Krishna Lounge discussion. Questions/Answers/Comments section begins at 11:00 min.

Lilies that Fester

“We need only recall that our word “holiday” was originally “holy day,” a day of religious observance. In fact, the circuses and games of old Rome were religious in origin.

The evil was not in bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of the games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease.

The moral decay of the people was not caused by the doles and the games. These merely provided a measure of their degradation. Things that were originally good had become perverted and, as Shakespeare reminds us, “Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.”

The proponents of an all-powerful centralized government have erected a bureaucratic colossus which imposes upon our people controls, regimentation, punitive taxation and subsidies to pressure groups, thus paralleling the “organized mendicancy, subvention, bureaucracy and centralization” which played so great a part in the downfall of Rome.”

- from Of Bread and Circus by Admirel Ben Moreell written for The Freeman

Of Bread and Circus

Wasting Valuable Human Existence

“This is advancement of civilization? Instead of utilizing the valuable form of human life for spiritual understanding, in modern life there is always wasting of time. And at night they are sleeping, and at noon they are playing football.

This is stated in the Srimad Bhagavatam, mugdhasya balye kaisore kridato yati vimsatih: [SB 7.6.7]

“By so-called sporting life, twenty years passed, fifty years by sleeping, and twenty years by football.” Then seventy years passed. And jaraya grasta-dehasya yaty akalpasya vimsatih. And when he is old man: “Here is pain. Here is rheumatism. Here is diabetes and so on. ”

So, twenty years sporting, twenty years diabetes and fifty years sleeping — then what is left? Where is the opportunity for Krishna consciousness? This is modern civilization, and we are trying to save people from it.”

– Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada: A Lecture in Vrndavana, India on December 8th, 1975

Intellectual Distraction

In a pre-industrial world, a young boy would learn a trade under his parents in a sort of familial apprenticeship. By the time he was a young man, he would be expert in a particular field, providing basic financial security. Such an early economic foundation would allow him the freedom to pursue higher learning, instead of being solely focused on mere survival throughout his adult life. This was one of many wonderful aspects of pre-industrial society.

But, times have changed. Many parents today, in our consumption-mad society, maintain a semblance of human virtues and values so entirely eroded by a corrupt educational system that mere sentimental affection combined with unnecessary plastic novelties become a sufficient gift for one’s progeny.

Many give kids a form of mindless entertainment, like a video game console, to keep them distracted long enough that the parents can contine to watch thier own adult brand of mindless entertainment, television, without interruption.

To witness millions of kids whose faces are glued to the screen of their pocket gamer, those precious human minds getting absorbed in complete non-reality, evokes mournful feelings for transcendentalists who seek the essential meaning of human life, as more intellectual casualties of consumerist industrial warfare take place.

You watch the kid just roll around on the floor, drooling to a video game screen totally distracted from learning anything meaningful what so ever, and uncomfortably squirming around awaiting personal attention as he is given his daily medicine in the form of complete intellectual distraction. The video game console is designed to suck up all their time, diverting them from the time they could be spending learning the beautiful truths of life and visiting great subjects such as art, philosophy, history, religion, and not to mention learning a practical work skill.

Parents in the other room are their watching “reality” TV as the brainwash program to segregate the members of the household beautifully and scientifically unfolds. The irony is that the parents actually feel a sense of accomplishment, that they were able to successfully able to divert their children’s minds. Because, the real world is actually scary and harsh, and to allow the children such reality denying comfort is actually considered laudable from their point of view.

And, how dare you tell such parents to introduce the kids to stark reality so early in life. The programmed parental response is, that “They are just kids, let them enjoy the fantasy. Later in life they will have plenty of time to learn about life in the real world and, thus they will go to school so they can get a job, and continue this bleak tradition. ”

Its as if they assume that kids don’t eventually grow up and become adults, and how the time spent as a child seriously affects thier outcome later in life. This is what this materialistic society is doing to people. It keeps people distracted in a under-developed child-like emotionally frozen state, killing their inner drive to seek knowledge and the truly thrilling quest of understanding our spiritual identity.

How many Batman movies and Spiderman movies are they going to make, that millions of child-like adults, line up, crowding the movie theatre to pay homage to a washed-up fictional hero?

Furthermore, are the video games that are coming out merely childish entertainment, or are they doubling for much more…

War Simulation Training

Actually there is a new shooter video game that is turning heads of Occupy activists. The game’s story line depicts a domestic terrorist attack staged by individuals who sound sympathetic to the 99 Percent movement. Sound like an interesting plot?

Here are a few quotes from a review in December issue of the magazine Game Informer about “Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6: Patriots,” a game that is due out in 2013 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

American’s Angry

“And why wouldn’t they be? With an exponentially expanding debt, crippling forclosures, corprate bailouts, degrading infrastructure, dwindling job market, and widening income gap between the have’s and have not’s, it’s getting harder to believe politicians when they speak of American exceptionalism as if it were a fundamental truth.”

“America’s volatile political climate serves as the jumping-off point for Rainbow Six 6 Patriots. The Latest game in the storied tactical shooter series eschews the exhausted Ruassian, Chinese, and Middle Eastern crises so common in contemporary shooters and challenges gamers’ perceptions by placing them in the roles of the elite tactical unit, the homegrown terrorists, and the civilians caught in the crossfire. DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO PULL THE TRIGGER ON A FELLOW CITIZEN?!”

An interesting comment I saw on Youtube:

“Hey Informed Gamers…we now have have the “smarter” “issue embracing” “game” you’ve been waiting for…shooting US civilians – constitutionalists and patriots no less. But let’s not be judgmental & make a ruling toward the obvious. We know you’re tired of shooting brown skinned foreigners, so kids, run out & buy Rainbow 6: Patriots, drink your fluoridated tap water & beverages, and start shooting fellow Americans. When you’re fully drugged & brainwashed, the fluoride providers will hand you the real weapons…”

I find it fascinating that people can be so programmed to not be able to tell the difference between entertainment and what obviously appears to be war simulation training. If the purpose in creating such games are purely for home “entertainment”, then why would the government invest $50M in making similar types of video games for combat training.

In GRAFENWÖHR, Germany, Cadets play DARWARS-Ambush during training at the Camp Normandy Noncommissioned Officers Academy in Grafenwöhr, Germany, on Jan. 20, 2006. The Army already uses a commercial first-person shooter video game — “DARWARS Ambush” — to train soldiers. Since 2006, PEO-STRI has fielded more than 3,000 copies of the game to the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard and Homeland Defense.

If you like playing video games such as these, go for it. It’s a free country, but don’t be fooled into thinking that such kinds of video games are simply for your personal entertainment. Television, movies, and video games have historically doubled as a form of social programming.

In the simple and profound writings of the world renowned Vedic scholar, spiritual leader, and critic of America’s postmodern materialistic value system, Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada wrote:

The propensity to utilize nature’s own gifts is still there, even in the heart of modern civilized man. The leaders of modern civilization select their own residential quarters in a place where there are such naturally beautiful gardens and reservoirs of water, but they leave the common men to reside in congested areas without parks and gardens.

Advancement of civilization is estimated not on the growth of mills and factories to deteriorate the finer instincts of the human being, but on developing the potent spiritual instincts of human beings and giving them a chance to go back to Godhead. Development of factories and mills is called ugra-karma, or pungent activities, and such activities deteriorate the finer sentiments of the human being and thus turn society into a dungeon of demons.

“Human energy should be properly utilized in developing the finer senses for spiritual understanding, in which lies the solution of life. Fruits, flowers, beautiful gardens, parks and reservoirs of water with ducks and swans playing in the midst of lotus flowers, and cows giving sufficient milk and butter are essential for developing the finer tissues of the human body.

“As against this, the dungeons of mines, factories and workshops develop demoniac propensities in the working class. The vested interests flourish at the cost of the working class, and consequently there are severe clashes between them in so many ways.”

- Commentary on Srimad Bhagavatam 1.8.40 & 1.11.12

Nike Sweatshops: Behind the Swoosh is the ultimate video for exploring the sweatshop issue. Using Nike as a case study, the film documents first hand the widespread and oppressive and exploitative labor practices in the developing world.

To learn more about the fight against Nike sweatshops, visit www.facebook.com/teamsweat or www.teamsweat.org.

Each one of us have unlocked potential to do good to this civilization, but we tend to limit ourselves to some rather mundane life purposes. It is due partly to an illusion that we have all the time in the world to live here on this planet. Actually, the truth is that life is short. Therefore, we must make spiritual realization our highest priority and take advantage of this human situation and get our priorities straight.

