Sit Properly

Haribol!

I’ve got a real nice 18 volume Srimad Bhagavatam set for sale. All twelve cantos are here and all of them have dust jackets. Each volume has the previous owner’s name written in the inside cover, but other than that, they’re pretty perfect.

Shipping is going to be $40ish, but I’ll base it upon where you live (US shipping only, ok?). The box weighs around 50lbs and will ship via UPS from the 17837 zip code.

$200 and this is yours!

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I’ve also got the 6 volume Srila Prabhupada Lilamrta by Satsvarupa das Goswami. These are the red ones without dust jackets. In pretty good condition. $40 w/ $12 shipping.

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If you’re in Gita Nagari, Philly or New Vrndavana, I’ll deliver in Sept.

When I’m wrong about something, I admit it. It’s a good policy to have. It’s fair.

A couple of days ago I got a comment from Pancharatna dasa, the devotee who heads up Friends of the BBT. Now, if you remember, I questioned this organization about where the donations that are given to them are going. How much of it was going into their pockets and how much was actually going to the BBT?

Turns out, 100% of the donations go where you want them to go. That’s a good thing.

However, I want to apologize to the Friends of the BBT for assuming they were pocketing the money.

Here is what was said (in case you didn’t see it as a comment):

In fact ALL project sponsorships go 100% to the project sponsored. In some cases, like the Art Seminar, Friends of the BBT spends directly on the project. In other cases like the Archives we transfer funds to the implementing organization, That is why I mentioned it like this.

That is not to say that the folks running Friends of the BBT are unpaid. Farther down, he said:

Fortunately all funding for staff stipends currently comes from contributions from our Board of Directors.

While I’m not really sure how I feel about this, it does mean that 100% of the donations go to where they should be going. A huge HARIBOL! for that.

Also, on a slightly different subject, this surprised me:

It is a standing policy of the BBT not to pay any royalties to authors.

That’s very impressive. I assumed the opposite. I was wrong again.

I also made mention that I had never heard of Srila Prabhupada asking his disciples to translate other books. I was wrong yet again:

Srila Prabhupada was directly asked by the GBC about future translation. You can read his response here:

http://friendsofthebbt.org/srila-prabhupada-future-bbt-translations

I’m sure the Prabhupada quote could be taken several different ways. However, to me, it seems like he wanted the translation work to go on if it was done properly (which, for the most part, I feel it has been). Now whether that should be handled by the BBT, I don’t know. It’s my opinion (mostly) that it should not be. But I mostly don’t care about that. But I’m glad to be corrected.

He also said:

Srila Prabhupada’s emphasis on quality is why the BBT should be the publisher and why we need a training program that includes spiritual training as we are attempting in our school in Govardhan.

I don’t fully agree with this. Yes, the BBT publishes stuff of very high quality. Everything they put out looks great. And generally it’s free of typos and stuff like that. But that should be par for the course. That should be expected from any publisher. Of course, there’s always the very notable exception of Kushakratha prabhu’s books. His books looked pretty bad. There were tons of typos. But wow – the bhakti contained in each volume MORE than made up for it.

So, I think it depends on which quality you’re looking for. It would be nice to have both, of course.

You can read the whole comment here. And you should.

Thank you to Pancharatna prabhu for schooling me on this important subject. It was wonderful to learn that I was wrong on some points that I really wanted to be wrong about. Thank you and all glories to your work!

And please forgive me, I’m naturally skeptical of every charity. That probably has everything to do with the amount of time I’ve spent at New Vrndavana. But still, I should learn to be a bit more trusting. Thank you again for calling me on it.

Haribol!

Despite Sweater Vest, Bhakta Alec Not Aspiring for Ravindra Svarupa Prabhu

PHILADELPHIA – Bhakta Alec, a 19 year old white bodied devotee from Abbington, moved into the Philly temple last Govardhana Puja, trading in his cigarette leg unisex jeans and band t-shirts for the standard temple devotee uniform of dhoti and kurta.

However, since moving into the Philly asrama, Bhakta Alec has acquired 3 sweater vests. “The chocolate brown one is my favorite,” said Alec after a recent darshan with the ISKCON guru and GBC Ravindra Svarupa.
Click here to read on…

I was checking out Krishna.com’s selection of Prabhupada books, looking for a Teachings of Lord Caitanya. Normally, I’d buy the pre-1978 books (the ones prior to the unauthorized changes) at Krishna.tv, but their privately printed copy of the original Teachings of Lord Caitanya is out of print.

