Cultural Learnings of USA

My first political cartoon.

First of all watch Peter Schiff predict the 2008 economic meltdown with crystal clarity in August 2006:

And then check out his recent economic analysis of President-elect Obama:

From within the US it might look like Obama advocates and represents change. I mean after all, the guy's skin is black, right? That's a different color from the last guy...

However, from outside it's clear that what Americans are actually clamoring for is not change, but a return to the status quo - to consumption unfettered by consequences. A return to a privileged place in the world where the US does what it wants and leaves the world to deal with the negative effects, while expecting global gratitude for whatever scraps fall from the table in a global economic trickledown.

Obama's sketchy foreign policy indications are more of the same. More troops to Afghanistan to continue to prosecute the war for geostrategic dominance in the Middle East. Continued consumption of cattle and use of fossil fuels, which increase greenhouse gases. [Reference: What Barack Obama's win in the US election means for Australia]

There is nothing new here, no fundamental challenge to or change in the paradigm. As long as the economic basis remains fiat currency and not a healthy relationship between humans, cows, and the land, nothing changes - except that the demonic system furthers its agenda.

If you want to see a reframing of Obama's presidency that really casts it in the light of "a change of style but not substance", then take a look at this:

Today at lunch I talked with Sista Shree. I apologised for not being able to find the kirtan last night at My Health Yoga, and promised to be there next week - now that I know that the entrance is around the back.

We got to talking about Obama. My mate Samson at work is from Kenya and we managed to convince him that it was his duty to buy the office sweets to celebrate (ha!).

Sista Shree told me that "if they gone and stolen this election like the last two, I was only going to go back to the States to visit my family - that's it."

I felt sorry to have to tell her that I had heard that of course "they" realized that they couldn't get away with it a third time in a row, so they replaced Obama with a Manchurian-candidate programmed clone last year.

Actually, I just made that up - but remember, you heard it here first.

Anyway, the problems are systemic, not personality-driven, in spite of the dramatic spectacle of celebrity frontmanship on the stage.

As soon as Obama gets to the systemic causes, like the lack of gold-standard backing the currency and private ownership of the Federal Reserve, he can sell out, or go out like JFK.

As Srila Prabhupada said: "As soon as you get on their stage, you have to dance to their tune."

You can rearrange the deck chairs all you like on the Titanic, but it's still sinking. You can strap a new figurehead to the front of the boat, but it won't change its course. In the same way, there is no hope that by replacing the person who fronts the complex economic and political system that you can stop the inevitable "progress" of history.

Without a massive widespread transformation of the populace through grassroots performance of sankirtan en masse, there is insufficient momentum to remove entrenched power.

Sankirtan yajna is the only hope.

Has anyone else noticed that only the American Vaisnavas make a big deal about voting and who their national leader is?

I've never read any blog entries from Vaisnavas in other countries about their national elections....

What does that mean?

Update: I thought about this some more, and there is a basic philosophical error in my question. There is no such thing as "American Vaisnavas". Vaisnavism is absolute and cannot be modified. (In Soviet Russia) "You don't modify Vaisnavism - Vaisnavism modifies you".

Instead the question should be: "Has anyone else noticed that only the Vaisnava Americans make a big deal about voting and who their national leader is?"

And that makes the question kind of redundant, because it's not only the Vaisnava Americans - all Americans make a big deal about that, so it's nothing unusual... just a manifestation of the fact that America, and by extension American elections, are really important, and other countries and their elections obviously less so... ;-)

Further Update:Check out what Krishna-kirti prabhu had to say about this: Siddhanta.com gives authoritative answer to Aussi devotee's musing about why American devotees are so into who becomes Mr. Prez

Confirmed.

Since November 2007 we have been systematically performing harinam, the congregational chanting of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, in each of the various suburbs of Brisbane. Our motto is: "If it has a postcode, it gets a harinam".

