World Conscious Pact 2/24/13 India

Conference from India.

Dear devotees,

Receive all my affection from the Kumbha Mela in Allahabad. I send this message to tell you about a new preaching project that has been established during our stay in Kumbha Mela.

This program is of much impact on people in which all our temples can participate. It is the representation of characters through conscious costumes that were made for Kumbha Mela. This idea originated in Rio, where we participated in demonstrations that are in favor of consciousness. It involved actors representing Mother Earth to the multinationals and bringing awareness to the exploitation of animals.

Now for Kumbha Mela we have decided to make more characters with stunning dresses and it has been a success. Every day they appear in the press, on television and even famous artists, government officials and religious leaders have been photographed with them.

For South America we have to create a character that represents the Spoon Revolution, full of spoons who have awareness messages such as: Saving animals from laboratory experiments, Stop eating animals unnecessarily, Protecting animals from cruel sports, Protecting essential water sources, vegetarianism is not a personal choice, but a tool to save lives! The style of these costumes are striking; they are very colorful and embody messages where people cannot look away from them. So, for South America we want to do the following characters:

* The Materialist: represents the exploitation and the lack of awareness of the multinationals.

* Mother Earth: full of messages about the abuse and neglect of nature.

* The Mountain: full of garbage and destroyed by mining.

* The Tree: teaches us about the devastated forests.

* The sacred river:has been contaminated by industries and unconsciously trashed.

* The Cow: as a representative of the animal kingdom which is exploited by human greed.

* The Spoon Revolution: a positive message that promotes animal protection and vegetarianism.

* World Conscious Pact: as the solution to all the problems mentioned above.

The costumes of the Materialist, Mother Earth, the Spoon revolution and the World Conscious Pact, have large wings of fabric where the corresponding messages are written. As soon as they unfold their wings it catches the eye immediately, giving the impression of a human being that expands sideways and looks like a butterfly.

The dress of the sacred river is shocking as well because this is a young woman dressed in a very beautiful brightly colored sari with a crown and attractive decorations, while the veil of her sari is filled with plastic trash. There are some changes and improvements that can be made to the costumes for example the World Conscious Pact and the Mother Earth costume is best made with sturdy circular cardboard than with wire and bamboo as we did in India.

Our main idea for these suits was going to visit the Kumbha Mela sadhus and bring the environmental message, but these days we organized a play with all the characters and was very well received, so much so that it was presented at a meeting of Acharyas of  the Mela and at a university in Varanasi. My hope is that these characters play in South America and there can be a play organized with them, where it is used alongside well chosen music and choreography. It is an excellent introduction to Eco Yoga festivals, fairs Spoon Revolution events, water protection, etc. I want the art and theater groups from different churches create different scripts for this work to expand the preaching effort. Temples like Govinda's Medellín, the artistic groups of Costa, Cali, Bucaramanga, Cucuta, Lima, Quito, Santiago, La Serena, Antofagasta and Sao Paulo should begin to work now on the costumes and the scripts of the play. So we can participate in an active and artistic event of organization that promotes awareness and respect for nature and all beings, as being part of the World Conscious Pact message filled with positivism, color and non aggression.

I want everyone to prepare for this without any pretext, it is very important that we should be running this everywhere. Report the progress of this project in Vrindanews, with photos and videos of the presentations. I also want to start preparing the scripts for presenting the work: "The trial of humanity" in the same sweet and colorful way, because that message also fits well with the approach of the World Conscious Pact.

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(You can find pictures of the costumes in this link: http://vrindanews.com/es/nectar-es/foto-reportaje-kumbha-mela-2013-parte-1/)

Furthermore, I wish to speak of a new program in connection with activism:

These are Chaski-fest or music festivals and artfully linked with the World Conscious Pact.

