I am no longer going to be maintaining this blog.

My server was hacked two weeks ago by a Saudi Arabian hacker sympathetic to the plight of the Lebanese people. At first my reaction was one of dread at the work ahead of me to rebuild the server, but after reading the page again and again I began to wonder…

While I’ve been offline over the past two weeks I’ve been studying Islam and reading the Koran, and I’ve decided to convert. Hacking someone’s site is so the best way to convince them of your point of view. In the tradition of Aussies who convert to Islam I’ve selected “Jihad” as my Islamic name, so I’ll known as “Jihad Josh”…..

But seriously, the real reason that I’m no longer going to be maintaining this blog is that Krishna-kirti has stopped maintaining his, and since I was only ever a plant of the liberal left to counter-act his presentation, the razon d’etre of this site has disappeared…

But really, seriously, the real reason that I am no longer going to be maintaining this site is that I have finished this chapter of my life.

Time for the next one…

Today is the 2nd anniversary of this blog.

Today in history:

2004

We’d been in Australia for about six months.

Let the blogging begin

This blog is launched with the identity “The Virtual Pen of Sita-pati das” and the mission statement: “What I’m doing - What I’m thinking”

Welcome to my new blog. I will keep this blog up to date with information about what I am doing, for those who are interested in that, and also what I am thinking, for those who are interested in that.

Searching for a Home

We were looking for a new house. We found one a few days later and Acyuta Bhava moved in with us.

Photo of Prahlad

A photo of Prahlad on the lawn outside our first place of residence in Brisbane, on the corner near the temple. Prahlad is now four.

Passed my Exam

I’d recently started work at Red Hat and gained my Red Hat Certified Technician qualification. Two years to the day later, I started in a new position in Red Hat, in Engineering Content Services as a writer, with a Red Hat Certified Engineer cert under my belt.

2005

New Design at the Virtual Pen

I changed the design of the Virtual Pen to something similar to the one we have now, albeit with a different name.

ISKCON News.Net

The mission of ISKCON News.Net is to generate forward momentum in fulfilling Srila Prabhupadas objectives for ISKCON through information sharing. The vision is “more nectar than you can drink”. I’m happy with the way that it has evolved since its inception.

Ph.D. shortcourse in Leadership

A reader contributed article on leadership.

2006

Currently executing on The Plan

7 Days, 8 classes down.

I went over a hump on day 5 - Passion threatened to degrade to ignorance and I had to look within for another motivation to continue with the transforming process.

The morning’s Bhagavatam verse helped me through:

sivaya lokasya bhavaya bhutaye
ya uttama-sloka-parayana janah

Those who are devoted to the cause of the Personality of Godhead live only for the welfare, development and happiness of others. They do not live for any selfish interest.

-SB. 1.4.12

Heated Power Vinyasa @ Atma here we come….

Today is Day 1 of the writing gig, Day 5 of the Bikram program.

Last night we went to Bikram Yoga Brisbane - “Brisbane’s Hot Spot”.

I’m on a two week break from the yoga teacher training so I’m at a loose end with my led classes, and someone at work told me that Bikram Hot Yoga was in Bardon, near Red Hill, and that they heat the room up to 37 degrees and lock the doors.

Well, you know that that got my interest. I checked out the website and saw the offer that Laxmivan in Newcastle told me he copied to get his yoga school up and running last year - $17 for unlimited classes over 10 days, which carries me over to term 2 of my teacher training.

Elliott and I rocked up at 6:15 pm last night and joined the queue filing past reception. When we got up to the reception desk we signed the disclaimers and were issued our membership cards. They have a flat panel LCD with some customer management software running. We have discussed using a bar code scanner and membership cards at Atma Yoga, and I’ll keep looking into that. With few students it’s more organic and personal to not have it, but when we start dealing with hundreds a day we’re going to need it.

The mood outside was part gym, part cult - or maybe that was just my imagination. The brochure carries the advisory: “Warning: Seriously Addictive!”

The website, the brochure, and the studio itself are pink and gold.

You have to take your own mat, a towel to put over it, and a bottle of water. You can hire mats and towels at $2 each, and you can buy water.

A board in the reception area had the names of students who are doing the “60 day challenge” - come every day for 60 days and you get a free month. You also get the benefit of 60 days of practice, obviously.

There are lockers where you lock up your gear and take the key into the class with you.

The Class

If the outside mood was part gym, part cult, the inside was pure S&M dungeon. Afterwards I joked with Elliott - “Hey man, I can fire my dominatrix and start coming here. All I need to do is imagine the ‘You’ve been a baaaad boy’.”

First of all when we went in it was like going into a sauna, like Mensana. Dimly lit and hot. We laid our mats out with the other students (who eventually reached 30 in number), and laid down on our towels over them.

One wall was taken up with a mirror that ran the entire length of the classroom.

The teacher was Jan, who I later learned was half German, half French, which probably contributed to the dominatrix mood. When she came into the room she cranked the lights up to full, blinding me, and then it was all on.

Having watched some videos of Power Yoga classes, after going to this class I have to say that Atma Power Yoga’s lineage has Bikram in its family tree somewhere very close by.

Talking continuously, cajoling and urging us on, Jan ran us through the 26 posture Bikram Yoga sequence in sets of two, all precisely timed and expertly described.

Now I can see how Atma Power Yoga can succeed here at Atma Yoga Brisbane.

Number 1: Talk continuously. Don’t let people internalize and space out. Keep the pace fast.

Number 2: Punish the people. Some people are not going to like Power Yoga. They just won’t like it. Don’t try to accomodate them. Here is what you say: “If this pose is a little too hard, then try…. coming to a different class!”

