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Srila Prabhupada[Posted Jun 1, 2011]

Everything's NOT under control



A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

You can no more harness a river or a twister than you can command control over birth, death, disease and death

Joplin tornado
Tornado in Joplin, Missouri leveled the city of 50,000 photo, The Big Picture, Boston.com
Mississippi flood
Mississippi River floods photo, The Big Picture, Boston.com
The Atlantic May 19, 2011 - ALEXIS MADRIGAL

What We've Done to the Mississippi River: An Explainer


The Mississippi no longer fits the definition a river as "a natural watercourse flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river." Rather, the waterway has been shaped in many ways, big and small, to suit human needs. While it maybe not be tamed, it's far from wild — and understanding the floods that are expected to crest in Louisiana soon means understanding dams, levees, and control structures as much as rain, climate, and geography. From almost the moment in the early 18th century when the French started to build New Orleans, settlers built levees, and in so doing, entered into a complex geoclimactic relationship with about 41 percent of the United States. go to story


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The nature of Nature
Improving on Nature A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

Material nature's business is beating and kicking. That's his only business. But we are so fool, we are taking, "Oh, very nice kicking." That is the disease. We accept the kicking as very nice. That is foolishness. We are suffering always by three kinds of miseries: adhyatmika, adhibhautika, adhidaivika disturbances. There is disturbance in the body, in the mind, disturbance by other living entities, so many, disturbed by climate, disturbed by famine. Always disturbance. Still, we are thinking, "It is very nice place." This is foolishness. Still, we are trying to improve it. That is foolishness. He does not think that "What is the meaning of improvement? The disturbing is always continuing." That does not come to his brain. more

Everyone is suffering


excerpt from Teachings of Lord Kapila, "The Symptoms of a Sadhu"

There is no one in the world materially engaged who can boldly say, "I am not suffering." I challenge anyone to say this. Everyone in the material world is suffering in some way or another. If not, why are so many drugs being advertised? On the television they are always advertising tranquilizers and pain killers, and in America and in other Western countries they are so advanced that there are dozens of tablets for various pains. Therefore there must be some suffering. Actually, anyone who has a material body has to accept suffering. There are three types of suffering in the material world: adhyatmika, adhibhautika and adhidaivika. Adhyatmika refers to the body and mind. Today I have a headache or some pain in my back, or my mind is not very quiet. These are sufferings called adhyatmika. There are other forms of suffering called adhibhautika, which are sufferings imposed by other living entities. Apart from this, there are sufferings called adhidaivika, over which we have no control whatsoever. These are caused by the demigods or acts of nature, and include famine, pestilence, flood, excessive heat or excessive cold, earthquakes, fire and so on. Nonetheless, we are thinking that we are very happy within this material world, although in addition to these threefold miseries there is also birth, old age, disease and death. So where is our happiness? Because we are under the spell of maya, we are thinking that our position is very secure. We are thinking, "Let us enjoy life," but what kind of enjoyment is this?



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