I FORGOT

Can’t sleep though I think I want to and of course, the lap top does what it wants to as does Srimati’s antiquated key board that kills me with frustration. It’s only good point is, it is not ingrained with filth as are the Indian Key boards.
Vishaka has come down with what we suspect is the mumps. Rasa rani now has the mumps and Typhoid and with love gave shaka a big hug before leaving Mayapur. So when this fever dies down, excuse the rotten pun, I shall take her to the hospital to check for this typhoid thing that I know nothing of bar that people die of it.
It’s crazy being here. I can not abide any politics, local or otherwise. I rant at the irrelevant nonsense on the telly and amuse myself with the evident contradictions that no one seems to be noticing. We head into full stream recession which I am willing to bet will go into a major depression and the government……. the government, comes up with the genius idea to hand out money to the poorest and there by, silliest so they can spend it so, bringing happiness to industry and ultimately, the tax coffers; all for what? To continue the enslavement of man to consumerism so as to facilitate a few who gruesomely stand by and watch having lost the novelty of consumption and now gloat over the next conquest, control over those still addicted to consuming or struglling to abnegate the awareness that they, in fact, can not do so. All this while I hear Vishaka, fretting in her sleep and I worry that this darned thing is bloody Typhoid.
Of course, our darling Srimati fears technology and refuses to get broad band, the net is down and I can not research typhus. I can’t post this whine either.
So we hit a recession. I guess that is as a good a reason to be back here as ever as when it really hits the west it will be like shit on the fan for the east. India will be decimated, but that is just my view. Maybe they can wear it and become the Brave New World. There is a laugh. All they really need to pull it off is some fresh air and maybe some public bins…….eh? I mean I like the frantic randomness. I like the manic, disabled, edginess but gees guys, does it have to be so bloody filthy. Have you no regard for your mother earth? You piss shit and spit at random, you throw your garbage in the river without a care. Christ, you toss your dead and live babies in the waters that feed the next village. I think the rules you may once have had to ensure public health are just a tad muddled and religion got mixed in with blatant foolishness. Oh , I forgot, your solution was to put more crocodiles in the river. Gee, what a darned good idea.
Well, I guess you can see that I probably need to sleep as I am criticising my holy cow, India. I am resentful just now as I had a bad trot there with a few folk that live by a different code of ethics. I watched an Australian comedian tonight by the name of Adam, I forgot, but God he was funny. So damned Australian and I so needed it. He understood it as we do. This Indian smarmy political bullshit that is simply a veneer for mafia like mentality, wreaks of hypocrisy; it makes full time harsh faced cussing Aussies look like saints, humanitarians and , get this, geniuses; that’s right guys, geniuses. We are a smart bunch. I just wasn’t smart enough to know that I didn’t need to leave to get it. I don’t regret going. It blew my mind but I stayed too long and it proceeded to fracture my heart. When I watch the news now and see any human tragedy I struggle to prevent the tears. I don’t think anyone around me knows how bad I feel inside and I don’t think any of them could understand. I am trying to figure it out. Is it long term grief accumulated by a collection of things?
We moved to West Bengal, we taught and worked really hard. We dreamt and hoped but we were usurped, undermined, maligned, slandered and in the end a coo finished it off. We lost the school. We lost our children’s safe education. We lost a home, a car and our health. Hey we even lost a couple of Gurus. One to politics, he favoured it over his relationship with Sucih, he being PVS. And Jayapatak was devastated by a stroke that will have him crippled for life because no one cared to care for him. Maybe they tried but it seems, not bloody hard enough. He can’t even breath on his own and some of his ungrateful god brothers think this is some type of symptom of spiritual inferiority. Christ, is nothing sacred amongst you guys. You’d tear each other up just as soon as gnaw on each other’s bones. Descendents of rackshasa and Indians, well what resides there now, what ever they have descended from it lost its grace long ago. Hey Pramamanjari. Just wave those cheques about and the world is at your finger tips. You can even judge us if you have enough dough. Hey, do you believe in Karma by any chance?
I do , so I bow down and thank the lord for caring for me and giving me enough pain to know that I am alive which is a something because though there are a few funny live wires in Aus with God given intelligence, quite a few of them are asleep, permanently. It really is too peaceful here to do anything else.
Oh, and the colic I got somewhere between here and Kolkata. What happened in that restaurant called Fire and Ice? Or was it the plane? Or is it the lota I drank from that Gauranitai had used. He has some cronic intestinal fluke that has troubled him a lot. Bargh.
I went into an op shop looking for a top for shaka. Can’t seem to keep away from lace and silver bicky trays. Homless and hopeless eh?
I’m thinking heaven in the foot hills and an old cottage with a bit of wear that can handle us. A seriously submissive partner would make it all perfect. One power trip from him and he can ………well you can imagine what a girl might say after the shit I have been through. I do not need any more bullshit form anyone. For me, he was one of the main contenders. What an obnoxious bastard he was in the office. Such grave contempt he had for me and why? stress or an innate sense of superiority? In a moment of generosity I would say we think differently and even be glad of it, but I think it really amounts to a pricks mentality and I am sure it will resolve itself. I certainly will not take any more of it. One hint of mister prick and it is prick loka.
hey, I edited my words for the sake of a few. Sorry. Must not be too tired when writing but hey, I don;t think the kids read it.
No worries, we shall have trees to gloat over and Radha can figure out her gravy train ride out of here.
Too bitter now. Not constructive at all. Wanted to vent I suppose. Must find that great word to name my blog. You, or should I say I will love it.

The bane or bris....e

I couldn't think of a more inane heading for subjects so diverse. My daughters are bickering over bloody eye black. WHo blacks eyes? Desperate measures for the misdirected.
My 9 year old son is attached to the remote. We don't have a tv and our Kolkata facility does. I am convincing myself that I am giving access to diversity. Tom and Jerry? Well, you could liken it to ..........some after your job. We could call it Vaikuntha and Sucih............lame, I know. Sucih has no cheese so poor old Vaikuntha will be seriously disappointed.
Shaka has a new ipod touch. She now knows what it means to be alive. I believe only an airbook can mean living.

Ok, this is borring. The idiot box is on and idiot waves waft through the air numbing my brain and turning my insides into a complete vacummmm, suck. I am empty. Sedated, just like Huxley predicted. And hey Braja...........you must read Huxley, you simply must. The shallow creature that I am can only be explained by he.

I love Kolkata. WHy? It has texture, it has this immense sense of community. They are alive, crazy and laughing, even the beggers.

I go to Brisbane, actually Bane is the term. the bane of our lives. Bris...........brisque brise is about it. Look it up should you not know.

God, I need a camera. I am going to obtain an iphone. All in one. I am sure I could write a book on that thing but maybe it would not be read.............

So we Leave Mayapur and this time I am not sorry on one level. Some there are just making it kinda narcky for us while others are being plain kind. I almost feel more sad for them than me.
Next chapter and from here, in all self preserving humility, it is looking good............ God willing.

And then there is the girl girl that "needs to release the thesis"

We will meet again.

slipping

He is sick, so sick we may never seem as we did again. Our only mercy is he hasn't left but in the end it is simply a preparation for the inevitable, be it now or later, we all pass from each other and our connections, tentative, imaginative, real or not, will have to sustain us because our bodies certainly wont. No more smiles, glances, words and passing by one another. No more touching of the head with the big stick and that hopeful smile in my direction, faith where non other had any.

I dreamt a long while ago that we hugged. I figured then that he accepted me and he had. I liked him and grew more and more fond of his child like nature. His immersion in Caitanya Lila. His impetuous need to keep moving as if compelled to achieve the unachievable. It is over now. He has stopped and may never move again. he may never speak again. Knowing him he will try hard to make it all work in spite of it all. One of the matajies saw him indicating for something, it was not his beads or his clicker. She realised later it was his black berry. I like that.

Save the past cos the future is a question, .........but I always thought there would be more.
I rode the roof of the bus down the Nepalese mountain and shared it with him. He was concerned. It was my last letter from him. I am only sorry my letters to him were so utterly self centered. I will not do it again.

He was recently so unwell looking and yet no one stopped him but then again who could. I guess some simply don't care either. Some were so cruel as to see the departure of Tamal as a mere event to forget. Can the heart get so hard? Can the sacred be lost even in death?

