Human beings are powerfully affected by stories. Stories give context and continuity to our lives.

Story-telling is an essential part of community. The historian has always been a central character in any community - he is the one who tells the story that binds everyone together - the common experience that is the basis of community.

The use of themes and series that span weeks in the Sunday Feast weaves the programs into a narrative that helps bring context and continuity to people.

Here is a great collection of Buddhist scriptures speaking about meat-eating, compiled by Kurma, the famous chef, widely known as “Australia’s vegetarian guru”.

Here is a photo that I took of the Deities in the temple this morning. Click on it for a larger version. I’m not so good with the camera, but I realize that a picture is worth a thousand words.

I have a couple of days off now, so in addition to laying some groundwork for this week’s Sunday Feast, which I won’t be here for, I’ll try to read Wade’s “40 Techniques for Digital Camera” book. I’m going to be taking photos of the Ratha Yatra in Auckland on Saturday, so I would like to have more of a clue by then.

Here is a photo that Sukhanti Radha took with my camera (generously donated by a Loft guest) of the Sunday feast setup. On the left is the projection screen used to display the words to the bhajans (songs). The harmonium is on a table so that we can play standing up at the beginning (so people can see what is happening). Click on it for a larger size.

Today I feel hammered. I went to sleep last night at midnight after the Sunday feast. I’ve been working six days a week for the past three or four months, and Sunday is my only day for preaching. So I don’t have any recovery days.

On Thursday night Prahlad and I are going to NZ for a week, so that will be some recovery time for me. Otherwise I am wearing down. This is an important point to remember: one day a week is not enough. If the only opportunity you are offering to people to engage and get involved is Sunday, it’s not going to work. My realization is that I cannot sustain myself in the long haul engaged outside for six days. Even though my engagement each Sunday is a complete immersion for the entire day, late into the night, it’s not enough. The material energy is too powerful. During this period of increased focus on my job I’ve dropped the Loft and other programs during the week, and I can feel the burn.

Here are some realizations that I’ve gathered over the course of this series, Live to SERVE:

• Keep it simple. Make the logical chain as short as possible. Due to my lack of time I wasn’t able to put as much preparation into last night’s class, and it paradoxically came out well as a result. Usually I lose people with too much information and / or too complex an argument. This time I felt it was a lot closer to the content density and mass that the audience required.
• Risk turns people on. They like to see someone walking between two buildings on a tight rope with no safety net. That engages them. I can put my finger on the difference between Carly Fiorina and Marcus Buckingham at the recent seminar. Carly didn’t take any risks. Her presentation was super scripted and she stuck to it. She didn’t do any high-risk humour. High-risk humour is where you put yourself out in a way that you will look dumb if people don’t laugh. This puts people on the edge of their seat, and when you pull it off, people appreciate your skill and become more engaged in what you have to say. If you are a little bit on the edge people get engaged. They are waiting to see what will happen next.
• Leaders must be clear. Preaching is a specific arena of leadership in general. It’s all about getting people to follow you. You have to be clear, consistent. From week to week in all mediums you have to project a clear message. People can debate about whether your strategy or your preaching focus is the correct one, but they can’t debate about what your strategy or focus is, or whether you even have one at all. For us, it’s very clear: Service brings Significance. Live to Serve.
• If you want the guests to commit, get the staff to commit. It’s not realistic to expect the guests to be more committed than the staff. If your idea is that you want the guests to become progressively more committed and more involved (and it should be), then the staff have to model that. If new guests arrive at the published starting time and your staff slouches in after that, don’t expect much. The commitment of the guests will almost always trail the staff commitment. So to get the guests to up their commitment, have the staff up theirs.

  We have one lady, Sheryl, who comes with her partner John each week from the Gold Coast, one hour by train from Brisbane. Each week she stays behind after the program to sweep and mop the floor. This is late on a Sunday night (that’s another issue). One week I approached her and said: “Sheryl, I’m really inspired by your commitment in staying and doing this”, and she replied to me: “Well, whenever I look at how much you guys are doing it doesn’t seem like so much.”

Whenever I’m setting up and start to think to myself: “This is my one day off work, and instead of resting here I am doing this, under pressure to get it done on time. Why can’t I just kick back and relax?” I remember something Rick Warren wrote in The Purpose-driven Church..

Saddleback Church did not have a campus for the first ten years. They would meet in theatres, halls, and eventually schools. Every week they would set up 54 environments. A team would go in in the morning and draw a diagram on the blackboard of each room, detailing its initial state. They would then configure it for the program - adult Sunday School, children’s Sunday School, etc. Then in the evening, after the last service, another team would come through and put it back to the way it was on the diagram on the board.