Chaski-fest is one intense promotion of the different activities of the Spoon Revolution and vegetarianism projects in each location, eg vegetarian restaurants, organic fairs, the Eco Yoga festivals. Chaski-fest was born from the need to bring together so many wonderful and varied artists linked to the World Conscious Pact. A Chaski represents the culture of the ancient Inca messengers who traveled great distances to communicate one village with another, well, the current Chaskis are true messengers of consciousness through music and art. A Chaski-fest has no limitations, it can be done on a large and small scale, the most important thing is that it is an instance of enthusiasm and joy where vegetarianism, protecting Mother Earth and respect between people are the main themes.

During this time we have contacted wonderful musicians who are very keen to visit South America, one of them is Vaiyasaki who is going to start his tour in Brazil and reach Mexico. With him you can organize beautiful Chaski-fests. Gita from Hungary is also going to start traveling around Europe and South America taking his sweet music and all the experience gained in India this time. Fantuzzi, Adam Baba or Deepak from California were also invited to participate. When artists such as them come to our farms they should be received with love and the best care, it is already an achievement  because having the likes of them is very important because their presence alone is already a Chaski-fest in action. Those who commune with the ideals of Chaski-fest are welcome to participate and energize cultural consciousness by these events.

What do we need to prepare for a Chaski Fest?

- Having copies (at least) an artist disk. These can be obtained with S.E.V.A. if local produce is not available.

- Print posters of the event depending on the subject or Chaski-fest. The ideal is to make a good promotion of the festival for people to know in time. If your event will be a small scale, at least you should ensure that all vegetarian restaurants and yoga centers have the necessary information.

- Promote the event online, sending programs to the contacts of vegetarian projects, etc..

-Send information to the page Chaskifest.com festival to be promoted on time and included in the web programming. Once the event is realized send photos and videos to upload to the page. Every year we get to have 100-150 Chaski-fest big and small.

-Bring all related materials: okis,Spoon Revolution, music and all that we are producing for the welfare of people, especially a lot of prasadam to distribute.

- Invite local artists associated with the cause.

- Prepare all awareness costumes and theatrical presentations with them, to make a strong presentation of the values ​​that the World Conscious Pact represents and all promote all related organizations.

Chaski-fest is conditioned not only to big events, there is no limit on it, with well-known musicians and local artists who are just launching. The size is not important, but it is a diverse festival with great enthusiasm and awareness. Every temple of our mission should be able to launch a Chaski-fest, small churches can make small festivals and temples with more facility can make great festivals, everyone should do it. There is no excuse for not making a beautiful conscious event full of joy, music and art. You must be prepared for every time you get one Chaski to visit your city, they can also begin to hold meetings with local musicians.

To begin, it is possible to organize a Chaski-fest in salons that offer municipalities or cities with a very low price or even free of charge. For the large vegetarian restaurants,the space can be used for a festival. Be aware that most Chaskis that will visit will not charge for their participation, but you should collaborate with the sale of their CDs at festivals and with the purchase of their next flight to the temple they will visit next. This whole system should work without a problem.

Just as each templ,  vegetarian restaurant, yoga academy or center has a leader, there should be someone in charge of the duty of the Chaski-fest and be in permanent contact with the Office of Lima and disclose all the details of the event. They have to develop a database with all the musicians and local artists who can participate in the events. While Chaski-fest are clearly promoting vegetarianism, you can also perform Bhakti-fests that are purely spiritual.

With all that you can do something really nice, you just need to make an effort so it can become a reality. This is my wish and I assure you that it will generate increased awareness activities for people. Share this post with the whole community, and contact managers to report their news.

With all my affection,
Srila BA Paramadvaiti

Being saved from folly by the mercy of Srila Prabhupada 2/17/13 From Allahabad

Conference from Allahabad.

Dear devotees.

Receive my affection from Kumbha Mela
Srila Prabhupada ki jay.

Before starting the chat today, I want to share a short report of our stay in Kumbha Mela. It is a reflection of this month and what we have completed here. Meeting with important people takes a lot of energy, a  service I never did before. I dedicated myself in finding normal people and preaching to them. I feel I have the ability to make a good impression on them, but I don't have the time to maintain relations with such important people.