At such a cost.

Good bye.

We had two weeks in Vrndavan. The sadhus are inspiring. I love that conviction to the other worldy while all the while I am compelled to engage with the world. Good bye.....is life unkind?

Syncronicity appears and I heard from Keli kundali. I was thinking of her as I was a few others..

Radha got initiated by Indradumnya maharaj as did Vrnda. They are now Sri Radha ballabha and kamlaksi respectively,
I am proud that they have made the commitment and Radha is concerned for my spiritual life. Cute. But depression will always get me, comes with the age. But I am grateful, I am not alone.

Now tell me, where to go in the this quest to facilitate the family in pursuit of the spiritual. The spiritual requires the mercy of Laxmi. I have yet to master acquiring her grace but I must humbly request it as the family needs it more than ever. I really feel that not a lot lays in wait for us in the west but who am I to know what the Lord has in plan. Never very clear though some tell me it is always so obvious. Too gutless to see.

Dhruva's house was a dream. Inspiring. Sucih sprained his foot so was unable to go on pilgrimage. Predictable given his emotional angst and tendency to resent all that does not suit him. He must give it up if he can not adapt and that he can't.

I would like to go to Melbourne to see some old friends. Maybe we can shack up with the relatives that are a little less than fond of me, my inlaws.

Say all our good byes and do not live allowing a moment to be regretted. A life of regret. In the end this project was eating my family up and my family is more important for now than the school. The sad bit is the guys who want to take over haven't a clue about education. The shitty irony that is life.

So maybe Melbourne to see my old loved ones though it may never be reciprocated. kama goes to the UAE. Bummer, never will pass through that place.

I'll spend my whole life............left over. he sobbed when he fell. He sobbed so hard, cathartic. he said he hated them all. it has become so ridiculous, ludicrous, insane, anarchy, careless, brutal. We exit with a wonder at how and why. Feeling unwanted, ungrateful for what we gave. Left over wine.

More sobbs to come I expect. We invested so much but I fear it is to dying movement, strangled by stupidity of the young and presumptuous. parents of toddlers, barely able to grasp English what to speak of any devotional principles.

We go........but where? To the land of clear air and simple folk. No desperate folk anxious to walk all over us to survive.

They say it is Karma.
What is it you want from us? Let me know..........

Kolkata

Picture the car, three women, struggling to comprehend what woman hood means in the patriarchy, a most disabling place for the best of them. We sit in the four wheel drive traversing the pot holed road to Kolkata from Mayapur, all 90 kms of it and it takes about four hours, at worst. Ahhh but one woman is staving off a mild migraine and another woman seems to think speech is akin to breathing, it must be done at all cost. The migraine addled female, moi has one head phone blasting some inane madness that spouse has down loaded, some blues, some rank jazzy stuff and a few old favourites. Tanked to the roof with sedatives but unable to negotiate the disabling migraine, I am compelled to politely ask the driver to stop for the necessary puke by the side of the road. My only angst is the humour it gives to passers by as I am reduced to a pathetic huddle on the side of the road inspite of all modern comforts and facility. You can not escape the dictates of the material energy. I lean back in the car while the drone continues relentlessly trying to hang on to what little bile I have left. I remember in my mild stupor that I have forgotten my pyjamas........arghg, I lose control over the minor control I have and am compelled to vomit some more. What life can do to a girl. Nearing Kolkata I do not have the luxury of stopping the car and have to negotiate passing buses that come so close that they threaten to decapitate me while I chunder on the road to the city of Joy ever conscious of not ruining the duko of the newly acquired four wheel drive of our favoured driver.

But we stop and where else but the Hyatt to give little glamour to our trip to what used to feel like hell but is becoming more and more tolerable to me. Either Kolkata is improving or I am acclimatising. My first trip to this city was in 86 and I was horrified. There had been a rubbish strike but I was not to know this. I believed this was the natural state of the city and felt all human existence in the city to be some sort of mutated perversion on the natural sequence of things. I watched a person eat a white ice cream I had two thoughts, how did they get the ice cream white in this city of filth and, how could anyone eat in this place? I have come a long way and will happily devour ten Pushkas on the street straight from the hands of a friendly local. On Camac street of course, one of the better streets to shop on.

The Hyatt was fine with my newly emptied stomach ready to receive a rum ball and a Latte with a coke just for good measure. What sinful acts I perform. We sat in the clean and opulent ambience of this dream like place and forgot the woes of our cement clad squat toilets and red cement floors. All the gifts of a teachers apartment in Mayapur; we are a highly valued lot.

But God is kind to me. I laughed a little and spent vicariously through my friends. Helping to choose the items of purchase is as good as spending in my book. We ate some tasty food and enjoyed the momentary freedom of doing just what we liked, when we liked; even if I went home with little to show for my empty wallet. Forks, of the lowest grade, cups to cheer me in my pursuit of the perfect hot beverage and an outfit to represent myself to the world when I hit the West again. What is this West East? It appears they are merging.

Durga Puja offered visual delights as well as a bit of wonder at another peoples source of happiness. It is a sort of prolonged Chrsitmas that goes for days and days. They call it festival season. All manner of facilities shut down and it is bugger to anyone who finds it inconvenient. At this time the Gods come first. I like this but have only ever experienced it in the form of the morning of Christmas. It seems the ether is filled with a respite from activity on this sacred of days in Australia. Our only really sacred day. I heard a governmetn spokesman criticise the Aboriginal for having such long winded rituals. I rather like that life has a time when the vicious pursuit of metrialism must and will stop for higher thoughts, even if some use it as a means to pursue pure surrender to intoxication for a week or more. Who are we to dictate the terms that a person pursues his quest for devotion to whom or what ever.

Just found a new word in the dictionary, echolalia. You know what it reminded me of? The first time I ever saw a group of people chanting their jappa at Melbourne temple.I mean I thought these people were complete nut cases. It didn't strike me as a contradiction that I had been chanting myself as I had been doing it privately. All this public stuff was a bit weird to me. I am used to it now, but the freaks that do it on public transport.....that has got to be weird for a stranger to this stuff.

Must get to bed. My space has been invaded by the gender impaired spouse and It is hard to stay cheery. What is this thing we call marriage. A caging of ourselves from each other lest we offend. This process, this Vaisnava cult has a thing called retirement from family life, bona-fide and all. It's called Varnaprasta, cool eh?

Off to Vrndavan to discover what God has to tell me there. Answers to unasked questions. Perplexed with exigencies of the soul that remain inexplicable to me but remain non the less.

If you have a job for me........I will do it. I must earn my bread and butter in shores afar and haven't a clue what to do. If I was game, I would tell a tale and hope it paid my bills and dignify it at a writers festival while the audience sips red wine in Byron.
Dream on but dream I will. My mother finally got her twaddle published, surely I could have go at it. The things you think for a laugh.

Forty five year old women emerges from her chrysalis of marriage and breeding to live and breath her own. So tragically predictable. I am gripped with the inevitable fear of new birth but at the same time possessed of the thought that if I do not do it I will remain squashed in this confined place over ridden by the more important ego, someone else's valued son. What is this thing with men? WHo said they were the bloody ants pants of society? Luckily this resident ego hasn't the slightest inclination to engage with my world........there, is the joke.

passed by

Crusty old piece of news paper flaps against the window, stuck there to keep the cool in or the heat out. What ever reason, it looks deprived, rancid? Not quite, depraved. It looks plain sad. Flapping against the frame, a mild breeze, doing bugger all but looking poor and cheap. Broken down on the second floor window of the teachers building. The cheapest building of the lot. Proud of that they were. All gain and no pain, education at the bottom of the rung except for extremists and madmen. They call reform, I call it sabotage and not a GBC in site that gives a damn. Hahah, The joke is on me ............again. From the fire to Agni's lap and back again.

I write as a vent but so scared of what the world can and will do I feel impotent to vent lest it be re-construed and hurled back at me as arrows, ever disabling me from fathoming what the hell is going on.

You can read as much philosophy as you like; you can get up in the morning but that wont stop you from feeling it bad when they dismantle the house.

I'm tired and I want to sneak into some God forsaken corner to forget it all. Ok may be not God forsaken, how about his brethren?

Back to Aus to face another chapter of the unknown. The author of my own story in league with whom?

I gave the Moldavite away. Not sure if I am deluding myself by finding a way to palm off the pressure or is it that I empathise and care about the vacuity that can be experienced having bread more than the world needs and to less grateful arms than expected.

Nepal was great if you like to rough it. The austerity is immense. They know not, how to clean. But the mountains were to die for, but in this case I avoided that by sitting on top of the bus on the way down lest the breaks give out. My driving instructor of eons ago informed of the dangers coming down rather than up. Is there a metaphor there? No, I think aspiring is much more dangerous as can be attested in any religious movement you might like to mention.

Must get a job. Well, let syncronicty be my sister cos I haven't a clue. That'll teach me. Hoping to get back to Uni and study what I damn want to instead of what I have to. If not, I guess pushing trolleys will have to do.

Words of advice, do not join a club with promises. They come at a price if at all. Best jut to get on with it and let the idiots dream while the ingenious laugh.

Bitter moments of recrimination. Must pass through with self intact but I gave it up and must get it back.

SO bloody sad.

ouch

This white mac I have can cook a lap and leave it burning for hours. Lucky all my descendants have already taken birth. I would otherwise risk fried off spring.

We were bequethed a fish tank with desperate, sad fish who swim in circles looking for a life that will never happen. Ring any bells? These fish depend upon the mercy of the voyers that keep them, us. A child, I suspect came into our insecure home and poured the mother load of fish food into the tank. One poor fish just ate too much and lo, a week later the messengers of death came into our home and took little black fishy away. We tried to fix him with reiki but it seems we are not masters of that. You know I had this awful feeling about the tank some days prior to the departure of our black friend but I could not pin down what it was. Maybe I just did not really care enough about these fishy fiends that look at me as I pass by. Hoping against hope that as we walk by we may be the one to solve the perenial question. Why, oh why am I here in this undersized fish tank with a snail and a sucker. Actually, there are two snails, one adolescent. How or where it came from, I do not know as there was only one snail. Do snails need mates? This is what a fish tank will drive you to.

Who would be cruel enough to buy fish as decorative items? Who would stick a bird in a cage and why?

So, enough about the bloody fish that got eaten by the snail as soon as it was evident he could not defend himself. His eye ball sucked out by a voracious snail. His body nibbled by the gold fish until I fished his body out and flung it in the yard for some other creature to feed off. Do we feed off each other too, both psychically and otherwise? Is the tomato I eat grown in the soil that once helped the body of an interned muslim to decompose. I say Muslin only because they bury their dead here. The rest are burnt and thrown in the Ganga that floods the rice paddies which we feed off. Feeling like a cannibal now?

Now for intelligence. There is a quote I would like to share with the the very few that occasionally read this page. Actually I am sharing it with my alter ego. Left to myself as a child, I have a whole reality going, hence the presence of my blog, my alter reality.

So Joshua Reynolds had this idea.
"There is no expedient to which a man will not resort, to avoid the real labour of thinking"
Thomas Edison used it. I relate to it as I do remember having a very clean house when essays were due. Suddenly house work seemed so awfully important and in reality it is way down on the list of my life priorities. Of course I like to think that I am not a sloth but in reality I am a shamed person who cleans because of fear. Fear of my obsessively tidy friends and the scorn they try to hide when entering my domain. Some are quite skilled, others more verbose. One refused to sit on my couch, but really I am not that bad. It is clean untidiness, harmless enough. And of course you couldn't care less and I know that. This is all for me, not you, ya bugger.

And local politics. Well you know what I think. I think the silly buggers in this place aught to own up to the fact that they tried to burn the place down and admit culpability. Encourage people to reject gossip in future and have the courage and decency to admit a spasm, all be it a prolonged one, of sheer stupidity. Now wouldn't that be a generous and honourable thing to do? But these men have yet to encounter greater things. The rice paddies stretch too far and the netherworld remains a figment of hope and dreams. Dreams of idealised material life minus the onus to be human. A human being is honest. A human is humble and most of all, a human has the courage to take up responsibility even if all is at the hand of the Lord. Spare God some things and wear it yourselves.

Let me put in a clearer light. Parents are told of heinous child abuser risking safety to all. Thief, cheat and offender to the dignity of the righteous and true who educate their children. Parents stand indignant never questioning the source of this information. Management run with propaganda and give it some real significance. Heavens, if it is in print, it must be true. If some say it then it must be done. All in all never a question or doubt.

Upon finding all is lies and false statements, what do we have? Silence and a reinvention of the truth again. Lets just pretend it was about something else. Never ever say die or sorry. Never say sorry. Just like Johny Howard eh? Saying sorry admits culpability and we do not want that. Come on guys, slander me again, bring it on and in a new flavour. Damn, poor guys can't find anything on me. I do feel for you. Must be frustrating wanting to ruin a man when he is free of real crime or heinous sin. All to get your signature on that pink slip perhaps. MAybe not. Maybe you guys care about children after all and some how you think slander, gossip , innuendo and lies is an experience that is inevitable to survive this nasty world. Like fish feeding on dying fish. Or the pups i saw feeding off the dead body of their mother. Or the ants devouring the live worm. So how do we differentiate a human. At this stage of the game, we do not. Feed off me all you like guys but there isn't much flesh here. I'm straight, bummer eh? You will have to come up with more inventive lies about me to cull me. Maybe you could use my blog. Nasty piece of work so far. I figure I am simply reflecting my environment.

Mean while i drop my resentment but only for a minute. Kalki wants a night of game playing with the family and states we have let him down. "All you guys do is have head aches, go on the computer or do puja" I thought that was a good synopsis of our activities. Poor kid, came too late in the game to have fun with us.

The kitkats are too sweet in India and guess what guys, you can buy them on Iskcon property. Slam me for that will you.
Hey, sometimes i don't wear full tilak. Sometimes i have bad thoughts like , I want to stay at home and be away from you all. What other inebriaties can I tell you of that will help to condemn me and free the children from my sinful influence.

Now I know how those paranoid Russians from the communist period felt. All is spies and destruction. A mean world of survival based on dirt on each other. A movement to be proud of.

And activism is death. Activism is evil. If only I had one leader I could be proud of. All run for cover and hide for fear of offending, but why. Is it political or is it some idea that God doesn't like confrontation. Didn't get that impression from the Gita, that's for sure. Maybe they all have so much dirt on each other they tremble at what they could do to each other. Cold war perhaps. Heavens this communism thing keeps coming up.

I want to know what a really smart person thinks of this thing we call our movement. I know there are million perspectives but surly one of them will resonate enough with me to make sense of what it is I am presently experiencing.

I don't want to be pleasant for now. I want to tackle or grab the crap. I want to throttle it, propound it, reveal it and then smudge it till it can be reconstituted, redeemed and made into something good. Hiding and pretending is waylaying it and leaving it to inevitably rise again; to torture yet another perplexed human being trying hard to work for Iskcon.

Is it India, is it West Bengal. Does poverty drive a man to this madness? is it the material vacuum we experience here.

Given we all believe in Karma, we need to consider what it is we do in life and then wonder what next.
But, I think I am engaging in a more complex view of existence as this simplistic appraisal is simply not cutting it with me anymore. The answers are with some bright spark and I will have to try a little harder to seek them out.

Radha is listening to Hrydayanada Maharaja lectures. He gives such clear explanations without simplifying or assuming we know what the heck is going on. Without negating the need to know, as some would have us endure because of their inability to adequately articulate the philosophy in a way that satisfies the modern intellect. Spare me the swans and effervescent nectar. Given me some understanding before I start jumping around like another random religious lunatic.

shite....... forgive me my trespass as I....

Well, you really got to wonder who reads this. I got my first hate mail the other day and it quotes my blog to verify my hate worthyness. Gees, sorry guys. I didn't mean to hurt you or your kin. I get mighty precious and oh so rightous; it reflects my weakenss. I fear my kids following my long lost relatives misdaventures and they had a few. I am the product of one of those misadventures. Nothing like living the life of unwanted progeny. But it is neither here nor there. I do get my nickers in a knot about life style bacause we implicate ourselves through it. It's a tricky thing and again I apologise for being the insensitive, judgmental prig that I am. Forgive me.

It appears, I am incapable of friendship too. Well that is subjective and I figure freindship is a two way street. I can't really define that one. Sorry again, if I appear to have failed anyone in that regard. It is purported I have failed many. I will try and study this freindship thing more closely to better understand, what is exactly required of me.

