It should come as no surprise that Aubrey de Grey, the central character in “Long for This World,” Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Jonathan Weiner’s latest book about the science and philosophy of aging and immortality, looks like “Father Time before his hair turned grey.” De Grey is a computer scientist turned gerontologist who thinks that we can cure aging and essentially become immortal in less than one hundred years.

With his long beard and sunken cheeks, de Grey seems to be deliberately trying to look the part of time-traveling sage. He may look like he’s from the Middle Ages, but his radical theory of how to eliminate human decline that Weiner lays plain is cutting-edge and highly controversial.

In Weiner’s hands, it also has inspired an astute and elegantly presented discussion about why all living things age and die and how life would change were it never to end.

For centuries, science has focused on figuring out how life begins and develops, not when or how it begins to decline. And life’s end, as gauged via average life expectancy, has changed significantly throughout Western history.

During the Roman Empire, it averaged 25 years. A millennium later, during the Middle Ages, it increased to 33 years. During the second half of the 20th century, “we gained almost thirty years, or about as much time as our species had gained before in the whole struggle of existence.” This long view of history indicates that the end of life can be extremely malleable.

Along with longer life spans, our beliefs about how and why life ends have evolved significantly. Weiner charts these ways of thinking from the Bible to the age of Darwin to contemporary laboratories, where single-celled organisms have revealed some of the most significant information about life’s decline.

All living cells produce waste and suffer damage that eventually starts to accumulate and gum up the works inside our molecular machinery.

“Whatever your age, and wherever on Earth you live,” Weiner writes, “your mortality rate doubles every eight years or so, from birth to death. And it doubles because of the buildup of damage and garbage.”

To slow down or stop aging , today’s longevity scientists have been trying to figure out how to manage this deadly cellular gunk by re-engineering either its production, a cell’s repair system or the garbage itself.

Taking out the garbage, Aubrey de Grey’s idea, is theoretically the simplest approach, but its execution is not. Whole-Body Interdiction of Lengthening Telomeres or WILT, de Grey’s theory, involves highly invasive procedures including regular chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants and stem cell replacements. The result, de Grey thinks, would produce nearly immortal humans who are masters of their cells’ rejuvenation.

WILT intrigues some and horrifies others. Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Jan Vijg thinks it is “sheer nonsense.” Cambridge University geneticist John Archer thinks de Grey’s theory is worth testing. “In reality we need more Aubreys….” Archer says. “Chaps like him who can see over the hedges.”

What Weiner sees over the hedges are the complex moral and philosophical questions that immortality would bring to human life. Philosopher Bernard Williams once wrote, “Immortality, or a state without death, would be meaningless … because death gives meaning to life.” To Weiner’s mind, life may not lose its meaning, but its significance would undoubtedly change.

“Francis Crick once said that a good scientist should be able to explain any laboratory result to a barmaid,” Weiner writes. With “Long for This World,” Weiner has done this Crickism one better. He has written a fascinating, deeply thought-provoking book full of intricate science and complicated moral questions made easily accessible for barmaids and the rest of us ordinary mortals. We will be certain to ponder Weiner’s rich topic for eternity.

This review originally appeared in the Kansas City Star.

Reviewed by Gurunistha dasa

The Mayapuris are an interesting group. Its four members were born into Gaudiya Vaishnava families, spent long periods of time in India, and have done kirtana their whole lives. At the same time, they have lived a big part of their lives in the West and naturally have been influenced by the modern world. The cover of Mridanga perfectly depicts the cultural junction at which the Mayapuris stand: at the top there’s an ancient painting of Mahaprabhu’s kirtana and at the bottom there’s a shot of a modern metropolis with its skyscrapers and office buildings. In between the two-in many ways diametrically opposed-realities there’s Vishvambara Seth, the lead singer and front man of the group, beating his drum with passion.

It is said that religion has to adapt to the times in order to stay relevant; if it keeps itself at a distance in fear of losing its original purity, it will dwindle to a marginal oddity. Historically speaking, The Mayapuris are a natural progression from the old school Iskcon days: their mood is more mellow, mature, and integrated. It shines with its absence of fanatical zeal. At the same time, the group is not shy that their aim is to promote Mahaprabhu’s mission in the form of kirtana. It certainly makes sense that it is the second-generation Gaudiyas who are able to make hip and marketable kirtana that sits well with 21st century western sensibilities, while at the same time retaining their spiritual integrity. Since second-generation devotees stand between two worlds, they are in the perfect position to grasp the hand of both realities and unite them in an unpretentious way.

Devotees used to be masters (and maybe still are?) of awkward opportunism. They would try to employ whatever was in vogue, somehow force it into a devotional context in the name of preaching, and in so doing end up looking like clueless fools (a good example: recording The Beatles’ songs with corny devotional lyrics). The Mayapuris don’t have even a touch of that in their production because their art is an unadulterated reflection of their reality. The honesty of expression is easy to detect. From the production of the music to the graphic design of the release and the brand they have built around themselves, everything is very professionally done and totally up-to-date. I couldn’t quite say the same about the Holy Cow albums, for example!

At the same time, with integration comes potential problems. Christianity serves as a stellar example of this, since it has mostly turned into a secularized and watered down stick figure of what it was supposed to promote in the world. I’m not saying that The Mayapuris are watering down Gaudiya kirtana, but they walk bravely on a line that’s drawn on water. When I first saw a Youtube video of the group dancing shirtless on stage, for a second I thought I was accidentally streaming the Backstreet Boys. Obviously the shirtless dancing comes more from the Manipuri drummers and not from any boy band, but that aspect of the group is definitely marketable and attractive in Western yoga circles.

Although I don’t see anything suspicious in these “young tigers of kirtana” The Mayapuri phenomenon did raise some natural questions in me: when trying to get Mahaprabhu’s message across, how far can you go into the secular mindset before the interface defeats its original purpose and you merge into what you were trying to change?

