National Enquirer Hare Krishna Edition

NEHKE (National Enquirer - Hare Krishna Edition) was written by an anonymous genius over several years, published around the internet at several forums now long forgotten. A certain scribe collected them so as to preserve good laughs for future generations.

Pagal Baba, fresh back from a tour of the Saturnian moons, had this to say: "The original NEHKE reporter might still be lurking out there somewhere, feeding and gathering strength, waiting for the opportunity to tickle our hysteria one more time..."

Entries are reposted at a rate of one every day as long as they last. And if the original NEHKE reporter is somewhere out there reading all this, I'm an e-mail away and you're free to post the latest news here!

National Enquirer Hare Krishna Edition
http://nehke.blogspot.com/

Good Yule!

Good Yule to all friends and fellow folk, random readers and the rest! May your year, after yet another dark season, grow towards great brightness within. As Mother Nature begins to renew herself, let there be revolution and growth anew for all!

Dichotomy of Light and Darkness

Winter solstice, past by a mere moment now, marks the transition from darkness to light, from death to new life. Yet one more cycle in the grand order of nature has rolled its course and revolves anew, the time of renewal is at hand. While the Indians were also very aware of the peaks and transitions in the universal cycles, especially so in the ancient Vedic times, it was in the North where the extremes stated their presence.

Many of you may have been following Uma's series on the old pagan celebration of Yule, the rebirth of Mother Nature, later remodeled into a grand Christian celebration with an eerie abundance of pagan symbols and practices. While the celebration of these transitions of universal reach indeed has its place in the mesocosmic sphere, a natural turn in the human fabric of old, it is not those I write of today. I'm about to dig deeper into the superficiality of the good-evil duality often imposed on worlds of light and darkness.

The Ancient Aryan Divide

The division into good and evil is regrettably not as clear-cut as God versus Lucifer or Christ versus Antichrist, a lesson well learned from the ancient Indian evolution of religion. Vasistha was among the leading Vedic seers, while for the Zoroastrians he was among the villains. While asuras were the bad guys for the Vedic seers, Ahura-Mazda (or Asura-Maya in Sanskrit, a close relative of the Avestan language of the Parsis) was the lead monotheistic deity of the Zend-Avesta scripture.

These two polar religions came to plant the seeds of two very different religious traditions. Zoroaster was a grand-ancestor for the doctrines of a dual god and anti-god, the expectance of a messiah and a linear approach to the cosmic order. The Abrahamic tradition, or Judaism, Christianity and Islam, evolved in a mixture of Zoroastrian ideals and the ongoing evolutions in Egyptian and Middle-Eastern native polytheistic systems.

A whole different branch and orientation of religion, the greater part of which goes under the loose label of Hinduism in the contemporary world, evolved from the root of the ancestry of Vedic seers. Hinduism as we know it is a loose amalgamation of distinct traditions that evolved under shared cultural premises, a most heterogeneous compilation held together with unitarian texts such as the Bhagavad-gita.

The fact that the two religious divides forming the vast majority of the Earth's population is on a deep level divided almost as deep and fundamentally as the grand cosmic order of the ancient cultures is every bit as exciting as it is scaring. It is then little wonder that the Abrahamic dualist heritage has always sought to reform all known cultures and peoples into the faith of the one true savior, one supreme deity and one word of god, or a succession of subsequent revelations in the case of later traditions.

The Indic tradition, on the other hand, unsubscribed from an ontology that assigned them among the evil, in both its root movements. While the direct descendant of the brahmana-tradition, the heritage of the Vedic seers, maintained a sense of duality evident in the legends of the Puranas, it was against a canvas of higher, nondual ideas evolving from the old Upanishads, tense and often asystematic philosophical discourses that sought the deepest essence of the Vedic sacrifical religion. The Sramana tradition, to which the Buddhists and the Jains are the only surviving heirs, sought to eliminate the realm of duality altogether, and in doing that went so far as to do away with the supreme deity himself.

