One correspondent asked, in response to a comment I left on his blog:

You say, “At the same time, Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life”, selling a million copies a month steadily for two years, shows that “giving it straight” also has its place.”

That’s amazing. What do you think it is about this book that’s making it sell like that?

Well, on one level this book speaks to the deepest felt need of our generation, and any other, because it speaks to the soul about its eternal relationship with God, and it does so using the language of the people that it addresses.

That’s always going to be a winner, as you already know.

Apart from being aligned with universal principles in its content, and culturally relevant in its presentation, the marketing of the book was done in alignment with universal principles. You can listen to the audio of Pyromarketing, a book on marketing written by the man who headed publisher Zondervan’s marketing campaign for The Purpose-driven Life, Greg Stielstra, for free, over at his website www.pyromarketing.com.

I’m sorry to have sat on this information for so long - I found it at the beginning of January, but the time seems right now to release it.

So, you’ve seen the power of Rick’s preaching in “The Purpose-driven Life” through Geoff’s presentation. Now find out how they have gotten a million copies a month of this bad boy in people’s hands for the past two years.

I’m not perfect, and I’ve learned as much from my own personal failures and failings as from my successes (as well as the failures and successes described by the saints and the scriptures). I’ve been caught in the self-destructive cycle, but I’m struggling hard to get out. Now when someone says to me: “Have you heard what so-and-so said / did / is doing” in a scandalized tone, I say: “Who cares. I don’t want to hear about it” if it’s someone on my team speaking to me, or else just change the subject if it’s not. Actually, people don’t really talk to me like that so much, because I don’t send out the signal that I’m available for such katha.

There may well be information that I would benefit from knowing - so that I can adjust the trim of my sails - but that kind of thing has to be discussed in appropriate clinical terms and settings, not emotive tirades or scurrilous gossip sessions.

Those kinds of conversations simply whirl the mind around without doing anything. It calls to mind the verse from the Bhagavat:

“Whatever you desire to describe that is separate in vision from the Lord simply reacts, with different forms, names and results, to agitate the mind as the wind agitates a boat which has no resting place.” - Srimad Bhagavatam 1.5.14

Srila Prabhupada referred to it as “shop talk”, and it is the scourge of any organization. This kind of talk is unproductive and defeatist. I remember a conversation that I had with my spiritual master in Ecuador a few years ago. Here is verbatim a segment that burned itself into my memory:

You notice that I am emphasizing the positive. I’m not saying “don’t do this, don’t do that”.

Listen, I know that you live near a temple where you disagree with the management and what they are doing. Welcome to reality - “Everyone does”. Don’t waste your time trying to define your situation as unique and somehow special. Every city that has a temple has an alienated sector.

(I’m not speaking to anyone in particular with that, and if it doesn’t apply then let it pass over you. If you’re feeling a little hot under the collar right now, then yes, it’s probably you, among many other readers of this blog. )

We have to do one or two of three things - lead, follow, or step aside. If you know what to do, then do it (lead). Your positive example will speak for itself. If not, then find someone who does know, and follow them (follow). If none of the above, then whatever you do, don’t waste time fruitlessly criticizing others (step aside).

But the fact of the matter is that you must lead. In fact, everyone is leading all the time. Everyone influences other people by what they do and say - so no-one can say: “I don’t want to be a leader”. You are one, so take responsibility for that. In some areas we lead, in others we follow. In some areas we follow some and lead others. Whatever the case, we cannot escape the responsibility for influencing other people, for better or for worse.

So synchronise your concern with your influence. Forget about what temple manager X is doing in your city or in another city or another country. Figure out what you can do, and execute. If you don’t know what to do (and even if you think you do) find people you respect and get advice.

I personally get my advice from HH Ramai Swami, who is the local GBC representative, HH Devamrita Swami, my spiritual master, HG Tirtharaj Prabhu, ISKCON Brisbane temple president, and Akrura das, the founder of the Bhaktivedanta Leadership Institute.

Where you get your advice from is up to you. Take it from where you are inspired to take it, but take it from somewhere, and act on it to create positive change.

Not everyone can “change the world single-handedly”. I’m very inspired by Dhruva, one of the stalwart Brisbane brahmacaris. Through thick and thin, through administrative changes and upheavals, he has continued to apply himself to the distribution of Srila Prabhupada’s books. He reasons: “What can I do about all that? Here, however, is something I can do.” And he just keeps on keepin’ on, acting in the sphere that he is able to influence. As you do that, your sphere of influence and capacity to effect change will increase.