Bhaktivinoda Thakura says that the thirst for recognition (pratistha) is the worst enemy of the spiritual practitioner. At what point is the bhakti-yogin spiritually strong enough to step in the lime light and keep his or her head from swelling like a balloon? How can one know if one’s outreach turns into an insidious form of distraction? Of course the flipside is that if nobody reaches out and steps to the plate in fear of spiritual compromise, Gaudiya kirtana will stay marginalized and unknown in the world. That would certainly be a shame since the whole modern form of kirtana has its origins in Mahaprabhu’s movement and Gaudiyas have a lot to offer to the existing kirtana scene. It’s actually commendable that some are ready to take the risk in the name of getting a good thing out there.

The Mayapuris are a seamless musical synthesis of two worlds. Their sound is organic and natural, flowing effortlessly from serene prayers and chants to samba party music and raw, almost tribal sounding, street kirtana drumming. The end result is a railroad crash between the Oriental Express and the AmTrak that somehow ends up staying together and even sounding wholesome. It’s obvious that Gaura Vani has had a prominent role in composing and arranging the music, which comes through as a tasteful mixing of very different styles and moods without sounding chaotic.

Despite all the exotic melodies and layers of sounds in most of the tracks, my personal favorites are the two instrumental drumming tracks “Conundrum” and “Mridanga.” That’s what sets The Mayapuris apart from other kirtanyas, and I would love to hear more of that on the coming records. The opening track, “Song of Nadia,” is sparkling with the kind of youthful energy that The Mayapuris are becoming famous for and assures its place within the best songs on the record.

If you don’t believe the hype that the band seems to be creating, at least give them a fair chance by lending an ear to their music. You might be surprised.

Mridanga is available, here, as well as on Itunes.

An interview with Stephen Prothero

What inspired you to write God is Not One? What sparked your interest?

In some ways it’s a follow-up to Religious Literacy, which argued that while the United States is one of the most religious nations on Earth we know almost nothing about our own religions and even less about the religions of others. Here I wanted to provide some basic literacy about the world’s religions, and do a little ranting along the way.

I think the rant goes back to my college and graduate school days, when I repeatedly heard from professors that all religions were different paths up the same mountain. That sentiment never made any sense to me. I had Jewish and Muslim and Christian and atheist friends, and none of us was under the illusion that we agreed with each other. Still, we seemed to get along just fine despite (and perhaps even because of) our differences.

What’s the most important take-home message for readers?

The main argument is that the world’s religions are climbing different mountains with very different tools and techniques. One perspective that new atheists and liberal multiculturalists share is that the religions are essentially the same (false and poisonous on the one hand, and true and beautiful on the other). I think this view is dangerous, disrespectful, and untrue.

Christians do not go on the hajj to Mecca, and Muslims do not affirm the doctrine of the Trinity. Moreover, going on the hajj is not peripheral to Muslims—in fact it is one of Islam’s Five Pillars. And the belief that Jesus is the Son of God is not inessential to Christians—in fact it stands at the heart of the Christian gospel.

The notion that all religions are in essence one seduces us into thinking that we can send 160,000 troops into Iraq without reckoning with the fundamental differences between Christianity and Islam or, for that matter, between Sunnis and Shias. It prevents us from seeing the role that religions plan in many of the world’s hotspots: from Israel and the Palestinian territories to Nigeria and Kashmir. Equally importantly, it prevents us from seeing and appreciating the unique beauty of each of these religions. If I am a Christian and all religions are essentially the same, what do I have to learn from reading the Daodejing or from attending a Hindu wedding?

The bottom line? Tolerance is an empty virtue if you don’t even understand what you are tolerating. In God is Not One, I try to present as best as I can my own understanding of the world’s most influential religions.

Anything you had to leave out?

I am the adviser for the Sikh Association at Boston University, so I regretted not dedicating a chapter to Sikhism. I regretted it even more after I heard that the Republican gubernatorial hopeful Nikki Haley (who was raised a Sikh) was denounced recently as a “raghead.” There are likely 25 million or so Sikhs in the world, and from the start they have been engaged in a fascinating conversation with both Hinduism and Islam. But I had to draw the line somewhere, and I drew it on this side of the Sikh tradition.

What are some of the biggest misconceptions about your topic?

That religious differences necessarily lead to conflict. Samuel Huntington has been widely criticized in liberal circles for his thesis that the Christian and Muslim worlds are fated for a “clash of civilizations.” Yet many liberals join Huntington in assuming that if there are fundamental differences between the world’s religions they are fated to clash. That’s why they elide those differences, in many cases, to the point of erasing them. I think that’s a mistake. We do not assume in our relationships that our partners or spouses are essentially the same as us. In fact, we say that variety is the spice of life. Here we say differences are enriching. Why can’t we respect and even revel in differences when it comes to religion?

Did you have a specific audience in mind when writing?

I’m writing for general readers rather than academics. Some academics who have read the book have said I’m coming late to the party—that religious studies scholars have been rejecting the so-called perennial philosophy for a generation. That is largely true. But not many religious studies scholars write popular books on religion, so the most widely-read books on the subject still preach pretend pluralism. What good does it do our soldiers in Iraq to tell them that Sunni and Shia Islam are essentially the same? Or our diplomats in the Middle East to tell them that the differences between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are inconsequential. So I’m for those soldiers and those diplomats—curious readers who know you can’t understand the world without understanding the powerful role the world’s religions play in it.

Are you hoping to just inform readers? Give them pleasure? Piss them off?

All of the above. I have certainly done my share of pissing people off, and I do think some of the writing in the book will bring readers pleasure, but the main goal is to inform. The world’s religions are in my view not so much repositories of unchanging dogmas as they are repositories of unanswered questions. “How do we get rid of suffering?” ask the Buddhists? “How do we stop being reborn?” ask the Hindus. “What must I do to be saved?” ask the Christians. So I want to inform readers about the questions these great religions have asked, and about how practitioners have wrestled with various answers.