The roots of the ancient good-evil divide appear to lie in an ancient conflict tearing apart a single cultural heritage, a world where the devas and the asuras dwelled together. Mitra and Varuna, a dual deity of whom the latter is well known as an oceanic deity in the Puranic lore, are in fact among the asuras of the Rig-vedic tradition — asuras receiving oblations just as the devas did. The details of the evolution effectively reduce the concept of an absolute, primordial divide into a partition much more complicated and human, into the internal disagreements of an ancient sacrificial, fire-worshiping culture.

Powers of Light and Darkness

Neither light nor darkness possess inherent ethical value; they are neutral potentials reposed in their own nature. As darkness clouds, creates mystery and brings towards unity, light unveils, explains and exposes a vast arena of plurality prior to growing so bright as to grow all-engulfing, thereby becoming essentially one with darkness again, a field of a single, undivided nature containing all of reality in its ever-vibrant lap. (Udesidning: An ancient Nordic way of integration in darkness.)

Nothing is good or evil of its own nature; all depends on the application, and moreover the applier. Magic is neither good nor evil owing to its technical procedure of conjuration, whether born of light or darkness, white or black. The divider of good and evil is in the human choice between benevolence and malevolence, between sacrificing and feeding the egotic drive consuming its objects to grow stronger.

A transcender of duality wields light and darkness with equal might, regardless of his preference, a preference that in its fundamental essence is only a latent sensation of the past, a game or an amusement of sorts, unbinding to the player who has ascended from a participancy to entertained spectatorship. Having seen the pinnacles of light and darkness under the ancient egotic drive, one evolves into a seer of non-duality, experiencing the inherent voidness of reality as we know it.

With the diffusion of apparent essence and substance into ethereal streams, one transcends stereotypic moral assessments and dwells in a lasting perception of inherent and foundational unity, even while an adept conventionalist as needed in the common world. The art of life has now been mastered.

The Old Pagan Approach

While the philosophical sophistication of Indic traditions is often lacking in ancient native religions, they do an amicable job in the practical transcendence of duality in living in a seamless harmony with nature and gods in their own world of mythos. In fact, many ancient native traditions supersede the seclusion-seeking Indic mystics in their ability to interact with plurality in a state of active integration, perhaps with a flavor of the smooth and flowing natural Tao of the Chinese — a quality I've always been in tremendous awe of!

The action-in-knowledge tradition also found its exponents among the Buddhists with the gradual evolution of Buddhism first into Mahayana, and onwards into an admixture with the tantric tradition especially prominent in Tibet. In the Tibetan model, Hinayana and Mahayana, or the lesser and the greater vehicles, are stepping stones into the highest dimension of vajra-sattva, the lightning-strata, where one becomes a wielder of cosmic powers, conquering and subjugating the energetic release produced in the meeting of the fundamental dualities of nature, the energetic bases of archetypal male and female energy, personified as the man and the woman of the human world.

Transcending and mastering the fundamental fabric of existence, the conscious being evolves into a god-like state of integration with the flow of the cosmos, unveiling the infinite peace and inner ecstasy ever-present in the ultimate non-dual god-experience. Consciousness employs a third strata beyond light and darkness, the infinite halls of existence itself. Night turns into a day and day yet again into a night. Winter falls over the fertile summer fields, spring awakens Mother Nature to life anew. Light and darkness rise and fall time and again of their own accord; the wheel of existence revolves forevermore.

North of the Moon - Old Yule Series

With the holidays approaching, a double announcement is in place. First of all, Uma's new blog: North of the Moon, exploring spirituality, old Nordic and European pagan traditions, the ancient Scandinavian-Aryan connection, and the general mysteries of life.

Second, a series of articles on the Old Yule, the pagan and Aryan predecessor to Christmas, glossing the age-old midwinter festival of fertility and new birth, the Yule observances, the Tree of World, the original Father Yule and a host of angels, goblins and others of old yet remembered. First in the series:

• Old Yule 1: The Mother and the Deadly Midwinter

And good Yule and a happy new year to all!

GeeVees - 00: Roots

The GeeVees is a series of articles covering reflections from a decade of spiritual and religious practice, lessons every bit as valuable for current and former Gaudiya Vaishnava adherents as they are for the thoughtful interpreter able to penetrate the universals in motion.


