I have created a proposal to create a new Question & Answer website for Hare Krishna devotees and need your help.

The proposed website will be built on the same software as stackoverflow.com, a hugely popular site where over seven million computer programmers help each other with difficult programming problems. On Stack Overflow the audience votes for the best answer. Answers with the highest number of votes automatically rise to the top, to be read first. People answering questions gain reputation from each “up” vote for their answer, encouraging them to answer questions well. I can see this proposed site turning into an equally amazing resource.

We need a certain number of people “following” the proposal before the people who run StackExchange see it as important enough to make it into a real website. So, please help out and click the “Follow It” button on this website and enter your email address:

 http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposal…

Please forward this to all your devotee friends and get them involved, so we can get our Q&A site launched very soon.

Detailed information about what I’m trying to do here:

The primary aim of the site is to give devotees a way to get good answers to all kinds of questions, as well as for more learned devotees to share their knowledge. If an answer is online, then google can find it and it becomes a permanent record for the future. That is much better than a devotee answering the same question over and over again on various forums. It is also better for the person looking for the answer, because the voting highlights what the best answer is, placing it at the top.

I got the idea for this kind of website after a conversation with another devotee. We were talking about facebook and blog controversies and the inability of devotees to do much about them. I thought about this a lot and had the idea for a devotee Q&A site that could address both local and global controversies in an authoritative way that doesn’t look like it is just one person’s biased opinion. A good answer on such a site will visibly have the stamp of approval from a whole group of devotees. Then, a few weeks ago, this StackExchange thing came along and did all the hard work of designing such a site for us. So, I’m very keen to take advantage of this opportunity.

To my knowledge every other devotee attempt at an online community either gets neglected over time, limited to a few hundred people, or has a confusing interface which is too bewildering. This is not any individual’s fault. The fact is that building a website that people will use for valuable high-quality social interactions is very difficult. The best essay on the topic is this one “A Group is its own Worst Enemy”

 http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.h…

The author explains in great detail why so many social websites fail. The StackExchange model is exactly in line with the principles recommended to make a site successful. It is expertly designed with identity (once the site is launched, anyone that contributes needs to have an identity and is therefore accountable for what they write - no anonymous answering), voting (the community polices itself), reputation (a way to identify those members of the community that are in good standing) and a barrier to entry (you need a certain good reputation to be able to vote to determine what is a good answer). All this means that a website based on the StackExchange technology can still be useful and manageable with millions of users.

Please help make this amazing resource a reality by clicking “follow” on the proposal and writing some good and bad example questions to go on the site. Bad questions are those off-topic questions that we don’t want appearing on the site to keep the site focused on topics related to Krishna consciousness. We need examples of such bad questions in the proposal stage to define what the site will be about.
(sign up to the site using your Gmail or Yahoo email address - that is what is meant by OpenID).

The Golden Avatar Festival (Gaura Purnima) 2010 was held in Wellington last week.

I have uploaded the photos from the event to the gallery on this website. (Note that the photos at the start of this album are from a previous Krishna Fest; actual Gaura Purnima photos being after the “Golden Avatar: Rhythm & Dance!” display board photos).

View the photos here:

Every year Hare Krishna devotees from around Australia and New Zealand get together for an 11-day Spiritual Recharge Festival. Lots of feasting, chanting, seminars and association (and my wedding - see previous post). This year there were 130 guests at the retreat. The biggest ever! So much opportunity to meet many wonderful souls.

At this festival I also got Brahminical-initiation (the day before the wedding). So, I am now a Brahmana (teacher/intellectual) by Varna (occupation) and a Grihastra (householder) by Ashram (stage of life/shelter).

I took so many photos. It took quite a while to narrow them down to the 280 best pictures. But that process is now complete … and here they are. Please browse them to your hearts’ content:

Have you heard of Gaura Haven? It is Gaura Yoga’s fantastic retreat center in the Otaki gorge region (1 hour’s drive North of Wellington, NZ). Lots of work has gone into the place over the past year. It is very beautiful and many new crops have been planted in the garden. I took a bunch of pictures of the center and its surroundings.

