The Glories of Melbourne Mahaprabhu Mandir

Word - Vraj, Prahlad and I are back from kickin’ it old school at the Melbourne Mahaprabhu Mandir during a lightning 24 hour visit.

Our god brother Gopal Guru and his good wife Krishna Murari are now happily married and moved into their little cottage next to the temple. It was a wonderfully lavish ceremony followed by a delightful reception where soma rasa du jour - Bundaberg Ginger Beer - flowed like water (there were mystical bottomless jugs of it on each table).

Let me get some photos up later today.

It was great to visit Melbourne Mahaprabhu Mandir, although briefly this time round. Now that I know where it is and how to get there, I’ll be back.

I got to see (ever so briefly) so many old associates from NZ-preaching days there, as well as meeting a lot of new friends such as Bhagavat-katha, Krishna Graja, Kotesvara, Vikash, Vijay, Divya-jnana, and a lot of others.

I would say that in terms of temples Mahaprabhu Mandir is currently the leading light of ISKCON in Australia. Actually the temple reminded me so much of ISKCON’s Western Headquarters, New Dwaraka in Los Angeles. It is a fully functioning old school model temple, an extreme rarity today.

In the Contemporary Urban Preaching Seminars His Holiness Devamrita Swami makes the comment: “Today if a temple manager can pay the bills and minimally serve an expatriate Indian congregation, they are considered to be successful.”

I would like to add my purport to that: ‘sa mahatma sudurlabhah” - “Such a great soul is very rare”.

I’d also like to add that the congregation in Melbourne is being more than minimally served. The facility afforded for developing Krishna Consciousness to those persons who are fortunate enough to understand its value there in Melbourne is significant, with sastric (scriptural) education, retreats, festivals, and a solid temple program.

Here are a few of the highlights of the opulence of this temple:

• Six pujaris on the altar in the morning - three at 4.30 am, a different three at 7.00 am
• 30 + people in mangal-arati
• Silver arati paraphenalia
• Intercom system connecting the entire complex
• Wireless SM58 mic in use everywhere
• K&M mic stand
• Fully stocked temple shop with reasonable pricing structure
• Massive community
• Support for all ashrams - places for unmarried young people to stay, for married couples engaged in service, and for sannyasis
• Financial maintenance based on distribution of prasadam

The temple costs around $15,000 per week to maintain, and this money is collected through the two restaurants that the temple operates in the city. That’s a very pure, upright, and honest economic arrrangement.

The K&M mic stand is a high quality German manufactured microphone stand. That detail communicates a lot.

I’ve been to a number of temples in nine different countries, and in that sampling I’ve only seen three temples based on this model that are actually functioning. Those are New Dwaraka in Los Angeles (TP: Svavasa dasa), ISKCON Santiago in Chile (TP: Adi-kesava dasa), and Mahaprabhu Mandir in Melbourne (TP: Aniruddha dasa).

If you haven’t seen so many temples it might be difficult to appreciate the situation there, but to do service in an environment with so much community and social support is something rarely obtained in today’s world, and something that should be highly valued.

It’s a great testament to both His Grace Aniruddha prabhu and his hard-working wife Her Grace Acintya Rupa devi dasi the rock solid stability that they have been able to create there to give shelter to so many people.

This was the second wedding where our paths have intersected, as people that we have previously cultivated through our urban outreach programs have gone on to serve at Mahaprabhu Mandir, and then gone on to make the transition to married life in Krishna Consciousness. I’m sure there will be many more.

Everywhere I go I’m always looking for inspiration. Anyone who saw me there would realize that Atma Yoga in Brisbane owes a lot to the opening of the Lotus Room in Sydney in December of this year. I also picked up a lot of inspiration while in Melbourne, even though it was only for 24 hours. Here’s one thing immediately:

Aniruddha and Acintya Rupa have been married for 25 years. Param Satya and I have been married for 8 years this month. In the past year I’ve been to two of my god brothers’ weddings, both of them with Aniruddha and Acintya Rupa present. Getting married is one of life’s transitions, and I now realize that we are going to have to track people through these transitions as we “do life” together. It’s part of taking responsibility for contributing to people’s experience of life and building authentic community.

Both of these marriages have caught us on the back foot, not because they weren’t communicated with sufficient notice, but because of the way we’ve structured our program. We haven’t allocated time or resources to tracking people through these life changes - being there to provide support. Now I’ve gotten the realization of how important this is. For every person that we accept in our house, we have to make allowances for being there through these changes in the future. The commitment doesn’t end after a few years. It goes all the way.

