“They should be in the prime of their lives. But instead, those in their twenties and thirties are in worse health than their parents, a survey has found. Binge drinking, ready meals and a lack of exercise all take their toll. As a result, the young are more likely to have migraines, catch a cold or become stressed than the over-55s.” (Daily Mail, UK)

Is the “civilized human being” headed for extinction?

We read in Bhagavatam today that dog life is condemned. However, sometimes I wonder.

We started out with two dogs when we moved to our new location in the middle of nowhere. Over five years the population has increased to 20 dogs. They all look the same, skinny, with pointed ears and long tails but in various combinations of black, white, tan, and scruffy brown.

Somehow they take care of themselves and multiply twice a year. But they have a lot of free time to run in the open fields or lay on top of a mountain of warm sand. In fact that is what they seem to do all day.

I read an article stating that girls are reaching puberty at three years old in Britain.

There is something wrong with our modern diet and environment for sure. Some doctors say it is from the fast food and others from contaminated water.

Nothing is safe in the modern world.

I used to look up in the sky on cold, clear winter nights in northern Canada and marvel at the quantity of stars in the sky. I used to think there must be other living being somewhere in the universe.

It’s hard to see the sky at all these days. But astronomers say our milky way is approximately 100,000 light years in diameter with between 200, 400 billion stars in it. A light year is 9,460,730,472,580.8 km.

Tata has produced a new car for $2500, but BBC says it is partly plastic, held together with adhesive, with terrible pollution standards. When will someone produce a cheap car that does not run on petrol? That would be news.

Some say it is imagination to say the climate is changing. But I think the climate is changing. It has changed suddenly.

For five years we lived with dry level fields around us stretching for a kilometer on both sides. It was so dry for nine months of the year that even grass would not grow.

It is called grazing land in the official land records, but not many cows would willingly go there. But this year the fields have been green all year with tall grass and often water logged. It has become the favorite place of the buffalos.

I wonder what will happen next year.

The waves wash in a plastic bag. A dead turtle. A strand of seaweed. The waves then draw them back again taking further and further away, deep into the ocean.

A billion galaxies shine in the sky a million light years away, and then disappear after another ten trillion years. Mahavisnu breathes out and billions of universes appear. He inhales, and they disappear.

ISKCON - as an organization we remain loyal to our founder and the system he established. However, there are many ways of interpreting “loyalty” and “system.”

At the same time we have to have unity. Therefore we must have room for diversity in unity. But we have to draw the line somewhere. As well, we have to deal with the world beyond ISKCON.

One hour in my life: open my email. A confidential letter from xxx about yyy. Another letter by bbb complaining about qqq gurukula. A letter of rebuttal about qqq gurukula. Another letter about zzz zonal secretary. A nice letter from zzz.

Fortunately I don’t have to deal too much with sticky issues. I send the first letter off confidential to someone who should be informed. I ask www about the history of bbb and how to deal with the complaint.

I went to the beach today after a long time, though it is only five minutes away from our temple.

There was one couple in sight. Unfortunately, it was not so pleasant, because there was a high tide shore line of washed up plastic bags and cups stretching the length of the beach (the longest beach in the world?) at least as far as I could see.

Perhaps this was the accumulation of years which I had not noticed, or a sudden influx to greet the new year. There is also no garbage collector, or even a trash bin anywhere along the beach. There never has been.

During the last hours of the ride to Gangotri after sunset I dozed off as the bus bumped along in the dark at high speed, sliding across the seat as it turned left and then right, left then right.

On the trip back down the next afternoon, I realized the road we had traversed the night before: a single lane winding on the edge of a vertical cliff 200 feet above a raging river. I was on the edge of my seat for the first hour. I could never sleep under such conditions. Ignorance is bliss. Life in the material world, blissful, until we see we are headed over a cliff.

Nasty mosquitoes! All they do is bite and cause itching. When the mosquitoes disappear, then the flies appear, landing on my head, buzzing in my ear. Or a mouse secretly chews holes in the screens for keeping the mosquitoes and flies out. Or the ants start trekking in regimented lines over the walls, periodically breaking rank to feast on a dead bug or any crumb of prasadam left anywhere.

Get rid of all these pests! Brahma looks down from Satyaloka and says, “Who is that agitated fool disturbing all my creations?” The twentieth anga of bhakti is: do not disturb any living being.

Every act is significant. Every action leads somewhere. I perform countless actions every day. They all accumulate and lead somewhere. But I don’t consider where they lead. What blindness!