One day Rick was carrying children’s toys from the boot of his car across the school parking lot, and he was thinking to himself: “Why do I have to do this? Other pastors have it easy - they have their own facility and they just have to show up and preach. Why do I have to go through this every week?”

Then, he says, he suddenly had a realization of what Jesus had gone through for him, and he just stopped in his tracks and started crying right there in the parking lot.

I am sure that one day we will have a facility with a fixed P.A. system and ceiling mounted projection system, where we don’t have to spend so much energy on setting up and can devote more time and energy to relational networking, study, and teaching, and a sizable percentage of the 963,000 inhabitants of the Brisbane metropolitan area will come every week for spiritual solace. Until that time however, it is necessary to push on with determination and model the commitment that we want others to develop.

Here are a few random thoughts that I’ve had over the past few weeks:

• Leadership is not about you. It’s not about what you can do. It’s about what you can inspire and empower others to do.
• Sacrifice in a general sense means giving up something lower for something higher. In a specific sense it means giving up something material for something spiritual. It never means giving up something spiritual for something material. That is not sacrifice - that is suicide.

This next week I’m going to New Zealand for six days with Prahlad. We’ll visit the family and go to Ratha Yatra, and check out the Loft there. I’ve recorded Principle three of the series I’ve been doing, and I’ll upload it before I jet off on Thursday.

Yesterday I attended “Leading to Greatness”, a satellite simulcast event hosted by Australia’s Create One at the Hilton Hotel here in Brisbane.

Create One were the organizers of the Leadership Effect event that I went to earlier in the year, where John Maxwell spoke. They organized this event here in Brisbane. It’s really amazing, pioneering work that they are doing. Organizations permeate life. Society is all about organization, from the family through the corporation through the government, through the church. Organization requires leadership. The quality of the leadership is one of the five essential factors for success mentioned by Sun Tzu at the opening of his treatise on strategy “Art of War”. Your body can carry on with a missing limb, but everything loses its value with a missing head.

However, awareness of the art and science of leadership and the necessity of studying it and become proficient in it is sadly lacking. Too often people view leadership as an opportunity to satisfy their own desires at the expense of others, rather than as an opportunity to provide a service to others. Or otherwise they view it as something undefinable that you have or you don’t - you’re born a leader or not. However, leadership is a precise science, a set of principles. Just as you can learn to do anything, you can learn to lead. It’s an activity like any other, and there is a science to it. It’s not material or spiritual - that depends on what you do with it, how you choose to exercise it, just as with any other activity.

There were six speakers. I’ll run down through each of them with a bit of a review:

Carly Fiorina (CEO HP)

Carly opened the event, and I arrived late, about midway through her speech. She spoke with no slides and used a very relaxed, cerebral style with few stories. She contrasted contradictory qualities that are necessary for a leader, including confidence / humility, optimism / realism, clarity / flexibility, and a couple of others that I forget. I wasn’t able to get a good lock on her, and I remember thinking: “Gosh, I hope that the whole thing is not going to be like this”. By the end of her talk I had warmed up to her a little more and caught on to the structure of her presentation with the contradictory qualities.

One point that she emphasized that ran through a number of speakers was that of being clear. A leader has to be clear, has to be consistent.

Marcus Buckingham Author

Marcus Buckingham, the author of the “First, Break All the Rules”, “Now Discover Your Strengths”, and “The One Thing You Need to Know” followed. He utilized a technique I recently read about, of seizing control of the audience right at the beginning of his presentation, having them give a thunderous round of applause for his assistant backstage changing his slides.

He first of all talked about management, and how the job of a manager is to match up people’s talents with organizational needs, in other words “to capitalize on the unique” - to find out what is unique about each person, and enagage them according to that.

Next he contrasted this with leadership, which he described as “emphasizing the universal” - cutting through divisions and differences to speak to the commonality of the people.

He then proceeded to talk about the principle of building on your strengths. His research has uncovered that sustained personal success comes from building on your strengths, not trying to fix your weaknesses. He had a great sense of humour, and had us all laughing throughout his talk. He shared that research in 2000 showed that 59% of people in the US thought that fixing your weaknesses was the best course of action, and only 41% believed that building on your strengths would bring a better result. In the UK the figures were 64% weaknesses and only 36% strengths.

After his book that advocated building on your strengths sold a million copies the research was repeated, and showed exactly the same results. “Never before,” he said, “has a man had more solid proof of his own irrelevance.”

Most people spend time trying to address their weaknesses, and most managers focus on this area in staff performance reviews, and indeed in general. They are always focusing on trying to fix what is wrong, rather than increase what is right. The underlying rationale behind this is that good is the opposite of bad. However, this isn’t true. The opposite of “bad” is “not bad”.

