No culture in the West; the whole atmosphere is abominable

[krsna]

no culture in the West; the whole atmosphere is abominable <hr style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="1"><!-- / icon and title --><!-- message -->

Srila Prabhupada: In India many highly scholarly persons beg. They are

titled bhiksu-tridandi-svami. They beg to learn pridelessness and humility.

In Vedic culture it is allowed; the brahmacaris, sannyasis, and brahmanas

are allowed to beg alms.

 

Satsvarupa Gosvami: But what if the culture is entirely different, as in the

West?

 

Srila Prabhupada: Yes, your culture is different, and therefore the youth

are becoming hippies, and the mothers are killing their own children in the

womb-all in the name of "freedom." Actually, there is no culture in the

West; therefore, the whole atmosphere is abominable. You are right when you

say you have an entirely different culture. You don't know real culture. You

have a culture that kills children, so how will you understand the higher

Vedic culture? Our disciples are going out and selling books on Krsna

consciousness just to give you a chance to understand what real, spiritual

culture is -- and you are calling them "parasites."

 

>From BTG #12-06, 1977.

[Jade Bridge]

As a Westerner, I'd be interested in knowing what the purpose of posting this was for? It certainly reinforced my opinion that Prabhupada was nothing more than a male chauvinist who would have fit right in with the patriarchal workings of Catholicism. In fact, he more than anything else has made the whole Krishna movement distasteful for me.

[akshar]

It'a true. The west eats meat drinks and kill people for no reason whatsoever (compared to east) It's a fact that all great minds and prophetswere works of the east. Even mark twain says india is the mother of countries. But i agree ths is a pointless thread.

[akshar]

Even me being a swaminarayan you should watch your mouth about what you say abut Srila Phrabupada. He has nlightened the west like our guru H.D.H Pramukh Swami Maharaj

[Kulapavana]

India: Child abuse cases report

 

INDIA, FACTS ON PROSTITUTION

13-year-old Mira of Nepal was offered a job as a domestic worker in Bombay, India. She arrived at a brothel on Bombay’s Falkland Road, where tens of thousands of young women are displayed in row after row of zoo-like animal cages. Her father had been duped into giving her to a trafficker. When she refused to have sex, she was dragged into a torture chamber in a dark alley used for ‘breaking in’ new girls. She was locked in a narrow, windowless room without food or water. On the fourth day, one of the madam’s thugs goonda wrestled her to the floor and banged her head against the concrete until she passed out. When she awoke, she was naked; a rattan cane smeared with pureed red chili peppers shoved into her vagina. Later she was raped by the goonda. Afterwards, she complied with their demands. The madam told Mira that she had been sold to the brothel for 50,000 rupees (about US$1,700), that she had to work until she paid off her debt. Mira was sold to a client who then became her pimp. (Robert I. Freidman, "India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe," The Nation)

 

There are approximately 2 million child commercial sex workers between the age of 5 and 15 years and about 3.3 million between 15 and 18 years They form 40% of the total population of commercial sex workers in India 80% of these are found in the 5 metros 71% of them are illiterate 500,000 children are forced into this trade every year

Source : www.cry.org

 

* Prostitution is widespread, with an estimated 2.3 million prostitutes in the country, some 575,000 of whom are children. (US Dept of State, Human Rights Report, 1999)

* According to ILO estimates, 15% of the country's estimated 2.3 million prostitutes are children. (US Dept of State, Human Rights Report, 1999)

* Recent studies indicate that of the estimated 9,000,000 prostitutes working in India, some 30% or 2,700,000 are children. A further 10% reported that they had started their 'career' in prostitution before they were 18 years of age. A large number of these children are trafficked from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal. (ECPAT International, A Step Forward, 1999)

* One quarter of prostitutes are minors. (CATW 1999)

* 25-30% of prostitutes are children. An estimated number of child prostitutes is 400,000. (ILO-IPEC, Mainstreaming Gender in IPEC Activities, 1999)

* There is a growing pattern of trafficking in child prostitutes from Nepal. According to one estimate, 5,000 to 7,000 children, mostly between the ages of 10 and 18, are drawn into this traffic annually. NGOs in the region estimate that some 6,000 to 10,000 girls are trafficked annually from Nepal to Indian brothels and a similar number are trafficked from Bangladesh. (US Dept of State, Human Rights Report, 1999)

* Women's rights organisations and NGOs estimate that more than 12,000 and perhaps as many as 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the country annually from neighbouring states for the sex trade. (US Dept of State, Human Rights Report, 1999)