I have been inspired by the thought of misanthropy, but I am sure that will fade, being intrinsically foolish at heart.

Too wordy , word, word, word, word. Just too wordy .

They bopped us one mean and good, and some enjoyed it just for fun. Some thought, "gees, get her while she's down and no one really cares" Eh? Is that how it goes? Or maybe the one where someone goes, " I made freinds with you because I thought you were in, and so now that you are out, I think i will let you know what a little **** you really are." I like honesty.

Eric Clapton has a song, No body knows you when you are down. I thought he was exagerating. Really thought these guys where inventing these experiences. Luckily I can crap on about it here.

I think it goes, No body knows you when your down and out. Well guys, it is pretty well near on true. And when you get back on your feet.......every ones wants to be your long lost freind. Ok shouldn't be too bitter here but do need to be more wary in future, lest I have to submit to some more of the advice.......in the form of hate mail. yuko. Keep it to yourself. No body wants to know how much someone else hates them. Awful stuff. We really need more of that in the world.

And Eric has another one where he goes, [it's playing in me ear this minute] "Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself."
No, the music isn't dharmic but neither is the subject matter. But my favourite is "Tears in Heaven." Remember guys, we will die one day and will we be happy with how we treated each other then? Having lost two old mates, I can tell you regret comes in truck loads. But I am not that smart. I don't even talk to my mother. But then, she doesn't talk to me either. That freindship thing again, two way.

While I listen to Eric, might as well listen to Layla original just for fun. Angst ridden adolescence to the tune of Layla. All gone now and I face the new phase of angst. The bit before you get really old and try to figure why it all happened in the first place. A woman fifty years old and wondering what to do with the rest of her days as her children no longer need her. Tears come down from her eyes, what can i do?

Been getting up early on occassion and facing a whole new pardigm never encountered before. Must be someone's prayers, as I certainly didn't do anything to gain any more insight. Figure it's a gift. That hard Stoic stance of tolerating the mind and finding it nearly redundant on occassion. Well mine is, cos all it ever did was get my knickers in a knott over things that in hindsight seem benign. The preverbial storm int he tea cup.

Moral high grounding. I will try to avoid it in future, it has been recently tried on me. I was, kind of aware at the time, but i figured I was coming from a genuine place trying to alert. I know our stories are our own, but we do create them. I had visions for the kids and they involved the least amount of burn. Learning from burning, speaking from experience, is tiresome, slow and more often than not, potentially dangerous. You can get lost out there. But then you can get lost in here too. But I do believe there is a process to gain a footing in sanity and it requires some application. These kids need to taste the alternative and If I have been prigish in my desire for this.......forgive me. I was a kid and there were no paremeters. I know all about freedom, too much of it. I watched those girls from good caring families with all those rules and restrictions and i would have given anything to have had that care. But it has to be full time, not spasmodic. Set a precedent and you spend the rest of your life fighting it.

Amber will be here soon with, rather large family in tow. Weather is good so all should be well.

And on that.......the nobody loves you song comes on again..........when you get back on your feet.............God, he is a great guitarist. And yes, if you are desperate to Krsnise it, he was best mates with George. Coping? Let the world in and maybe your world will be a nicer place. It's way bigger than you think. Good enough for God, oaght to bo good enough for us all.

All the kids are in Kolkata recording an album of bhajans. They are so excited.

Take care and don't hate the imperfections, it'll get you down.

A story

Once upon a time there was a man and a woman; I like those words. This man and woman being fairly mature, decided to have a family. They were blessed with four children with which they proceeded to live happy and contented lives. The man and woman were people of adventure traipsing around the world, kids in tow.
One day this family found itself in West Bengal, a place famed for the birth of Lord Caitanya, the last incarnation of God. This is where the story gets hairy but an adventure wouldn't be one without a little suspense and perhaps some drama to boot.
The real story...... starts here, on the bank of the Ganga, as she laps the shore or even the road according to her whim.

It seems the small and introverted community that the man and woman joined was a tad ethnocentric. Now this can prove problematic when declaring itself to be part of an international society of avowed Lovers of God. The small community that serves as inspiration to the world had decided one day to purge itself of all sin. The members of this isolated but internationally connected people decided that the local school was not pure enough, religious enough, loving of God enough and so the head master and board had to go. Unfortunately the man was the head master, what to do?
And so the man head master was advised by his good wife to go to the Lord and say, hey, whats the bag?
And so we are here waitng still but I fear it is evident that the bag has in it further adventures afar for this little family of six. Three girls and a boy with a man and a woman.
Adventures far away from West bengal or maybe close by but certainly not in this community. What the community is made of appears to a collection of willing participants in the dispersion of dues. The man and woman hope never to be engaged in such duties and so they are compelled to leave lest they too are commandeered to disperse some sorry and sad reaction to ones close by and dear.
Man and woman must run with children in tow and may never see the bank of the illustrious Ganga again.
Man will know that the world is made of conscious thought and that all actions have reactions in tow.
Woman will wonder why she is not growing strawberries in the mountains but then , what would her life be without a little adventure?
How the road for this adventurous family will end, no one can know but for now they go to the big temple close by and pray to janardan for release from the clutches of their loving peers who, bent on purifying and edifying forgot, .......to feed the dog.

Gees

Well now I stoop and tell you of the vile stench that has permeated my existance of late. The hot hot stench of gossip, thick and fast in my village and lucky me, it's all about us presently. Flavour of the month or should I say 6 months. No worries, it has made me smile on occassion. Like the one where we score $50,000 from the temple. Pity that cheque bounced. Or the one where I eat little sheep in the dead of night. Or the one where I abuse children on occassion. Or any other thing you can think of to justify loathing me even if you haven't met me or spoken more than eight words with me. No worries mate, I will oblige you with a snippet of dasterdly deeds to satiate your desire to justify hate. As I once foolishly said to Prima Dona of education, "bring it on" and she did.

So that nasty piece of vitriol lays waiting to become history and the sooner the better. It must be climaxing as I can see random acts of stupidity becoming more prolific. Don't talk to the parents, do talk to the parents. Don't consult with the directors, your words make too much sense. Oh please you are talking sense and logic. We can not abide it and blame it on a false secualr education. We want random feelings and superstition to guide us on our mery way to hell, no doubt.
The more I think of it the more I feel a quandry between sorry pity and pure disgust. Humour occasionally gets a look in.

The good thing is that inspite of the depth of frustration and malice that people feel towards us there is a hope that relationships may, in the end be mended. JPS must be praying hard as I do feel it will resolve itself. Like kids in a kinder, all has gone mad and mum has gone to dad. Heading over here with a wooden spoon or some lolly pops to distract us from each other.

Like fish in a fish tank it seems we are stuck together so we may as well get over the stench and learn some appreciation.
Vaikuntha Nitai is having a hard time of it but it probably reflects some minor hurt inflicted upon him. Sensitive chap that one. Not prone to depth or perspective, needs a little love and attention. Who better than Sucih to give it to him since he was the one that bruised the chap, ever so slightly but it seems knocks are considered on par with murder around here.

Not making much sense eh? no specifics and certainly no answers. Another story to meet the already growing multitude of stories that go round our little heads. This one involves butterfly wings. The tiny things in life roll into the enormous and then subside into the tiny once more.

A school, a community and some staff trying hard. Some parents decieved and a teacher perplexed. To teach or not to teach and all the while anxious that anyone else should take her place while not being able to do the job herself. Not to mention a newbie who seems fit to rule ......over her husband I hear and once in a while a poor maid as well. Gees I get bitter .

I'll try again. Lets see, we are not to write to the director but merely take it all on the chin and then hopefully roll over and die. I think these guys were born yesterday.

And the asram. The den of boys. What do we make of it but a hoard of vulnerable minds open to any adult ready to perplex. All the while ignored as if it didn't matter cos the guys have got better things to do, pick on Sucih as it seems.

The sane and insane and I am afraid there is near nil of the former.

I'm sick of it all and yet again foolishly expected more. Now I see we are always in the hands of the Lord. Draupadi rules but what a way to learn.

