January 30, 2008
Recently Mudakari dd was looking through some old Brijabasi Spirits and found some articles I had written. She photographed them and emailed them to me, a kindness I greatly appreciate. They are in jpg format.
This one is from an issue in 1982 called Vol. IX, #4.
In retrospect, I look at the article now and realize that it wasn’t a B-52 that would have been breaking the sound barrier, as they fly close to but do not break the sound barrier. It would have been one of the fighter jets that also flew out of Grand Forks Air Force Base where the B-52s were stationed.
If I were to edit this now, I would put the request of the Air Force officer in context by pointing out that we were about fifty miles south of the Canadian border, about halfway from the border to the Air Force base. We were in a direct line on the shortest route, over the North Pole, from Russia to the US and in the heart of the Cold War.
The B-52s carried nuclear weapons so we were located in a primary target zone in case of a nuclear attack. New Vrindaban is near some heavy industry but was considered only a third level target
Click here for the first part of the article.
Click here for the conclusion to the article.
By the way, any transcriptionists out there? I wouldn’t mind having this in digital text format but I am a crappy typist so would appreciate if someone would take the trouble.
January 30, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Hey there, I thought I could real ingenious and use some OCR software to translate your jpeg to text but it ended up taking just as long. Oh well, it is a small price to pay for your katha. I got a kick of how the OCR software translated your name so I left it.
FORGETTING KRSNA is the Real DISASTER by Indiana Ghosh dasa
Crackrummble! flashcrashcrackle! ‘Mommy mommy, the sky is falling down!” “Oh no, it’s just a thunderstorm. Don’t be afraid.”
As a child l feared so many things because I felt helpless and unknowing, but my mother would help and console me.
One day the sky was clear and bright, Crackboom! - came from the sky, and the windows shook.
“Thunder, mommy!”
“’That’s not thundeR. That’s the new plane, the B-52 breaking the sound barrier.”
Mother knew many things. I would ask her because my father would be gone all day in the fiends.
One day a man came and talked to my mother, He wore a uniform and didn’t smile. When he left, my mother explained how there were some very bad men called communists. They might try to sneak up on the base by flying in low under the radar. If we saw any jets come in low, we were supposed to call the man at the airbase because he was afraid too.
As a child I feared many things. As I grew up, the things I feared changed, but the fearing didn’t. Everyone who takes birth in the material world shares this fearing experience. Fearing, eating, sleeping, and mating, are the four activities in which all the species of life - human included - are engaged.
The rose may grow thorns, the mouse may run away, the lion may roar and sharpen his claws, but we all try to defend ourselves from the objects of our fearing.
In the Spring, mushrooms grow in fields and forests, but the mushrooms that most people thought of the Spring were the ones on the covers of Time and Newsweek magazines - the mushroom clouds of a nuclear explosion. Because men were afraid, they built the bombs to defend themselves. The problem is that now they have built so many of them and made them so powerful, that to use them would be catastrophic. As many as 150 million people could die in this country alone from the effects of a nuclear war.
When the first atomic bomb was exploded and the scientists all stood in awe, the leading scientist, Robert Oppenheirmer quoted Bhagavad-gita.
(Chapter 2. verse 32) ‘The Blessed Lord said Time I am, destroyer of all worlds, and I have come to engage all people.”
It is interesting to look at some of the descriptive verbs In the Bhagavad-gita Arjuna addresses Krsna ”0 all-pervading Visnu, I can no longer maintain my equilibrium. Seeing your radiant colors fill the sky and beholding Your eyes and mouths, I am afraid… I see all people rushing with full speed into Your mouths as moths dash into a blazing fire. O Visnu, I see You devouring the universe with Your immeasurable rays. Scorching the worlds, you are manifest. “Also: “If hundreds of thousands of suns rose up at once in the sky, they might resemble the effulgence of the Supreme Person in that universal form.” (Bg. 11.12)
Certainly these verses might describe the feelings of awe and fear in anticipation of a nuclear war.
What is Arjuna’s reaction after expressing such a great fear? “0 Lord of Lords, so fierce of form, please be gracious to me. I offer my obeisance unto You. Please be gracious to me. I do not know what your mission is, and I desire to hear of it. Clearly, however, he takes shelter of the Lord and inquires from Him submissively, just as a child takes shelter of his parents.
This nuclear freeze movement may be a movement for peace, for nonviolence, but it is doomed failure. Why? In the Bhagavad-gita As It Is Srila Prabhupada explains that ahimsa, nonviolence, means refraining from activities that will gut others into misery or confusion. Material activities - the field of so many politicians, sociologists and philanthropists – do not produce very good result because the politicians and philanthropists have no transcendental vision. They do not know what is actually beneficial for human society.
The nuclear freeze movement is trying to save humanity from destruction and death. Yet everyone is condemned to death. It may happen prematurely or at an old age, but everyone will die regardless of whether the nuclear freeze movement is successful or not. Lacking transcendental knowledge, people try to save the body, which is doomed regardless. Thus people are confused about the actual purpose of human life – spiritual realization.
Krsna enlightens Arjuna and thereby allays his fears: “For one who worships Me, giving up all his activities unto Me and devoted to ME without deviation, engaged in devotional service and always meditating up Me, who has fixed his mind upon Me, O son of Prtha, for him I am the swift deliverer from the ocean of birth and death.”
This is the real peace process. Without knowledge of Krsna, we are miserable and fearful. Even if the nuclear freeze movement does manage to avert war, there is always death. Even an expert swimmer cannot swim forever.
What we must realized is that Krsna is the Supreme Controller. In the Bhagavad-gita, Chapter 4, verse 8, Lord Krsna says “In order to deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I advent Myself millennium after millennium.” Thus the miscreants fear the horrible aspect Krsna. If they continue their sinful ways, He will destroy them, either by nuclear war or whatever.
On the other hand, when Arjuna surrendered, he received pure vision. He saw Krsna as friend and protector. In order to demonstrate how real peace may be achieved by following religious principles, Srila Prabhupada has commissioned Srila Bhaktipada to build New Vrindavana project. We encourage everyone interested in the welfare of humanity to support it.
January 30, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Thanks, from Indianapolis!
Would it be rude of me to ask if you would have time to do some others?
January 31, 2008 at 12:06 am
Send them on over, I make no promises, but I’ll give it whirl.
January 31, 2008 at 9:28 am
Okay, I sent you two.
One of mine that ends on a different page. On that page is also the end of an article by Taru. In a separate email, I sent the beginning of Taru’s article.