* 30% of India's 1 million prostitutes are girls below the age of 16 years. (SPARC, The State of Pakistan's Children, 1999, citing "Child Prostitution Increasing in Indo-Pak", The Frontier Post, 25 November 1998)

* A survey by the Central Social Welfare Board of India indicated that the population of Nepalese women and child victims of commercial sexual exploitation in Indian brothels would be between 70,000 to 100,000 of which 30% were below 18 years. (ILO-IPEC, Usha D. Acharya, Country Report: Nepal, October 1998)

* Over 100,000 child prostitutes are estimated to be in India's major cities. (June Kane, Sold for Sex, 1998)

* Over the last decade, 200,000 Bangladeshi girls were lured under false circumstances and sold into the sex industry in nations including Pakistan, India and the Middle East. (CATW Fact Book, citing Tabibul Islam, "Rape of Minors Worry Parents", IPS, 8 April 1998)

* Every year between 5,000 and 7,000 Nepalese girls are trafficked into the red-light districts in Indian cities. Many of the girls are barely 9 or 10 years old. (CATW Fact Book, citing Soma Wadhwa, "For sale childhood', Outlook, 1998)

* 27,000 Bangladeshi women and children have been forced into prostitution in Indian brothels. (CATW Fact Book, citing "Women Forced into Indian Brothels", CWCS, June 1998)

* 200,000 Nepalese girls under 16 years are in prostitution. (Penelope Saunders, "Sexual Trafficking and Forced Prostitution of Children", 29 October 1998)

* 40,000 Nepalese girls under 16 in Indian brothels are forced into prostitution. (Penelope Saunders, "Sexual Trafficking and Forced Prostitution of Children", 29 October 1998)

* 20% of the child prostitutes in India come from Bangladesh and Nepal. (BNWLA, Salma Ali, Country Report on Trafficking in Children and their Exploitation in Prostitution, October 1998, citing a research publication by Dr. K.K. Mukherjee of India)

* 300,000-500,000 children are engaged in prostitution. (CATW Fact Book, citing Rahul Bedi, "Bid to Protect Children as Sex Tourism Spreads", Daily Telegraph (London), 23 August 1997)

 

* 15% of prostitutes in India are under the age of 18 years. ("Innocence Sacrificed on Tourism Altar", ECPAT Bulletin, October 1996)

* A 1996 survey published in India Today magazine estimated there are between 40,000 and 50,000 child prostitutes in the country, activists now say that figure might have jumped to about 250,000. ("Children For Sale", Asia Week, 1 March 1996)

* Conservative estimates say some 300,000 children are involved in the sex industry. ("Six foreigners charged in India child sex case", The Nation, 18 October 1996, reprinted in ECPAT Bulletin, October 1996)

* Between 2,000 and 5,000 children are sent across the border to India for prostitution every year. (Kota Neelima, "Young sex workers are costly commodity", ECPAT Bulletin, July 1996)

* An estimated 400 sex workers came from Bangladesh every month and about 5,000 came from Nepal every year. (Kota Neelima, "Young sex workers are a costly commodity", ECPAT Bulletin, July 1996, citing Indrani Sinha of SANLAAP India)

* 500,000 girls work as sex workers. (UNICEF, Atlas of South Asian Children and Women, 1996)

* The average age of the Nepalese girls entering an Indian brothel is said to be 10-14 years, some 5,000 to 7,000 of them being trafficked between Nepal and India annually. (UNICEF India, Richard Young, "Understanding Underlying Factors", Child Workers in Asia, January-June 1996)

* Every year 5,000 to 7,000 Nepalese girls are trafficked to India. An estimated 40,000 to 45,000 of these girls are in Bombay brothels and also nearly an equal number of them are in Calcutta. (Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Action, The Flesh Trade Report, 1995-1996)

* Nepalese social workers estimate the number of Nepalese girls and women working in Indian brothels at about 200,000, and believe that between 5,000 and 7,000 new Nepalese end up in Indian brothels every year. (Human Rights Watch/Asia, Rape and Profit, June 1995)

 

* There were an estimated 400,000-500,000 child prostitutes in 1991. (Human Rights Watch)

* Half of 100,000 girl prostitutes between 10-14 in Bombay are from Nepal and kept in brothels against their will. (Penelope Saunders, "Sexual Trafficking and Forced Prostitution of Children", 29 October 1998)

* In Bombay, India, at least half of the city's 100,000 prostitutes are believed to be Nepalese girls. (ILO-IPEC, Usha D. Acharya, Country Report: Nepal, October 1998)