Take a look at the wonderful natural beauty:

(There is a cooking retreat there this weekend - hint-hint)

After my wedding my parents, wife and I headed up to Rotorua for a vacation. We toured the powerful Huka Waterfalls and visited the strange and wonderful volcanic landscapes of Rotorua (and had some fun riding down the “Luge”.

Lots of photos of all that. Check them out here:

It seems about time I posted something on this blog. I has been quite a while. News of the moment: I have gotten married. On the 1st of January 2010 I, Candidasa dasa, married the lovely Visnumaya devi dasi. Or, if you prefer, our western names: Julian Malik Seidenberg and Susan Elizabeth Burrows (now Seidenberg).

Lots of great pictures from the event (thanks to Thakur Saranga and Sukanthi Radha for taking the pictures):

Candidasa & Visnumaya Wedding Photos

The wedding was traditional Vedic/Hare Krishna style. Here are some of the fun traditions depicted in the photos:

• showering the deities with flowers (pushpa abhishek) and then showering those flowers over the audience and married couple to counteract any bad astrological influences
• the groom leaving the wedding with his Bhagavad-Gita and umbrella to meditate in the forest as a celebrate monk (brahmacari) for the rest of his life (but being convinced otherwise by the spiritual master - representing the father of the bride)
• exchanging garlands
• tying the hands together with a flower garland and sealing it with water
  tying the couple’s clothing together with a knot
• a fire sacrifice (agni-hotra) where various grains, seeds and fruits are thrown into a fire to purify any bad karma reactions

I recently gave a talk at the Krishna Fest at Gaura Yoga on the “Vedic System of Self-Development”. Thanks to Sivarama Swami for the inspiration for this talk.

You can view the talk synchronized with slides here:

or download the source AAC file vedic system of self-development.m4a

or download the source MP3 file vedic system of self-development.mp3

I was listening to the following podcast:

Darrel Rhea: Marking During an Economic Meltdown

The title is deceptive. It is more about analyzing a market or activity holistically and reinventing it to taking into account the complete picture. With a complete view of all the factors, motivations, desires, side-effects and intentions, one can transform into a truly customer focused organization.

Darrel Rhea gives example how he helped do this for Apple Retail Stores, Electrolux Kitchen Appliances, the Australian Tax System and Hospital Stroke Treatment.

How about we think about the classic Sunday Feast in this way? In New Zealand the Sunday Feast has already been adapted and reinvented to a certain extent to make it more accessible to newcomers, but without changing any of the core values of Krishna Consciousness. But more can always be done to improve it even further.

(Learn more about the “Krishna Fest” as it is in Wellington, New Zealand: Gaura Yoga - Festivals)

Think of the usual kind of person that might attend a Krishna Conscious center: curious, wary, ignorant of any kind of philosophy, averse to ritual, averse to religion, proud, attached to the opposite sex, not able to sit on the floor for long periods of time, short attention span, self-conscious (unless intoxicated), concerned about spending too much money and concerned about the environment (although not actually doing much about it).

So, using that picture of the typical guest, how would you reinvent the Sunday Feast with a fresh outlook, unencumbered by past traditions? Things that might be changed: name, time, music, types of events, sequence of events, physical layout of the room(s), decoration of the room(s), devotee numbers, devotee dress & accessories and devotee language & attitude.

Please leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments below.

I just got back from a 10-day Christmas retreat. Most of the Hare Krishna devotees in New Zealand attended this festival of inspiration, rejuvenation and association. Over 100 devotees were there, in total.

The retreat was held in the Otaki region of New Zealand (1 hour North of Wellington). We rented out two retreat centers: Riverslea and Waihoanga; and also used our own retreat center Gaura Haven for accommodation.

