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On our most recent podcast, Maitreya rishi dasa and HG Makhancora dasa discuss the negative effects and cause of pollution, which plagues the world so terribly today. It's not all negative though! They also give the solution.

Recent elections in the United states have been perhaps the most turbulent in the history and America as a whole is undergoing major crisis in general with rise in poverty, crime, drug addiction, etc. Srila Prabhupada, the Hare Krsna founder gives a practical solution on how to solve the crime in American cities. Are we ready to follow his advice? Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu prayed to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, na dhanam na janam na sundarim kavitam va jagad-isa kamaye: [Cc. Antya 20.29, Siksastaka 4] "O my Lord, I do not aspire for material opulence or wealth, nor do I want a great number of followers to accept me as their leader, nor do I want a very beautiful wife to please me." Mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi: "I do not even want liberation. All I want, life after life, is to be a faithful servant of Your Lordship." According to the laws of nature, when one is extremely opulent one becomes degraded, and this is true both individually and collectively. The demigods are situated in the mode of goodness, but sometimes even one who is situated in such an exalted position as King Indra, the king of all the demigods, falls down because of material opulence. We are now actually seeing this in America. The entire American nation has tried to advance in material opulence without striving to produce ideal human beings. The result is that Americans are now regretting the wholesale criminality of American society and are wondering how America has become so lawless and unmanageable. As stated in Srimad-Bhagavatam (7.5.31), na te viduh svartha-gatim hi visnum: persons who are unenlightened do not know the aim of life, which is to return home, back to Godhead. Therefore, both individually and collectively, they try to enjoy so-called material comforts, and they become addicted to wine and women. The men produced in such a society are less than fourth class. They are the unwanted population known as varna-sankara, and as stated in Bhagavad-gita, an increase of varna-sankara population creates a hellish society. This is the society in which Americans now find themselves. Fortunately, however, the Hare Krsna movement has come to America, and many fortunate young men are giving serious attention to this movement, which is creating ideal men of first-class character, men who completely refrain from meat-eating, illicit sex, intoxication and gambling. If the American people are serious about curbing the degraded criminal life of their nation, they must take to the Krsna consciousness movement and try to create the kind of human society advised in Bhagavad-gita (catur-varnyam maya srstam guna-karma-vibhagasah [Bg. 4.13]). They must divide their society into first-class men, second-class men, third-class men and fourth-class men. Since they are now creating only men who are less than fourth class, how can they avoid the dangers of a criminal society? Long, long ago, Lord Indra regretted his disrespect to his spiritual master, Brhaspati. Similarly, it is advised that the American people regret their mistaken advancement in civilization. They should take advice from the spiritual master, the representative of Krsna. If they do so, they will be happy, and theirs will be an ideal nation to lead the entire world. (SB 6.7.12 purport)

A disciple of Srila Prabhupada remembers a very interesting pastime in which Srila Prabhupada points out the main defect in modern society and even predicts the future state of our world: Gokularanajana: With his cane Prabhupada pointed to the skyline and said, "You see this city? This city and all cities will collapse very soon. Do you know why?" Everyone hesitated, wondering, but Tamal Krishna quickly said, "Because the people here don't know how to grow food." Everybody else was searching for some esoteric reason but Tamal gave a practical reason. Prabhupada said, "Yes." Growing food is the whole purpose of our farm communities and we still are trying to grasp their importance.

Madhuvisa dasa was an extraordinary disciple of Srila Prabhupada. He rendered great service in the Australian region as a general body manager, opened temples, and lead ecstatic kirtans. Here is a nice poem read by him on Srila Prabhupada's vyasa-puja.