Bach comes to my rescue and reinstills a sense of beauty where I feel I may have been robbed. It's the beautiful things that enlighten and the horror that impells or compells us to it. There must be respite from the madness, there must be feeling were non seem to be. There must be tenderness where there seems non and respite from pain. Hate tempered and a resolve to be kind.

DO you think you could drop the spear for now. We too breath the God given air as God sees fit that we do. Seems if he thinks we are ok maybe you oaght to too , eh?
Back off luvy and stick to the mirror of the mind. That way we can both progress and keep out of each others way and all the while the kids see what the show really is. A show of people aiming for personal purity while encouraging and loving others, warts and all. Try it, takes the burden of the worlds faults off your shoulders and keeps the tiny task of house keeping a little closer to home, your own mind or heart being your soul sphere of influence so leave it at that will you?

Solar eclipse. Lunch at 12 Manas insisted to satisfy the resident astrologer. What fun it is to be in a third world historically spiritual town with vestiges of archaic rituals intact.

Spite leave me now, I am wasted and leave knowing no more than a message intact. Lower than a straw and more tolerant than a tree. Dignity gone and now all I have is a hope that we will be closer after it all. With a wide door for any new comers.

What a day; how to give it humour. Hours and hours at the long building,a very long building, spending hours learning the bureaucratic idiosyncracies of West Bengal Iskcon. Luckily I had two fiesty and capable highly trained Russians to smooth my way in the vaguely humiliting task of learning the ropes in efficcient book keeping. From wool spinning breeder who dreamt of bush dwelling only, to a third world dwelling religious advocate pusruing validation in things that I often cannot really reconcile with my perspective of a logically peacful existence. I am thinking that this whole record keeping set up is simply work for the sake of work. It all seems like arduous tasks merely filling time while waiting to die. I really can think of better things to do. Training kids on how to train kids to keep books on how to train kids to keep books on training. Blahhhhhhg ugh.

Maybe I am merely a lazy hippy at heart. At least I question the futility of over endevour but given the over population i guess it gives them all something to do. Like rats on a wheel. I can't help it, maybe I am merely an enjoyer and filling forms with numbers doesn't strike me as enjoyable.

I am presently torn between the class room and the office. I fear that I will miss the class room and yet the planning involved in schems of work has me utterly intimidated. So many mental hurdles that can only be jumped by application and experience. I am riddled with fear, apprehansion and a deep feeling of inadequacy. These feelings make me realise that education of children is about empowering them to fulfill their greatest potential. This is about self esteem, confidence and determination. Faith in the self to achieve anything if desired. Of course i am assuming the desires are pious and rightous, excuse the antiquated terms.

My girls are really learning so much about human interaction with each other. There is so much involved with compromising with each other and all along they are watching thier parents negotiate their own relations within the community.

I went to my room this afternoon and low and behold I was met with the stench of an animal. Perplexed i looked around thinking what can this be, do i stink that much? My flat seems to be the haven of random dogs in the area. What is that? I can only thank God he did not settel on my bed but he made a home on Kalki's clothes and kalki insisted they all be thrown in the wash. Sparing the maid of such a burden I had him wash then himself. The relatively sweet stench of a bald and very sad and meek dog; it is too cruel. As a kid I would have adopted him but it is not considered appropriate here so off he goes to fend for himself. He was so desperate, only picking him up and removing him would work. I had shaka do it as it was too revolting for me. A bald dog is just too scary, what disease does that dog have to make him bald. When he looked me in the eye I felt I was looking at a person. I hate all this conflict of obligation.

Jayaptaka Maharaja was subjected to 4 hours of school political trivia. He was so exhausted and then to patientely hear the nonsense. Faucault had a point when stating that rleativity in perception was pretty much irreconcilable. Varnasaram..... Is that about figuring out how to reconcile different approaches to reality or is there genuinly insidious intent. I think it has more to do with profound ignorance. Not to say i am not ignorant but I concede that another view is valid and true foe them. But at the end of the day pragmatics rule and decisions have to be made even if painful. I wonder if all this management stuff is merely implicating me in more karmic implication. I only hope this trascendence thing works and I can become free from the reactions of cousing disturbance to others. It is not with malice but merely driven by pragmatics.

Guilt at having caused trauma for premananda but there is nothing I can do as he chose it not me.
I am r if his heart is broken but he refused to cooperate in a genuine spirit. What to do as the cliche goes.

So no humour here eh?

We re-arranged the house again. It seems a form of Psychic cleansing for us, pathetic eh?


The first kirtan I ever went to i cried feeling I had finally come home. A sceptic would pick the experience to pieces as merely superficial but for me it was real and profound so why reject it. I am an imaginitve girl seeking more than the mundane to sustain my mirage of an existence.

Vrnda sits behind me while reading the abridged Bhagavatam to kalki.

Getting sentimental but what can I do, it's all pretty good. I whine just to temper the obscenely fortunate situation.


Days later.
Well aside from the mind bogglingly borring appreciation of my life I have as yet neglected to inform you of the true status of things. It is so mind numbing that I may just delete the happy happy lest some one think it's just a little too much. There.......gone ......with the push of a couple of buttons.

So I get a beautiful front loader to clean my clothes as the maid simply wont and low and behold the power fails me for weeks and then .......the bloody water cuts out. I mean what the hell is that?

Things on the political front are looking very Dynasty like and my solace is I actually have a country to go to or even an laternative job here. South Africa is no alternative so I pity the feelings there. I hear walking the streets there is risking ones life. Gee......what a dream. And then the race thing.......blahhhhhhrg.

If the urban village wives with small minded propensities are edging to rule, heavens what will it be like if they get their way? These gals and guys are real visionaries. While the world gets bigger their heads get smaller. Fear, ignorance and a drop of malice but what would a good day alive be without it?

Looking at alternatives lest this rabble achieve their aims. We have options ut I doubt it is true for all.

Off to sit in the temple and chant whie a bunch of others attempt the same. Lovely atmosphere but i do tend to wonder what drives us to it if the goal seems to perpetually evade us.

Who knows, our darling Govardhandari may yet have us back but ohhh how poor Ajita will feel about that.

interrupted weeks lapse into leisure

The screen has a couple of pages open and I can see Badens face pocking from behind this one. It is odd to have it pop up like that. He works as an associate Professor at Southern Cross Uni in the Arts department. He was one of the lovely people there, that made re-entering education a joy instead of a terror. Egalitarian and open.....to a couple of strange Hares that bred way too much. He demands a lot but I would love to bring his rigour here. You could dismantle this place ideologically but there would still be something left. An experience intangible although supported by the structure but not really of it.

Read the biography of Goerge Harrison called Here comes the Sun. It was primarily about his spiritual quest. I'm not sure he was focusing on Krsna on his exit but maybe you don't necessarily have to to go back. Maybe Krsna wants you more than you want him. I mean the guy had more than half the world chanting hare Krsna. Thats gotta be a weird thing to do and then not commune with krsna at death? What do i know? The picture is way too big for my pea brain and when I struggle with it I get a head ache.

Meetings, meetings, meetings, to accomplish? Stagnant inability to make stands. Get along with each other so we can along. I guess we are just watching time go by so might as well make it pleasent. The day is easy on me for now. The house is clean and the kids are happy and engaged. All is going on and there are no dramas unless there is one brewing as I write. Wouldn't be surprised but I have been trying that positive thinking thing. If I am a bag of hurt then I need to fix it. Whenever I see any one that looks like Vrkadar I feel trepidation. That guy brought pure hell to my existance and quite a few others. What Karmic resolution was that?

Been dreaming a bit about the mother. She isn't scary or even in control anymore. It is quite a break through for me. When I first started dreaming about her she used to be this huge spider devouring and invading. Now she is merely the partner she was supposed to be in this life we shared for a bit. She consummed me but I figure the dreams are evident of s tronger sense of self. This self thing is so darn painful. it's like looking into an abyss of unresolved emotion.

Bhakti Tirtha's disciples had a tribute to his passing yesterday. One of his disciples was telling us about Sunday classes he would give where he would be crying, every Sunday. Bhakti Tirtha was born in Cleveland in 1950 into abject poverty. He was educated at university due to a scholarship because he was particularly bright. He was first a humanist and then a spiritualist. That's what I got from him. That's the bit we lack in truck loads. So busy thinking about our own passage back to God head and forgetting each other. It's insane. All guru while we abuse each other to attain our goals in service. What are we thinking? And if humanism comes up it is poo pooed as some deviant distraction from the goal. And yet the Lord specifically says you haven't got a hope, guys if you can't get along with each other. What God did you think you were approaching? The God that belongs to you only.