Reviewed by Jubilee Q. Cooke, Ethnomusicologist
School of Music, University of Washington

When most Westerners think of “yoga,” they likely conjure up images of headstands and deep stretches to maintain health and fitness. But another form of yoga, rapidly gaining prominence in the West, is clearly presented in Steven Rosen’s book: The Yoga of Kirtan: Conversations on the Sacred Art of Chanting. Kirtan is musical yoga, the practice of singing God’s names in call-and-response form. In connection to this devotional practice, Rosen, a renowned Vaishnava scholar, presents an inspired offering of knowledge, communion, and music in an easily accessible format. His conversations with twenty-one kirtana singers, or kirtaniyas, and his short introductory and concluding essays are lively and engaging. Rosen’s book will interest both yoga students and kirtana enthusiasts who wish to understand the deeper significance of their practice. Those who already lead kirtana and longtime practitioners of sacred chant will expand their satsang, their spiritual community, as they connect with these dedicated maestros of chant through the intimate dialogues.

In addition to its clear appeal to students of yoga and sacred chant, The Yoga of Kirtan is also appropriate for scholars. Although its style is not typical of academic literature, the book holds much to glean from Rosen’s friendly presentation and well-informed but relaxed interactions with the kirtana singers. As each kirtaniya is prompted to share their biographical information, we learn of musical influences as varied as Hindustani classical music, Irish sean nόs, Hebrew chant, George Harrison, and American gospel and blues. Many interviewees speak of their Judeo-Christian backgrounds and how their faith deepened through the Eastern practice of kirtana. We gain an in-depth view of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, from a musical perspective, through Rosen’s conversations with several disciples of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. But the author’s approach is non-sectarian, and he has included a wide selection of kirtana singers. Dave Stringer serves as the musical ambassador for Kashmiri Shaivism and Yofiah for Jewish kirtana. Deva Premal and Miten embrace a more ecumenical approach through their interfaith chants. Snatam Kaur informs us of her Sikh faith. And several devotees of Neem Karoli Baba, most notably Krishna Das, share stories of their beloved “Maharaji.”

Some other features of this book are the remarkable experiences shared by each interviewee. A few highlights were Yamuna Devi’s vivid recollections of working with George Harrison in the late 1960s to record the groundbreaking single “The Hare Krishna Mantra” and later the “Radha Krishna Temple” Album. In one of the most entertaining anecdotes, Trinidadian kirtana singer, Agni Dev, speaks frankly of the challenges in acclimating to New York winters while singing kirtana publicly in the streets as a Hare Krishna. And Australian kirtana leader Sri Prahlad gives a moving account of how kirtana helped raise consciousness about the persecution of Soviet Hare Krishnas and motivated political action on their behalf. The book rewards the reader with numerous other such gems generously scattered throughout the chapters.

An audio CD compilation of eleven interviewees is included so that readers may also hear the “yoga of kirtana.” While the sacred names that each kirtaniya chants are primarily from the Vaishnava tradition, the stylistic rendering of each track is about as diverse as can be. We hear Dave Stringer’s lush “Devakinandana Gopala” fusing jazz, pop, and gospel choir with more traditional handclapping and call-and-response form. “Nam-sankirtan” features the equally powerful sound of Latin American pop phenomenon Havi Das, minimally adorning the holy names with intricate drum patterns. And then there’s the finely produced “Radha Rani” showcasing Jai Uttal’s Ali Akbar Khan-trained voice and old-timey banjo picking. The CD also includes a newly released track of kirtana sensation Krishna Das singing “Jaya Bhagavan” live in concert.

This unique book will inspire the reader to travel further into the divine realm of kirtana and offers many signposts to assist this journey. Rosen’s guide to the accompanying CD and his short introduction to each chapter function as a discography for further listening. The website or contact information for each kirtaniya is provided at the end of each interview. Also included is an extensive bibliography of both scholarly and popular literature for related reading.

As an ethnomusicologist and researcher of kirtana, I have found scholarly sources on kirtana as practiced in the West wanting. Kirtana has been covered in the popular press, in a few works geared towards kirtana audiences, and by ethnomusicologists who have studied its manifestations in India. By providing the most thorough coverage of kirtana’s transformation outside of India to date, The Yoga of Kirtan fills in many gaps in the aforementioned literature.

The book’s treatment of popular kirtana is excellent, but also significant is the mention of lesser known styles of kirtana. Although it includes only one interview with a South Asian kirtaniya, Bhakti Charu Swami, the book offers much information on kirtana in India through the experiences of Western kirtana singers seeking deeper understanding. As an ethnomusicologist whose discipline requires participant-observation field research, I highly appreciated the accounts of Vaiyasaki Das, Karnamrita Dasi, Ragani, and Shyam Das who spent years immersing themselves in the study of South Asian music. Most may be familiar with kirtana as the simple call-and-response chanting of the names of God, but these kirtaniyas also inform readers of more sophisticated and learned kirtana styles. I was especially interested to learn of dhrupad singing in kirtana through the interviews with Shyam Das and Karnamrita Dasi. Dhrupad is the oldest style of Hindustani classical music, with roots in the Hindu temples of India. As a beginning student of dhrupad, I have great admiration for those who have dedicated themselves to this music which, in addition to being a sacred art form, has the most refined sense of pitch imaginable and commonly uses 7- and 10-beat rhythmic cycles.

In the concluding interview, Vaiyasaki Das introduces yet another style of sacred chant, by bringing us into the complex world of Bangladeshi lila kirtana. He tells how devoted audiences attend marathon kirtanas at which the deities’ lives are dramatically reenacted and how educated listeners appreciate raga, the use of specific melodies at different times of day. The interview is appropriately placed at the end because Vaiyaskai Das’ descriptions of traveling in Bangladesh in pursuit of this music leave the reader hungry for more. The Yoga of Kirtan presents an impressive selection of sacred chant, scriptural and historical background, and intimate expertise, but it also nudges readers towards the even vaster world of kirtana that awaits their discovery and participation. The website will tell you more: www.yogaofkirtan.com

Marilynne Robinson, Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010.