* The number of Nepalese girls and women engaged in prostitution in Calcutta exceeds 27,000, in Delhi it is more than 21,000, in Gorakhpur it is 4,700, and in Banaras it is 3,480. (ILO-IPEC, Usha D. Acharya, Country Report: Nepal, October 1998)

* 10,000 Bangladeshi children are in brothels in Bombay and Goa, India. (CATW Fact Book, citing "Human smuggling from Bangladesh at alarming level", Reuters, 26 May 1997, citing Trafficking Watch Bangladesh)

* Approximately 20,000 or 20% of women in prostitution in Bombay are under 18 years of age. (CATW Fact Book, citing Robert I. Freidman, "India's Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption are Leading to an AIDS Catastrophe", The Nation, 8 April 1996)

* A NGO states that the number of children in flesh trade is increasing by 8-10% every year ("The Young and the Damned", The Week, 4 August 1996, reprinted in ECPAT Bulletin, July 1996)

*10,000-12,000 Bangladeshi children are thought to be employed in the brothels of Bombay and West Bengal. (An Alternative Report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, submission to the UN CRC, 1997, citing UNICEF, The Progress of the Nations, 1995)

* About 45,000 Nepalese girls are in the brothels of Bombay and 40,000 in Calcutta. (CATW Fact Book, citing UBINIG, Trafficking in Women and Children: The Cases of Bangladesh, 1995, citing women's groups in Nepal)

* A report of the Central Advisory Committee on Child Prostitution, published in May 1994 says that 12 to 15% of the prostitutes in Mumbai, Delhi, Madras, Calcutta, Hyderabad and Bangalore are children. It is estimated that 30% of the prostitutes in these cities are aged below 20 and nearly half of them had become commercial sex workers when they were minors. 86% of the prostitutes come from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. Conservative estimates put the number of children in India suffering commercial sex abuse at 300,000. ("The Young and the Damned", The Week, 4 August 1996, reprinted in ECPAT Bulletin, July 1996)

 

* Dr. I.S. Gilada, General Secretary of the Indian Health Organisation(IHO), estimated in various studies conducted between 1985 and 1994 that there were between 70,000 and 100,000 prostitutes in Bombay, 100,000 in Calcutta, 40,000 in Delhi, 40,000 in Pune, and 13,000 in Nagpur. (Human Rights Watch/Asia, Rape and Profit, June 1995)

* There are over 200,000 Nepalese prostitutes. (ILO-IPEC, Mainstreaming Gender in IPEC Activities, 1999)

* 200,000 to over 250,000 Nepalese women and girls are already in Indian brothels. (CATW Fact Book, citing Soma Wadhwa, "For sale childhood", Outlook, 1998)

* 20%-30% of commercial sex workers in India have been trafficked from Nepal. (World Vision, David Westwood, Child Trafficking in Asia, 1998)

* The Indian Social Welfare Board estimates that there are 500,000 foreign prostitutes in India of which 1% are from Bangladesh. And 2.7% of prostitutes in Calcutta alone are from Bangladesh. (CATW Fact Book, citing CEDAW Report: Bangladesh, 1 April 1997)

* 30,000 Bangladeshi women are in the brothels of Calcutta, India. (CATW Fact Book, citing "Human Smuggling from Bangladesh at alarming level", Reuters, 26 May 1997)

* 2.5% of prostitutes in India are Nepalese, and 2.7% are Bangladeshi. (CATW Fact Book, citing "Devadasi System Continues to Legitimise Prostitution: The Devadasi Tradition and Prostitution", Times of India, 4 December 1997)

* 160,000 Nepalese women are held in India's brothels. (CATW Fact Book, citing SANLAAP India, Indrani Sinha, "Paper on Globalization & Human Rights")

* At least 2,000 women are in prostitution along the Baina beachfront in Goa. (CATW Fact Book, citing Frederick Moronha, India Abroad News Service, 9 August 1997)

* Every day, about 200 girls and women in India enter prostitution, 80% of them against their will. (CATW Fact Book, citing CEDPA and PRIDE, "Devadasi System Continues to Legitimise Prostitution: The Devadasi Tradition and Prostitution", Times of India, 4 December 1997)

* The brothels of India hold between 100,000 and 160,000 Nepalese women and girls. (CATW Fact Book, citing Gustavo Capdevila, IPS, 2 April 1997, citing Radhika Coomaraswamy, UN Special Report on Violence Against Women)

* There are more than 100,000 women in prostitution in Bombay, Asia's largest sex industry centre. (CATW Fact Book, citing Robert I. Freidman, "India's Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to an AIDS Catastrophe", The Nation, 8 April 1996)