My Brief History with the Tradition

In the early age of fifteen, a rush of sudden interest brought me to the shore of Hinduism in my ongoing quest for curiosities. It was the Hare Krishna faith that I first met, the only extant Hindu sect in Finland offering prospects for a committed contemplative life. My initial expectations of life as a monk were soon betrayed, however, as I embarked on a tour that was to last the better part of my five monk years as a missionary promoting the movement’s literature.

The escalating discomfort with duty versus absorption, combined with a major fall-out with the then-guru, one of the many leaders of the movement who later came to retire from the obligations of guruhood and vanish to the fringes of the movement, led me, now a married man of nineteen, to seek a more genuine experience of spirituality along the lines I had chosen. Further disappointments with the movement’s leadership had me looking beyond for answers — answers I was to find with an elderly Indian guru of the same tradition making his grand tour across the West.

Hopes soon perished, with less than two years in the group, as my plate was filled with vain hopes, hollow prospects and scores of internal conflict. With all the verbal profundity, it turned out to be little more than a personality cult with more charlatans than actual substance. The trail of much of the half-baked esoterics led to the old school Gaudiya Vaishnava renunciates living in the Braj area of northern India, where I was later initiated by an old scholar, chairman of the renunciate assembly at Radhakund.

It was more than theory that I had sought, however, and naturally connected with more teachers to get hands-on experience on the lifestyle and practices of the babaji tradition. A certain charismatic teacher, singer and meditator in his own right, had us under his tutelage for the better part of four years, a time that opened whole new horizons on the content of the religious and mystic substance of the tradition. Partially brilliant and partially bizarre teachings, sometimes incongruent with the common doctrine, combined with behavior that had more to it than just personality quirks, led me away from him, and astray as far as my then-wife was concerned.

In the span the year following our divorce, I lived the better half in the way of the traditional babaji ascetics, myself engaged in intense practice day in and day out, in quantities easily eclipsing a decade of ordinary practice, whatever the quality may have been. Meeting with yet another disappointment of a teacher, and more dead-ends and impassable lands than paths you could decently walk, a return to a blank drawing board had me moving on for an indefinite pilgrimage without any particular destination.


In the Times Beyond

In late February 2008, I jumped onto a train towards Varanasi for the upcoming Shiva Ratri festival. The original plan was to head towards Orissa, exploring the combination of old Buddhist ruins and grand Hindu shrines in the general area. That, and the Puri beaches were quite inviting too. From there, I would have taken the grand circuit across the four principal Buddhist places of pilgrimage in the north. It was not to be, however — not yet, anyway.

In Sarnath, a Buddhist center half-an-hour drive outside Varanasi, I bumped into a colorful group of Buddhist monks from the Thai Theravada school. The Irish monk was heading south and incidentally had a spare train ticket. Off we went, visiting Ramana Maharshi’s ashram in Tiruvannamalai and Sai Baba’s headquarters in Puttaparthi, for a two-week tour and back. I had considered dropping off in Chennai and flying over to Sri Lanka to explore the ancient Buddhist ruins and the contemporary scene, but I rather liked both his company and his plans.

Returning to Varanasi, we were joined by a Romanian-American nun and two Thai monks for a walk towards Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha in southern Nepal just across the border. Crossing some seven hundred kilometers on foot over three weeks, I got to know the lot rather well. With all the positives, however, I understood their way of life was not cut out for me, not the way it was available in the contemporary setting anyway. I decided to stay back in Kathmandu as they left for a bus-and-train journey back to Varanasi.

It was Kathmandu where I was based for four months, spending time with friends old and new, working with a few NGOs, exploring the mountains and the world of men in a way I had never seen it before. It was a time of great evolution, re-modeling the past and transforming into a new being, an individual being who was no longer subject to rules of religious conformance.

A liberation in its own right, it created a grand arena of contemplations for me. Thence are the thoughts that follow in the upcoming essays, written over a cool Scandinavian winter near a crackling fireplace, surrounded by familiar nature-spirits and a regenerating atmosphere, a muse and a friend of many years sitting by my side.