The following is an excerpt from "The Proof of The Vedas," which was written and compiled by His Grace Purujit dasa, the founder of the Bhaktivedanta Lives in Sound Society, wherein he explains how our knowledge is relative only to the body and is also therefore a cause of great disturbance to the whole society. Although our choice of opinions is the result of our previous conditioning, we tend to think to be the originators of knowledge. Due to this deluded mentality we are very much inclined to follow authorities who keep us in this illusion of being the originators of knowledge, and those who tend to break it, we reject. Foolish rascals therefore prosper by teaching: “Do not accept authorities. You are an authority yourself!” And even more foolish followers of such down-trodden men accept such rascals as their gurus, although such garbage gurus have no knowledge to offer. Seemingly everyone has his own truth. In reality, however, conditioned souls think that they are right and everyone else is wrong. This is why people in the world find it more and more difficult to find a common platform to resolve conflicts. Locked up in their own limited conceptions dictated by the ever-changing material nature, they are filled with doubts. They are not confident of anything. Lord Krsna describes such people as follows: vyavasayatmika buddhir ekeha kuru-nandana bahu-sakha hy anantas ca buddhayo 'vyavasayinam “Those who are on this path are resolute in purpose, and their aim is one. O beloved child of the Kurus, the intelligence of those who are irresolute is many-branched.” (Bg 2.41) In this way, newer and newer so-called knowledge, new theories, new course packs, new instruction manuals are produced, new educational departments are opened. One scientist comes up with a theory, then another scientist smashes it and establishes a new one. None of the theories, however, matter, because the basis is wrong. We cannot manufacture knowledge in the factory of our imagination. The real knowledge must be standard and applicable to everyone. It does not change. Belief, however, changes according to circumstances, and it is restricted to a limited section of people. What we presently consider to be science is therefore a belief. For this reason it is so difficult for people outside of the Vedic tradition to accept the Vedas as scientific. They are mistaking their imperfect faith for science and fight like dogs when it is challenged by the scientific Vedic statements. Furthermore, as mentioned before, any knowledge besides everything within our experience and everything beyond our experience (the complete whole) must be by definition illusion (maya –“that which is not”), or, shortly, ignorance. The so-called learning is therefore simply an expansion of ignorance—in other words the exact opposite of what knowledge should be. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, a great acarya, said that all the forms of material knowledge are merely external features of the illusory energy, and by culturing them one becomes no better than an ass. Material advancement of knowledge means actually converting a human being to the status of an ass. Srila Prabhupada states: “The ‘knowledge’ of the common man is always in the mode of darkness or ignorance because every living entity in conditional life is born into the mode of ignorance. One who does not develop knowledge through the authorities or scriptural injunctions has knowledge that is limited to the body. He is not concerned about acting in terms of the directions of scripture. For him God is money, and knowledge means the satisfaction of bodily demands. Such knowledge has no connection with the Absolute Truth. It is more or less like the knowledge of the ordinary animals: the knowledge of eating, sleeping, defending and mating. ”

"Prabhu -- your ongoing loyal adherence to Srila Prabhupada's teachings and instructions and your unflagging enthusiasm for serving the Vaishnavas and spreading Krishna consciousness is a source of great inspiration. Thank you. Hare Krishna." Swarup Hebel Prabhu (first from the left with Srila Prabhupada) about Purujit Prabhu

Maitreya rishi dasa and Bhakta Nejcs discuss the intricacies of chanting the Holy Name: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare. They also discuss the various deviations that can deter one from the path of pure love of God.

This is a recollection and realization shared by a friend of The B.L.I.S.S, Svarup Hebel Prabhu, an initiated disciple of Srila Prabhupada from the early days of the movement in the west. Srila Prabhupada came with a message. that was completely against what the American youth had as a mainstream popular paradigm - free 'love', drugs and rock'n'roll. Srila Prabhupada is fearless and uncompromising. This is a bona fine Spiritual Master. At a time when the Vietnam War was raging on and the peace movement was growing, Srila Prabhupada arrived in America and presented Bhagavad-gita As It Is, a scripture in which Krishna chastises Arjuna for being a pacifist and tells him to get onto the battlefield and kill. At the height of the Civil Rights movement and a time when feminism was on the rise, Srila Prabhupada came to teach that spiritually we are all equal but on the bodily platform it just isn't so. When an entire generation was turning into bohemian hedonists with slogans like, "if it feels good, do it" and "turn on, tune in, drop out" and the battle cry was "sex, drugs and rock n' roll" ... Srila Prabhupada introduced bhakti-yoga, a discipline that required followers to give up sex, intoxication, meat eating and gambling. When growing long hair was so in that the musical "Hair" became a nationwide sensation, Srila Prabhupada instructed his followers to shave their heads. When other swamis, yogis and gurus were coming from India to the West preaching peace and love and we are all one ... Srila Prabhupada called them cheaters, rascals and crows. When the book "I'm ok, You're ok" came out, Srila Prabhupada remarked, "we say that we are ok, you are not ok." To say the least, Srila Prabhupada's message was a hard sell given the time, place and circumstances. He was even advised that if he tried to impose such rules and regulations onto Westerners nobody would listen; no one would take him seriously. Srila Prabhupada saw through all the superficiality and more than anything else he saw that we were dissatisfied. We were unhappy. We wanted change. All the experimenting with communes, drugs and sex and all the protesting and rebelling was due to deep feelings of frustration and hopelessness. He told us that we were intelligent to want something better .. to want happiness and peace ... but we didn't know how to achieve it. He said "I have come to give you the positive alternative." Srila Prabhupada never compromised. He was innovative and creative and made some adjustments to accommodate and achieve success in the matter of teaching Krishna consciousness ... but he never compromised. He didn't have to. His genuine purity, compassion and love was the force behind the message and which attracted all of us like iron filings to a magnet. We gladly let him turn us hippies into happies .. with (as he would describe) shining faces.