Check out our Climate Change Harinam Tracking page with the Google Mash up map. From there you can see photos and videos of the various harinams. Or you can browse through the Climate Change Harinam category on this blog to see the reports, and various articles on the subject.

In addition to our weekly harinam in the city we've done harinam in 30 different suburbs of Brisbane since November 2007. There are 150 suburbs in Brisbane, so that leaves us 120 more to go. Since it took us 6 months to do 30 harinams it will only take us another 2 years at the current rate to "do the whole village" - Brisbane mandala parikrama nagar sankirtan ki jay!

As a brahmana I really appreciate honesty. It's refreshing.

When they say "Protect Our Freedom" of course they're talking about this:

Hey look! Lucky students at Seminole County, Florida elementary schools (that's primary school for all y'all Britishers) get rewarded with free MacDonalds Happy Meals on their school report cards.

Susan Pagan was surprised by her 9-year-old daughter's report card. It wasn't the fact that she made the honor role. Rather it was the fact that she expected to get a free Happy Meal because of her grades.

Nitai Prabhu (he's an American devotee - don't shoot me!) sent me the link to this. Just so you don't think this is a US-bashing spree, check out Dave Jorm's conclusion about a church he recently visited in Australia where they attempted to out him as an "occult idolator":

Maybe the holy spirit really did whisper in her ear, but there is no way the truth the light and the way is in a church where you get a free McDonalds voucher the first time you attend.

Anyway, back to the US...

Last night I went to the hotel fitness room and did some jogging on a treadmill. In true high sugar/high fat style, while you do some fitness activity you turn your mind to sludge by watching and listening to Fox News on TV at the same time.

The story of these report cards came on (Nitai Prabhu - do you watch Fox News? ;-). From what the "news" guy said I got the impression that some parents were unhappy about this. Like the lady in the Adweek article above said:

(Susan Pagan) said explaining to her daughter that they weren't going to collect the free Happy Meal "made me look like the bad guy."

Then suddenly one of the two commentators launches into a full passionate rant about the government interfering in people's lives: "If we wanted the government to raise our kids we would have given them to them when they were born. I'm sick of the government trying to tell me how to raise my kids. I like MacDonalds! I like Big Macs! I like fries! Of course it's not meant to be eaten every day! That's obvious!"

I picked up on the populist rebuttal of Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock's film where he eats Maccas every day for a month and just about kills himself in the process.

The other guy acted as a foil, and I was waiting for him to lay down the counter point - you know, something like: "Yes, that's right - it's not the government's place to interfere in raising our kids, and that's why they shouldn't be shoving MacDonalds down kids' throats. People should choose if they want to take their kids to MacDonalds or not, and shouldn't have the school exposing them to it."

But he didn't... the guy just ranted like this, making out that there was a government conspiracy to control his life and stop him from going to Maccas, and then they went on to something else.

Anyone with only a half a brain, which I am forced to conclude is going to be anyone who regularly eats Maccas and watches Fox News, is going to come away with a complete misunderstanding of the issues, but feeling pretty riled up and self-righteous. It was real argumentum vox populi. It was a complete distortion of the issue and a rabble rousing rant on a supposed news presentation. I don't want to come off sounding high-brow here, but you could play that, unmodified, as a parody sketch on TV in Australia and get a whole lot of laughs...

In general the food here in the US is very austere. It is high in fat and high in sugar.

This morning I ordered cranberry juice, yogurt, and fresh fruit from room service. It had enough sugar in it to give me a headache. My normal diet back home has no sugar in it, apart from natural fruit and vegetable sugars. Once you add sucrose, especially these high amounts, everything tastes the same. It all becomes "something-flavoured sweet".

