Saturday, December 18, 2021

Emotions

 The hardest thing in life is to appropriately deal with emotions. By that I mean to incorporate them meaningfully rather than to disregard them, to dismiss them as unnecessary, unwanted, useless or as obstacles. 


As human beings we can conjure up any thought we desire in an instant. To some degree we may also perform any action we desire at any time given that it doesn't break the laws of physics. But the realm of emotions presents a curious paradox in that what may 'seem right' might not at all 'feel right'. At times our feelings are at odds with our conscience, our ethics, our morals or sense of worth. 


Often we 'do the right thing' amidst feeling quite uncomfortable about it. Or we may delight in doing something we know is quite sinister and unwarranted, yet go ahead regardless. So what rôle do emotions play in shaping our character? What is shame for? Regret? Remorse? Hate? Vindictiveness? Fear? Love? Laziness? 


Domesticated animals with proper training might appear to display human traits such as calm, sombre patience, austerity and charity, discipline and obedience; but really they are just acting the part in expectation of a future reward. A way to know this for sure is to withhold any 'treats' (rewards) for a period of time and soon one will witness them reverting back to animalistic sense gratification behaviours. In training them with 'human' traits they are reduced to robots imitating learnt patterns. 


Human emotions - or for that matter, dog emotions - are a complex mixture of tastes (the Sanskrit term is rasa) whether they be positive (likes and preferences) or negative (dislikes and aversions). In one way these can all be classed as anarthas, unwanted things that get in the way of self-realisation, because they collectively represent impediments. The true transcendentalist is really not concerned with anything material, whether it be good or bad. Emotions can definitely be obstacles whenever they cloud our judgment. How many times have we made a bad decision based on being too emotional about a concern? How often do we let our partiality grant undue preference to an unworthy recipient? 


Let's take a hypothetical situation - one we would rather avoid at all costs. Picture two children trapped in a burning house. One is unknown to us, the other is our offspring who unfortunately is inflicted with a terminal disease with little time left to live. Who would we rescue? The child with the potential of having their whole life ahead of them, or our son or daughter who will be dead in a matter of months anyway? 


Of course, without even thinking most of us would instinctively rescue our close family. Emotions aside, it makes more sense to rescue the unknown child with greater lifetime potential. Altruism is borne by what is beneficial for the greater good rather than selfish considerations. 


All other things aside, the singlemost important factor in our lives is what makes us happy. This is 100% determined by our emotions. The happiness felt by a poverty-stricken child upon receiving a gift of a few beans may be far greater than what a corporate businessman feels making a couple of million dollars in a takeover. It's all relative, and it all comes down to rasa, the emotion we feel. 


Sometimes we need a pat on the back, sometimes we get more out of doing something for someone anonymously. It all depends. When I played in a band I'd get a buzz out of the audience cheering at gigs. But as a busker I sensed the appreciation more when a passer-by chucked in a gold coin for a Beatles or Stones cover. That is a truly individually motivated action, and one I learnt to cherish. Often drunkards leaning on the bar don't even clap because they are too busy using one of their hands to hold their beverage. 




Wednesday, December 08, 2021

History of Civilisation

It is very difficult to discuss the topic of 'what qualifies as a civilisation' without getting accused of being racist, white supremacist or whatever because technology is a product of advanced civilisations. Generally this involves permanent dwellings, communities and intensive farming. For instance although the Subcontinent has its tribal indigenous peoples such as the Vedda (aka mountain men of Sri Lanka), their ancient arts and sciences such as architecture, mathematics, music, astronomy, medicine, the wheel and other machines all came from the intellectual class of Brahminical society - not the Vedda. Because of their social class structure the intelligent pandits had the facility to concentrate on intellectual concerns where the “cream rose to the top”. The disc or wheel is an archetypal part of ancient Vedic mythology yet western historians place its invention to only four thousand years ago in line with the concept of early humans evolving from apes into primitive Neanderthals. This recent Darwinian concept is completely rejected by Easterners who adhere to time-honoured traditional lore.


Of course there is also the ancient mythology that Avatars (the embodiments of the Gods) descended from the heavenly planets and introduced knowledge of the arts and sciences to humanity. This concept is not restricted to the Subcontinent and indeed peoples from all over the globe share similar traditions of Gods descending eg Greeks, Scandinavians (Norse, Vikings etc), Orientals and American natives such as “Red indians”, Aztecs, Incas, and Mayan civilisations.


Either way, it appears that technological advancement is either a product of organised complex society, or God-given boons, or possibly both.


Not everyone agrees that Australian Aborigines are “the oldest continuous culture”. After all, they migrated from Asia and that's still here. It may be more accurate and scholarly to describe them as the most isolated for the longest time. It is impossible to date the origins of Chinese culture because it pre-dates the invention of writing and no records exist. A similar situation is prevalent in Indian folklore where they widely accept that their culture goes back millions of years. Certainly both these ancient cultures had highly organised and structured societies which is why they were so efficient and long-lived.


The Northern, Southern and Mesoamericans and various peoples of Oceania are easier to date, being much more recent. In a way the same could be said about Europe but to a lesser degree. Asia and Africa stand out as having the most ancient roots. Few historians argue about whether Aborigines migrated from mainland Asia via the land bridge that existed up until the Last Glacial Maximum when sea levels were hundreds of feet (or metres) lower than at present - it's more about when.


As to why technology appeared in Asia and not Africa - that might rest purely on the differences between tribal and civilised social structures. Perhaps “civilisations” were preoccupied with control, power and opulence by utilising and exploiting resources on a large scale rather than “living in harmony with nature” in small clans and tribes? As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention.


There is one controversial theory about early Aboriginal migration in that it was involuntary, that they were exiled by the ruling monarchy in Asia for refusing to abide by the King's (or Queen's) Laws. Survival plays a large role in the history of human migrations, whether it be across the Bering land bridge, the Out of Africa theory, the Out of India theory, the Mongolians and Huns of Eastern Asia, the Celts, Saxons, Slavs, Greeks and Romans of Europe or the Polynesians, Melanesians and Australasians of Oceania. Peoples have always been at war and on the move and Australians are no different. I mean, look at Australian politics!


Yet another controversial theory is that up until the Last Glacial Maximum (which ended 20,000 years ago) what is erroneously termed ‘The Last Ice Age’ (look at the frozen polar caps - technically we're still in an Ice Age) massive glaciation caused civilisations, nations, tribes and peoples in general to be cut off and become isolated. This geographical isolation caused a ‘losing touch with culture’ and a corresponding dumbing down of traditional knowledge as people retreated and sought shelter in caves and hospitable environments.


If you are to look at an atlas you will see that most of the major mountain ranges are aligned North-South (the Rockies & Andes of the Americas, Great Dividing Range of Australia, Scandinavia, the Urals of Russia, Ethiopian Highlands of Africa) An exception to this (and to a lesser extent the Swiss Alps of Europe) are the Himalayas which afforded India protection from the advancing glaciers and stopped them in their tracks. Traditional Indian folklore has it that this is why their culture has remained intact since prehistoric times. It also explains how Italy and Greece have some of the oldest prospering cultures in Europe.


So instead of the usual Cave Man myth of humans being unevolved and stupid we have a scenario where cultures that kept their knowledge base intact (India and China and perhaps Italy and Greece) maintained flourishing civilisations.. those that weren't cut off didn't had to start all over again. This may explain the dreamtime and creation myths of aborigines which are undated and untraceable. The ‘J’ shape of the Great Dividing Range would have afforded protection inland from the advancing glaciers of Antarctica, concurring with the vast inland sea of ancient Australia.


Worth noting is that Equatorial regions weren't affected so much by the Glacial period although temperatures would have been much cooler. This coincides with the oldest cultures inhabiting the stable Equatorial Zone. The Inuits of Alaska/Canada are a later migration, the first one or possibly two being the north and south Americans who have distinctively different genetic markers indicating separate waves of colonisation. Evidence points to the Inuits crossing the Bering land bridge between Russia and Alaska afterwards just as it was being inundated.


This means there were at least three waves of migration in the Americas. A similar thing may have occurred in Australia. We generally accept the forty to sixty thousand year date but some historians suggest an earlier first wave as far back a 120,000 years ago based on skulls excavated from ancient historical sites. So that means at least two waves.


None of this concurs with the biblical account of humans first populating Earth 4,000 years ago - nor the Vedic one of millions of years. In fact, all cultures have different accounts and none of them really line up. Do we dismiss them all or try to amalgamate them? Or is that archaeological heresy?


Carbon dating only goes back 55,000 years. Uranium however has a half life of 4.5 billion years and eventually decays to ordinary lead. This throws the biblical chronology into the ‘myth’ category. If creation is a mere 4,000 years old how can we have lead?

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

The Universal Language

 Aliens, outer space, the astral plane, mysticism, ghosts, spirits, and in general 'the other side' form a complex set of audiovisual imagery ingrained in our subconscious. Because of years and years of subliminal programming from exposure to how they are depicted in the arts we cannot help but connect certain sights and sounds to 'out of this world' paranormal phenomena. 


But is this imagery valid? 


Artists and musicians maintain that there are patterns and a hierarchical order connecting all sensory experiences from sorrow and grief, to blandness and boredom, to joy and relief. We relate bright colours, high notes and light, boppy tunes to happy events and dark murky colours, sombre low notes and plodding rhythms to the opposite. But why? Is it just conditioning? How did they come to represent those things? 


Why are aliens portrayed as technologically advanced, communicating by digital synthesised noises, having superpowers and always deformed, mutant, half machine or half zombie? Unless you've encountered them in real life the only reason you'd expect to see an alien lifeform as weird is due to the arts. All hypothetical indeed. 


Back to the real world. The reason I mentioned the astral plane earlier is because many philosophers, transcendentalists, theosophists and metaphysical seekers connect the astral planes as where we go when we dream, where we go when we die, and where we wait until we either take birth again or go to heaven if you're religious (I put that in for fun). 


Here's something to think about. No matter what language is spoken, everyone laughs and cries the same. Foreigners don't go 'boo hoo' when they laugh and no-one goes 'ha ha ha' when they cry. 


Some suggest that it is all part of a Universal Language. This is where the imagery comes from - a secret, hidden vault of life experiences that exists eternally in another dimension. This is what artists and musicians tap into to express themselves, and why it has an effect on us, moves us, and leaves an imprint. 


Aliens again! What the? Maybe we HAVE seen a UFO. Maybe we HAVE been abducted and had our memory wiped. And what's with all the high-pitched screeching violins at seances and ghostly hauntings, and those theremins (THAT science fiction sound) whenever a spaceship appears out of nowhere. Perhaps those moviemakers have taken a bit of artistic licence and stolen a few things from the vault. Or perhaps they are real and exist on another plane or dimension that we are unaware of during normal waking consciousness. 


Every now and then I'd like to hear an alien monster make harp string sounds. Or a ghost playing the banjo. And a UFO with trumpets for jet propulsion. 


No. That would be far too incongruous and our minds won't make sense of any of it. Not in the vault, apparently. 






Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Radical Activism and the Great Reset - Covid conspiracy

I think I get the Great Reset/Covid conspiracy thing now. 

The Left-wing and Centrist ('normal') narrative is that the Great Reset, the official name of the June 2020 meeting of the World Economic Forum, is a response to the pandemic where various measures to implement recovery were discussed. 

Along comes 'radical activism'. The Far-Right and even some Extreme-Left narrative is that Covid-19 is a bioweapon CREATED to deliberately CAUSE the need for The Great Reset. 

Sounds like the old "which came first, the chicken or the egg" paradox… so what exactly is this Great Reset? It's supposed to be about reshaping the world, with catchphrases like 'stakeholder economy', 'green growth', the 'Fourth Industrial Revolution', 'computerised mechanisation and manufacturing' and many more, involving 5G telecommunications, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, robotics, 3-D printing and lots of other space age technologies. 

The altruistic concept is to create a fairer world economy that uses sustainable development to recover from the pandemic. The Alt-Right ideology doesn't believe any of this and says it is all about population control, wealth redistribution and the New World Order taking away our liberties and making us slaves. Coming from that is the anti-vax stance, lockdown protests and general non-compliance with laws brought in by governments to counter the spread of the pandemic. 

So are the Far-Right helping or making things worse? Hmmm.. 

It is very feasible that this novel covid-19, the 7th strain of coronavirus known so far, is entirely natural in origin (the first 4 cause the common cold and are thousands of years old; the other two are 21st century 'mutations' MERS and SARS). A third theory is that it was deliberately leaked from a Wuhan lab so the Chinese could take over the world by destroying the economies of all the other nations. That one is far, far scarier than the Far-Right conspiracy. 

In the past we have successfully used vaccines to deal with diseases like polio and measles and to eradicate smallpox. The problem with covid-19 is that vaccines aren't so effective against airborne viruses that infect the respiratory tract. These viral infections are much harder to control, like the way influenza mutates so constantly that each season, flu vaccine effectiveness varies anywhere from 10% to 60%!

In any case, by far the smartest thing anyone can do is to strengthen our front line of defence - our immune system - and in the famous words of Benjamin Franklin, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". 

Tuesday, September 28, 2021

Satyam Setty

Fb post #1
Two different Satya brand Nag Champas? Yep. The declining availability the basic ingredient, a resin called HALMADDI from the Ailanthus triphysa tree, is the most logical explanation for the change over the years, apart from seasonal variation (as happens with any natural ingredient). Up until the 1990's, extracting the resin killed many of the trees because of uncontrolled and crude techniques, eventually leading to a Government ban, pushing up the price. In 2011 this ban was lifted under restricted licences and supply increased soon after to try to keep up with demand. Unfortunately it still isn't enough and a thriving blackmarket exists for the illegally extracted resin. This explains the lowering of quality of nag champa incense as halmaddi becomes more expensive and is used in lesser amounts to make the sticks. 

It is hard to independently substantiate the claims made in the reddit article. Some of this info may be incorrect, I'm just learning about it now on the net. There is much confusion and in typical Indian style there is a shifty air of secrecy about it all. 