Sometimes there are objections raised that the scriptures deride the woman's body as a personification of illusion. However, in the following excerpt we see that great devotees see both female and male forms as a mere reflections of the original beauty in the spiritual world and do not hesitate to describe the male body as a personification of the illusory potency as well. What follows is a beautiful prayer of Lord Krsna's wife Rukmini taken from the 5000 years old Vaishnava scripture of the name Srimad Bhagavatam "My dear Lord, You have advised me that I can still select another from the princely order and divorce myself of Your companionship. But, my dear Lord, it is perfectly well-known to me that You are the reservoir of all good qualities. Great saintly persons like Narada Muni are always engaged simply in glorifying Your transcendental characteristics. If someone simply takes shelter of such a saintly person, he immediately becomes freed from all material contamination. And by coming in direct contact with Your service the goddess of fortune agrees to bestow all her blessings. Under the circumstances, what woman who has once heard of Your glories from authoritative sources and somehow or other has tasted the nectarean flavor of Your lotus feet can be foolish enough to agree to marry someone of this material world who is always afraid of death, disease, old age and rebirth? I have therefore accepted Your lotus feet, not without consideration, but after mature and deliberate decision. My dear Lord, You are the master of the three worlds. You can fulfill all the desires of all Your devotees in this world and the next, because You are the Supreme Soul of everyone. I have therefore selected You as my husband, considering You to be the only fit personality. You may throw me in any species of life according to the reaction of my fruitive activities, and I haven't the least concern for this. My only ambition is that I may always remain fast to Your lotus feet, because You can deliver Your devotees from illusory material existence and are always prepared to distribute Yourself to Your devotees. "My dear Lord, You have advised me to select one of the princes such as Sisupala, Jarasandha or Dantavakra, but what is their position in this world? They are always engaged in hard labor to maintain their household life, just like the bulls working hard day and night with the oil-pressing machine. They are compared to asses, beasts of burden. They are always dishonored like the dogs, and they are miserly like the cats. They have sold themselves like slaves to their wives. Any unfortunate woman who has never heard of Your glories may accept such a man as her husband, but a woman who has learned about You -- that You are praised not only in this world, but in the halls of the great demigods like Lord Brahma and Lord Siva -- will not accept anyone besides Yourself as her husband. A man within this material world is just a dead body. In fact, superficially, the living entity is covered by this body, which is nothing but a bag of skin decorated with beards and moustaches, hairs on the body, nails on the fingers and hairs on the head. Within this decorated bag there are bunches of muscles, bundles of bones, and pools of blood, always mixed up with stool, urine, mucus, bile and polluted air, and enjoyed by different kinds of insects and germs. A foolish woman accepts such a dead body as her husband and, in sheer misunderstanding, loves him as her dear companion. This is only possible because such a woman has never tasted the ever-blissful flavor of Your lotus feet. "My dear lotus-eyed husband, You are self-satisfied. You do not care whether or not I am beautiful or qualified; You are not at all concerned about it. Therefore Your nonattachment for me is not at all astonishing; it is quite natural. You cannot be attached to any woman, however exalted her position and beauty. Whether You are attached to me or not, may my devotion and attention be always engaged at Your lotus feet. The material mode of passion is also Your creation, so when You passionately glance upon me, I accept it as the greatest boon of my life. I am ambitious only for such auspicious moments." (KB 1970-2-5 / Talks Between Krsna and Rukmini)