Reviewed by John Gray

The power of imagination that makes a novelist seldom goes together with the analytical abilities needed to be a philosopher. George Santayana wrote The Last Puritan (1935), a bestseller and also a fine novel, but in this as in many other respects the Spanish-American philosopher was highly unusual. There have been very few novelist-philosophers, and in recent times most of that small number – the business-class Nietzschean Ayn Rand, for example – have been noteworthy for the childishly primitive quality of their thinking.

One of the great writers of fiction, Pulitzer Prize-winner Marilynne Robinson (for Gilead, in 2005) may be the only living novelist who has made a genuine contribution to philosophical reflection. Comprising four closely reasoned and richly imaginative chapters based on a distinguished lecture series at Yale, Absence of Mind is one of the most thought-stirring inquiries into fundamental questions that has appeared in many years.

Robinson aims to clarify the relations of science with religion, a subject on which it might seem difficult to say anything that is at once new and illuminating. She succeeds not by defending religious belief but by examining the claims for science made by enemies of religion. Her target is not science itself, but the “para-scientific” ideologues that claims to explain consciousness in reductively materialist terms. Most influential among these ideologues, Richard Dawkins and his followers have argued that the ability to turn back on oneself and look into one’s thoughts, a type of “inwardness” that seems peculiarly human, is an accidental product of natural selection.

Demonstrating a command of the history of ideas that few contemporary philosophers can boast, Robinson argues that this neo-Darwinian attempt to supply “the one thing needful, the one sufficient account for literally everything” is only the latest in a long line of similar efforts, none of which can properly account for what she describes as “the great fact of human exceptionalism.”

Writing with forceful elegance, Robinson shows how in the reductive ideology that animates much recent evolutionary theory, “reflection and emotion are only the means by which the genes that have colonized us manipulate us for their purposes.” She argues persuasively that when human experience is explained in this way, phenomena such as altruism are reduced to “illusory sensations,” a conclusion that goes against the experience and testimony of humankind.

Absence of Mind is a gush of fresh air in the controversy over science and religion, a book that anyone who wants to see beyond the stale platitudes of current debate has a duty to read. Yet Robinson seems to me to fall short in her central thrust, which is to put the human mind back at the centre of things. One reason lies in the terms in which she frames the debate. When she challenges the reductionist claim that “the Western understanding of what a human being is has been fundamentally in error,” it is not difficult to see why non-Western philosophies are left out of the picture. Quite a few non-Western thinkers would agree with Robinson that materialism is an incomplete account of things without believing there is anything particularly special about human consciousness. The transmigration of souls from humans to other animals and back again features in ideas of reincarnation in many religions and philosophies (including some in ancient Greece and Rome). In some strands of Hinduism and Buddhism, humans are figures in the dream of an impersonal super-mind – a view not all that different from Plato’s, which was revived by 19th-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. If we move beyond currently dominant versions of Western thought, it becomes clear that there is no connection between rejecting materialism and asserting that human consciousness is in any way special.

At the same time, it is far from obvious that neo-Darwinian ideologues have abandoned human exceptionalism. Just like the monotheists they obsessively attack, Dawkins and his followers believe that consciousness makes humans categorically different from their animal kin. To be sure, these ideologues insist (they always insist) that consciousness emerged without any kind of supernatural intervention. Now that consciousness has appeared among humans, they – or at least the most advanced members of the species, the self-styled “brights,” as Dawkins and his followers describe themselves – can master the blind forces of evolution. As he put it at the end of The Selfish Gene, “We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.” There is nothing in science that warrants such a claim, which simply reasserts the Judeo-Christian faith in free will.

Today’s Darwinian missionaries are vehement opponents of religion. That does not mean their thinking is not still shaped by religious ideas. On the contrary, they have renewed one of the central concepts of monotheism, which is the idea of human uniqueness. But it is not clear that consciousness is peculiarly human; as Aristotle recognized long ago, dolphins display many signs of conscious awareness. Who can say that they do not also have their own kind of inwardness?

Whatever the answer may be, the true obstacle to reductive materialism lies somewhere else. What is truly mysterious is not the capacity for inwardness, which is a byproduct of language. It is the outer world of sensation, the realm of vision and sound, touch and smell in which we live. Before the emergence of complex forms of life, the environments that humans and other animals experience weren’t simply unperceived. They didn’t exist. Will we ever fully grasp the unimaginably strange process whereby the physical universe has spawned these virtual worlds? The mystery isn’t inside us. It’s all around us.

Reviewed by Bhrigupada Dasa

How is one to describe the life of great Vaishnavas? Many Gaudiya Vaishnava devotees are upset by descriptions in Satsvarupa dasa Goswami’s Srila Prabhupada Lilamrita that seem to portray him as an ordinary man. Others relish precisely those parts, since by acknowledging the humanity of the saint, they hold out the promise that one day all of us can rise to such heights of devotion. Both sides will find backing in the scriptures: the holy writ both warns us against viewing saints as ordinary human beings and encourages us to celebrate the saintly potential of the lowliest ant.

In his book on the life and teachings of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura Prabhupada (1874–1937, “Saraswati Thakura” in the following), Sripad Bhakti Vikasa Maharaja (“the author”) follows the first of the two approaches mentioned above. Persons familiar with the somewhat different angles of vision on Saraswati Thakuraa presented by Srila Prabhupada and by Srila Bhakti Promode Puri Maharaja will here recognize more of Srila Prabhupada’s majestic view of Saraswati Thakura. This is of course echoed in the title of the work: Sri Bhaktisiddhanta Vaibhava. The Grandeur and Glory of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati. However, readers expecting to be bored or turned off by grandiose descriptions of the pomp and glory of the uncompromising lion acarya, the majestic destroyer of illusion and false devotion, should read on. There is much more to this book.