But what I came to discover was that the BBT’s current edition of TLC is also out of print. You can get an Indian paperback, which is fine, but BBT America’s edition is gone.

Krishna.tv has the original edition of Teachings of Queen Kunti (one of my favorite books). But BBT allowed their edition of Teachings of Queen Kunti to go out of print. Weird.

Also, the BBT allowed Teachings of Lord Kapila to go out (TLK was never re-edited after Srila Prabhupada’s edition – I assume). What’s really weird is that on the BBT website, they don’t even have it listed as a book they put out.

This is really a strange thing, isn’t it? Teachings of Lord Caitanya is pretty amazing. As are the other two “Teachings of” books. Why let them go out of print?

My hope (and I realize this is pretty pie in the sky) is that they reprint them as the originals next time around.

Lucky for me, I have the original editions of all of these. I bought Teachings of Lord Caitanya from Krishna.tv a couple of years ago. The other two, I just acquired along the way. Lucky for me, yeah. But what about the devotees who don’t have these books? I can’t imagine there’s a line around the block for the Lord Kapila book, but there’s got to be some need or want for Queen Kunti. And there’s definitely got to be people asking for Teachings of Lord Caitanya (though, like I said, the Indian edition is still available).

Of course, all three books are available for free, online. However, I’ve never been able to get really into a book online. Books are the basis!

I emailed the BBT (America) and asked them if/when they’ll be reprinted. We’ll hopefully have an answer before too long. I’ll let you know what it is when I get it.

Last Janmastami, I spent it alone in a really tiny apartment. It was nice, but a bit lonely. This Janmastami, I thought I’d travel the hour and a half to Gita Nagari. I’ve never been to GN for a festival, which is odd since it’s the closest temple. I’ve been to lots of other temples for lots of other festivals, but Gita Nagari never really clicked with me.

New Vrndavana was the plan for this year, but that didn’t work out, so Gita Nagari it was. This allowed for a quick trip, so I invited Sarah. She’s been to a temple before, but never for a program or festival. I wasn’t sure what she would think of Gita Nagari, but figured it couldn’t hurt.

I wasn’t really looking forward to what I’ve grown used to seeing at festivals in the past few years. All these puja thalis and donor dinners and kalash weirdness. It sort of bugs me to see devotees pimping the deities, convincing Hindus to be better Hindus (rather than devotees) and all under the name of “fund raising.” I don’t care who you are, it’s creepy and such a shame.

That’s what I was all geared up to deal with at Janmastami in Gita Nagari. But when we got there around 6:30, there were maybe 20 devotees in the temple room having a small kirtana.

I saw my friend, Chris, and we chatted a bit. And then he offered to take us on a little tour of the farm. He’s been coming here since ‘89. I was at GN in ‘98ish, and once or twice since then.

As we toured the grounds and hung out with the cows, I regretted not visiting here more. Maybe in the short time that I have left on the east coast, I’ll visit again.

To end the little tour, we stopped at Bhakti Tirtha Swami’s puspa-samadhi (sort of like a memorial site). It was newly finished and pretty beautiful. Very well done. Some Amish fellows worked on it, though they wouldn’t lay the tile because it was an altar for a different religion. I can respect that, but why build the alter itself, but not lay the tile? Amish are finicky like that.

It was getting later and the sun was dipping down to the horizon. Time for the festivities to start. The schedule said that there were going to be “Charades.” I had never once seen “Charades” at a temple. Devotees have weird names for things. We sometimes use words that usually mean something completely different from what we actually mean. But I’ve never heard “Charades” used at all. So needless to say, I was really excited for Krishna Conscious Charades!

But much to my dismay, that didn’t happen. I’m not really sure why, but sometimes things just fall apart. And it’s probably better that that fell apart rather than an arati or abi-sheka.

It was pretty hot in the temple room and more devotees had shown up. I recognized a few, which is usually the case and always nice. Before too long, the swing festival portion of the evening was the place to be.

They took Radha-Damodara off the altar and placed them on a wonderfully decorated swing in the middle of the temple room. The devotees formed a haphazard line and funneled in to take turns at pushing Their Lordships’ swing for a few seconds while the kirtana grew in size.

