I have just completed the first ever Network Centric Preaching Review - a compilation of World Sankirtan.Net output for 2004. It is entitled: “Operations Manual for World Domination”. It’s a weighty document, at 125 pages. I have printed it out and will get some copies photocopied double sided today to distribute to all those people who have been saying: “What does Sitapati actually do?” all year =)

The screen optimized pdf is 2.2MB, and the printer optimized version is 4.8MB. Definitely worth the download, in my opinion.

Here are some excerpts: the contents, and the introduction, because they nicely give you an idea of what the document is all about. Download it and above all, “Enjoy Life”! =)
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From the “swallowed-a-spider-to-catch-a-fly” department comes this report in Wired magazine that scientists are working on engineering bacteria that eat oil. Bacteria that eat oil are already around, and they reproduce and clog filters in diesel engines that are not used regularly, such as tractors. Scientists now wish to supercharge some oil-eating bacteria to combat oil spills.

In one of the classics of science fiction, Ringworld (universally panned by critics), author Larry Niven explores the future history of a society that was destroyed by the introduction of a plastic eating bacteria that literally pulled the plastic carpet out from under the civilization. Imagine the effects on modern civilization if plastics suddenly started to deteriorate like food. It would be good for all those presently non-biodegradable plastics out there at least, but not so good for the day to day functioning of the economy.

Plastics are made from petrochemicals derived from crude oil. Obviously the scientists want bacteria that eats oil and not plastics. However, nature is very resilient, as evidenced in this article in Wired magazine. After only four years of intensive aerial spraying of coca crops in Colombia using Monsanto’s “Roundup” herbicide, a naturally Roundup-resistant strain of coca has appeared, helped along by selective breeding by farmers.

Of course it could all turn out for the best, although in a chaotic system even a small change has profound implications.

“Swallow the spider to catch the fly”… and then?

A recent article on BBC News examines developments in “synthetic biology”, where scientists are working to redesign biological organisms from scratch. They have managed to create small “biological factories” which, while not living, are capable of producing proteins. So far all this work is simply rearranging existing biological material, which, while certainly interesting, doesn’t demonstrate anything other than that life comes from life.

They have also assembled viruses using off-the-shelf chemicals. A virus is not a living entity in itself, but scientists hope that such investigation will lead them further down the track to discovering how life comes about from chemicals. Unfortunately once they get there they’ll find out once again that life comes from life because it took the intervention of the scientists to make the chemicals “come to life”. And just where did the chemicals come from anyway?

A top Russian presidential advisor calls the greenhouse gas regulating Kyoto Protocol “an assault on human civilization”, because “it is harmful for economic growth”.

At the same time, Australian Prime Minister John Howard laments that uncontrolled consumption of imported goods by the public is actually driving Australia into recession. He says: “Retail stores are buying increasing amounts of goods from overseas because their customers want them.”

That’s “human civilization” for you… uncontrollable and unsustainable expansion followed by collapse, or is it? This article over at Wired examines whether we should ditch the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and other such economic indicators and adopt a different indicator of National prosperity - the “Gross National Happiness” indicator. At least one country has been doing exactly that since 1972, the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.

Last night we had five guests at yoga at the Loft here in Brisbane, four new people, which is the biggest night so far. Ah, with nostalgia I remember the humble beginnings of yoga at the Loft in Auckland back in 1997. Three people crammed into a small room one night a week. Then at the Loft in Wellington, where we got so excited when we had seven people on one night. Fast forward to 1999 with over 40 people coming a night, yoga seven days a week and having to raise the price to cut back on numbers.

Three of the guests were three Mexican lady friends, so I had the opportunity to converse in Spanish. After a year of absence from South America my Spanish is getting a little rusty. I might switch back to reading Srila Prabhupada’s books in Spanish for a while to stay sharp.

Yesterday I listened to an audio book on “The 22 Inmutable Laws of Marketing”. There it was explained that you should be first in the market if you can. If you can’t, then be first in Category. Forget Brand Marketing, they explained. Market the Category. IBM might have had the first “personal computer”, but DEC had the first “super computer”, Cray went over the top and had the first “mini super computer”. Commodore didn’t have the first home computer, but they had the first “multimedia computer” with the Amiga, the market leader of the time. If you are not first to market, then invent a category that you can be first in, and market that.

So we are marketing the category of “Yoga Lounge”. As one guest commented last night: “I’ve never been to a yoga class where you sit down and eat together afterwards.”