He gave a good example of this. In every single rotten marriage there is one common factor: the two spouses are not honest with each other. Following the logic of good is the opposite of bad, the answer then should be complete honesty. However this would obviously be problematic. Research indicates that in marriages that are strong, the spouses overrate each other in terms of personal qualities relative to other’s perceptions. They always seek the best possible motive for anything, for example: “She’s not flighty, she’s creative!” “She hasn’t got a bad temper, she’s just having a bad day!”

In other words the key to a successful marriage is delusion.

The point is that you don’t actually learn what good is by studying what it isn’t. You have to emulate and encourage good things, rather than seeking to stamp out bad ones. As my friend Vraja puts it: “The best way to defeat evil is to advance in good.”

Anyway, Marcus rocked. Very funny, very entertaining, very engaging, very informative content.

Fortune Panel

After the break there was Panel chaired by an editor of Fortune magazine. I don’t remember their names, but there was the CEO of the NAARP, an association for retired persons with a membership of 35 million, J.W. Marriot, head of Marriot hotels, and the CEO of Ernst and Young. What really came out from that for me was the preoccupation that both Marriot and Ernst and Young had for their employees. Marriot in the case of Hurricane Katrina and how they responded to that, and Ernst and Young as being selected by so many lists as a great place to work, especially for women and mothers.

When the CEO of Ernst and Young was asked about how they achieved that, and did they offer flexiwork and telecommuting, he took it a step back and said that it was about more than that. Ernst and Young, unlike a business like Mariott which owns properties, has all its assets go home at night - the people. Their people work on jobs for multiple clients and they juggle their workload. They can add in whatever they need to into that, and juggle it along with that, whether it’s a school play or holiday or whatever. It’s an interesting way of conceptualizing work, and one that was covered more in depth by Richard Branson.

While other people might have been sitting bored and thinking (albeit subconciously): “This is very US-centric material”, I was busy analyzing the dynamic of the presentation, with three guests and a host. It’s an interesting format, and we’ll use it at some point. I was also taking notes on the presenters and hosts and their transitions throughout the day.

Jack Welch (CEO GE)

The famous Jack Welch came on next. I had never heard him speak before this and was curious to know what he was like. It’s a well known fact that GE’s big contribution was the number of leaders of industry that were produced there. Jack Welch is a legend in management circles.

Jack Welch reminded me of a general in the style of Patton. I once spent half an hour with Bhavananda prabhu, and he also reminded me of him. A few of the points he made:

A leader defines the situation. Whenever there is a crisis, the leader steps up and defines the situation. They do not let others define the situation.

A leader has to be completely candid, completely clear. People know exactly where they stand.

When the moment for the “difficult conversation” comes people know where they stand. They come in and say: “I didn’t do it. I blew it. So what’s the deal? What’s the severance package?”

When you make a mistake in hiring, rectify it immediately.

Jack Welch’s management style is militant. I can see that it would be ruthless in producing excellence. He spoke of the top 20% that you need to get, the 70% of the majority of the organization, and the weakest 10% that must be eliminated. “Tell them that their place is somewhere else”.

Stephen R. Covey Author, Speaker

Stephen Covey spoke on his definition of leadership: “Communicating people’s potential and worth in such a way that they become inspired to perceive in themselves.”

He asked the audience how many people could trace back the realization of their potential to someone else who believed in them. He also spoke of his own beginning, as a young volunteer in England (he was a Mormon missionary). A leader in his organization tasked him with teaching leadership and told him: “I believe in you”.

He spoke passionately and with feeling, and used a number of short video clips, including a very powerful one that illustrated a match igniting another match. When I saw that imagery I was reminded of the Bhagavatam verse which explains that bhakti is latent within the soul, just as fire exists within wood, but just as it takes a burning piece of wood to bring that out, similarly bhakti comes from bhakti, and no other material cause.

Malcom Gladwell Author

Malcom Gladwell, the author of “The Tipping Point” and “Blink - the Power of Thinking without Thinking” came on. In total contrast to his bio pic and the other speakers, he was sporting a Young Einstein haircut and cutting the mad scientist profile. I guess you can afford to indulge a little eccentricity when you’re a best selling author .

Gladwell reprised the opening to his book Blink, where he talks about art experts making a snap judgement on first seeing a kuros, a Greek sculpture, that was bought by the Getty Museum for $10 million. In stark contrast to all the scientific evidence that the Getty gathered over 14 months of investigation verifying the authenticity of the piece, a number of art experts, immediately upon seeing it said: “It’s a fake”.

It turns out that a lot of people with a great amount of expertise in their head can make snap judgement calls that they can’t explain. The power of instinct. Quarterbacks make snap judgements all the time at a subconscious level. There is no time to make a conscious rational analysis.

