Podcast

His Holiness Sivrama Swami weighs in on Gauranga Kishore's blog post on sex in his recent podcast.

It's a few minutes in length so it doesn't give a very nuanced presentation. If you only get a 15 second sound bite on television or radio, make sure you use it to say something simple and catchy like: "Osama bin Laden is a terrorist!" or "Meat is Murder!", rather than wasting it with "The situation is nuanced, and there are a number of factors to consid...."

Ideal theory is always necessary and fundamentally important, but if you've been alive for very long you've probably realized that this isn't an ideal world and requires some management (balancing of contradictory considerations in dynamic tension). So for a thirty second sound bite an ideal theory is good, but for actual implementation you will probably require something more.

For that you are would do well to read "Family Matters - Dealing with Illicit Sex" by Matsyavatara das.

In this week's podcast we discuss James Cameron's new movie, Avatar - the most expensive movie to produce of all time at $300 million.

We also discuss Leadership.

Here's the podcast file:

• 09-12-19 Red Hill Podcast - Avatar 3d and Leadership

Here are my free ebooks on Leadership that I mention in the podcast:

• Bhagavad-gita Small Group Resource
• On Leadership
• Leadership Lessons From Bhagavad-gita

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

Here's last week's podcast on ISKCON Membership, including live callers. Aniruddha prabhu, temple president of Melbourne, and Dhruva prabhu from Byron Bay called in.

• Podcast on ISKCON membership Part A
• Podcast on ISKCON membership Part B

Here's a podcast that David Jorm and I recorded this morning. We talked around ISKCON membership, covering the Chocolate incident, and some wider ISKCON Constitutional issues.

• Podcast: ISKCON Membership (mp3, 55 mins, 65MB)

Some related resources:

• David's blog

• H.H. Prahladananda Swami's 2006 paper "Duties of GBC and Guru"

I've also attached a copy to this post, in case the other link goes dark at some point.
Here's the section I quoted in the podcast:

The absence of a strong GBC Body and management system has created a authority vacuum within ISKCON. The devotees who join ISKCON often are more loyalty to their initiating guru than to the management structure of the Society. We have seen big temples such as in Bangalore leave ISKCON, and without learning from our mistakes, we do not sufficiently supervise our leaders or the Society’s projects. In some places, the strategy of a charismatic leader and experienced managers has encouraged many devotees to join and take initiation. However, when the devotees do not identify themselves as subordinate to the authority structure of the ISKCON society, in the future, when the current gurus leave their bodies, it is not clear what will to happen to such projects.

- Why ISKCON is in danger of failing, Duties of GBC and Guru, H.H. Prahladananda Swami, 2006

• H.H. Sivarama Swami podcast on Chocolate, May 26, 2006

Here is a transcript of the section about chocolate (from 4.42):

In answering this question I should point out.... that there was some discussion about this topic not long ago, in the GBC, and it was pointed out that the information that was given to Srila Prabhupada, and that is that chocolate contains coffeine [sic] was incorrect, ah, and it's not a [sic] intoxicant on the same level as coffee, tea, etc. So Srila Prabhupada had told devotees not to take chocolate on the basis of the information that they had given, ah therefore, ah, chocolate does not contain caffeine. Having said that, it's a substance that is cooked and prepared by karmis. Vaisnavas generally do not eat karmi foods. If someone were to ask whether they could eat bread cooked by karmis, the answer, Srila Prabhupada's answer is 'no'.

[Maharaja discusses not going nuts on eating chocolate, and discusses using cocoa butter to make preparations for the Deity]

[7:42]
...the information is there that they do not contain caffeine, and they are no longer a banned substance.

Learned transcendentalists who know the Absolute Truth call this nondual substance Brahman, Paramatma or Bhagavan.

The Absolute Truth is both subject and object, and there is no qualitative difference there. Therefore, Brahman, Paramatma and Bhagavan are qualitatively one and the same. The same substance is realized as impersonal Brahman by the students of the Upanishads, as localized Paramatma by the Hiranyagarbhas or the yogis, and as Bhagavan by the devotees. In other words, Bhagavan, or the Personality of Godhead, is the last word of the Absolute Truth. Paramatma is the partial representation of the Personality of Godhead, and impersonal Brahman is the glowing effulgence of the Personality of Godhead, as the sun rays are to the sun-god. Less intelligent students of either of the above schools sometimes argue in favor of their own respective realization, but those who are perfect seers of the Absolute Truth know well that the above three features of the one Absolute Truth are different perspective views seen from different angles of vision.

As it is explained in the first sloka of the First Chapter of the Bhagavatam, the Supreme Truth is self-sufficient, cognizant and free from the illusion of relativity. In the relative world the knower is different from the known, but in the Absolute Truth both the knower and the known are one and the same thing. In the relative world the knower is the living spirit or superior energy, whereas the known is inert matter or inferior energy. Therefore, there is a duality of inferior and superior energy, whereas in the absolute realm both the knower and the known are of the same superior energy. There are three kinds of energies of the supreme energetic. There is no difference between the energy and energetic, but there is a difference of quality of energies. The absolute realm and the living entities are of the same superior energy, but the material world is inferior energy. The living being in contact with the inferior energy is illusioned, thinking he belongs to the inferior energy. Therefore there is the sense of relativity in the material world. In the Absolute there is no such sense of difference between the knower and the known, and therefore everything there is absolute.

- Srimad Bhagavatam 1.2.11

Great verse that.

Here's a Srimad Bhagavatam class I gave recently at the local temple, on the 10th canto - Brahma vimohan-lila - discussing these three aspects of the one Supreme Reality.

• Brahman, Paramatma, and Bhagavan (mp3, 18MB)

Live from his hideout deep behind the former Bamboo Curtain, David Jorm riffs on life in China and the re-introduction of varnasrama social organisation in a modern context.

David Jorm on China and Varnasrama (ogg, 5 MB)

A picture is worth a thousand words, and a video podcast is worth a thousand blog posts...

Here's a video podcast from the deck of the Red Hill ashram, discussing the proposed annotations with our recent guest David Jorm.

This is episode 1 of my new podcast for 2008 - Gramya-katha: "The Affairs of the Village". This will be a weekly 10 - 20 minute round up of the content of Planet ISKCON including comments threads, my take on anything that's been on there, plus what I've been up to.

Gramya-katha means "village talk", and Srila Prabhupada frequently used it in a negative sense to describe the b'aching that goes on in any society, and contrasted it with krishna-katha. However, in the transcendental sense gramya-katha and krishna-katha are the same thing - in Goloka Vrndavan Krishna is the talk of the town.

There is scope in any society for healthy discussion of the world we currently inhabit, in addition to eternal philosophical truths. There is nothing wrong with being a human being in addition to being a devotee - in fact you can't do one without the other!

Keep it real, and best wishes for 2008.

• Gramya-katha Episode 1 (22:52, mp3, 10MB)

Here is the RSS feed for future episodes: