Jagabandhu das: I always like reading the comments on dandavats.com and especially liked their recently published blog about saying no to vaccines! I often wish I was in closer geographic proximity with the commentators/contributors because I think we could really have really nice discussions/really good conversations towards harmonizing many apparent ideological incongruities for the the true mutual benefit of all suffering jivas.
As we know skepticism is considered to be a sign of true intelligence, especially if doesn’t cause the heart to become cold with cynicism. I’m not into conspiracy theories and never have been. When the Y2K scare arose I joked with friends and co-workers, “Why not 2K?” “Why 2K? Because it’s there.” However, I think we can’t simply ignore how the world we know is now in severe flux in a possibly very Orwellian manner and that our supposedly beneficent governements and civic leaders are perhaps less than trustworthy or truly benign.
I agree that vaccines have saved lives also. Previously. And that they’ve even wiped out some serious diseases like small pox and polio. We have an autistic daughter yet we didn’t believe in the supposed ties of vaccines with causing autism. The tests didn’t substantiate this conclusion because when mercury was removed from the vaccines rates of autism per birth did not decrease (although it’s actually debatable whether or not autism really is on the rise or are there simply more rates of diagnoses because of ADDH and Asperger’s—we’ve seen supposed autistics who act more well-behaved and lucid than so-called “regular” children). And as we knew from our own experience our child was already really strange even before she had vaccines (as her father may have also been decades before her or his childhood vaccinations):-).
Personally, I don’t automatically trust the medical profession wholesale, largely because of the mercenary/profiteering aspect of primary motivation amongst a majority of “healthcare” professionals. How much can you really care if you’re being paid to care? Do you care more if you’re better rewarded for your services? After working at many hospitals doing remodel work (including teaching hospitals) and observing the overwhelming prioritzation of the commercial aspect/money factor, with my usual sardonics I’ve often joked how doctors and hospitals scare me because they seem to kill people for money (it may be interesting to note that Srila Prabhupada himself was less than fond of hospitals). In spite of this, I can nonetheless still accept that there remain some good doctors (and lawyers) who really care about the people they’ve supposedly dedicated themselves to serve, rare as that may seem in our modern world of extreme exploitation.
I was also interested to read of the Fifth Canto interpretational controversy on dandavats.com and wondered if the whole cosmological controversy might be harmonized by considering parallel realities/alternative dimensions which we cannot directly perceive with our blunt sense perception alone bust must invest faith and trust in the descriptions of our nearly infinite superiors. Also, if someone has a hellish mentality that causes them to be cruel to others in a particular way, in a sense haven’t they already “gone to hell” because of their hellish consciousness? For me it’s enough that Sukadeva and Srila Prabhupada simply stated what is—even if my puppy brain is unable to fathom the specific particulars. At any rate, when I think of the Fifth Canto I mostly reflect about the Rsabdev-Jada Bharat story because of Rsabdev das being my good friend and mentor, my own great fondness for forest critters and my severely autistic/mentally retarded daughter who now often acts like Jada Bharat did in being extremely uncooperative throughout every endless day’s long journey into night. When I wrote “Critters” I was hoping someone would mention the Rsabdev/Jada Bharat angle and I thank Suresh das for that.
Obeisances to Dandavats, their much esteemed international audience…and all the best to everyone…
P.S.- Re: Saying no vaccines! A couple of weeks ago I found the following very important article about the “swine” flu vaccination possibilities on some Canadian friends’ website for alternative news, views and heirloom vegetable seeds that aren’t genetically modified. Somehow the article linked below was completely missed by both mainstream and most “alternative” news sources). I thank the publisher and his good wife at www.lacunatrust.com for helping to make us all more aware of what possible danger we might all now face.
It’s a little ironic to me because several years ago at the beginning of the annual “flu season” —-with my usual somewhat sardonic gallows humor I had sarcastically suggested to family, friends and co-workers that the flu was probably started by the pharmaceutical companies in order that more would feel compelled to purchase the vaccine. Based on the article below it certainly does appear that this is quite possibly what might have happened along with draconian messures of vaccine enforcement by governments under pandemically mandated guidelines (just for fun scan the gist of the daily headlines at the drudgereport, worldnetdaily or the milleniumark.com).
It certainly brings to bear the veracity of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta’s observation that this world is no place for a gentleman. Although at the same time I’ve begun to worry a lot less about all of this (and other troubling things happening in the world) because I can barely manage my own family life already.
