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e last great Babylonian king was Nebuchadnezzar. He lived around 600 BC and is remembered for his feats of war. He fought against Egypt and brought a vast number of foreign captives home to Babylon as slaves. And yet his truly greatest deeds were not his wars: he had huge canals and water cisterns dug in order to retain the water and irrigate the land, so that it became rich and fertile. Only when those canals became blocked with silt and the cisterns filled with mud did the land become what it is today: a desert wasteland and marshy plain with, here and there, one of those hills I mentioned
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Speaking of labyrinths, have you ever heard the story of the evil Minotaur, half man, half bull, who lived in a labyrinth and made the Greeks send him seven youths and seven maidens each year as human sacrifices? Do you know where that was? It was in Crete, so there may be some truth in the story. Cretan kings may once have ruled over Greek cities, and those Greeks may have had to send them tribute. In any event, these Cretans were clearly a remarkable people, even if we still don’t know much about them. You only have to look at the paintings on the walls of their palaces to see that they are unlike any made at the same time in Egypt or in Babylon. If you remember, the Egyptian pictures were very beautiful, but rather severe and stiff, a bit like their priests. is was not the case in Crete. What mattered most to them was to catch animals or people in rapid motion: hounds chasing wild boar, and people leaping over bulls – nothing was too hard for them to paint. e kings of the Greek cities clearly learnt a great deal from them.
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WHY SPARTANS COULD FIGHT HARD
Let us now take a closer look at two of Greece’s most important cities:
Sparta and Athens. We already know something about the Spartans: they
were Dorians, who, when they arrived in Greece, in around 1100 BC,
enslaved the former inhabitants and put them to work on the land. But the
slaves outnumbered their masters, and the danger of rebellion meant that
the Spartans had to be constantly on the alert lest they find themselves
homeless again. ey only had one aim in life: to be fighting fit, ready to
crush any uprising by their slaves, and to protect themselves from the
surrounding peoples still at liberty
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WITCON
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CONFUCIAN FMLY VALUES
For Confucius had a very good opinion of humanity. He said that all
people were born honest and good, and that, deep down, they remained so.
Anyone seeing a small child playing near the water’s edge will worry lest it
fall in, he said. Concern for our fellow human beings and sympathy for the
misfortunes of others are inborn sentiments. All we need do is to make sure
we do not lose them. And that, said Confucius, is why we have families.
Someone who is always good to his parents, who obeys them and cares for
them – and this comes naturally to us – will treat others in the same way,
and will obey the laws of the state in the same way that he obeys his father.
us, for Confucius, the family, with its brotherly and sisterly love and
respect for parents, was the most important thing of all. He called it ‘the root
of humanity’.
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DARK MIDDLE AGES
PEOPLES’
MIGRATIONS WERE A SORT of thunderstorm. But you may be
surprised to hear that the Middle Ages were like a starry night. Let
me explain. Have you ever heard people talking about the Dark Ages? is is
the name given to the period which followed the collapse of the Roman
empire when very few people could read or write and hardly anyone knew
what was going on in the world. And because of this, they loved telling each
other all sorts of weird and wonderful tales and were generally very
superstitious. ‘Dark’, too, because houses in those days were small and dark,
and because the streets and highways that the Romans had built had all
fallen into decay and were overgrown and their camps and cities had
become grass-covered ruins. e good Roman laws were forgotten and the
beautiful Greek statues had been smashed to pieces. All this is true. And it
isn’t really surprising, given all the dreadful upheavals and war-torn years of
the Migrations.
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START IT
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From there they reached the kingdom of the Franks, ruled by the
Merovingians, where they were confronted by bands of Christian-German
peasant warriors. e leader of the Franks was Charles Martel, which means
Charles the Hammer, because he was so good at knocking people down in
battle. And he actually succeeded in defeating the Arabs, in 732, exactly a
hundred years aer the Prophet’s death. If Charles Martel had lost those
battles at Tours and Poitiers in the southern kingdom of the Franks, the
Arabs would surely have conquered all of what is now France and Germany,
and destroyed the monasteries. In which case, we might all be Muslims, like
so many of the peoples of the world today.