Of course you encourage everyone, but this is not for the “Gentle Hatha” crowd. This is pure passion, unadulterated with any tinge of goodness or ignorance

Encourage the people who come, and make it POWER Yoga. I think that this might be my calling here. “Sitapati’s 90 minute Hour of Power”. Our heating system at Atma Yoga goes up to 30 degrees (I checked it after the Bikram class last night), but as Andy suggested, we can throw in some free standing heaters. Maybe ones with naked flames. “Brisbane’s Independently Verified Hottest Yoga”. Longer, hotter, pinker, golder… Anyway, let’s see what a year of teacher training brings.

The Bikram class was intense. I have a pitta body - high in the fire element, so I was sweating like anything in no time. As the class progressed my heart rate climbed. Elliott, who is recovering from bronchitis, flaked out for a while on his mat.

I also felt like I needed a rest, but I also felt that if I dropped out of the flow of the class I wouldn’t be able to get back up again. As I lay there in one brief resting posture, looking up at the ceiling and feeling my heart pounding in my chest, I thought: “Man, people could die in this class.”

That’s very inspirational.

Anyway, I was back there this morning at 6 am for another round, like any true believer with another potential convert in tow. This stuff is good. Today I got up at 4 am feeling energized and not at all sore. I’ll be pushing to do a class a day over the eight remaining days, and I’ll probably switch to a class a week after that.

Do One Thing - Do It Well

Bikram Yoga - the sequence and the business model - is based on doing one thing and doing it well. All the schools whose websites I’ve looked at, look tight. Their facilities are purpose built and streamlined to what they do. Everything is low fat, high efficiency. The only way to make the registration processing faster would have been to have bar code scanning, or a dedicated receptionist (that would be fat).

The sequence is tight. It is suspiciously similar to the Atma Power Yoga sequence, but it was delivered with more authority than any Atma Power Yoga class I’ve been to, which may affect my perception of it. After my eight days on this I’ll try the Atma Power Yoga sequence again and see how it stacks up. The Bikram sequence feels right. It hits all the areas of the body. There is no minute alignment adjustment, but amazingly, like Prabhupada’s books, it is accessible to beginners and advantageous to the more experienced.

The main thing is to make your body strong and flexible, and the sequence does this. There is no discussion at the level that we get at our “Alignment in Practice” classes on the training course - but it’s not necessary. This is not the thinking man’s dance floor - it’s pure gabba. It’s not Dream Theater - it’s Motorhead. This is Everyman’s Yoga. It’s a tool that people can use for specific outcomes. It’s a drop of nectar brought back from the ocean.

Yeah man, for the next 8 days, I’m drinking the Bikram Kool-Aid.

—————————
Here are some links to the Bikram Yoga websites:

Bikram Yoga Brisbane
Bikram Yoga Wellington
Bikram Yoga Auckland

Today is the one year disappearance anniversary of His Holiness Bhakti Tirtha Swami. The entry from last year contains three videos about His Holiness Bhakti Tirtha Swami Krishnapada.

Tonight we will celebrate the festival at the temple.

One week to go until I change roles at work, moving in to my 40-hour a week, Monday to Friday position as a writer.

I’m on the interview team to recruit my replacement. To get a job at the company I work at you go through a rigorous selection process designed to get the right person for the position. The understanding is that with 90% effort in selection, 10% of effort will be spent in managing the person. With 10% in selection, the person will require 90% effort in management. The essence of management is putting the right person in the right place and giving them a little push forward from time to time.

There are several interviews conducted by different persons, analyzing different aspects of the person’s “fit” for the position and the company.

This time around I’m responsible for assessing their “Organizational Commitment”.

Over the previous intakes I’ve developed a style based on the techniques used by the Iraqi Secret Police to interrogate my home boy Mike Coburn, of B Squadron 22 SAS, during the First Gulf War back in 1991. Injured and captured 300kms behind enemy lines Mike was subjected to weeks of interrogations by various seasoned professionals in Saddam’s Service. Mike and I went to the same school, Mount Albert Grammar School.

We open with some light banter about the applicant, where they’re from, what they like doing. Before they know it, they’re completely relaxed and at ease, the tension of the interview situation forgotten as the interaction degenerates into a light social chat. Just when they are at their most defenseless I casually ask: “So, where are you working at the moment?”

No sooner than they slip up and tell me that, the floodlights come on and the rubber hose comes out. With the rubber hose tapping on the palm of my hand I ask: “…and does your boss know that you are here today?”

Remember, I’m testing for “Organizational Commitment” here.

I kid, I kid…

The idea of Organizational Commitment that we’re after in this organization is like the contemporary ideal of monogamy: “One at a time” - rather than the jihadi “strap on the suicide belt - all the way to death” concept.

Here is another question that I pose to the applicant to see how they react:

“Tell me about a time when you willingly and joyfully allowed yourself to be exploited by the capitalist class - for example sacrificing some aspect of your personal life in order to make more money for the shareholders…”

I let the question hang in the air for seconds, as if waiting for a response. I know there will never be one. Then I smile and say: “Just kidding, just kidding!” Hahahahaha.

Applicants are taking the process seriously you see, so that are trying to formulate a serious answer, assessing what they think I want to hear or what will cast them in the best possible light. Little do they realize that this particular question is like a zen koan - it has no answer, and is designed to disrupt their thought processes, disorientate them and destroy their sense of reality so that we can find out which unit they are really from, and what their mission is.

You might have noticed a change in my blogging output lately.

At the moment I’m thinking out loud, working on my strategic plan for the next 2 - 3 years. Since 2004 I’ve been working in the context of the material printed in the first edition of the Network Centric Preaching Review, and on the Network Centric Preaching Blog. This material consists of an analysis of the external environment, as well as articles on tactics and a strategic response.

At the moment I am writing the wider strategic story, and then I will write some articles on tactics, and then I will have my direction and context for the next 2 - 3 years. I’ll have some more articles on the Network, some articles about the world situation and likely trends for the near term future, and then I’ll start churning that into a set of guiding principles going forward. The overall plan will be termed: “From 15 to 150″.