“Oh really?” I said, raising my eyebrows as if that idea itself was a novelty to me. “People don’t do this everywhere?”

The guests stayed for over an hour after the class and the conversation ranged over various topics and we laughed at so many things. I miss the people of Latin America. They have a calidez - a warmth that you just don’t find in the Western countries where the consumer has replaced the family as the basic building block of society.

So “Yoga Lounge” it is. The world’s first. Pictures coming soon.

Last week my sister Mahalaxmi devi dasi came to stay with us. The last time I saw her was in New Zealand about four years ago. She has been living in Los Angeles, and I’ve been in Peru. Now we finally met up again in Australia. It was really good to see her again. We drove her to the airport in Coolangatta, which is 100 km away, the day she left. Devotees are so rare in this world. To have association with a devotee is the most precious thing. Someone who is sincerely endeavouring to tread the path of devotion can purify us simply by their presence. The same day that Mahalaxmi left, Priya Darshani devi dasi came to stay.

Hosting guests in the house is an essential part of being a householder according to Vedic tradition. Living simply to live, maintaining only oneself and one’s direct expansions (partner, children) is not considered cultured, civilized life. Householders are supposed to purify themselves of the tendency to become self-centered by feeding other people and animals and by hosting guests, so it’s been a real blessing to have the opportunity to host these devotees.

Priya Darshani and Alison have been going out together to distribute books. Yesterday I went downtown on my lunch hour to see the book distributors. I saw Dhruva das on the street corner outside Govinda’s Vegetarian Restaurant. While I watched he spoke with an unkempt, scrawny young boy with big baggy jeans, a chain hanging out of his pocket, a baseball cap and a piercing in his chin. While Dhruva spoke with him, the boy lit a cigarette and began smoking. Dhruva continued speaking and gesticulating with his hands. After some time the boy reached into his jeans pocket and produce his wallet, giving it a little spin with a flick of his wrist. He took out a donation and gave it to Dhruva, who handed him a hardbound Bhagavad-gita. The wallet went back in with the same flick and spin.

Dhruva then told me that he has received over $1000 in donations for his Gita Jayanti program, which is allowing him to distribute Bhagavad-gitas to more people who normally wouldn’t be able to give a sufficient donation to cover the costs, although they are interested to get one. This way he can upgrade them from a soft Gita to a hardbound one.

Alison and Priya had been chased off the street by collectors for one or the other charities that collect full time on the Brisbane streets. Later that night Alison told me they had gone over to West End, where they distributed 15 books between them.

Last night must have been a weird conjunction of planets or something. I lost my watch at work, arrived bewildered an hour late to pick up our son so that Param could give a yoga class (she dropped Prahlad off with Alison at home and left), walked into the temple in the middle of an argument between a pujari and the devotee who buys the flowers, and then found out that no-one had prepared prasadam there. Wow. Kalpesh, Yadunath and Janardana jumped into the kitchen and whipped up some subji, rice and dhal that was offered to the Deities and distributed to the devotees. Alison was tired from going to mangal-arati and doing book distribution so we had to raincheck our weekly meeting to go over the Science of Self Realization study guide. Normally Alison, Kalpesh and I spend an hour or two discussing the philosophy of Krishna Consciousness each Wednesday night. It’s part of the Each One Teaches One program. First they go through it with me, then they take someone else through it themselves, and so on and so on. Sravanam Kirtanam.

Kalpesh and I spent an hour or so talking over prasadam on the deck of the house. We talked about the Loft, where we both do service, the World Sankirtan.Net project, Kalpesh’s business and his adventures with his double-crossing partner (that’s business for you), and life in general.

I took rest around 10:30 pm and awoke just before dawn (with no watch), which is around 4:45 am here - curse not having daylight savings time - feeling remarkably refreshed. I listened to Srila Prabhupada giving class on Srimad Bhagavatam 7.9.16 and chanted my rounds before Prahlad woke up.

.: prabhupada letters: anthology

This is the best page to bookmark or add to your RSS feeds. This page contains letters from the years 1965-1969 published on today’s day-of-year.

The latest edition of the preaching ezine “The Goloka Link” is now out. You can view it online at www.golokalink.com. If you wish to subscribe there is a section at the end where you can enter your email address. Enjoy!

Prabhupada Letters :: 1967

Yep, they now have an RSS feed available. Add it to your blogroll. I use Bloglines.

