Skating Out Of My Gourd

In late 1985, I came to the conclusion that the situation in New Vrindavan at that time was not viable, and that I needed to put the long term interests of my family above that of the “guru” who would be king of NV at that time. I went to New York City to start my independent economic life. The hard part was leisure time – we were on the outs with ISKCON and I was fried on “devotee” life so hanging out at the temple was not an option. What was free, outdoors, and with a crowd not into intoxication? After work, I would skate up Madison Avenue from my office at 34th and Fifth to Central Park, and hang out there, roller discoing, until dark, then down to Washington Square Park for a while, then over to St Mark’s Place and catch a subway under the river to Brooklyn, then skate up to the north end (not the “North Side”) of Greenpoint where we were staying.

This amounted to 8 miles of road work, plus hours of park skating. After a while, I started to get comfortable on my skates. Bear in mind, this was before roller blades, and street skating wasn’t yet common. A few skaters from the park, and skateboarders were all you’d ever see on the streets.

Blah, blah, blah ended up moving back to New Vrindavan, got into growing and selling gourds mail order, and my wife started crafting them. We go to two gourd shows a year, one in Ohio and one in Indiana. The first year, we attended one of the many events and it was a gourd hat contest. There were some really elaborate hats, mine pales in comparison. The funny thing was the gourders in the goofy hats were like real down to earth, church going, hard working people, you would never expect such silliness from. Naturally, I loved it. I eventually evolved a costume made of gourds, and I would skate around the Gourd Festivals making a fool out of myself. I had a skirt that rattled when I turned or shook, a big rattle, and a horn made of a gourd that was extremely loud. I even got my picture in the newspaper a couple of times.

This morning I got an email from an old gourd friend, who is writing an article for The Gourd (the magazine of the American Gourd Society) asking permission to use my picture in it. He is also doing the Society’s new brochure, and I may have a picture in there too.

Yes, I am hugging two women in this photo but it is okay because it isn’t in a “Vedic” style culture. (some devotees frown on public hugging). Plus, it really isn’t me, it is a persona created for the show. You’d be surprised what nonsense you can get away with when you are wearing a costume. All good clean fun of course

 

An Elephant Never Forgets

A man was on holiday in Kenya. While he was walking through the bush, he came across an elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed so the man approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant’s foot. There was a large thorn deeply embedded in the bottom of the foot.

As carefully and as gently as he could he removed the thorn and the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man and, with a rather stern look on its face, stared at him. For a good ten minutes the man stood frozen – thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away.

For years after, the man remembered the elephant and the events of that day.

One day the man was walking through the zoo with his son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to where they were standing at the rail. It stared at him and the man couldn’t help wondering if this was the same elephant.

After a while it trumpeted loudly; then it continued to stare at him. The man summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder.

Suddenly the elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of the man’s legs and swung him wildly back and forth along the railing, killing him.

Probably wasn’t the same elephant.

 

The Scientific Method

Original source of this cartoon, easier to read than this scaled down version.

I am a big fan of the scientific method. Much of the criticism of “scientists” is based on the actions of cheaters, most usually when having a certain view accepted creates a profit for some company.

Certainly, the scientific method has limitations, but that doesn’t go against conclusions arrived at within those limitations. Much criticism directed against it by dogmatic religious fanatics is unwarranted and unfair. Most genuine scientists are very open minded and are aware of how much they don’t know, even within this material world.

 

Soccer Cow

“In the previous verse it was explained that in dreams we see that which was experienced during the day. But why is it that we sometimes in our dreams see what we have never heard of or seen at any time during this life? Here it is stated that even though such events may not be experienced in this life, they were experienced in previous lives. According to time and circumstance, they combine so that in dreams we see something wonderful that we have never experienced. For instance, we may see an ocean on the peak of a mountain. Or we may see that the ocean has dried up. These are simply combinations of different experiences in time and space. Sometimes we may see a golden mountain, and this is due to our having experienced gold and mountains separately. In the dream, under illusion, we combine these separate factors. In this way we are able to see golden mountains, or stars during the day.”

SB 4.29.67

 

Googlebombing Bush: Failure

From the Google Blog: Googlebombing ‘failure’

” Googler insights into product and technology news and our culture.

Googlebombing ‘failure’
9/16/2005 12:54:00 PM

Posted by Marissa Mayer, Director of Consumer Web Products

If you do a Google search on the word [failure] or the phrase [miserable failure], the top result is currently the White House’s official biographical page for President Bush. We’ve received some complaints recently from users who assume that this reflects a political bias on our part. I’d like to explain how these results come up in order to allay these concerns.

