What is growth? The main characteristic of a living being is that it grows. But science has not spelled out the essence of this mystifying phenomenon. The behavior of growth is described, but the substance or principal has been left unexplained.

The second excellence of the first verse of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s Siksastaka is written by Bhaktivinoda Thakura as follows: “Bhava-maha-davagni-nirvapanam” means that chanting removes all miseries, stages of sin, and ignorance. (Adapted from Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s writing found in the book “The Art of Chanting Hare Krsna,” by Mahanidhi Swami)

“…a pitfall of happiness that he despised and desired at the same time, but from which it was impossible to escape.” (Passage from a novel by G.G. Marquez who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1982)

In a lecture in New Delhi in 1975, Srila Prabhupada said that the more material possessions we have, the more our false egotism will increase. This is a statement indicating that people who live in countries with economically robust economies will be more proud and egotistical than those people in poverty stricken regions.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is vying for Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) for things like Neem and Basmati Rice. That is, they are in the process of patenting Neem and Basmati Rice, and declaring India to be in violation of WTO Treaties by planting and growing Neem trees and Basmati Rice.

It is stated in the Srimad Bhagavatam that sometimes demigods tempt sannyasis by appearing as their former wives in dreams. “‘This man taking sannyasa is going to surpass us and go back home, back to Godhead.’ Thus thinking, the demigods create stumbling blocks on the path of the sannyasi by appearing before him in the shape of his former wife or other women and attractive objects. But the sannyasi should pay the demigods and their manifestations no heed.” (Srimad Bhagavatam 11.18.14)

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.”

Krishna doesn’t grow. He’s timeless, eternal, perpetual, without beginning and without end. Everything in the material world, organic and inorganic, has a beginning and an end.

The material world is like a dream (svapna). In dreams we sometimes cry out, laugh or cry, see things and perform many activities that are evidence of “reality.” But what is reality? Vaisanva philosophy holds that everything in this present life is ‘like a dream.” It appears to be real, but like a dream it is temporary and will evaporate. It is less than an instant in the grand sweep of time. Some of you may remember part of a song that was popular in the sixties whose lyrics went like this: “There are places I remember all my life though some have changed — some forever not for better. Some have gone and some remain.” Great saints are always detached from this material body, knowing true, or REAL reality, the ultimate destination, is the spiritual world at the Lotus Feet of their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Krsna.

Beauty is sometimes considered to be intangible and relative, but BGAII indicates there is a universal standard. Krsna says, “Know that all opulent, beautiful and glorious creations spring from but a spark of My splendor.” (10.42)