After the father died (K. N. Satyam Setty, who founded the Srinivas Sugandhalaya company in 1964 that makes nag champa incense and soap) the two sons went to court and split up the company in 2014 (it was those 2014 batches that ran out a while later as supply was interrupted). Apparently the court ruled that they could continue to use the same brand name for their separate companies... Under their father, one brother handled the administrative business side from Mumbai while the other ran the factory in Bangalore.

Rumour has it that the Bangalore company still hand-rolls the original recipe whereas the Mumbai counterparts are sometimes machine-rolled, the recipe allegedly being altered to allow manufacture on machines. There are also slightly different logos - the new one looks more like a red and blue C joined together (Mumbai brand) instead of the usual two S's (Bangalore brand). The one I bought the other week (the Mumbai variety) has "traditionally hand rolled in India" printed on the box and the back no longer reads "2014 series", being made after the court ruling allowing the brothers to trade using similar trademarked names. 

I first noticed a change when the incense I was buying had a perfectly round wooden stick instead of the split bamboo one with square edges - no doubt to enable machine rolling. I was told by the shop assistant that this was to help stamp out slave labour.. their website claims to not use child labour nor animal fats.  


The original Bangalore (or Bengaluru) stick had square edges and was hand-rolled, supposedly to the original recipe. It has the logo on the right. You can also tell the hand-rolled item by its irregular shape with flat patches and lumps. 

To make things even more confusing the Mumbai company (inferior? machine made) lists a slightly different Bengaluru address for the factory! This story COULD BE TOTAL BULL.. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Incense/comments/5i8td4/identifying_fake_satya_sai_baba_nag_champa/

It's repeated here with slight variations
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/SATYA-SAI-BABA-NAG-CHAMPA-INCENSE-STICKS-Bulk-Pack-12-x-15g/150778725750?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649

..but that doesn't mean it's true. I don't believe everything I see in the internet ha ha

This explains better the changes in the good ol' blue box nag champa incense. They reckon they stopped using halmaddi in 1999. I DO remember how the old incense used to go soggy, testament to halmaddi's hygroscopic nature!
https://olfactoryrescueservice.wordpress.com/category/incense/by-company/india/shrinivas-sugandhalaya/

Fb post #2
More on the Setty brothers saga. [update] I am starting to think neither brand is "fake" and it's just sibling rivalry. Both the soap and incense available in Australia come from Mumbai. The original incense made with halmaddi decades ago would have come from Bangalore. Both brands are inferior nowadays. I have the top one, with a noticeable difference in perfume compared to a couple of years ago.  




Top: elder brother Nagraj runs his company from Mumbai as "Shrinivas Sugandhalaya LLP". Note the Bengaluru (Bangalore) address as "Factory: No. 21 & 22, 8th Cross, Magadi Road" etc. This is the company that machine rolls some of their sticks.

Below: an earlier packet before the split, with the original, simpler "Shrinivas Sugandhalaya" registered name. Later, the younger brother K. S. Balakrishna Setty who kept wholly in Bangalore, began trading as "Shrinivas Sugandhalaya (BNG) LLP" and still hand-rolls all their incense. Note the original address as 1/9, 8th Cross, Magadi Road, etc. 

The boxes use different coloured seals, have different Free Call numbers, small variations in print, and both carry a warning to avoid imitations!

[update] so there are at least 3 versions...
"Shrinivas Sugandhalaya" the old company before the split
"Shrinivas Sugandhalaya (BNG) LLP" - Bangalore, still in the old factory - Balakrishna Setty (younger bro) 
"Shrinivas Sugandhalaya LLP" - Mumbai, using a different Bangalore factory address - Nagraj Setty (older bro)

It appears that the younger brother at (BNG) LLP is behind the internet campaign against "fake Satya Nag Champa", accusing the older one at LLP of possibly changing the recipe to facilitate machine rolling in the new factory up the road. LLP have branched out into dozens of scents now - patchouli, sandalwood, you name it, all in modern fancy packaging. It may be that Nagraj simply wanted to move with the times and Balakrishna refused, sticking to the old methods. That is my opinion on why they split, looking at what they've done since. The new Mumbai branch is heavily into the export trade and has become very westernised. That's what I see in Rohani's, the local Indian Imports shop in Dromana.

Fb post #3
The Nag Champa soap made by Srinivas Sugandhalaya has gone plastic, ditching the old wax paper wrapper, adding to the world's plastic problem. 
Also the scent and colour is different - a pale grey instead of creamy white.
This is from the older brother's new factory since the father who started the company died. Though both brothers use the same brand name, the modern mechanised one, recognisable by only "LLC" at the end of the brand name, uses changed recipes and is not the same as the original - "(BNG) LLP". 

This goes for the incense as well. The younger brother Balakrishna Setty is still in the old factory using the old methods, hand-rolling, etc but it's the older Nagraj whose mechanised stuff is being exported/imported more. 

I have switched to Caitanya brand hand-rolled Nag Champa incense made in Vrindavan the traditional way. I wish I could do that with the soap as well!

Friday, August 27, 2021

Experimental CoViD-19 vaccines

 Scientists don't always know what they're doing - especially when they are experimenting and anything could happen! 


Take the new messenger RNA vaccine (or mRNA for short), developed in record time for the novel 2019 coronavirus disease (CoViD-19 for short). Normally vaccines go through years and years of testing to make sure they are truly safe, but these have been pushed through "because this is an emergency". Regarding CoViD-19, vaccines, and natural immunity vs vaccine-induced immunity:


What if.. 

  1. Immunity induced from covid vaccines is short-lived? 
  2. It isn't as good or long-lasting as natural immunity? 
  3. They only work on strains that are already 'old hat'? 
  4. They facilitate (or even cause) the virus to mutate into even deadlier strains? 
  5. They interfere with our ability to develop natural immunity? 
  6. And from that they make those jabbed dependent on vaccines? 
  7. They cause hidden long-term detrimental effects on health? 


Possible answers:

  1. We know that already. There's already talk of 'boosters'. 
  2. Recovered cases are showing stronger resistance to reinfection. 
  3. They are suspected of being only half effective on Delta already. 
  4. Quite possible - even likely. 
  5. We already know that the body is fooled by induced antibodies that everything is going ok and thinks it doesn't need to produce more of its own accord. 
  6. Only the test of time will reveal the answer to that. 
  7. Only the test of time will reveal the answer to that. 


The problem is two-fold. We risk death from CoViD-19 by not being vaccinated because some of us are genetically prone to respiratory failure, and although the majority (around 80%) only suffer mild symptoms or none at all, it's hit and miss whether we are going to die from it. 


By remaining unvaccinated we are taking that gamble. Yet the rewards for taking a chance are potentially huge - like any gamble. If we contract CoViD-19 and get over it with few side effects we will have strong antibodies that may even protect us from new mutant strains. Not only are they better than artificially induced ones, but they will last longer, possibly even a lifetime. 


Yet there is also a gamble in getting vaccinated. It's quite possible that in a hundred years the only people left on the planet will be descendants of unvaccinated people with strong immunity who have survived the pandemic – and all those vaccinated over and over again have ended up with no immunity and no defences, thus falling victim to mutant strains. 


