Jagat

I spent quite a bit of time over the past few days wandering more or less aimlessly on the Internet. As usual, when one does this kind of thing, disparate streams coalesce and one is left with certain impressions that carry a greater significance than one might have expected. I started out by looking up the "reptilian" brain and ended up on a website connected to a rather well-known conspiracy theorist from England, but of whom I had never heard, David Icke . Icke describes what those on the left have become rather well aware of, such as increasing concentrations of power in the hands of a few, the global financial crisis and the opportunism of elites to exploit the situation in their own favor at the cost of common people (the "shock doctrine"), mass manipulation through media and education, and the increasingly repressive surveillance state. Icke's summary of the situation is mostly cogent and frighteningly familiar, but totally marred by his fantastical t...

mugdhaṁ māṁ nigadantu nīti-nipuṇā bhrāntaṁ muhur vaidikāḥ mandaṁ bāndhava-sañcayā jaḍa-dhiyaṁ muktādarāḥ sodarāḥ | unmattaṁ dhanino viveka-caturāḥ kāmaṁ mahā-dāmbhikaṁ moktuṁ na kṣamate manāg api mano govinda-pāda-spṛhām || Let the sharp moralist accuse me of being illusioned; the experts in Vedic ritual may slander me as misled, friends and relatives may call me lazy and irresponsible, while my brothers, no longer respectful or affectionate, call me a fool. I don't mind. The wealthy mammonites will point me out as mad, and learned philosophers assert that I am much too proud. Still, my mind does not budge an inch from its determination to serve Govinda's lotus feet. ( Pady ā vali 81, M ā dhavasya ) Actually, I don't think it is just "I don't mind." It is a kind of relish. We Hare Krishnas have been thumbing our nose at the Establishment since 1966. And they called us irresponsible and told us to get jobs, or to be good Christians, or philoso...