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SORROW V JOY
TRANSCENDING BINARY EXPERIENCE
e power of the German kings was greatly increased by their victory over the Magyars. Otto the Great, having defeated the Hungarians, made the Slavic, Bohemian and Polish princes recognise him as their feudal overlord as well. is meant that they had to look on their own lands as being held in trust for the German king, and were obliged to bring their armies to his aid in time of war
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DTR CRSS
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BARTER TO METAL MONEY
is is why people agreed to decide on something to exchange which
everyone would want and therefore accept, something easy to share out and
carry around, which wouldn’t go bad or lose its value if you put it away. It
was decided that the best thing would be metal – that is, gold or silver. All
money was once made of metal, and rich people went around with purses
stuffed with gold coins on their belts. at meant you could give the
shoemaker money for shoes, and he could use it to buy bread from the
baker, who could give it to the peasant in exchange for flour, and the peasant
might then use your money to buy a new plough. He wouldn’t find that for
barter in his neighbour’s garden
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JOA
d Joan of Arc, who felt herself called by God to the task, succeeded in
persuading the French to put her at the head of an army, dressed in full
armour, and the English were driven from the land. ‘Only when the English
are in England will there be peace,’ she said. But the English took their
revenge. ey captured her and sentenced her to death for witchcra. And
in 1431 Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. But perhaps it isn’t so surprising
that they thought she was a witch. For doesn’t it seem like magic that a
simple, uneducated peasant girl, all on her own, armed with nothing but
courage and a passionate conviction, should be able to wipe out the
accumulated defeats of almost a century in just two years, and bring about
the crowning of her king?
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TO KRSNA CONSC
Individuality & oneness
Here in the material world we are individual, and in spiritual world we are also individual. But what is the difference between material world and spiritual world? In the material world we are individual to serve my own senses. Therefore there is fight. Everyone is trying to satisfy his own senses. I am trying to satisfy my senses, you are trying... So there is clash. That is material world. And the spiritual world: when all of them agree to satisfy the senses of Krsna... There is like Vrndavana. What is Vrndavana? The devotees of Vrndavana, they are all individuals. The gopis are individual, the cowherd boys are individual, the calves are individual, the cows are individual. Everyone is individual. But the purpose is how to love Krsna. That is oneness. There is no disagreement in that purpose. The gopis are trying to satisfy Krsna, the cowherd boys are satisfying..., trying to satisfy Krsna, Mother Yasoda is trying to satisfy Krsna, Nanda Maharaja is trying to satisfy Krsna. The whole center is how to satisfy Krsna. That oneness is required. Not that I become one with Krsna. That is not possible.
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From Srila Prabhupada's lecture on Srimad-Bhagavatam 5.5.18 -- November 6, 1976, Vrndavana
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e Indian ports and trading posts were not actually under English and
Dutch rule, but were governed by merchants from those two countries who
grouped together to do business and bring treasures from the Indies to
Europe. ese societies of merchants were known as East India Companies.
ey hired soldiers whom they sent inland, where they punished unfriendly
natives and any who refused to part with their goods at a sufficiently low
price. is treatment of India’s Indians was little better than that shown by
the Spanish conquistadores towards the Indians of America. In India, too,
the conquest of coastal regions by English and Dutch merchants was made
easier by the lack of unity among India’s princes. Soon the peoples of North
America and India were using the language of a small island off the northwest coast of France. at island was England. A new world empire was
taking shape. At the time of the Roman empire, Latin was the language of
the world. Now the world would have to learn English.
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GALILEO OF GALILEI
Galileo, who had boldly set out to
investigate the magic of nature’s mathematical formulas. Differences of belief
played no part in these things: there was only experiment and proof. Reason
alone could explain the appearance of nature and the workings of the
universe. Reason, which is given in equal measure to all mankind the world
over
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Sri Hanuman ji as a Medical Doctor
According to Tulsidas, Hanuman ji’s prescription herb that revived Laxman, makes interesting verse
Some would roll their eyes and say that surely it can’t be that one who keeps saying:
“HANUMAN, HANUMAN, HANUMAN”
and the serious diseases could get cured just like that!
Yes! it does only with faith
All diseases and pains are eradicated, just by constant repetition of his name.