This is the 10 week checkpoint for the Yoga Teacher Training that I am doing. I have an exam for my physiology and anatomy course tonight, then there is a 12 hour weekend workshop this weekend and a lead practice on Monday morning, and then it’s almost two weeks break.

There are two terms of 10 weeks each left in this year.

I’m finding that the length of the course is helping me to develop a more long range approach to my practice, which is good. Modifying subconscious patterns takes work. Superficial things can be modified easily. Stretching can loosen ligaments and muscles - but loosening the mental patterns that give rise to the tightness, and recreate it again, takes a little more work.

During the yoga practice I’ve been experiencing a flood of memories from this life and previous ones. It’s nice to perceive them consciously and let them go. Naturally it can’t substitute for the hearing and chanting yoga practices of bhakti yoga, but it is a nice adjunct for me at this stage of my life.

You might have noticed that I’ve been a little prolific with my writing of late.

What is happening is that I am transitioning to a new job, so there is an opportunity for me to take some time to process everything that I’ve been thinking about so far and get it down in writing. I will put all the Network-centric posts together and make it into the second edition of the Network-centric Preaching Review later on.

My new job, which I will be starting on July 1, is as a technical writer. I will be writing manuals and other user documentation. It’s a good fit for my future direction - it builds on my strength in writing, and it fits with my projected goals. You might recall that I posted three months ago my desire to make my living writing, within five years. Well, that milestone has been reached in three months. Man proposes, Krishna disposes.

If you read that post of mine, you might also recall that the immediate plan was to get a job with less than 40 hours a week, to free up more time. Well, prior to the technical writing job (which is with Red Hat), I was offered another job for 20 hours a week, paying what I am paid at the moment for full-time work. Actually, someone at work pointed out to me that for the last 2 years I’ve been working 45 hours a week. I hadn’t noticed that detail.

Anyway, I passed up on the 20 hours a week opportunity. Why was that? Especially when it fit in with the plan that I had made?

This is an interesting demonstration of decision-making in a complex and uncertain environment (life).

Not every open door is an invitation

- Andy Stanley

The top-down approach is to make a plan and then execute it.

The bottom-up principle for dealing with chaos (dharma), was explained to me by His Holiness Hanumat-presaka Swami.

How to know what to do? You can consult a pure devotee, if one is available. If not you should consult a smrti-sastra that is relevant for your environment. If this is not available, then you should consult seven brahmanas.

There is no smrti-sastra written yet for 21st century Brisbane, so I began a process of consultation. We live, or we should live, in a community of gurus - advanced practitioners of Krishna Consciousness who can guide and advise us.

As Andy Stanley makes the point again and again (this is one of the three fundamentals that we are building our Sunday School curriculum around): “I need to make the wise decision”.

I consulted and the consensus was to go with the 40 hour a week (it’s 9-5, Monday to Friday) writing position at Red Hat, rather than the 20 hours a week support position at another company. So many factors were mentioned in those discussions, including continuing to build on my relationships and reputation at Red Hat, but the point is not the details, but the principle.

We need to always make the wise decision. In a complex and uncertain environment our calculating power, however great it may be will not be sufficient to compute all possible outcomes. The process of making a wise decision is one that is informed by Guru, Sadhu, and Sastra.

Ask a pure devotee, consult a relevant smrti-sastra, consider relevant scriptural principles, consult “seven brahmanas”.

That’s the dharma, or principle, in relation to making decisions in a complex and uncertain environment. The mantra is: “I always need to make the wise decision.”

Either you run the day or the day runs you.

- Jim Rohn

Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive exhausted.

Sun Tzu, Art of War, 6.1

Got up late this morning - on the back foot, working in reactive mode. Not optimal, but an unavoidable event in life. Life means a complex, messy affair with all manner of ups and downs. Something should characterize our life and our lifestyle, however, and that will determine our success. You don’t create success in a day, but daily. Whatever you do daily, you will achieve success in.

Tonight the Atma Yoga bhajan band is playing at West End Yoga with two other kirtan groups. We’re expecting about 100 people. The organizers of the event have also asked Param to cook for it, so there will be prasadam afterwards.

This morning’s yoga teacher training course lead practice was a restorative class - think Atma Slow Deep Stretch. There were some rope inversions and some partner work, which I did with Elliott. I left my ‘99 vintage hooded Icebreaker on through the whole class, and kept a kashmere shawl over me as we relaxed into the postures. It was just what the doctor ordered after the weekend.

Here are the highlights:

Om Gurudeva His Holiness Devamrita Swami arrived in Brisbane on Wednesday night. Due to my working schedule the next time I saw him was on Friday night at Atma Yoga, where we had 30 guests for a discussion in the Atma Lounge. Sorry, no photos, and no recording.

Saturday I worked in the morning and raced back to Red Hill for sat sang with Gurudeva at midday. I think I recorded this one, but I haven’t checked yet. There were about 15 people there.

Sunday morning there were initiations before the Deities in Graceville. I’ve stopped referring to it as “the temple” because that just creates these phantasmagorical expectations in new people which are complicated to manage. The Brisbane Temple is under construction at 17 Mile Rocks. Until we move there “No, we don’t have a temple”, we have a temporary housing for the Deities. Yes I know that where ever the Deity is, is a temple, but that’s not what new people hear when you say: “temple”. When you say “temple”, they hear “Temple with a capital T” and imagine something exotic and opulent with gold plated domes, robed monks, incense burners, ancient tradition, and so on. Having to then reduce that expectation, or worse, deal with the disillusionment that arises from disappointed expectations, and explain our center in Graceville and introduce the idea of the as-yet-unmanifest Temple in 17 Mile Rocks is a real trip. Best not to go there.

“Do you have a Temple in Brisbane?”
“Not yet, we’re currently building one at 17 Mile Rocks.”

To me that evokes the “exciting future” that we are headed toward.