As we were discussing at the opening night of Atma Yoga, whatever good result we are able to see here is a direct result of this action of Dhruva’s, and others who have kept on keepin’ on, trying to create positive change through doing what they can to move things forward.

Forget about what’s going wrong and stop disempowering yourself with talk about how the management is bad. Just get on with life - shrink your sphere of concern to exclude what you can’t change, and work on creating positive change. Start from where you are.

You generate maximum effectiveness when you synchronize your “circle of influence” and your “circle of concern”, to use, I believe, the language of Stephen Covey (I heard it via Tirtharaj prabhu).

Basically it means that you should be interested in what you are responsible for. If you can be primarily interested in that you’ll be more effective. If you can be exclusively interested in that, you’ll be very effective (although many people who are interested in things that they are not responsible for will spend their time calling you a fanatic, among other epithets - <<que ladren Sancho!>>).

This universal principle is explained by Krishna in conversation with Arjuna:

“Those who are on this path are resolute in purpose, and their aim is one. O beloved child of the Kurus, the intelligence of those who are irresolute is many-branched.” - Bhagavad-gita 2.41

As Stephen Covey explains, your circle of influence is what you are responsible for. Responsible means response-able, or in other words, where you are actually able to make a difference.

One witty scientist said: “Give me a place to stand and a long enough lever, and I will move the world”. In situations where we have no leverage we are unable to make a difference, no matter how much energy we apply. Learning to recognise where we have leverage, or influence, and where we do not, allows us to understand better where our circle of influence lies.

The author of the Serenity prayer prays: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

As we narrow the focus, as we eliminate interest, expenditure of time and mental energy, in things that lie outside our circle of influence, we are able to concentrate more energy in the arena in which we are able to make a difference. This leads to greater effectiveness.

It’s a simple principle, but it took some time for me to grasp it explicitly. Most recently, Tirtharaj Prabhu took some time to explain it to me using the terms that I introduced this post with. Before that time I couldn’t put it into words, but now that I look back I see that my success has come when I’ve applied that principle, and I’ve been thwarted when I didn’t apply it. The more I apply it, the more effective I become. There are many people who spend their time railing against real or imagined injustices. The impression that I get from them is that they feel disempowered and frustrated. We start to make a difference, to effect real positive change, when we synchronise our interest and our responsibility, when we synchronise our circle of concern with our circle of influence. And when we start to do that, we feel good about ourselves, because we are making a difference.

There is no contradiction between understanding this principle and understanding the self as non-doer and Krishna as the Supreme Controller. We shouldn’t say something like: “What has Stephen Covey got to teach us?” When someone speaks the truth, we should listen, and hopefully, you’d think, we’ll be able to recognise it. Krishna Himself explains this principle in the Bhagavad-gita, and the Srimad Bhagavatam:

“It is firmly declared that the steady adherence of transcendentalists to their respective spiritual positions constitutes real piety” Srimad Bhagavatam 11.20.26

So when you understand it and apply it, you are understanding something that Krishna has explained, and ultimately established. It’s called reality my friends.

I’m just cleaning out my desk, as I’m leaving my job, and I found some notes that I wrote around this time last year. Here is an excerpt:

Process versus Product

Examples:

Loft as product

• Get this type of place, do these types of programs in this way

Loft as process

• Get the right people, give them the right situation and direction, and let them do their thing.

Product is static and specific.
Process is dynamic and adaptable.

Product - what - imitation
Process - how - following

Process - enable Massively Parallel Development

• Generate reusable components and resources
• Allow resource modification and recontribution
• Enable multidirectional communication
• Encourage information sharing
• Maintain common “codebase”

Enable Infinite Scalability

• Empower the individual - distribute power
• Decentralize responsibility (avoid bottlenecks)
• Create resource along with requirement (0 net cost)

As mentioned earlier, at the moment I’m going through a metamorphosis.

Here is the plan:

Phase 1 - Radical Realignment
Time frame: 1 year

Goal: Put the energy that I currently use to make money to support my family and the missionary activities more directly into the missionary activities, rather than the current situation of an increasing divergence where I earn money in one sphere, and preach in my spare time.

• Change jobs to a higher paying one to get more operational flexibility (more money or less hours). Date: Immediately.
• Start a one year yoga teacher training course. Date: April 17th.