Talk by Mahat, given on the Christmas day in 2011.

http://www.16rounds.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/christmas-tension.mp3

This is something worth meditating on during the holiday season when “things” tend to come into the focus of (too)many.

“The temporary forms of matter are symbols of ignorance and frustration for the conditioned souls who covet them.”

-From the commentary on Srimad Bhagavatam 11.28.6-7

With so much access to information in our time, especially with sites such as Wikileaks, it’s much easier to get the dirty truth about people who are in the high-ups. It seems quite fitting that many are protesting and rising up against government leaders whom are exploiting their powerful positions and taking advantage of the materially less fortunate.

Yeah okay, but we shouldn’t automatically conclude that it’s only the rich and powerful who are corrupt and pull out our darts and start firing. Let’s think about this more carefully.

It’s animal instinct that drives every single one of us towards our individual survival. And in that struggle of life, if we become a little materially secure, then it’s another animal instinct to sit around and enjoy the luxury and abundance that material nature has to offer. Thus, in that stage of existence, greed could awaken and completely envelop us and our previously good intentions.

Please don’t get me wrong, a corporate pig who gives himself a multi-million tax-exempted bonus at the expense of hard-working, despondent, tax-paying, and economically-hobbled citizens certainly must be considered a criminal.

But let’s take this from another angle…

How many would be able to withstand the temptation to also act grossly selfish in such an extremely financially powerful position?

It may be easy to be poor and become envious, but what if you were placed in a multi-billion dollar position?

The nature of luxury is to supply a constant fuel to the fire of sensual greed. Once you taste a fragment of that sensation which powers your mind’s every whimsical desire, it becomes more addictive than any drug you can imagine.

No longer do the things that money can buy give you the rush, but the increase of money in the bank itself. It’s like the feeling of finally being able to unleash your ultimate potential, a state far beyond the fears of mere survival and physical comfort. With each multi-million dollar transaction, you feel the butterflies in the stomach multiplying with exhilarating anticipation. You are finally becoming a GOD among men! Man’s ultimate materialistic desire to control nature is actually happening!

The money now represents an ability to express your freedom to desire, and also the means to achieve those desires. The more wealth you have, the more complete you feel as a person. You start feeling obligated to serve it, as it gives you new life and sustains the man-made illusion which composes your very soul.

But, back to middle class America…

Maybe, our personal karma dealt the cards and landed us in not quite an affluent position. You must truly ask yourself that if you are given the position of a multibillion dollar seat, do you have what it takes to withstand the insane pressure of the lower human impulse to burst out in a self-gratifying gross display of human greed?

By taking an introspective, honest look at ourselves, we will recognize that we are not made of “pure saintly qualities”. It’s doubtful if we had the seat of someone like J.P. Morgan that we would be the Mother Teresa of Economics. The impure human mind can dictate some really bizarre selfish desires if given the opportunity.

An extremely wise personality once said:

“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone [at Wall Street].”

The truth is it’s not really a question of rich and poor. No political mandate is going to solve the real problem. The real problem is not a political or economic one.

It is an internal one, a psychological one, and philosophical and ethical one. It’s a problem of selfishness and greed. The problem is an immoral weakness of heart.

The solution is that we need a system of education that frees people from envy, greed, and moral weakness.

Let there be class differences, but let those leaders learn the art of integrity in a pleasing pursuit of selfless happiness. Such pursuit, in order to actually work, must be defined by an awesome and grand spiritual vision that includes the well-being of every living being.

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Srila Prabhupada, the great world socio-spiritual visionary encapsulates these ideas in a commentary to the great Vedic text known as Srimad Bhagavatam:

“The struggle for existence is our attempt to counteract the onslaught of material nature. This struggle creates enmity in society, and consequently society is filled with envious people. One person is envious of another, and this is the way of the material world. The Krishna consciousness movement aims at creating an atmosphere of non-envy. Of course it is not possible for everyone to become Krishna conscious, but the Krishna consciousness movement can create an exemplary society wherein there is no envy.”

- Srimad Bhagavatam 5.13.11

Unless we undergo an internal shift in consciousness contributing to a collective effort of higher spiritual goals, humanity will be destined to live in a society of cheaters and the cheated, crippled by our inability to properly address the true problems, greed and envy.