People who want to have the “Hare Krishna experience” should come to Sunday Feast to experience enthusiastic chanting and dancing, and take prasadam in community. For those who want to go deeper into it, they should get direct association in one of the environments that we have created for that. Once they are sadhana bhaktas they should go to the Deity for their sadhana. When we have a cultural presentation facility that is useful for making an impression on people’s consciousness with the opulence of the service of the Deity and the cultural tradition surrounding that we can invite them to that.

Of course there will always be rare souls who can hook in to the existing facility, but it’s not effective as a general strategy.

Anyway, I digress.

Antje is now Adina-lila devi dasi. Anantara is now Ananta Vrindavan das. I received my second initiation.

Now that I have my second initiation, once my work situation stabilizes again I’ll be getting a moped in order to get to my yoga teacher training, and I’ll also use it to go to the Deities in Graceville to do some personal service for Them.

I recorded the initiation lecture, but again, haven’t checked to see how or if it came out.

Sunday night was the Sunday Feast. We opened with our stage performance of bhajans, Sukanthi Radha dd gave a slide presentation entitled: “Have You Got Time? Or Has Time Got You?”. Then we had a Hare Krishna Network Show with Devamrita Swami as our special guest in the studio, interviewed about his book Searching for Vedic India on the subject of the Vedic Conception of Time.

Again, I didn’t record this. This was an amazing presentation. There are some photos, but no recording that I know of. I was a bit overwhelmed with everything, and you can’t do everything - some things just have to be sacrificed. I apologize to you, the Internet audience, because you were sacrificed in preference for the 150 guests who came on the night.

Vrajadhama was away on a catering gig (he missed out on being in this fire yajna for his second initiation), so the HKN team was a bit understrength, and I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with everything. It’s always like this these days. A lot of change, a lot of responsibility. Anyway, that is what life is for. We keep praying for the strength to do the needful for the mission, and begging for forgiveness for all the failings.

In regards to my second initiation, it has been four years since my first initiation, and I’ve spent the time researching and reflecting on the role and duties of the brahmana, and my own capability to carry them out. After this brief time I still don’t feel qualified to do it, but I feel a need to synchronize my role in the community with the formal positional structure of ISKCON, and I know that by the mercy of the Vaisnavas everything is possible. Under the advice of senior devotees here I’ve taken second initiation, and if I am able to successfully discharge my duties in this regard it will be due to their mercy only. If I am unable to do it then that is due to my own insincerity in receiving their mercy. Let me try my best realizing that that alone will never be enough and depending on Guru, Krishna, and the Vaisnavas as my ultimate refuge.

My server went into an Out of Memory condition a couple of days ago - I’m not sure why. It seems to have rebooted / been rebooted yesterday, so it should be ok now. Fingers crossed.

In the meantime I’m out of the habit of blogging already. Expect more updates soon. Right now we’re on a two day partner yoga / Okido training workshop as part of the yoga teacher training.

His Holiness Prabhavishnu Swami will give class tonight at the Sunday feast.

We’re opening a new initiative next Monday (not tomorrow) - Govinda’s Lounge - in the old Loft space. We need to hold on to that space for the advancement of the Sunday Feast program, including the Kid’s club. It involves a fair amount of work and sacrifice to hold on to it - but that’s what life is for. If you’ve seen “The Longest Day” - the famous trilingual epic movie about D-Day - you’ll remember the part where they need to blow up some German fortifications to clear the beach. American engineers plant explosives under fire and are killed, but the fortification is breached and the US soldiers clear the beach to penetrate the German line.

Sometimes you just have to work to create a breach under fire, and run the risk of being killed - because if you don’t the whole operation just dies on the beach. That’s life.

The contemporary Vedic Ashram system of Atma Yoga / The Loft includes a relatively new samskara, engagement. “Classical” Vedic culture doesn’t have it, but people today benefit from a period where they get to taste “committment without entitlement”. It’s a formal position of regulated engagement to ease them into the full grhasta situation. Basically you’re married, but you don’t get to disappear off into your own scene.

I had the great honour and pleasure to address the 80 or so members of the community at Atma Yoga during the ceremony. For me it was a great privilege to be able to serve my dear god brother Vrajadhama in this way.

Engagement Address

This is Vrajadhama, and Bhakticandrika devi dasi from Peru. I’ve known Vrajadhama for now, let’s see, 17 years I think - something like that. No, 15 years. 15 years, and we’ve been through a lot together. We came to this Hare Krishna movement, this Vaisnava tradition together, and then we went and we spent some time in Peru, spent three years there, and while we were there Vraj met Bhakticandrika. It was obviously fate’s divine arrangement for them to connect in that way, because being such a small guy, Vraj probably wouldn’t be able to find someone his size anywhere else.

(laughter)

Yeah, so it was perfect. Everything worked out perfectly.

So today we are observing the engagement, their engagement ceremony. Now, according to the “classical”, in quotes, Vedic tradition there is no engagement ceremony, because there is actually no engagement. People are either married or not married. You see, the ancient Vedic culture is very strict about the mixing of the sexes. In Yoga one of the preliminary practices is brahmacarya, which means basically “celibacy” - and it means conserving the energies, and so they have a very strict way of social interaction where they don’t have that. Today we don’t really have that culture so much in our society, but we try to follow the Vedic tradition, the Vedic way of life, because it promotes elevation of consciousness. Now, there is no engagement ceremony in that ancient tradition, so we are basically making one up ourselves.

Because you see the Vedic tradition - it’s not a stereotypical culture that belongs to a particular time and place. It’s actually a living thing. Just like within our bodies there is the living energy, and when the living energy is gone from the body, the body just falls to the ground. It’s inert - it’s lost its life. But while that living energy is there, the body changes. Once I was a small boy, like our young friend here, now I’m a young man, and I’ll go through different changes. The body has changed so much, but I’m still the same person - still me - experiencing that. So there’s something within me that’s vital, that’s living, and the outer thing changes. So it is with the Vedic tradition. The outer appearance of the tradition changes, but the inner thing remains the same always.