Outcome: In one year’s time make a living through teaching yoga.

Phase Two
Time frame: 5 years

Goal: Make a living through writing and speaking

Phase Three - “The Million Dollar Plan”
Time frame: 9 years

Goal: Construct a world-class organization infused with the spirit of service, dedicated to producing authentic leaders, and faithfully stewarding an operational budget of $1 million per month.

We overestimate what we can do a year, and underestimate what we can do in ten years.

I have to fix things up quickly this year, so I’m committed to a year of austerity. My son Prahlad will turn five next year, and his schooling will be an issue. I don’t want him to grow up to work in computers, and I don’t want to spend my time teaching him that, so I am going to learn another profession to teach him from a young age, and that profession (that I learn) will be yoga teacher. We’ll see where it goes from there. The world does not need more computer engineers. My energy expended in that area is not the best use of my time. I have another contribution to make.

Prahlad is a ksatriya, according to his astrology, so I need to spend a lot of time with him to assist in the formation of his values in his childhood. Socialization by remote control is not a good situation for a child like that. He will be very forceful, very powerful, and very active. Telling him to slow down, to “stop” doing something, etc. will not work. The only way to guide him is to go alongside him, and then to push him forward, telling him to be generous, to be merciful, to be helpful, and to fight for what is right. I need to spend time with him for that.

Only do what only you can do.

You are most valuable to the organization where you add the most value.

I’ve demonstrated for a number of years that it is possible to work a 40 hour a week job and preach, if that’s your thing. Now it’s time for something else. Becoming a yoga teacher will give me more control over my time and enable me to spend more time with Prahlad. It will also enable me to converge my energy into a more focused point. I can channel more of my time and energy into the team. Atma Yoga is the five year project. The first two years will be coiling the spring.

There is no contingency plan. I will meet with victory or destruction, but I will never know defeat. Only losers accept defeat as an option.

This is an announcement for residents of the Red Hill Ashram and guests.

The Internet connection at Red Hill is now active from 8 am - 9 pm 7 days a week. Between the hours of 9 pm and 8 am (in other words, at night) the Internet connection is not functional.

Thank you.

Just woke up unexpectedly, which is unusual. Perhaps some sickness is coming on?

I uploaded the tracks from DJ Vraj’s last album Antimateria, by popular request. Here they are:

Track 1
Track 2
Track 3

Enjoy!

Hmmm.. a while ago I posted a link to an article by Pastor Brian McLaren on the subject of constructing a response to the question of homosexual marriage. A lot of what he said, and especially his sensitive approach, resonated with me.

Shortly afterwards, another pastor whose blog I read, Mark Driscoll of Mars church, posted a response to that, laying down the smack on Brian’s approach. The comments to this posting are very interesting and informative about the different mentalities of the living entities.

Today Mark posted an apology. He hasn’t changed his views, but he’s gotten some nice realizations about how to coexist with other preachers. Brian doesn’t lay down the smack on Mark, and now Mark realizes that he shouldn’t lay down the smack on Brian. Isn’t that nice.

I respect both of these men, for what they do, for what they think, and for the way they handle themselves. This is one good example of all three of these.

The sign, and the title of this post, are a little self-deprecating humour by Mark in his apology. Gotta love that self-deprecating humour.

Today I received the results of the Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) exam that I took last week.

I got it.

RHCE has been named the hottest tech certification for 2006 by CertCities.com, the magazine for certified IT professionals. What will follow this announcement will be a little ironic in that light.

ISKCON News.net now has archives. You can view the output for any day now using a URL of the format:

http://www.iskconnews.net/daily/yy/mm/dd

Where yy/mm/dd are the two digit year, month, and day that you want to look at. I’ll be making some sort of calendar thing so that you can click through the archives.

I’m working on a formal statement of the editorial policy.

OK, here’s a special offer. I read an article the other day about email and humour, and how a lot of times humour can be misinterpreted or completely missed in virtual formats.

I have a quirky sense of humour, and I tend to take most things in a light-hearted manner, which might be missed a lot of the time.

I’m interested to see if there are many (any?) people out there who share my brand of humour.

So here’s the special offer. If you can tell me how and why the title of the Atma Yoga video is a little bit of self-deprecating humour, you’ll win yourself a complimentary copy of one of the books on my recommended reading list on the right hand side of my blog. You choose which one. Winner takes all - first in, best dressed. Leave a comment to participate.

