In2-MeC
newly discovered entries of In2-DeepFreeze First Generation Animations
Wroclaw, Poland
22 August 2004
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| Sri Sri Gaura-Nitai at Krsna-Balarama Mandira in Vrndaban, wearing sandalwood pulp on Their transcendental bodies to keep cool during the hot summer season. |
A Letter from HH Bhakti-tirtha Maharaja to all Devotees
Dear Maharaja's and Prabhus,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All Glories to ISKCON Founder Acarya Srila Prabhupada.
Yesterday after a team of doctors reviewed all of my test results, the spokesperson informed me of the need for immediate amputation, chemotherapy, radiation, etc. He also stated that there is a need for another biopsy operation to take out some of the lymph nodes which seem to be also diseased by cancer. They could give no guarantees of the results of the treatment.
I asked if I did not follow through on their plan or did nothing, how long could I expect to live. The doctors reply was six months. In my mind I thought that is long time. Many things can happen in six months. Either I have all of this time to prepare for death or sufficient time to do all that is necessary, physically and spiritually, to turn this whole thing around and come out of it more improved physically and spiritually. It seems that my life has always been about extremes.
Presently I am being considered by NIH to see if I qualify for a very special treatment with some of the best doctors in the USA in the field. We have also began to limit our choices to special cancer treatment centers in Mexico, Arizona, New York, Atlanta and India. Once I know exactly where I will go to be treated for some months I will update all of you.
I have a staff of devotee doctors and aides who will be assisting me in making the decisions. I feel all of your prayers will guide us in making the best decisions, which will allow whatever Srila Prabhupada and Krsna want to manifest. For now all I can say is that something extremely supernatural or super extraordinary is going on here.
I do not know what the conclusion will be, but I want to be around to see what it is. Ooops, I guess I will definitely be around since it is happening to me, whatever it is, most definitely it is bigger than myself. I am definitely changing bodies, the question is, "will I be changing both the physical and mental body?"
I feel Srila Prabhupada himself will make the decision.
Yours in the service to Srila Prabhupada
With Love
Bhakti Tirtha Swami
A Letter from HH Bhakti-tirtha Maharaja to Myself
My heartfelt feelings for Maharaja impelled me to send him an email. I mentioned our service to Srila Prabhupada together on the BBT Library Party in the mid-1970s. I asked him to kindly advise me from his state of heightened realization in Krsna consciousness. This is his well-wishing reply to me.
Dear Suhotra Swami,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All Glories to Srila Prabhupada.
How wonderful it was to receive your letter. I really like your example of how we were side by side in the womb in our service to Srila Prabhupada. This really shows how much we are spiritual brothers in a very awesome way. So many of these early experiences have created what we presently are. And so many of these early experiences have given us realizations as well as many wounds and scars, but ultimately all of these are opportunities for growth.
First let me apologise for much of my association in those earlier days or during those times. I was so karmakandic, self centered and self righteous. Somehow you seemed to tolerate me most of the time. I feel more thankful, that through all of these years (even though we did not have so much physical association) that you continued to see me as a friend. It was something special recently serving with you on the GBC executive board. It was also special, when you were elected as chairman; and you came around to most of the leaders in such a humble way asking for their blessings and support. Also the short conversation we had at the airport where you informed me that you have been having many great challenges with depression that I could realise even more how sensitive and yes how serious a devotee you are.
I know by now you have analysed your depression in so many ways but I am sure that a major part of your depression is due to how sensitive you are. You are super-intelligent and super sensitive. This is your blessing and your curse. One of the suggestions that I would offer is to see your depression as a blessing. In one sense it is the other side of spiritual ecstacy. When one is really depressed, one is so fully absorbed in the depths of emptiness. This is the extreme intensity of mental culture but it is this extreme intensity of mental culture that is necessary to dive deeper to connecting more internally with Krsna. So you may want to accept a little more that you have been blessed with great intellectual and mental intensity which both can be fantastic assets in connecting deeper with Krsna.
Those of us who understand or have experience with very deep depression can have empathy and compassion for others suffering, far greater than what most people can understand. As preachers we have a duty to reach out, especially to facilitate and educate and uplift, while we help others to minimize their own sufferings. So just like you said in the ending of your letter (so what can I say go for it!). Use all this intensity to connect more internally with so many great beings that are ready to connect with you. And of course use this intensity so that you can connect more with those physically around you who you can help. Krsna and Srila Prabhupada have no favorites. There is a tremendous great need now in the world as well as in our institution. So let us make ourselves available to fulfill that need. Or let us try our best to make ourselves available to fulfill that need.