It was a really great kirtana with three or four second generation kids on the drums. It’s always better when the kulis are providing the beat.

We stayed in the temple for a bit, chanting along with the kirtana, but it got a bit hot and I was getting a little dizzy, so we went outside to cool off.

And I’m really glad that we did. I was planning on going back inside for class, but ended up having a great conversation with a couple from the New Vrndavana area. I remembered the husband, Bala, from when I lived at NV in the mid 90’s. There was also a second generation mataji who grew up at Gita Nagari.

The conversation turned to deities. Apparently there were some very ecstatic and huge Gaura Nitai deities at Ratha-Yatra this year. They were brought there by a devotee who makes deities. He’s the father a few friends of hers, but she couldn’t remember his name. Neither could Bala. I took a stab at it, since I thought I knew who they were talking about. Turns out that I did! I was supposed to contact this devotee about making me a set of Gaura-Nitai deities, but never did – I was hoping to find a set needing a new home.

But since nearly a month has passed and nothing has come up (well, nothing that wasn’t morally apprehensible/abominable), I was seriously kicking around the idea of contacting this deity maker. And after the conversation with this Mataji, I’m doing it. Actually, I did it. Wish me luck.

Night was fully upon us now and class was over. We weren’t planning on staying to the end, what with the drive home and all. The plan was to leave after class, after the abi-sheka (deity bathing).

I was hoping to get a chance to take part in this, but this abi-sheka was on the altar and, not being an initiated brahmin, I can’t go there. We could watch and it was really beautiful seeing Their Lordships taking a little bath. They’re so adorable. I’m used to many big deities at New Vrndavana, but these little brass Lords are wonderful. Jaya Radha Damodara!

It was about 10:30 when we cut out. We were given some prasadam, some fruit, since this is a dairy farm and nothing is vegan (which is fine, I completely understand). We also got Radha Damodar’s garlands! I haven’t gotten garlands at a temple since I joined up. The first time I was ever at a temple, I got one of the garlands. And until a few years ago, I still had it. I gave both of them to Sarah as mementos of her visit.

One long drive later, I dropped Sarah off at her car and got home just in time to break the fast with the fruit that we got at Gita Nagari (Sarah took the cantaloupe, I took the watermelon).

What a great time. It reminded me of the festivals from when I just joined up! The full emphasis was on Krishna, not just “fund raising.” Actually, fund raising wasn’t even mentioned. There was no talk of money. It was Krishna’s day. If we properly worship Krishna and treat the devotees well, Krishna will provide. We don’t need hired (and well paid) fund raisers to make a temple run. A temple is run by devotion and devotion only. And this temple has bhakti bulging at the seams!

Gita Nagari Dham ki Jaya!

Here’s a band that doesn’t exactly spring to mind when someone says “Krishnacore.” Refused to Fall were a Houston, TX-based band. They got together in 1989 and lasted about six years.

Their Soulfire 7″ was Equal Vision Record’s second release (anyone remember what the first was?). It came out in 1991.

In ‘93, they toured with Shelter and 108. Upon returning home, they broke up. A Houston label put out another 7″ (The Stalemate Sessions) of theirs in 1994, but the band was still broken up. However, in 1996, they reformed to play a Shelter show and record a third EP (this time on CD) called Grey.

There was no lasting reunion, however, the band broke up and went their separate ways.

You can read more than you’ve ever wanted to know about them here.

Refuse to Fall – Soulfire 7″
Side one

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1) Temporary Eye
2) When the Well Runs Dry

Side two
1) Soulfire
2) Salvation

Download it here!

You can also hear more on MySpace.

Ritviks Posthumously Initiate George Harrison

Former Beatle and Hare Krishna icon, George Harrison, has finally taken initiation – 40 years after meeting Srila Prabhuada and seven years after leaving his body. was given ritvik initiation on behalf of Srila Prabhupada.

“The initiation of the famous Sriman George Harrison is a long-overdue and auspicious occasion,” said Kapirasa das, who performed the ceremony on behalf of Srila Prabhupada. “His name is now Sriman Hari das.”

ISKCON representative, Matsaryam das, expressed disgust at the initiation asking, “How can the ritviks do this?” asked When Srila Prabhupada was on the planet, he would have to approve of invitations prior to the ceremony. Now that he is no longer with he, he can give no such approval.” Adding, “besides, everybody knows we had dibs on George!”