Here it is - Vrajadhama shot some video footage during the construction of Atma Yoga on his digital camera. On Friday night he stayed up late and put together a six minute collage of the footage, accompanied by one of the tracks off his last album, Antimateria.

We showed the resultant movie at the Grand Opening on Saturday night. There are a few in-references. The lights in the elevator weren’t working for a few days during construction, and during the sanding one Friday night the smoke alarms went off… we switched them off for the agni-hotra on Saturday.

Otherwise it’s a nice little compilation. There is a smaller version at 26MB that I’ll upload tomorrow.

In the meantime here it is: “This is Atma Yoga” (.wmv, 96MB)

Have a look at atmayoga.com.au.

Talk to you about it later - gotta run to do the Sunday Feast now…

Reading Our Srila Prabhupada A Friend to All has been nice. Here are another couple of reflections from the book.

First of all, it’s really great to hear about how much time and energy Srila Prabhupada put into his chanting. A number of people remark on this aspect of his behaviour before coming to the West. One person related how he would chant 64 rounds a day. The Holy Name is the first and last line of defense.

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati spent 9 years chanting in solitude before beginning his preaching. Srila Narottama das Thakura, a 16th century missionary of Krishna Consciousness spent time chanting with his guru Lokanath Goswami. They were chanting one day when a householder came to request some water from them. Lokanath Goswami continued chanting and did not break his meditation to speak with the man. The man was begging them to please give him some water, and Narottama took pity on him. He stopped chanting and gave him some water. Afterwards his guru Lokanath Goswami was very displeased and ordered him to leave telling him: “You have no faith that by pleasing Krishna everyone will be pleased. You should go away and get married, make some money and give charity to people. Then you will be happy.”

Narottama begged to be allowed to stay, and after some time Lokanath Goswami relented and allowed him. There is a very powerful lesson in this. The unexpected guest is considered to be a representative of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and should be served as such. If you read the Pancaratra-pradipa, a recent compilation of guidelines based on the Vedic culture, it recommends postponing activities of worship to receive an unexpected guest.

In another case a great sage engaged in meditation did not receive a guest. He was Samiki Muni, and he did not arise from his meditation to give water when requested by King Pariksit, who arrived unexpectedly. The King became angry with the sage for not doing this, and this lead to a chain of events that ended with the King cursed to die within 7 days.

So the two sides are there, and the appropriate rule to apply is a matter requiring discrimination. As we hear in the Mahabharata from the lips of Bhismadeva, “Dharma, or proper action, is not black and white, but composed of many shades of gray”.

Anyway, chanting the Holy Name and meditation, spiritual development is important. Service to others is also important.

In Our Srila Prabhupada A Friend to All many people comment on Srila Prabhupada’s dedication to chanting the Holy Name.

It’s very nice for me to read about this, because it reinforces my understanding of the role of chanting and its relationship to preaching.

In 1998 one high profile leader in ISKCON experienced some difficulty and lost faith for some time. He made some public comments which include stating that “I was with Srila Prabhupada a lot of the time and I watched him, and he did not chant 16 rounds a day!”

At the time I dealt with that by thinking:

“Well that’s all good and well - and when I can sleep two hours a days and spend my nights translating Sanskrit scriptures and my days travelling internationally and preaching, I’ll do the same!”

At the first initiation of Western disciples in the 60s, Srila Prabhupada gave names and japa mala (chanting beads), and said: “Now you must chant 64 rounds a day”. One round is composed of 108 mantras of

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna
Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama
Hare Hare

A round takes between 5 and 15 minutes to chant, depending on the time of day, your attentiveness, how warmed up you are, and your experience.

So 64 rounds would take 320 - 960 minutes, or 5 1/4 - 15 hours.

Actually, I tried it for one month after I read about this in Hare Krishna Explosion by Hayagriva das, and it would take me between 4 1/2 - 6 hours to do it.

Anyway, the disciples responded by saying: “64 rounds? That’s impossible! We don’t have time to chant that much!”

Srila Prabhupada considered, and said: “Alright, you may chant 32 rounds.”

Still they protested - 32 rounds was too much!

So Srila Prabhupada said: “Alright! 16 rounds a day - minimum!”

That’s what I call “The First Order”.

Anyway, there was another thing I wanted to share, more backstory nectar that I read (someone I met in South America is in there), but that will have to wait.