Here we have good contacts for Ganga Action Parivar and that has led to our wonderful team to be on the television and in local newspapers daily. This is amazing and the best part is that cleaning the Yamuna and the Ganges are the common topic. So I decided to remain here during the rest of the Kumbha Mela and meet more wonderful people every day.

What will come later? Who knows. What we do know is that we are instruments of the grace of Krishna. Right? The world conscious pact, of which we are members, has been more than just introduced and appreciated in India, there will come a time when we have to work for all this in South America.

This morning we listened to a very special lectureof Srila Prabhupada.
In it, Srila Prabhupada said that the work of a Vaishnava is to make the conditioned souls return to their position of nitya-siddha or eternally surrendered souls.

In the material world all are as if crazy, therefore we should look for healthy souls to guide us and help us out of it. Exit the nitya-baddha condition to become nitya-siddha, only by the mercy of the Vaishnavas. The madness of the material world is very easy to see in many examples. One need only to think of the drunks, in the people blinded by gambling, in the fanatics of some subject (soccer, for example) or anything like that. Fortunately, there are still people who are able to see these issues and want to help solve them.

However, there are so many kinds of folly, that one is amazed to easily dig a little deeper into it. Another example is the self-exploitation of the body that makes many athletes unaware. One would think that an athlete is someone who maintains a good healthy lifestyle, but no, not even athletes can get rid of all the madness.

The scandal of dope is very common among athletes; they take pills to make the body stronger and refrain from feeling tired, allowing them to play more than usual. Of course, in these conditions some of them become better athletes than others but not by training but by being drugged and then sports competition is but a sham, and that is nothing but a facade and at the end there is no value to say you won the Tour de France because it is not real.

The world of sports is involved only in fame and money, they are not even able to take care of their bodies because they are intoxicated and causing injury through repetitive and exaggerated movements, and then in the future they will not be able to because they are going to age as well. The diversity of madness in the material world is amazing. Srila Prabhupada calls its crazy and that's a fairly strong concept. But really you do realize that what happens here is all crazy, its confirmed when you see people spend money on meaningless things of which there is little to no benefit and the pages of newspapers companies promote alcoholism and ensure that people are going to get drunk to celebrate.

This chat can be given the title: Being saved from folly by the mercy of Srila Prabhupada.

With this bad conscience, the concept of "Simple living and high thinking" established by Srila Prabhupada is completely neglected, while promoting the completely wrong things. Multinational corporations are another example of current madness. The sale of junk food maintains half the world addicted to it and with that  corporations manages to get what they wants. All while politicians are representatives of those same corporations and sponsor their campaigns, instead of being true representatives of the people and common interests. This is terrible ... and it does nothing more than to confirms that the world far from the shelter of Krishna is a crazy world where fools continue to proliferate.

A third example is the market for arms and drugs. Where the same logic applies: those crazies interested only in making money while making others lives completely miserable. And then, there is the law of karma, all these miseries will surely be returned to them. Srila Prabhupada is absolutely right in saying that this world is "the world of the insane" People are mad about many things: looking for prestigious positions, fighting for degrees that certify their foolishness in a slaughterhouse of the soul and makes them feel superior over others. But no one can be better than another person if they are not making others happy as well.

A fourth example of the current madness is that the World Health Organization (WHO) confirms that the main problem in the health of people today is mental instability. That means that the psychological state of the people are very degraded. And what do they do with that? They invent a plethora of soothing happy pills (pills of happiness) to keep people seemingly "happy" and maintain some gratitude to those psychiatrists who prescribe it to them as they take more money.

At last, all those pills do nothing more but to cover up the real disease of not having God and only begets more insanity. Thus, the society promotes everything that creates deception and falsehood. A clear example of this is the media (irresponsible), TV media, film industry, etc.You can ask yourself how much of this madness must you be involved with to drive you crazy like that and the answer is that just with a little absorption one remains completely unfocused on his consciousness. Nitya-Baddha jivas are eternally conditioned souls of madness that is why they need a nitya-siddha like Srila Prabhupada to save them all. That is the mission of the Vaishnavas. We can continue naming follies to become more frightened of the material world so to run with more energy at the feet of the Vaishnavas.