* There are an estimated 50,000 devadasis in the country. (ECPAT Newsletter, No.15, January 1996)

* India, along with Thailand and the Philippines, has 1.3 million children in its sex-trade centres. (CATW Fact Book, citing Soma Wadhwa, "For Sale: Childhood", Outlook, 1998)

 

* Nepalese social workers estimate that the number of Nepalese girls and women now working in Indian brothels at about 200,000 and believe that between 5,000 and 7,000 new Nepalese end up in Indian brothels every year. (Human Rights Watch/Asia, Rape and Profit, June 1995)

* Nepalese girls as young as 11, 12, 13 years old have been trafficked into India to work as prostitutes. (Will Dunham, "U.S. grapples with 'modern-day slavery'", 1 September 2000, reprinted in Stop Trafficking Archive, September 2000)

* In India, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu are considered "high supply zones" for women in prostitution. Bijapur, Belgaum and Kolhapur are common districts from which women migrate to the big cities, as part of an organised trafficking network. (CATW Fact Book, citing Meena Menon, "Women in India's Trafficking Belt", 30 March 1998, citing the Central Social Welfare Board)

* Human Rights Watch reported that the practice of dedicating or marrying young, pre-pubescent girls to a Hindu deity or temple as servants of god, devadasis, continue in several southern states, including Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Devadasis may not marry. They are taken from their families and are required to provide sexual services to priests and high caste Hindus. Reportedly, many eventually are sold to urban brothels. (US Dept of State, Human Rights Report, 1999)

 

* India is one of the favoured destinations of paedophile sex tourists from Europe and the United States. (CATW Fact Book, citing "Global law to punish sex tourists sought by Britain and EU", The Indian Express, 21 November 1997)

*The trafficking of girls from Nepal into India for the purpose of prostitution is probably the busiest 'slave traffic' of its kind anywhere in the world. (CATW Fact Book, citing Tim McGirk, "Nepal's Lost Daughters", 27 January 1997)

* India's child sex industry is the second largest in the world after the Philippines. ("Six foreigners charged in India child sex case", The Nation, 18 October 1996, reprinted in ECPAT Bulletin, October 1996)

* There could be a few hundred thousand Bangladeshi girls in various houses of prostitution in India. (Brother Jarlath de Souza, "Trafficking in Children: Bangladesh", Child Workers in Asia, July-September 1996)

* Most child prostitutes in the cities hail from the surrounding rural areas, although considerable numbers are trafficked over longer distances. (UNICEF India, Richard Young, "Understanding Underlying Factors", Child Workers in Asia, January-June 1996)

* Nepal appears to be the most significant, identifiable source of child prostitutes for Indian brothels. Thousands of Nepalese females under the age of 20 have been identified in India by various studies. (UNICEF India, Richard Young, "Understanding Underlying Factors", Child Workers in Asia, January-June 1996)

* In 1994, however, the Government of India estimated that 30%of all prostitutes in six major cities were below the age of 20 and that almost 40% of these prostitutes entered the profession before they were 18 years of age. Anecdotal evidence provided by social workers in Calcutta, Bombay and Delhi supports these figures. The existence of a stable child population among the prostitutes of these cities seems to be a certainty. (UNICEF India, Richard Young, "Understanding Underlying Factors", Child Workers in Asia, January-June 1996)

* Of 1,000 red-light districts all over India, prostitutes are mostly minors often from Nepal and Bangladesh. (CATW-Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific, 1996)

* Districts bordering Maharashtra and Karnataka, known as the 'devadasi belt', have trafficking structures operating at various levels. Many are devadasis dedicated into prostitution for the goddess Yellamma. In one Karnataka brothel, all 15 girls are devadasis. (CATW Fact Book, citing Meena Menon, "The Unknown Faces")

[suchandra]

 

As a Westerner, I'd be interested in knowing what the purpose of posting this was for? It certainly reinforced my opinion that Prabhupada was nothing more than a male chauvinist who would have fit right in with the patriarchal workings of Catholicism. In fact, he more than anything else has made the whole Krishna movement distasteful for me.

 

May be you surfed to the wrong place, this forum is a meeting place for people who consider A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami as bona fide teacher of vedic knowledge.

[Guest guest]

The western culture fostered such horrid personalities as Hitler, the European conquistadors etc. Western culture also led to the genocide of a whole race (native Americans) and the enslavement of the Africans. Just in the last few hundred years "Western Culture" has shown its barbaric essence. And this is not even including the vast meat-eating and animal slaughter that goes on.

