Human Life

When milk is freely available in the market place, who will take the trouble to maintain a cow? - Srila Prabhupada quotes a traditional proverb.

On the subject of rejecting commercial dairy as a strategic move to cow protection:

The staff at The Loft in Auckland write:

The Loft are proud to be able to offer its guests karma free food including preparations made with milk from our very own protected cows.

As a stance against the violence of the dairy industry The Loft followed a vegan diet for the last 2 years. Now, thanks to the hard work and dedication of one family from The Loft community, we are happy to be able to offer our own karma free milk products.

Our cows are well loved, well cared for, and will live out the full duration of their lives under our loving care.

I would have made a clearer distinction between "vegan" and "protected-cow milk only". Many critics of the strategic move to reject commercial dairy at The Loft characterised it as "veganism", which is a philosophy that in many cases rejects all use of milk as immoral and unnatural. Using the term "vegan" to describe their diet perpetuates this confusion. It also makes it look like they are inconsistent - becoming vegan for two years, then back-tracking on it.

I would frame it with different terminology, and left the following comment on the blog posting:

Employing the term "vegan" is a little confusing, as it is associated with a philosophy that all use of animal-derived products is unethical, and unnatural.

Also, it makes it appear that you did one thing for two years, and now you are doing something else. Rather, however, you've had a consistent approach then and now, something like:

We started following a policy of 'protected milk only' - using milk from cows who are well-treated and never slaughtered - two years ago. At that time no protected milk was available to us, so we had no milk in our diet. Now milk is available from our own lifetime-protected cows, so we are consuming and serving milk products. We're still doing the same thing we've been doing all along - 'protected milk only'. Full respect to those who adopt a vegan diet (avoiding all dairy products) as a stance against the abuse of animals. We also choose to not use milk products from unprotected cows, but we think that it's natural for humans with the ability to digest milk to do so, and to live in a harmonious, ethical, and compassionate mutually beneficial relationship with domesticated cattle, as they have done so for thousands of years.

A friend recently wrote me asking what I think about vaccination. Here's my reply:

All medicine has different effects on different people. If statistically 1 in 1000 dies from a particular medicine, that doesn't necessarily mean that you have a 0.1% of dying - 999 people may have 0% chance of dying, and 1 person may have a 100% percent chance of dying. Pharmacogenetics will be the first major application of gene sequencing (still some time away) - where they will be able to tell you what the statistical chance is for you specifically, rather than as a average across a human population with diverse gene sequences.

On the whole, vaccinations, along with hygiene measures, have eradicated a number of diseases in modern populations. At the same time, some individuals are adversely affected by them. Overall a positive result, but one that involves sacrificing some individuals to save a greater number.

Awesome if you are one of the greater number, but a bummer if you are one of those adversely affected.

Genes and environment can both combine to make vaccines have an adverse effect.

I had all the standard vaccinations, didn't seem to do me any harm. Prahlad hasn't had any, and he got Type 1 diabetes.

If I were a national administrator I would probably promote vaccination. As a parent of a child, I would be worried about my child.

Ultimately everything is in Krishna's hands.

"Queridos Devotos y amigos, lamentablemnte y con el corazon roto, quiero comentarles que Su Gracia Devaki Mayi devi dasi, fue declarada con muerte cerebral. Quiero que sepan que mi fe en Dios, en Su deseo, en mis maestros esta tan fija como mi amor por devakita, por favor oren para que ella deje este mundo en plena conciencia de Dios, para que vaya denuevo con El al mundo espiritual."

Dear Devotees and friends, lamentably and with a broken heart, I have to tell you that Her Grace Devaki Mayi devi das has been declared brain dead. I want you to know that my faith in God, in His desire, and in my spiritual masters is as fixed as my love for Devaki. Please pray that she left this world in full consciousness of the Lord, to return to Him in the spiritual world.

- Ekanath Gaura prabhu, Devaki's husband.

Once I returned from Ecuador to Peru. We had been in Ecuador doing various preaching programs with His Holiness Jayapataka Swami, and Devaki was there. She wanted to go home to her parents, Kanu Pandit and Isarani, in Lima, so Kirtidevi, my godsister, suggested that she travel with me, rather than unaccompanied. Devaki must have been 12 or 13 at the time.

We took a bus from the mountains of Ecuador to the coast, and crossed the border into Peru. There we booked tickets on an overnight bus down the coast to Lima. While we were waiting on the street in the North Peruvian town of Tumbes, a Peruvian man came walking down the street with a map in his hand, looking confused.

"Excuse me," he said (in Spanish of course). "I am lost. Can you help me to get to here?" And he pointed at the map in his hand.

I wondered why he was asking me, who was obviously from out of town, for directions; but my desire to be helpful kicked in and I walked a few steps toward him to see where he was trying to go.

Almost immediately behind me I heard Devaki cry out, and I spun around to see her defending our bags against the man's accomplice, who had snuck up behind. I ran back toward them, and both of the men fled.

If Devaki hadn't been there I would have been robbed in the street and lost everything I had with me (except my passport and cash which I always carried concealed on my body). Even though ostensibly I was travelling with her to protect her, actually Devaki protected me.