I say this, not as a scientist, not as a conspiracy theorist, not even as a sci-fi fan - but as a pragmatist who wonders about the possible dangers of scientific experimentation on the majority of the world's population all at once. This may turn out to be the scariest movie ever!


Thursday, July 22, 2021

Ego - False or Real?

 Forty or fifty years ago when I was an adolescent trying to come to grips with the daunting 'calling' of approaching manhood versus the immense gem of the Gita philosophy, one of the truly moving aspects of devotees that knocked me off my feet was their humility. 


To see such soft-hearted souls deeply concerned with everyone's welfare was astounding. I watched guys that I previously knew as little more than animals in karmi life transform into kind and gentle sapient beings, compassionate and forgiving of our blind western upbringing. 


We learnt how much of our identity was false ego and undertook to awaken our real ego through rekindling our relationship with God. Yet, how much of this transformation was nothing more than an act - adopting a second false ego of identifying as a neophyte devotee? Unless and until self-realisation occurs, the new 'spiritual identity' may be nothing more than yet another ego trip. Oh, the irony of bodily identification and shaven head with sikha (high ponytail)! Imported Indian clothing was booming, the in-fashion. Everyone at least had a kurta - those sheer collarless cotton tops with fancy embroidered patterns - as compulsory for the budding hippy as the iconic tie-dye t-shirt! 


Decades have gone by, and we still witness ex-iskcon devotees (stalwarts and bloopers alike) returning to their former selves after the passing of Prabhupāda and the dissolving shemozzle that once was ISKCON. They say a leopard never changes its spots and like many others I have seen people go through a myriad of personality changes only to revert to their former selves - myself included (and my ex-wife!). 


So how much of 'being a devotee' is an act? I've heard of friends coming back from a short visit to India miraculously speaking with a Bengali accent as if they have suddenly become elevated in their wisdom. Even the rigmarole of dressing in dhoti, sari, etc reeks of outward appearances, adopting a uniform merely for the look and the impression it gives. I've seen an ex temple president hide in their bedroom and choof 50 bhongs a day while scheming to rob a Nimbin heroin dealer 'because they owed me'. I've seen sex-starved devi-dasis go apeshit upon discovering the world of female orgasms. I've seen guys losing their marbles and completely losing the plot. Some even commit suicide, sadly. 


With charlatans and fake gurus everywhere, gone are the days of assuming someone in the dress of a sannyasi as being a holy person. In fact we're more inclined to view them with suspicion. The valuable adage 'judge a fool by their speech and a wise soul by their words' couldn't be more apt. 


These days cosplay is a recognised pastime where folks like to dress up as their favourite superheroes. Is parading about wearing some kind of spiritual uniform any different? In the 60s and 70s hippie era it was very fashionable to have a guru - and there were loads to choose from. Lots of yogis travelled to the west seeking labha-puja-prathishtha (profit, adoration and distinction), performing their gymnastic feats to the amazement of the gullible followers. Many of these fake gurus even went as far as to claim to be God, or at least an incarnation of a God. And plenty of us bought it. I handed over a dole cheque (the equivalent of a week's wage which is what they were really after) to learn TM…. but was disappointed with the lack of results when I failed to transcend ANYTHING. Maybe I would have been more successful if I wore the robes of a monk and spoke with an Indian accent? 


There are different types of religious motivators. There are the genuine articles who are sent by God to deliver a message, nay, to deliver us from our predicament. And then there are the charlatans masquerading as God-Men (or Women) preaching a concocted mixture partly based on scripture and the rest in their imagination. 


I'm pretty sure we all know someone who did TM, got into Divine Light Mission, joined the Hare Krishnas, became a born-again Christian, Jehovah Witness, Mormon, Muslim, Buddhist or even a Scientologist. Question is, are they still doing it, or have they reverted to their former self? 


The main difference between Personalism and Impersonalism as far as spirituality goes is the definition of ego. In Personalism the teaching is that there is false ego (bodily identification) and real ego (identifying as a servant of God); whereas in Impersonalism (such as Buddhism) all ego is deemed an illusion and identity is a furphy. 


Christianity, Islam and Hinduism are forms of Bhakti-yoga and as such are forms of Personalism - as, like many beliefs, God is a person just like us (although the Supreme Being) whereas Mayavadi, Sunyavadi or similar nihilistic beliefs conclude everything is an illusion (including God) and ultimately personality is extinguished. Therefore Buddhism is disguised atheism. Ultimately Buddhists do not believe in God - therefore it is not a faith or a religion in the usual sense but rather a belief system. 


Beliefs are subject to change. Real religion isn't. That's the difference. Religion is not belief, it's faith - two completely different things. 




Saturday, June 26, 2021

Reconciling Puranic Cosmology with The Siddhantas and Western Astronomy/Astrology

Hare Krishna,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami and His translations and purports to Srimad-Bhagavatam! All glories to Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati and His translations and annotations of Surya-Siddhanta and Siddhanta-Siromani (as Bimala Prasad Datta)! All glories to both Prabhupadas! 

First, I wish to make it clear that I am comparing at least two or three systems here - (1) Puranic cosmology, and (2) astronomy, both (i) eastern (Vedic/Jyotisha) and (ii) western, including (iii) astrology, using both the sidereal and tropical zodiacs. So there is a fair amount of subject matter to reconcile. Also I would like to acknowledge that as Bimal Prasad Datta was awarded the title Bhaktisiddhānta for his work on the Siddhantas before he accepted Abhay Charan De as his disciple (later A. C. Bhaktivedānta Swami), we therefore we cannot dismiss the Siddhantas just because they present a different perspective to the Bhagavatam, as both scriptures have commentaries authored by both Prabhubadas. 

Regarding the differences between Puranic cosmology (the Bhagavatam) and astronomy including both zodiacs (sidereal and tropical) of Vedic Jyotish (the Siddhantas) and Western systems (astronomy and astrology) we encounter an apparent paradox. Surya-Siddhanta, Siddhanta-Siromani and astronomy/astrology are by and large the same, apart from any minor difference between nomenclature and the use of geocentric or heliocentric systems – superficially the geometry may differ but the respective calculations result in the same outcomes for both systems. For the purposes of making observations and erecting charts and horoscopes using the motions and positions of the heavenly bodies there is no technical argument therein. It must be made clear that Puranic cosmology does not deal with any of that - for example Ekadasi is calculated using the jyotisha of the Siddhantas, not the cosmology of the Bhagavatam! 

Using scriptual knowledge and impirical information to arrive at an intellectual and philosophical understanding is bona fide and not the same thing as wild mental speculation about mundane affairs. In fact, one is always encouraged to use one's brain to understand instead of just parroting things like a robot! Inquisitiveness coupled with healthy scepticism may open many a door locked to even the most pedantic lover of doctrinal dogma. 

Personally, in comparing cosmology to astronomy I wouldn't have expected that our solar system could be mathematically reckoned to a cosmological universe. But in researching this I happened to stumble across one possible explanation - Demigod Yojanas! We already know that demigod time is different to Earth Time - so why not distance as well? After all, time and space are both 'dimensions'. Read on if you're interested...