 

And to Kulapavana: The corrupt western style government of India sits around and allows this child abuse to go on because of all the incompetent and immoral leaders who have no right to be in power. If it was a Vedic theocracy, all those responsible would be executed immediately, with no delay. Such criminal acts would never be tolerated under such a government.

[Kulapavana]

 

And to Kulapavana: The corrupt western style government of India sits around and allows this child abuse to go on because of all the incompetent and immoral leaders who have no right to be in power. If it was a Vedic theocracy, all those responsible would be executed immediately, with no delay. Such criminal acts would never be tolerated under such a government.

 

one important point: Vedic government system was not really a theocracy. it was a monarchy. theocracy is in Iran for example, where religious clerics rule. that has nothing to do with the Vedic system.

[Guest guest]

Yeah, yeah, the West is so bad. Oh I am sooooo scared.

 

Check out Prabhupada's prayers on the Jaladuta: "I don't know why You are taking me to this sinful place..."

 

He was so scared to leave India and come to the West and what grizzly horrendous, sinful thing was awaiting him?

 

A bunch of pimply-faced teenagers on acid who listened to him, took him seriously, and helped make him famous all over the world. Something that

Indians did not help him to do. The Western boys and girls did it.

 

So yah the demoniac sinful naughty little Western boys and girls, how

how terrible they are. Right.

 

So is someone going to please post a rebuttal ferom Vedabase where Prabhupada says to his cohort group "The Western boys and girls have

one good quality: they are very renounced."

 

Cuz I did not see any Indians coming here in droves giving up their birth religion and their college educations and their jobs and their extended

families to spread KC all over the world. The Western kids did it.

 

So yeah the Western culture must be soooo bad to produce kids like that.

Give me a break.

[bija]

 

one important point: Vedic government system was not really a theocracy. it was a monarchy. theocracy is in Iran for example, where religious clerics rule. that has nothing to do with the Vedic system. Quote Kulapavana

Were the kings in the vedic monarchy Ksatriyas and the Brahmanas advisors?

Could you please elaborate how the vedic government system is different than a theocracy? How much sway in decision making did the brahmanas really have?

 

The clerics in Iran seem to have much power.

[Guest guest]

To the Prabhuji who deigned to post such a potentially inflammatory subject matter:

 

You made the choice to post something said decades ago to essentially a bunch of unsophisticated and unlettered children, teenagers, and young adults.

 

Unsphisticated and unschooled because as innocent Westerners who had essentially little to no contact with Indian nationals until the 1965 US Immigration Laws were changed, the youngsters were unaware that in India today many people do not trust "sadhus" for the same reason that now many Westerners do not also: because of corruption and breech of ethics.

 

Why in this post 9-11 era you would choose to post something so potentially divisive? I call upon everyone to look for the similarities and beauty within each culture.

 

And if you look deeper, what Swamiji said was basically a pep talk to his young students: something said according to time, place, and circumstance.

Do you know why? Because there is no such thing as Western culture. There is only human beings who are governed by Sanatana Dharma, that's why.

 

And for every demoniac thing in "Eastern culture" [for example. isn't China part of Eastern culture? So do you think it is so auspicious to eat monekey's brains, which are a delicacy in China according to my 1981 Insight Guide to Hong Kong?],

 

I can tell you about an equally horrendous thing in "Western culture". Then I can tell you about an exception to each rule.

 

Let's take for example Lord Jesus Christ, which "Western culture" has adopted as its unofficial dominant religion of Christianity. Lord Jesus Christ said, "Put down your nets and follow me." His disciples gave up everything.

Same thing as a madhukari.

 

So "Western civilization" is based upon this madhukari ideal as the principal tenet of its dominant religion. So someone is criticising Westerners for having no culture when their dominant religion holds the same ideals as this person AC Bhaktivedanta Swami is describing?

 

And so your point of posting it is what exactly? To show that your Swami made too many potentially divisive generalizations to get a bunch of rebellious teenagers who tend to look at things in "black" and "white" terms to agree with him?

 

There are madhukaris in every religion. And furthermore, Christianity is based on this madhukari ideal as the highest. And you think it is so wise to post something like this...? To show what exactly? That your teacher was ignorant of Jesus' teachings of madhukari behavior? Which Western kids learned in Sunday School?

 

i.e. it is not some secret gopi bhava topic. So that wehen someone came to

the West then some kids thought, "Oh this is what we were taught in Sunday School..'Do not worry about what you shal eat or wear, for your heavenly Father will provide for you...drop everything and follow Me.' "

 

So this "demoniac" Western culture, that holds the standards of Lord Jesus Christ's ideal of the madhukari as the highest ideal, is demoniac? When essentialluy it is the same thing?