And the inner thing, the inner substance of the Vedic tradition, it is the platform of absolute transcendental reality - that’s the spiritual platform. You know, the part of us that doesn’t change during our life, that’s our spiritual aspect, our spiritual identity. The physical part of us - that goes through changes. So the idea of the Vedic culture is to help people to connect to that identity, to that aspect of our identity. And that thing never changes - that absolute platform, which is known as Brahman in Sanskrit, that doesn’t change. That is eternal and unchanging - immutable. But society does change, so therefore the Vedic tradition changes along with that. You know, it tracks along with that, to keep connecting the people with the absolute platform. So as time goes on the Vedic tradition changes, so now we are introducing the idea of the engagement ceremony.

So why do we have this engagement ceremony? Why are they doing this? What are they doing?

They’re making a public commitment. They’re not just making a public commitment to each other, they’re making a public commitment to all of us. Because life is not just about “me”, and life is not just about “you”. Life is about all of us, and we all, because we’re all interrelated, we all have a duty to each other, and especially in family life. Family is the basis of human society.Community, human community needs continuity, it needs stability.

So when you enter into this kind of relationship, it’s not just about “what do I want to get out of this? What do I want?” It’s actually about “what can I do for others?” It’s not even about “what can I do for this other person?” It’s about “what can we do together? What can we together do for everyone else?” Now if we begin to live from that platform, instead of thinking “What can everyone do for me? What can I do for myself?” If we begin to live from the platform of “What can I do for others?” then the whole relationship becomes different. Instead of “What can I get out of this other person?” it becomes “what can we together do for others?”, and that makes for such a difference in the relationship.

So the commitment is not simply the two of them to each other, but it’s a commitment to all of us. It’s a commitment to contributing to stability and continuity. Community needs stability, and it needs continuity. We need to create a stable community, a stable society, so that people can have a stable situation in which they can pursue spiritual realization. You know when you’re so disturbed and there are so many disturbances, and you don’t know what’s happening from one day to the next, and your future is so uncertain - it’s very difficult to concentrate on anything higher than just getting through the day. But if we can have a stable situation underlying us for our practice, then we can apply ourselves to that practice, and we can make advancement, we can make progress.

So the duty of those who come together in this way is to provide that stability, and making this public commitment in this way to all of us also helps them with their commitment to each other, because they can realize as they go through it that “it’s not just about us, it’s about everyone, and the public commitment that we’ve made.”

It’s called the “Edison method”. Thomas Edison was a famous inventor, and what he would often do is call a press conference, and he would announce a wonderful new product that was coming out. Then after making that announcement in the press conference he would go into his lab and invent it.

So by making a public commitment like this, it helps to achieve your goals, and to be committed to your goals.

There is another aspect to it, as well.

The other day I was reading Madison magazine. I don’t know if anyone here reads Madison magazine? I don’t - generally I don’t read Madison magazine, but this particular Madison magazine - I was waiting - OK, wait a minute, let me tell you how it happened.

I was waiting for the bus down in Adelaide St, and this particular Madison magazine, the cover jumped out at me, and it’s not because it had a picture of Angelina Jolie on the cover. She’s on the cover of practically every magazine this month - or at least the ones that Jennifer Aniston isn’t on. So what it was, actually, that jumped out at me was a headline that said: “Married versus Living Together: Who’s happiest?”

These are the kinds of things that I like to think about, and I was particularly intrigued to know - what did they have to say about that? I didn’t really want to saunter up to the stand and pick up the magazine in case someone coming from the class saw me reading it. So I waited until we were in Stafford, at Woolworths, where I was sure we wouldn’t run into anyone - but actually we did, we ran into Lou. Anyway, the Supersoul goes with us wherever we go - we can’t escape it.

Anyway, I picked up that magazine and I just flicked through the article, and one thing jumped out at it me, and it said: “Statistically it’s proven that people who don’t live together before they get married, have longer marriages.” That’s what it said. And then they gave their interpretation, or a little bit of their commentary on that. They said: “This is because people who don’t live together before they get married, these days especially, they often don’t do so because of cultural or religious reasons, and those same cultural or religious reasons often preclude divorce as an option.”

I think there is some validity in that, but at the same time I think that is a little bit of a disempowering view to take of it. I think a more positive and empowering view of that can be understood from a principle that we find in the science of Yoga, and that is something that Krishna explains about the yogi in the second chapter of Bhagavad-gita, where He says: “sama sukha-dukham dhiram”

In this particular verse He says:

yam hi na vyatayanyete
purusa purusarsabha
samo-dukha-sukham dhiram
so’mrta vaya kalpate

That the yogi, he is “samo-sukha-duhkam dhiram” - he is equanimous. He is the same - sama means “same” - dukha-sukham - dukha means misery and sukha means happiness. He is the same in both misery and happiness. This is this universal principle. This is something that doesn’t change. The rituals might change, the society might change, but let me tell you this - this is something that doesn’t change. This is an eternal principle: If you cannot regulate attachment, you will not be able to regulate aversion - and these two things are the two sides of the same coin. Attachment and Aversion. The two functions of the mind. If you watch what your mind does as you go around - your mind is always saying: “I like that. I don’t like that. I like it. I don’t like it.” Things that you like, the mind says: “Go. Go. Get it. Get it.” The things that you don’t like the mind says: “Get away. Get away. Give it up.”

“Sankalpa Vikalpa” it is called. So the yogi has to learn to control the impulse towards attachment or engagement. Our society today glorifies the uncontrollable whirlwind romance, you know, it’s kind of like: “I was just swept off my feet. I just couldn’t help myself. I just had to get up on the couch and jump up and down. I was madly in love.” That’s kind of celebrated - you know?