Anyway, I’m pretty thick, but after seeing it twice I get the idea, and for the next one we’ll be properly situated.

Melbourne Mahaprabhu Mandir ki jaya!

All glories to the devotees doing service there. Your austerity and sacrifice is creating a shining example for Australia and for the world. Keep up the good work. We’re relying on you.

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.

I read an interesting article the other day by Krishna-kirti das on the subject of polygamy. In this article he uses a growing debate about accepted norms of marriage in the Western world to examine the Vedic culture’s internal conception of marriage.

A while ago one reader left a comment on my blog and I followed it back to her blog. There is an article there with links to further articles on polygamy, including some expositions of interesting implications.

The Vedic Conception of marriage is an important cultural element.

Last night at the LCA 2006 conference dinner I explained the four regulative principles that Hare Krishnas follow to my friend Kirby from Sydney. They are no meat-eating, no intoxication, no gambling, and no illicit sex.

In explaining “no illicit sex” I put it like this:

What we are into is reintegrating the whole natural process and function of sex. Instead of trying to divorce the responsibility and consequences from the act of sex and the pleasure of it, we make it holistic. First of all there is the creation of a stable social and economic situation and environment for dealing with the natural products of sex life (children), in the form of a formal lifelong commitment (marriage). Then we have sex life and let nature take its course. Children are born, and they have a stable situation to grow up to be healthy and happy people.

Marriage is not about you - it’s about the children. When we keep that understanding, that marriage is a service to the children who will be produced, and a service to society, then things go on nicely. When we start thinking that marriage is about our individual pleasure, and focusing on me, me, me, then the problems start, and society unravels.

I’m jumping the gun here and pre-emptying what I am sure will be a comment from Shiva or someone else on my earlier article about Preaching in the Post-Gay-Marriage World.

I said: “Any type of monogamy devoid of celibacy is useless.”

By the term “any type” I am referring to hetero or homosexual. When I say “devoid of celibacy”, I mean devoid of the intent to cultivate the type of spiritual consciousness that results naturally in celibacy. Celibacy is defined as abstinence from any sexual activity which is divorced from its natural function, the natural function of sexual activity being the reproduction of children who are to be cared for, loved, and raised as wholesome, spiritually aware persons.

Monogamy without celibacy is good if it represents a transitory stage from unregulated sex life towards celibacy.

If a monogamous couple come to the center they can be encouraged to cultivate positive spiritual engagement and to naturally and consequently experience the joys of celibacy. Celibacy is very good for your relationship. Once we stop engaging in mutual sexual exploitation for sense gratification a dark cloud lifts off us and we can start to have a real, healthy relationships with mutual respect and real caring.

In material life there are two emotional states - hankering and lamenting. There is also a point where the coin falls on its side, where there is temporary neutralization. However, the coin falls down again on one side or the other.

So we will either be hankering or lamenting. The modern program of unrestricted sex life is not keeping marriages together. It simply ends in lamentation: “You’re not the one for me”. Artificial celibacy and uncontrollable hankering won’t do it either. Only positive spiritual cultivation that leads to the termination of identification with the body and its gratification and a natural, healthy respect for one another’s true identities holds any promise. Why not give it a try? Going by the statistics and everyone’s personal experience, we’ve got nothing to lose.

In the case of non-monogamous persons, they can be encouraged to undertake the process, and then it will gradually become clear whether they are suited for a formally renounced, completely celibate lifestyle (very, very few will be), or whether they are suited for monogamous celibacy with the ability to channel and connect their propensities with the spiritual process through the service of procreation.

In the latter case it is most beneficial to pass through some time of training in self-control and the systematic and conscious acceptance of austerities, in order to experience first hand the different results that come from taking that option in a given situation. We all already have experience of the results of gratification and indulgence.

Yesterday while Prahlad and I were waiting around in Govindas before going to the Loft a lady approached us and began conversing. She sat down at the table and asked about my son, making many compliments about him.

After some time she began to reveal her situation to me. Less than a year ago she had been deserted by her husband of more than 10 years for another woman. 40% of all marriages in Australia end in divorce. She was very, very hurt by what had happened.

She was especially hurt because she said that they were happy together (the husband and the other woman).

She said that her husband left her because he said that she was “immature”.