Tonight is the Grand Opening of Atma Yoga, so I have to be off to prepare for that.

16 rounds and counting….

By popular demand we’re talking about Yoga for the next six weeks at the Sunday Feast. It’s a hot topic these days, and while many people have heard of it, they don’t know what Yoga is really all about.

We’ll be discussing yoga - what it is, and what it isn’t. What it’s for, and where it’s from, and who is the Yogesvara, or Master of Yoga.

During the series we will be discussing the elements and practices of Bhakti Yoga, including the chanting of japa, the arati ceremony that we do during the program, the significance of the clothing, the practice of kirtan, or congregational chanting of mantras, and the offering of sanctified foodstuffs.

The first class will be given by Param Satya devi dasi. I’ll be hanging out with Prahlad.

Major props to Bhakticandrika for the series graphics.

Triyuga also mentioned that “positive buy in … paves the way for team evolution.”

This is a fact that Andy Stanley sums up with the mantra “Acceptance fuels Influence”.

Srila Bhaktivinode Thakura explains the principle in his essay “Light of the Bhagavat”, published over a century ago.

He is the best critic who can show the further development of an old thought; but a mere denouncer is the enemy of progress and consequently of nature. Progress certainly is the law of nature, and there must be corrections and developments with the progress of time. But progress means going further or rising higher. The shallow critic and the fruitless reader are the two great enemies of progress. We must shun them.

The true critic, on the other hand, advises us to preserve what we have already obtained, and to adjust our race from that point where we have arrived in the heat of our progress. He will never advise us to go back to the point whence we started, as he fully knows that in that case there will be a fruitless loss of our valuable time and labor. He will direct the adjustment of the angle of our race at the point where we are.

This is also the characteristic of the useful student. He will read an old author and will find out his exact position in the progress of thought. He will never propose to burn a book on the ground that it contains thoughts which are useless.

No thought is useless. Thoughts are means by which we attain our objects. The reader who denounces a bad thought does not know that a bad road is even capable of improvement and conversion into a good one. One thought is a road leading to another. Thus, the reader will find that one thought, which is the object today, will be the means of a further object tomorrow. Thoughts will necessarily continue to be an endless series of means and objects in the progress of humanity.

It would be one thing to sit back with arms folded and criticize Atma Yoga, but what we have to do is engage, discuss the issues vigorously, and do the best we can to guide its development and implementation with our own conscious contributions.

“Acceptance fuels influence” is Andy Stanley’s mantra, and “Contribution fuels influence” is its corollary.

Triyuga asks: “could you elaborate on your statement: “Atmananda das has made the yoga part of a coherent story that is magical and charming, and wholly consistent with the philosophy of Krishna Consciousness”. I also feel this somehow, and would appreciate if you could explore the how and what of this topic a little further.”

Triyuga, thanks for the link (goldenbridgeyoga.com). If you have a look there you can see that they are telling a story about Sikhism, and an engaging one. Story telling, and story tellers, are the basis and central hub of community and culture. Srimad Bhagavatam is a story. Mahabharata is a story. Our life is a story. What’s the story that we are telling?

Here’s something that I worked up from material from the yogamandir.com site for the “Introduction to Atma Yoga” flyer that I’m currently laying out:

Atma Yoga provides a set of principles and practices for a holistic “total yoga lifestyle” for the modern yogi and urban mystic. Many other yoga systems were designed to be practiced in solitude, in isolation, or as an exclusive engagement in order to obtain the complete benefits. Yoga practices based on these systems may be able to offer partial benefits, such as increased health and physical well being, but in a modern urban context these systems cannot deliver the profound benefits that are the true goal of Yoga practice.

Different yoga practices are prescribed in the Vedic texts for different eras. Over 5000 years ago, in 3102 B.C., Vedic sages predicted the appearance of an industrialized “Age of Iron” (Kali Yuga), and recommended the practice of bhakti yoga for the people who would live in this cultural environment.

Atma Yoga addresses the need to harmonize mystic and bhakti yoga, which have become separated in the modern age. Atma Yoga raises the understanding of Yoga above the valuable but incomplete conception of Hatha Yoga alone. (quote ends)

It’s adapted from Prema Pradipa, a novel by Srila Bhaktivinode Thakura, from a section where a Vaisnava who was previously a hatha yogi discusses the influence of hatha yoga in his spiritual development with another Vaisnava. Srila Bhaktivinode uses the story as his vehicle to communicate the relationship between the two, and we can and should do the same thing.

