidence on either side of the equation, but I will continue to burn only beeswax in my home… just in case.
  25. Problem is that the food industry is run by meat eaters and they don't want to lose control over the food market. They sell already all kind of replacements for meat but it is all produced by meat eaters who just want to make money. So this should be stopped, meat eaters shouldnt be allowed to produce food for vegetarians because they don't care if this is actually healthy food. For example there are so many delicious kofta recipes, why vegetarians need artificial meat? This is just insane. But because the food industry is run by ferocious meat eaters they want to teach us what we should eat, because they want to make the money?All this madness only developed to this extent because the Vaishnava institutions have lost credibility and became useless to properly preach even about the most basic - eating.
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