The yogurt made me recall my time in Ecuador with Vraja Dhama prabhu. While on sankirtan with our cue cards and pidgeon Spanish we would quick fix on super sweet yogurt, and Frito Lays (potato chips). A lot of things here are like Ecuador, actually. The money is the same, the toilet design - with heaps of water in the bowl - is the same, lots of the people here speak Spanish. (por ejemplo: tuve una conversación con el taxista que me llevó a la oficina - era un puertorriqueño. Cuando le dije que vivía en Perú, recordó a Fujimori, el ex-presidente del Perú, y me contó sobre el presidente de otro país que se descubrió con tres cientos millones de dólares - todo robado del pueblo, por supuesto - en una cuenta bancaria suiza. ¡Que Bravo!.)

At the airport in LA I bought a "low fat, low cal" smoothie. It came in a Hummer-sized cup, and cost me $7.66. I could only drink a few mouthfuls of it before I had to throw it away - it was sugar water! I had checked the specs of the drinks there and this one had 1g of sugar in it. That was the lowest amount. The others had up to 60g of sugar!

In contrast, when I returned to Australia last time I was able to get a carrot, beetroot, apple, and wheatgrass juice made on the spot at the Boost Juice in the Sydney airport. Nothing beyond the freshly juiced fruit and vegetables added.

California is relatively progressive, but the US is still closer to Ecuador geographically and culturally. OK, so there are no tear gas or water cannons in US streets yet, but those are on their way too as the country continues to further develop a second world pattern of wealth distribution.

In modern Russia you can now go to Latin America. In the modern United States, Latin America comes to you.

In a cafe in the LA airport I met a very vocal vegan couple from Hawaii. They advised me to go to Jamba Juice. According to the Jamba Juice website there is one on the same street as ISKCON's Boston temple. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to visit both.

In many respects it is an austere environment here. The high amount of sense gratification saps people's vitality from them. It is physically and spiritually depleting. It takes determined effort to preach in a superficially bewildering environment like this. I have a lot of respect for devotees who can continue to push on in this country. It's kind of like a subterranean heavenly planet, full of demonic pleasures, only in the subterranean heavenly planets no one gets sick, whereas here every second ad on tv and in the paper is for some kind of drug.

The only way to sustain yourself in preaching in this environment, and in any environment in fact, is to get outside your comfort zone for the sake of others. Life is meant for austerity.

As the writer of the Sri Isopanisad prays:

Let this temporary body be burnt to ashes, and let the air of life be merged with the totality of air. Now, O my Lord, please remember all my sacrifices, and because You are the ultimate beneficiary, please remember all that I have done for You.

Death is coming, and at that time we are not going benefit from excessive comfort during our life. As Srila Prabhupada explains in his purport to this verse:

Unless one is accustomed to devotional practice, what will he remember at the time of death, when the body is dislocated, and how can he pray to the almighty Lord to remember his sacrifices? Sacrifice means denying the interest of the senses. One has to learn this art by employing the senses in the service of the Lord during one's lifetime. One can utilize the results of such practice at the time of death.

There are so many places that we can go to do missionary preaching: South America, North America, Africa, Fiji, Papua New Guinea. Devotees from places that are better off materially and spiritually should go to these regions and preach as missionaries. Especially the US deserves special mercy to repay the missionary preaching that the Americans did in the 70s and 80s. There are so many ads for devotees to come to the US that getting a missionary visa for this country is no problem. You can do a couple of years, and then go back home to civilization to get on with your life.

I've been to a number of places here and it is ripe for Krishna Consciousness. There are so many people who are desperate for it. Devotees like Bhakta Corey and Radha Priya mataji are clearly demonstrating this, and that book distribution is an eternal pastime. There is a lot of flux in the social structure here, especially with Latino immigration. There are plenty of weak points to target in the material structure and demonstrate the benefit of Krishna Consciousness. The facilities are all here. There are thousands of cities and suburbs where you can just set up shop and preach.

It's good to leave your country of birth and preach in another cultural environment. One who considers the country of birth to be worshipable is no better than an ass. Leave home and preach!