Another example he gave was of a very simple experiment - the Pepsi vs Coke experiment. If you are given two glasses, one of Pepsi, one of Coke, and asked to tell which is which, you can do it no problems. If, however, you are given three glasses, two of one, one of the other, and asked to determine which is the odd one out, the almost 100% accuracy of the subjects drops to 33% - chance. In other words, too many variables destroy your ability to make a decision.

Gladwell talked about a hospital in the US that managed to drastically improve the diagnosis of heart attacks by its doctors, by specifically limiting them to four questions, and four questions only (I can’t remember them, but one was blood pressure).

Gladwell wove these memes together to draw a conclusion that leaders’ decision-making capability can be paralyzed by too much information. If the information that leaders receive and utilize to make decisions can be reduced to the essential information they will be able to make better decisions.

Unfortunately he didn’t offer any guidance on how you would go about doing that, and how to decide what information to use and what to drop, but it was interesting.

Sir Richard Branson Entrepreneur, CEO of Virgin

Sir Richard Branson came, the second of the two Englishmen - the other being Marcus Buckingham. The Englishmen had a completely different demeanour to the Americans - more self-effacing. Richard Branson actually looked quite nervous, with his legs crossed and biting his lips as his interviewer asked him questions. I can’t remember who said this previously (maybe it was Carly) - but she said that a leader has to be authentic, and Richard Branson was completely 100% authentic.

One thing that came across as he was being interviewed was that in contrast to the other speakers, Sir Richard Branson has no idea what everyone else is doing or thinking. In introducing Malcolm Gladwell Alexa, the hostess, had said that through his book the phrase “the tipping point” had entered our vocabulary. Not Sir Richard Branson’s vocabulary. When the interviewer asked him what he thought about the difference between leadership and management he was completely confused and said: “Well, you know, I think you just have to be a human being”, and then went on to explain that you just have to treat people like people.

Sir Richard Branson’s leadership success is definitely based on his personality. It’s not studied, it’s not cultivated, it’s completely natural. He is just a person who cares about people. He comes across as a gandharva-like personality, dedicated to having fun and embued with supernatural powers of charm. He talked again and again about people and treating people like people. Echoing the CEO of Ernst and Young, and really taking it to another level, he said: “Why should people work 40 hours a week? There are mums who want to get out of the house and do something, feel useful, and look after their kids. Why shouldn’t they be able to work three days a week, or six months a year? Why shouldn’t they be able to take off time for the school holidays? They don’t have to be paid for it, but why not?”

He talked about his solution to the rising aviation fuel prices. Next year Virgin will pay $9 billion more for fuel for its trains and airplanes. His solution is an innovative one. He is starting a business that will build refineries to create cellulose ethanol from grain stalks, which will then be sold as Virgin fuel for cars. This will then change the overall economic situation of petrol, hopefully causing competition and freeing up reserves that will drive the aviation fuel price down.

He talked also about Virgin Galactic, his space travel venture, set to launch in two and a half years. When questioned as to why, he started to talk about bringing back a spaceship full of Helium-4 from the moon and powering the entire US for one year with it, and exploration, and contacting alien civilizations.

He never answered any of the interviewer’s questions, not understanding them, and brushing them aside as irrelevant, as he shared his vision of authentic concern for people and the environment. It was very refreshing.

Rudy Guiliani Mayor of New York

Rudy Guiliani, the mayor of New York in September, 2001, and a character in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, ended the event. He spoke on six principles from his book on Leadership, using the events of September 11, 2001 as illustrations.

• Develop Strong Beliefs

Stand for something with absolute conviction and absolute clarity.

• Be an optimist

Be a problem solver. Nobody wants to follow a pessimist. Take people to a better future.

• Have Courage

Don’t let fear paralyze you. Courage is not the absence of fear, it’s the management of fear. Channel that fear into the next point.

• Relentless Preparation

Something unanticipated will always happen, but if you’ve prepared for everything else, you will know how to respond to the unexpected.

• Teamwork

Focus on your weaknesses and how to balance these with the strengths of the other people around you. When Guiliani became mayor New York faced two problems - crime and the economy. He knew what to do about crime (as described in the Tipping Point and mentioned by Marcus Buckingham earlier in the day), but not what to do about the economy, so he got people in who knew that side of things.

• Communication

It’s imperative that a leader communicates clearly and consistently so that people capture the vision. You have to get your own ideas out of your mind and heart and into the minds and hearts of other people. He explained that if you take care of the other five things, this one will take care of itself.

As you can see, there was a lot of information to be captured. Each person projected their consciousness when they came on, and I absorbed a lot from them, but it was very draining. Today I am exhausted.

