simple thoughts

Firstly I must apologies to those who asked me to come and see what they were doing act.
Service called and I remained busy up to returning to Wales, I managed to video only two other things other than morning class to which I am including in the video archive.

Two from my friend Parasurama Dase one is some songs he has written:

Parasurama Dasa Songs

Parasurama Dasa Magic Show

The second was a wonderful presentation followed by a small discussion, this was totally inspirational and would be useful in the area were I live which has seen a lot of suicides. I have included a clip of one of the discussions:

What would you do if you had one day left to live

It would be wonderful if the youth could bring this for a weekend I’m sure the local youth were I live would truly benefit from it

Again sorry for the delay in publishing these clips from Bhaktivadanta Manor 2008 Janmastami celebrations.
I will edit and post some clips from the morning class over the next few days but hope you enjoy these few postings:

Sri Krishna Janmastami

Song for Lord Krishna

It was with some sweetness that some of Srila Prabhupada’s disciples shared a little bit with us:

Srila Prabhupada disciples share (Part 1)

Srila Prabhupada disciples share (Part 2)

Apologies for the quality and camera angles but hope that this gives a small taste of how amazing the day was

The other day I was walking with one of my clients along the sea front and I watched the birds, sheep and the odd dog taking their owner for a walk as I looked around and took in the view I was struck by actually how short and precious this life is.

We look at the plant life the animal life how long do they live, how much suffering is there before reaching this human form?

Then I finally arrived at this human form pf life and what do I do fritter away over 35 years just doing what I have done in previous lives following instinct and desires a true waste. I have if I’m lucky three score years and ten? May be less, may be more who’s to say.

To loose this form to go back to what I was before, how long then until another human form is gained?

But then I sat wondering how fortunate that I gained a book, actually read it but then to be given the chance to Chant the wonderful names of Krishna.

This is a wonderful and unique opportunity why waste it?

The other day I decided to take some time to see what was on the internet relating to Krishna and ISKCON; I also wanted to see what other devotee’s had put on as viewed or subscribed to on YouTude.

To my horror I found a young individual claiming to be His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada although not offering up any evidence to back up his claim, this false claim can be put down to several factors but got me thinking and pondering on Prabhupada’s life.

Whilst professing to be His divine Grace he refuted the teachings put forward for a more impersonal mayavarde view whilst offering up no evidence in the Vedic scriptures to back this up.

Lets just look at the facts; bid his divine grace write his own interpretations of the Vedic scriptures? I feel it say’s this with no reference? NO! Srila Prabhupada wrote and quoted previous Acarya’s and Gosvami’s whilst also referring and linking one text with another. Could this be done without full understanding? NO! Ok he understood that those in the west would struggle with some of the concepts and so gave examples that could be understood, this at times gave great humour and at times great gravity but helped aid understanding.

Did he revel in the success of ISKCON? Look what I’ve done? NO! In fact we see many quotes were he thanked his own spiritual master for sending these nice boys and girls to help? This is Krishna’s mercy.

The amazing thing is that he inspired so many young people even though he was an old man at the fag end of his life whilst the young who had given up on society took to the teachings and even followed what could have been seen at the time as repressive regulations. Could an ordinary man achieve such things? Could we then claim to be such a great personality without offering up evidence? NO!

The other day whilst helping get the books together for Janmastami
celebrations what occurred to me most was actually how much Srila Prabhupada wrote. Could an ordinary scholar achieve so much in such a short period of time? No! I sat thinking I should make an effort to read them all although I am sure I will come up with some excuse not to.

We then look at ISKCON and yes it has had a few teething problems but look at how it continues to grow, or in some places explode as it did in those early years. We also see how Srila Prabhupada brought about true equality he did not concern himself with gender, colour, race or false identifications but looked at the qualities of those he met, inspired them and gave them positions in accordance with the individuals abilities.

We look at how he took shelter of his own spiritual master and his aim was not what can I achieve for my own fame or glory but how can I best carry out the instruction given, he was so moved by the suffering he could see that during his first year in America he cried for those lost souls whilst pondering how to best save them and fulfil the request of is own Spiritual master.