The Hare Krsna movement founder Srila Prabhupada explains why the theory of overpopulation is completely flawed and nonsensical. Living entities are part and parcel of God. Suppose God is the big fire and living entities are just like sparks. The sparks, they are also fire. Sparks also, if one spark falls on your body, on your garment, it burns. But it is not as powerful as the big fire. Similarly, God is all-powerful. God is great. We are part and parcel of God. Therefore our greatness is very, very small, infinitesimal. God is great. Therefore He has created so many universes. We cannot account for even one universe. This one universe which we see, the sky, the dome, within that sky, outer space, there are millions and trillions of stars, planets, they're floating, floating in the air. Everyone knows. We can float one sputnik in the sky, and we take so much credit that we have become very, very great scientist. We don't care for God. This is foolishness. Foolish person will say like that. But one who is intelligent, he knows that God is floating millions and trillions of planets in the sky, and what we have done in that comparison? This is intelligence. So we have become very much proud of our scientific knowledge, and therefore, at the present moment, we defy the existence of God. Sometimes we say that "I have become God now." These are foolish statements. You are nothing in comparison to the intelligence... He's also intelligent. Because we are part and parcel of God, therefore we can study what is God if we simply study ourself. Just like if you study a drop of seawater, if you analyze chemically, you'll find so many chemicals in that drop. So you can understand what is the composition of the sea: the same composition, but in greater quantity. That is the difference between God and ourself. We are small gods, we can say, small gods. Teeny, sample gods. Therefore we are so much proud. But we should not be proud because we should know that all our qualities are taken from God, because we are part and parcel. So originally all these qualities are there in God. And therefore Vedanta-sutra says what is God, what is the Absolute Truth. Athatho brahma-jijnasa. When inquire about God, about the Absolute Truth, the answer is immediately given: janmady asya yatah [SB 1.1.1]. The Absolute Truth is that from whom everything comes, everything emanates. So everything is coming from God. He's the original source of all supplies. Now what is our position? There are innumerable living entities: nityo nityanam cetanas cetananam [Katha Upanisad 2.2.13]. [The Supreme Lord is eternal and the living beings are eternal. The Supreme Lord is cognizant and the living beings are cognizant. The difference is that the Supreme Lord is supplying all the necessities of life for the many other living entities.] That is Vedic information. God is also a living entity, like us, but He's the chief living entity. And we are also living entity. Just like one father. Father may have got twenty children, twenty sons. Formerly, they used to have one hundred sons. Now the fathers have no such power. But in the..., up to five thousand years ago, King Dhrtarastra gave birth to one hundred sons. Now we are... We say, we are saying that we are overpopulated. But that's not the fact. At the present moment, where there is the question of overpopulation? Now how many of us giving birth hundreds of children? No. Nobody. But formerly, a father could give birth to one hundred children. So there is no question of overpopulation. And even there is overpopulation, we get information from the Vedas: eko bahunam yo vidadhati kaman [Katha Upanisad 2.2.13]. That one chief living entity, God, He can maintain innumerable living entities. There is no question of overpopulation. This is a false theory. If God can create, He can maintain also. And actually, this is the fact. I am traveling all over the world. There are so much vacant places upon the surface of the globe that..., that ten times more than the present population can be easily maintained. But we, we do not know how to use it. In Africa, in Australia, in your America, enough land still lying. But because we have encroached upon the land of Krsna, the difficulty is there. China is overpopulated. India is overpopulated. But we, if we take to Krsna consciousness, these difficulties will be over within a second. Krsna consciousness means to take everything Krsna's. I am also Krsna's. That is Krsna consciousness. Actually, that is the fact. Everything... Krsna means God. Everything belongs to God. I also belong to God. Isavasyam idam sarvam [Iso mantra 1]. [Everything animate or inanimate that is within the universe is controlled and owned by the Lord. One should therefore accept only those things necessary for himself, which are set aside as his quota, and one should not accept other things, knowing well to whom they belong.] Everything belongs to God. That's a fact. But we do not accept the fact. We take something illusory. Therefore it is called maya. Just like the Americans: they are claiming this land is for the American group. Similarly, other nations, they're... But the land actually belongs to God. The land, the sky, the water, and the products in the land, in the sky, in the water, everything belongs to God. And we are children of God. We have got the right to live at the expense of father. Just like we live, small children, they live at the cost of father. Similarly, we also live by the arrangement of God. Why should we claim that this is our property? This is the idea of spiritual communism. In Bhagavata these things are stated, how to feel spiritual communism. In the spiritual communism... The present Communists, they are thinking of the human being only. And the animals are being sent to the slaughterhouse. Although the human being and the animal is born in the same land... Actually, they are also nationals. National means one who's born in that particular land. So why not these animals, nationals? But because they have no Krsna consciousness, they cannot think so broadly. They think nationalism means it is limited to the human being, not to the animals, not to the trees. But when you become Krsna conscious you understand that the trees, the plants, the reptiles, the aquatics, the human beings, the beasts, everyone, each and everyone, part and parcel of God. According to their karma they have got different bodies, the color, as I explained. According to karanam guna-sango 'sya sad-asad-janma-yonisu [Bg 13.22]. These things are described in the Bhagavad-gita. One has got a different type of body according to his karma. Karmana daiva netrena jantor deha upapattaye [SB 3.31.1]. [The Personality of Godhead said: Under the supervision of the Supreme Lord and according to the result of his work, the living entity, the soul, is made to enter into the womb of a woman through the particle of male semen to assume a particular type of body.] By karma we create next body. So this is a great science. People do not know how things are taking place, how there are so many species of life, how one is so-called happy, one so-called distressed. Why one is rich, one is poor. Why there are so many planets. Why some of them are demigods and some of them are human beings, some of them are animals. It is a great science. But there is no cultivation of this knowledge in the modern universities or educational institution. Perhaps we are the only group of men, we are trying to propagate this science of Krsna consciousness. But it is a perfect science to understand the position. (Bhagavad-gita 4.13 – April 8, 1973, New York)

