namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

While it is normally only considered cliché that "laughter is the best medicine," specific medical theories attribute improved health, increased life expectancy, and overall improved well-being, to laughter.

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Pandu das shared the following on Pariprashnena.com:

I just composed the following e-mail in response to a "hot dog sale," which I intend to send to my office of about 200 people during lunchtime today:

Hey, remember after one of my trips to the US I wrote about so-called "Restless Leg Syndrome? (Follow the link to read the blog post if you don't remember).

Now, again, I mean - wtf? A "syndrome" is a collection of symptoms without an understood cause. Prescribing a drug for that, especially when the symptom is something like "restless legs" is crazy. What does the drug do to address the problem, paralyze your legs? Problem solved....

by Sudevi dasi

Dear devotees,

Please accept my humble obeisances.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

I have put together a list of books that are helpful in understanding everything to do with your child and the positive alternatives available to mainstream parenting and schooling. I have spent a bit of time researching how to raise a child like the native cultures of the world, especially Indian culture, as I have always noted that Indian children act very differently to their western counterparts and I always wondered why, since having a child myself I have found many reasons why western children are different, some answers were obvious and others a great discovery for me.

Read more on the MOTHERS Act, proposed US legislation to prescribe psycho-drugs to pregnant women.

Yes, innocent people are involved in these institutions, including compassionate and sincere ones. However, they are cogs in a machine, dispensing medicines and maintaining systems that are ultimately directed toward the destruction of the human race, Krishna's special arrangement in this world for the conditioned souls to return home, back to Godhead.

I am starting to spread the news, promoting the concept of if you aren’t a vegan, and you drink milk from commercial sources, you are contributing to a system that slaughters cows. To offset that, you need to donate regularly to cow protection programs.

Visitors to my blog may have noted that I have added a widget in my sidebar where the connection to my fundraising page for GEETA ( an organization that protects cows) can easily be gotten to. GEETA is one of many cow protection programs that will accept your donations.

Geoff asked about resources for alkaline diet. Here are some, as well as resources for cancer:

• Detoxify or Die, by Sherry Rogers is good. (We have an infrared sauna, by the way)
• Phillip Day's The ABCs of Disease is good. Here is the section on cancer excerpted.

This is going a little beyond alkaline diet, but here are some other great links for cancer treatment / prevention:

Here are some great resources on B17 therapy for cancer, including an Australian source for apricot kernels:

Unfortunately, there is extremely strong pressure being exerted through the governments of most Western democracies to outlaw all these sorts of treatment. Even since we've started some supplements we've been using have become unavailable due to legislation enacted in Australia.

I recommend watching the video "Nutricide." I will link it in a separate post.

Yuddhistira Maharaja said that the most wonderful thing in the world is how everyone can see that everyone dies, and yet still we live as if we will never die. I never cease to be amazed how so many senior devotees leave their bodies due to cancer and organ failures, and we continue to eat the same way, use the same petro-chemical based products, and carry on the same lifestyle. Gee, what do you think the result will be?

by Sita-pati das

Unfortunately, there is extremely strong pressure being exerted through the governments of most Western democracies to outlaw all these sorts of treatment. Even since we've started some supplements we've been using have become unavailable due to legislation enacted in Australia.

I recommend watching the video "Nutricide" . I will link it in a separate post.

Yuddhistira Maharaja said that the most wonderful thing in the world is how everyone can see that everyone dies, and yet still we live as if we will never die. I never cease to be amazed how so many senior devotees leave their bodies due to cancer and organ failures, and we continue to eat the same way, use the same petro-chemical based products, and carry on the same lifestyle. Gee, what do you think the result will be?

By Christopher Wanjek

Monsanto, the multinational biotechnology corporation and leading producer of genetically engineered seed with a near monopoly on many crops and annual revenue exceeding $7 billion, is worried that you are being misled.

For this reason, the company wants to ban shady dairy farmers like those rascally Amish and weirdo hippies from labeling their products free of artificial hormones.

Earlier this month, Monsanto complained to the Food and Drug Administration and Federal Trade Committee about the proliferation of labels with language such as “Our Farmers’ Pledge: No Artificial Growth Hormones,” as found on milk sold by Oakhurst Dairy in Portland, Maine.

Monsanto says this scares consumers into thinking there’s something unhealthy about its human-made recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), also known as recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST) or by the Monsanto brand name, Posilac, now in about one-third of American dairy cows.

I’m thinking about having a funeral for the movement. It started with a brilliant leader who had a clear and transparent vision of living a life of voluntary simplicity, dependent on the land and animals, finding joy not in consumer goods, but in right livelihood.

He spread the movement by writing and publishing books and distribution of magazines.

Eventually, urban influences took one aspect of the movement, the part that benefited individuals personally, and abandoned the principle of the overall good.

