Archive - 2007

About ten years back the GBC discussed gender issues. One of the topics was that women tended to be nurturers and homebodies, whereas men tended to be warriors, protectors and bread winners. That aside, this bit of humor emanated from humor columnist David Barry: Title: Gender Gap is a True Gift. "This is the time of year when a lot of women (by which I mean my wife) complain that women do WAY more holiday stuff than men do. Which is true. On any given day during the holidays, my wife wraps more presents than I have wrapped in my entire life.

Perhaps the hardest thing to realize - even for theists - is that God is a Person

Once Srila Prabhupada said the soul and God were "co-relative terms." He said that if you could understand the soul exists, you could understand God. (From a lecture in London, August 29, 1973)

Attributed to Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati is the saying the mistakes are the pillars of success. Attributed to one Lewis Thomas is this: "Mistakes are at the very base of human thought ... feeding the structure like root nodules. If we were not provided with the knack of being wrong, we could never get anything useful done."

Srila Prabhupada once indicated that even Alexander didn't think he was so great. The story went like this: "You know the story of Alexander the Great and the thief. Alexander the Great arrested one thief, and he was going to punish him. The thief pleaded, 'Sir, you are going to punish me, but what is the difference between you and me?

In England and some commonwealth countries the day after Christmas is known as "Boxing Day." Some say that this is because many people return(ed) goods bought for Christmas presents in the 'boxes' they came in; others say that the name came from the fact the Christmas presents always came in boxes.

Krsna is everywhere. He should be seen that way. In the Bhagavad-gita it is declared: "Any glorious or beautiful existence should be understood to be but a fragmental manifestation of Krsna's opulence, whether it be in the spiritual or material world. Anything extraordinarily opulent should be considered to represent Krsna's opulence."

A book called "How the Irish Saved Civilization" by Thomas Cahill, written in about 2003, opines that Irish Catholic Monks, working in isolation in small rock-walled hovels copied many ancient classical manuscripts that, except for their endeavour, would have been lost forever.

In the second chapter of the Bhagavad-gita, Krnsa explains to Arjuna that even if one doesn't think the soul exists, one should not lament for anyone dying, because just like bubbles in the ocean waves, millions of people are born and die every moment. Lecturing from the second chapter Srila Prabhupada said, "?.material creation, just like bubbles in the ocean. You have seen standing on the bank of the Pacific Ocean, oh, so many thousands of bubbles created in a second, and again thousands of bubbles gone, in a second. Now, who is crying there?

Words can have a soothing effect, words like "meadow green with mist," but Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare has the most soothing effect of all.