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NAPOLEONIC NEPOTISM - NEPOY MARE DOI
In that role Napoleon held court in splendour in the former residence of
the kings of France, and brought back many noblemen from exile. But
mostly he worked night and day at establishing order in France. To him, this
meant that nothing should happen at any time or in any place unless he
wished it. And he succeeded. He established a collection of laws in
accordance with the new basic principles and named it aer himself: the
Napoleonic Code. In a new campaign in Italy he defeated Austria once
again. He was idolised by his soldiers and all of France worshipped him
because he had brought the country glory and conquests. ey made him
consul for life. But this still did not satisfy Napoleon. In 1804 he proclaimed
himself emperor. Emperor of the French! e pope himself made the
journey to France to crown him. Soon aerwards he had himself proclaimed
king of Italy as well. e other countries grew fearful of this mighty
newcomer, and Britain, Prussia, Austria, Russia and Sweden formed an
alliance against him. Napoleon didn’t let this worry him. He wasn’t afraid of
enemy armies, however large they were. In the winter of 1805 he attacked
and inflicted a crushing defeat on an alliance of enemy troops at Austerlitz.
Now Napoleon was lord of almost all of Europe. He gave each of his relatives
a kingdom – a little souvenir, as it were. His stepson became viceroy of Italy,
his elder brother was given Naples, his younger brother Holland, his
brother-in-law part of Germany and his sisters duchies in Italy. Which was
not bad going for a Corsican lawyer’s family who, hardly twenty years
before, had been sitting round a table on their distant island, sharing a
simple meal
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MRX WAS RCIST
Some people felt that things could not go on like this. It was simply not
right that a person, just because he happened to own or had perhaps
inherited, a machine, should be able to treat everyone else more harshly
than many noblemen used to treat their peasants. It seemed to them that
factories and machines and suchlike, which gave their owners such
monstrous power over other people’s lives, shouldn’t belong to individuals,
but to the community as a whole. is idea is called socialism. People had
many ideas about how to organise work in a socialist way, so as to put an
end to the misery of starving workers, and came to the conclusion that,
instead of receiving a wage set by the individual factory owner, workers
should have a share of the overall profits.
Among the many socialists in France and Britain in the 1830s there was
one who became particularly famous. He was a scholar from Trier in
Germany, and his name was Karl Marx.
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Chant, all will be revealed, & you can do something
Chant Hare Krsna, and everything will be clear. Ceto-darpana-marjanam. The more you chant, the spiritual life will be revealed. So it is very easy: Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama... As much as possible, you chant. Then everything will be revealed, and you'll be able to do something. I started this movement simply by chanting. Now it has spread all over the world. And we are still chanting.
Srila Prabhupada/ Room Conversation with Alice Coltrane - July 1, 1977, Vrndavana
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either Germany or Italy existed. It seems incredible,
doesn’t it? at these great and powerful nations, which play such an
important role, aren’t old at all. Aer the revolutions of 1848 – when new
railway lines were being built all over Europe and telegraph cables were
being laid, when the towns which had turned into factory towns were
expanding and many peasants were being drawn into them, and when men
had taken to wearing top hats and funny pince-nez spectacles with dangling
black cords – the Europe we know was still no more than a patchwork of
tiny duchies, kingdoms, principalities and republics, linked to one another
by complicated ties of allegiance or enmity
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INDL REVOLN X MRKT ECONOMY
But whatever happened to all those textiles, shoes, tins of food and pots
and pans that were turned out every day in wagonloads by these great
factories? A certain amount, of course, could be sold at home. People who
had jobs could soon afford many more clothes and shoes than artisans used
to own. And everything was infinitely cheaper, even if it didn’t last as long,
so people had to keep buying replacements. But of course they didn’t earn
enough to buy all the things the monstrous new machines produced. And if
all those wagonloads of cloth and leather just sat around unsold, it was
pointless for the factory to keep on producing more. It had to close down.
But if it did, the workers lost their jobs and were no longer able to buy
anything, and even less was sold. is sort of situation is called an economic
crisis. And to make sure it didn’t happen, every country needed to sell as
much as it possibly could of what its many factories produced. If it was
unsuccessful at home it had to try to sell its goods abroad. Not only in
Europe, where there were factories just about everywhere, but in countries
where there weren’t any – countries where there were people who didn’t yet
have clothes or shoes.
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Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 10 Verse 37
Of the descendants of Vrishni I am Vasudeva, and of the Pandavas I am Arjuna. Of the sages I am Vyasa, and among great thinkers I am Usana.
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