Haribol Airways

The final leg of a long journey was a domestic flight from Mumbai to Calcutta with our senior godbrother and godsister, Srikrishnachaitanya prabhu and Isvari Mataji . The domestic airport here has undergone major renovations and now a first-class airport. The rise of the Indian economy has bolstered domestic travel and spending, increasing the demand for quality service and facilities. As a result, the Indian government known for being laggard in coming upto speed with the West on infrastructure and public services has begun to respond to the economic boom in India.

Along with or rather a cause of the increasing material prosperity is an imported value system of consumerism. But more on this very important topic later. For now, I was on my way to the holy dham. To my surprise literally half the flight was filled with Vaishnavas. Devotees all over the place. A great sight and I could see how in the future there would be enough devotees to book a whole flight for the Vaishanvas. Nrshima prayers lead by the captain and prasadam prayers by the stewardess. Another senior godbrother’s son just became a commercial pilot so who knows – it could happen.

Getting Ready for Pilgrimage

My wife and I started planning for our yatra (pilgrimage) to the very holy place of Mayapur 6 months ago. She being eager to visit her home country for first time since marriage and myself eager for a vacation, saw Mayapur yatra as the ideal arrangement of the Lord. The annual yatra is lead by my spiritual master, Radhanath Swami, and we’re joined by 3500 fellow godfamily and devotees – a record for this 20+ year tradition.

Yatra is always a very special opportunity to make spiritual advancement and that’s why devotees make great efforts to attend. The Nectar of Devotion explains that there are 5 spiritual activities that have extra special potency, enough so that any one of them can send you to the eternal spiritual world if perfected. Namely, worshipping the Deity, chanting the Holy Names, associating with pure devotees, deeply studying and hearing the Vedic scriptures, and residing in the holy places. These yatras allow us to perform all 5 activities with increased intensity. The entire 12 day pilgrimage in turn becomes a special bullet that can pierce the bullet-proof vest of our maya-hardened hearts.

However in order to achieve this impact, we need to approach the yatra with the right attitude and consciousness. In short, with humility and tolerance. Long flights, long drives, bad roads, big crowds, power shortages, sickness, and all sorts of personal inconveniences will manifest. The more the devotee tolerates them, the more the Lord will be pleased. Even greater spiritual opportunity is when the devotee accepts the personal difficulties as the mercy of the Lord. So this is how you can prepare for a powerful spiritual experience.

A world fit for spiritual progress

A primary objective of Vaishnavas and spiritualists in the environmental movement is to inspire the planet’s citizens to transform the world (the broader environment) into a Holy Dham or place of pilgrimage. It has to begin by making the established holy places more appealing and approachable to spiritualists worldwide. These Vaishnavas are starting a grassroots movement to do just that:

Five Iskcon Devotees – Clean Ganga Mission

“Five devotees belonging to Iskcon are on a mission to help clean the Ganga, which is held sacred by Hindus but is today a highly polluted river. They started their journey from 11th september.

They started a drive to create awareness about Ganga pollution. They are currently on a journey from Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh to Mayapur in West Bengal on the water route to create awareness about river pollution.

They had distributed pamphlets and booklets to people living near different riverbanks during the journey to urge people to clean the river. The team is also making a film on its journey.

According to an estimate, during its 2,510 km-long journey from Gaumukh to the Bay of Bengal, nearly one billion litres of untreated sewage gets disposed into the river, which, according to legend, was brought down to earth by King Bhagirath.

Despite spending over Rs.15 billion on the Ganga Action Plan since its inception in 1984, the river still remains polluted. The second phase of the project, which will start next year, includes setting up of sewer lines in eight cities of Garhwal that fall in its path.”

A good start

Yesterday I was invited by my father and his Jain Association to give a brief presentation on available cow protection programs in the U.S. About 250 people attended the Diwali celebration at the Kearny Hindu Community Center in New Jersey. I decided to promote the ISCOWP program in New Vrindavan. Chayadevi Mataji who runs ISCOWP with her husband, Balabhadra Prabhu, provided me with brochures, newsletters, and fliers to hand out. They have a good web presence and reputation for quality cow care. The audience was surprisingly mixed with young and old. I assumed that most Indian youth were out of touch with such activities but they were quite enthusiastically taking part.

After giving my spiel on the why and how of cow protection, the response to the message was quite positive. Actually immediately after my presentation, I went out to setup a table in the main hall. Immediately upon displaying the materials on the table, almost all of it vanished as these young kids bored and wanting some seva (service) distributed the materials to the sitting audience members. I certainly didn’t mind as these young, impressionable kids were getting some bhakti sukriti. One high school student, Hardik, was particularly inspired. We became friends and spoke at length as he is quite interested in promoting vegetarianism and cow protection through a student club. He’s a senior and eying my alma mater, Carnegie Mellon University, as his preferred college.

An interesting observation was the reaction of the older Indians. Many spoke with my dad exclaiming how pleasantly surprised they were that (1) the younger generation is interested  in promoting Vedic tradition and culture and (2) there are animal and cow protection programs in the U.S. Most such Indians send their dollars to India but we need to pull them back into these amazing programs in the U.S. I now see that this is really possible.

Overall a good start and praying to Lord Chaitanya for more opportunities to establish a culture fit for spiritual progress.

vegetarianism = environmentalism = mainstream

A la peanut butter sandwiches

By Trystan L. Bass| Posted Sun, 21 October 2007, 8:45pm

“The Amazing Mumford on Sesame Street may have been right: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are magic. They could help save the world.

According to the PB&J Campaign’s website, this classic kid’s sandwich lowers your lunch’s carbon footprint by 2.5 pounds of CO2 over a tuna sandwich, grilled cheese, or hamburger.

How does this work? Well, simply explained, a meat-based lunch requires a lot more energy, land, and water resources to produce than a lunch that comes from plant sources. Peanut butter, jelly, and bread are pretty low-impact foods.

If peanut butter sticks to the roof of your mouth, the campaign has recipes for equally earth-friendly alternatives.

Cook a batch of vegetarian chili, stir up some black bean soup, stuff a falafel in a pita, try General Tso’s Tofu, or roll together a bean burrito. They’re all tasty and can help slow global warming.

But the easiest way to start is with good ol’ PB&J. Pack a sandwich for yourself, your kids, and your spouse today. Grover will be proud.”

to blog or not to blog

Hiya. Hare Krishna. After being prodded, poked and shoved by great ones, I am making an attempt to write for the benefit of myself and others despite my lack of qualification. Look forward to your insights as I hope not to eat my words.