View From a New Vrindaban Ridge

Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmed sleep:
………Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
……..Her pleasant lot.

She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
……..And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
……..That sadly sings.

Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
……..The purple land.
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
……..Upon her hand.

Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart’s core
……..Till time shall cease:
Sleep that no pain shall wake;
Night that no morn shall break
Till joy shall overtake
……..Her perfect peace.

Remember, children are watching.

From: Pointing and waving gives kids a head start in life

Children from richer families tend to do better in school, and some of that edge may arise through an unexpected mechanism, according to research presented at the AAAS meeting by psychologists at the University of Chicago.

It turns out that mothers with higher socioeconomic status communicate more through gestures with toddlers, which seems to give them a larger vocabulary when they turn up in school at between 4 and 5 years of age.

Susan Goldin-Meadow and Meredith Rowe have studied 50 families from all levels of Chicago society, from households earning less than $15,000 a year to those bringing in more than $100,000. They observed 49 mothers (and one dad) interacting with their 14-month-old children at home for 90 minutes, recording the number of gestures with distinct meanings.

Many of the gestures consisted of pointing, and the researchers scored a new gesture for each different object pointed at. Wealthier parents gestured more with their children, who responded in kind, and later had larger vocabularies, the researchers report in Science.

Richer parents also talk more to their kids, but gestures add an extra dimension to story. “These effects are above and beyond what we see in speech,” Goldin-Meadow told reporters at the AAAS.

This sparked the interest of one Swedish science journalist, who wondered what it meant for children in reserved parts of northern Europe, compared to kids in more exuberant countries such as Italy. Goldin-Meadow reassured him that while Italians “gesture big”, they don’t necessarily gesture more than northern Europeans.

How does gesturing at kids help them learn? Goldin-Meadow doesn’t know for sure, but she suggests that pointing at different objects while naming them creates “a perfect learning opportunity”.

She also has some evidence that gesturing makes the brain more receptive to learning, through research on older children showing that hand waving can help in learning mathematical problems.

I ran into Shashi Patel this weekend at Bahulaban while waiting for a kirtan to start. Old timers will remember him as being involved with New Vrindaban design work back in the 80s. He has been the architect for over 50  temples since then  including  ones in Florida, Bangalore and Arizona.

It was interesting because he saw a lot and experienced a lot back in the day here so there were so many stories that came to mind.

It seems he is going to be involved with the renovation of Bahulaban. Bahulaban is the place Srila Prabhupada actually was at when he visited New Vrindaban. The Palace was under construction at the time, but the current temple and activity centers were all post Prabhupada era construction.

Bahulaban was abandoned at some point and is in a state of great disrepair.  As about 250 of Prabhupada’s disciples went through initiation ceremonies there, it can  be seen as a holy place. A holy place that NV has been around long enough that it needs to be restored. That is common in India, abandoned holy sites, but not so common here.

Adi Guru is putting together a team and overcoming so many obstacles to push this project forward.  He was saying that since everything starts with the Holy Name, having a kirtan at Bahulaban on Gaura Paurnima was the way to kick off the active stage of the Bahulaban renovations.

The first step will be to fix up the altar and temple room and temple room addition.  They were built onto the original farmhouse and are salvageable.  The farmhouse itself will be torn down and rebuilt on the same original  sandstone foundation.

It was enlivening to me that Sashi Patel had just been at an architects’ convention and that the stress had been on green construction, so he is all on board with making Bahulaban an example of it.

At Shashi’s request, a surveyor will be coming out next week to map out the Bahulaban area,  locating the existing buildings on a map and plotting in elevation lines at 5′ intervals for planning purposes.

He designed Raghu and Jamuna’s house in New Vrindaban, an earth sheltered home, well known to New Vrindaban devotees as a wonderful place to have kirtan also.

“This is the mission of this Krsna consciousness movement. We simply have to voluntarily undergo some penance in the beginning. It may be a little painful in the beginning to refrain from illicit sex, intoxication, meat-eating and gambling, but one has to be tolerant. To be cured of a disease, we may have to agree to undergo some surgical operation. Although the operation may be very painful, we have to tolerate it. This is called titiksavah.