Here’s a report (.wmv video) from New Zealand’s TV3 on Environmental Refugees. My personal contingency plan is to retreat to NZ as global warming devastates Australia. It looks like a whole lot of other people from places more immediately affected have the same idea…

This is the second podcast in a series about the principles that we are use to organize our preaching. (Here’s a link to the first). Practices may be different in different places and circumstances, but the underlying principles remain the same. Understanding what these principles are, and how to apply them, leads to more effective organization of the preaching mission.

At the basis of everything is individual spiritual practice and personal purity. In addition to this there are principles for organizing time, effort and resources in the most effective way.

The second principle that I discuss here is “Think Steps, Not Programs”. It’s about focusing on people - the people we work with and the people we work for - rather than programs. Programs exist for people, not the other way round. We have to “preach on purpose” - be intentional and conscious about what we are doing. When a program serves the people, it serves its purpose. People are important, because people are important to Krishna.

Preaching is about personal transformation. It’s about producing transformation. It’s about a process. A process requires steps. Programs are nothing more or less than steps in that process of transformation. Are you providing all the steps that people need to undergo the process of transformation, in a way that they can take them? This is a new lens for looking at your programs from a strategic, people-focused perspective. Think steps, not programs.

Principle #2: Think Steps, Not Programs

Before I left for South America Josh Wrigley (Josh 2) gave me his mrdanga that he had imported from the US to NZ.

In edition 1 of Harinam Sankirtan Yajna we discussed fixing up Balaram mrdangas. Josh discovered that many older models have floating threads and you can’t tighten the screws anymore. He drilled the body out, inserted a new sleeve with a thread, used Araldite to hold it in place, and voila!

The only thing was that US engineering is imperial, whereas NZ is metric, so he replaced all of them at once so that you don’t have to carry two tuning keys.

He also discovered that worn out threads can be given a new lease on life using Locktite ™, a compound that acts as a loose bonding glue to hold the screws in place.

I sold Josh’s mrdanga to Urjjesvari, and used the laxmi to buy another one in LA as we passed through. That was early 2000.

Balaram mrdangas are made next to the BBT office in Watseka Avenue by a devotee named Ratna-bhusana das. He molds the bumpers, assembles the bodies which are cast in two pieces by an outside firm, mixes the black stuff for the heads, which were supplied by Remo in 2000 (not sure what the story is now), and, if memory serves, makes the small heads by hand.

When we flew to South America we discovered that you can’t get Locktite there (duh! obvious once you’ve been there). After a number of months we discovered that there is a teflon-based tape that is used for waterproofing screws and is widely available even there. You wind it around the screw and it expands into the gap when the screw is tightened. This has the same effect as the Locktite.

When we flew from LA to Guayaquil we put the mrdangas in their covers, with the heads off. That was a mistake. We were worried about the effect of altitude on them. When we travelled over the Andes in South America we would loosen the heads off, but not remove them. When we removed them to fly down there the bodies were damaged. We had to repair them using locally available materials so that the jagged edges did not rip the heads when we put them back on. We used a compound from a shop that repairs windscreens. It’s the waterproofing rubber that goes around the glass.

That information went into edition 2 of Harinam Sankirtan Yajna, which was lost when my laptop was stolen on a bus in Lima.

This would have been in edition 3: use Armor All on the mrdanga bumpers to maintain them. This stuff will add years to the life of your bumpers. Over time the rubber ages and begins to lose its form and elasticity. It becomes brittle and starts cracking and begins to sag. Vraja washed his bumpers with a detergent a couple of years ago and they have been sticky ever since, so be careful when cleaning them.

My mrdanga is still in really good condition, after almost six years. Since it has an owner who is personally responsible for it, it gets better treatment than mrdangas that everyone uses and no-one cares for. It’s just a matter of looking after it. Keep it in a cover, use it properly, maintain it well, and don’t ever, ever put it on the ground.

Here’s the rundown:

Bhajan

Opening Kirtan: Elliot
Sri Sacisutastakam: Sita-pati das
Nanda Yasoda Dulal: Bhakticandrika dd
Jaya Radha Madhava: Dhruva das

Class
Part three of our current series: Live to SERVE

Engage with Detachment, given by Alison

A few firsts this week:

• 5 microphones (two backing vocals, mrdanga, harmonium, lead vocal)
• Foldback monitor for lead vocal to hear their own voice on stage
• Two harmoniums during Yasoda Nanda Dulal
• Aarti during the last kirtan

The fold back monitor is really necessary in order to lead the bhajans. We press ganged the Ashton portable amp into service as a powered speaker and ran it out of the monitor send on the main desk.

A couple of years ago I did a Vedabase search for “kirtan” and spent time reading through all the hits and taking notes on it. There was a period of time where Srila Prabhupada was pushing for the World Sankirtan Party, a musical concert party that would travel around the world doing kirtan concerts and charging for entry. His vision was for (if memory serves me correctly on the exact numbers): two harmoniums, three mrdangas, and six cartals.