My take on this is that it was his responsibility to make a proper decision at the beginning. What is the saying…? “Marry at haste, repent at leisure.”

That’s no longer applicable. As Britney Spears modelled, you can marry at haste and repent the next day in the new millenium.

But really, it is the responsibility of the parties to marriage to make sure, to the best of their abilities, that they are marrying the “right person”. Then once they are married they have a responsibility to make it work. It may be 70% preparation (making sure that you marry the “right person”) and 30% hard work, or 30% preparation and 70% hard work. With a commitment from both parties to the relationship it can be made to work.

However, with the modern culture of divorce, it is amazing how often people “discover they have married the wrong person”. Especially when someone else comes along.

For all its faults, the culture of no divorce forces people to commit and be accountable for their relationship. Today’s society encourages people to be unaccountable for their relationship and relinquish ownership. Before, you had to make it work. You had to work. Of course some people didn’t, and some people suffered, and some were abused. But by and large women did not have to worry about being abandoned as much as they do now.

Now here’s a twist. This lady told me: “It’s not right that the man should leave the woman. Usually the woman leaves the man.”

Now when she was saying this, my mind went back to this article that I blogged a week or so back. Doh! Archived! I should have lifted the text.

Anyway, I remember the important parts. 40% of Australian marriages end in divorce, and in 55% of cases the man is surprised, rating the relationship as up to 8 out of 10, right up to the last minute. In only 38% of cases is the woman surprised.

So it seems that she is right. Women are doing a lot of the dumping.

Here is the first in the post-Gay-Marriage series, projecting strategic direction in preaching over the next twenty years.

Gay Marriage is a Given

The question of whether ISKCON should recognise Gay marriage is moot. Either we face up to reality or not. We are not about to institute Gay marriage, but it is about to appear on the scene nevertheless. (ref: The Inevitability of Gay Marriage) Wasting time on this point is like debating about “whether women should be independent or not”. They are. Deal with it.

Focus on the Right Issue

Gay Marriage - right or wrong, good or bad?

Who cares. It’s here. Formulate a strategic response.

The number of openly gay people is increasing all the time. I don’t have statistics at my finger tips on this one [1], but the success of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is both an indicator and an impulsor. My own observation of the crowd on the street on Harinam every Friday also indicates a growing number of openly gay people. What are we going to do about this change in our customer demographic?

Gay people make up an increasing percentage of the population. Married gay couples are going to make up an increasing percentage of the population over the next twenty years, as countries successively allow Gay Marriages. We need a strategy to serve them. They will come to us in this situation. We can “forbid Gay marriage within ISKCON” or whatever we like, but we are here to serve the people of this world, and we must know the present need of human society.

Studying the words of Srila Prabhupada’s private conversations with disciples is vital in forming our own internal conceptual orientation as preachers. Guru mukha padma-vakya, cittete koriya aikya. However, the appropriateness of using these as the public presentation of our position or understanding is open to question. These were conversations with specific people in specific circumstances, and were not necessarily conceived of by His Divine Grace as something that would be paraded out verbatim for the public, especially in the form of “de-contextualized compendiums”. We can at least be sure that everything that was written in the books is for general public consumption.

The effectiveness of “cut-and-paste condemnation” as a preaching strategy is also questionable. I don’t spend all my time telling my son that I know better than him, and that he is less intelligent. I know that, and I act on it in such a way as to provide care and protection for him. I don’t beat him over the head with it.

Completely Rejecting Monogamy as Kaitava-dharma

The initial proposal by some forward-thinking preachers is the idea of “Gay Monogamy”.

Monogamy is not an absolute principle. Polygamy is also an acceptable social arrangement, so there is nothing special about monogamy. Just as we reject vegetarianism as “nothing special” (even rabbits are vegetarian), we reject monogamy as an end unto itself. See Srila Prabhupada’s purport to Srimad Bhagavatam 4.26.6 in this regard.

Prescribing Monogamy therefore is like prescribing vegetarianism. Vegetarianism is still sinful, although less sinful than meat eating. Prabhupada in his strategic approach did not promote vegetarianism - he promoted the eating of Krishna prasadam. In fact he rejected vegetarianism whenever it was presented to him by guests.