To get an idea of what Hugh Hefner is dealing with, do a Google Search for these terms:

• hugh hefner affection

(Read through the summaries of the results)

I caught a show on the TV the other day called "Girls Next Door". It's a reality TV show about Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy magazine, and his live-in girlfriends. Well, it's more about the girls. Hugh Hefner figures more as a supporting character.

The last time I checked in on the Hef he had seven girlfriends. Now, doing his part for global warming by reducing his carbon footprint, he's gone down to three - Holly, Bridget, and Kendra.

Thanks to Wikipedia I'm able to quickly get all the background information. The episode I saw is a rerun of "Bedtime Stories: The Best of the Girls Next Door", as a prelude to the first show of the fourth series, which airs this Sunday.

I spent some time thinking about the Hef and his situation, from a Vedic social perspective, and then, as if on cue, yesterday on Planet ISKCON a letter from Srila Prabhupada pops up to say: "From the Vedic point of view a man can have more than one wife".

This is part of the Vedic social structure for human beings, and is an integral part of most traditional human societies. Srila Prabhupada maps out our official doctrine on this in Caitanya-caritamrita Adi-lila 14.58

The social structure allowing a man to marry more than one wife can be supported in this way. Generally in every society the female population is greater in number than the male population. Therefore if it is a principle in the society that all girls should be married, unless polygamy is allowed it will not be possible. If all the girls are not married there is a good chance of adultery, and a society in which adultery is allowed cannot be very peaceful or pure. In our Kṛṣṇa consciousness society we have restricted illicit sex. The practical difficulty is to find a husband for each and every girl. We are therefore in favor of polygamy, provided, of course, that the husband is able to maintain more than one wife.

One caveat, for empirical sticklers who will assert that modern science finds no such preponderance of female population, or that due to female infanticide in many populations males now outnumber females: Srila Prabhupada also explained in conversation and in his books that in a Vedic society not all men will marry - a percentage remain as lifelong celibates. So what Srila Prabhupada refers to here as "the male population" can be understood as "the eligible male population". Srila Prabhupada told leaders of ISKCON at the time: "It is your duty to ensure that every woman is married, and every man is single." When they responded with: "But Srila Prabhupada, how is that possible?" he replied with great transcendental humor: "That is your expert management."

In his letter of 6 December, 1973, Srila Prabhupada is writing to one disciple who we presume is proposing to enter into such an arrangement. Srila Prabhupada repeats his conditional point expressed in the purport above as "the husband is able to maintain more than one wife" in the following way:

From the Vedic point of view a man can have more than one wife provided he can maintain each of them very nicely.

Srila Prabhupada affirms the social agenda of polygamy, and also affirms that divorce is not on our social agenda:

You cannot give up one and take another.

In the Vedic social system there is no divorce, and Srila Prabhupada did not want the contemporary idea of divorce entering into the social structure of ISKCON, the fledgling kernel of a new Vedic civilization (for example references see here and here). It's interesting that contemporary ISKCON is more accepting of divorce, not part of our social agenda, than it is of polygamy, which is part of it. There is a historical reason for this.

Predictably, the social doctrine of polygamy was seized on with great enthusiasm by some early members of ISKCON, and the result was disastrous. While the idea of the arrangement is clearly to increase social stability and to provide protection for individuals, the motivation of many "early adopters" was to increase sense gratification. The result was social destabilization. Srila Prabhupada then forbade it. It is not that he changed his mind about our social agenda - we're clear on what the Vedic arrangements for human beings are, based on Manu Samhita, on the Puranas, and Srila Prabhupada's Bhaktivedanta purports. However, while it might be part of the master plan, for fledgling sadhakas with a weak grasp of the philosophy and who were struggling to control their senses it was definitely a pratikula (unfavorable) social adjustment.

What has come out of this little historical twist is the idea that "Srila Prabhupada proposed the idea, then rejected it". Not correct. Realizing that the society was not yet ready for such a change, he shelved it for the time being through managerial instructions. The social agenda, however, remains clearly mapped out in his Bhaktivedanta purports, "the law books for the next ten thousand years".