So my kids are nearly grown and I am 44. Not long to go now and with my mobile giving me the ache it does, who knows when it will be. Am I ready.........nooooooo. But I want to be, so I am torn between this humanistic thing and Krsna as I know......intrinsically know, I am not going to get away with just meditating on the Lord and be blessed with a life free of human angst. No, no not me darling; humans have got loads of scores to settle and some of them are with me, no escaping it.

The fan offers no respite to the humidity. Poor Vishaka is at the Aircon free F........

We are talking weeks later. Life bumped me away from the key board. The key board acts as some kind of test and i retreat in haste.

Reading Edgar Allen Poe and enjoying it. Tried some Maupassant, however you spell it. The french are merely hedonists, not one moment of lucid insight. It was blah blah stories of petty village existence or the disgusting antics of the empowered. Maybe it is lost in translation but I suspect the Protestant movement of Britian invigorated the spiritual perspectives of the UK while Catholic Europe fell into spiritual malais and plunged into whole sale hedonism without remorse. I see nothing in it and am sorry I bothered with Guy's efforts. It appears evident in it's literature anyway but what do I know? nearly nil.

It seems all has settled here. The kids are happy and I shift into the office so I expect next term will be easy, on my voice box if nothing else. I lost a few octaves to that class. Sucih insists that I not raise my voice but it took me a year to feel the confidence to pursue that line of action. I lost a voice.

The Youngs may come over. Dhara gets here soon and shifts into Niscaitanya's place. Shaka will try to purge the misery that still clings to the walls. Nis fell into the blame game and hasn't quite seen the potential we all have to create our own misery. Misery is usually a self inflicted concept in our priveldged positions. Heavens! What have we to really complain of? Humidity; killer stuff. Job descriptions or schemes of work? I mean, this stuff is really soul pressing stuff eh?

In the mean time all is well as the Ganga rises and Poe poses prose I fell for as a girl.
Back to my sweet Lord and a few other diversion along the way.

what is it you want?

Cool breez blowing and I wish it was metaphoric as well.

Ok, so my bubble bursts and then what? I realise life is serious, very very serious. But am I supposed to sit back and watch it all go by.....inactive? Fight, without attachment. Ok, I will fight without attachment. I have done it before though I swore, after it, I wouldn't do it again. It's like telly invading your life, a really crappy telly show. Give me some banal English comedy please.

I just want happy, happy, not some wasted human, hysterical with angst at trying to negotiate life. I don't want paranoid associates with hang ups from some social fall out called aparthied. I want stupid, happy Aussies who just don't give a shit. I want them to live with a laugh, shake it off and try to enjoy the tiny fragmants that maya throws us. If going back to God head requires a serious collision with depression, I'm not sure I am up to it. I want laughter, perspective. I want reason and thought. God, take the emotional crapp out and dump it in the trash. Wasted breathes in sobs for naught.

So that's my take for the moment. You got to see this to believe it. I honestly thought the script of Days of our lives was unreal. It's bloody real. There are a whole bunch of nutters out there just waiting to make your life hell. Oh ......how terribly unhumble of me. Lets take the other stance. I have a mirror placed in front of me. I see that I should never criticise; ok, can do. I see I should be tender; that's a bit tougher but I will try. I see that I am supposed to be a punching bag........ok, maybe you lose me there. Not recalling any recent hysterical attacks on anyone bar me but then maybe my memory has strategically failed me. I know.....borring.

You work in a hot class room for 6 hours. You come home to cook for the family, make sure the boarders are ok, do the puja and entertain random and perpetual guests. It's not good enough. I never wanted to be a super woman. Why are they asking it of me? If I fail so badly, how is it non of these woman can get on board and do anything? "Oh sweety, I would love to help; all of half an hour a day" After all we have our husbands to feed and our children to tend. Bah and humbug.

I may have had it coming for whatever reason but it ain't over and i know those wheels turn slowly but they grind mighty fine. I'm feelin the crunch now and I know I shall be in good enough company soon enough. Gees, I started blaming the moldavite [rock] but in essence, I know, inspite of the pain it's good for me. If I can remain equiposed and why shouldn't I, then I will be that much closer to real tribulations......like that one about ...dying. These, in effect are really nothing at all but mental. You have to think of some poor bastard getting physically tortured to realise tribulation. What am I whining about. My charmed life is not full of well wishers. Big deal, I'm not the nicest bitch I ever knew, what did I expect?

You can tell by the swearing that I'm a bit edgy. My pride is wounded but it probably needed some fine tuning anyway.

Shaka fell down the stairs and broke her bum, so to speak. It's excusably a bummer as she was on a good roll. [Think I am reading too much Asterix.] Must focus on bannisters. They were constructed for very good reasons. I climb stairs in a state of prayer. These stairs are cement with no slip strips. You go down these and you could be crippled. No soft rotting wood for us. Hard red cement and lots of it. When you come to India one of the predominant smells is cement, strange that. Cement mixed with cheap and nasty disinfectant. Of course if you are catching a domestic flight the cabin smells of incense. It's as if all have come from their home puja and the residual smell sticks to their cloth.

Vrnda's birthday today. We were caught unawares as life has been so insanely intense lately. I offered up a fresh chapati with some pomegranate seeds saying happy birthday. Well I offered to do it, she just got the chapati, I was too busy for the rest. What with making sure I am seen to be seen as a seen devotee to please what appears to be some ungrateful Brazilians. Not fired up enough for them. What to do? I love religious nutters who get off on making other peoples lives miserable if they too, are not religious nutters. Leave well alone and each to his own pace thank you. Bunch of misfits.

I'll figure it out in time. Srila Prabhupada must have been inconcievably wise, tolerant, understanding and most of all, inspite of it all, hopeful. That is the real trick; to keep your chin up when it keeps getting pounded. Roll with the punches. I feel for those public personalities, celebrities. Everyday they are psychically attacked just because that's what people like to do. Just like Tigers eat flesh, people go for each other. Envy, malice blah blah, all those cheery things I love about uncohesive groups. We might all like Krsna but I'm not sure what we are trying to do to each other. But as Prabhupada and Krsna said, love is cooperation.

I will cooperate but not indulge. I have cooperated. I am cooperating so Please Krsna, make the uglies go away because they are turning cooperating into a painful experience. Actually, a dangerous one. They would do me in as much as look at me. Mustn't be able to cooperate with me.

So what do you reckon? Let em just go for it. Tear us apart? Because cooperating with us is unthinkable. Abhorent, amoral. Wake up and open your eyes please. These guys need to join.....I know what it is....a caste system. I think South Africa pretty much mastered that in it's most perverse sense and I think it's perversion is what they are after.

I'm crapping on too much. Not even a therapist would put up with this.

the meaning of meaness

I feel utterly wasted emotionally. I am getting my quota of reaction for something or other in some obscure, meaningless previous existence. My consolation is, it is seriously bubble bursting stuff and it might as well burst sooner then later. Wouldn't want to have to experience a melt down moments before death, assuming I should be so lucky as to be conscious before the event.

Just read Tarunya's blog. She has joined the ranks of the, what to call it........ expressers.

Enjoying school like crazy, crazy as that sounds. I like those little buggers and they teach me so much. It's as if I am alive; pushed and pulled to the max but using every part of me that ought to be used. Even the God damned thighs climbing those bloody stairs in sweltering heat at 8am. I can only survive if I'm drenched in water all day. The air con goes in this week end so our hearts and minds will re-enter the human. It's not as if the heat is bad but it drains a little. I am kinda getting usd to it and even relish it at times but I think some of the kids are worse for it. I'm hoping to stay with the group next term though I figure they may want a change. I have just got the knack of it so it seems a shame to let them go. Feeling more inspired and confident.

But people, oh my God, it's enough to really do your head in. We have these South African people here that just don't operate on the same wave length as Aussies or, infact anyone I know. The trauma is so horrendous that I can only conclude I must of had it coming. How can I describe it. A jungle, I suppose, but worse. Probably best to describe the results of it. The heartlessness of it all can drive you to near total loss of faith in any capacity for sincerity or love among humans. It's a type of psychic hell. And what do I learn from it? The world needs to be medicated? I think it is a big possibility and I don't blame them now for going that way. What do you do with a world gone mad? We would have to be in a constant state of therapy for this to let up, which is what saddhana is all about, I suppose. Therapy for the enraged and insane soul.

