Another naivete sweeping student communities worldwide is the notion that their grass movement activism (devoid of Krishna consciousness) will create a groundswell that will stop genetic modification in foods. Unfortunately the propaganda war is being won by the GMO people, who have large amounts of discretionary capital at their disposal and who can advertise pervasively in magazines, on TV and in the newspapers. Subtle but pervasive advertising can lull millions of citizens into thinking GMO crops are all OK for farmers and consumers.

A recent Back to Godhead article is called Nashik. It’s a famous place in India where Lord Ramachandra lived during his exile, and where Laxmana, according to the Valmiki Ramayana, cut off the nose of Surpinakha, the demon-ness sister of Ravana. Nashik means “nose.” This move by Laxmana is symbolic of thwarting evil and removing materialistic obstacles on the path to Krsna consciousness.

In another lecture Srila Prabhupada compared Mahavisnu’s lying on the Causal Ocean to an expert swimmer lying on his or her back on water with eyes closed (March 10, 1976, Mayapura, Srimad Bhagavatam 7.9.32). He said that if a human can do it, why not the Supreme Lord?

This oft-quoted Sanskrit phrase indicates that we see the world through our own experience. For example, some see nature as cruel, chaotic, and to be dominated by humans. Others see it as benign, ordered, and to be integrated with human life. It is also said, “one man’s nectar is another man’s poison.” The French philosopher La Rochefoucauld once said this: “If we had no defects ourselves, we should not take so much pleasure in noting those of others.”

Over minor theological differences a great deal of blood is shed today in Israel. The so called differences are more cultural than religious, but religion is still constantly blamed for dividing people, and causing warfare and suffering throughout history.

This is an addition to my previous “Thought” entitled “Unity in Diversity,” which was about “narrow-mindedness” versus “open-mindedness.” I talked about how sometimes Hare Krishnas are thought to be narrow minded, and the thinking that says it’s not possible to have a broad view without embracing ‘all of life.’ In support of the “narrow view,” I ran across this quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald: “I was going to…become again that most limited of all specialists, the ‘well-rounded’ man. This isn’t just an epigram – life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.”

Ludwig Van Beethoven is credited with saying, “Nature is my teacher,” an epigram seldom quoted. He was undoubtedly a musical genius who is reputed to have written symphonies in his old age while totally deaf. Somehow this reminds me of the BGAII verse that says, “This material nature, which is one of My energies, is working under My direction, O son of Kunti, producing all moving and nonmoving beings. Under its rule this manifestation is created and annihilated again and again.” (9.10)

Whether or not this piece ever gets published in the Hindustan Times, I probably won’t know for a while. Nonetheless, I thought the essay suitable to read as a “Thought for the Day.” Here it is: Invisible controllers are at work. They can be reduced to three obvious forces: governments, economics and the intelligentsia. Our lives are not our own. The nation, economics of the day, and the prevailing `intellectual’ climate limit our freedom at every juncture. But there’s a fourth, more insidious influence at work: Hollywood. Entertainment is yet another, more subtle phenomenon that has a way of invading our consciousness; it determines our actions. It tells us what we should be; where to go. It sets our goals; makes us do what our instincts demand, usually that which is daring and cool. James Bond, we loved you! Above and beyond these four, lies the realm of God, millions of light years away, in astronomical language. Billions of miles travelled at the speed of mind, a Vedic philosopher might say. To the behaviourist, the moon is a satellite and heaven is outer space. God is imagined, irrelevant, irrational. Maybe God equals destiny, but in some metaphysical sense, God is inscrutable, and the concept is pigeon-holed as MYSTICAL. Some self-styled people (we may call them behaviourists) considered that they moved earth and sky — like the Man Who Would Be King in the famous Kipling story; they thought they caused the movements of heavenly bodies. They were the centres of their universes. Illusions like this that have kept most of us on the wheel of samsara for aeons and forced us to skate and slither on the rock we call earth. Some, however, feel the presence of this fifth unseen controller, who, as Brahma says, burns up all the karma of those who are imbued with devotion (BRAHMA SAMHITA, 5.54). Such is the awareness of the theist and the seeker.

From a purport in the Srimad Bhagavatam’s First Canto (1.11.26), we find, “The face of the Lord is the embodiment of beauty. What they call beautiful nature is but His smile,…”

Measuring spiritual advancement is done in many ways. One way mentioned in the Srimad Bhagavatam is that three things occur simultaneously for a devotee, “in the same way that pleasure, nourishment and relief from hunger come simultaneously and increasingly, with each bite, for a person engaged in eating.” (11.2.42) Srila Prabhupada also reportedly wrote, in a letter to a devotee who didn’t feel he was making advancement, that progress in spiritual life was like sitting in an airplane. During take-off one may look around the inside of the aircraft and see no changes, but when one looks out the window, and sees the ground hundreds or thousands of feet below, there is no doubt that he or she has moved upward. Another measure of spiritual progress is to determine how many devotees one is ‘making.’ A relevant Prabhupada citation here is this one: “Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura has said that a Vaisnava is meritorious in proportion to the number of devotees he has created. A Vaisnava becomes superior not simply by jugglery of words but by the number of devotees he has created for the Lord. Here the word rantidevanuvartinah indicates that Rantideva’s officers, friends, relatives and subjects all became first-class Vaisnavas by his association.” (from the purport to Srimad Bhagavatam 9.21.18)