Opponents of the Gay Monogamy idea, even while correctly identifying the flaw in the strategy, often fall short because they do not similarly reject the idea of Heterosexual Monogamy. We reject not only Gay Monogamy, but also Heterosexual Monogamy. Many heterosexuals accept Heterosexual Monogamy as a carte blanche for their sense gratification and deny the same sanction to homosexuals. Homosexuals understandably demand the same validation of their sense gratification that the heterosexuals have. We roundly condemn both as the manifestation of the same bogus mentality - sense gratification.

When we do not do this, we end up looking just like all the other heterosexuals - attached to our sense gratification and denying it to others. We may actually personally be like that or not, but that’s not the philosophy. We are not aligned with any group of sense gratifiers, either the so-called left-wing liberals or the so-called right wing conservatives.

The principle that we espouse is not Monogamy, it is Celibacy.

Gay, Straight, Whatever - You Have to be Celibate to Advance.

Brahmacarya means celibacy. To advance in spiritual life you have to be either single and celibate, or married and celibate. Any type of monogamy devoid of celibacy is useless.

Grhastas, or married persons, have a license to engage in sex activity with a purified consciousness for the purpose of procreation. They are not permitted to have unregulated, unrestricted or unlimited sense gratification. When the sexual activity is carried out to procreate good progeny (which presupposes a stable and committed socio-economic and interpersonal relationship environment as a background) then that person is called a grhasta-brahmacari, or celibate householder.

In the case of a gay couple, there is no possibility of procreation, therefore there is no license for sex life. Companionship may be there, but in order to advance in spiritual life they will have to be completely celibate.

Therefore the correct direction to guide a gay couple that comes to the preaching center is toward Gay Celibacy.

Practical Preaching 101: Sthane-sthitha sruti-gatam

jnane prayasam udapasya namanta eva
jivanti san-mukharitam bhavadiya-vartam
sthane sthitah sruti-gatam tanu-van-manobhir
ye prayaso ‘jita jito ‘py asi tais tri-lokyam

“Those who, even while remaining situated in their established social positions, throw away the process of speculative knowledge and with their body, words and mind offer all respects to descriptions of Your personality and activities, dedicating their lives to these narrations, which are vibrated by You personally and by Your pure devotees, certainly conquer Your Lordship, although You are otherwise unconquerable by anyone within the three worlds.” Srimad Bhagavatam 10.14.3

It is a waste of time trying to convince someone to act in such a way that they do not have the adhikara to understand and act on. What is necessary is to give that person sufficient sukrti.

“The embodied soul may be restricted from sense enjoyment, though the taste for sense objects remains. But, ceasing such engagements by experiencing a higher taste, he is fixed in consciousness.” Bhagavad-gita 2.59

It is not advisable to preach to even monogamous heterosexuals to artificially give up sex life within their relationship. The correct angle to emphasize is that they develop solid and healthy habits of hearing and chanting, both the maha-mantra and the sastra, in order to gain philosophical understanding and purification through association with sabda-brahma.

From this everything else will follow naturally, as Lord Brahma says in the above cited verse of Srimad Bhagavatam.

We do not attack single women with descriptions of Vedic culture and its attitude towards “Women’s Independence”, neither should we attack married homosexuals as they begin to filter in to our centers. No-one who is not celibate can be an initiated member or authority in our society, but this Krishna Consciousness movement is meant for all types of men (and women).

We are here to serve everyone.

[1] Statistics New Zealand census information has same-sex couple data for 2001, but no corresponding data for 1991.

Some people are engaged in discussing Gay marriage, whether it should happen or not. It’s a moot point. As with the American Civil War, you can waste years and hundreds of thousands of lives, but you cannot reverse the tide of history. Slavery has finished; women have the vote. Welcome to reality. The overwhelming momentum of historical forces is at work, and it will not disappear in a puff of smoke in the face of philosophical arguments.

Over the next ten years time anyone opposed to Gay marriage will increasingly be viewed like someone who opposes freedom for black people or suffrage for women.

If you go to the top of the hill and point your bicycle down toward the base again, what comes next? If you didn’t intend riding down, why go up? Once you are there, nature takes it course.

In the same way, because modern society has accepted sexual activity divorced from procreation, the logical conclusion follows:

Two people combine for mutual sex pleasure and to provide comfort and companionship for one another. There is no desire or plan to have children.

Now, please tell me:

Q: What difference does it make if those two persons are of the same sex, or of different sexes?

A: Not a sufficiently fundamental difference for making a viable case that allows mixed sex marriage and denies same-sex marriage. You threw away your own silver bullet, the biological basis argument.

That’s the logical conclusion. Gay marriage.