Here are the impressions of a young visitor to our temple in Los Angeles doing research for a school project: “The experience was definitely one of a kind. I never thought I would experience another religion and be so intrigued as to what they believe. The environment there is overwhelming while during the chanting it is almost impossible to not follow everyone else and to become so empowered that it actually makes you want to join the group.”

Read the entire account here.

A Nepalese Sherpa fears his mountain valley will be flooded by melting glacier runoff high in the Himalayas. A Fiji islander frets about rising sea levels, while villagers cope with the destruction of mangrove swamps in India.

As scientists debate whether global warming is affecting Earth, “climate witnesses” told a U.N. environmental conference Friday they are already feeling the heat of the changing weather patterns they say are drastically affecting the way of life from the Himalayas to the South Pacific.

Read the full article at Common Dreams Newscenter

My Sweet George (from This Is Hertfordshire)
Hare Krishna devotees at Bhaktivedanta Manor in Aldenham honoured the life and work of the late George Harrison on the third anniversary of his death on Saturday.

The former Beatle helped to establish the manor when he bought the site in 1973, and gave it to the Hare Krishnas. He also recorded the hit record My Sweet Lord, which was released in 1969 and includes a Hare Krishna chant.

To celebrate his life, devotees held a candlelit evening by a log fire, reciting his lyrics and singing his songs.

The next day, villagers of Letchmore Heath joined the community for their annual get-together dinner. This year’s theme was Spiritual George’ and everyone shared in cultural performances and rare film footage of the musician.

Here is a wikipedia-style repository of knowledge on the world’s oldest medical tradition: Ayurveda As It Is

UK study reveals Man mostly to blame for 2003 heatwave.

“Linked to more than 27,000 excess deaths across the continent, the temperatures of summer 2003 were almost undoubtedly the highest in Europe for over 500 years. This new research - reported today (Dec 2) in Nature - shows how human influence, mainly fossil fuel burning, can be blamed for increasing the risk of such a heatwave and that this type of summer could be expected to occur as often as every other year by the middle of this century.”

(Follow this link for the article).

Here on the East coast of Australia we are currently in a heatwave with temperatures reaching into the 40s. The natural response of the populace is to turn up the air conditioning. This uses more electricity. Electricity in water-poor Australia, for those of you who do not know, is generated mainly through burning coal. Increased use of air conditioning therefore releases more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Australia is the number one per capita producer of greenhouse gases, at 27% more per capita than the number two culprit, the US. So in our attempt to avoid suffering the consequences of our lifestyle, we are digging the hole even deeper…

Social Studies Reveal: Decline in fertility. Decline in family size. Rise in single person households. Decrease in relationship stability. Increased unhappiness in later life.

Population and sociological studies in both the US and Australia show that the average size of the family is decreasing, and that households of one person are on the rise (1 in 4 households in Australia).

Relationship stability is way down. Although marriage breakdown has stabilised since the mid-80s, “the ranks of single parents have been increasing at more than twice the rate of divorce, suggesting that patterns in cohabitation are partly to blame. More partners who do not marry are having children and then breaking up. It is likely that the increase in cohabiting relationships is masking the extent of increase in relationship breakdown,” the Australian report says.

71% of all couples in Australia now live together before marriage. As the report notes, “it is now the norm”.

“Studies show that couples who live together before marriage have a 50 percent greater chance of divorce than those who don’t - based on 50 years of data. Those who cohabit also have less satisfying and more unstable marriages. Why? The researchers found that those who had lived together later regretted having “violated their moral standards,” and “felt a loss of personal freedom to exit out the back door.” Furthermore, and in keeping with the theme of marital bonding, they have “stolen” a level of intimacy that is not warranted at that point, nor has it been validated by the degree of commitment to one another.” (from here).

It seems as though modern Western society’s relentless focus on driving consumption and economic growth by promoting the individual and their self-actualization through personal sense gratification is having its effect. It’s a “Me-Me-Me” generation. According to the Australian report, 25% of people at age 45 regret not having had more children.

To get some idea of how ridiculous software patents are, take a look at this page. Here you can see just what people are patenting. Honestly, this is taking the colonial snatch-and-grab of the 16th - 19th centuries to a new level. Greed knows no boundaries. Just be satisfied to have enough to eat nicely, a roof over your head and healthy relationships with friends and family, and let everyone else get on with life….