 

Lord Jesus Christ who also said, "Thou shall not kill"? Effectively negating Swamiji's argument that abortion is a WESTERN value...in fact, abortion is more of a Shinto-Buddhist value [and thus: an EASTERN value],

 

since there is a Deity of Jizo in the EASTERN religion of Japan, where since they believe in reincarnation anyway, so they ask permission of the fetus and explain it is not the right time for a good birth for the child. So then they do ceremonies to help the child take a better birth and continually pray for the child to keep on reincarnating in a better situation.

 

Why post such divisive things in this war-torn world? Why not post something that promotes harmony, peace, and good will between all hemispheres?

 

Also, what does he mean "Western" culture is demoniac? When I stand in India and I look to the West, that is Iran and Iraq and Afghanistan. And when I look EAST from India I see China, Japan, and the Americas. So maybe Swamiji was saying he prefers the EASTERN people of China, Japan, Australia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Americas?

 

I mean, give it a rest already. One world, one love, Jah love. There is no such thing as East or West! We live on a sphere!!! There is only Love if you look for Love, and only Fear if you look for Fear. And God is LOVE.

[bija]

 

Why post such divisive things in this war-torn world? Why not post something that promotes harmony, peace, and good will between all hemispheres? quote by guest

It sure is crazy times we live in isn't it. So many wish to take extremeties as their angle of vision. Out of balance. We are called to rise above that platform.

 

Guest I am glad you have the wisdom to read Swamiji's words in a context of time, place and circumstance. If we do not penetrate the essence of words we end up with some fanatical world view it seems. So unproductive and destroying to the goodness of all peaceful faith.

 

In reality no-one is friend or foe. God is the well-wisher of all his parts and parcels. So yes I agree with you, why be divisive.....let's pray to God for his blessings so that we can raise ourselves to deeper spiritual vision.

 

Thanks for speaking out in your post.

[Guest guest]

I pray for peace so that all may have condusive life to realize the self

 

I pray for peace so that all can be free to worship God in the manner that they see fit according to their realization.

 

For all those who post hateful things and divisive things: I love you and God loves you. You only post these things to feel superior to others because you

did not get enough love as a child.

 

But there is enough Love for everyone. God is LOVE and He is inside of your

heart as Param atma or Para shiva or the Holy Spirit. He is everywhere, East West North South Up Down.

 

God is LOVE and God loves you. Shout it from the mountaintops and GIVE PEACE A CHANCE.

[bija]

Lyrics by George Harrison from Living in the Material World album

 

Give me love

Give me love

Give me peace on earth

Give me light

Give me life

Keep me free from birth

Give me hope

Help me cope, with this heavy load

Trying to, touch and reach you with,

heart and soul

 

OM M M M M M M M M M M M M M

M M M My Lord . . .

 

PLEASE take hold of my hand, that

I might understand you

 

Won't you please

Oh won't you

 

Give me love

Give me love

Give me peace on earth

Give me light

Give me life

Keep me free from birth

Give me hope

Help me cope, with this heavy load

Trying to, touch and reach you with,

heart and soul

[Guest guest]

If someone calls you a hippie, why not feel proud? The media invented the term. The root word is "hip": hip means that you are "in the know".

 

To be "in the know" means that you are cognizant and aware. The soul is sat chit ananda: full of knowledge. So if you seem or appear to "know" something or be more "hip" than other people to the point that they would want to use a jealous, spiteful, derogatory and divisive term to label you, then what of it? Whoever is doing the labelling is only demonstrating his or her ignorance or avidya, lack of knowledge.

 

"The challenges are enormous: the threats of the 21st century are what we sometimes like to call 'PROBLEMS WITHOUT PASSPORTS'--problems that cross all frontiers uninvited: climate change, human trafficking, terrorism, epidemics, refugee movements, and so on)--and whose SOLUTIONS CAN ALSO HAVE NO PASSPORTS, because no one country or group of countries, however rich or powerful, can tackle them alone..."

 

-- interview with "Shashi Tharoor: The Next UN Secretary General?", by Lavina Melwani, Little India magazine, August 2006 issue, p. 31.

 

So my suggestion is to all of those who are still identifying with the body and the various "isms" like Western vs Eastern is start doing all of your sadhanas seriously so you can come to the platform where you realize that your essence is beyond boundaries like white or black, man or woman, rich or poor, Indian or American.

 

Get with the program and please quickly get to the point where you realize that who you really are is beyond boundaries or passports. Because the new school problems that we face on this planet are, in truth, "problems without passports" that won't work with old school rancor as the optimal solution.

