IN THIS ISSUE we visit Nashik, a holy site whose history traces to the remote past. In a previous age, Lord Kapila performed austerities there. Much later, Lord Rama chose it as the site for His ashram. Still later, the sage Gautama established a temple to Lord Siva there. The story of the origin of that temple shows the prominent role that reverence for the cow played when Vedic culture prevailed in India. Today, mistreatment of the cow in India is a sad symptom of the decline of that culture, as Braja Sevaki Devi Dasi tells us in Culture? What Culture?
At the root of Vedic culture is acknowledgment of a supreme controller behind the forces of nature. Like the rest of the world, people in India today often fall prey to exaggerated promises of what science can do for us. In this issue's Vedic Observer, Caitanya Carana Dasa writes of the false hopes engendered by cloud seeding in India, an example of trying to force nature into submission rather than cooperating with her and her controller.
Srila Prabhupada worked tirelessly to revive Vedic culture, in India and around the word. Punk and Krsna in a Teabag tells the story of one of millions of souls who heeded his call.
Hare Krsna.
(Nagaraja Dasa, Editor)
Our Purposes
• To help all people discern reality from illusion, spirit from matter, the eternal from the temporary.
• To expose the faults of materialism.
• To offer guidance in the Vedic techniques of spiritual life.
• To preserve and spread the Vedic culture.
• To celebrate the chanting of the holy names of God as taught by Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.
• To help every living being remember and serve SriKrsna, the Personality of Godhead.