But there is another saying: “Easy come, easy go”. If he can’t control his mind on the way in, he’s not going to be able to control his mind on the way out - and wherever there is attachment or attraction there will always be aversion, that will always come. That is the nature of this world. Whenever there is some attraction, some desire, some attachment - there will always come a time where there will be aversion, there will be repulsion. So if we can’t regulate ourselves and control ourselves when the attachment comes, then we certainly won’t be able to control ourselves when the aversion comes. If we can’t control ourselves when kama, or lust, comes, then we won’t be able to control ourselves when krodha, or anger, comes.

So I think that persons who, for whatever reason - because of their own realization, their own control, their own understanding, or even by social tradition - if they can control, if they can learn to control on the outset - then when the difficult times come, and the mind starts pushing them to come apart, they will also find it a lot easier to control that. And then if they also have the understanding that “it’s not just about us and what we think and what we feel”, but “we have a duty to all these people around us, to the whole society, to the whole community” then that commitment that they are making now to all of us, that commitment will push them together. It will help to hold them together. So by doing it in this way they get the support of the whole community, behind them, to help them in their endeavour, together, to serve - to serve the community.

So that is something about the concept behind this engagement ceremony that we are doing tonight. As I said there is no formal ritualistic ceremony for this in the ancient Vedic tradition, so we are creating one as we go, because the Vedic culture is always relevant to our situation.

So it is very simple what we have planned for tonight. We have the garlands for them? And there are some flowers for puspanjali? So we have some flowers - and we are going to hand these flowers around. Last night we were hearing something about the demigods showering flowers? It is very auspicious.

So they are going to exchange garlands, and there is also a ring, which is a sign of commitment in the West.

Anything that is done beginning with the syllable OM is said to be permanent and binding, so we will chant the Guru Pranam mantra, then you can exchange the garlands and give the ring, and we’ll all throw the flowers.

Hari!
Om ajnana timirandhasya
jnananjana salakaya
caksur un militam yena
tasmai sri gurave namah

Esa puspanjali!

If you read the transcripts, or listen to the Contemporary Urban Preaching Seminars by His Holiness Devamrita Swami, you may fall under the misconception that the information contained in those seminars simply fell from the sky fully formed, or was revealed in a mystical revelation. Of course, the information was revealed in a mystical revelation, but it was done in a process that took some time.

I know because I was there for a reasonable portion of that time and saw it happen. We didn’t work out of a play book, following the numbers. You may have heard of famous discoveries that were made by accident - a scientist is doing one thing and she puts one of her failed experiments to the side. A week later she notices something happening with that experiment and makes a discovery completely unrelated to the original experiment. Well, a lot of things were like that. We did things using our intelligence to the max, thinking about how to do things, what the effects were, and observing the situation, and being open to Krishna’s hand. In this way a lot of things developed organically.

I think understanding that this is the process is important. If you listen to the CUP seminars and get the idea that it is a playbook that you can copy 1,2,3… you may not have much success. Every situation is different. The environmental conditions are different, the people are different, your team is different. So you have to adopt the same process that was used to develop successful Loft centers in other places, rather than simply imitating them. This is why I have a strong desire to make a presentation of the CUP seminars interweaved with the stories behind the observations and developments. This will help to communicate the essential conceptual orientation and approach that is needed. Implementation of principles is what is needed, not imitation of practices.

Now, on to the latest discoveries. I’m just going to set up the situation in this post, then talk about the response in the next one.

We were quite surprised with how things went in Brisbane.

When the Loft in Newmarket was opened, and later on the Loft in Wellington, now Gaura Yoga, we had a reasonable capitalization, and were able to fund the construction and outfitting of a facility.

In Brisbane we started with what we had in our pockets after we got back from three years in South America, which wasn’t a whole lot.

Point 1: Don’t wait to get money to preach.

Using a bit of the good old Aussie ingenuity we cobbled together whatever we could. We extended into renting a small space next to Govindas, which entailed exposing ourselves to risk, and also meant a significant commitment of our resources to preaching. Call it a sacrifice if you will.

Point 2: No risk, no reward. Sacrifice is the secret sauce.

One of the things that we learned from starting out this way is that the active ingredients of the whole operation are independent of the money. As one preacher in a megachurch in the States put it: “Hey, we can spend thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars on our productions, but people can go around the corner and experience something that was produced in Hollywood for hundreds of millions of dollars. We have to be offering people something substantially different from, and better than that.”

We opened a place that had a terrible decor. We put in a heck of a lot of effort to make it look as good as we could, and people responded to the spirit of that. Professional, slickly produced productions don’t connect with the heart as much as authentic, “real” ones do. Because we put our heart into making the place it was heartfelt.

We didn’t have any money for tables, so we borrowed some rickety old ones from the shed out the back of the temple, propped them up with cardboard to stabilize them, and draped clothes over them.

A few people would come for a yoga class, and we would all sit together afterwards with the tables joined together and chat over dinner. We didn’t have a bain marie or anything like that. Acyuta and Channell would cook and would bring in the plates already served to give to the guests. We would leave a pitcher of drink on the table, and we would serve ourselves and each other.

As more people began to come the table started to fill up. There were three or four tables joined together into a long table, seating 10 or 12 people. Soon we had to start bringing in extra tables and chairs from the restaurant. We would have to do this after the class, because there was no room for them during the class. One of us would start bringing them in, and guests would spring in and help us out. It was taking Acyuta and Channell so long to bring plates over that guests started pitching in and carrying the plates over.

We thought to ourselves: “We need to get a bigger place.”