A few points spring to mind here. Number 1: three mrdanga players can only play together if they play according to standard beats and patterns. Speculative players need not apply. Also, the “stay high forever kirtan” concept popularized in the centennial year is cool as a nostalgia trip and “back to essentials” focus, but it doesn’t necessarily represent Prabhupada’s vision for kirtan as much as it reproduces what he was able to do with the resources at hand.

If you read the letters he wrote to Hansadutta and Himavati about the World Sankirtan Party you can see that Prabhupada wanted a professional-level presentation by devotees.

We had a joke back in Wellington that all of ISKCON’s “problems” stem from not having performed an Asvamedha-yajna (an elaborate ancient ritual involving great expense and many people and culminating in the sacrifice of a horse). The saying went that because the society was not being mobilized in pursuit of this objective, so many difficulties were arising.

Let me explain the joke so that I don’t get lynched. It’s a joke because it takes a large number of what may or may not be related issues and creates a single unified cause, which is what people like to do. The cause is then postulated to be something completely ridiculous. It’s a parody.

So here’s a rehash of the joke: “The reason that you are having problem x in your yatra, is because we have not implemented Prabhupada’s instruction to have a kirtan party with two harmoniums.”

I would have just said: “The reason that the movement is bogged down right now is because we haven’t instituted kirtan with two harmoniums”, but a lot of people would not have understood that it’s a joke.

It’s not quite as funny having to spell it out, but the bottom line is that without two harmoniums in the kirtan it’s not possible to please Srila Prabhupada, and without pleasing Srila Prabhupada there can be no success. So give up the useless wrangling, planning, and fruitless endeavours, and get two harmoniums in the kirtan!

Alison’s class was well received. The new format is max 30 minutes, no questions, followed by an epic kirtan. Never underestimate the power of an epic kirtan. People who don’t understand philosophy abound, but enthusiastic chanting simply melts the heart.

We did two Bhagavad-gitas, one Bhagavatam set, signed up one volunteer for drama, one for the children’s program and two people for our Bhagavad-gita home study group.

Here is an instructive excerpt from a discussion between Savyasaci das of the Hare Krishna Student Center and Krishna Lunch program (website) at the University of Florida and Will Finnin, Chaplain to the University at Southern Methodist (SMU) in Dallas, Texas, who recently spent three weeks with the devotees there. I’ve taken the liberty of bolding the sections that really jumped out at me.

Savyasaci: After seeing it in action, what are your views on the Krishna Lunch program?

Will Finnin: If ever there was a program that had proven its bona fides or certification to be here, the Krishna Lunch program has. At the heart of your program is service to God and the gift of food. You offer an alternative to the dominant culinary culture of meat eating. The quality of the food is exemplary.I was amazed after my first visit. The longevity, the complexity of organization required to provide a meal of this quantity and quality, the volunteer program that embraces and welcomes scores of non-Krishna volunteers are remarkable. I know that other ministers are impressed by the competence required, the clarity of the vision of this project and the enormous commitment of the people involved. It is a very impressive ministry.

SS: Did you notice anything about the interaction with the students?

WF: The way you go about sharing your knowledge is in the mode of invitation never in the mode of coercion - an opportunity to learn rather than an ultimatum. I wish I could say that about my own tradition where exclusivity can pervade the outreach. The approach you take is one for which I have great respect. You avoid “in your face” evangelizing.

SS: Could you give us some ideas of where you see us going in the future?

WF: I think to have some sort of community space for people to meet for fellowship would be the next step. A sort of lounge or living room area where students and devotees could mingle informally. Hangout space. It will be a tool for building community. At the lunch the people see smiles, good food and heartfelt singing which I think attracts people. The vegetarian information opens a door to learning more about Krishna Lunch.

I’ve posted some photos of last night’s activities to my Flickr account. Last night we did Harinam through Brisbane. It was a small party so we didn’t take the amp or the accordion. Afterwards Param gave the Bhagavad-gita class and I took Prahlad home. Then after the class the ladies went out and distributed cookies and collected donations.

I updated my online calendar as well with a few events. Fasting and Festival days from the Vaisnava calendar, my two upcoming trips to NZ - one in December with Prahlad to visit the family and attend Ratha Yatra in Auckland, and the second in January 2006 to attend Linux Conf AU in Dunedin. That bleeds over into the Lake Taupo Retreat. There are ten of us from Brisbane attending that. It’s the last year we’ll go over to NZ for the festival. It will be cheaper in 2007 to hold another festival here at New Govardhana. That way more devotees can come from Melbourne.

I’ll fly up from Dunedin on the second day of the retreat, after the Linux AU conference ends.