In astronomy the approximate figure of 4 billion miles for the Sun/Pluto distance is a radius, whereas the roughly 4 billion miles wide universe quoted in cosmology is a diameter. This makes our Solar System twice larger at 8 billion miles wide. So, aren't we trying to compare chalk and cheese here? Something else must be going on.

Before we get to the concept of demigod yojanas.... this is not the place to argue about Flat Earth, Moon Landing hoax, fake NASA, etcetera etcetera. Do that somewhere else and at another time. Sticking to what is relevant here, first we must acknowledge that the SB 5th Canto Chapter 22 is a minefield of typos! I will no doubt be accused of fault-finding but really I am just trying to get to the bottom of this and the truth. What I want to bring attention to here (rather than to nit-pick) is that the confusion caused by differences in the two models (cosmology vs astronomy both eastern and western) is compounded many times over by the errata and typos in the 5th Canto. 

Although eastern and western astronomy closely align, if we compare the three models they don't match up, and we're used to that. For example, Lord Brahma's planet Satyaloka at the top of the cosmological universe, being some 2 billion miles above the Sun, would work out to be closer than our astronomical Pluto at roughly 4 billion miles out. This doesn't make any sense - two completely different sized models. 

Now... add in the typos and see how even more confusing it becomes! 

Take Śanaiścara (Saturn) for example. Using the texts from SB 5.22.8-16 or Chart Three at the front of the volume we find that Saturn is 1.3 million yojanas (10.4 million miles) above the Sun in the text - yet from Chart Three it is 1.4 million (11.2 million). 
Which one is it? 

Alas, the figure given by western astronomers is over 70 times that, around 886 million miles, illustrating the vast difference in the sizes of the two models. Adding Pluto to that equation emphasises that even more so. 

Now... SB 5.22.8 re Sun/Moon distance clearly states 'lakṣa-yojanataḥ' and in the translation 100,000 yojanas...
... yet in Chart Three we find the Moon drawn above the Sun by 200,000 yojanas - not 100,000!
Which one is it? 

Nowhere in the slokas or translated verses do we see the Sun referenced as 100,000 yojanas above the Earth. We only see it using the chart (you may also be able to find in English in a purport) but I cannot find that figure anywhere in Sanskrit or the translation - even using online search tools! Why did Śrīla Prabhupāda use NASA's figure of 93,000,000 miles in the purports? And anyway 800,000 miles is nothing like the 93 million miles we are all familiar with. 
Which one is it? 

It is a mystery where the unnamed artist who drew the Chart Three obtained the figure of 100,000 yojanas from for the Earth/Sun distance (perhaps Vishnu Purana?). It's not in the slokas or the translated verses, and can only arrived at by working backwards from the 4 million miles stated in the weird Text 11 purport which comes from the incorrect distances found in Chart Three. Very confusing! 

Further investigation led me to realise just how astronomical the size difference (pun intended) of the two models is, the cosmological universe being a mere fraction of the astronomical universe that uses Light-years to measure vast distances (six trillion, or 6,000,000,000,000 miles approx = 1 light-year). 

I do remember reading elsewhere that a yojana is a relative measurement – which may or may not account for the discrepancy between the two sizes of universe ie Earth vs Demigod yojanas – also it has various values ie 8 miles, 5 miles or 8 kilometres, etc as used by different Jyotish practitioners. 'As far away as a bull can be heard bellowing' and 'as far as one can see clearly' are two examples I have also come across for 1 yojana. Perhaps a yojana means one thing in outer space and another in a paddock? Or a more feasible explanation as one author suggests, is that in the same way that Demigod time is different to Earth time (eg one day of Brahma equals 4.32 billion Earth years) perhaps a Demigod yojana is much, much bigger than an Earth yojana!

https://m.facebook.com/VedicCosmology/posts/our-universe-is-4-billion-miles-in-size-but-is-that-demigod-size-or-earth-size-k/1652037028437556/

This actually makes a lot of sense to me in a way when I take the time to ponder the possibility. For quite some time I have agreed with Richard L. Thompson's view that Vedic Cosmology is described as seen from the Heavenly Planets - perhaps why it seems so perplexing to us. It is no wonder Vedic Cosmology has confused devotees and scholars the whole world over when we try to impose Earth value systems upon it.

We have all heard the expression "Too many cooks spoil the broth". There was more than one editor who worked on Bhagavad-Gītā As It Is, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and similar works with the Devanagari, romanised Sanskrit, transliterations, translations, and purports and I think it is safe to say that some have made a few mistakes here and there, as we are all human. This is separate from any confusion caused by any measurement of spatial differences.

Personally I have no objection to the numerous typos in Śrīla Prabhupāda's books - and I am certainly not criticising Him. Not only do I not mind them, I value them - as they provide a valuable function! These typos serve to identify His Divine Grace's original books because they have since been removed from the edited, so-called 'corrected' and changed modern BBTi versions.

Besides, most of the typos are so glaringly obvious as mistakes that they generally don't cloud any meaning. Forr eximple, you moste probbly hav no diffculity unda standing wot this sentence meenz. Similarly with figures, when different numbers describe the same phenomena (such as 10,000 yojanas and 1,000,000 yojanas for the same distance of Siddhaloka below Rahu) we can do the sums in our head and work out with simple arithmetic, which one is correct.

Distances between planets in 5th Canto, Book Two, Chart Three differ not only from the texts - the texts differ from the purports. Even the heavenly bodies change names in some places! It is no wonder Vedic Cosmology has devotees confused the world over. It definitely seems to have confused the editors, proof-readers and typesetters! 

Using both the search engines built into Vanipedia and Gitabase as well as reading and skimming through the actual 5th Canto, I cannot find a single Sanskrit reference to the 100,00 yojana distance between the Earth and the Sun anywhere in the texts (either in the Devanagari script, the Sanskrit, the transliterations, or nor the English translation of the Sanskrit). It appears in Chart Three as 100,000 yojanas; elsewhere in English in the purports varying as either 100,000 yj or 93 million miles; yet not a single mention in the actual Sanskrit slokas - at least not in the 5th canto which deals with our position in the material universe in detail. 

Now, some of you might gloss over my pedantry as being trivial. But as having a western-type triple Virgo symbolism I was born to focus on these sorts of things. If it exists somewhere else in Sanskrit I would be very grateful if someone can show me where - IN SANSKRIT - in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the Earth/Sun distance is (I am NOT referring to in the English in the purports). As far as I can see there is no reference IN SANSKRIT to either 100,000 yojanas nor 93 million miles which is a NASA figure. I would be very happy to be proven wrong, please do! 

When using the search tools built into Vedabase, Gitabase and Vanipedia, with the words "Sun", "Earth", "distance", "above" in quotation marks - even including the Boolean term AND between them to narrow down the results - I didn't find ANYTHING in the actual Sanskrit-to-English text. There are plenty of references everywhere else but they all use figures based on western astronomy, not Vedic. I guess this is why Śrīla Prabhupāda uses the 93,000,000 figure. As far as I could fathom the actual figure of 100,000 yojanas (or 800,000 miles) comes from the Viṣṇu Purana, not the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.. but that still doesn't explain how 100,000 yojanas found its way into Chart Three mistakenly as double that figure.