 

We need every self-realized person on this planet all working together cooperatively at this critical juncture and moment in time. Hare Krishna!

[Guest guest]

"Let us have concord with our own people, and concord with people who are strangers to is. Ashvins, create between us and the strangers a unity of hearts." -- Atharva Veda 7.52.1

 

"O self-luminous Divine, remove the veil of ignorance from before me that I may behold your light. Reveal to me THE SPIRIT of the scriptures. May the truth of the scriptures be ever present to me. May I seek day and night to realize what I learn from the sages." -- Rig Veda Aitareya U Inv UpP, 95

[Kulapavana]

 

Were the kings in the vedic monarchy Ksatriyas and the Brahmanas advisors?

Could you please elaborate how the vedic government system is different than a theocracy? How much sway in decision making did the brahmanas really have?

 

yes, the kings were the topmost kshatriyas and they took counsel from wise brahmanas. real kshartiyas are very, very intelligent and they will seek brahminical advice on difficult matters. they trusted the impartiality of brahmanas who had no interest in earthly power or wealth. vedis kings were saintly and pious, as well as just, honorable and noble.

 

the brahmanas had influence, but it was an influence of saintly inspiration and wisdom. both brahmanas and kshatriyas were surrendered to their duty of serving others in society.

 

the theocracy is where religious clerics actually make decisions, and kshatriyas merely execute them. thus brahmanas become contaminated with worldly power and opulence. it is not a vedic system. that is what happened in Iskcon during the zonal acharya days, where both material and spiritual power was in the hands of the same person. they became corrupted and fell down, and the society of devotees suffered greatly. this un-vedic system must not be repeated.

[Guest guest]

Having lived in the West all my life I can truly say that it is a hedonistic society that cannot survive for long. Money is God and the aim of life is sense gratification. Sadly many in India fail to realise th beautiful culture our ancestors died fightin for from Muslims, the portuguese, and the British

[krishnadasa]

 

As a Westerner, I'd be interested in knowing what the purpose of posting this was for? It certainly reinforced my opinion that Prabhupada was nothing more than a male chauvinist who would have fit right in with the patriarchal workings of Catholicism. In fact, he more than anything else has made the whole Krishna movement distasteful for me.

 

Spiritual things are like poisson, untill you leave the embrace of materialism. And what srila prabhupada spoke was perfect spirituality. How that can then be relishable for the materialistic public?

 

hari hari bol

[Guest guest]

West has a culture, or rather cultures. America is melting pot of cultures, here many cultures are represented, and there for it seems as if we have no culture. In east, india, china, etc. one culture predominate, therefor it seems that they have "Culture". And as tot he comment about women killing child in her womb in name of freedom"... I am a woman and I would chose to freedom over killing a child because of HER GENDER. Even today in east many girl child are aborted because people want children, ex.. china, india. Which of over holy books or sages justifies killing child based on the gender. Women are still treated as second class citizen, even as the Goddess are worshiped as the all mighty in temples. Our, Indian. culture is so messed up, cast system illigal, yet many still practices (i don't consider cast system part of hinduism but part of our culture). It is not fare to call west cultureless and east cultured. East ot west, we still have lot to learn to aquire the knowledge and wisdom the vedic sages had....

[bija]

This thread was re-awakened after some dormancy by Kulapavana in his post number 5. So the question arises, what was his point and motive?

 

Please read Kulapavana's post no. 5 in this thread.

 

I think to show that times have changed somewhat. That things may be different than in Srila Prabhupada's time when he made these comments. You see He was in his seventies in the 1960's, and had never been to the west before this. He was a young man in the 1930's in India. But ofcourse, the message is still relevant.

 

It is so easy for us western based Hare Krsna's to be despondent about our own culture and see it as abominable. Maybe the reason why this thread was initially started, I don't know? Especially when we have the perfect ideal set up in front of us...vedic culture. I know sometimes such thoughts enter my mind! But those thoughts are on the mental platform, not spiritual.

 

But this is not blissful vision, not joyous spititual life. The intelligent cultivator of Krsna consciousness will be able to apply everything in blissful service of the Lord, even this western culture.

 

There are many advantages we have living here also. Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, intenet technology, opulence for some(I am a pensioner who scrapes by each week, but still have an internet connection:)), the list goes on and on...try being a Hare Krsna in some less tolerant countries...I know where I would rather be. Living in the western world can be a conducive environment for cultivation if I choose to apply intelligence.

 

But saying this...it is difficult in many ways. But hey, it is kali yuga.

