All posts by Aradhana Devi Dasi

“What Makes a Leader?”

In the 1990s, society expended great resources investigating questions of management and leadership. Managers are fairly common; real leaders are extremely rare. Managers use people to make things happen; leaders make things happen for the people. Managers often lead from the back. They may watch to see what is popular, what seems politically correct, what will help them increase their own status and especially, what will help them increase their incomes. Managers tend to be utilitarian and opportunistic.

True leaders, however, always lead from the front.
They are associated with the “four C’s”:

• Character
• Competence
• Compassion
• Courage

When we find a true leader, we will find strong performance in all these areas.

There are so many definitions for the word “leadership” in the English language alone. Such a diversity of meanings for the same word indicates that people are confused about what it means. It is a complex topic.

The work of a true leader can also be listed in descending order of significance:

• To be
• To do
• To see
• To tell

Similarly, we can categorize citizens in a general way:

• Inventors: Those who make things happen
• Resenters: Those who watch things happen (and often complain about how they are happening)
• Consenters: those who do not know what is happening, but who consent and go with the flow.

True leaders are always inventors. They are experts at making things happen. There are so many analogies to help us understand the qualities of a leader.

Here’s another one, relating to the attitude people have when they approach a hill intending to climb it:

• There are those who see the hill as an obstacle, and immediately give up their plans;
• There are those who see the hill and decide to camp at its base
• There are those who see the hill and proceed to climb it.

Those who quit are the types of people who become discouraged by adversity. They do not possess the perseverance, stamina or the deep commitment to attain the goal. Those who camp at the hill’s base may start off with enthusiasm, but they become distracted by the obstacle and lose sight of the goal.

Those who climb the hill despite the promise of difficulty have enough commitment to work for success. Their challenge is to maintain their vision and sense of mission, and by continuing to strive, they can achieve their goal.

Retired United States Army General Norman Schwarzkopf said in his analysis of losers vs. winners:
• To a loser, it may be possible, but it is difficult.
• To a winner, it may be difficult, but it is possible.
• A leader says that nothing is impossible.
• A loser will say, “It’s not my job”
• A winner will say: “Let me help you do it”
• A leader will say: “Follow me and do as I do”

Others have categorized people into winners and whiners. One should live one’s life by discipline, not emotion.
• Winners, and especially true leaders, feel good when they do right
• Whiners must feel good before they will do right
• Winners say: “I will do it because it is right, and I will feel good knowing I acted properly”
• Whiners say: “If I ever feel good about it, then I will do it”
• Winners say: “I must believe it before I can see it”
• Whiners say: “I must see it before can I believe it”

True leaders know that progress is motivating; apparent progress based on lust, greed and self-deception is actually failure.

True leaders make things happen, are winners, lead from the front and always keep the highest welfare of their constituents in mind. In this way, a leader will inspire people to come to a higher standard by their own superior qualities.

By Bhakti Tirtha Swami
In the book “Leadership for an Age of Higher Consciousness Volume II: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times”

PROMOTING INTERDEPENDENCE

“Promoting Interdependence”:

Varnashrama-dharma is based on honoring the diversity in unity that is the natural consequence of interdependence. When there is forced conformity, there will never be true unity; when there is simply diversity without any attempt at unity, this is anarchy. The divine monarch’s duty is to expertly engage the people according to their individual natures and responsibilities toward the central goal of developing a balanced society.

A divine monarch seeks to synergize his kingdom.

Synergy literally means that the total effect is greater than the sum of the individual elements. One plus one equals more than two. The ability to synergize a kingdom comes from celebrating the diversity among one’s subjects and then holding them accountable to fulfill both personal and social goals. It does not result from either dependent or independent citizens, but from those who recognize their interdependence.

Recognizing interdependence also results in the formation of symbiotic relationships. That is, relationships based on mutual need. In a symbiotic relationship, what it takes to maintain two distinct living entities is actually reduced as the two entities support each other’s needs and help one another attain success.

When the king honors unity in diversity, it allows for symbiotic relationships among his subjects wherein all benefit.

For interdependence to work, however, there has to be a common ground upon which the diversity expresses itself. Without that common ground or common goal, society will fall into chaos.

Diversity experts realize that by celebrating diversity, we can avoid four “cancers” that are detrimental to the achievement of synergy.

These are:
• Criticism
• Complaint
• Comparison
• Competition

Without celebrating diversity, we may exist, but will we flourish? In such a condition, we will not optimize our potential. Unless we learn to cooperate, we will only compromise. We must do away with divisive factors if we are to achieve synergy.

Too much independence destabilizes an institution or community because it produces anarchy. When there is social fragmentation, people will not bring out their best. Also, too much dependence is unhealthy because people will not be creative. They will not use their own initiative in performing their tasks but will tend to be dull and uninvolved on a personal level.

Nowadays, people are discussing codependency, which manifests at its worst in addictive behaviors. Codependency is often at conflict with one’s God consciousness, because the codependent person replaces God with his or her spouse, child, business or a substance such as alcohol or cocaine.

Every form of addiction is a misdirected religion. John Bradshaw, in his best-selling book, Healing the Shame that Binds You, discusses some of the dangers of addiction. He stresses how every addiction is an aborted religion—how it has a God, disciplines, devotees and rituals. The rituals might be seen in the way one passes around a marijuana joint, for example, or the way in which one drinks alcohol with friends.

Addictions have their moment of ecstasy, and their atonement. All addicts and codependent people are spiritually bankrupt. They are actually searching after the ecstasy that comes from God, but they look in all the wrong places. Bradshaw explains how shame is necessary for recovery, and that in codependency and addiction, one is overreacting to things outside and under-reacting to things inside.

Addicts believe something outside will bring them happiness. In materialistic society, where addiction is rampant, people tend to want to look for their happiness outside themselves rather than finding it within. A divine monarch helps people to focus more on both their individuality and their interdependence, and he himself leads from the inside out. His leadership example stimulates them to also look for inner happiness.

Bhakti Tirtha Swami
Leadership for an Age of Higher Consciousness Volume II:
Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times

The Indigenous Science of Permaculture

On the ENVIRONMENT, By Rohini Walker

The last few decades have seen a slow yet steady rise in the awareness and practice of permaculture in conservation and environmental communities. This growing understanding is both heartening and deeply necessary. It also gives rise to occasional pauses to take a closer look at what the term permaculture implies and means, and its true origins. In particular, this examination compels us to look at how permaculture, like much other wisdom deriving from pre-industrial, non-hierarchical, collaboration with land and nature, is at risk of being appropriated and colonized. The resulting reductionist approach seeks to create homogenizing formulas to work in harmony with the environment, a hallmark of mainstream western scientific materialism. This is anathema to what was originally — and still is — an indigenous science of working in partnership and reciprocity with the land and cycles of nature.

Bill Mollison in the garden of his Enmore, Australia home on January 16, 1989. | Greg White / Fairfax Media via Getty Images

The term permaculture — a fusion of “permanent” and “agriculture” — was first coined in the 1970s by two Australians, David Holmgren, and Bill Mollison. Both were academics in Tasmania. Holmgren was at the time a graduate student studying environmental design at the Tasmanian College of Advanced Education, and Mollison — also dubbed the “father of permaculture” — was a senior lecturer in environmental psychology at the University of Tasmania. The foundations of permaculture rest on two concepts: an understanding and acceptance of the diversity of whole systems, as opposed to the soil-degrading effects of industrial monoculture; and on the relational, slow-yet-dynamic practice of observing the land, and its many complex ecosystems.

Running Ditches and Slowing Water
Paiute People Adapt Traditions to Modern-Day Gardens

That permaculture arose as a vital response to the dangerous environmental and human degradation of industrialization, and its toxic farming and agricultural practices is undeniable. Its philosophy is based on the common-sense truth that the human race cannot survive in any measure of health if the Earth is being poisoned. We are at a point in our evolution where anything less than an applied understanding of this idea spells disaster to our survival. In all of this, the propagation of permaculture is crucial.

What is at issue here is the importance of recognizing that permaculture’s roots lie firmly and deeply in the ancient, fertile, organic soil of indigenous science. To overlook and ignore that is to leave permaculture at the mercy of the dogmas of mainstream science, and the latter’s view of the manifold, complex systems in nature as nothing more than resources to be exploited. From this vantage point, humans control, degrade and exploit the land to become obedient, consummate consumers; and the indigenous science of cultivating a reciprocal, regenerative relationship with the Earth, in which the human acknowledges her innate connection to Earth, is dismissed as “unscientific” and empirically unsound.