Consistency and coherency. Our message is communicated, our story is told through everything that we say, that we do, and that we are. We meet people where they are at, and tell a story that includes them, and brings them home.

Today I’m sitting the RHCE exam, in ten minutes in fact.

I’ve been reading “Our Srila Prabhupada - A Friend to All: Early Contemporaries Remember Him“.

It is a very interesting book. It is a collection of interviews with persons who knew Srila Prabhupada before he left India to preach in the West. From reading this book and hearing their appreciations I’ve gained a greater appreciation for the point of view of Srila Prabhupada’s godbrothers, the Gaudiya Math, Srila BV Narayana Maharaja, and other persons who hold a different angle of vision than I have.

Even within ISKCON everyone has a different angle of vision.

Reading this book I can understand and appreciate why Srila BV Narayana Maharaja sees things the way he does. That doesn’t mean that I abandon my own unique perspective, but I can appreciate the difference. The ability to simultaneously accomodate diverse, and sometimes contradictory viewpoints is important. The whole Vedic culture is based on this, and the inability of modern Western academics to appreciate this aspect of it leads them to interpret it as a confusion or collection of competing systems. In fact, there are many different people in society, each with their own unique and valid experience.

The Vedic culture recognizes and honours this by constructing a situation where these people can coexist and pursue their own self realization and spiritual evolution in such a way that the impact of their angle of vision on others with a different angle of vision is minimized. This is done by the guidance of brahmanas, spiritually adept persons who are able to accomodate and appreciate multiple angles of vision and interact with people in terms of their mentality.

A lot of the time people of different mentalities are encouraged to stick to their own concerns, and ignore others around them, as they will find the plethora of mentalities and realizations confusing, and will react by either becoming attracted to something that they shouldn’t, or condemning something that they shouldn’t.

The Srimad Bhagavatam describes this principle of multiple angles of vision:

“Steadiness in one’s own position is declared to be actual piety, whereas deviation from one’s position is considered impiety. In this way the two are definitely ascertained.”

SB. 11.21.2

His Holiness Hrdayananda Goswami, commenting on this, says:

In actuality, virtue and fault are not absolute but are relative to one’s particular platform of advancement. Remaining fixed in the type of discrimination suitable to one’s level of advancement is good, and anything else is bad.

So people are encouraged to focus their attention on cultivating their own progress, and not to give much attention to what other people are doing, which can often lead to misunderstanding, and offense.

In the case of Srila Prabhupada and his disciples, they were encouraged to be busy about their own work, so much so that they didn’t have time to poke their nose into what other Gaudiya Vaisnavas were doing. This was Srila Prabhupada’s practical way of “keeping the children apart”.

How easy misunderstanding comes about is described in one pastime I read last night (I’ll get the reference later).

Many of us are familiar with Srila Prabhupada’s eulogy to his sannyasa guru,Srila Bhakti Prajnana Kesava Maharaja, who left his body while Srila Prabhupada was in America.

What we didn’t know was the back story. Srila Prabhupada was writing letters to Trivikrama Maharaja, Srila Kesava Maharaja’s disciple, asking him why he wasn’t sending the mrdangas he had promised to send. Trivikrama Maharaja and the other disciples were of course dealing with the impending departure of their gurudeva. They had written to Srila Prabhupada to inform him of Srila Kesava Maharaja’s condition, but those messages had not reached Prabhupada.

Srila Prabhupada is left wondering why these guys are not lending support, and they are left wondering why Srila Prabhupada is so insensitive to the condition of his dear Godbrother and the situation there.

Aspersions are made and things are said which remain for years afterwards, even after the misunderstanding has been cleared up. This book helps to bring some of these things into the light.

There are a number of other incidences where the backstory is explained and the whole situation is laid out. A lot of frictions simply arise from different angles of vision, incomplete understanding, and an inability to hold on to our own understanding while honoring another who has a different understanding.

This book is helping me to understand the perspective of Srila Prabhupada’s Godbrothers, and to understand Srila Prabhupada’s policy of separation. It is in fact necessary to “keep the children apart”.

I’m not about to run off and join the Gaudiya Math (as if it were one homogenous thing and ISKCON were another homogenous thing), but I feel that I have a deeper appreciation for our wider heritage from reading this book, and a deeper appreciation for Srila Prabhupada from other angles of vision.