By accepting sex without procreation modern society has gone to the top of the hill. Now the downhill descent follows naturally. Look at the statistics. Fertility is dropping in Western nations. Single lifestyles are on the rise. It’s all about “me and my pleasure”. Family and society are irrelevant.

“The nuclear family now tends to be formed later, and is less dominated by the birth, care, and development of children. While it is still the family unit in which most children are reared, it is becoming less pre-eminent as the social unit which underpins family policies.” (Emphasis added. From a Statistics New Zealand report: “Looking past the 20th century - The big shifts now in train: Changes in society”)

While sectors of society might rail against Gay marriage, for the main they are not prepared to renounce contraception and a culture of guilt-free and responsibility-free sex. Their opposition to Gay marriage is based more on their own personal preference for a particular type of sense gratification and an attachment to tradition and the status quo, than some adherence to an absolute standard, however much they might make appeals to one. And people resent that. They recognise the hypocrisy and the oppression by one group of another that is only superficially different.

“We want what you have!” Sex without procreation. Recognition of a relationship based on that. Can’t deny it to others if you accept it yourself. That’s hypocritical - there is no moral high ground.

So it’s here. There is no debate, save a perfunctory war of words. If heterosexuals will not give up sense gratification, they cannot expect homosexuals to do so. The real debate was lost when contraception and sex without procreation was accepted.

“The increasing trend to cohabit prior to entering a registered marriage continued in 2002. Marriage data for 2002 indicated that 73% of couples cohabited prior to marriage. Comparative data from the 1991 Family Survey showed that twenty years ago only 30% of couples had lived together prior to marriage.” (source: Australian Bureau of Statistics)

What we are seeing now is the inevitable erosion of the religious principles. The heterosexuals can no longer defend religious principles because they have none. There is no difference between the heterosexuals and the homosexuals without religious principles, they are simply two groups of sense gratifiers who differ only in the details.

The only useful discussion now is how to deal with the situation going forward from here. As Lee Iacocca, former CEO of Chrysler Motors famously said: “Even the best manager is sometimes like a small boy with a big dog, waiting to see where the dog wants to go so he can take him there.”

We have to face the reality and respond accordingly (see this post: Preaching in the Post-Gay Marriage World, for a beginning discussion of this). A dispassionate environmental scan reveals the topography of the preaching field over the next two decades. “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” is in. It’s only going to increase. Welcome to the new millenium. Work out how to deal with it.

“The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: O son of Pāṇḍu, he who does not hate illumination, attachment and delusion when they are present or long for them when they disappear; who is unwavering and undisturbed through all these reactions of the material qualities, remaining neutral and transcendental, knowing that the modes alone are active; who is situated in the self and regards alike happiness and distress; who looks upon a lump of earth, a stone and a piece of gold with an equal eye; who is equal toward the desirable and the undesirable; who is steady, situated equally well in praise and blame, honor and dishonor; who treats alike both friend and enemy; and who has renounced all material activities — such a person is said to have transcended the modes of nature.” (Bhagavad-gita 14.22-25)

An article I wrote about marriage, specifically addressing the debate about homosexual marriage currently raging across the religious world, including within the Hare Krishna movement, was recently published on dipika.org.

I wrote this article a while ago, at the end of a series of articles and dialogues. It basically represents my personal conclusion and resolution on the homosexual marriage debate. The whole “conservative versus liberal” quagmire represents a distraction from the mission. Make up a strategy and get on with saving people. Don’t waste time trying to convince people that “your position” is right. Keep moving. Paraphrasing Fidel Castro: “Let History be your judge”.’

Check it out: dipika - Misconceptions of Marriage

According to the Housing Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey quoted here.

Well, there isn’t one yet, but I came across a comparison of the official positions of different major denominations, and this one looks like the best fit to me:

Lutheran (ELCA)

• Worshipers: Welcome to participate fully.

• Pastors: Requires all nonmarried ministers, regardless of sexual orientation, to be celibate.

• Same-sex unions: Has not taken a position on the blessing of same-sex committed relationships.

On the one hand it’s inclusive, and at the same time it manages to nicely sidestep the really thorny issues. Actually, I think it’s a work of brilliance, especially when you compare it with the other positions. It doesn’t condemn anyone or anything, either explicitly or implicitly, but it doesn’t let down any standards either.

Read the comparison here.