Two other events coming up are: Create One’s Leading to Greatness simulcast event featuring Stephen Covey, Richard Branson, Malcolm Gladwell, Marcus Buckingham among others (those are the ones I am most interested in). Two of us will be going to that next Thursday. I can only get half a day away from work so I’ll catch the second half at least.

And the last major to go on the calendar is my RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer) training and certification examination in December. It’s a week long intensive course and a six hour exam at the end. The RHCE is one of the most respected technical qualifications, and it’s a demanding examination to get it.

From a link sent to me by Tirtharaj: “Ancient Aust deposits show early Earth crust”

Basically the story is that zircon crystals dated to 4.4 billion years ago have been found that indicate that the surface of the Earth at that time contained liquid water, and may even have been habitable.

When asked once whether scientific discoveries that seemed to corroborate scripture strengthened his faith in scripture one devotee replied: “No, they strengthen my faith in science”.

I’m afraid that I’m still a non-believer in the so-called modern scientific method. Here’s an example of why, from the story above:

“We don’t know how life got started. But if it happens so quickly, that might mean it’s common - that it’s easy,” he said.

“And that looks well for finding habitable planets outside Earth.”

Did you get that? Logic 101:

“We don’t know …. but if …. that might mean …. and that looks ……”

It’s such a pity that the mainstream media keeps pumping this stuff out authoritatively. It’s just leading people further astray. What he is describing are speculations, not science. The method is fundamentally flawed, and it’s irresponsible to keep promoting it.

We are about to launch a new initiative at the Loft here in Brisbane. It’s a membership program, combined with new marketing collateral, and a restructuring of the Friday night program, rebranded as “Yogi’s night out”, a members’ night.

We’re printing business card-sized publicity materials. Before and After magazine is a great resource for the science of design. No one here has had any formal instruction in design, so we have to take advantage of whatever resources we can find. At Red Hat we have a brand booklet with style guidelines and design principles that have been developed for our corporate brand by trained professional designers. Not so for the Loft - not yet anyway.

Yesterday was Purnima, or the day of the full moon, and it was Tulasi Saligrama Vivaha, or the holy day of the marriage between Tulasi and Saligrama. You can read about the history and significance of this festival here on Pandit Jaya Tirtha Caran’s site.

Last night we went to a celebration of this festival at the house of Vinay and Anita, in Forest Lake. I took some photos and uploaded them to Flikr. Check out the photo set here.

We couldn’t stay to the end, and left just before 8pm. I also took a short video clip of the kirtan at the beginning, using the video function of the camera. Check it out here.

I got a digital camera last night. Someone who comes to the Loft gave it to me. So I will be using it to take photos to put on this blog, and my other blog. I’m completely useless with a camera. While I was in Japan I shot a few rolls of film which all turned out completely out of focus and generally non-descript. Since then I haven’t bothered. However, it has to be done, so I’m going to do it.

This camera is a Fujifilm FinePix 40i. It’s a snapshot camera - fully automated with a fixed lens. This gives a very limited depth. Taking good pictures is an involved science and a bit of a black art as well. I’ll study some and pray for divine inspiration. Let’s see what happens.

I took about 7 photos this morning, but none came out. I’ve since figured out the double action button on the thing.

I had a good day off work on Monday (it comes once every six weeks). We went out to the Sunshine Coast, which is about 100 kms north of Brisbane and to the east. The idea was to go to the beach. When we got up around the Sunshine Coast area, however, we found it bucketing down with water, which isn’t a bad thing. At the moment Brisbane is under Level 2 water restrictions, with signs up all over the place exhorting people to “Reduce Water Use 15%”.

We headed back to the M1, and drove back down on the Western side, through state forests and small Queensland towns. It was really nice for me. Queensland is tropical, with summer temperatures hitting the 40’s (degrees Celsius that is), and high humidity. I’m originally from New Zealand, so I’m used to a colder climate and a sub-tropical rainforest down the road from your house. Australia is hot and while it’s muggy, it’s paradoxically dry with a color palette filled with oranges, yellows and browns.

So driving along in the refreshing, cooling rain with the windows down and breathing in the country air helped take the edge off the homesickness. I’m going back to NZ for a week at the end of this month to visit my family there, for the first time in two years, so that will also help.

We visited the Glasshouse Mountains - Australia is an ancient continent and has eroded basically flat so “mountains” here are a relative concept, and also a Taoist temple near Sandgate.

The Taoist temple had a huge courtyard surrounded by altars with nine foot oriental personalities with fierce expressions surrounded by Chinese sages. My wife lived in Taiwan for a few years, so she pointed out a few of them to me - the God of War, the God of Rain. On one side of the courtyard was a section with photos of people’s departed ancestors. There were areas for offering incense, and people had left offerings of vegetable oil and fruits. While we were there an elderly man came around and poured cups of green tea for each of the deities.