Click here to read on…

Idol Water is the last of the three Krishnacore demos that I have. They were a project headed by Mikey Prema in between the first and second (last) Prema CDs.

While I was visiting the Philly temple in ‘94 or ‘95, I took Mikey and a couple of other kids (presumably from Idol Water) back to wherever the lived. Along the way, they played their demo. I really dug it and asked them for a copy. At some point, I got one (I don’t remember how).

Other than it being a Prema spin-off, I don’t know much about Idol Water at all.

Musically, this demo is varied. The first song is a Shelter-esque rap song. There’s a definite Dag Nasty feel to “Peg Above the Rest.” And “Jasmine” is a fun song about deity worship (I think).

The last song is a fun and slightly messed up tribute to Nrsmha Prayers with a “RIP HIS GUTS OUT!” refrain.

The bit at the end of the demo is Bhakta Avatar’s kid, Visnu, telling you to chant Hare Krishna.

Overall, the quality is better than the other demos, but it’s not bad. I might still have the original tape somewhere. Someday I’ll rerecord this to digital.

Track listing:

1) Machine II
2) Chew Toy

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3) Fire
4) Peg Above the Rest

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5) Jasmine
6) Nrsimhadeva

Download the whole thing here.

Weirdly enough, I have no idea how I came to own the unreleased 108 demo. Apparently, it was never released. But you know how devotees are, we’ll bootleg anything and everything. I think I got it around the same time that I got the Prema demo.

I remember telling Ekendra (from Shelter, now of Planet Cow) that I got the 108 demo. He told me that he played drums on it and that it was basically just him and Vraja. I believe Ekendra played bass as well. Vraja played guitar and did the vocals.

From an interview with Rasaraja (Rob Fish, 108’s vocalist after the demo was recorded):

After I had been living in the Philly temple for about three months Vraja Kishor prabhu had quit Inside Out and joined Shelter. The Shelter decided to move to the Philly temple. Me and Vraja became friends. Eventually he wanted to do something different then Shelter and he wrote some songs and made a demo. 108 actually played a few songs at a show with Ressurection (1993). The day after the show Vraja called and asked me to sing for 108. The band was Vraja, me, Zack Eller (Worlds Collide) and Ekendra dasa (the drummer of Shelter). We recorded Holyname a few months later.

The demo was in 1993 some time but it never came out. The songs were rerecorded as the Holyname record.

The demo is basically the 108 Holyname 12″. The song “Noonenomore” was held over for their second 12″, Songs of Separation.

The sound quality on this is exceptionally crappy. Sorry about that. I can’t imagine it was great to begin with, it was recorded in the basement of the Philly temple, I think.

Track listing:

1) Holyname > Grow > Gopinatha
2) Hopeless
3) Noonenomore

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Download the whole demo here.

I’ve been getting emails for about a year now from an organization calling themselves Friends of the BBT. They even mail me stuff.

Their emails and mailouts seem pretty legit and look great. On their website, it says that their mission is to “provide targeted funding to enhance and expand the work of the BBT and build a solid foundation for its future.”

And that sounds great to me. Keeping Prabhupada’s books in print is a wonderful idea. The Friends of the BBT solicit donations from devotees. Their donations page (called “Participate”) urges devotees to give so that you, the giver, “can directly connect with the mission of the BBT to fulfill your own interests in the essential work of spreading Krishna consciousness.”

On the Friends of the BBT’s front page, they explain a few of their other missions, a sanskrit school to translate all the previous acarya’s books that Prabhupada wanted to be translated,¹ an art seminar and a separate fund raising drive for the Archives.

Within the Archives article, it promises “100% of all contributions will be forwarded to the Bhaktivedanta Archives account.” Ok, fine. But if it promises that for the Archives, why doesn’t it promise that for the rest of the donated money?

For me, this raises a huge red flag. There are several reasons and this might get complicated.

The BBT exists to print and keep in print Srila Prabhupada’s books. Since Srila Prabhupada departed, other devotee’s books have been printed. I assume that they are getting paid and that the profits of their books are split between the BBT and the author.

Perhaps the BBT is top-heavy and the Friends of the BBT needed to be created to help pay for printing. Maybe the BBT was in danger of going out of business and the Friends of the BBT have stepped in to donate money to the BBT to keep it afloat.