Previous English publications on Saraswati Thakura’s life include Bhakti Pradip Tirtha Maharaja’s Srila Saraswati Thakura (1942), Bhakti Kusum Shraman Maharaja’s Prabhupada Srila Saraswati Thakura (1976), Rupa Vilas Das’ A Ray of Vishnu (1988), and Mandala Publishings’ Prabhupada Saraswati Thakura (1997). Various anecdotes can also be found in the writings of Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Maharaja and Bhakti Promode Puri Maharaja. The author has naturally utilized all of these texts for his own work. However, being fluent in Bengali, he has also been able to go back to sources from Saraswati Thakura’s own time (Saraswati Jayasree, articles in The Gaudiya and so on) as well as interviewing surviving disciples. Of particular importance here are anecdotes told by Srimad Jati Shekhara Prabhu, a lay disciple of Srila Saraswati Thakura’s, whose memories also furnished most of the material for the author’s earlier book on Srila Vamsidasa Babaji.

This wealth of material gives the author the opportunity to paint a much fuller and richer portrait of Saraswati Thakura than anyone has before. While the author does not dwell on politically controversial issues (such as the conflicts between members of the Gaudiya Math), he does mention them, and usually manages to bring out the good in both sides.

By not shying away from these topics (contrary to advice given to him), the author affords many readers a first glimpse into the dynamic spiritual reality of the Gaudiya Math during the time of Saraswati Thakura. I feel that this is extremely important. There is a tendency in some quarters today to similarly see ISKCON during the manifest presence of Srila Prabhupada as some kind of a golden age, where all movement was dance, all talk was song, and nobody knew the meaning of the word politics. Glorifying the past is natural, but it may lead to an unrealistic understanding of what spiritual life ought to be, and especially to the tendency to try to freeze the dynamism of a reformer into dead forms. I will return to this point later.

Bhakti Vikasa Swami’s book comes in three hardbound volumes of almost 1500 pages altogether. The first two volumes contain many illustrations, some of which have never been widely published before. All three volumes come in one attractive folio, but unfortunately the quality of the binding—at least of the copy I perused—is substandard. Fortunately, that is not the case with the contents.

Volume one begins with a biographical sketch of Saraswati Thakura’s life. For persons familiar with any of the biographies mentioned above, this part of the book contains the least new material. Still, in presenting a richer and more nuanced picture than earlier hagiographies, the author does yeoman service to all followers of Saraswati Thakura.

This overview is followed by a part dealing with the message, mission, and personality of Saraswati Thakura. Topics covered here include educational projects, collection and spending, Saraswati Thakura’s personal diet and preferences, and the theistic exhibitions arranged by the Gaudiya Math. This part of the book is replete with information never before printed in English and essential to understanding the sometimes paradoxical nature of Saraswati Thakura.

Volume two is divided into three parts. The first is called “The Preaching Challenge” and deals with many of the particular challenges that Saraswati Thakura’s novel style of propagating Gaudiya Vaishnavism was faced with. This includes a lengthy section on the apasampradayas that Saraswati Thakura so fiercely opposed, but also a chapter on preaching in Europe that many readers will find interesting.

The second part deals with Saraswati Thakura’s disciples and associates, offering captivating profiles of many of his most important sannyasi disciples, but also of ordinary householders. By thus recognizing the importance of Saraswati Thakura’s followers and disciples (parshads), the author avoids the politics of almost all of the earlier works, where some disciples are inordinately elevated and others belittled or even completely ignored. For an ISKCON publication, this is most welcome.

Unfortunately, the profiles deal only with the lives of these people during the manifest presence of Saraswati Thakura, generally only mentioning if they later accepted sannyasa initiation. That the author chose to focus on this time is both natural and understandable, given his desire to avoid dealing with the schismatic feuds that broke out after Saraswati Thakura’s passing. However, by neglecting the later lives of these disciples, he misses the opportunity to show how the breakup of the Gaudiya Math was not only a traumatic event that shattered the unified preaching effort of Saraswati Thakura, it also gave individual devotees a chance to stand up and take responsibility. Today, there are far more Gaudiya Math temples—even not counting ISKCON and its offshoots—than there were during Saraswati Thakura’s presence.

The third part of volume two deals with Saraswati Thakura’s contributions in hindsight. While containing many important points, this is in my opinion the most problematic part of the book as a whole. In the name of upholding the dignity of Saraswati Thakura, the author belittles all other forms of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Even the most casual student of Gaudiya Vaishnavism will realize that while Saraswati Thakura’s and his disciple’s achievements are amazing—particularly in how they have spread Gaudiya Vaishnavism into the Western world—they form a small minority among the millions of Gaudiya Vaishnavas in India and Bangladesh. Calling Saraswati Thakura’s modern critics “quibbling pedants”, “foolish ingrates”, “blinkered pedagogues”, “spiteful pettifoggers”, “myopically traditional”, or “the most condemned within the universe” does evince some linguistic creativity, but it has little other use. Better to let the arguments and results of Saraswati Thakura’s preaching speak for themselves.

Volume three is of a supplementary nature. It begins with a collection of short writings, lectures, verses, and songs by or about Saraswati Thakura, many of which have not been published before. This is followed by series of appendices, the first being an analysis of Saraswati Thakura’s horoscope by Iskcon astrologer Syamasundara Dasa. While reading a horoscope correctly posthumously may not be that difficult, adding a section on astrology is well in keeping with Saraswati Thakura’s interests. The other appendices list disciples, publications, and established temples of Saraswati Thakura.