Because of the love of his disciples they today continue to fulfil his wish, which was the wish of his own spiritual master, who was carrying out the order of his spiritual master. Those of us who take shelter of ISKCON’s spiritual masters carry on in this line presenting Krishna Consciousness to those conditioned souls who are suffering in this world simply for the love and desire to please and serve as best we can.

To make a wild claim to be Srila Prabhupada is disturbing when we see what an amazing personality and ever well-wisher he was and through his disciples will remain, to be reminded of this at such a time as this is a great mercy to me and a reminder to remain focused always.

The other day I was setting up a new computer for the Temple in Brighton, Ok so my knowledge is very limited but I was glad to be of some assistance.

I was pushing the boundaries of my knowledge but things like downloading firefox and flash player are relatively easy, my problems occurred when loading in the Vadabase, probably the most important tool of them all.
Vista did not like the CD, and after hours looking up information on the Internet I found that there was a number of things that had to be done before I could load it up. Thankfully it worked as I knew how important this was for the temple president and I was starting to loose sleep over it.

Now I use a lovely MacBook and would highly recommend one but there is one problem the Vadabase is not available for the Mac, or Linux come to think about it. Ok with the Mac you can use fusion, Parallels or boot camp and with Linux the option of using wine is there (although some configuration is needed).

Now Folioviews is an old piece of software but remains ideal for such an extensive catalogue of books and ease of search, but is apparently some 15 years old, ancient when we are talking in computer terms.

But as we seen that more devotees are using computers that are not windows based the need now more than ever is in the Vadabase to be multi platform, covering the three main operating systems in use not just one.
We see in ISKCON a wide range of devotees with key computer skills and I am sure they are more than capable of achieving this, or may be I’m being too simplistic in my thought process.

Maybe the BBT and GCB could look into this get ISKCONS league of computer boffins to make this gem available to all if this is at all technically possible this would be an amazing service to all devotees. Especially as more are using Apple Mac’s or Linux based computers.

This is an amazing clip available on youtube about association, well edited and put together, it’s a must to be checked out

Good association

This is a compilation of video clip from ISKCON Brighton taken during the Sunday feast.

I\'m so dizzy

ISKCON Brighton 17-8-08

Jaya Radha-Madhava

As always I hope you all enjoy these simple clips, and the photo’s included.

It’s amazing how you are expected to have an opinion on everything even if you know little or nothing of the facts, I have been asked on several occasions on the departure of the Temple president following aligations of over punishment of children in India and if I felt that he should be retained in some capacity.

Firstly I have had a long and productive talk with the head of ISKCON child protection and the safeguards are impressive although we agree not infallible.

As to how long it took for this decision, yes it can be said that some time has passed and that it appears that ISKCON has dragged it’s feet. This does not take into account of several facts, the time a simple child protection case can take to reach the UK and that this is in cases only in the UK. It is only recently that the courts have been able to follow up and try cases of offences against children abroad even if no action is taken in the country of the offence.

Investigations in the UK were several children are involved brings many complications and can take many years before court action is finally taken, meantime restrictions can be placed on the individual concerned, including only being able to see there own children under supervision. This is then made more difficult when working with and following allegations from foreign shores, so the time taken is not actually surprising.

Of note is that ISKCON took these allegations seriously and that action has been taken, as to retaining in some position or capacity and still be paid this is again a matter for the Manor management team we must remember the amazing contribution over the years and experience gained when working with governments and council bodies.

We owe a duty of care not only for the children involved but for those perpetrating the crime against them, how we handle this is always going to bring criticism. With those being very passionate in one-way or another, one thing is a given that the individual concerned should not be in a position were their working in close contact or in an unsupervised position with children.

But I am of a mind that as long as the individual is willing to take direction and guidance and abide by the restrictions imposed that we should find some capacity and service for them to do. This compassion and consideration for those fallen souls to help in some form of rehabilitate will make for a better and safer society and mark us out from others.

Finally we should trust those in charge of investigating and enforcing ISKCON’s child protection laws, we should fully supporting them in this hard and at times painful and difficult task.

So I’ve finally given in and got an iphone it’s not as good as hoped but easy to use. The performance of the phone is not matched by the service from o2 who’s knowledge of the phone is limited. My e-mail is proving difficult as I use hotmail which is the main reason for getting the phone and updating my blog. We shall see over time if it’s worth the cost. I like the iPod and contact facility and the link up to my MacBook so we will see how things go.