The 10-day passed quickly. There were so many brilliant talks, inspiring presentations, delicious spiritual food (prasadam), and nice people to talk to. A slight downer was that everyone (and I do mean everyone) got sick. A nasty flu virus managed to infect everyone’s bodies. It lasted about four days in most people. Nevertheless, it was a brilliant time.

I took about 900 photos over the course of the retreat. A selection of images is available in my picture gallery.

Visnumaya recently gave a talk at Gaura Yoga on cow protection, ecology and sustainability. She has posted the talk and the presentation slides on her website. Much recommended. Check it out:

“Holy Cow Protection” eco-talk at Gaura Yoga

I have been taking some pictures in and around Gaura Haven / New Gupta Vraja, a retreat center recently acquired by Gaura Yoga, located in Otaki (about an hour’s drive outside of Wellington). Here is a gallery the best photographs, the so-called “glory shots”.

I’m relatively new to landscape photography. So, advice and suggestions are welcome.

Additionally, I gave a photo presentation about Gaura Haven at our recent Vyasa-Puja festival in honor of Devamrita Swami. That presentation contains 84 images, documenting all aspects of the retreat center. You can view it here (62 MB PDF).

Last month I went on an eco-retreat with a group of young interested persons who have been coming along to the Gaura Yoga center in Wellington New Zealand. We went to Gaura Haven (New Gupta Vraja), a retreat center recently acquired by Gaura Yoga. While there we proceeded to plant a variety of organic vegetables. The idea is to slowly move towards self-sufficiency.

Here some pictures from the weekend events:

On the weekend of the 25th of October, 2008 the majority of practitioners of Krishna consciousness in New Zealand (and a few from Australia) went to a retreat center in Inglewood, NZ called Vertical Horizon. There we celebrated the Vyasa-Puja (birthday of the spiritual master) of Devamrita Swami.

It was a grand festivals. Nearly 100 devotees were present. It was expertly organized by Visnumaya and Gopal Guru. So many great activities, presentations and speeches. The spiritual food (prasadam) was over-the-top great. I also really enjoyed seeing and speaking with many, many old friends.

I took over 800 photos. You can view a selection of the best shots here:

(the images 0.8-megapixel images in the gallery are fine for viewing on screen, but not nearly detailed enough for large prints. If anyone wants to print out any of the images, please email me and I can supply the original full 14.6 megapixel images from the Pentax K20d)

In this talk at Gaura Yoga in Wellington, New Zealand I discuss a topic that has confounded many statesmen, philosophers and theologians. Why do bad things happen to good people and why do good things happen to bad people? I give an overview of different so-called answers that people try to give to this question. I then explain how the science of Krishna consciousness gives a much more satisfying and sensible answer than any other source of knowledge. There are lots of questions in the end.

(click on the above image to play audio/video)

or download the source AAC file bad things.m4a

or download the source MP3 file bad things.mp3

or download the slides as a PDF file bad things.pdf

In this talk at Gaura Yoga I give some practical advice on how to give an interesting and inspirational Krishna conscious presentation.

Download the talk as an enhanced podcast (slides synced to audio) in AAC/M4A format (35 minutes). This file is playable in iTunes or on iPods.

Or, if you can’t play or don’t like Apple’s media formats, here is the audio of the talk in MP3 format.

You can also download the slides I used as a PDF.

It took over 4 years, but it has finally happened. I have completed my PhD in Computer Science at the University of Manchester, UK. That’s right: I’m now officially Doctor Julian M. Seidenberg / Candidasa dasa.

You can download and read my PhD thesis, if you like.

This PhD degree has been the greatest austerity I’ve ever undertaken. It was often frustrating, demotivating, felt like it would never end, caused my body to frequently fall ill and resulted in a huge amount of worry and pain.

However, the austerity of this PhD have been child’s play compared with what a sage named Markandeya Rsi went through. (His story is told in the 12th Canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam. I’m recalling it in my own words here):

Markandeya was meditating on the Supreme Personality of Godhead in his small heritage for many years. He was very strictly and sincerely meditating. So much so, in fact, that Indra, the King of Heaven (aka Zeus), became worried that this Markandeya might become eligible to take over his position soon. Indra therefore sent a team of people to break Markandeya’s meditation.

