To anyone committed to bringing about a transformation in the iniquitous ways of this world’s misdirected civilization I recommend an ancient system as guide for this undertaking. The system is a science, containing, like any science, both theory and practice. By theory I mean an organized set of categories that illuminate the workings of the world, and by practice I mean the application of the theory to the world so as to bring about desired changes.

Necessity is such a strong term. For something to be a necessity it’s got to be almost a matter of life or death. Eating, sleeping, mating, and defending yourself from harm, these are necessities. What’s the proof? The lengths to which we are willing to go in the name of necessity are proof. Even if such necessities push us to dehumanizing behavior.

During his inaugural address, US President Obama identified greed as a major cause of the current recession. Whose greed? It’s easy to point the finger at the US mortgage brokers. Certainly they were greedy, but how much harm could they alone have done? Not much. They capitalized on the greed of ordinary Americans for unaffordable homes. Ultimately, if we are honest with ourselves and if we want to help solve the problem, we have to point the finger to ourselves.

Millvina Dean died on Sunday, May 31, 2009. CNN.com reports that Dean, who was 97 years old, was the last known Titanic survivor. The Titanic sank in the North Atlantic in the early hours April 15, 1912 after striking an iceberg.

I question whether in fact Ms. Dean was the last survivor.

Yes, Ms. Dean may have been the last person alive who traveled on that fateful maiden voyage of the Titanic. However, she was not the last survivor in the sense that there are countless remaining victims of the Titanic. I refer to victims who are trapped in a co-dependent and abusive relationship with technology, a relationship which is epitomized by the history of the Titanic. Hopefully one day these victims will become survivors.

I am an eighteen-year-old college student on the verge of starting my adult life. And as American capitalist culture never lets me forget, central to adulthood is the career I choose. Everything I have been taught in school has been entirely in preparation for this choice. The various pressures are seemingly insurmountable- whether they are parental, financial, or personal.

Something old or something new, this question lies at the center of a friendly rivalry between me and my friends from England. Americans loves firsts. The first automobile, the first airplane flight, the first man on the moon, America is a nation built on firsts. England on the other hand is a country that revels in maintaining the old. St. Michael’s Tower in Oxford dates from 1040.

A number of Sanskrit words familiar to all Kṛṣṇa devotees have become incorporated into Standard English. “Karma,” “mantra,” “yoga,” “avatar”—all grace the pages of current dictionaries, and show up in contemporary writings innocent of any italics, the ID statutorily pinned on foreign words. These words belong.

Among them, “avatar” shines most radiantly in the spotlights of popular attention. Just last week The New York Times took note: “Fan Fever is Rising for Debut of ‘Avatar.’”

You are standing outside a burning building. The flames and smoke are getting denser, but there is still one way to enter the building. Trapped inside it are the following beings:

1. Your beloved mother.
2. A Nobel-prize-winning scientist that is close to discovering a cure for cancer.
3. A highly intelligent ape that may unlock the secrets of the missing link.

The latest findings of Dr. Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychology professor both funny and smart, derived from assiduous research into (human) happiness, have revealed to him an important truth that will already be familiar to students of Śrīmad Bhāgavatam.

Star Trek, the franchise that never dies, has, like the vampire, returned among us, this time in a clever “prequel” to the original ’60s space opera TV series. In this, the eleventh of the series-spawned feature films, Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the other starship Enterprise voyagers appear as “sexy young cadets,” as David Hajdu describes them in his illuminating op-ed piece on the “Star Trek” phenomenon in last Sunday’s Times.

Throughout history many traditional societies have centered on a particular animal, and the relations the people develop with that animal influence the values of the whole society. We think of the role of buffalo in shaping the lives and values of the Native Americans of the Plains. Similarly, we think of the Laplanders and their reindeer, or even the New England whaling villagers and the whales.

It’s not very often that an ISKCON-produced album of kirtan, India’s ancient practice of call and response chanting, makes a real impact on the general public. ISKCON founder Srila Prabhupada’s original 1966 LP did it, getting airplay on the hippy beat radio stations and drawing many to Krishna consciousness.

You don’t have to read Stillson Judah’s 1974 study, “Hare Krishna and the Counter Culture,” cover to cover to have some idea of the place in American society occupied by the Hare Krishnas in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Hare Krishna Movement was then self-promoted as, “The Positive Alternative.” An alternative to the drug culture prominent among the young, yes, and perhaps an even more far out alternative to the mainstream world of their parents.

ISKCON is banned in Singapore, cherished in South Africa, tolerated in the USA, allowed in Indonesia, secretive in China, loved in India, underground in the Middle East, registered in Pakistan, valued in Brazil, present in Bangladesh, esteemed in Guyana, new in Korea, accepted in Canada, recognized in Malaysia, valued in Australia, established in Russia, permitted in Japan, honored in Nigeria, treasured in Italy, heard in Germany, and appreciated in the UK.

It is the summer of 1983. A jury in Orange County, California—that bastion of “traditional American values,” that home to Disneyland and the pioneering mega-church Crystal Cathedral—a jury stares at a large poster. Faces register shock and awe. They behold the astonishing Narasiṁha, the avatāra with the body of a man and the head of a lion, sitting before a shattered pillar.

6th Street and 23th Avenue, it’s clearly the most patriotic intersection in town. A star-spangled red, white, and blue painted building on one corner, and diagonally opposite an intrusively large signboard that continually boasts inspirational sayings. The latest edition of the signboard reads, “America 3, Pirates 0.”

Although I was born the eldest son to a career US Army officer who served during two wars, and attended a well known military academy with over two centuries of tradition, I never really understood all the pomp and circumstance evoked by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. That is…until now.

I was studying religion in graduate school. I was into the counterculture; I owned a real pea coat; my hair was, well, longish; my friends were, by and large, hippies. Most of the religion department took me for a real hippie. But my friends didn’t mistake me for one of them: I was, after all, in graduate school.

It was one of my “hippie” buddies who took me to a Hare Krishna temple, and that led, to my everlasting surprise, to my next fashion change. I joined the Hare Krishnas: I wrapped myself in a dhotī; shaved my head, leaving the tuft of hair called a śikhā on the back, and showed up one day like that at the Department of Religion.

Could the end of the world finally be upon us? New Age authors and conspiracy theorists would certainly have us believe so, determined not to be thwarted yet again. This time the apocalypse comes to us courtesty of a supposed ancient Mayan prophecy that the world will end on December 21st, 2012. And boy is it popular. A quick search on Amazon.com pulls up over a dozen books on the subject, all written within the last three years.

For thousands of years, whenever saintly people have searched for a good spot to live, they’ve chosen places of tranquility, far removed from the noise and clamor of the town. In a quiet place, undisturbed by distraction or temptation, surrounded by the beauty of nature, they’ve said their prayers, studied their scriptures, and engaged in meditation.