But it hurts like hell. It hurts because I don't want to face that I am in the wrong place. That the material world is not my charmed play ground which it pretty well was until now. Australia; relaxing, privleged, retired, pleasant, beautiful, it goes on and on but in the end it is the retired mans lie. Come here with a billion people and get a good dose of humantiy. What ever went down in South Africa, look like hell from the results I see.

One of the consolations is I am living in the dham and the dham is filled with consolation therapy. If life sucks, as we eventually find it does, then you can finally consider what the great saints were trying to say. So I guess I should thank them for pushing me so hard, but I can't, it was so awful and if I think of it still it remains really awful.

But I have my kids and they are sweet hearts and I marvel at the privlege I have in teaching them. I only wish I was smarter and more experienced for thier sakes.

Another consolation is the drama of it all. Don't we all love a little drama?

There is no one to cry to so i think of Draupadi and wonder at her plight. Too horrible, and she had a shit load of attitude too. Thank God, the thought of her not giving a piece of her mind to Bhisma is just too much. I can't imagine that level of surrender at this stage but in the end it has to come if I don't want ot continue rolling in this muck. I can only imagine there is plenty more where this came from.

Is there an irony in this vaguely similar situation. I am just placed differently on the chess game this time. Can it be? I would like to think not. If I had caused this much distress to someone then I am deeply sorry. But that is just a thought I have toyed with a little. Not worth trying to figure the whys; just the similarities. And I am so tired of it and wait the days to pass, knowing it must end some time soon.

Thought about my brother yesterday. My son cried tonight for his real mother. I had hugged him during the day as he was unwell but some how I must have failed him. On the one hand it is good that he realises I am just one of many mothers but i suspect it reflects a failing on my part rather than deep spiritual hankering. Radha consoled him with a story from Krsna book.

Gotta learn to be a human......consistantly. That means be conscious and I so enjoyed being rock like. Not really enjoyed but I'm habituated to dull impersonalism.

What a whine. well I had to do it. Haven't had a reasonable whine and there is not a soul that can feel what I feel. We are all too busy and anyway, i don't want sympathy but empathy.

It all dropped out so my last words on the matter are gone. Quite fitting really.

nothing much today

Jees, I'm aging just watching the page trying to load.
And Shite to my blog. Reading that stuff is enough to make me think I might need an anti depressent and a better spell check.

Storms galore which is making life just about worth living.

Class on a Sunday in Mayapur means listening to Bhaktividypurna Maharaj. Not sure if all is well there. The only thing I really like is his reference to form and substance as apposed to spirit and matter. It's made me think of how dependent we are on form. What is life without it? Hence the death dilema. I'm certain death will have its own form because, i guess I must, risking some kind of major panick attack otherwise. But, if Krsna needs Laxmi we must need form. Maybe fear of death is merely fear of s type of formless purgatory. Fear of void, fear of life without expression.

Decided I'm entitled to expression because it's part of being alive. They honestly had me believing it was nonsense. Pooie to them. I've just as much right to think and feel as anything or one. Why have this vehicle otherwise?

SO back to form. Form being the vehicle but not to formlessness. So maybe escaping form is not the way to go. Maybe understanding its mechanics. Maybe reconciling our relationship to Maya. Maya being the servent of God. The secretary, so to speak. Seduced by the form and thus expecting substance from it. If it is merely an adjunct then what is substance, or spririt, to be more specific. Purpose? Purpose of form.

Read Wilde's Dorian Gray. Liked it but I think he could have done a little more with it. If I had the skill I could play with it the way those presumptuous but apparently succesful people have with Eyre.

Time for Apple C as the curse of the bad line is upon us.

Best sleep but I think I will come back again soon. Need to chat to the screen to help sort out psychic detritus.

God, I love a key board.

Tuesday

Passage to India, I love it. It's almost an antiquated version of Holy Cow but with political commentary. It would be great to actually figure out what India is. The book is making me realise the real depth of the cultural divide presently experienced by myself. My classroom has a Pole, a Russian, a South American, a south Indian, Canadian hybrid, Swiss, an Australian and an Italian, soon. I think that's it. I am sure I have missed something there. So the diversity is on the street, it's at work but ahh the sweet retreat of the net. Dominated by the Yanks I am in the purely homogenised zone. Pure, meaning free of any meaning at all, shallow and easy; what you see is what you get which is nothing much at all.



I went to the Puri math last night, a temple up the road outside Iskcon Mayapur. Intimate and beautifully decorated; it was a microenvironment compared to Iskcon. It had much more charm as they put energy into intricate detailed ornamentation. The deities were gorgeous. We were there to visit the local homeopath. Vrnda's eczema has flared up; too many plays and a festival have run her down.



Vishaka in Aus and experiencing the alarm of waking to a near naked and semi inebriated youth that the west is so fond of cultivating. Keep’em lean, keep’em in the dream; ne'er a day go by when a man or woman may ask the question, who am I? What am I doing here? What will happen after I die? That is the most foreboding if you happen to like living. I have noted that western life lends itself to a dark and distracted interest in death. In all the material distraction that is consumer life, the essence of life is absent. Without it death looks like an interesting option. That's my experience, my view. When I took up a semblance of devotion I lamented inevitable death. I am beginning to realise that death can be merged into the venture if the venture is sound.



I would like to devise new ways of describing my inner world so as not to paint it in a clichéd light thus rendering it redundant to sharing, having limited and stunted its meaning. Skepticism is rife and ridicule is de rigueur. Ones inner story had better be free of the restraints or vulnerabilities of previous perspectives. Innovative, new and creative use with language usually slows down the dismantling process by presenting alternative perspectives or an interesting rehash of an old one. New counter arguments to render those perspectives impotent of meaning need to be devised. But I ought to spend more time figuring out how to communicate the dialogue before contemplating its reception.



Moving on because that was not what I had set out to do in the first place. I will think more about Australia or India. Which is it and for whom? Vishaka I suppose.



The school goes as it always will. It provides us with endless lessons on all levels for all involved; the ultimate washer for the soul.



Sadbhuja is driven to a type of warped ecstasy with the new project. The pressure is on but so is the taste. A bit like a camel chewing thorns. We seek self-resolution in as many an interesting way as any animal.



My mac is literally cracking up. Those white plastic numbers got cheap after the first batch. Very disappointed and I shall whine like a cat on a fence in nasty cheap suburb.



Shut down, it's late and no time to write. Another day, and a hope that thoughts become more coherent

caffeine

Must not drink caffeinated drinks after 12pm; oh ok 2pm but that's it. I am now wide awake and ready to face anything but the world sleeps on. Actually the facing is only theoretical. I have the energy to get from the kitchen to the bathroom to the front door and then to school when I must.

Three flights of stairs and 11 pairs of little eye balls peering at me ready to feast on the knowledge I have to offer them. I only wish I was more imaginative for their sakes. You have to give it to them for tolerance and resiliance. Even Nandu is resembling a human but i swear every time I say that he pops so I officially retract that statement.

I found an old school friend on facebook. I am so excited I feel like a sentimental old fuddy duddy. I really was very fond of her and I think growing up with some one for a bit is pretty special. I had a sister but I lost her when I was four so I never really had a sibling thing happening; a brother I took care of a lot as my mother had him 10 years after me. He was cute but I never see him these days. Thoughful too and I know how bloody rare that is.

Gurukripa came over from Thailand to drop his daughter off. Well I never did imagine God availing himself of such diversity. It never ceases to amaze me when I am actually surprised by something. Just shows you how presumptouos I am.

Gaura Purnima is coming up and I am actually looking forward to it. This 18 week term has taught me to appreciate free time and the leisure to get to the temple. I have to get to Nepal or better yet Bangladesh. Jees I never ever thought I would ever have to go to Bangladesh. I only ever heard it to be a place where people starved to death. It would be like going to Africa. What would possess you to do such a thing. Hell. I knew God would trick me with the visa thing or was it I that made that manifest with the pessimism?