The Potawot Community Garden, housed at United Indian Health Services’s facility in Arcata, California, incorporates elements of permaculture seamlessly into the center’s holistic approach to healing the Earth and body. | Still from “Tending Nature” episode “Healing The Body with United Indian Health Services.”

Without actively anchoring itself to the wisdom of indigenous science, permaculture is rudderless and vulnerable to invasion by the parasite that only feeds off its host, without giving anything back, ultimately destroying both.

Indeed, Mollison attributed much of what he came to create as “permaculture” to what he learned from the Aboriginals in Tasmania, and other Indigenous people around the world.

Permaculture is fundamentally then, an indigenous science. Its framework is a design system that incorporates core principles and practices from indigenous knowledge around the world, assimilating it with sustainable new technology that is making strides towards harmonizing this traditional wisdom with pioneering modern quantum science. As such, it can restore valuable ancient knowledge, while steering our industrialized society towards a more viable future based on regeneration and reciprocity.

In California, the Chumash, Yurok, Karuk, Hupa, and Miwok tribes have, for over 13,000 years, practiced and handed down the tradition of prescribed burning as a way of tending the land. As people Indigenous to California, and as guardians of Native wisdom whose cultural foundations rest on a reciprocal, reverential, subject-subject interaction with nature, the practice of prescribed burning sees fire as a necessary medicine for the land. For millennia, this method of small-scale, skillfully managed, intentional burning of dead or dying underbrush has been a way of regenerating the land, and significantly decreasing the risk of catastrophic, out-of-control, large-scale wildfires.

Given the devastation caused by wildfires in recent years, a result of climate change and rising temperatures, the art of prescribed burning is something that is finally being looked at by state fire officials and environmental agencies as a viable means of minimizing the risk of wildfires. Tribes are now working together to revive this ancient and practical wisdom of fire as preventative, restorative medicine through the Indigenous Peoples Burning Network. Crucially, state governing bodies are now beginning to work with tribes and their tradition of prescribed burning as a time-tested way of reducing the conditions that cause wildfires in our current, climate-sensitive age.

This restoration of Native wisdom is critical at this time because we are all indigenous to somewhere. There is as much to be gleaned from pre-Christian, pre-industrialized, indigenous old European culture and wisdom as there is from our more current understanding of what being native is. These traditional societies also operated within an Earth-focused, reciprocal, relational paradigm and were decimated through the terror of widespread witch trials and burnings. They also became colonized by the belief that man is here to exercise dominion over land and sea. These old, indigenous, pagan ways became marginalized at best, literally demonized at worst. What did survive we displaced to the fringes of society, viewed by mainstream science and “sensible” society as esoteric, crackpot nonsense — Fait accompli.

Permaculture’s ability to re-indigenize Caucasian people, to reconnect them with their indigenous wisdom traditions of working in partnership with the land, has the potential to stem the tide of the, frankly, crackpot notions of the colonial mindset. These notions are summed up succinctly in the unabridged subtitle of Charles Darwin’s landmark “Origin of Species,” which is: “By Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.” There is nothing that comes close to resembling “natural” about this type of “selection.” That this book is the cornerstone of what has been accepted science for almost 200 years, also coinciding with the Industrial Revolution, has alarming and multiple layers of significance. For this piece, however, our focus is on the importance of recognizing the core truth that permaculture is an indigenous science.

Why is this important? As a philosophy, practice, and movement, permaculture is gaining much support and momentum across the world. Inevitably, the reductionism of mainstream science and its focus on relentless hyper-productivity, are making insidious advances towards permaculture. This rise in awareness is a bid to dominate and reduce to formulas a system rooted firmly in the cultivation of a dynamic, reciprocal relationship between the human and the Earth, both as subjects. As with any relationship, this takes patience. Permaculture can thrive under the pioneering auspices of new quantum science and technology that is discovering that what the ancients knew to be true is also empirically verifiable. The findings of this new science accept the wisdom of indigenous science — and permaculture as a product of it.

As Bill Mollison, the “father of permaculture” so articulately put it:

“Each such cycle is a unique event; diet, choice, selection, season, weather, digestion, decomposition and regeneration differ each time it happens. Thus, it is the number of such cycles, great and small, that decide the potential for diversity. We should feel ourselves privileged to be part of such eternal renewal. Just by living we have achieved immortality — as grass, grasshoppers, gulls, geese and other people. We are of the diversity we experience in every real sense.