In early conversations about the social arrangement, one of the arguments that devotees posed against it was that it was illegal under current US law. Srila Prabhupada replied by saying that one wife can be legally married, and the other one is "simply your friend" (legally speaking). In this way there is no need to create a legal problem. Devotees were no doubt concerned about the kind of persecution experienced by the Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saints (LDS), aka the Mormons, over their socio-religious doctrine of polygamy. Of course, ours is a social agenda, not a religious doctrine.

In the letter of 1973 Srila Prabhupada addresses this point:

We cannot be responsible. You will have to manage everything and if there is any legal implication then we cannot be responsible.

After initial attempts to implement this social arrangement failed spectacularly, Srila Prabhupada distanced the official ISKCON structure from it. He makes two things clear in this letter - it's the Vedic program, and it's caveat emptor - at the risk of anyone who wants to try to be the first.

Srila Prabhupada was also concerned when he saw that devotees wanted to use this social arrangement to simply increase their sex life irresponsibly, using ISKCON as a means of maintaining this. He therefore made it very clear that the economic impact of the arrangement had to be borne by anyone who wanted to try it. In this letter he expresses it thus:

The Temple cannot pay for you to have two wives so it must be arranged for outside.

At the time ISKCON and the Temple were pretty much synonymous, but Srila Prabhupada was also speaking to the wider reality that would manifest from that seed kernel over time. In other words, he was conscious that he was building a society that would have temples in it, not a temple that would have the totality of the Krishna Conscious society in it.

From memory there is another letter written regarding a temple president who had or wanted to have two wives, and Srila Prabhupada made again the same point: "Get a job".

OK, now back to the Hef, shining example of fulfilling the will of the Acarya.

Well, not quite.

When Srila Prabhupada says that a man must be able to "maintain his wife nicely" it involves a number of things. Obviously the Hef has a lot of money, and can materially support his ladies with a roof over their heads, food, and sufficient clothing. He is also able to provide them with diversionary things like jewellery, presents such as a personalized golf cart for a birthday, trips overseas, and so forth.

The Hef is clearly quite the charm meister and is able to keep his ladies emotionally engaged.

However, on the retrospective television special one of the problems of the arrangement, in this case, was thrown into stark contrast.

An earlier segment on the television was about actresses who have children in their 40s and 50s, because in their 20s and 30s they have a career and don't think about kids, and then suddenly realize that they have to have them. Basically, for 99% of woman they have to have a child. Biologically their body is designed for it. It is the function of their biological gender - their "destiny". Psychologically they are designed for it too. In modern society women can sometimes suppress this through social pressure and activity, but as the biological clock ticks into the 11th hour it all comes out.

Hugh Hefner is now 81. He is too old to have a child, and he doesn't want to have one.

Holly has been with the Hef since 2001. In the special they showed her pining over three years for the Hef to marry her and give her a child. They showed her putting the pressure on him, and he is clearly not on that program.

Param Satya and I have discussed a seminar entitled: "What to do when your man won't commit". It is such a common problem these days. If you want to pack out your seats there's your angle. It's something that you can really help people with. Of course, it's just the beginning of real help, but if your place is empty you've got nothing to lose, and you need to start somewhere.

Hey, I've seen this same phenomenon ("playing without paying") in the society of sadhakas too...

The Hef is too old for a child now. I joked about him reducing his carbon footprint, but what has probably happened is that his previous ladies have played around for some time, been maintained and lived the high life, and then gone on to get on with their lives - ie: career development and getting some kind of stable relationship that will facilitate and lead to having and raising kids.

In modern society you can do that. Of course in classical Vedic society you'd be used goods and would be back at your father's house, a widow, for the rest of your life.