There were a number of limitations that we were facing with that facility. There was nowhere to hold discussions. Every Friday we would carry couches out of the small storage room and convert the yoga space into a discussion lounge. With poor lighting, bad ventilation and a huge empty space surrounding it, the discussion lounge was hardly ideal. Carrying the couches in and out every week was a lot of work as well, and we felt that with all that effort we were not able to create a nice atmosphere. Speakers would have to deal with the clashing of dishes from the Govinda’s restaurant kitchen as we couldn’t close the door because of the heat. The vast space swallowed up the voices of people trying to discuss.

We went to New Zealand to the Taupo Retreat, and spent some time at the Auckland Loft. We were all sitting around in the discussion room there when we suddenly said: “Hey, have you seen anyone sitting around like this at the Loft in Brisbane?” “No way! That place is terrible”

Lunch time yoga classes could not take off. During the day the heat was unbearable inside with no air conditioning or windows. The door had to be left open, which meant you had foot traffic walking past in the corridor, which was very distracting. We felt that without the soothing influence of night time’s low lighting and the presence of a number of people, combined with dinner, it just wasn’t attractive for people.

All of these factors lead us to the inexorable conclusion: We needed to get another space.

And so we did.

to be continued…

OK, with that last post on top of the other recent ones I’m coming close to violating my own editorial policy, which I sum up with the mantra:

We don’t care what you think, we want to know what you do.*

So the next while I’ll be dishing out the dirt focusing more on what I’m actually doing. There will be posts on the recent visit of the newest convert to drink the Atma Yoga koolaid , posts about the mistakes we have made at Atma Yoga and unexpected discoveries that have come about as a result (that’s got you interested hasn’t it…), posts about Brisbane temple’s “Operation Janmastami”, news about Mukunda and Carana Renu’s arrival and presence in Brisbane, and other things which keep me accountable for what I do with the time and energy that have been allocated to me.

(*Of course we do care what you think, but we’d like to know what you do in order to get the context. As the saying goes, first acar, then pracar. I use it personally to try to stay on point.)

Our ashram has multiplied and we now span two houses in Red Hill. The second house is in Argyle St, 459 metres away from our original facility, according to whereis.com.au.

There are currently 15 residents across these two ashrams. Argyle St is all ladies, and Red Hill is our “landing pad” facility.

We preannounced the ashram initiative on the 22nd of April, and signed off on the 2nd of May.

Last night we held our Saturday Summit, where the residents of both facilities convene to reflect and share their victories and challenges of the past week, and to take part in our weekly Leadership Development sessions. This week we covered Commitment - the thing that carries you through to completion after the initial enthusiasm that inspired you to start has long gone.

John Maxwell talks about the “Edison Method” - Thomas Edison would call a press conference to announce a wonderful new product, then he would go into his lab and invent it. Preannouncing helps to develop commitment. When your plans are public the pressure is on to deliver.

During the construction of Atma Yoga we hit a point where the majority of the team were adamant that we needed to delay the opening by one week. After all the effort that we had put in, pushing ourselves to our limits, and even after all the miraculous occurrences, they realized that it wasn’t going to be possible to finish in time. However, I was just as adamant that we were going to open on that date.

“I’ve publicly committed to March 11th as the opening date - internationally. I am not going back out there to tell people that we have failed. We must succeed.”

It was a miracle, and we opened.

Oftentimes we commit to something, but then later on, disillusioned, or rather overcome with illusion, we give it up. The force of the material nature overcomes us and we lose sight of the guiding star that inspired us to strike out in the first place. In the darkness of this night we lose hope, and can sometimes give up - “whimsically renouncing”.

This is why public vows are important. The vows of initiation before the spiritual master and the sacred fire - the vows of marriage. It doesn’t matter how you feel later on - you made a vow - now go through with it.

These public vows help to overcome the vagaries of the mind, to become immunized to a certain extent from the deception of circumstances and “how you feel right now”. Your feelings are unreliable. After weeks of work and little sleep we were all depressed and exhausted. But a vow had been made, and it would be completed. In marriage, in study, in any undertaking, at some point your inspiration will waver. As Maxwell explains, our commitment is tested when things take longer than anticipated, and when they are more difficult than anticipated. Having made a public commitment then helps us to stay on track.

Commitment is an important quality to have as a leader. As you preannounce and consistently deliver, your credibility increases. If you preannounce and fail, similarly your credibility diminishes. After a few of those, you either disqualify yourself completely as a leader, or you learn valuable lessons about realistically gauging your own abilities and limitations (which includes those of your team), and the measure of the environment.

As Sun Tzu puts it in his Art of War: “Know yourself, know your enemy, and you will not know defeat in 100 battles.”

Canakya Pandit says that unrealized plans should be shared with a few only. That’s one point of view. I personally find myself inspired by Arjuna’s example. On the battlefield he publicly vowed: “Tomorrow I will kill Jayadratha or I will enter into the fire!” Of course, his brother Yudhisthira had something to say about Arjuna’s impetuousness - “Why didn’t you just decide to do it, without saying anything! Now they will do everything they can to stop you!”

In spite of all their attempts to stop him, however, Arjuna came through with the goods. Word.

This week I haven’t made it to any of my yoga teacher training classes so far. I’m living a “triple life” at the moment. Before I was leading a double life - now it’s a triple life. Any small thing that comes up right now is a major issue. I can’t sustain this pace for much longer. It’s challenging, and it’s calling me to rise to another level, and I hope it ends soon.

I have a 40 hour a week job. We have 14 people in the ashram, each requiring time to listen to, time to consider their needs and how to serve them, and time to counsel and advise. We have Atma Yoga, and I have the yoga teacher training course with 14 hours a week of classes. At present I’m unable to create excellence in any of these areas - I simply stumble along faultily, begging for forgiveness on all fronts, and praying to be released soon.

In the meantime, I have been getting some small realizations from the activities that I’m engaged in. I know that there are many people out there for whom these will be no revelation, especially those persons who go out each day to talk to people on the streets and go door to door to share Krishna Consciousness, but it represents what I’ve been made conscious of recently.