“If, as physical scientists assure us, we all contain a few molecules of Einstein, and if the atomic particles of our physical body reach to the outermost bounds of the universe, then we are all de facto components of all things. There is nowhere left for us to go if we are already everywhere, and this is, in truth, all we will ever have or need. If we love ourselves at all, we should respect all things equally, and not claim any superiority over what are, in effect, our other parts. Is the hand superior to the eye? The bishop to the goose? The son to the mother?…

“Stupidity is an attempt to iron out all differences, and not to use them or value them creatively.”

We must safeguard the permaculture movement against colonizing influences that seek to reduce it to a system of sterile formulas if we want it to remain a powerful agent of healing for the Earth — and for us. It has to be seen for what it is: an indigenous science.

Potawot Health Center: A Holistic Approach to Healing

“Every individual in the world, regardless of cultural background or race, has an indigenous soul struggling to survive in an increasingly hostile environment created by that individual’s mind. A modern person’s body has become a battleground between the rationalist mind — which subscribes to the values of the machine age — and the native soul. This battle is the cause of a great deal of spiritual and physical illness.”


The relatively new science of quantum physics is discovering what indigenous science has known for millennia: we live in a world where all matter is sentient, a subject-subject stance. This traditional knowledge is very much at odds with the fictions of the lifeless, mechanical “objective” world over which humans ruthlessly rule that has been the prevailing dogma of mainstream science. Permaculture can remain immune to the parasitic disease if colonialism of its origins are grounded in indigenous science, and with this new science as its companion and benefactor. It can be a powerful movement of authentic and radical change that it has the potential to be.

“Permaculture’s focus on symbiotic relationships is informed by the concept of ayni, a Quechua and Aymara word for sacred reciprocity, an ethic shared by many traditional cultures and sometimes translated as ‘today for you, tomorrow for me.’ If the permaculture movement can successfully integrate and spread indigenous science in a way that truly benefits both traditional and modern cultures, perhaps this exchange — this sacred reciprocity — has the power to help guide the future of the planet.” – cultureofpermaculture.org

Indigenous science is unequivocally a science, and the system of permaculture is a recent offspring. A dismissal of it as such is a telltale sign and symptom of the colonizer and its unnatural selections.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Rohini Walker is a writer, editor and nature enthusiast. She lives in Joshua Tree, CA and is the co-founder of Luna Arcana, a desert-focused arts & literary print publication.

This article was originally published in support of Tending Nature, a KCET program exploring how traditional practices can inspire a new generation to find a balance between humans and nature.

The Vedic Times is working to create Eco-Villages that will utilize these methods. Please read also “Eco-Villages, Vastu & Sadhu Huts” and join the RE-Evolution.

Chanting Yoga Online

YOGA

Facts and Myths

Yoga is not physical exercises
Yoga is not merely difficult posture
Yoga is not confined to attire
Yoga is not renunciation of worldly life
Yoga is not inactivity
Yoga is not torturing oneself
Yoga is not magic
Yoga is not an exhibition
Yoga is not a competition
Yoga is not mysticism
Yoga is not one’s inherited domain

NOW – ONLINE EXCEPTIONALLY

Yoga (in Sanskrit) means, to connect with the Divine.


The benefits are:
• Physiological
• Mental
• Physical
• Spiritual

1. Physically, from working with your  Fascia (BowSpring Yoga style) and breathing exercises.
2. Mentally and Psychologically, from the ‘Vibrational Medicine’ in the form of ‘Mantra Meditation’, which calms the mind and assists your alignment with the Divine.
3. Spiritually, from hearing sacred mantras that open pathways to transcendence.


THE CLASS
Introduction to Chanting Yoga 10′
Fascia BowSpring Yoga style ) 40′
Benefits of Yoga and  Mantra Meditation 10′
Contemporary vibrational enhancing techniques 15′

This method also assists in the speedy removal of stress,
so you may enhance your assimilation of all the practices many fold.

Minimum donation recommended US$5
Thank you!

Teacher: Ana Lucia

CONTACT HERE TO SCHEDULE YOUR CLASS!

Check also our upcoming retreats here!