My first problem with this is where is the money going? If I were to donate $100 to Friends of the BBT, how much of that would actually go to the BBT? How much of it would pay the salaries of the people who front Friends of the BBT? And after their cut is skimmed off the top, how much of what is left of that $100 would go to printing Srila Prabhupada’s books and how much would go to the salaries of the people in charge of the BBT? Of the $100 that I donated, how much of it would allow me to “directly connect with the mission of the BBT to fulfill your own interests in the essential work of spreading Krishna consciousness.”?

Secondly, the BBT was created by Srila Prabhupada to print and reprint his books. While he was on the planet, only his books were printed. No other devotees published books under the BBT. Srila Prabhupada encouraged his disciples to write and even publish their own books², but would these have been published by the BBT?

By only printing Srila Prabhupada’s books, this possible lack of money could be solved. All of these books are written and the copyrights are maintained by the BBT. No royalties payments go to the author (Srila Prabhupada). The BBT keeps 100% of the profits, putting them into keeping the books in print.

But even that, as it stands now, wouldn’t be enough. Lastly, and this is the big one: salaries.

People who are working at the BBT are receiving salaries. I guess that wouldn’t be too big of a deal, financially speaking. If the people who worked there weren’t taking in too much money for their own, the business of BBT could still go on, though it would probably be difficult to publish only the books of Srila Prabhupada and pay everybody.

But even that isn’t exactly how it’s supposed to be.

In both 1975 and 1977, Srila Prabhupada stated that devotees who work for the BBT should not receive salaries. The BBT funds are meant for printing and the construction of temples. “Not for salaries.” Srila Prabhupada wanted to know why “so many people been appointed without my permission.” Stating, “We do not want any salaried men.” He concluded this letter to Radha Ballabha by saying “This extravagancy must be stopped immediately.”

Srila Prabhupad was very serious about this.

In 1975, he said in a letter to Kirtiraja, “And definitely, the BBT cannot pay any salary to anybody.” However, in April of 1977, the BBT was having a problem with Hayagriva “doing nothing and taking money” (Srila Prabhupada’s words). Tamala Krishna explained that Hayagriva’s salary had been stopped.

Two weeks later, Srila Prabhuapda, in a conversation with Tamala Krishna again reiterated, “…in our BBT it is clearly written that ‘Fifty percent for printing book, fifty percent for…[building temples]‘³ So you cannot violate this. Those who can give voluntary service, ‘Welcome.’ Otherwise we don’t require. At least they should not be given any salary. That is very bad. This is against principle.”

So here’s my revolutionary idea. Go back to the way it was. Only Srila Prabhupada’s books should be printed, nobody should be taking a salary.

And no Friends of the BBT. From all appearances, some unscrupulous people are making money off of donations to the BBT (with ISKCON’s and the BBT’s full consent). Somehow this seems even worse than people at the BBT taking salaries.

Friends of the BBT has to be a scam. The only way I’d see it otherwise would be if the people who run the Friends of the BBT wouldn’t be taking a cut, if all the money were going directly to the BBT. Like I said, I don’t know if they’re getting a piece of the action, but the wording on their website leads me to believe that it’s true.

If the BBT were to only print Srila Prabhupada’s books, there would be very little overhead. If they were not taking salaries, there would be even less overhead. BBT’s financial problems simply wouldn’t exist, just like they didn’t exist when Srila Prabhupada was with us.

But when you start publishing other devotees’ books, which “require” the authors and editors to be paid, and when you start paying the people who work at the BBT, it becomes top heavy and requires more money to stay afloat. This seeming lack of funds creates the false need of another organization (Friends of the BBT) to keep it going.

However, this need for a charity organization to keep the BBT alive isn’t really a need at all. If the BBT would do things as Srila Prabhupada wanted, there would be no “need” for any of this. Is this such a difficult thing to understand?

1. Is this a true statement? I’ve never heard about Prabhupada wanting other books to be translated. I think it’s great that they’re being translated, but don’t feel the BBT is the publisher to release them. I certainly don’t feel it’s right to just say that Prabhupada wanted them to be translated if he didn’t say that he did. [↩]
2. Kirtananda’s Christ and Krishna is a good example of this. [↩]
3. Srila Prabhupada stopped short of saying what the other fifty percent was for, because he had stated it many times before. The other fifty percent was for building temples. [↩]