Here is a song by an old friend of mine, Damien “Rena” Tauri. It’s called “Talking Bout My Denigration“, a play on the Who’s “(Talking ‘Bout) My Generation”.

This song was written a number of years ago now, but it reveals Rena’s deep compassion. The lyrics to this song came to mind when I wrote recently about popular music as the vehicle for values formation of youth:

The poets of my generation are Cobain and Dre
Is it any wonder that we blow ourselves away?

The compass of my generation changes every day
Is it any wonder that we turn the other way?

The reference there is of course to Nirvana’s lead singer Kurt Cobain, an anti-hero of youth rebellion, who killed himself with a gunshot to his head, and famous rap singer Dr Dre.

After I wrote about the influence of popular music and remembered this song I asked Rena for a copy of it, as I’d misplaced mine. It had been some time and he had also lost his copy of it, but he just found this one and sent it to me.

Our paths have crossed and parted a number of times over the years. The last time we met in person was while Vrajadhama and I were living in Wellington and we dropped by Rena’s place in Auckland (the three of us were in bands together 15 years ago), sometime before we left for Peru, which would have been 2000 or thereabouts.

Rena is a member of the Church of Christ, who are accused by many as being a cult, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing in an age where practically speaking “evil is the new good” and anything Godly is considered an aberration, if not an abomination.

Props to the Violet Muse.

I’m on a training course at the moment, for the Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) Certification. The course is supposed to take 5 days, but we’re cramming it into one and a half days, and then sitting the six hour examination tomorrow. My head feels like it will explode. Here’s hoping I can pass.

Today Param, Acyuta, and Elliot chose some furniture for the Atma Yoga discussion space from local Oriental furniture merchants Samsara. They have a scheme where you can pay it off over 12 months, so I was called in at the last minute to sign on the dotted line. They’ll be delivering that stuff tomorrow, so it will be there in time for the opening. There was also a wonderful stone fountain there that I would like to get. I’m pretty easy on most of the “interior decorating” stuff, but one thing that I do have a solid preference for is a water foutain in the place.

Yesterday’s post on the Kool Aid was a bit passionate ( ). My apologies to Madhava Ghosh Prabhu for unintended cultural misunderstanding, and of course to my god brother Ekendra for triggering the “deviant cult leader on the loose!” alarm yet again.

Check out the cartoons at the end of this post for some light entertainment. There are a whole lot of funny ones at Church Cartoons. I thought these two in particular were quite appropriate.

Anyway, as promised, here is something about the special characteristics (which would have been written “superiority” if this was another Sita-pati rhetoric post, but enough controversy for one week) of Atma Yoga (the system).

Nalakuvara left a comment where he said: “Atma Yoga is about presence, believability, and showmanship”.

It’s not just about that, but that is a part of it. It’s about a credible presentation, or as I like to refer to it: “contextualization”.

Imagine this: you are a first time visitor to the Sunday Feast. You have no idea what the thing is all about. “What will happen? What will they do? How long will it go for?”

All these questions are running through your head.

Then the program begins, and you are thinking: “What are they doing? How long will this go on for?”

Now imagine that someone comes out at the beginning and says: “Welcome to the Hare Krishna Sunday Feast. Here is what we are going to do. First this, then this, then this, then dinner”.

They then introduce and explain each element of the program. “Now we are going to do X. It’s origins are Y and the significance of it is Z”. You get a guide, who goes through the program with you and creates a consistent experience, introducing each element and contextualizing it - putting it into a context for you, in a way that helps you assimilate it.

Atma Yoga does this across the yoga experience. It has a consistent introduction and outro, which weave together to create a consistent experience, and beyond that, a consistent story.

Really what all these activities that we call preaching or evangelism or communication or presentation are, is story telling. We’re telling a story. Atmananda das has made the yoga part of a coherent story that is magical and charming, and wholly consistent with the philosophy of Krishna Consciousness.

He has created elements of communication and ritual, such as the intro and outro of the class, that weave together, and can be easily utilized by all the teachers. It gives the guests a coherent experience, and a consistent experience. Both coherency and consistency lead to increased comfort and increased assimilation. Redundancy leads to greater comprehension.

The elements of the system that he has so far created are good and sound, as are elements of existing individual presentations in different places. The fact that it is a system that can be reused and improved is what makes it unique.