Knowing is not a substitute for doing, or being.

What we know is only as valuable as it informs our actions, which are the real testimony of our character.

Study of the Vedic philosophy, explained Srila Prabhupada, is not meant for “armchair speculation”, but for formation of character.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of knowing instead of doing, knowing instead of being, especially when we’re surrounded by other people who are doing the same. However, we have to vigorously resist this.

John Maxwell said that “people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care”.

It’s a fact - mere undigested knowledge that hasn’t been assimilated into something that contributes to our character is useless. People do not care so much about what we know, as they do about what we are. People judge us on what we are. What we know is only useful as much as it contributes to that. The process of bhakti yoga is not an informational one, it’s a transformational one. Philosophy and knowledge are abstract constructs that should serve to provide us with a framework for our practice, and that practice should change our heart.

You get a very real sense of this when you move among people who do not share your values or your world view. They do not appreciate how many slokas you have memorized. They don’t care about your Bhakti Sastri degree. They don’t care about all the things that raise your social status amongst other adherents of your faith.

These people will measure you on more basic things. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been a devotee, how many slokas you know, how much you’ve read, how well you play harmonium or mrdanga, whether you know all the secret handshakes and the lingo. If you haven’t developed humility, tolerance, compassion, empathy, sensitivity, generosity, patience, selflessness, and all the other good qualities that should be developing from the practice of bhakti-yoga, then you can’t bluff it - because your character is all they can judge you on.

Staying within the walls of a small association of persons who share the same worldview it can be easy to “find your place” and once again restructure on the basis of unspoken social norms. “I won’t rock your boat, if you don’t rock mine”. We fall into an uneasy truce. The outer trappings of the tradition begin to eclipse the inner products of the practice.

In a situation where people do not accept your history, your scriptural arguments or anything else that you might proffer, the only testimony left is your personal character.

What you are speaks so loudly because I can’t understand anything that you’re saying.

When Srila Prabhupada came to the West no-one knew who he was. No-one knew what a Bhaktivedanta was, or what a spiritual master was. People interacted with him one-on-one as a person and took him at face value, and they were attracted to him, attracted by what he was, by his personality.

Now with an institution and a building and a structure of social norms and traditions it can be easier to hide behind “things”. Knowing instead of doing. Knowing instead of being.

Can we recognise the truth when it is spoken to us in different words? Is it truth that we recognise, or simply the words used to describe it? Do we possess truth, are we connected with truth - or simply with words? Have we accepted knowing over doing, knowing over being? Are we satisfied to “possess the highest truth”, to have the answers and know them theoretically, or at least as much as they can be known theoretically, rather than actually put them into practice and know the highest truth in a deeply experiential way that transcends description - the pratyakshavagamam dharmyam, the principle of religion understood through direct experience described by Krishna as the perfection of religion?

Can we communicate truth to people in their language, or do they have to learn ours? Can we meet them where they are at, or must they come to where we are? Is the truth portable - does it come with us when we move, or must we be close to the forms?

When our theoretical knowledge greatly exceeds our practical application we end up in a dangerous situation. Knowing instead of doing, knowing instead of being. We accept lip service to doctrine as a sign of actual progress, and can even fall to valuing doctrinal purity over personal purity. “What you believe” is more important than what you do (which is a product of what you are).

Knowing can never be a substitute for doing, and thence for becoming, and ultimately for being. We have to internalize the knowledge - practice as we preach, learn everything, then forget it as we become it, and come back to it with a renewed vision.

Getting out with the people is good, because it helps to test this. They don’t care what you know - they care what you are.

Today I did three and a half yoga classes - five hours in total.

Usually Monday morning is a wipe out after the Sunday Feast. Now with the Yoga Teachers Training Course that we are on we have to be at the yoga studio at 6 am for a two hour led practice session.

Last night I got to sleep after midnight, then got up at 5 am, showered, chanted 7 rounds, and went to the studio. Two hours later I was feeling great, after an hour of pranayama and 45 minutes of asana.

I came home and took breakfast, then chatted with various Atma Yoga staff members about the program, then Param, Prahlad, and I went over to the temple. Our god sister Carana Renu is arriving in Brisbane tomorrow. She has a Ph.D in astrophysics, and will be doing some programs at the university. We went over to the temple to prepare a room for her to stay in.

Param stayed and did that, and Prahlad and I went to visit the lawyer to sign some documents and pick up his bill. I tell you - if I had known that it would require $40,000 just to open Atma Yoga, I would never have taken the first step. Reason - not because I have too little money, but because I have too little faith. Amazing how Krishna can use you as an instrument even when you are so disqualified. And you know I didn’t have $40k up my sleeve, so as they say: “With a little help from my friends”.

Then I made it to Elliot’s Hatha Yoga class at Atma Yoga at 1.30pm. It was a Gentle Hatha ™ class, as only myself, Rasika, and Jody were there. All four of us were at the mega kirtans at the temple on Saturday night and at the Sunday Feast last night so we were wiped.

Afterwards I conked out in Shavasana and stayed on the floor for the next hour and a half until 4 pm. Then I went back to the ashram, chanted my rounds, helped Zoe jump start her car, and rode my bike back in to catch the last half of Mantra’s Slow Deep Stretch ™ class, and catch Channell’s 90 minutes of Atma Power ™.

The classes were low in attendance today. Tomorrow’s a public holiday, so people are chilling in their cribs, I’d imagine. It’s been a pretty yoga intensive day. Oh yeah, I didn’t have to go in to my day job today, so I maxed out the yoga practice.

Updated the Atma Yoga website with our Winter timetable. Organizing that has been taking a lot of time and energy.

5 of us started the Yoga teacher training course this morning at 6 am.

Latest Fedora Reloaded Podcast clocked over 1000 downloads from our site, and was picked up by Red Hat Magazine. I’m going to do a KC one in the same style post haste.

Still very busy. More news later…