This excerpt is from my Vyasa Puja offering made last year. It recalls that Srila Prabhupada’s guru saw him as – among many other things – a talented writer: “In fact, according to your official biography, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta saw this as proof that you knew the mind of your master. You were in ecstasy when you heard this. Your gurudeva showed this couplet to many guests and ordered that whatever you wrote should be published in his journal, the Harmonist.” This is the phrase (couplet):

Absolute is sentient,
Thou hast proved,
Impersonal calamity
Thou hast moved.

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, Srila Prabhupada’s spiritual master, sometimes referred to modern society as “The cheaters and the cheated.” For a recent publication several prominent intellectuals were asked if we were being lied to, by whom and why. Many answered that the biggest lie is the one we tell ourselves. We tell ourselves, they argued, the we’re not being lied to; advertising is done only to increase consumer discrimination and information, politicians’ primary wish is the welfare of the citizens, psychiatrists’ fundamental desire is to improve the quality of life, scientists’ aim is only better living standards, world trade is necessary for the good life, and that wholesomeness and human happiness can be measured in terms of wealth, education, aristocracy and physical beauty.

On many occasions Srila Prabhupada said that the word could easily feed its present population, even if it were ten times larger. For example: “My Guru Maharaja used to say that ‘I don’t find any scarcity within this world, except Krsna consciousness.’ There is no scarcity all over the world. In India there may be scarcity, but outside India still there are so much vacant places, especially in Africa, in America, in Australia, in New Zealand, that ten times of the population of the whole world can be fed. Still. There is so much potency of producing food grains, milk, and other things. Profusely. In America, they throw away so many grains and vegetables daily. It is simply mismanagement. Otherwise, there is no question of scarcity or poverty. There is no question. It is simply propaganda. Because they cannot manage, the foolish people, they present the population has increased and the foodstuff is not properly supplied.” (21 October, 1962, Vrndavana, India).

In several Gita verses the Lord mentions wind [vayuh]. Even though He describes it as “mighty” [mahan], He also says that He is the wind [10.31]. So even though wind is one of the key elements of creation, and one of the most powerful, it too is dependent on Him, because He IS the wind.

Fox Television Network’s half hour documentary, “Did We Land On the Moon?” was broadcast in the United States twice last year during prime time, and was broadcast in non-US countries as well. The film uses systematic analysis of NASA videos and photos, and testimony from insiders and other experts, to purport that the moon landing was hoaxed. It’s a powerfully edited and persuasive production and has special appeal to those who are convinced human beings did not land on the moon, as Srila Prabhupada told us many times.

(The following article was posted in the “Meditations” column of the Hindustan Times, one of India’s largest English language daily newspapers, on 26 June 2004.) GEORGE BERNARD Shaw wrote to Gandhi on the Mahatma’s 76th birthday. In the letter, Shaw congratulated him and wished it was the politician’s 35th, and not the 76th birth anniversary. A laudable desire. Today, leaders of nations develop fearful weapons that can accelerate the process of death. But none can create eternal life. By the time you’ve read this article, thousands will have died. Throughout modern history, great men, the likes of Gandhi and Shaw, have been unable to solve the problem of death. Despite decades of scientific research, the world’s death rate remains at 100 percent. Sounds dismal? On the contrary, we need look no further than our own Bhagavad Gita to find that death is not the end. Therein we read that all planets are destructible, but one who attains God has no more to be born (8.16). In other words. there is neither death nor rebirth in the spiritual world. Although prominent leaders have read the Gita, few have researched it carefully enough to understand that death is a passing phase, a transition, a dormant period awaiting another existence. The starkness of this truth has evaded most prominent philosophers. There have been a few exceptions in modern times. One was the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who observed, “Were an Asiatic to ask me for a definition of Europe, I should be forced to answer him: ‘It is that part of the world which is haunted by the incredible delusion that man was created out of nothing and that his present birth is his first entrance into life'”. Death, that mysterious, relentless, and inevitable adversary, does not signal the end of life. Dying is our transit to the next dimension. Better to be prepared, than arrive in a state of shock. (The writer is emeritus member of the ISKCON governing body commission.)