Jati Shekhara Prabhu told the author: “My guru was a lion, your guru was a lion, may you also be a lion.” No doubt this has inspired the author, but while repeatedly stressing how Saraswati Thakura was correct in modifying the presentation of Gaudiya Vaishnavism to suit his particular time, place, and circumstances, the author seems to forget that such changes must continue. The author’s use of obscure English words such a saliferous, philanderer, and appetency in his own text may likewise be seen as sweetly following Saraswati Thakura—or alternatively, as simply copying an outdated form. Similarly, Saraswati Thakura needed to be hard and uncompromising towards what he called prakrita-sahajiyas, but are they really the main enemies of true Gaudiya Vaishnavism today?

Bhakti Vikasa Swami’s work is an extremely valuable addition to a growing collection of texts glorifying the founder of the Saraswata family of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. While carefully researched, it is not free of errors and omissions. Many of the mistakes are the result of politically colored descriptions. The statement that Srila Bon Maharaja did not dress in traditional sannyasi clothing in the West, for example, is inconsistent both with his own diary notes and pictorial evidence. But such mistakes are minor.

This is a book that deserves to be carefully studied by all Saraswata Gaudiya Vaishnavas, however, it will not be the last word said on Saraswati Thakura. Of special note here is Dr. Ferdinando Sardella’s (Pranava Dasa’s) recent doctoral thesis Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, The Context and Significance of a Modern Hindu Personalist (available as an e-text online), which scholarly devotees may find of great interest. Further, several important historical documents, previously presumed lost, have been found since the publication of Bhakti Vikasa Swami’s book. These include the Sri Parva of Saraswati Jayasree and Saraswati Thakura’s diaries, the eventual publication of which will continue to add to our understanding and appreciation of the teachings and personality of this remarkable Vaishnava reformer.

Reviewed by John Gray

Unlike the big climate shifts of the geological past the one that is presently under way is a result of human activity. Despite a determined rearguard action by so-called sceptical environmentalists, there is no reasonable doubt that greenhouse gases released by industrialisation, together with the destruction of forest for farming and more recently bio-fuels, are at the back of global warming today. Possibly cosmic factors may also be at work – sunspot cycles, or whatever. But a mass of scientific evidence points to humanly produced carbon emissions over the past couple of hundred years as being the primary cause of the current process of global warming.

Humans started this process, and it is easy to conclude that humans can stop it. That has long been the Green refrain, now echoed by politicians in all parties. James Lovelock takes a different view: the planet is not a mechanism that humans can use as they please, winding it up like a clock and then winding it back when it seems to be running too quickly. In some respects functioning as a single organism, the Earth regulates itself so as to maintain conditions suitable to life. Humans are a part of this system, which they will never be in a position to control. The Earth system – Gaia, as Lovelock named it after the Greek Earth goddess – is incomparably more powerful than any human intervention, and when humans disrupt Gaia’s stability she will return to equilibrium without any regard for their interests or plans. That is what is happening at the present time, and there is nothing humans can do to stop the process running its course. As Lovelock puts it in The Vanishing Face of Gaia, which is the definitive statement of the Gaia theory and its implications for the future humans now face: ‘The Earth, in its but not our interests, may be forced to move to a hot epoch, one where it can survive, though in a diminished and less habitable state. If, as is likely, this happens, we will have been the cause.’

There is nothing that humans can do that can bring back the world as it was before global warming began. That does not mean nothing can be done to cope with ongoing climate change, but – rightly – Lovelock dismisses Green schemes for renewable energy as worse than useless. Preserving the rudiments of civilisation in the face of massive environmental disruption requires high-tech solutions – nuclear energy to secure our electricity supply and new techniques of synthetic food production to replace agriculture, for example. These technologies can be used to reduce the human imprint on the planet far more effectively than fashionable Green nostrums. Lovelock also suggests that geo-engineering techniques, such as introducing an aerosol of acid droplets into the stratosphere with the aim of slowing down global warming, should not be rejected out of hand, though he is worried about dangerous side effects.

Most importantly, Lovelock is clear that though technical fixes are indispensable in coping with present and prospective conditions, they cannot return the Earth to stability. The ultimate root of the environmental crisis is the present level of human population:

The disease that afflicts the Earth is not just climate change – manifest by drought, heat and an ever-rising sea. Added to this there is the changing chemistry of the air and the oceans, and the way the sea grows acidic. Then there is the shortage of food for all consumers of the animal kingdom. As important is the loss of that vital biodiversity that enables the working of an ecosystem. All these affect the working of the Earth’s operating system and are the consequences of too many people.

Here Lovelock confronts head-on the ultimate contemporary taboo – human overpopulation.

Despite the environmental catastrophes of the last century – including irreparable damage in Soviet Russia and Maoist China, where the belief that there are no natural limits on human expansion was an integral part of the secular state religion – right-thinking opinion in all parts of the political spectrum continues to view Malthus as a hate figure. Most Greens endorse the flabby anti-Malthusian consensus. As Lovelock writes, ‘The fundamental flaw of the green lobbies is revealed in the name Greenpeace; by conflating the humanism of peace movements with environmentalism they unconsciously anthropomorphize Gaia.’ But Gaia has no particular concern for humans, and will not be propitiated by empty gestures such as carbon trading or limits on air traffic. What is needed, in fact, is virtually the opposite of the standard Green mix of wind turbines and organic farms, which could at best enable an overblown human population to eke a precarious living from an overtaxed Earth. If there is a sustainable future it is in a compact, high-tech civilisation with far fewer people.
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Read the entire review from Literary Review magazine.

Documentary filmmaker Kim Churchill’s project Enlighten Up! begins with a promising, but perhaps overly ambitious, plan: find an average guy, subject him to a program of yoga practice, and expose him to world-renowned yoga teachers. This regimen, it is hoped, will yield pro-yoga testimony from a profoundly transformed person, and prompt viewers to take seriously the positive—even spiritual—outcomes of the practice.