“At the same time, we have to be karunikah — that is, we have to take compassion upon fallen souls by going from town to town to enlighten others in Krsna consciousness. This is a sadhu’s duty. Those who are preachers are superior to those who go to the Himalayas to meditate. It is good to go to the Himalayas to meditate for one’s personal benefit, but those who undergo many difficulties in order to preach are superior. They are actually fighting for Krsna’s sake, and they are certainly more compassionate. Those sadhus who leave Vrndavana to go fight in the world, to spread Krsna consciousness, are superior sadhus.”

TLK Vs 24

Reflection: “Christian asceticism does not provide a flight from the world, a refuge from stress and the distractions of manifold wickedness. It enables us to enter into the confusion of the world bearing something of the light of Truth in our hearts,and capable of exercising something of the mysterious, transforming power of the Cross, of love and sacrifice.”

Thomas Merton, Seasons of Celebration, p. 132

Reading from the Bible: “No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar, but on
the lamp stand so that those who enter may see the light.”

Luke 11:33 [NRSV]

Prayer: “Dislodge the darkness in our hearts. Let the light of your Holy Presence within us shine forth through us to our neighbors.”

Sports in Pakistan:

Gunmen in rickshaws attack cricket team

LAHORE, Pakistan – A team of heavily armed gunmen, some traveling in rickshaws, ambushed Sri Lanka’s national cricket team Tuesday as it arrived for a match, killing six police guards and wounding seven players. The brazen attack heightened fears that Pakistan is becoming increasingly unstable.

The assault bore striking similarities to last year’s three-day hostage drama in the Indian financial capital of Mumbai.

Working in pairs, the attackers in Lahore carried walkie-talkies and backpacks stuffed with water, dried fruit and other high-energy food — a sign they anticipated a protracted siege and may have been planning to take the players hostage.

The bus sped through the ambush, but the gunmen’s preparations indicated they may been planning to hijack the vehicle, Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik told The Associated Press. None of the gunmen were killed and all apparently escaped into this teeming eastern city. (read more)

Sports in America:

Pirates sign Indian—not Cleveland—pitchers

PITTSBURGH (AP)—The Pittsburgh Pirates hope Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel really do have million-dollar arms.

The two 20-year-old pitchers, neither of whom had picked up a baseball until earlier this year, signed free-agent contracts Monday with the Pirates. They are believed to be the first athletes from India to sign professional baseball contracts outside their country.

Singh and Patel came to the United States six months ago after being the top finishers in an Indian reality TV show called the “Million Dollar Arm” that drew about 30,000 contestants. The show sought to find athletes who could throw strikes at 85 miles per hour or faster.

While neither pitcher threw hard enough to earn the $1 million prize, Singh made $100,000 from the contest and Patel made $2,500, plus his trip to the United States

The contest was sponsored by a California sports management company that believed it could locate major league-worthy arms in a country of more than 1 billion. After working extensively with Southern California pitching coach Tom House since May, the pitchers staged a tryout in Tempe, Ariz., on Nov. 6 that was attended by 30 major league scouts.

“The Pirates are committed to creatively adding talent to our organization,” Pirates general manager Neal Huntington said Monday. “By adding these two young men, the Pirates are pleased to not only add two prospects to our system but also hope to open a pathway to an untapped market. We are intrigued by Patel’s arm strength and Singh’s frame and potential.” (read more)

For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on.

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX),Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, ‘If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.’

In response to Bill’s comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics (and I just love this part ):

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash……..
Twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive – but would run on only five percent of the roads.

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single ‘This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation’ warning light.

I love the next one!!!

7. The airbag system would ask ‘Are you sure?’ before deploying.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10. You’d have to press the ‘Start’ button to turn the engine off

PS – I’d like to add that when all else fails, you could call ‘customer service’ in some foreign country and be instructed in some foreign language how to fix your car yourself!!!!

From a circulating email:

A few years after I was born, my Dad met a stranger who was new to our small Texas town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around from then on.

As I grew up, I never questioned his place in my family.. In my young mind, he had a special niche. My parents were complementary instructors: Mom taught me good from evil, and Dad taught me to obey. But the stranger…he was our storyteller. He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with adventures, mysteries and comedies.

