{"id":152,"date":"2008-06-20T23:17:49","date_gmt":"2008-06-20T23:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/?p=152"},"modified":"2013-10-06T23:24:10","modified_gmt":"2013-10-06T23:24:10","slug":"being-focused","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/being-focused\/","title":{"rendered":"Being Focused"},"content":{"rendered":"

Being Focused-June 20, 2008<\/span><\/p>\n

It has been almost one year since I wrote my last blog. During this last
\nyear I have been thinking constantly about deepening my own Krishna
\nconsciousness and facilitating others in their spiritual journey.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both of these areas are very much connected. When one deepens their own
\nKrishna consciousness, natural compassion and love for all living entities
\ndevelops. Also the more we work to help others realize their true spiritual
\nnature, the more we deepen our own realizations.<\/span><\/p>\n

So with this mind, I will try to continue on as regular a basis as possible
\ncommunicating my thoughts on compassion, compassionate strategies,
\ncompassionate social structures, internal realizations, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yesterday I visited the headquarters for the Vegetarian Movement in Zagreb,
\nCroatia. The devotees were eager to introduce me to the leaders of this
\nmovement as I am one of the few “Vegan” leaders in our society and therefore
\nbe more readily acceptable to them.<\/span><\/p>\n

I should mention why I am following a “Vegan” diet. I am perfectly aware of
\nthe benefits of drinking cow milk and the emphasis on it in our philosophy.
\nI have no doubts about this as I have full faith in Vedic literatures and
\nthe teachings of His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada.<\/span><\/p>\n

My reasons for following this diet are purely ethical and emotional. Ethics
\nare an individual issue, as are emotions. Therefore I am not criticizing
\nanyone else for their choices, as long as they make their choices in life in
\nfull recognition of the consequences not only to themselves but to others,
\nand are fully in touch with the emotional side of their being.<\/span><\/p>\n

Oftentimes we hear emotions being decried as illusion or in devotee lingo as
\n“maya”, but they are an integral part of our self. Much of the study of
\nadvanced spirituality is based on the study of emotions (bhavas). The
\nspiritual realm is a realm of these bhavas. I don’t claim to be experiencing
\nthese advanced stages, but I am definitely interested in being fully
\ncompassionate, and compassion is not just a theoretical or philosophical
\nconcept. It must be emotion.<\/span><\/p>\n

I explained during class the other day, that the reason I don’t take milk
\nproducts (or other animal based foods including honey) is that I can’t take
\nthem. Why do I use the word “can’t”? Because I am blocked by strong emotions
\nand a sense of compassion (feelings and ethics). The very thought of eating
\nsomething that is the result of so much suffering (I am referring to how
\nmilk is produced in the modern dairies which I don’t need to discuss in this
\nforum), intensifies my emotions (sorrow because of my love for other
\nentities) to such an extent that I find myself frozen with grief.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I explain this in class the other day, some persons remarked that they
\nhad never thought of it in this way before. My comment to them was that they
\nshould get in touch with themselves and their own feelings not only about
\nthis particular subject matter, but also about all the aspects of their
\nlives. It’s interesting that in a group dynamic one often becomes subject to
\n“group think.” Prabhupada on the other hand wanted individuals who were
\nindependently thoughtful.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ok. Back to the visit to the Vegetarian Society as the purpose of this blog
\nwas to write about being focused.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I walked into their headquarters, I was greeted very nicely by the
\nperson in charge. However it was as if everyone else was ignoring me for
\nsome reason or other. As sannyasi-guru I am accustomed to big receptions at
\ntemple (outside the USA) so it was unusual to not have more attention.<\/span><\/p>\n

Later on I realized that they were not ignoring me but were simply absorbed
\nin their work. They were all seated at their computers working on different
\nstrategies to push their agenda (protecting animals from slaughter and other
\ntypes of mistreatment). I was amazed at their focus.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was informed about their great success. Their website has over 4,000
\nvisitors per day. They have effected major changes in the legal system of
\nCroatia including getting ciruses (in which wild animals are used as
\nperformers) outlawed in the country. Also it is illegal to produce fur in
\nCroatia because of their efforts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Later on I was informed that most of them worked as volunteers, and that the
\nones that did get maintained were splitting on salary amongst 4 people to
\nsave money for their mission. They were so intent upon saving money that
\nthey were eating very little and depended on our (Hare Krishna) restaurant
\nto supply them with whatever food was leftover after we closed for the day.<\/span><\/p>\n

I could see that they had a real passion for their mission. As I remarked to
\nthe devotee who took me there. “Wow, if we had as much passion and
\ndedication to our mission, we could do miracles for Srila Prabhupada.”<\/span><\/p>\n

What is the reason why we don’t generally find such dedication and passion
\nor to put it in a positive way; how can we develop the same or greater focus
\nand passion in our own work?
\n————————————-to be continued tomorrow——————————-<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Being Focused-June 20, 2008 It has been almost one year since I wrote my last blog. During this last year I have been thinking constantly about deepening my own Krishna consciousness and facilitating others in their spiritual journey. Both of these areas are very much connected. When one deepens their own Krishna consciousness, natural compassion read more>><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[45,46,42,48,26,43,47,44],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153,"href":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions\/153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atourcity.com\/bkgoswami.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}