So we have these unusual entries:
#1. SB 5.22.8, the Moon is listed as 100,000 yj above the Sun; whereas in Chart Three it is drawn as 200,000 yj;

#2. SB 5.22.11 is an absolute ripper of an example of errata and typos in 3 ways. The bold text says that the 28 Stars are 1,600,000 miles above the Moon, yet in the purport it reads "above the Sun". The whole purport 5.22.11 says:

"The stars referred to herein are 1,600,000 miles above the sun, and thus they are 4,000,000 miles above the earth (sic)."
 
If we take the Earth/Sun distance as 800,000 miles (and ignore what is written elsewhere in SB about 93 million miles) it can only add up to 3.2 million. The distance of the 28 Stars above the Earth at 4 million miles only adds up using the Chart 3 distance of the Moon being 1,600,000 miles above the Sun instead of 800,000 as it the text. Therefore the 5.22.11 purport is wrong in three ways because it uses: 

a. Double the Moon/Sun distance resulting in the wrong figure;
b. An unexplained figure of 100,000 yojanas for the Earth/Sun distance found nowhere but in the incorrect chart. Nowhere in the body of the text EXCEPT THE PURPORTS is the height of the Sun above the Earth given - and even then in other places it is 93 million miles; and
c. It says the sun and not the moon;

#3. SB 5.24 chapter introduction states re: Siddhaloka, etc are below Rahu "by another 1,000,000 yojanas" whereas 5.24.4 says only 10,000 yojanas;

#4. Chapter 24 goes on to say that the seven Subterranean planets, each the same size as Earth, are 10,000 yj apart. Chart Three shows them situated as starting at 70,000 yj beneath the Earth (which is about 1,000 yojanas diameter according to Surya-Siddhanta). This is also summarised previously in the last verse 5.23.9 which says 30,000 yj below the subterranean planets lies the Garbhodaka ocean some 130,000 yj below Earth. None of this adds up when looking at Chart Three. 

The only way anyone can interpret subterranean as meaning 'inside hollow Earth' is obviously by taking its meaning literally and disregarding the arithmetic. They can't all be the same size as Earth and yet fit inside it! Yes, 'subterranean' means 'below the crust of the Earth'', as in underground - but certainly not below the Earth's plane which is the context in which it appears to be used! Perhaps an overzealous editor substituted or suggested the word not knowing the correct context of 'subterranean'? 

These are just a few typos that I found by double-checking a few chapters of just one book. My point is, the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is wonderful, but regarding these minor discrepancies, anyone who takes EVERYTHING they read literally, especially the multitude of contradictions in the 5th Canto, is sure to be getting the wrong picture. Perhaps they spent a little too much time experimenting in Haight-Ashbury during the 60s? Maybe that explains how some people can accommodate both a Flat Earth and a Hollow Earth at the same time… 

From what I have read, besides Giriraj who was very qualified and did most of the editing and proofing before anything was sent to the printers, there were others who at various times may have 'helped' eg typed, copied manuscripts, dotted the i's and crossed the t's etcetera to get everything ready for printing. We take it as a given that the Devanagari script, Sanskrit romanisation, word-for-word transliteration, and all the text translations were all done by highly qualified and experienced people. You will be hard-pressed to find any mistakes there.

It is in the purports that we invariably find all the discrepancies, not just typographical errors, for in some places the information is for the wrong sloka, partially scrambled, or completely incorrect, rendering it very confusing to the reader. This is where I suspect some garden-variety editors made very human mistakes.

We all agree that Śrīla Prabhupāda's Bhagavad-Gītā As It Is and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam are masterpieces. As I have said before, the typos that they do contain help identify them as the originals because subsequent edited and altered editions don't have them. Therefore they serve a valuable purpose rather than detract from the greater body of work.

No-one can deny that human error has crept into the editing of SP's books. These listed typos are proof of that. Yet it does not stop us from marvelling at these most sacred of scriptures. 

In your service, 
Sam 
Hare Kṛṣṇa
हरे कृष्ण



Wednesday, June 09, 2021

'Country' is now .com

DYK: originally internet sites had a simple suffix like .com cos they were all in the USA. Nowadays it should be .com.us for the septic tanks. 


Now we have separate domain suffixes (ccTLDs) for each country. One day the Official Office for Political Correctness and Cancel Culture (OOPCCC) will adjust this xenophobic anomaly and like the covid-19 variants that have been assigned Greek letters of the alphabet (short for alpha and beta, the first two letters) the OOPCCC will annihilate any reference to country.


This will greatly annoy Australian Aborigines who delight in making constant reference "to country". In future this will be referenced as "to .com" with no suffix. Traditional owners will be replaced by URLs and servers as the soon to be extinct culture is effectively 'dead'.


Poor choice of words I know because of the connotations of genocide. Regardless, Latin and Sanskrit are considered 'Dead Languages' and I see no reason to classify native culture as alive as it is 99.9% only practised ceremoniously. When was the last time you saw a Koori draped in wallaby skins with a spear in hand hunting warrigul? Smoking gum trees aside, there is little that remains.


Of course one could argue that colonisation wiped out their livelihood, decimated the countryside and demolished their lifestyles so they can no longer exist in the traditional way. Which is entirely true. And so is the claim that Aboriginal culture is dead - a remnant that exists only in museums and in the odd fragmented outskirts of Never-Never Land. 


Which brings me to my next point - how geographical isolation has similarly dissolved (like melting ice) in the 20,000 years since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). We see globalisation and interbreeding that is unheralded in times past. Cultures and ethnic groups have survived cut off from each other in the past, but recent technological developments have brought everyone together. Indeed it is entirely foreseeable that at some point in the future racial, nay, genetic distinctions may entirely disappear. 


Surely as a human race (I use the term loosely as there is no scientific genetic basis for human races) we can all envisage ourselves as moving towards one great big melting pot of humanity. Barring some monumental catastrophe or world war it is an inevitable, logical progression. It is geographical isolation alone that is responsible for skin colour. There is no gene. Same for hair type, eyelid shape, you name it.


I cannot stress this point enough to any of you anthropologists out there. The biblical (and Vedic) references to a Great Flood bear many similarities to the Big Melt after the LGM. Consider that when (and if) the world froze over, cultures and civilizations were forced to retreat (head for the hills?) and got cut off from each other, leading to a loss of connection, cultural lore and social progress. Effectively this is the origin of the supposed Cave Man concept.


Now consider this. One theory is that the Himalayas are the only major mountain chain that runs east/west and affords protection from advancing glaciation. This left the Indian Subcontinent warm, fertile, and hospitable - and culturally connected. This is the basis of their claims to being the oldest civilization on Earth.


However, a potential flaw in that theory presents itself as the Urals and Mongolian Ranges which may have afforded Orientals with a similar survival opportunity - even if they were 'cut off' from India. Likewise we have Australia - and Africa - not connected to the Poles in any way, and unlikely to suffer glaciation except in the vicinity of Mt Kilimanjaro perhaps (the highlands of Australia are actually lowlands in comparison, Mt Kosciuszko is but a pimple on the landscape). To a smaller extent we have the Swiss Alps sheltering Italy and Greece. No doubt Scandinavia didn't fare too well… 

... or it is why they are so hardy! Those Vikings! 