Vaishnava Etiquette

for Men by a Woman

Why? Because apparently all ladies are still only their bodies.

Dear Kind Souls and Wonderful Vaishnavas.
Dandavat pranams. Jaya Gauranga!

By a great blessing, I have been exposed to sweet Krsna (God) and ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) since 2002; so today, at the beginning of 2020, it’s been 18 years.

With all this time, it could be (and maybe should be) expected that I am now mature in the art of philosophy and versed in spiritual etiquette. Therefore, I also expect the same from others that have been within the culture and society of Krishna consciousness for this long, or much longer. I know many who were born into this beautiful culture, and yet, unfortunately, their immaturity is quite prominent; and often hypocritical in regards to Vaishnava etiquette. Many times it is like a one way road, where you’re expected to conduct yourself with perfect etiquette, while the one in front of you is not. This has left me stupefied every time.

No need to say, I’ll likely be criticized for speaking of this unacceptable trend; often, you’re an offender for noticing and speaking up about anomalies in the behavior of ‘spiritual’ people.

Over the years, much criticism has been given in regards to my frankness (trying to keep things real) and upfront ways; way too often in fact. So much so, that I’m quite infamous (especially in the UK Yatra). Many today seem to enjoy saying that I am ‘very offensive’. Others, that know me well, will say that it’s mostly because of my constant refusal to just ‘go along’ with absorbing so many irregularities and unacceptable behaviors; especially from Men.

Why specially from men?

First, I would like to acknowledge and express my appreciation for men of steady and great character, as this does not apply to them; and most ladies, because ladies are more straightforward with me; they simply like me or dislike me – usually strongly – and that is just fine. With ladies, once the relationship is established, we then get closer or just move on. But with men it has been quite a different story.

For a start, Vaishanva men (or so they think) are constantly attempting to contact me on facebook, to be their ‘friend’. Many times getting very upset if their intentions are questioned, or when I mention my husband; which they should already know, being that my status says: MARRIED!

When they try to engage me in conversation – if not for a specific service or question – it more often then not, goes like this:
Devotee Man: Hare Krsna Mataji…
Me: Hare Krsna prabhu, How can we serve you?
Devotee Man: Where are you? or …. Where do you live?
Me: How can my husband serve you?

It usually stops there, but if the conversation continues a little further, there are usually two outcomes:

1) They get insulted and try to shame me, sometimes even insulting me for asking what it is that they want, or
2) They just get upset, insult me and go away.

I have roughly three men per day (friend of a friend, or a complete stranger from within the devotee community) asking to connect on FB, most strangers are declined, of course. Only once in a blue moon will a lady seek my attention, and when they do, I am so very glad.

Secondly, after I meet an aspiring devotee in a male body, in person at a temple, an event or kirtan, or even online, more often then not – and especially if they are a little older – there is quickly, a clear undermining of my capacities. This is followed, way too soon, with the preaching of personal philosophy with a hard and clear attempt to control who I am, what I do and how; as if my prana (life force) is now theirs to control, to use to their advantage, rather than mine to use in the mission of spiritualizing the whole planet.

In the event we do begin serving together in some way (apart from a very few cases up to today), a very clear competition is soon established, usually ending badly. Because, when it comes to articulating reason, common sense and expressing their clear capacity to prove themselves worthy of either being followed and/or adored (as some work so hard to do) they fall short, and are at a loss. The only thing for them after that is to engage in a ‘correcting Aradhana campaign’. (Some women have also tried this, but again, it is rare.)

What most are not considering is a bigger and more complicated problem. Our spiritual intelligence is granted by Krsna Himself, and only because of our sincere love, dedication and honesty. This intuitive knowledge facilitates the complete understanding of anyone’s ‘hidden agenda’, and that has been priceless.

Akrura (great scholar) visits the cowherd ladies to learn about Love of God.

Most of the time, in this material world, when someone sees the great potential of another – especially if there is a ‘seniority complex’ – there is an absolute and pointed desire to conquer; the urge to control and utilize others’ amazing energy, only to achieve one’s own desires, being whatever they are. And when this ‘how to control others’ is thought out and strategized, it’s commonly done while fully disregarding any of the spiritual etiquette instilled in us by Srila Prabhupada. So, depending on the sincerity level, which may be low in many cases, defeating a soul in a ‘female body’ becomes more important than the service.

Srila Prabhupada explained many times this important fact, that must be understood: we’re all gurus (with different levels of knowledge, of course) and bodily designations are to be disregarded.

“We are not this body” is indeed the very first lesson.

This being so, why is it that I have been reminded again and again that I am a ‘female’, especially when it comes to ISKCON’S authorities; big and small alike. It has been the case that when positions of responsibility are sought (by me, or other ladies), bodily designation remarks are there every time. Even if just to avoid the consideration of a ‘woman’ filling such positions.

Most positions of authority, and 95% of the time, have been given openly and irresponsibly to men demonstrating a pronounced lack of: spiritual (or even mundane) etiquette, Krsna consciousness, and even a basic understanding of the true value of all souls. Just see what is actually being done to the Hare Krsna movement today!

Hindu Temples everywhere? Unimportant and irrelevant rituals, such as burning Ravana outside a temple? Is that really the goal?

My deepest concern is that for so long now, this distasteful approach has become quite clear. Where do I send sincere souls to enjoy Krsna’s presence in a temple, where nobody will prey upon them!

And these prominent issues are not only noticed by me – of course – but by so many that love Srila Prabhupada and his lovely temples (as they were), who also face the same predicament. Today, it’s very difficult to have authentic transcendental interactions with others; so many are not even nice people. It’s my feeling that this is due to a lack of proper Vaishnava etiquette and a minimum level of sincerity.

Certainly I have here only touched the tip of this iceberg so it may be that this will become a series of short articles, because this is a serious matter that needs expression.

I feel strongly that the younger generation needs guidance, and as they much prefer short and pointed information, here we are; simple, and without a great need for dropping slokas or long convoluted exposés. It is about loving God (Krsna) and His creation which includes every amazing living entity in this realm and beyond. Simple really! Right?

The Vedic Times is here to stay, and we remain keen to serve true Vaishnavas, spiritual seekers and all darling souls. We do prefer the ones that are willing to stay level headed, kind and reasonable, regarding all matters; of course!

To be continued…

By Ana Lucia Alves aka Aradhana

Chanting Yoga in Spain

This Summer, we will be near Madrid, in sunny Spain.
Four days and three nights of Chanting Yoga Retreat.

Please visit Chanting Yoga for further details and to book – Thank you

Arrival date: Thursday July 16th lunch time.
Departure date: Sunday the 19th late afternoon.

This historical ‘Conscious Farm’ is a fabulous location to relax, learn, reflect and communicate peacefully.
You will develop skills that not only enhance your day-to-day life, but you’ll also acquire tools that eliminate stress, allowing a balanced life from which to operate every day.

What is included:
Your accommodation
All courses and activities (hiking – swimming)
Three vegetarian meals (light at night)

Not included:
Your flight
Your pick up and drop off at the Madrid International Airport

Who is teaching:
Chanting Yoga & Pranayam ~ AnaLucia aka Aradhana
BowSpring Yoga style ~ Karina Telerman
Kirtan leader ~ Radha London Isvara das (Mandali Band)

Visit Chanting Yoga for further details and bookings
See you there!

Yoga Diet

NUTRITION AND YOGA

Arguments for vegetarianism are strong in all aspects from HEALTH, ECOLOGY, ECONOMICAL and SPIRITUAL perspectives.

HEALTH

  • Human teeth are designed for grinding and chewing vegetable matter (like herbivores).
  • Humans lack sharp front teeth characterizing of carnivores – they swallow food without chewing and so don’t need molars or jaws that can move sideways.
  • To digest meat, stomach must contain digestive juices high in hydrochloric acid but humans and herbivores have this less than 1/20 the strength of carnivores.
  • As meat is corpse, it produces poisonous waste as it goes through the body, so it must be eliminated fast. Carnivores do this with an alimentary canal 3 times their body length. Human alimentary canals are 12 times body length allowing more toxic effects in the body.
  • The kidneys extract waste from the body and so must work tree times harder for flesh-eaters than for vegetarians. Youth can do this, but for older people it’s more of a strain causing risk of kidney disease or failure.
  • Natural flesh eaters can metabolize large amounts of animal fats and cholesterol. Humans cannot. The imbalance excess creates fatty deposits clogging the arteries, called atherosclerosis. This blocks flow of blood increasing chance of heart disease, heart attacks, strokes and blood clots.
  • Cancer can be caused by high-fat low-fiber diet, which meat-centered diet tends to produce. As meat goes through colon, it releases poisons called carcinogens (cancer producing) properties.
  • Chemical preservatives in meat can react with certain chemicals found in beer, wine, tea, tobacco, creating NITROSAMINES which are cancer producing.
  • Animals are fattened by hormones, tranquilizers, antibiotics, and over 2000 other drugs. They are still present in flesh when eaten, though there is no law saying they must be declared on the label.
  • Sodium nitrate and nitrite are used to slow down decay of flesh, making meat seem bright and reddish, but without them, it would be gray/green and repelling to customers.
  • The pain to animals being slaughter produces pain poisons, which enter into the flesh (urea and uric acid) which further poison the flesh.