Signs announced, as far as I could read the little English that dotted the Kanji script, that services are held Sundays, and a large sign, completely in English, forbade visitors from photographing or recording the ceremonies.

Pictures of Chinese scenes decorated the walls. Chinese art is different from Western art, with huge mountains dominating the scene, trees twisting out of them, and two tiny buildings dwarfed in a corner, with two tiny men seated on the grass nearby. They seem to communicate more a sense of man’s insignificance before the arrayed forces of nature, and his dependent relationship with it - placing him within nature, rather than over it.

With the water ban in effect here in Brisbane, it’s easier to remember that, even though I find that city living usually robs me of all consciousness of the real world around us.

Looking at the pictures I suddenly wished that there was a water fountain nearby, or even better, a waterfall, producing a cool mist.

There were no monks nearby, but I had a keen sense that I would have appreciated seeing some, to see tangible evidence of a simpler existence, free from complicating factors.

Standing there in the temple I felt a deep connection to something that transcended Brisbane, Australia, the 21st century - something that is more primordial and fundamental than the shifting patterns of superficiality that reflect on my consciousness most of the time.

And then it was time to leave again, and head back to Brisbane for another week of work.

(Postscript: Another thought I had while I was there was that really you need three things: an inner city outreach center, an ashram, and a feature temple out of the city. The feature temple out of the city is a tourist attraction and hosts big ceremonies, the inner city outreach center keeps you in touch with people day to day, which you must have in order to be able to have an appreciable effect, and the ashram keeps your new people away from the visitors - you staff your feature temple with trained people.)

This is a podcast about the first principle in organized preaching. Props to Aghahanta das (currently in Auckland, NZ) for the rhyme at the start.

Principle #1 is about being conscious about first of all what your goals in preaching are. What are you trying to do? Of course we know that ultimately your goal is to please Guru and Krishna, but if you’re preparing a feast to offer to Guru and Krishna you need to be a little more specific than that to be successful, and the same is true in organizing preaching and preaching programs.

It’s about becoming conscious of what you are doing and why you are doing it. Then comes how you are doing it, and becoming conscious of the effects of what you are doing. Is it effective? Are the current practices contributing to your stated goals?

Then becoming intentional - proactively organizing things to fulfill your stated objectives. Do things on purpose, not out of habit. “Is it justified, or simply a custom?” as Krishna asked Nanda Maharaja recently.

Here’s the podcast of the first principle:

Principle #1: Be Conscious, Be Intentional (17 mins, .mp3, 40kbps, mono, 5MB)

I got a shout-out on namahatta.org from Phanisvara today.

It was in reference to my writing on the Sunday Feast program. At the moment I’m working 6 days a week, and Sunday is my only day off, so contributing to the Sunday Feast program is about all I can manage.

In his article Phanisvara says:

The articles under Sunday Feast Preaching don’t provide an easily copied recipe for succesful sunday-feasts (depending on where you are preaching), but show how understanding the audience, tuning every aspect of the feast-performance, and critical evaluation afterwards are necessary to get the message across to as many people as possible.

That’s good feedback. I left a comment on namahatta.org asking if Phanisvara could clarify that point a little more, however I have a couple of thoughts on it.

One is that there is a common phenomenon where over time a blog writer’s writing style becomes increasingly “in house”. They write using a shorthand that makes sense to an audience with an extensive background knowledge, and excludes new readers.

So in this case they “don’t provide an easily copied recipe” because I haven’t taken the time to spell out the steps involved, instead brushing over some details in a way that looks interesting, but doesn’t provide you with sufficient information to do anything useful.

The second is related to the first, and that’s the idea that not everyone can do things the way that we are doing them here. Of course that’s a fact. Not everyone has the same set of circumstances, personnel, and resources that we have here. Every situation is unique. At the same time, there are universal principles which can be applied across the board, and that’s where the idea of tactical adaptation comes in: dynamically applying principles to particular sets of circumstances to generate practices. Here is an earlier podcast on this subject.

Anyway, I’d like to explicate the principles a bit more, to give some insight into what we are doing, how, and more importantly why. What you do will change depending on the circumstances - practices are time, place, circumstance specific. Principles are universal and eternal.

So I’ve started a series on this. I’d write an article, but I’m a little pressed for time, so I recorded the first part on the way to work this morning. Some of it may be written articles, some will be podcasts.

The idea is to give more of a recipe. You won’t be able to imitate exactly what we are doing here, nor should you. But I would like to share some of the underlying thinking behind this approach in order to allow you to examine your own situation through a new lens. You may get some benefit from a fresh perspective.

I have been discussing these ideas for a while with some god brothers, and we have been trying to make a structured way of articulating what we are doing. This is part of that work in process.