One of the craziest things that are becoming ever more common is addiction to cosmetic surgery. That is evidence of the total degree of insanity; not being able to accept the body that by mercy (and karma) one deserved and wanting to touch and change it drastically just to enjoy more with such a body. So, people put plastic on their bodies to have fuller lips, bigger breasts, an attractive rear. Imagine that: introducing plastic surgery to the body, complete madness. All this is a crazy job, but those who undergo these procedures are definitely crazier. And not just women, it is becoming increasingly common in men as well as doing stupid things like parting the chin and creating a chin line to make them look more attractive. The worst thing is that people who have less resources and can not get high quality plastic surgery (silicone) try with different elements that are even more harmful to their health. There are cases where even oil jets are injected to "improve" a body part. Again we see that Srila Prabhupada's statement was entirely accurate to call these acts "crazy".

So all these follies are actually based on the desire for artha (wealth), kama (enjoyment) and moksha (liberation) ... coveting money and spend it, exploit the body itself and the body of others just to enjoy sensually and seeking the release of liberation are more unconscious modes and just more examples of the same. The funny thing in all this is that the devotees are often also called "crazy" because they are not part of the crazy "apparently normal" behaviour of the material world. They are called crazy for working in service to Mother Earth and for trying to surrender to the Lotus Feet of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and for Vaishnavas
singing:

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare

I cordially thank Srila Prabhupada for saving us from this madness of Kali Yuga.
And we in this humble attempt continue to preach and sing the holy names of Krishna.

After all, people immersed in their own folly are simply looking for the happiness of the soul, so we must be very compassionate with them. Compassionate means preaching tirelessly to bring the message of Mahaprabhu to every village and town.

So, I wanted to share with you all that today we got up in the early morning with these words of Srila Prabhupada, where he emphasized that we must be compassionate with nitya-baddhas and connect with the eternal message that will allow them to return to their original state of nitya-siddhas: of eternal servants of the Supreme Lord. I thank you for being part of this beautiful group and I ask you to spare no effort to continue the  invaluable work of preaching the message of Srila Prabhupada.

With all my love from Kumbha Mela
Jay Srila Prabhupada!

Your always wisher,
Swami B. A. Paramadvaiti.

The Sannyasis and World Conscious Pact : 2/3/13 from India

Dear devotees

Receive my warm greetings from Kumbha Mela. Srila Prabhupada ki jay!

These days we have had nice service visiting many different Acaryas from different sampradayas and akaras, we are bringing the message of environmental protection of the sacred rivers. We had two intense days of outing to visit the camps of the Kumbha Mela with Harinam, with costumes representing Ganga, Mother Earth, deforested areas, multinational materialists and the message of Universal Love.
This caused a very good impact, we were always very well received and all supported the environmental message and felt part of it.

The Kumbha Mela is an impressive gathering of scholars and seekers of spirituality. Sure, there are always some who only seek self-promotion, but overall it has been a very nice experience. These days I was reading a little more about the Kumbha Mela and some authors say they do not know when or how this meeting started, but it notably represents a living tradition. And spirituality should always be a living tradition. Not a tradition where everything is given only by imitation or where followers do not know what it is or where nothing is being practiced.

This is a very special place. We are right in front of where three holy rivers unite: The Ganges, Yamuna and Saraswati, this site is called Triveni and there is daily worship here and puja is done. So, we offer our most humble obeisance to that sacred site where we are now, this beautiful Triveni.