If I wanted to know anything about politics, history or science, he always knew the answers about the past, understood the present and even seemed able to predict the future! He took my family to the first major league ball game. He made me laugh, and he made me cry. The stranger never stopped talking, but Dad didn’t seem to mind.

Sometimes, Mom would get up quietly while the rest of us were shushing each other to listen to what he had to say, and she would go to the kitchen for peace and quiet. (I wonder now if she ever prayed for the stranger to leave.)

Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but the stranger never felt obligated to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our home. Not from us, our friends or any visitors. Our longtime visitor, however, got away with four-letter words that burned my ears and made my dad squirm and my mother blush. My Dad didn’t permit the liberal use of alcohol. But the stranger encouraged us to try it on a regular basis. He made cigarettes look cool, cigars manly and pipes distinguished. He talked freely (much too freely!) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing.

I now know that my early concepts about relation ships were influenced strongly by the stranger. Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked… and NEVER asked to leave.

More than fifty years have passed since the stranger moved in with our family. He has blended right in and is not nearly as fascinating as he was at first. Still, if you could walk into my parents’ den today, you would still find him sitting over in his corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures.

His name?…. … ..

We just call him ‘TV.’

(Note: This should be required reading for every household in America !)

He has a wife now….We call her ‘Computer.’

I was in a discussion and the topic of forgiveness came up. I had recently heard a great quote so dropped it in. “Forgiveness means giving up on a better past.”

Someone asked me who this quote was from. I couldn’t remember so I Googled it and found two possibilities, both of which were better nuanced than I remembered it.

“Forgiveness is giving up the possibility of a better past.” –Unknown

“Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past”. — Lily Tomlin

If I was editing it, I would use  “Forgiveness is giving up hope for a better past.”

This is not about how forgiveness effects the transgressor, about letting someone off the hook for their karmic reactions. It is about how forgiving affects the forgiver.

Here are a few more quotes from a long list at:

http://www.tentmaker.org/Quotes/forgivenessquotes.htm

“Not to forgive is to be imprisoned by the past, by old grievances that do not permit life to proceed with new business. Not to forgive is to yield oneself to another’s control… to be locked into a sequence of act and response, of outrage and revenge, tit for tat, escalating always. The present is endlessly overwhelmed and devoured by the past. Forgiveness frees the forgiver. It extracts the forgiver from someone else’s nightmare.” – Lance Morrow

“Forgiveness is the final form of love.”  –Reinhold Niebuhr

“A Christian will find it cheaper to pardon than to resent. Forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, and the waste of spirit.”  –Hannah More

“Forgiveness is . . . accepting God’s sovereign use of people and situations to strip you of self importance, and humiliate your self love.”  –Martha Kilpatrick

“To err is human; to forgive, divine.” — Alexander Pope

Forgiveness means giving up lamenting for the past.  The following are devoteespeak for the same concept.

“So brahma-bhutah… Brahma-bhutah means one who is above these two principles, hankering and lamenting.”

General Lecture — (location & date unknown)

“When one actually is self-realized, that “I am not American, not Indian, not
Hindu, not Muslim, not man, not woman. I am spirit soul. Aham brahmasmi,” at
that time, he does not lament. Na socati na kanksati. We are fighting with one
another, lamenting and hankering due to this misidentification of the self with
this body.”

The Nectar of Devotion — Vrndavana, October 23, 1972

“A sadhu, a devotee, is never angry. Actually the real feature of devotees who
undergo tapasya, austerity, is forgiveness.”

SB 6.4.5

“The duty of a brahmana is to culture the quality of forgiveness, which is
illuminating like the sun. The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Hari, is pleased
with those who are forgiving.”

SB 9.15.40

“‘When the seed of ecstatic emotion for Krsna fructifies, the following nine
symptoms manifest in one’s behavior: forgiveness, concern that time should not
be wasted, detachment, absence of false prestige, hope, eagerness, a taste for
chanting the holy name of the Lord, attachment to descriptions of the
transcendental qualities of the Lord, and affection for those places where the
Lord resides — that is, a temple or a holy place like Vrndavana.

“These are all called anubhava, subordinate signs of ecstatic emotion. They are visible in a person in whose heart the seed of love of God has begun to fructify.”

Madhya 23.18-19