Realistically it is only the Americas with the North-South chain of the Andes that have this LGM doomsday feature. Perhaps that explains the push for the theory. Anyfuckenwhatever, we have these indisputable facts:


1. At the time of the LGM, cultures were geographically separated/isolated.

2. Due to lower sea levels (from glaciation) there were land bridges that have now disappeared that facilitated intercontinental migration.

3. With successive generations of localised interbreeding, distinct physical characteristics became identifiable. 

4. Due to tunnel vision of 'scientists' this led to the spurious 'Race Theory', now proven false. 

5. Martians are preoccupied with anal probing. Not true, I just thought this discussion was getting boring and needed a bit of spicing up. 

6. As a historical account, the Bible and its Great Flood may be chronologically incorrect but otherwise may indeed be factual. 

7. Regarding Darwin's evolution theory, the LGM might explain how he got it so wrong. There is no evidence of one species morphing into another. This is parallel to H.G.Wells or Isaac Asimov science fiction. Where is the Missing Link? It has never been answered. There are no fish whose scales turn into feathers and they end up flying.

8. Questionable, but worth considering: if in fact folk had better memories in olden days (pre LGM), that would explain why oral tradition played such a huge part and writing was an unnecessary 'development'.

9. Progress is actually the opposite. We are killing off the very thing that sustains us. Pollution, toxic waste, deforestation, species extinction, loss of habitat, loss of plain fucking sense.



Tuesday, May 18, 2021

Nice Police

 More stories pour moi.. 


Interesting story, I was asked (86-87) if I had a pilot's licence driving back from a Rye gig once. They saw my gear in the back of the Kingswood. "The Senior Sergeant would like to hear some 12 bar"... so I got the bass out, rested the body against the fender (the panel, not the amp) and rattled off Blue Suede Shoes.


No breathalyser, they were satisfied that I was in control, let me off. "just take it a bit easier driving the rest of the way to Rosebud, Mr Treloar". The Senior Sergeant played saxophone and was apparently suitably impressed.


Next: driving back from the Royal gig Wed or Thurs in M'ton, got pulled over speeding near the Briars. Blew over, the lady copper wanted me to accompany them back to the station for a proper blood test but I protested saying I didn't want to risk leaving my gear in the car on the side of the road in the dead of night.


She took my keys, said "sit right there, I'll be back" and got back into the divvy van and made some calls. A couple of minutes later she opened the driver's door and said "move over" and drove me home to McCrae. On the way I asked what I blew. She said she wasn't supposed to tell me but because I was only 0.06 they figured that by the time they got back to the station and cranked up the machine there was a fair chance I'd be under and it wasn't worth the trouble. They stuck a canary on my car and I paid the speeding fine


When the time came to present my car at Dromana cop shop for inspection after I'd fixed it, Sgt Alvin Aitkens (or something like that) said ok. I said aren't you going to look at it, he said no, you wouldn't be here unless you fixed it. The same guy rocked up one day to serve a summons for a bloke that used to live in the flat I was renting. He looked down at the dope plant growing in a pot on my porch. "What's that?" he asked. "A tomato?" I replied. "Can you get rid of it?"


"Eventually..." I replied. He leant down, pulled it out, and without saying a word, walked away.


Alvin picked me up hitch-hiking years later in Red Hill South in the pissing rain. I said "What is it with you Alvin? You're a good bloke. I've never been given a lift by a policeman before. You're different.. How come?" 


Alvin replied, "I joined the Force because I wanted to serve the community". I got the feeling he wasn't at all on some sort of power trip, didn't want to chase after criminals or shoot them, just wanted to be a well-oiled cog in society.


Yet another story: driving back from a gig in Portsea, was looking for a bottleshop in Rosebud but it was after hours. Got pulled over outside Woolies, he took one look at my licence, asked what my sister's name was, said he knew her, took my car and said "walk home, come and pick it up at the Boneo station tomorrow when you're sober". When I got there it had a tag on the keys "yellow shit box Ford". But no canary! Good coppers! 



The moral of the story? I think most trained Police can spot a criminal in an instant. If you aren't one, unless you are being really rude or they're not a nice person, they will treat you with respect. Sure, I've had some brush ups with coppers that weren't exactly sterling silver but generally they're a great boon to society. Except the crooked ones.

Tuesday, April 20, 2021

A Covid Reality - or Devotee Conspiracy Theory?

First of all I must declare that I find it rather awkward for me to state my reasoning from my observations lest it be faulty or offends some.

All religion, mysticism, yoga etc begins with asking you to accept as truth a paradigm that has no obvious present manifestation, be it Jesus, Brahman, or Krishna. The Bible and the teachings of Jesus Christ have been handed down for centuries but no-one really knows for sure how accurate they are or whether in fact the parables can be correctly attributed to Him. The practising mystic focuses on the formless Brahman and the aspiring yogi on the Supreme Lord even where there is no evidence they exist.

And take the Bhagavad Gita, which is supposedly narrated by a blind clairvoyant and clairaudient who relates to the King what is happening on the battlefield of Kurukshetra far away. If you cannot accept or at least entertain this possibility then you are never going to accept the Gita. None of us in our normal human state of consciousness can see Jesus, Brahman or Krishna. Anyone who can is regarded as gifted, visionary, or self-realised. Yet for the neophyte approaching and attempting to embrace spirituality the only tools they have are belief, and later, faith - that is, until (and if) they come face-to-face with and can directly see God.

So it is not surprising to find that those aspiring on varied spiritual and/or religious paths may believe in some rather bizarre ideas.

In 2020, covid-19 brought with it a shipload of conspiracy theories – some quite plausible, but most of them utterly ridiculous. In general, participants of counter-culture such as devotees do not trust governments and western society, usually for good reason. We therefore expect to see sentiments ranging from anti-establishment to those bordering on anarchy. But this global catastrophe has exposed just how gullible sheepish people can be, falling for conspiracies about it being a population control experiment, a fake pandemic (how can you have both!?!) involving Bill Gates, UN & the Great Reset, engineered bioweapons, claims of face mask 'danger', vaccine microchipping and altered DNA, caused by 5G, etc.

    Don't worry, the government isn't going to kill you - but the virus just might! Here's something I prepared earlier:

"Covid has exposed cultish elements in some ex-iskcon devotees. I have witnessed several posting online every conspiracy theory ad nauseum - even tired flim-flam disproven long ago. No-one seems to check authenticity even - they're more concerned with showboating their latest discovery or revelation rather than a truthful exposé. It's so ridiculous it's not even funny. Here's some of the nonsense (followed by sense):

The vaccine will enable authorities to track you via an injected microchip - 
No. The said microchip is on the vessel to track expiry date etc.

The vaccine will alter your DNA - 
No. Messenger RNA (known as mRNA for short) never enters the nucleus of any body cells and only interacts between them via dendrites.

YouTube videos show Bill Gates has planned the whole thing - 
No. The said videos are edited/respliced/arranged and contrived to imply things he never said.

