Jagat

The essential of our practice: male and female differences are only eliminated when we realize that union is the supreme goal for both. I want to sit here and give my FULL attention to you. That is what we actually want, all of us. The problem comes from desire. I don't know whether men or women have more desire or different qualities of desire. The quality of their desire may differ due to their sexuality, but being free of desire is the key to union, i.e., the key to being free of the thought that union in prema is not the highest achievement. That all the things -- house, money, riches, fame, achievements, success, conquest -- any of those things can be a substitute for prema. A woman might think that she can achieve those things  <i>through <i> a man. A man is more often just thinking about the sexual payoff. And this it the matrix on which the sexes play their game. Purification of the mind through bhakti and yoga is the necessary prerequisite for even underst...

Arrived in Vrindavan this morning after a grueling bus ride. Five hours waiting in a kind of Corner Gas , Indian style, with parking lot with bus stand, convenience store with tea shop, a venue for the local public to watch television -- American wrestling shows are apparently quite popular -- people walking in and out. Sharing a chillum. A young girl and her small brother in rags, laughing and running around amongs the adults. In short, the neighborhood. Only one or two modern Indian in jeans and teashirts with real luggage and not just clothes wrapped in an old sari or gamcha. Most of the waiting travelers are from some Rajasthani village patiently squatting and talking, like me. It may not be altogether wrong to think that this is the Indian way of life, just clear a space in the detritus, let it be, do the minimum, it is too hot for anything but to sit and contemplate. This 21st century Haridwar corner café has an interesting feature in that it is ...

On Facebook the other day, I posted a link to an article by George Monbiot, one of the few journalists whose work I admire, from the Guardian. Monbiot laments about the corporate culture and compares it to cult-like indoctrination and brain washing. He seems to be on a bit of a run about this because he had another similar article a couple of days later. Of course, having experienced a religious cult, spending nine years in the Hare Krishnas, I thought of Prabhupada's statement that he was indeed engaged in a brainwashing exercise, precisely because our brains did need to be washed. And that is quite true. The idea of "cleansing the mirror of the mind" is central to all yoga systems. We willingly submitted to the brainwashing process because we wanted to change our way of consciousness, our way of being. To fill our minds and senses with Krishna. To become Krishna conscious. And on the whole, I am glad of it. The process was based on the Bhāgavata-dharmas of the sc...

A couple of things in the current news cycle caught my attention and made me return to this unpublished post.  “The great question that has never been answered and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my 30 years of research into the feminine soul, is, What does a woman want?” Sigmund Freud At the risk of reopening a rather nasty can of worms, I am descending once again into the rape discussion. For background, see here , here and here . I never really thought much about Prabhupada's famous statement that women "enjoy rape." Like most people, I suppose, I just laughed it off, or considered it irrelevant. I have no skin in the game myself as I feel no great need to defend Prabhupada at all costs. But since I have now been accused of " supporting rape " I feel challenged to at least inform myself about this debate. One thing I have done fairly consistently on my blog, however, is to argue the following major points, which of course are nowhere i...