namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

I actually wrote this article 9 years ago, in 1999, so times were changing then and have continued to change since then…. Although some aspects of it are dated, when I found it in a box of old papers I thought enough of it was still relevant to feel inspired to share it. :-)

[Comment to his own post on www.dandavats.com]

From the Article:

Similarly, men have to a large degree lost the good quality of their greater capacity for intelligence and retained a superiority complex through social conditioning. Along with this is a concomitant lack of humility that characterizes all interactions in Kali-yuga; this is the age of quarrel and misunderstanding.

Amongst all this, men have insisted that women live up to the Vedic standard of submission, chastity, and obedience, without insisting that they themselves live up to the terms of their varnasrama contract: providing protection, well informed level-headed guidance, and support. Varnasrama is a social contract—all parties have to fulfill their obligations under the terms of the agreement.

 

Krishna doesn’t just love milk, Krishna loves cows. So how does he feel if we are offering him grocery store milk that is laden with antibiotics and growth hormones—milk that comes from cows that are abused and mistreated and finally sent to the slaughterhouse?

To give milk the cow must be pregnant and then have a calf. On both organic and non-organic farms, cows are kept continuously pregnant. On non-organic farms mother cows are treated like machines, chained by their necks in concrete stalls for months at a time, their udders are swollen so large that they sometimes drag on the ground. Cows give milk for the same reasons humans do—to feed their babies. To keep milk production high, cows are kept pregnant by artificial insemination and their male calves are taken away at 1-2 days old and chained inside cramped dark crates to be killed for veal. The milk meant for them is what we buy on the grocery shelves. They are not even given a chance to drink their mother’s milk.

Hare Krishna. Please Accept my worthless obesiances at your feet. All glories to ISKCON’s Founder-Acarya, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada.

I am writing this article in response to Karuna Prabhu ’s “Varnasrama,” and to a number of VAD related articles that appeared on dandavats.com. Rather than just write a comment, I have decided to write a quick article instead.

I first heard the Vrndavana Varnasrama Morning Walk Tapes (1974) when they first arrived from India. At that time I was working with Krishna Kanti Prabhu in the Golden Avatar Studios, and when the tapes arrived I had the service of opening them, placing them on the tape deck, and making master copy duplicates. As I did this, I was the very first to hear those tapes. (By Krishna’s arrangement, those were the first and last tapes that I performed this service on; I joined the BBT Art Department immediately afterwards).

“Cows constitute the stay of all creatures. Cows are the refuge of all creatures. Cows are the embodiment of merit. Cows are sacred and blessed and are sanctifiers of all. One should never, in even one’s heart, do an injury to cows. One should, indeed, always confer happiness on them.”

The above and following excerpts are from an article entitled, “Milk in the Age of Convenience.”

“As with all great treasures, milk comes with certain caveats. As our society further distances itself from nature and turns gradually more synthetic, these caveats turn into dire warning signals. A look at milk’s qualities as expressed in the magnificent Ayurvedic text, the Caraka Samhita, shows the potentiality of both misuse and overuse…Sattva is a state of lightness, equanimity, clarity, and, in this case, fortification, strength and vitality. Tamas, on the other hand, reflects dullness, confusion, sloth, and in this case, the process of compromising its quality, leading to ill health and the potentiality of allergies. But what exactly is “compromised” milk?

By Madhava Gosh

If you drink factory milk, you drink its karma. There are some fancy rationalizations floating around to justify doing so, but if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it is a duck. You are responsible for your actions. Offering it to the spiritual master, who has mandated cow protection, and thinking that he is some karma filter that will make it all okay, is lame, IMHO. I don’t think you can ignore his instruction to protect cows, and then expect him to cover for you when you don’t. If you drink milk without protecting cows because of cost or inconvenience, then you are supporting factory style production, and all that that entails. Therefore you are seeing those cows as separate from Krishna.

By Vyapaka dasa

Dedicated to practically exploring Srila Prabhupada's instructions on simple living and high thinking. If we need inspiration, let us think of Srila Prabhupada's devotion and determination to serve his spiritual master as he boarded the Jaladutta — though he was penniless, of an advanced age and uncertain as to his chances of success — still he forged ahead.

Most devotees' lives and views on devotional service change as their ashram changes. When several devotees pass through ashram changes at approximately the same time-or even if one respected devotee within a temple changes his ashram-a temple can become affected.

By Hari-sauri dasa

In the introduction of Sri Isopanishad there is a statement by Srila Prabhupada that says that women are less-intelligent. So I distribute books. I sometimes meet ladies and they ask what actually, you know, sometimes they are immediately intimidated and they start to argue, that you say we are less-intelligent. So what would be the best way to address such issues?