Yours in the service to Srila Prabhupada.
With Love
Bhakti-Tirtha Swami
HH Bhakti-tirtha Maharaja is showing us all all how to face Death, which is always facing us whether we know it or not. In the material society, on the contrary, the nondevotees are most expert in ignoring the ever-present Reaper.
L. A. Cemetery Showing Movies at Mausoleum
Fri Aug 20
By JESSICA GRESKO, Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- Amid the mausoleums and headstones at Hollywood Forever Cemetery about 1,700 living guests have unfurled picnic blankets and set up beach chairs, erected makeshift coffee tables with flowers and candles, and unpacked dinners of sushi, fried chicken or pasta salad.
They're here for cinema cemetery-style, an experience shared with the graveyard's 88,000 long-term residents. Later, the night's film will start, projected on a mausoleum wall.
"It's the ultimate L. A. experience," film fan Mark Koberg said between mouthfuls of smoked turkey and arugula sandwiches, washed down with wine.
Six years ago the cemetery, which adjoins Paramount Studios' backlot, wouldn't have been as inviting.
Though at least a hundred Hollywood icons are laid to rest there-including actor Rudolph Valentino, "Ten Commandments" producer Cecil B. DeMille and Bugs Bunny voice Mel Blanc the cemetery's own fame had faded. Its previous owners had run it into bankruptcy, and a 1994 earthquake left tombstones tilted and cracked, while El Nino rains flooded its lake.
Then in 1998, Tyler Cassity, a cemetery entrepreneur, bought the century-old graveyard for $375,000. He operates seven cemeteries in California, Illinois and Missouri. His first charge in Hollywood, however, was revitalizing the cemetery--repaving roads, replacing broken stained glass inside mausoleums and righting monuments.
He also began showing movies. And he believes he's the only person in the country to combine classic movies and mausoleums.
"It makes sense when your neighbor is Paramount Studios," Cassity said. "To me it's dependent on the community around you and who is buried there. Is it memorializing them in some way? Showing movies in a cemetery where there weren't film stars-it wouldn't make sense. "
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Classic Maya: chewing the chewed (punah punas carvita-carvananam) above the bones of celebrities who tried, and failed, to attain real happiness by enjoying that same old illusion. |
Cassity began by showing a Valentino film on the anniversary of the romantic hero's death, when 200 to 300 fans would come by to pay their respects. Then he was approached by John Wyatt, the founder of Cinespia, a Los Angeles film society dedicated to screening and preserving classic films. The society was growing too large to go to screenings as a group and was looking for a new home, one with history, Wyatt said.
Cassity said the partnership felt right: historic movies in a historic setting. Since then, Cinespia has made the 620-acre park its movie theater on summer weekends, and next year's season is already being planned.
Growing mainly via e-mail and word of mouth, the event (billed as an evening "below and above the stars") has been surprisingly successful, and even as it has grown it has retained a small-group feel-visitors making friends and sharing food with their neighbors.
Wyatt, who chooses the films, says he likes bringing his favorite films to a wider audience, and Cassity attributes part of the series' success to a growing interest in death, pointing to the popularity of the TV show "Six Feet Under" and a recent reality series about a family-run mortuary.
Visitors do keep some distance during the evening events. They don't actually sit on graves, though a few family mausoleums ring the perimeter of the lawn where movies are shown, including those of actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and his father, who helped co-found United Artists.
The crowd of mostly 20- and 30-somethings, some in the movie and public relations industry themselves, seem to recognize they're in a special place. They pick up after themselves, and that's helped keep complaints to a minimum-only two so far.
Visitors say they come for various reasons. Sheila Boyd and Hopper Stone went to one recent screening on a date. Tiffany Borders arrived with a group of friends. Carmonique and Vincent Harris came after being told the experience was romantic.
Some guests acknowledged being a little "creeped out" by the cemetery. But, the time and the location didn't bother Russell Rabichev, who watched a movie one recent weekend.
"After two minutes you forget it's a cemetery," he said.
Polish Yatra Festival
New Santipur Farm
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| My seminar was on the Bhagavatam philosophy of mind--its structure and functions. Dvarakadisa Prabhu translated. The seminar was one of the best attended during the whole program. | |
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