Many English words beginning with “gl,” such as glitter, glare, glassy, glimmer, and glisten refer to bright, shiny and smooth things. So when Srila Prabhupada described Krsna’s complexion like that of a “fresh rain cloud” (clouds being wet) this added yet another dimension of moist, shimmering smoothness to an already beautiful and inexpressible blue-black skin color.

“Just like sometimes we take pleasure in a swimming pool, lie down and closing our eyes. Who expert swimmer, they’re lying down. Why it is not possible for the Supreme Lord? What is the difficulty? Sukhanubhavah. We take that pastime for pleasure, for pleasure, lying down on the water, closing eyes. So when we speak, The Garbhodakasayi Visnu lying down in the Causal Ocean,' these rascals, fools, they sometimes criticize,And how it is possible?’ How it is not possible? If a ordinary man can take pleasure lying down on the water, closing and lying for hours-we have seen it-so what is the difficulty for the Supreme Lord? You have got this tendency to lie down on water, half on the water, and close your eyes. So where your tendency has come? Your tendency has come because the same tendency is there in the Supreme Lord. This is the explanation.” (Extract from a Mayapur lecture on March 10, 1976)

(This article was posted in the ?Meditations? column of the Hindustan Times on 23 November 2002.) THERE IS no entirely ?free act.? Everything we do is conditioned by circumstances before and after birth: culture, education, genetic make-up and karmic laws. True or false? The term baddha or ?bound-up? echoes throughout Vedic literature. It?s often seen in conjunction with nitya, and frequently refers to eternally illusioned or ?conditioned? souls. But what is this ?conditioning? and what is a ?conditioned soul?? Something enables us to enjoy many things, including life itself. But perhaps there is something unusual or wrong with this enjoyment. If so, what is it? Is there something so subtle, so undetectable, so invisibly below the ping of consciousness, that we cannot perceive its existence? Let?s call it conditioning. For example, if we look at hair conditioning and air conditioning carefully we see that no matter how hair or air is treated, the molecules and atoms- remain unchanged. Altered like this, however, the substances become un-fresh, abnormal and unnatural. They seem quite different. Here?s the rub. The soul is by nature pure, blissful, unchangeable, and eternal, or so the Gita would have it (2.20). So how can the pure soul be affected by impure material nature? If the soul is essentially untainted, how can a worldly atmosphere recast it? As soon as a soul is ?embodied,? it becomes attached to its surroundings, particularly the body it inhabits. For this reason, dogs bark, cats meow, and cows moo. Human beings crave fighting, loving, the arts, eating, sex, drugs, children, wealth, and intellectual prowess. But mostly we work hard to gratify our senses. In today?s world where wants are defined as needs, and needs become ?rights,? the right to have what you want can be addictive. So only accepting what we really need requires discrimination and steady awareness of another dimension. Shastras and great sages posit that ?happier? universes become more real, more enjoyable as we become more abstemious. Though not inversely proportional to material enjoyment, spiritual bliss embraces a certain degree of renunciation. So, how can we be ?in the world? but not ?of it?? Voluntary austerity is not as horrendous as it sounds. We practice it every day by avoiding gluttony, drunkenness, sexual surfeit, and every other kind of excess. Meditation fine-tunes us beyond passion, beyond peace, to joyous association with the soul. Meditation can become our lifework. The writer is emeritus member of the ISKCON Governing Body Commission

Another example of Srila Prabhupada using idiomatic English appears in a purport to the Srimad Bhagavatam, Twenty-fifth Chapter, Text 5, where he writes, “It can be concluded that one cannot become happy by simply performing pious activities. It is not a fact that those who are born with a silver spoon in their mouth are free from the material miseries of birth, old age, disease and death.”