PS: I've never asked him, but I get the impression that he is Christian today. I've seen a Bible, and certain Christian paraphernalia in his apartment. I've heard him talk about God in general and respectful terms. So he's not an atheist, and he looks like a Christian to me. But definitely not an atheist.

I think that for him (like for me frankly) his theism is what keeps him hangin' on. But hey don't get me preachin'. :-)

This shit is intense, man, and it's starting to freak me out a little bit. Let's fire one up and turn on some Grateful Dead, shall we?

"The wheel is turning and you can't slow down,
You can't let go and you can't hold on,
You can't go back and you can't stand still,
If the thunder don't get you then the lightning will.
Won't you try just a little bit harder,
Couldn't you try just a little bit more?
Won't you try just a little bit harder,
Couldn't you try just a little bit more?
Round, round robin run round, got to get back to where you belong,
Little bit harder, just a little bit more,
A little bit further than you gone before.
The wheel is turning and you can't slow down,
You can't let go and you can't hold on,
You can't go back and you can't stand still,
If the thunder don't get you then the lightning will.
Small wheel turn by the fire and rod,
Big wheel turn by the grace of God,
Every time that wheel turn 'round,
Bound to cover just a little more ground.
The wheel is turning and you can't slow down,
You can't let go and you can't hold on,
You can't go back and you can't stand still,
If the thunder don't get you then the lightning will.
Won't you try just a little bit harder,
Couldn't you try just a little bit more?
Won't you try just a little bit harder,
Couldn't you try just a little bit more?"

[www.youtube.com]

It's a substantially better song than any mantra one could sing, that's for sure.

That song IS a type of prayer, if you ask me.

Absolutely. Tho still culty, Eknath Easwaran had a more rational approach to "mantra" meditation that he coined "Passage Meditation". I don't know what the details of the practice/ritual are, but the basic idea is that you choose a passage that inspires you or a prayer or some wisdom statement and you repeat it slowly several times like you would a traditional mantra, but you know, you actually understand what he words mean and it's in a relevant language so your brain can actually make use of it.

But there are countless other methods and more rational approaches to achieve the same results without abstractly chanting 108, 64, 16, 12, 8, 4, or 2 rounds on beads mindlessly. I don't know if you've ever heard those old Prabhupada tapes where he's chanting on beads (they used to use the tapes to initiate people remotely). I mean, you can barely make out the actual mantra, and it just sounds like some broken robot droning a random sound. It's fucking awful, it gives me the chills just thinking about how many mornings I had to sit and listen to that shit.

Leaving this where it belongs: [www.msn.com]

And in fun culty-minded news: [www.thenews.com.pk] [www.latimes.com]

I was gonna share this month's ekadasi story (so that folks know why they are actually fasting from grains that day), but I'll spare you the read. The cliff notes version is that Indra got pissed at some gods for fucking in front of him, so he cursed them to be born as homeless people. They inadvertently fasted by mistake on the Ekadasi day (which pleased vishnu oh so much!) and got to go back to heaven where they could fuck freely again. Jay!

RUN!

If you ask me, this is transcendental music too. It IS a mantra, of sorts. :-)

"As I was walkin' 'round Grosvenor Square
Not a chill to the Winter but a nip to the air
From the other direction, she was calling my eye
It could be an illusion, but I might as well try, might as well try
She had rings on her fingers and bells on her shoes
And I knew, without askin', she was into the blues
She wore scarlet begonias tucked into her curls
I knew right away she was not like other girls, other girls
In the thick of the evening, when the dealing got rough
She was too pat to open and too cool to bluff
As I picked up my matches and was closing the door
I had one of those flashes, I'd been there before, I'd been there before
Well, I ain't always right, but I've never been wrong
Seldom turns out the way it does in a song
Once in a while, you get shown the light
In the strangest of places if you look at it right
Well, there ain't nothing wrong with the way she moves
Or scarlet begonias or a touch of the blues
And there's nothing wrong with the look that's in her eyes
I had to learn the hard way to let her pass by, let her pass by
Wind in the willow's playin' 'Tea For Two'
The sky was yellow, and the Sun was blue
Strangers stoppin' strangers, just to shake their hand
Everybody's playing in the heart of gold band, heart of gold band...."

[www.youtube.com]



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/29/2024 02:46AM by XKRISHNA.

There is no shortage of great songs and poetry in a language we understand without religious and cultural appropriation and trying to practice a fringe Bengali Vaishnava cult. Using a phrase the swami used to use, it's an artificial imposition on the mind. Instead of learning to live with and use the environment you are in to change your thinking and adapt to ones reality, an average devotee unnecessarily stresses themselves out socially by wearing the garb of medieval Hindus, putting their hand in a beadbag, and walking around like they were living in 15th-century Bengal. It's the height of absurdity. The reason I know this is because it was completely unsustainable. Fewer and fewer devotees are doing this, and they have essentially Americanized the cult. Let's just put it this way: just like Christ would not recognize modern "Christians" as followers of his, so Chaitanya or Bhaktisiddhanta would have no clue they are talking to a "Gaudiya Vaishnava" if they ran into a modern ISKCON or SIF devotee.

RUN.

Where I live, ISKCON is more of a Hindu cult which has made a lot of inroads into the Indian immigrant community. They are openly referring to themselves as Hindus now, and they have been for years. I've been told that one out of every three Indian immigrants to the United States lives in Texas (where I am) and I can believe it. So we see, in the case of ISKCON in Texas, a sort of "Hinduized" version of what was an "Americanized" ecclesiastical organization. The temple president is a white American man, and his wife is an American of Indian descent. Both are second-gen Hare Krishnas. But I'd say that the congregational community is at least seventy percent Indian. If you were to go to a Sunday feast, it's mostly going to be Indians you will see. They don't really welcome hippies anymore, at least, not like they used to. Hippies are broke and cannot make big donations like the Hindus can. :-)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/29/2024 04:06AM by XKRISHNA.

That's funny. From hippie cult to yuppie Indian Hindus. Sounds about right. One could not have asked for a more successful outcome for ISKCON. It's here to stay.

That's why I laugh when I read things here about how the Hare Krsnas are trying to "recruit" the kids off the streets of major cities in North America, as if we are living fifty years in the past. Recruit them to what? Becoming repeat customers at the temple restaurants? Being donors to the planetarium? For the most part there's nothing to recruit anybody TO, at least not anymore. Most temples in North America will not just allow people to move in anymore. So there's nothing much to "recruit" anybody TO. The old days are OVER.