Vegetarianism is not a synonymous for boring meals!!!

NUTRITION

  • Often meat eaters feel vegetarianism means lack of protein but the eight of the 22 essential amino acids that are needed by the body, which came from protein, can be found in abundance in non flesh like: DAIRY PRODUCTS, GRAINS, BEANS, and NUTS. Cheese, peanuts, lentils for example, contains more protein per ounce than hamburger, pork or steak.
  • Some studies have found that both vegetarians and meat eaters take in more than twice the amount of protein needed. It can’t be used by the body and so becomes NITROGENOUS WASTE burdening the kidneys and reducing body energy capacity.
  • Proper vegetarianism also gives more nutritional energy than meat: A Brussels University study by Dr. Iotekyo and V. Kipani showed vegetarians could perform physical tests 2 to 3 times longer than flesh eaters before exhaustion, and fully recovered from tiredness in 1/5 of time for meat eaters.

HIDDEN COST OF MEAT

  • In terms of calories per acre, a diet of grains, vegetables and beans will support 20 times more people than a meat diet.
  • Using grain to feed animals for meat is very wasteful: for every 16 pounds of grain, you get 1 pound of flesh.
  • A report to the United Nations world food conference stated that: “The over consumption of meat by the rich means hunger to the poor”.
  • Some ecologist found that 1 pound of wheat growth requires 60 pounds of water while 1 pound of flesh requires 2.500 to 6000 pounds of water.

DO UNTO OTHER

  • Slaughterhouses contain screaming animals that are subdued by electric shock, concussion gun or hammer blow.
  • They are placed on conveyor belts and have their throat cut while on conveyor belt.
  • Pythagoras was vegetarian (and would pay fisher men to throw fish back into river).
  • Advocates of vegetarianism included Benjamin Franklin, Adam Smith, Shelley and Leo Tolstoy.

Please check out our amazing Retreats

Our ‘Chanting Yoga’ Website here

Healing Arts

Our very first HEALING ARTS program is our FEMALE ARTISANS group ~ in Vrindavan, India

To give please click our donate button below. Thank you!

This caring project is to assist ‘low to no income’ and/or unprotected ladies so they become more able to take care of themselves, family and their children.


Ms. Sudha Pandey is our local responsible

As Subhadradryia dd isn’t currently in Vrindavan, Mrs. Sudha Pandey is kindly taking care of everything and teaching the ladies the art of sewing. The ladies are happily learning and producing.

Please contact us here if any inquiries.

In January 2020 we’ve bought their very first machine. Our gratitude to their donors.

We’re at still specifically fundraising to buy materials and more sewing machines for them. The price for one good machine is of approximately US$100.

Please give generously. Thank you.

These Artisans to be ladies are mostly married women who come from a poor financial background. Most of them work as farm labours – they help with work on other people’s agricultural land, earning about USD 2 per day.

Education: 90% of these ladies have not studied beyond grade 4 in school. 5 % have studied up to grade 8.4 % ladies have studied up to grade 5.

Less than 1 % have completed high school.

Three of our artisan students

The main needs of these ladies:
* Financial stability and improvement in their living standards.
* Medical services ( as there is no hospital in their vicinity – the nearest being 20 kms away)
* A School in their village.
* Better Employment opportunities for women.

These are women staying in villages which are about 5-7 kms away from the beautiful and deeply spiritual Vrindavan town.

All products manufactured by our artisan ladies will be sold in Vrindavan and on our online shop (coming soon). The profits are directly and solely used for their proper housing and livelihood.