5G causes covid by excitation of the oxygen in your blood - 
No. It is true that 5G uses oxygen molecules to efficiently transmit signals over short distances - how 5G works - but if you had free oxygen molecules in your blood you'd be dead in seconds. Yes, free oxygen molecules in the air (0₂) become excited by the 50-300 Gigahertz radio wave spectrum, but oxygen in the blood is bonded with iron (FeO) in haemoglobin and is unaffected."

Can I stop now? You get the point.

Wuhan bat soup. Population control experiment. Engineered bioweapon. World Bank & IMF global wealth redistribution. Vegan immunity. Quack cures - drink bleach or straight vodka. Fake pandemic. Face masks are suppression muzzles…"

I have known former devotees who, out of uniform, have behaved as bad as, if not worse than, your average Joe Blow. After all, we're only human, and Hare Krishnas are no different when they 'come to rest in their normal state'.

Certain types of people are prone to believing in conspiracy theories - especially those with cognitive biases that filter out any information that doesn't conform to preset conceptions of how they perceive reality to operate. If it doesn't fit, it's rejected. This effectively cuts off all learning as it stops new information from being assimilated and processed. It never even gets a foot in the door.

Cognitive bias is when a set of prejudged concepts form a closed loop and anything and everything outside that loop is rejected as false. Most conspiracy theories are not based on evidence but on belief or faith in the CT. This lack of evidence is used by CTers as 'proof' because it is 'hidden by the conspirators'. This is known as circular thinking and doesn't actually accomplish anything or distinguish fact from fiction. Furthermore, CTers argue that the very term 'conspiracy theory' is manufactured purely as a slur to discredit them, thus deepening their conviction that they alone are privileged to have the secret knowledge of what is going on that the general public is ignorant of. Often in life the simplest explanation will suffice but these kinds of people always look for the most complicated possible cause, because according to their point of view everything is very, very convoluted - and for them, it always is.

Most of us in society innocently use technology with no ulterior motives, and those who believe there is always a conspiracy involved may either suffer from a personality disorder ranging from alienation and depression to delusional paranoia or some form of serious mental illness such as schizophrenia. Yes, Big Tech wants to mine your data because that's how they make money. Yes, there are nasty people who want to screw with us, but they are probably working alone – or, much more likely, in competition with each other – rather than colluding in some sort of massive joint effort against us. Collectively they see us as a pool of resources but generally they are fighting amongst themselves to get the lion's share. There is no need for any covert conspiracy. It is all out in the open. It is all part of the two-faced society we live in - survival of the fittest and goodwill to all mankind. We all need each other to live yet at the same time we compete.

Once upon a time there lived a frog in a well. He started out life as a tadpole in the nearby lake, but later as an adult he went exploring and fell in the well. Unable to get out he survived by drinking from the small pool at the bottom. One day a sparrow landed on the edge of the well and told the frog about how she'd just flown over the Atlantic Ocean. "It was so vast," said the sparrow, "that I barely made it across". "Oh really?" asked the frog. "How big is it? Is it larger than this pool of water?" The sparrow replied, "Oh, much bigger than that". The frog asked if it was larger than the nearby lake. "Much, much bigger" said the sparrow, "you can't possibly imagine". "No I can't. I think you must be telling fibs."

Going around in circles on the same conspiracy websites reinforces the 'frog in the well' philosophy, unaware or unwilling to even look into alternative explanations and refusing to accept that there is another world outside our tiny brain's reasoning. All we need to do is accept that illusion is the work of Māyā and that the actual conspiracy is that God is hidden from us – and that whatever philosophy we invent or whatever thoughts we think, we may then believe to be the truth. It could all be nonsense - including and especially our paranoid conspiracy theories.

For me the strangest part of the whole pandemic is that not only has it highlighted the usual ISKCON devotee anti-establishment sentiment - something that has existed since the movement's beginnings in the 60s - it has exposed a completely distrustful attitude to the extent that it appears to be more like cynicism. In fact some ex-ISKCON devotees so fully embrace the whole raft of Covid-19 conspiracies without any discretion whatsoever that their clique resembles a cult more than a traditional lineage of bhakti devotion.

Some of those who become devotees are distressed - therefore qualifying as one of the four kinds of people who are attracted to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. As wonderful as the process of bhakti-yoga is, many of us struggle to rise above the platform of kanishtha, and only a few truly qualify as madhyama-adhikaris, able to quote the relevant scripture at will and thus defeat any argument put to them.

So it is not surprising that when devotees leave ISKCON, especially after the Zonal Acharya System fiasco, they may resume their former consciousness albeit on a somewhat minimally higher level, yet may be disillusioned, disheartened and very suspicious of others and the world in general.

Certainly a small number (a minority) of ISKCON devotees are genuine seekers only interested in the Supreme Absolute Truth, but generally that isn't the case. Perhaps over ninety percent are motivated by the "what's in it for me" principle. But we've only got to look at the monsters that have been exposed in ISKCON – the weirdo splinter groups, the drug fiends, the smugglers and gunrunners, paedophiles, misogynists, homosexual gurus (an oxymoron if there ever was one, as bona fide gurus are always celibate), child abusers, etc., not to forget the secretive cultish subset – to realise that some people who join the movement are really messed-up... not to mention the messed-up fringies like me that never even joined up in the first place!

It is not as simple as reciting some Holy Names over and over or repeatedly uttering transcendental sound vibrations that one's heart is totally purified at once - or even marginally cleansed over time. Certainly there is an automatic effect regardless of the chanter's proficiency due to the power of the Holy Name. But when offences are committed - like thinking about sense gratification or thinking the chanting is weak or ineffective or taking too long - then the process is nowhere near as potent and productive as it could be.

I know from personal experience that my imperfect recitation of the Lord's Holy Name millions of times has not transformed me into any kind of enlightened being or made me a powerful guru. After all, we have trillions and trillions of sins from billions of lifetimes and therefore we cannot expect immediate results from absent-mindedly mumbling a few phrases over and over. Obviously my chanting is on a very basic level as a neophyte and I ought not expect astonishing results.

Those of us who are driven by guilt may frantically chant in desperation. On the other hand some of us are merely trying to raise our consciousness up from the proverbial gutter. For those wanting instant results from performing a mystic process this is bound to be disappointing. If we are patient and sincere we will humbly accept whatever progress we make with gratitude, knowing we are one step closer to our destination. For me, to make an analogy with a journey from Australia to India, so far I may have left Point Leo on the Mornington Peninsula but I'm still to reach the outer Melbourne suburbs - let alone be airborne on a flight to Mumbai!

We all know it is very difficult to escape the clutches of Māyā and overcome illusion. But we should not avoid personal responsibility for our failures and blame conspiracy theories for thwarting our efforts at spiritual progress. There are plenty of obstacles already in place by Māyādevi's power. To dwell constantly on the faults of this world is unproductive and a waste of time. Certainly it is wise to be wary for there is always evil lurking but it should not take up any more of our brain space other than to make a note of it, be vigilant, and move on.

हरे कृष्ण हरे कृष्ण कृष्ण कृष्ण हरे हरे हरे राम हरे राम राम राम हरे हरे
Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare,
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare.