Just clearing up my hard drive and I found this short piece I wrote in New Zealand last year, in December, while listening to a song by local NZ funksters Fat Freddy’s Drop.

It has a repeating loop: “Hope for a generation - just beyond my reach, not beyond my sight”. I was inspired by that to write the following:

Hope for a generation – just beyond my reach, not beyond my sight

This generation is increasingly being lost. Young people are ruining their bodies and minds, scarring themselves with experiences that will permanently impact their psyches and their relational situations.

Impersonal and uncontrollable forces of economic development subordinate personality, community and society to render people slaves to a global juggernaut that is simultaneously destroying the external environment, and laying waste to people’s internal environment.

An increased cultural norm of focus on immediate pleasure and the supremacy of the individual’s immediate sense gratification is destroying the family unit and all social stability.

The prime necessity of this hour is that intelligent and compassionate persons must apply themselves to working to reverse this seemingly unstoppable tide.

One person alone will have limited impact. What is needed is a coordinated effort.

Maintenance of our individual situation must be balanced with the need to apply our energy to making forward progress in institutional development. Institutional development and maintenance must be carefully aligned with mission fulfilment. It is a long term work that involves creating sufficient momentum to progressively counteract the current negative trend of human society.

I have not been born at this time to try to enjoy living in this situation, but because it is my duty to participate in this fight. I have my destiny to fulfil in this work.

Let me maintain my internal conscious state such that I can remain aware of this, and keep my sensitivity to the pathway that I must tread.

I pray for guidance for each of my steps, and for determination to execute the order of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and my spiritual master.

In New Zealand concerned parents are marching across the country to raise awareness of the epidemic of drug use, specifically “P” - NZ’s answer to crack cocaine, which is laying waste to the youth of the country.

Without Krishna Consciousness there is no hope. The nature of this world is of darkness and a tendency toward decay. Both energy and order flow downhill. Systems tend toward disorder and decay.

Without a source of light the very fabric of space in this world is composed of darkness.

Without the organizing intelligence of the living entities the nature of the world is toward chaos.

Only through the energy input of the sun, worshiped as the representation of Narayana, the Supreme Person, and the intelligent organization of the living entities - the spiritual spark in contact with the material elements - is this tendency counteracted.

All the energy that we utilize in the form of electricity or oil etc. comes to us in this world through the medium of the sun. The sun, the source of all energy in the solar system, counteracts the tendency of this world toward energy death. All life in this world, the intelligence that counteracts the tendency toward chaos, similiarly comes from a source. That source is Krishna.

Science fiction scenarios tell us of what will happen after a nuclear war, huge volcanic eruption, or meteor strike that causes a dust cloud sufficient to cut us off from the sun - total devastation. Similarly, when we are cut off from Krishna, we experience the same thing. Without a spiritual focus to human society, civilization will simply crumble into chaos - total devastation.