On Gaudiya Vaishnavism

The religious tradition founded by Sri Chaitanya (1486-1534) came to be called Gaudiya Vaishnavism owing to the ancient name (Gauda) of its motherland, Bengal. Sri Chaitanya’s was a devotional movement, bent in its core on mystical absorption and participation in the cosmic drama of Radha and Krishna, the tradition’s transcendent god and goddess. The outer praxis was that of a people’s movement, ecstatic preachers and wandering bards spreading the gospel of Sri Chaitanya far and wide, the chanting of the holy names of god brought to every town and village in the movement’s path.

The theological foundation, based on elaborations on Sri Chaitanya’s teaching, was laid by the six Goswamis, renunciate disciples of his, scholars in their own right with abundant time to commit to philosophical pursuits in the rustic environment of Vrindavan, the place of Krishna’s sports in the years bygone. It is especially the Vrindavan tradition that holds the meditational practices in the highest value, generation after generation preserving, interpreting and elaborating on the esoteric heritage of the Goswamis.

On grassroots level, the basics of Gaudiya Vaishnavism are not that radically different from other devotional Hindu movements. Some of the tradition’s later mutations, the Hare Krishnas for a good example, appear to have almost entirely shunned the esoteric tradition, favoring a public digest version of Hindu devotional religion with a few idiosyncrasies thrown in. The stripped version of the tradition is not, however, too compelling for a western audience, for one might just as well choose any other tradition that is better localized and established, being left with every bit as much substance with fewer cultural complications.

At its heart, beyond preliminary ideas of understanding the nature of spirit and matter and their interconnection with god, the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition aims to dissociate the psyche of the adherent from the present state, associating it with a sense of identification with the residents of Krishna’s transcendent heaven realm. The inner sensation of the adherent evolves from faith through various steps to fulfilled love, transporting his soul and mind away from the current world and implanting them in the spirit-identity. It is the fundamental incompatibility of the two worlds that most serious practitioners seem to struggle with.


Appeal for the Adherent

As it is now officially declared across the vast internet fields that I am an apostate unworthy of association, why would a practicing Gaudiya Vaishnava dare reading my writings? There may, after all, be lurking many a seed-of-doubt, crisis-of-faith and confusing-concept under the foliage. It would perhaps be better to just sleep in the cradle of belief, shielded from influences that could expose you to the unwanted.

The fact of the matter is that I was every bit as much in the cradle as most of my former comrades of faith, and these are the issues I had to confront as I rocked in the cradle over the years. They are real issues, and they deserve to be explored. Whether my solutions are real is immaterial; it is the questions we must all unearth and ponder in our depths. Unlocking the questions may, in fact, turn out to be a mine of potentials revealed with the perspective expansion.

I am sometimes asked whether it might be better to just forget about it all myself, and indeed I have received a fair hate mail or two over my writings. It is absurd for anyone to assume that twelve years of intense practice, and by far the biggest continuous tract of my life so far, is something one could just wipe aside as if it never existed. And neither do I see a valid reason for it, inasmuch I may have the ability to observe subtleties beyond a black-and-white model of absolutes.

The many valuable lessons of my Gaudiya Vaishnava years remain with me as an active facet of my sphere of understanding. Experiences positive or negative, they were all due coming and molded me in the ways I needed, crashing into my life one after another on karmic tracks beyond my capacity to observe. They were all good, for they were all for the good, and I believe sharing of the experience is something that may help others in good, too. The disinclined are cordially invited to exclude themselves from the audience.


Appeal for the Broader Audience

No activity occurs in vacuum, in a dimension void of connections to the rest of human existence, and no idea is too contextually bound to become a slave to its times and unfit for broader application. The lessons learned over the journey, a journey still rather incomplete, have countless parallels in the countless lives of many akin to myself. It is for the perceptive seeker, student and master that I write, for those able to extract and reinvent, drawing from the identity of principles beyond the specifics.

While the parallel themes are developed to an extent in the upcoming essays, there’s a long way for me to go until a comprehensive, or even a half-way decent system of archetypal concepts is in place. The readers are invited to take my observations as seeds of inspiration, fountains for rivers and oceans of understandings exceeding mine a thousand-fold.