Life is eternal and all each of us can do is become is keep on trying/keep on growing from within to become better and deeper in all situations. I find detachment helps a lot. And surrender. So the whole world ends. So what. No big deal. The whole universe and all the cosmos has been destroyed in entirety and again reborn/recreated many times within Maha-Vishnu’s dream. Whatever will be, will be and all I can do is just be a soul (or sometimes an asoul:-)). Same as it ever was.
But our family won’t be taking flu vaccines—that’s for sure!
Journalist Files Charges against WHO and UN for Bioterrorism and Intent to Commit Mass Murder.
Read the article at
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14276
Dandavats Jagabandhu Prabhu,
I always enjoy discussing Krishna consciousness with you. I hope you do not mind my further elaborating on my comments to the “Say No to Vaccines” article.
I cannot understand why you think an article is “very important” that reports that an Austrian journalist named Jane Burgermeister filed outlandish charges of a plot by a secret cabal of world bankers and their cohorts in the UN, WHO, President of the U.S., head of the CDC, etc. etc. to murder most of the world population by a poison masquerading as a flu vaccine.
Did you stop to think that there might be a good reason that the article was not reprinted by mainstream and most “alternative” news sources? (Hint: The reason isn’t that they are all in on the murder conspiracy) :-)
The fact is, anybody can file charges with as many outrageous, crazy, nonsense half-truths and outright lies as they want (subject, of course, to rules against malicious prosecution). Then someone can publish the “story” that the crazy charges were filed without fear of being sued for libel (after all, the charges were in fact filed, and the filing of charges itself is privileged.)
But to print all the wild nonsense in such charges would be irresponsible journalism. Even the “alternative” news sources know better than to touch this howler.
But my question is, why is it that so many devotees don’t know better? Why is it that devotees seem so apt to buy whatever snake oil the kooks are selling, so long as it is sufficiently bizarre and outlandish?
Prabhu, do you really think Obama and Chan and Rockefeller and so on are involved in a big, sinister mass murder by poison vaccine plot? Really?
I suppose there is part of the psyche that thinks, “Even if there is a .00001% chance it is true, it is important if millions of lives are at stake.” But with that mentality you have to worry about every strange disaster scenario any fertile imagination can hatch, so long as the potential disaster is bad enough.
And therefore I am always being accosted by devotees who tell me things like, the entire Western U.S. is going to fall in the sea following one gigantic earthquake (any day now), and so on.
My own feeling is, if it is not a credible enough threat to even make it into “alternative” news sources, it is not worth bothering me about. It is a distraction. Prajalpa at best.
Better to read Bhagavatam in the temple and leave National Enquirer near the grocery checkout where it belongs. No?
Life can be full of so much sadness, and heartache. I know that Jagabandhu Prabhu is also trying to work out so many feelings and experiences with his writing. The acceptance of conspiracy theories runs very deep in the American, and other societies’, histories. What is very interesting is this. Think on this please.
We have seen the great accepted spiritual leaders like Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Jesus Christ, and others perhaps, turn a blind eye toward the society and politics of their times. Mahaprabhu did not concern Himself that His preaching was taking place in Bengal where the government was Muslim. Only when the Chand Kazi disrupted the sankirtan did He organize a large social protest. Similarly, Christ in one place said: render to Cesar what is Cesar’s, give to God what is God’s! So, in that context, as Akruranath does enunciate, that focus on spiritual matters is much better for the soul. Certainly, our time is limited in this human form. And, other things are indeed relative, subject to change. We might find that at one time something is accepted as ‘true’, and later it is refuted. In medical practice, we see these things happening frequently. It is a fact with other aspects of “relative reality” as well.
For my own part, I take value in reading and writing in Dandavats since it seems to help me focus on Krishna more on a regular basis. Today, for example, being On Call at two hospitals in San Jose, I performed three operations, and treated a number of orthopedic emergencies (broken hips and ankles, one a 48 year old man who was skateboarding!). So, at the end of my day, I log on to Dandavats, read something and am inspired to write something, hopefully meaningful and parampara, I pray. Without this venue, it is true that I could sit down with japamala, a shastra like Bhagavad Gita As It Is, etc., but in my high-octane lifestyle, Dandavats.com helps my psyche to find a repose in Krishna consciousness.
Regarding the gravitation of some bhaktas toward strange or unusual news sources, what can one do? Regarding vaccinations, it was reported today that the first week of college at the Washington State University campus in Pullman saw about 2,000 cases of “swine flu”. Again, it is anticipated by some (and no one can say for sure) that 1/4 of humanity may be exposed to this virus in the coming winter of 2009-2010. Will it result in a hugh death-toll or not? We shall see. Pusta Krishna das