He sent Cupid along with the best of the heavenly singers (Gandharvas), the most beautiful of the heavenly exotic dancers (Apsaras), the season of spring, a gentle cool breeze, intoxication personified and greed personified (the mode of passion and the false ego of thinking in terms of “I” and “mine”). A celebrate monk’s worst nightmare. All these together were to create a situation where Markandeya would be tempted to stop his meditation and enjoy materially.

However, faced with these allurements, Markandeya wasn’t even slightly shaken. He remained completely steady and fixed in his worship.

Markandeya Rsi’s austerities were so powerful, in fact, that the members of Indra’s assault team began to burn-up within (similar to what happen when Kapila Muni was attacked by the sons of Sagara who thought he had stolen a sacrificial horse).

Eventually, while Markandeya was meditating in this way, the Nara-Narayana avatar came and visited him. Markandeya immediately recognized the Supreme Lord and worshiped him with expert poetry.

The sage explained: Krishna is like a spider, He creates everything within the universe like a spider creates his web, and then He retracts it all back within Himself. Through Krishna one can conquer material misery, death and even time itself. Time is so powerful that even Lord Brahma (the oldest and most intelligent person in the universe) fears it, but Krishna’s devotee need not fear time. The devotee knows that his self is not the body. The modes of nature generally bind us to the material world, but the devotee knows how to use the mode of goodness as a launch pad to blast himself off on a trajectory back to Godhead. Because of their perverted and sinful activities, materialists cannot understand Krishna. So material philosophers therefore come up with so many different theories, doctrines and religions. These are created to match their particular mix of the modes of nature (satva-, raja- and tama-guna), but have no real substance.

After hearing this nice prayer by Markandeya, Nara-Narayana offered him any benediction he might desire. The sage answered that just seeing his worshipable Lord was all he desired. He could imagine no greater gift. However, he was curious about the illusory energy (maya). He asked to understand how it could bewilder so many people into thinking material life was the one true reality.

The Lord ruefully promised to fulfill his wish and then disappeared.

Markandeya went on meditating for a few years when suddenly strong wind started to blow. Soon after, it started raining very heavily. The intense rains caused severe flooding. This hurricane went on continuously for many years. The intense weather eventually caused the entire surface of the earth to become flooded. Practically all species died off in this intense atmosphere. Gigantic sharks roamed the wild waters. The flooding even spread to the higher-dimensional space of the heavenly planets. It was the devastation at the end of the day of Brahma.

Markandeya was swimming and drifting throughout all of this. He lost all sense of orientation, he felt intense hunger and thirst, he got attacked by sharks, he felt extreme pain from various injuries, he was completely exhausted continuously fighting for his life, he frequently fell ill, he felt lamentation, happiness (when he temporarily escaped some danger), fear and misery. This went on for many, many years, all throughout the night of Brahma (4.32 billion years).

After an extremely long time drifting in the waters of devastation, Markandeya spotted a small island with a banyan tree growing on it. In one corner of the tree he saw a young child. As he swam closer to the island he noticed the wonderful beauty of the child. He noted his blackish-blue skin, wonderful jewelry, shark-shaped earrings, auspicious bodily markings and nice cosmetic decorations.

Then, suddenly, the child inhaled and began to suck everything surrounding him into his mouth. Markandeya also got sucked into the mouth of this wondrous child. Within the mouth he saw his old hermitage, the waters of devastation, the heavenly planets, the creation and destruction of the universe, everything, the entire universal manifestation; he even saw time itself, past, present and future, all at once. The child then exhaled and Markandeya found himself spat out back into the waters of devastation.

As he once again began to struggle to keep his head above the waters, he suddenly found himself transported back to his old heritage, as if nothing had happened. He then realized: “oh … so this is the power of the illusory energy!”.

And I realize: a PhD is nothing compared to that.