I want to deeply thank the devotees who are here in the Kumbha Mela doing tapasya and representing their characters with the beautiful costumes that were made by hand for over a month, working hard to come to Vrindavan to preach here. In the past, the Kumbha Mela has been a site of our acaryas hard preaching ... Srila Prabhupada was in this same Kumbha Mela in Allahabad in the 70s. Srila Bhakti Dayita Madhava Maharaj established in his math preaching at Kumbha Mela in Haridwar. Thus, the Vaishnavas also have been present in the Kumbha Mela, singing and carrying the holy names of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu's mercy everywhere. Furthermore, I wanted to share a reflection on a lecture by Srila Prabhupada that I heard this morning:

A sannyasi who had a strong test concerning his vows asked Srila Prabhupada what should a sannyasi do when he falls down from upholding vows. At that point, Srila Prabhupada told him the story of Chotta Haridas, who had to move away from the association of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu for having desires for a mother. Essentially nothing happened, but Mahaprabhu was so strict that He "rejected" his association. Chotta Haridasa felt so desperate, he went to Triveni and drowned there. But Chotta Haridasa was so attached to Mahaprabhu that he appeared again before Him in the form of a gandharva. Thus, this sannyasi, Vishnujan Swami, who was loved by all after hearing that from Srila Prabhupada left his things and disappeared. Days later, some brahmanas found a body around, but never know if it was him or not. Then Srila Prabhupada heard about this and became very sad and he said that was not the point, he would have preferred that he marry and continue to serve in his mission. So Vishnujan Swami was as an example of Prabhupada's followers who wanted to be with him forever and repented  because he was unable to uphold his sannyas. That's why I always tell my sannyasis please be sannyasis or not, the most important thing is to be happy in Krishna Consciousness and keep fighting, because being a sannyasi in Kali Yuga is very difficult. Always move forward, preaching and preaching, fighting and fighting.

The sannyasis always face many obstacles, because they work with young and pretty people, caring for farms, preaching centers and temples. So we pray for our sannyasis, asking so that they may always be steadfast, because they are very supportive in expanding Krishna Consciousness.

Some time ago, there was a sannyasi who did not know what to do with his sannyas position, and neither knew what his problem was. Then I told him to collect $ 10,000 and then once collected by him to think if he wanted to give them to the Mission of Sri Caitanya or use them to start a family. The spiritual process is not about having nothing or not knowing what to do, this path, and especially that of the sannyasi is to serve. This is a beautiful tradition of order and service. Here, in the Kumbha Mela, we have seen many sannyasis, but how many are really strict in their vows in private life? Paramatma only knows, but there are many who want to be sannyasis which is remarkable, here we can see that. A sannyasi is one piece in building a Mission. I am very grateful to all of them. The sannyasis in Venezuela, Ecuador, everywhere, have made many beautiful things. For example our Narayan Maharaj, the loved Damodar Maharaj, our Ashram Maharaj, Tirtha Maharaj, Yajavar Maharaja  as well as our Goswami Maharaj near to Chile, they are all very important. To them we offer our respects, admiration and prayers. In this Kumbha Mela we have found all kinds of things, however, as Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu said, in this age it is our duty to sing, Harinam Yajna, Yuga Dharma. Everyone can chant the holy names and we have seen that even the impersonalists sing the names Govinda and Gopal.

The work we have done during these days will have a major impact in South America. All the preaching we are doing is in conjunction with Ganga Action Parivar and the World Conscious Pact. They have created a very nice basis to work from. The particular quality of the World Conscious Pact is that it is a pact of determination, even to some extent, they are of a positive aggressive nature in terms of what themes they uphold to contribute to, but beyond that aggression is a constant determination to protect the values ​​that are promoted. A love given in defense of nature, animals and humans. That is the great strength of the philosophy that our acaryas have taught us; to do things with love, without being discouraged and without violence. Most importantly, we must be systematic so that things are done right. I wish that you make your best effort in each of your services, trying to be as systematic as possible in everything you do and with the greatest love possible. All my love from the Kumbha Mela. Do not forget to share the nectar of sankirtana in the report pages and  the okis distribution and awareness messages in you areas of service. A big hug, Jay Srila Prabhupada!

Your always well wisher,
Swami B. A. Paramadvaiti.