Google’s search results are generated by computer programs that rank web pages in large part by examining the number and relative popularity of the sites that link to them. By using a practice called googlebombing, however, determined pranksters can occasionally produce odd results. In this case, a number of webmasters use the phrases [failure] and [miserable failure] to describe and link to President Bush’s website, thus pushing it to the top of searches for those phrases. We don’t condone the practice of googlebombing, or any other action that seeks to affect the integrity of our search results, but we’re also reluctant to alter our results by hand in order to prevent such items from showing up. Pranks like this may be distracting to some, but they don’t affect the overall quality of our search service, whose objectivity, as always, remains the core of our mission. “

 

A Yogi Goes to the Dentist…

Did you hear about the Hindu yogi who was having a filling put in a tooth? When the dentist asked him if he wanted novocaine, the yogi said, “No. I can transcend dental medication.”

 

It’s All Ed’s fault

Ed: he who laughs last, laughs best. My friend Ed visited this weekend. The temple was busy, as it’s a long weekend in the US coupled with another celebration of Janmastami. Although he has been observing mangala arotik online via the webcast of Sri Sri Rukmini Dwarkadhish, this was the first time he ever attended a live one, despite chanting Hare Krishna for 35 years. He was totally sucked in by it, going every morning, chanting 16 rounds, and attending the SB class.

Yesterday, Advaita had graciously agreed to have a gathering at his house so Ed could associate with some of the long term inmates of New Vrindavan. The gathering served double duty, as Gaura Shakti was also in town. Ed has been hanging out with devotees in Minneapolis and already knew him from there. The Minnesota group has another old-time NV devotee in it, Jimmy Devine, FYI.

We were supposed to be there at 5 PM, and I am a pest about things starting on time, and being prompt, so when it got to be 5:05, my wife starting thinking that we had gone without her, and called Madri, Advaita’s wife. (Not to be confused with Gaura Shakti’s wife, who is “Madri two”). As we weren’t there, she started to worry. The last she heard, we were going off to put a door back on a car (long story in itself), and she was worried we had gotten pinned or something. When we showed up after 6 o’clock, she, as I had predicted to Ed, was upset and not shy about communicating it.

Long story short – it was Ed’s fault. He tried to spin it that it was mine, but don’t believe him.

I wanted him to go meet some cows so he could connect directly with the meat he wasn’t eating. We went out to Balabhadra’s, but didn’t see any in the main barn. The gate on the lane to his house was closed, so I knew the cows were in that pasture. They were down in the woods so we didn’t see any and ended up at his house. Popped in for a minute, then got drawn into tasting the prasadam they were honoring, and talking about their blog. When we left, I told Ed we were late and had to go home. From that point on, over my less than strenuous, but persistent objections he had to:

Go to the other barn and hang out with two cows in there.
Go to see the room we used to live in the old barn.
Go to the old RVC temple.
Talk to the group we found wandering around Bahulaban (a “new” guy who lived here a decade ago back for a visit, a new Bhaktin, a devotee from Philadelphia temple, and an Indian guest and his son.)
Hear ANOTHER story in the temple.

Finally, to tear him away from talking, I had to turn on the motor, and keep inching the car forward. It’s all Ed’s fault.

 

Excercise For Seniors

Most of Srila Prabhupada’s disciples are aging and their senior years are rapidly approaching. SP himself set a great example by walking every day, which has so many health benefits. It is also generally recommended that some weight training be involved, so I thought I would pass this on, specially since so many have lived sedentary lives, which brings the risk of osteoporosis, fragile bones.  Lifting builds and/or retains bone mass. 

Exercise For Seniors  

Here is an exercise suggested for seniors, to build muscle strength in the arms and shoulders. It seems so easy, so I thought I’d pass it on to some of my friends. Just don’t over-do it.  Begin by standing on a comfortable surface, where you have plenty of room at each side. With a 5-LB. potato sack in each hand, extend your arms straight out from your sides, and hold them there as long as you can. Try to reach a full minute, then relax.  Each day, you’ll find that you can hold this position for just a bit longer.  After a couple of weeks, move up to 10-LB. potato sacks. Then 50-LB. potatoes sacks, and eventually try to get to where you can lift a 100-LB. potato sack in each hand and hold your arms straight for more than a full minute.  

After you feel confident at that level, put a potato in each of the sacks.