The early disciples of the leader eventually became marginalized and their sacrifices became the platform for the profiteers to launch operations, using the strong branding created by the early followers, that have lost the original intent of the founder, and simply become money makers.

by Archana-siddhi dd (ACBSP)

It is easy to see Krishna’s loving hand involved in bringing a devotee back into the association of devotees. The more difficult piece to understand is how Krishna uses mental illness as a way to help a devotee (even in good devotional standing) to spiritually advance.

Most devotees can accept an adverse physical condition in their devotional journey as special mercy from the Lord to help them advance. But accepting an adverse mental condition is harder for the devotional community to understand and accept.

Isn't the process of devotional service supposed to bring a devotee mental equanimity? Isn't the process supposed to bring the practitioner peace of mind? So how can a sincere devotee develop an anxiety disorder, major depression, or psychosis?

[Originally published at www.vaisnavafamilyresources.org]

by Arcana-siddhi Devi Dasi (first published in Back to Godhead magazine, 2002)

IN THE EVENING of November 14, 1975, I received a phone call in my dorm room at college. Absorbed in studying for exams, I answered nonchalantly, expecting it to be my boyfriend, who would normally call me around that time. Instead, I heard an unfamiliar voice on the other end, and a young man identified himself as one of my brother’s new housemates. I thought, “What has Philip done this time?”

For the past six years, Philip had suffered from a bipolar disorder, then known as manic depressive disorder. Several times he had stopped taking his medications and lapsed into a psychotic manic state. The last time that had happened, he was found lying in the middle of the road, trying to see if the cars would stop. He rationalized his behavior as a test to see if man was inherently good or evil. Luckily he was arrested before any harm came to him, and he was again admitted to a psychiatric hospital to become stabilized on medication.

An article in today’s New York Times highlights the influence of movies on the mind…
By MIKE WHITE

THE first movie I ever made was called “Death Creek Camp.” It told the age-old story of a group of teenage guys who set out on a fun-filled wilderness excursion only to be stalked and murdered by a psychopath disguised in a hockey mask and a blue kimono. It was no masterpiece of cinema.

Most of the scenes played out the same way — one of the fresh-faced hikers would get separated from the group. He would hear a noise in the bushes. “Bob? Jerry, is that you? Charlie?” Suddenly, from behind a tree, the stalker would pounce and blood would fly.

Why the killer wore a blue kimono was never explained nor why he wanted these nice campers dead. He was a deranged monster and that’s what monsters do. As the filmmaker, I was more interested in how the ketchup would drip off the victim’s cheek and where to plunge the retractable knife. I was 12.

By Bhakta Jerry

I remember a particular day in freshmen biology class very well. We were informed of our next assignment: a bug collection. Here I am, studying the science of life, surrounded by dead animals stuffed and hanging on the walls, surrounded by many species petrified in jars, smelling the aroma coming through the window of cooked animals from the Burger King down the street, and now I am being forced to partake in the study of life by killing more creatures. Is it any wonder why vegetarianism, based on the principle of non-violence, is a shock to Westerners?

Reprinted from The Spiritual Scientist
By Radheshyam Das (M Tech IIT, Mumbai, Director, IYF),
Chaitanya Charan Das (BEE &TC, Editor, The Spiritual Scientist)

A two inch tongue can kill a six foot man. This traditional saying is being confirmed by modern obesity statistics. The prosperity of the Indian middle class is showing up - in a not-so-pleasant way in the burgeoning waistline, of over 25% of urban Indians. Obesity is the cause of diabetes, hypertension, heart attacks, strokes and a variety of other chronic diseases. Unlike infectious diseases which are curable, chronic diseases need lifelong care, leading to enormous expenditure.

The same trend is seen globally. Obesity, if left unabated, is set to overtake smoking as the number one cause of preventable death in USA.

by Kaunteya das

The message of this posting is very simple: watching TV is bad, very bad for bhakti-yoga. 

Yes, I hear the objection: "But Prabhu, we use it only to watch videos of Krishna and Srila Prabhupada!" If this is true for you, I offer you my humble obeisances and assure you that this article is not written for you.

Today I was asked by a Godbrother, a Bhakti-vriksha preacher somewhere on the planet:

"Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear" by Vincent van Gogh - after he cut off his own ear after an altercation with Paul Gauguin. Many believe van Gogh suffered from schizophrenia.

"Prabhuji I need your help! We have two devotees who would like to be members of [a Bhakti-vriksha group], but they suffer from schizophrenia".

According to Bhakti Vriksa Manual, persons who are mentaly ill cannot be members of [Bhakti-vriksha groups]. Does that mean that they can't be under any condition or they can if they take medication and keep their illness under control. Please respond as quickly as you can, because it is very important."