Jethro Tull is better than the Beetles. I want to know how they got away with it.
I have decided I am going to succeed but i have yet to decide on what it is i want to succeed in. Death sounds a bit defeatist though I am sure it has a very good pay off.

Must sleep as i am sure I will bite some ones head off tomorrow if I don't and i think that is illegal though at times possibly warranted. Being in the class room is like processing all of lifes experiences and then hoping the stench is bearable. Uni is a means to help those contain any dysfunction that may manifest while trying to instruct the next generation. I did want to home school in the bush. Mind you I do like these little buggers.

laka in the forest as a wee lass

trying to remember how to do this

Lila

It almost seems sacrilege to write now as a friends daughter is in the process of passing away but I am at a loss as what to do. The empty blankness that is loss. The fading hope, the damage, the grief, despair and ultimately the mournign for a daughter lost and in such circumstances. Knowing the moments of terror as the gunman accosted her.

We were just discussing today how our daughters need so much protection. My Vrindi was harrassed at a festival last night by a man who felt it was his God given right to speak with her. She is all of 14 years old. I can see now why Mohamad was so inspired to get some rules happening with the girl boy thing. My daughters are not up for slaughter to satiate a mans unrequited lust. They are not to be approached by anyone. They are the gems of the future, the mothers, sacred and should be treated as if precious, fragile. Some will think I am extreme but I know what comes from the abuse and exploitation of woman so I do not buy the freedom thing for a minute. Failed abortion that grew to become the bane of the mothers life. Left to the mercy of any lusty caste off the mother may have been too drunk to satisfy. It was a fine life, her life of freedom. Her perversions to see destruction raught again to some how justify her own putrid existence. The final result of absolute freedom, the sweet taste of unlimited material pleasure.

So Lila was shot in the head three times by a boy who thought he loved her. Her mothers grief is unimaginable. It takes a village but a village of people dedicated to the care of our children. The term global village is a farce and urban community is hell. The media is a means to manipulate ignorant people into believing a shopping docket, a tablet, a credit card or a pot plant will satisfy your very being. The beauty of that is it doesn't, so you keep coming back for more. The sad thing is the guys working on keeping it going are as much the victims as those they encourage. So it's not a plot or ploy, it's a tragedy. And you have to be a bloody genius to wise up to it. No one gets out of the matrix alone. I guess thats why the film resonated with so many.

Enough of my manic madness. Her body will be heading for a funeral pyre by now. She was a sweet girl, hard working and submissive. She wanted to marry I hear. Her mother and father work hard to help Srila Prabhupada.

mindful mundane meanderings

Whats going on in my head. A million things and yet seemingly nothing as non of it connects for very long and so the impact is reduced to naught. Probably more pleasent for those around me as I wreak more havoc than construct when imagining my thoughts amount to much.

If ever I wanted to purify, purge or even prevail then teaching or at least being in a classroom seems to be the perfect medium. This sounds a little smarmy but the classromm is both ecstatic and personally challenging. I imagine it has all been said before but it is a revelation for me so bare with this novices revelations. If nothing else I feel like I am recconecting with humanity. I am not sure if another can imagine what that means unless familiar with my life experiences. Just for interests sake I will elaborate a little.

An unfortunate girl falls pregnant at 19 to a boy who does not care for her. A failed back yard abortion results in my coming into the world in 1964. Heady times for some I expect but a little strained for the young girl with the unwanted babe that reminds her of the emotional traitor that bequithed her with the burden of child. Rejected by her family and all up pretty screwed up emitonally. Ignorant, hedonistic and utterly unwilling to surrender to the tedious task of catering to a child. I grow up rather rapidly in more ways than one and though I mingle in the world I feel like an edge dweller. It was trully unfashionable to be illigitamate in the 70s. Tedious details but the jist of it is I did not belong. Brought in to the world in an unloving union by a woman who was in denial aout her subliminal resentment towards me. Kicked out at 14 and some how managed to stabalise amongst the devotees for a while before embarking on my own procreative abilities. Although I loved my babies I wouldn't say it has been easy for them or me but non the less the community has helped to temper any difficulties and Curiousity helped in seeking solutions. Some worked. But the class room being less insular than a family puts me in both the firing line but also facilitates rewards that extend way beyond the joys of the immediate family to the the greater family and that is what it is supposed to be about. My warped being has thus far revealed that I am an irritable and miserly hearted.....prick for want of a better word. I normally associate that term with men but it really denotes smug ignorants and that has been my forte.

So these have been my latest personal revelations. Torn between the pain of thrashing out the rigours of work and commitment and indulging in the rewards that no other situation could possible offer. the price is hard work but I figure the reward extends way beyond any imagined pleasure I may have been dreaming of pursuing in my consummer based existence in Australia. Sure I was at the temple and studying so was not entirely entrenched but I definately fantasised about home and hearth. When it came down to it the reality is nothing would have really satified me as I am such a picky bitch. I put that down to Eoropean lineage. I've Germans a hard lot to satisfy though I am sure there are some sweet ones about. Not my lot. Grumpy bums who dissect till there's nothing left but skin and bones.

It is bloody cold here at the moment and I haven't even a candle for heat. I still refuse to ask the Gods to bring back the heat. I can not surrender to that willingly. Wscaping the cold is one thing but the heat can not be escaped.

Kalki fell on his head tonight because he thought it would be cute to tuck his arms and legs into his jumper and play little men. Propped on a chair he promptly rolled off and smashed his head onto the cement floor. He fell asleep soon after so I am hoping all is well when he wakes up. Another event in a day of what seems is a perpetually trying existence be it mundane or spiritual. They say it is as fraught there as well minus the death bit. Politics and fanangling. I guess if I survive life in a community I will be ripe for anything. It's not unlike being in a psychic boxing ring. I am going for the dancing like a butterfly though I do get a littel over confident and try and put my two bobs worth in. I think I eed more training but one day.

I dare not attach a photo as our line is so testy.

Grey days and we all wear jackets, scarves and hats all day. I need a bigger classroom. I have 12 students now and we are compelled to remain seated when in the classroom for want of any space at all. It's a bummer but the kids don't seem to mind bar active Nanda who can't stay seated for more than 30 seconds.

Shaka who is nearly 17 wants to live a life of her own God help me. This letting go of babies does not suit me. Girls are so vulnerable too. I can see a grieving mother on the horizon. I don't think I enjoyed my babies enough and it is all almost over.

I guess having an elder would help with this next stage. The western culture of parental redundancy is a bit sad.

time and tide do not invoke connection

We have had a bad trott and yet we still pay for what they call an internet service here.

I have spent many an hour prattling words out in my head and some how never hitting a keyboard for reasons unknown to myself. I guess I just got busy. That is an understatement.

I am going to attach my old offering because I did type it in even if a lot of tripe. My specialty anyway.

My class has grown to ........12. How does a person teach 25 eight year old kids, some of which speak no English? How can anyone think a teacher is anything less than a saint? I love it but If I get a hint of an idea that a parent is not behind me, well. Speaking of which, I think I may be my own worst enemy. My son is one of my real challenges in the class along with his partner in crime Nanda. Bright sparks they are but we are not in Drama school and Nanda is as a poor a reader as Kalki is in math. Both boys are bright but ironically have rather large weaknesses that I am trying to address. The fine line between urging and pressure. I shouldn't be too hard on myslef but I fear failing them as I feel I may have been failed in education myself. The arduous task of walking the aisle and making sure every child is properly engaged. By third period I am plumb tuckered out and start asking them to come to me which creates bedlem. My class room is too small.
Must have trashed my offering in a fit of pique. The heading was little pretentious, finally alone. As if I wanted that when my life is swamped in people. What a delusional state I must be in and it has been people ever since I could negotiate my limbs enough to find them. I was not really born into a family so I have been over compensating ever since. As if you care but I thought I would state it. It is part of the evolving story or purging of words.
I think my mother is a misanthrope. She has 2 dogs. People who focus on animals have usually some difficulty with people. Animals are too easy bar the hygene issue.
Talking too much and should be resting for another fun filled day of jumping monkeys. The joy of feeling I am obliged to contradict all their natural urges for the sake of a so called healthy adult life. Discipline is good but how to experience it in the best possible manner. I guess I could start with disciplining myslef. hahahahahahahahahahah Another needless contemplation. Save it for another life when the present penance or revelation is over.
In the meantime, good night.