In the process of revealing a great metamorphosis, Churchill (who serves as occasional narrator and interlocutor) seemingly intends to separate the yoga charlatans from the yoga saints. She opens her film with a sequence featuring some of the more famous Western yoga teachers. Those teachers’ comments on topics such as the antiquity of yoga, their publishing prowess, and their jumbo-sized studios are spliced together in a way that is unflattering, and perhaps unfair.

Early in Enlighten Up!, we are also introduced to the yoga experiment’s “guinea pig,” a twenty-nine year-old unemployed journalist and self-proclaimed skeptic named Nick Rosen. Churchill, an avid yoga practitioner herself, hopes to prove through Rosen’s example that yoga is much more than physical exercise, boutique clothing, and big-name entrepreneurial teachers. Although the journalist Rosen may be a master of the written word, it becomes clear that elocution is not among his strengths. As such, the viewer may struggle to grasp Rosen’s rationale for appearing in the film and undertaking Churchill’s experiment. He seems not only skeptical of the capacity of yoga to change his life, but also rather uninterested in such a possibility.

Rosen begins his disorganized sixth-month yoga “journey” by crashing a number of New York City yoga studios. He sweats it out in a Bikram Yoga session and sits in on classes with Dharma Mittra and Alan Finger, among others. While the smorgasbord style of practice helps Churchill capture the diversity of instruction in New York, her human subject engages in little more than localized yoga tourism. Arguably such sampling is fine for a novice, but the approach is not one that most yoga teachers would endorse indefinitely. Therefore, when Rosen confesses that dabbling in yoga a few times a week has not upended his worldview, the viewer is unlikely to be surprised.

After New York City’s shooting locations are exhausted, Churchill hauls Rosen to LA where he meets up with a lewd ex-professional wrestler-turned-yogi. The crew travels onward to Hawaii where Rosen’s practice briefly intensifies under the watch of the comically foul-mouthed Norman Allen. While spending time with Allen, Churchill (from off camera) beseeches Rosen to “Ask about moksa.” Rosen responds, “What?”  At this point in the journey, Rosen has apparently not mastered a new vocabulary.

From Hawaii, the crew heads to India in search of greater wisdom and authenticity. In Mysore and Pune respectively, Rosen lands face time with Patabhi Jois and BKS Iyengar, two of the most famous students of the Sri Vaishnava teacher and scholar, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. While students familiar with the work and influence of Jois and Iyengar may enjoy seeing these well-known personalities on film, Rosen comes across as somewhat unprepared for such meetings—if not unengaged. When Rosen poses questions such as “What is yoga,” he seems to be humoring the director and her interests, rather than pursuing new knowledge with any sense of urgency or necessity. Rosen’s persistent use of the term “enlightenment” (which is far more associated with Buddhism) even several months into the experiment suggests that Churchill’s chosen student remains reluctant to do his homework.

Fortunately, by means of a Western resident of Vrindavan named Syamdas, the film makes a brief but important distinction between bhakti-yoga and the primarily physical practice emphasized in the balance of the film. However, the full significance of that distinction is likely to be grasped only by viewers with prior knowledge, as Churchill changes topics, venues, and scenery with unfortunate haste. Although Syamdas totes Rosen to various teachers in Vrinadavan, curiously (at least on camera) Rosen does not sit before any teachers of theistic, devotional Vedanta. As Vrindavan rose to prominence as a spiritual center on account of the influence of Gaudiya Vaishnavism in particular, such an omission is something of an oversight. Moreover for a film that tries to show something of the diversity of yogic practices, intentions, and ultimate ideals, a more thorough examination of bhakti-yoga (by far the most prevalent spiritual engagement in India) might have been useful.

Unfortunately for Churchill, the transformation narrative that she has in mind for Rosen does not play out. The film’s eclectic sideshow of famous (and not-so-famous) yogis leaves the viewer with little more than an impression of a range of contemporary teachers and their various idiosyncrasies. Such outcomes are not without some value and interest, but neither makes for very good storytelling. Churchill tries to salvage the narrative by suggesting that the project helped Rosen restore his relationship with his mother (a Shamanic healer) and pursue his passion for rock climbing documentaries. Even if that is true, such a “transformation” is unlikely to prompt viewers to unfurl their yoga mats and cheer.

Enlighten Up! is a film of enormous, but ultimately unrealized potential. Issues of authenticity in yoga teaching and yoga philosophy, and connections between physical practice and spiritual life are topics worth exploring. It would be gratifying to see and hear the story of someone who begins a process of physical exercise and ends up going much, much deeper. Indeed, that is a story playing out in yoga studios the world over, where “skeptics” become “converts” every day, taking up practices such as kirtan and study of sacred literature. Unfortunately for Churchill, her test subject never truly immerses himself in practice or introspection. As such, Rosen is ultimately not a vehicle for telling what might have otherwise been a very enlightening story.

With the dazzling 3D-vortex of colors, actions and emotions, James Cameron’s Avatar seems to have given everyone something to rave about.

But let’s get it straight—Avatar is a downright misnomer for this latest new blockbuster.

No, not because, sadly for Hare Krishna moviegoers, the film’s got nothing to do with Hinduism except its Sanskrit name. And some Hindu activists who habitually frisk all new releases for concealed sacrileges also needn’t worry—there are none in Avatar, or at least not more that in those little digital icons they hide themselves behind on their own e-chats.

It’s because the movie reverses the very concept that the term “avatar” is based on.

Leave aside the fact that Hindu theology reserves the use of avatar, which in Sanskrit literally means descent, almost exclusively for appearances of Vishnu on Earth. The key point here is that an avatar always descends from a higher realm into the lower, restores prosperity, wisdom, and happiness—and moves on unchanged after the mission is accomplished.