Or if you’re inclined to donate any materials please contact us!

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This program was started by Subhadradryia personally. She is a qualified Palliative Doctor and the widowed mother of a lovely girl.

Subhadrapryia Devi Dasi

Yoga & Ethics

CHANTING YOGA BEGINS AND ENDS WITH ETHICS

Ethical behaviour is essential for developing harmony within oneself and with others, and yoga offers a systematic ethical and spiritual path of consciousness transformation.

Patanjali described yoga into eight interconnected limbs that led progressively to higher stages of health and awareness.

~ Ethical restrain, not harming, truthfulness, not stealing, Self restrain, cleanliness of mind and body, contentment.
~ Posture: cultivation of profound physical steadiness
~ Breath control: to control and channel life force (Prana) in the breath.
~ Sensory inhibition: Withdrawal of the senses from the external world into the interior self.
~ Concentration: locking attention on a single object.
~ Meditation: Profound state of quite and relaxation
~ Ecstasy: Transcending state of integration with the infinite.(Cameron, 2004)

Chanting Yoga and its relationship with therapies

  • Yogic approaches emphasize somato-psychic functioning of a person in the present moment and are not concerned with past psychological history, and thus are quite different than many of the present-day psychotherapeutic techniques where past psychological history dictates the significant direction of the therapy.
  • Yogic therapies are based on self-regulation and self-regulation of the patient, whereas pharmacotherapy or most of the psychotherapies foster dependence either on a physician or on a drug. Besides, yoga therapies remain an essential part of the multidimensional model of natural and spiritual healing.
  • Tranquilizers or antidepressants reduce the sensory stimulation feedback, thereby decreasing somatic and psychic awareness. Besides, pharmacotherapy not only disturbs homeostatic rebalancing, but also decreases motivation and self-insight.
  • Both psychoanalysis and meditation are based on the idea of increasing the area of consciousness creating more control of the “Self”. They both trace the cause of human suffering in the past and belief that unless the past is unearthed and brought to the consciousness one cannot get rid of suffering. Though the approach is different, psychoanalysis and meditation both help in visualization and relieving but meditation leads to transcendence. Meditation has several advantages over psycho-analysis.
  • Psycho-analysis may help in exposing 10-20 % of the past before the patient’s consciousness, meditation however if done regularly, will expose 100% before him, thus this is the only technique that promises the full liberation from bondages of ego or antahkarna.
  • Psycho-analysis primarily focuses on the search for the final goal, in doing so, it blocks freedom and happiness, as in obsessions. Meditation on the other hand removes all obsessions, hence brings freedom and happiness.
  • In Psycho-analysis, there is a significant role of transference and counter- transference, where as in meditation, there is no role of the same.
  • Psycho-analysis is time consuming and expensive to undertake, where as meditation does not involve any expenditure, as one has not to purchase time from the analyst and can practice mediation in their own surrounding and time, after having mastered the art (Goel, 1993).
CHANTING – IS THE NEW YOGA

Our Chanting Yoga Website here
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Eco Village, Vastu Huts

For your Peace of Mind

The Vedic Times Org’s mission is to empower and enlighten all spiritual seekers to become stronger and holistically independent.

One of its projects include our SADHU & VASTU HUTS.

We look forward to developing these in different locations on the planet because this will assist the healthy growth of our beautiful ‘spiritual community’.


Advantages to self-sustainable eco-village living:

1. Holistic Education, free and paid, including spiritual education.

2. Preventive Health Care education (also helps removing drugs, alcohol, etc).

3. Micro-Farming – Permaculture – Education (free and paid for).

4. Production of other “organic products” e.g. honey, dry fruits and flowers.

5. A community where neighbors understand and care for one another.

THE HUTS

Mayan Style Palapas

ECO-VILLAGE ‘s POSSIBLE LAYOUT:

With Vegetable and Flower Gardens in the center

We’ll have two sizes to start with

Vedic Times Hut I

Vedic Times Sadhu Hut I ~ Feet
Vedic Times Sadhu Hut I ~ Metros
Picture by Carlos Caceres

Vedic Times Hut II

Vedic Times Sadhu Hut II ~ Feet
Vedic Times Hut II ~ Metros

Please right us below to get more info, to get on the waiting list or to receive our monthly newsletter.
Thank you!