Srila Prabhupada often referred to the planets by pointing out that Krsna floats them like cotton swabs. E.g.: “And there are millions of planets floating in the sky like swabs of cotton. So if we give so much credit to the scientists who have manufactured a sputnik, how much more credit we should give to the person who has manufactured this universal arrangement. This is Krsna consciousness—appreciating the greatest artist, the greatest scientist.” (Journey of Self Discovery, Chapter 2, “The Supreme Artist”). What do we or scientists really know about the “law”of gravity? Heavenly bodies attract one another and therefore orbit at specified distances and in recurring cycles – all at random?! Gimme a break!

Everyone is a spiritual casualty, and ISKCON is like a hospital treating the victims ministering to a world of wounded souls.

Sukadeva Gosvami compares the steadiness of a devotee to that of a mountain in Srimad Bhagavatam, 10.20.15: “Just as devotees whose minds are absorbed in the Personality of Godhead remain peaceful even when attacked by all sorts of dangers, the mountains in the rainy season were not at all disturbed by the repeated striking of the rain-bearing clouds.”

One of many frequently asked questions is about the shaven heads on men. One way to respond is to say that monks in most faiths shave their heads because they are renouncing personal beauty. In general men style their hair to attract the opposite sex. Shaving all the hair off tends to `put them out of the running.’

Random House Webster’s give these as its first two definitions of the word unique: 1. Existing as the only one or as the sole example; single; solitary in type or characteristics: A UNIQUE COPY OF AN ANCIENT MANUSCRIPT; 2. Having no like or equal; unparalleled; incomparable: BACH WAS UNIQUE IN HIS HANDLING OF COUNTERPOINT. Each atma or soul is unique, just as each voiceprint, each fingerprint and each snowflake has a singular identity. The variety exists in the spiritual world, but is unseen by the impersonalist philosophers. Srila Prabhupada evokes metaphor of birds in trees to illustrate how people are easily deluded into impersonalism. From a distance one cannot distinguish the form of a green bird in the leafy greenery of a tree. But when one gets close, one can see that the tree is not all a mass of greenery but that individual atmas, the green birds, each with its own individuality sit in the tree.

In many places Srila Prabhupada has written of the three stages of consciousness: susupti (deep sleep), svapna (the dreaming stage), and jagarti (the awakened state). Many studies assert that the majority of long and complex dreams take place in a fraction of second, right before a person wakes up. This is supported by the concept of svapna, that there is a stage in which one is semi-conscious, in which dreams take place.

On February 27, 1976 on a morning walk in Mayapur Srila Prabhupada said, “Bengali culture was very much adored all over India. Even one big politician, Gandhi’s guru, Goke, Gokule, he remarked, ‘What Bengal thinks today, other provinces will think tomorrow.'”

Compassion has a way of becoming fashionable, and the media in the West are presently into it, big time. But it’s selective as the Western media dominate. Animal deaths and sudden deaths of people in “developing” countries like India or Zimbabwe are not nearly as compassion-worthy as lives in the West. Witness the recent London terrorist attacks or bombs on the Red Sea. Jesus Christ exhibited compassion even while being crucified, as he begged God to forgive his tormenters. But Vasudeva Datta, one might say, went a step further by asking God to transfer the sins of ALL living entities to himself. (CC, Madhya, 15.163 and purport)

We’ve read that association and environment are vital factors in determining one’s behavior and vision. A startling example of this is when ordinarily polite and helpful New Zealanders get behind the wheel of a car. They change. Their total absence of decorum and poor road etiquette can become annoying or downright terrifying to Americans over forty (like me) when driving on the rural roads near Auckland. The following happens to me a lot: You’re driving down the road, in New Zealand that is. It’s a warm sunny afternoon, not a soul in sight, not a care in the world. Srila Prabhupada is singing on the car radio. There’s no cars on the highway, and you’re cruising. Doing about 50. Than you happen to look into the rear view mirror. There’s a red SUV (that stands for sport-utility vehicle in case you didn’t know) right on your tail. He’s five inches from your rear bumper, has wrap around sun glasses, a crew cut, and is looking agro. You want to slow down, but you’re worried he’ll bump into you… I speed up a little and he’s still on my tail – just as close. The New Zealand Road Code booklet (the one you read if you’re taking the written test) says to pull over when this happens. But there’s not enough room on the shoulder – it’s a winding road, and what if someone’s coming the other way? So I drive with heart in mouth for what seems like forever – each straightaway seems to have a car coming in the opposite direction – until I finally find a straight enough length of road and a shoulder wide enough to pull over. I flash my left blinker even before starting to reduce speed and then I slow down, but not too fast. He passes in a deafening roar of the engine (probably in a lower gear) and of course he doesn’t beep or flash his lights to acknowledge my courtesy. Yep, those super-polite en zedders (New Zealanders) can really turn into monsters on the road. Whew!

It’s been said that the sound of one’s own name is the sweetest sound in the world. Even a Srimad Bhagavatam verse indicates who our dearmost object is. “It is only by contact with the self that one’s vital breath, intelligence, mind, friends, body, wife, children, wealth and so on are dear. Therefore what object can possibly be more dear than one’s own self?” (10.23.27 – Lord Krsna speaking to the wives of the Brahmanas)