However, the “avatar” Jake Sully—and we the viewers along with him—shortly after his descent into the world of Na’vis sees the higher realm of earthlings rapidly grow pallid and repulsive in comparison to the pristine world of supposed savages. The “civilized humans” turn out as primitive, jaded, and increasingly greedy, cynical, and brutal—traits only amplified by their machinery—while the “monkey aliens” emerge as noble, kind, wise, sensitive, and humane.

We, along with the Avatara hero, are now faced with an uncomfortable yet irresistible choice between the two races and the two worldviews. And invariably, along with him we cannot help but lean toward the far more civilized insides within the long-tailed, blue-skinned, and technologically infantile exterior.

So much for a descending avatar. Jake soon admits to himself in his videolog: “I realized that I had it backwards, I wasn’t sure what was the dream and what was real.” Having regained through the avatar body not just his legs, but his dignity, his freedom, and his brethren whose love and trust he struggles to earn, the rescuer becomes the rescued, the benefactor becomes the benefitted. The avatar becomes . . . well . . . a refugee among the aborigines so content inwardly that they wouldn’t trade their tree for whatever the savvy sky people gods have to offer! Contrary to The Matrix’s Neo, Jake plugs into a supposedly illusory world to discover it to be much more tangible, wholesome and true than his own—and wants to stay in.

This makes us ask the question: Why? And what on Earth (or on Pandora) do “culture”, “civilization”, and “human” stand for?

Not succumbing to the stock trifle of sci-fi genre, James Cameron makes this question the fourth dimension of his movie—and answers it most convincingly: it’s the qualities of kindness, gratitude, regard for the elderly, self-sacrifice, respect for all life, and ultimately humble dependence on a higher intelligence behind nature that qualify one as cultured, civilized, and human.

The other alternative is summed up by Jake Sully: “This is how it’s done. When people are sitting on something that you want, you make them your enemy so that you can drive them out.” And “they have already killed their mother.” Here you have it, the savage—give or take his spaceship, touch-screen, and a rifle.

And getting back to the Hindu theology, Bhagavad-gita (16.1-4) echoes this distinction: “Fearlessness; cultivation of wisdom; charity; self-control; austerity; simplicity; refrain from unnecessary violence; truthfulness; freedom from hatred; renunciation; tranquility; aversion to fault-finding; compassion for all living entities; freedom from covetousness; gentleness; modesty; steady determination; vigour; forgiveness; fortitude; cleanliness; and freedom from envy and from the passion for honor—these are qualities befitting real civilized humans.

“Pride, arrogance, conceit, anger, harshness, and ignorance are qualities of barbarians.”

In order to descend—that is, to be an avatar—one first ought to be above. Unfortunately for our civilization, epitomized by the human conquistadors on Pandora, from the place where we are happily getting ourselves into, we can only climb.
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This article originally appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Prescriptive books about agriculture, how to eat and how to think about food seem more and more popular these days. (At least those written by Michael Pollan.) And with the resurrection of an old French-cooking warhorse to the best-seller list, I’m hoping we’re entering an age of rediscovery, where long-neglected books—books that have been more “influential” than, you know, actually read—will begin reappearing in bookstores and on nightstands.

One of those lost books was reissued this summer by the New York Review of Books Classics imprint, a handsome little tome called The One-Straw Revolution by a Japanese rice farmer named Masanobu Fukuoka. I had never heard of it before I saw an ad for the reprint in The New York Review of Books, though a blurb on the book’s back cover by Pollan, an introduction by Frances Moore Lappé and a preface by Wendell Berry (the three make up a formidable trident of Food Righteousness) all assert the influence the book had when it was first published in the late 1970s. The prices that used copies fetch on the Internet also seem to mark it as something widely sought after.

In the book, Fukuoka tells the story of his life after he had a revelation in his 20s that human knowledge is worthless and, specifically, that the agricultural application of that “knowledge” is destructive. He hung up his lab coat (he had been an agricultural inspector for the Japanese government) and left his cosmopolitan life behind. He returned to the plot of farmland he was raised on in the mountains of Shikoku, in southern Japan, and set out to do nothing. Literally.

Fukuoka espouses a philosophy of what he calls “do-nothing” farming, arguing against weeding, fertilization, pesticides, composting and cultivation, and arguing for humans to watch nature, learn her rhythm and then synchronize their farming with it. After a few disasters, he restores a natural balance to his fields. His rice yields skyrocket and his Mandarin oranges, grown without intervention, fetch the highest prices at market. Almost as important, he restores a lost balance to his life as a farmer: he has months of free time away from the fields, during which he can compose poetry and be in nature, rather than tied to trying to master it.

The One-Straw Revolution shifts in tone and scope during its brisk 185 pages. Fukuoka starts with his life and the discovery and development of his method of “do-nothing” farming and expands outward, holding forth on the right way to eat, when to eat what foods, the difficulty of using terms like “natural” and “right” when they’re applied to foods and farming, and eventually into a full-out denial of relativity.

Fukuoka’s tone is Zen didactic; at turns he employs ruefulness, scorn, enthusiasm, even simple facts (say, of the amount of rice a certain parcel of land can yield) in service of his arguments. In some ways it reminded me of Jun’ichiro Tanizaki’s “In Praise of Shadows,” a short essay on the erosion of the traditional Japanese design aesthetic in the 20th century that turns out to be a much broader address.

And while there might be a practical aspect to chapters like “Growing Backyard Vegetables Like Wild Plants,” I think that for most of us non-rice-growing city folk, the book’s appeal is more elemental: the accumulated life lessons of an old mountain man who turned his back on the way everybody else did things and struck out on his own. And how many food books have chapters that kick off like this?

A snake seizes a frog in its mouth and slips away into the grass. A girl screams. A brave lad bares his feelings of loathing and flings a rock at the snake. The others laugh. I turn to the boy who threw the stone: ‘What do you think that’s going to accomplish?’

This article originally appeared in tmagazine.