phillipahtmann

I am substitute teaching today for a gym teacher.  I watch the young high school students playing basket ball and wonder:  does Krishna ever adopt inventions from the material world into the spiritual world? 

Aghasura came to mind.  When Krishna first saw Aghasura, a great mystic yogi who had transformed himself into a giant serpent seven (or so) miles long, He became momentarily amazed at how well the material energy was working.

The question is does Krishna ever import inventions of the material world, such as basketball, into the spiritual world?  What if His devotes like to play basketball with each other for athletic exercise. 

Therre are many forms of recreation mentioned in the Vedas.  The cowherd boys would wrestle with each other and play various games among themselves, including a game of ball using a certain kind of hard fruit.  Balarama played Chess against Shakuni.  And Lord Chaitanya's pastimes are filled with dancing and chanting the mahamantra:  HARE KRISHNA, HARE KRISHNA, KRISHNA, KRISHNA HARE HARE |  HARE RAMA, HARE RAMA, RAMA RAMA, HARE HARE. 

I did a lot of chanting today and time passes quickly.  In the spiritual world time has no effect: one can stay in the moment forever, or move backwards or forwards in time.  Time is conspicuous by the absence of its effect.

But this is not the case here in the material world.  I have to stay here until at least 2:15 pm, even though I currently have no work to do.  So I can write this journal, or meditate upon the mahamantra, or study Hindi, and compose this journal entry all from this computer. It’s now 1:20.

I am about to self publish a second novel which currently consists of a collection of thirteen short stories which chronolog my senior year in high school. It will be about one hundred pages long, but I may add more short stories to it from time to time.

Time, to time. Suddenly my mind takes me to another place which I shortly forget, just as dreams come and go in the night.

I have a journal which I call The Diary of a Semi-Automatic Writer. It consists of thoughts that flow into my mind as they occur, as well as contemplated and edited paragraphs. I am currently in the library, and I hear a loud African American voice from behind me talking about retiring. What I am looking for is that occupation from which I will never desire to retire. I like what I am doing now. I get paid as a substitute during which time I compose poems and journals. study Hindi and Bhagavad Gita (http://vedabase.net/bg/en), and have a lot of free time.

It is nearly 2:00.

I have diabetes type two, so now I have got to go out and get exercise.  I went for two short bike rides today.  I will have to join a gym.  I should not complain.  Many people do these things for health and pleasure. It should also help me transcend my depression.  So the diabetes is a good think if I can control it by exercise.

Laziness and depression are my old comrades.  I am reluctant to let them go. But going blind with diabetes doesn’t sound appealing.  The trick is to overcome the depression enough to get moving.  The diabetes can be cured by exercise. It isn’t easy when the mind keeps accepting and rejecting ideas.

I went for a drive and chanted Hare Krishna.  It was like going out and hanging out with old friends.  Then I came back and watched the grandchildren play for a while. I meditated on how they are parts and parcels of Krishna in maya.  Maya knows how to hold them, and all other conditioned souls in this world. 

10/3/09 Yesterday I rode my bicycle for about 45 minutes and brought down my sugar level.  Type 2 diabetes can be controlled by regular exercise, so I plan to get a athletic club membership.

In the Ishopanishad is the following statement:

vidyāḿ cāvidyāḿ ca yas

tad vedobhayaḿ saha

avidyayā mṛtyuḿ tīrtvā

vidyayāmṛtam aśnute

TRANSLATION – Text 11

Only one who can learn the process of nescience and that of transcendental knowledge side by side can transcend the influence of repeated birth and death and enjoy the full blessings of immortality. 

Although we are eternal spirit soul, still we have to take care of the body.

 I half heartedly swatted at a mosquito on my hand, not wanting to be bitten, not wanting to give some poor mosquito mind and body covered soul a bloody sqaushy death.  The intricacies of Karma are very difficult to understand.

 My wife and I ended up listening to the beginning of the fourth part of four sessions of Shantaram on our way from Ozark Folk Center State Park near Mountain View, Arkansas.  We had listened to the first part of part three on our way from Fairfield, Iowa to Rolla, Missouri yesterday.   But it gave me bad dreams about tortured prisoners.

 Karma.  The great equalizer.  What man does to his fellow man is sometimes abominable.  What he does to his fellow beasts is also abominable.  And at the same time, all the so called niceties of sense gratification are being pursued by our fugitive human race.

 It’s all very complicated.  My wife and I went to a restaurant at the State Park.  We were greeted with friendly smiles from customers and staff.  There were various bird feeders positioned just outside the large glass windows that surrounded us in the dining room.  Squirrels and birds competed for seeds that had been left for them.  It all looked very cute.  A few humming birds pirched on their feeders to enjoy fresh nectar left for them. 

 Inside, pleasant elderly couples feasted on the flesh of slaughtered pigs and cows, along with cakes, cobblers and vegetables.  My wife and I shared a vegetarian burger and cooked vegetables over wild rice.

 We talked about Pat Conroy’s book, Beach Music, which Anita was reading along the way.  I read a few selections out loud to her.  The protagonist, Jack, is a writer of travel and food journals.  I was thinking that I could do the same.  The big problem is that I have very little patience for mundane details.  I told Anita (my wife) that I might be more enthused to write with as much detail if I could get someone with some credentials to write a review of my book, and then get my book publicized.

I pause too often to think of what to say.  Ah, for that sweet gift of inspiration which runs ahead of me and fills my mind with ideas that capture me and that I must share with my audience.

We are looking for those who are attracted to what is actually attractive.

What is actually attractive?  What is actually attractive is attractive to all living beings throughout eternal time.  Unfortunately, we have forgotten eternal time.  For most people, the idea of an all attractive being is as fantastic as one who is all powerful, all knowing, all beautiful, renounced, wealthy, and all famous.  Only God could be that opulent. 

And that is why we are  all so unwilling to believe.  We are actually unwilling to perceive such a Personality, and that Personality withholds Himself for that reason.

I do not doubt it.