As Indic religion in general, Gaudiya Vaishnava talk is riddled with Sanskrit-rooted jargon and very specific and detailed uses of context-related terminology. I will be doing my best to keep the text friendly for non-expert readers, glossing the unavoidable complications and choosing colloquial terms wherever possible. Blind as I am with my own writing, an obtuse language-gremlin or two may escape the hunt — please feel at ease with giving feedback on any and all aspects of the forthcoming series.

Protect Space Bunnies - A Call for Arms

Folks at the comments department have been wondering what I'm doing. A general sense of curiosity is in the air particularly on what I am doing right now...

The thing is, as the following grotesque illustration from the Internet demonstrates, evil bitches have set out to exterminate the race of Space Bunnies once and for all. Can anyone with a heart just stand by as our innocent space hare brothers are being persecuted without mercy!

 

A call for arms is hereby issued from the Royal Ministry of Space Bunnies, led by venerable Easter Bunny Jr. Watch for a draft booth in your neighbourhood! Down with the eevil biutches! Hooray!

Surya-kunda Disaster

The annual festival of Surya-kunda (Suryakund) is perhaps the best-attended event of the local Vaishnava babaji society, marking the passing of Siddha Sri Madhusudana Das Babaji. Surya-kunda is a small village located in western Uttar Pradesh, some 40 kilometers off Vrindavana, a solitary place with a number of resident Gaudiya Vaishnava hermits. This year's event ended with a grand disaster — temple roof caved in, dozens dead and many more wounded.

(View archival material of the earlier events: video, photos)

Throughout the three-hour program of songs and processions around the village, people have taken advantage of the temple rooftop for a premium view of the program. The roof is particularly crammed at the concluding feast towards the afternoon, hosting up to hundreds of visitors from the total participation easily reaching over a thousand.

At the closing of the festival, as almost everyone had concluded their meals and began to move about, the ashram roof caved in on top of the crowds sitting in the large temple hall below. Many mahantas, important religious leaders from around the area of Vraja, along with hundreds of others, were taking their meals downstairs at the time of the accident, with hundreds more sitting on the falling roof.

Dozens are estimated dead, though no exact information is available as of yet. Participants smeared with blood were seen running around, wounded or mangled by the crashed building materials. Fractured skulls, fatal blood-loss and maimed limbs — the less fortunate were carried to their final rest. Apparently the supporting pillar of the building had given in, leading the entire roof to crash.

Some died on the spot, some on the way to the hospital, and some in the hospital. Exact information is yet to come in. An Italian devotee fell through the roof, but got off with a bit of blood and managed his own way home. Reports indicate that among the casualties was a well-built, hairy, bearded babaji, resident of Radha Colony, dressed in raggish clothes — very likely to be the same Bhakticharan Das Babaji with whom I lived last winter.

The social convention of segregating the sexes in religious festivals tells, assuming this year's seating arrangements followed the long-established trend of the event, that the majority of victims were men. Men are given places inside the temple and on the roof, women have a separate large area on the outdoors temple premises.

A disaster of this magnitude is likely to hit the news soon. News follow-ups will be posted to the comments-section. The information for this report was received from Malati Dasi, a participant herself, fresh off the spot. Background information mine.

Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness

In a recent blog entry, following up on a discussion on gay rights, Advaitadas commented on the famous preamble to the United States Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

His gripes with this statement, a statement that on face value would seem self-evident and foundational to our society, are manifold. Some of the perspectives in the review are regrettably rather poorly thought out.

Conditioned Fathers of Nation

The first objection of the rebuttal, straight out of a text-book as it were, reads as follows: 

"Actually, this is not an authoritative statement in principle because those who drafted this constitution are of course conditioned souls, who are prone to mistakes, inattentiveness, deceit and imperfect senses."

In the authors' view, it seems evident that "conditioned souls" are unable to produce anything factually authoritative owing to their blundersome nature. Even if the aeroplane flies, even if our understanding of the laws of physics and principles of engineering add up to the expected result, it is important to understand that the aeroplane flying on the sky is unauthorized. Even with the imposters at flight control declaring he's authorized for a take-off.