So the Hef is not really taking charge of and taking care of these women. It's more an arrangement of mutual exploitation and taking advantage of young girls' hopes and dreams. Holly has stuck it out when all the others have left or been replaced. She is hanging in there, really thinking that she can get the Hef to marry her. If she could do that she would tighten the screws and eliminate her two current co-girlfriends - and the Hef knows it. So do the two other girls.

You see one thing if you are looking at the bodies of the people in the program. You see another thing when you look at their minds and the social interaction. The Hef is doing quite the balancing act. He has to keep them all hopeful, and not allow any one of them to get too secure. Watching their mixed camaraderie/competition I can understand the social dynamic of the wives of King Citraketu, who out of envy conspired together to kill his son, born of one of their co-wives.

OK, so on the material platform it's not the Vedic social program.

Beyond that however, is the injunction of the Lord Rsabhadeva in the Bhagavatam:

One who cannot deliver his dependents from the path of repeated birth and death should never become a spiritual master, a father, a husband, a mother or a worshipable demigod.

- Srimad Bhagavatam 5.5.18

Srila Prabhupada explains:

Ordinarily, the spiritual master, husband, father, mother or superior relative accepts worship from an inferior relative, but here Ṛṣabhadeva forbids this. First the father, spiritual master or husband must be able to release the dependent from repeated birth and death. If he cannot do this, he plunges himself into the ocean of reproachment for his unlawful activities. Everyone should be very responsible and take charge of his dependents just as a spiritual master takes charge of his disciple or a father takes charge of his son. All these responsibilities cannot be discharged honestly unless one can save the dependent from repeated birth and death.

Social stability is not the goal of Vedic society, at least not the primary or ultimate goal. It is a subsidiary goal - a contributive factor to the ultimate goal of the Vedic arrangment - progress toward spiritual emancipation. From a peaceful and stable platform people are better able to make spiritual advancement.

Srila Prabhupada started the Food for Life program on this basis. He looked out of the window of his room and saw a young boy rummaging in refuse looking for something to eat. Tears sprang to his eyes and he said: "Krishna is the father. Wherever the father is the son cannot go hungry. No-one is to go hungry within ten miles of our temples."

If a person is simply thinking about how to get something to eat, how can they think about anything higher than that? A spiritually advanced person can maintain their consciousness even as their body disintegrates. That is in fact the goal of the Vedic system: to bring a person to the point where as their material body and mind disintegrate at death they are able to fix their consciousness on the Supreme. However, until they reach that point how are they to reach that point? They require some integration in order to have a stable platform to practise on.

So socially there must be stability and individually people require psychological stability. Thus arrangements such as polygamy and Food for Life are there. However, the stability itself is not the goal. There is a higher goal, that of elevation of consciousness.

The social stability is missing in the Hef's case - he's not taking full charge of these ladies or providing for their long term psychological needs. And the spiritual aspect is completely missing.

For the Hef himself, remaining in such an attached situation up to the point of death is a very bad situation to be in, as is recounted in the pastimes of Dhrtarastra and Ajamila in the Bhagavatam.

My advice to the Hef - you've had a good run mate. Now it's time to give it up and "retire to the forest".

Although I imagine that after a lifetime of neglecting inner character he will now find it very hard to confront himself and who he is alone.

Finally, it is interesting that in the US it is illegal to marry more than one woman, and yet the Hef gets his own show where he lives with three, without marrying any of them. The last word goes to Srila Prabhupada:

People have become so degraded in this age that on the one hand they restrict polygamy and on the other hand they hunt for women in so many ways. At the present moment debauchery is unrestricted. Nonetheless, society makes a law that one should not marry more than one wife. This is typical of a demoniac society.

- Srimad Bhagavatam 4.26.6

[I just googled to see if memory served me correctly about the "seven" girlfriends last time I checked. I was right, and I found this article from this year where Holly says: "I want to have kids with Hef in the next year or so and when that happens I just want it to be me and him." Maybe she can wear the Hef down and capture those last moments of his waning life to slip exclusively through her fingers...]