This is an excerpt from the preface of the Bhagavad-gita As It Is, translated and commented upon by His Divine Grace A.C Bhakivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Herein His Divine Grace explains why hearing from a person in the proper succession of understanding the science of Bhagavad-gita is so important. If personally I have any credit in this matter, it is only that I have tried to present Bhagavad-gita as it is, without any adulteration. Before my presentation of Bhagavad-gita As It Is, almost all the English editions of Bhagavad-gita were introduced to fulfill someone's personal ambition. But our attempt, in presenting Bhagavad-gita As It Is, is to present the mission of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krsna. Our business is to present the will of Krsna, not that of any mundane speculator like the politician, philosopher or scientist, for they have very little knowledge of Krsna, despite all their other knowledge. When Krsna says, man-mana bhava mad-bhakto mad-yaji mam namaskuru [Bg. 18.65], etc., we, unlike the so-called scholars, do not say that Krsna and His inner spirit are different. Krsna is absolute, and there is no difference between Krsna's name, Krsna's form, Krsna's qualities, Krsna's pastimes, etc. This absolute position of Krsna is difficult to understand for any person who is not a devotee of Krsna in the system of parampara (disciplic succession). Generally the so-called scholars, politicians, philosophers, and svamis, without perfect knowledge of Krsna, try to banish or kill Krsna when writing commentary on Bhagavad-gita. Such unauthorized commentary upon Bhagavad-gita is known as Mayavada-bhasya, and Lord Caitanya has warned us about these unauthorized men. Lord Caitanya clearly says that anyone who tries to understand Bhagavad-gita from the Mayavadi point of view will commit a great blunder. The result of such a blunder will be that the misguided student of Bhagavad-gita will certainly be bewildered on the path of spiritual guidance and will not be able to go back to home, back to Godhead. -Srila Prabhupada, Bhagavad-gita preface

There is no meaning to accepting an ordinary man as guru. Govinda: We were in Boston in May of 1968 when a new Back to Godhead magazine was published with a black-and-white picture of Prabhupada on the back cover and the caption, "This man changed the world." It looked very slick for those days. Prabhupada called me in his room, handed it to me and said, "Look at this." I looked and thought, "What's wrong with it?" He said, "This is very serious. The spiritual master should never be referred to as a man. This consciousness, viewing the spiritual master as an ordinary man, even calling him a man, is the beginning of fall down." This seriously affected Prabhupada because one should never refer to or consider the spiritual master on the level of a man.