The Perfect Verdicts

Wishing to reach certain knowledge, the author — like millions of his Hindu bretheren — turns to his infallible scriptures, the shastra.

"Comparing this statement with the verdicts of shastra was amusing, because it turned out to be not-so self-evident at all."

It should be interesting to create a society modeled on the basis of the ancient dharma-shastras — take, for example, the famous Manu-smriti. Never mind the fact that they were compiled by people whose credentials are wholly unknown to us, and at times long gone, adherents commonly hold them to be timeless, authoritative and definite.

Since the said genre of scriptures is so obviously outdated, being written for a wholly different social context, we are essentially left with nothing "authorized" for the contemporary situation, nothing with a broader range of information, anyway. Of course, there is no scarcity of reformers who claim to have understood the timeless message and its necessary contemporary application. Now, who authorized and de-conditioned them? Jim Jones, have company.

Might it, therefore, be wiser to settle for general values that seek to give everyone equal opportunities (note emphasis) for adhering to a belief or disbelief of their choice, giving them the freedom of choice for life, liberty and pursuit of happiness in their way of choice as long as it doesn't infringe on others' rights. I'd say that looks like a pretty damn good deal, on paper anyway.

The prospect of an "authorized system of governance" sends shrills down my spine. Would you rather have a Vedic king and a forced caste system, a Japanese Solar Emperor with hordes of Samurai troops, pharaoh Ved-anxt-amun the heir of Osiris and prince of the underworlds, or Mullah al Taleban with the sword of Allah? They are all authorized by their own conflicting heritages.


All Men are Created Equal

This statement was the unjustified object of massive nit-picking. The arguments are two-fold, one discussing the aspect of creation, other the concept of equality.

1. No one was ever created. ... The jiva is beginningless and thus never created.

Now, it is rather unlikely that the founders of the United States were bent on saying that all units of the Hindu soul were created, equal or otherwise. After all, it does clearly say that "all men are created equal". In the Puranic theory, the creation of men occurs at a stage of creation called visarga, following the primary elemental creation (sarga).

2. No one is equal, created or otherwise.

I would argue that the uncreated could well be equal. However, to the equal — what does the word equal imply in the statement under scrutiny? Does it mean that everyone earns the same amount of money, is as beautiful, intelligent and physically fit as everyone else? It seems, again, rather unlikely that this is what the founding fathers had in mind. Created equal then means created to be given equal opportunity.

Now, the meaning of giving equal opportunity is obviously not as clear-cut when we speak of diverse individuals, rather than a mass of people. We're skating again on this dreaded arena of subjectivity. Where have gone all those beautiful truths, the absolute revelation endowing us with the right to abstain from progressive thought?

"Regarding equality on the material level, no Barack Obama is going to turn each homeless bum in Harlem into a Beverly Hillbilly. Inequality is intrinsic. Even communism failed to bring equality to even a single nation."

And exactly so. Therefore, rather than imposing a single standard — of absolute equality, or any other absolute for that matter — we need to face the problem of giving equal opportunities for diverse men to pursue life, liberty and happiness in their desired way. Let a hundred flowers blossom, behold the garden's beauty in its diversity, every flower given a chance to prosper in its own nature.

The inalienable rights, basis for the concept of equal opportunity, are of course outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As evident, the basis of equal opportunity is a relative concept intrinsically tied with our times, due to evolve with the progress of humanity. Perhaps Advaitadas can next tackle the unauthorized Declaration of Human Rights for us.


Wars, Abortion and Right for Life

That someone should contend inalienable right for life is beyond me.

"What about the lives that were lost in all the US interventionalist wars, and that are lost now since abortion was legalized?

That there are shortcomings in the observance of the ideals is hardly surprising. No doubt, a good political analyst would write a book on the intended consequences of the U.S. foreign policy in terms of saving and improving life.

Abortion was, in fact, legal when the Declaration of Independence was drafted in 1776. Laws against abortion began to appear in mid-1800s and became prevalent after the turn of the century. The re-legalization of abortion is then hardly in contrast with the intentions of the statement in question.

