Jagat

It was on this day in 2015 that Swami Veda Bharati left his body in Rishikesh. I was in Vrindavan at the time but left the same day to be there for the jala-samādhi and I stayed for several weeks until the mourning period was over. Someone also sent me a photo of the Nitai Pada Kamala, which evoked memories from 1976 or thereabouts. This date was also Guru Purnima in 2011, and my remarks inspired a long thread with plenty of comments. Facebook memories.  July 14 2020 Chapter 28 of Another Side of Bhaktivinoda Thakur by Gadadhar Pran Das is now available. There is only one more chapter, which will be appearing soon. Then what happens? Probably a final edit and then publication. How that will be organized I do not know, but it seems that GP Prabhu has finally got a few disciples who are faithful and will help get it done. Which I think is at least in part due to the publication on line on my blog. I was checking yesterday. Some chapters have had only a couple of hundred ...

The first calls to blow up the Yamuna "Half-Moon" Bridge have already come out. It made me realize that the picture used on that poster was a total mistake. The language of "aparadha" that was used there and in the current discourse is not really the right way to approach publicizing this issue. Most people do not understand what offenses are, and they have little or no idea of the sacred or why Vrindavan and the Yamuna are sacred. We do not really want to associate the preservation of Vrindavan's sacred heritage with militant Hindu nationalism and the kinds of things that happened in the Babri Masjid fiasco. To characterize the people involved in making the bridge as demons is also wrongheaded. That makes it into a demons-demigods fight, which is not what it is. Always attribute the best motivations to your enemy: they are thinking of the development of this bridge as a way of improving the lives of the Brajavasis by increasing the flow of tourist traffic...