 

Anyway, east/west, the problem of materialism is everywhere. Times have changed. This is the material world, this is kali yuga, we are all in this boat together.

[Guest guest]

The problem is that it is Kali Yuga. Also, within East or West there are: individuals, communities, and nations.

 

So let's see now, folks: when the Vedic kings were in power in the glorious past, every citizen was happy [supposedly, as no one can prove this].

 

So let's see which civilization now where everyone is the happiest? Readers Digest did a poll and the people in Mumbai were the rudest and the people in New York City were among the friendliest, with the very friendliest people in

Sweden and England. So, so far West is winning.

 

Then let's see: religion: United States has more churches than any other coutnry in the world per capita. So, two points for the West. West is winning.

 

Next, where is the standard of living the best? If you don't like the West so much, why don't you go back to where you came from then? What? What was that? Because you have a better paying job in the West? Oops, then looks like West is doing better with standard of living.

 

Okay, how about standard of living for everyone in the country, not just a fortunate few? Oops, looks like the West winning again. Sweden, England, Australia are all countries were you get paid for just being alive. Because they know that then the society is more stable. For example in Sweden get 98% of a living wage if you are a mother not working with kids. So looks like West is winning again people.

 

Next how about raising your children? Sweden outlawed corporal punishment back in 1970s, was the first country to do so. So better treatment of children in the West, another point for the West.

 

How about vacation time? Hmm, mixed bag. Americans take the least vacations of any industiralized country: four days a year on average. With the exception if George Dubya Bush who takes a vacation rain or shine or Hurrican Kartrina every August for six weeks.

 

Correction: on average most Americans have four days off a year: if they can get a job that is. But what about the rest of the world? France and Germany doing well there, with six to eight weeks mandatory vacation for every worker. And the winner is? Australia with one week's paid vacation per each year worked. So if you have been working for 30 years, you get 30 weeks paid vacation every year.

 

How about education of children and literacy? West wins again with New Zealand has the highest literacy rate. How about educated populace? Tie with Netherlands and New Zealand both have the most readers.

 

How about personal safety, lack of crime? Lack of military industrial complex, or lack thereof? Japan, Switzerland, and Costa Rica theoretically at least all have no military.

 

How about best environmental awareness? Canberra Australia will be the first "waste free" city in year 2010 with everything recycled, no waste generated. And Marin County of US the first eco county in the US and Big Island of Hawaii the first nuclear free county in the US. So looks like the West is winning again people.

 

So do you keep on wanting this kind of stuff rubbed in your face or what? This imaginary for all I know perfect Vedic civilization, what was the acid test that it was a good civilization? That everyone was happy and content. So looks like the Western countries are doing better with that in general.

 

But if you look all around, there are good, rotten and in between people everywhere. And the citizens, the people, is what makes or breaks a place.

 

Let me ask you this, for example: Vedic culture was big on protecting women, is that right? So you tell me what country you would let your mother or daughter walk around in by herself at midnight? Would she be safest in Japan, Sweden, Netherlands? Or safest in India? You tell me that.

 

According to my guidebook here of Japan, ladies there including old grandmothers are perfectly safe to walk to a park and midnight and meet with friends, laughing and giggling. <<Why would thery go there at night? Cuz it is very hot during the summer and to look at the moon, etc.>>And according to my guidebook for India, it says that it is very dangerous.

 

So which country is better? A country where your daughter can be safe

or a country where your daughter has a greater chance of being sold into human trafficking, having to pay a dowry and set on fire if she doesn't make her inlaws happy, can't even walk down the street for fear of getting rape, knifed, abdcted and held for ransom, or called a prostitute

 

[it says that right here is my guidebook to Indonesia "even if you cover up at all times when you go out in public, be prepared to be called a prostitute and whore simply for looking Western"]

 

So which is better, East or West? Obviously there is good and bad everywhere. There are pockets of sanity and danger everywhere. Like let's look at my Braj Mandala Parikrama guidebook: "Bring baksheesh because all of the temples that we will go to, the priests expect some sort of a bribe and if you do not give them one they will become incense with you and verablly harass you"

 

Now would that happen in a city in the West? No.

[gHari]

Culture is not measured in quality of life, dollars per capita, churches per person, age of cars, gross national revenue, etc. Srila Prabhupada made his point very directly, very perfectly. I don't understand how anyone cannot see the obvious here, unless of course they are uncultured themselves.

[Guest guest]

Name-calling...gee whiz, why I forgot that is the most erudite way to win a debate and prove your point.

[gHari]

Case in point.