The ethical justifiability of abortion, and at its root the debate on "what makes a person and when", are more complex issues than a few lines would cover. Is semen person? Is the freshly fertilized embryo a person? And moreover, when examining religious arguments on when a person is present, we must look at the scriptures as a whole and ask some pertinent questions.

"The soul is made to enter into the womb of a woman through the particle of male semen." (BhP. 3.31.1) "On the first night, the sperm and ovum mix, and on the fifth night the mixture ferments into a bubble. On the tenth night it develops into a form like a plum, and after that, it gradually turns into a lump of flesh or an egg, as the case may be." (BhP. 3.31.2)

Now, we know that in the Puranic theory there are souls in plants and animals as well. The killing of plants in particular is sanctioned. Now, would it be more wrong to kill a bubble of fermented mixture or a tender daffodil? Would you spare an old oak tree or a form like a plum? According to the text, the first sensations occur during the embryo's fifth month.  90% of abortions take place within the first 12 weeks.

"Can the US government insure or protect Life? Hardly. 'For those who are born, death is sure.' (Bhagavad Gita 2.27)"

It's not that the life insurance company is there to protect you from dying either, you know. The idea here is to give all men an equal right for life while it lasts, and seek to protect its unnatural termination by diverse means.


Absolute and Relative Liberty

With liberty, we are again contrasting the concepts of absolute and relative liberty. Advaitadas tackles the absolute:

"Freedom is an illusion. In this world we serve our families (by having to maintain them), governments (by paying taxes) and our senses. In the spiritual world we serve Krishna, but there is no freedom anyway anywhere."

There is (bhaktas close your ears) a twilight zone between the material and spiritual worlds, inhabited by mayavadi demons, rascal scientists and other humbugsters, all merged into one homogeneous blob of liberated consciousness free from mayas of all flavor.

The concept of liberty should be understood as follows: All men have an inalienable right to pursue their lives as they see best, within the boundaries of law, and no-one has a right to restrict this without consent.

Families and other obligation-demanding social groups are generally founded on consentual agreement of cooperation for the attainment of a greater good. Otherwise, the concept of liberty is seen in effect for example as the rights for free speech and fair trial, which I'm sure we all appreciate.


Pursuit of Happiness

The final aspect, almost as if it were the factor giving a meaning for the rest, is an inalienable right to pursue happiness. Regrettably, the author seems to find no happiness in the world.

"Any enjoyment which arises from the touches of the senses are just sources of misery. They have a beginning and an end and thus a wise men does not rejoice in them." (Bhagavad Gita 5.22) 'This world is miserable and temporary.' (Bhagavad Gita 8.15) As the Christian founders of the American state must have known from the Bible, this is the valley of the tears.."

The concept of happiness does not, of course, entail only pleasures of the senses. For example, for Advaitadas pursuit of happiness would mean having a cozy small home, enough money to support himself, and peace to chant and meditate as he wishes. To others, there may be a wide array of sensual, intellectual, musical or political ventures equally meaningful.

If we were to not grant diverse individuals their inalienable rights for pursuing happiness, only the mainstream happiness would survive, and I very much doubt Advaita's flavor would survive. Whether or not each individual quest for happiness meets its end, and whether an unrelated theology favors it or not, everyone has a right to pursue their ideals.


Absolute and Accommodating Solutions

There are two approaches to managing the human situation, the absolute and the accommodating.

The absolute approach seeks the implementation of an infallible, unchanging truth, and with its establishment the coeffective elimination of lesser, relative solutions. Absolute truth evidently depends on the presence of an absolute truth-maker and truth-affirmer, and in theistic models where a deity is the ultimate affirmer, the presence of an absolute mediator. The utopian house of cards falls with the presence of asymmetric cards, the non-absolute and conditioned individuals, the subjects of a totalitarian regime.

The accommodating approach seeks to facilitate, rather than to control and manipulate, the diverse approaches to life and happiness in a manner that provides for smooth co-existence. Unlike the absolute, the accommodating is ever-evolving and never final, a relative solution tied with its times, never a final truth unto itself and for its own sake. While the absolute leaves no room for improvement by its very nature, the accommodating takes pride in its incompleteness, seeking perfection instead of declaring its presence.

Don't go looking for a solution you can worship. Look for a solution that works.