She was like a Gandharva. Many of the young devotee ladies in Lima liked to dance, but Devaki danced with effortless grace. She didn't try, didn't aspire, just naturally did it. It was always beautiful to watch, enchanting even. It was otherwordly - clearly not the product of any training or practice, but an innate ability.

Thinking of her now, and her husband Ekanatha Gaura, father Kanu Pandit, mother Isarani, and brother Shyamasundara, my heart goes out to them, and all taste for material pleasure leaves me. There is nothing in this world. Everything is simply the flickering of a candle.

I am blessed to have had the association of such an extraordinary personality, and so many others beside. May we continue to serve together, forever.

You can read more about Devaki here

That "a saintly person has no enemies" does not mean that no-one considers themselves to be an enemy of the saintly person. There are those who think of the saintly person: "This person is my enemy, and I am the enemy of this person".

What it means it that a saintly person does not think of any person: "He is my enemy", nor does he or she think: "I am the enemy of this person".

Contrast this with the mentality of the asura, the "unsaintly" person, who thinks: "He is my enemy". (Bhagavad-gita 16.14).

A saintly person has no enemies, and never thinks this way of anyone.

Recently I heard of one person who came under sustained attack from someone, who - it seemed - considered this person to be his enemy, and himself to be the enemy of this person. The response of the person was to say: "I am sorry that I cannot please him". If such a response is the genuine sentiment, then it is the laksana (symptom) of a sadhu (saintly person).

My thoughts on Varnashram-dharma and economic technology, from a conversation elsewhere:

My understanding is that varnashram means essentially that each person should act appropriately and be treated appropriately. Each role should have the appropriate level of responsibility and authority, and the interaction of these roles creates the correct level of checks and balances. Each person should execute the role that corresponds to their guna, karma, and adhikara.

I'm not convinced that it relies on a particular economic technology, but that it can work in any technological situation. In other words, it doesn't rely on farming - in the sense that any organisation, whether a city preaching center, a city temple, or a business corporation, can be run according to these principles, irrespective of whether they have cows in the barn.

Further to the previous post - my observation is that in her 20s a female is able to use her physical characteristics to attract partners. Once she goes into her 30s she needs to rely more on her character. Unfortunately, many women endowed with positive and powerful physical characteristics don't feel any need to invest in that, until it's too late...

Its seems that religion is not immune to evolutionary pressures...

If people are straying from the church, he says, it’s the church’s fault for not doing a “better job.”

“There’s a lot to be done to make worship more vibrant and to make the preaching more relevant for people,” he says. “Religion is not just ideas, it’s the bonds of community, and if you get so [insular] that you don’t hold people, you have a problem.”

- Why some Americans mix Christianity, Eastern religions, Christian Science Monitor

Another great quote from the article:

Others, though, argue that religious purity is a non sequitur.

“The thing that is forgotten in these discussions is that any single religious tradition is itself already a composite,” says Harvey Cox, a professor at the Harvard Divinity School whose 1965 book, “The Secular City,” is considered a theology classic. He considers the idea of isolated religious traditions to be “a big myth.”

“What we have are streams that have been fed by other streams and have fed other streams all along,” he says. “Even what is advertised by clerical leaders as the kind of ‘pure package’ is already the result of the collage.”

Dr Harvey Cox was a contributor to "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna: Five Distinguished Scholars on the Krishna Movement in the West".

Vasu Murti has an article by Dr Cox on his site: “A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION”: Krishna Consciousness and the Judeo-Christian Tradition -
A Guide to Interfaith Discussion.

Actually, it's Sitapati and David Jorm on Sex and Marriage, but "Sitapati on Sex" has a better ring to it.

This week's podcast episode now available for download:

• Sex and Marriage - December 12, 2009

Both Ananda Subramanian and Gauranga Kishore wrote blog posts about sex and spirituality recently.

Coincidentally, this is part of the topic of the live podcast that David Jorm and I are doing this Saturday at 10 am AEST ("Sex, Marriage and ISKCON"). You can tune in here. You can also contribute via facebook, twitter, or by phone - (+61 431 929 675).

For my ten cents for today: Ananda, Kama-sutra seems to indicate to me that sex for pleasure (including sex acts that do not produce offspring) has always been part of Indian civilisation, as is the case with all human societies, and in fact with all mammals. As you point out, however, chemical contraceptives have not.

Sex for pleasure and sex for procreation are not necessarily contradictory. In fact, both are mentioned together in the Bhagavatam:

Thereupon, for sexual pleasure, begetting offspring and tasting heavenly nectar, the Lord developed the genitals, and thus there is the genital organ and its controlling deity, the Prajāpati. The object of sexual pleasure and the controlling deity are under the control of the genitals of the Lord.
- Srimad Bhagavatam 2.10.26

Here are the kirtans from tonight, recorded with just a pair of Behringer N2 condenser mics, with a little bit of stereo compression from a dbx 166xl:

• Krishnafest kirtans from Saturday September 2009

the link should be fixed now

Leading tonight were: Vraja Dhama; Daya Maya; Krishnapada; Sitapati; Prema Yogi; Sitapati (or something like that)

Enjoy!