Before I begin, just let me say that some of my best friends are gay… no, not even I would dare. Let me say that some of my best friends, including my wife, are married. My son’s parents are married. Many of my workmates at Red Hat and many of my associates in the Hare Krishna movement are married. In fact, I’m married! Yes, you guessed it - we’re about to say something more about same-sex marriage.

I’ve been thinking lately about the controversy within the Hare Krishna movement on this topic, and wondering why some people within the movement consider me to be a left-leaning liberal, while others harangue me for being a fundamentalist. My tongue-in-cheek harmonization of this is that those who consider me a leftist liberal are themselves liberals in disguise, and merely try to recast my ultra-right wing ideology as liberalism in order to avoid having to adopt it themselves.
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This is a little long, but I have been thinking about how to present my thinking on this matter coherently for the last few days, and it’s a complicated matter. I’ve paged it to make it a little easier going. There are 9 (short) pages, so be sure to read ‘em all before hitting the send button. I spent quite some time thinking about and preparing this, so please do the same before sending me comments. I appreciate thoughtfulness. Although there is an argument for same-sex marriage here, it is more a consideration of the subject than any kind of advocacy. Let me reiterate my mantra: “I do think that a culture of committed, responsible relationships is far more favourable to spiritual advancement than promiscuity, of any type”. Please read that statement twice and think about what I am saying there. OK, that’s my rhetorical slogan (wouldn’t it be so more punchy if it was something like “No Gay Marriage in ISKCON!”?) - now let’s have some intelligent consideration of the matter at hand. Casting our thoughts back to the earlier piece about the relative nature of vice and virtue, let us examine the idea of marriage. What is it and what is it for?

It’s easy, and quite common, to present things in terms of a Conservative perspective and a Liberal counterpoint, or vice versa, or more commonly to present one without the other. However, both of these are static positions that represent an artificial dichotomy. Either one fails to adequately represent the entireity of a situation. Both sides of this arbitrary divide often have valid points, and people are often attracted to one or another due to their own particular situation. This is referred to in Sanskrit as atmavan manyate jagat. Each person has the tendency to view the world from their own relative perspective. This is natural.

A devotee however, does not see things from a static perspective based on their own situation. A devotee is personally neither liberal nor conservative. A devotee belongs to the Progressive party. The Progressive party is not another name for a liberalizing movement, it is the essential dynamic of a liberating movement. The Progressive party means the application of the dynamic principle famously enunciated by the great Vaisnava thought-leader Srila Rupa Goswami: “Accept that which is favorable to your spiritual advancement, and reject that which is unfavorable”.
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OK, we’ll go with the ‘controversial-sounding’ headline, but tabloid style reporting you’ll not find coming from my pen. Over at Krishna kirti’s blog, where we first learned of the official debate about same-sex marriage in ISKCON, Krishna kirti is now reporting the reponses to his scoop publication of the email that we featured a few days ago.

I personally think that it is good that he is discussing this matter and not just sweeping it under the carpet or burying his head in the sand. There is nothing wrong with discussing a topic. Information wants to be free. Everything should stand on its merits, and the merits of something should be discussed publicly. Unless a person is a pure devotee they should be prepared to engage in a process of dialogue with others in order to balance out their inebrieties. The brahminical process involves discussion between many parties with differing viewpoints in order to find out what is the essence, and what should be the application. There will not always be 100% consensus, nor should we expect there to be.

Personally I value my own opinions high enough to hold them, but I don’t embue them with the character of exclusive or even certain truth, and I am always prepared to hear and consider what others think, and respectful of others’ right to their views, even when I don’t share them myself.
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Let’s just calm down a little bit from that headline, oK? Conclusive truth can never be established by debate. However, dialogue and discussion are healthy and necessary in any organization as diverse as a society. I am very pleased to find that people within the Hare Krishna movement are beginning to engage on the subject of Gay Marriage, which is obviously a major civil and religious issue at the moment. At the end of this post I will give some pointers so you can check it out.

I have been following it for some time now, outside the Hare Krishna movement, and respect the coverage given by the Christian Science Monitor. Mainly it is a good gauge for seeing how much energy the ongoing dialogue is generating in the wider society.
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Duty is the best basis for a stable long term relationship, and marriage is, among other things, a public expression of a commitment to duty.

Stability is important for spiritual practice, as well as material happiness. No-one likes to be in a disturbed or uncertain situation. Alvin Toffler, futurologist and author of Future Shock, says: “Future shock is the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time.”
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