Vedabase about internet bh. Jan, 2013 This is a compilation of quotes including the word 'internet' found in Vedabase. It nicely illustrates the evolution of internet's impact and devotees's attitudes to it. First mentions about the internet are in Back to Godhead magazine (BTG). The very first is in BTG #28-05 1994: "A reader who got in touch with us on the vast network of computer networks known as the Internet..." In BTG #29-03 1995 an American student asks if ISKCON maintains some LISTSERV group about Krsna. The answer is no but there is already a first BTG site: http://www.webcom.com/~ara BTG #29-04 1995 (The Vedic Observer) shows the ambivalent position of the internet: "And the Internet is a network to nowhere unless we use it to link up to God." Editorial of BTG #30-06 1996 is dedicated to the Hare Krsna computer virus. ;) Editorial of BTG #31-04 1997: "But people are on a joyride. There’s money to be made, sex to be celebrated, we’ve got movies and parties and corporate conquests. Surf the sea, surf the internet, surf your own cerebral dendrites and synapses. It’s idiocy. And it’s the kind of idiocy that can well lead to war. While we’re out surfing and enjoying the party, we’re missing the real point of life—spiritual realization. And we’re building up a stockpile of karma that could explode into war at any time." Most of the BTG reader's feedback comes from the internet as seen from words "via the Internet" behind a reader's name. Most mentions are in Srila Prabhupada's Vyasa Puja offerings. SP VP 1997 New Dvaraka/LA: "Other devotees are working to publish your books and spread Krsna consciousness through television, radio, the Internet, and other media." In SP VP 1998 offering Vipramukhya Swami speaks about starting the CHAKRA site for defense of ISKCON from anti-ISKCON propaganda and the Internet Radio site with lectures and kirtans. (In 1997 he became the first and so far the last head of department for the Internet under the Ministry of Communications.) SP VP 1998 Baltimore: "People who look at our Websites on the Internet wonder why we have so much disagreement." Yogesvar dasa in his article Spiritual Television: Is the World Ready for a True Spiritual Network? (ICJ #6.1 January/June 1998) speaks about media in general and briefly mentions the internet as well: "It is worth noting that in their thirst for spiritually satisfying programmes, seekers have abandoned television and turned to the Internet. 'The Net encompasses many strange things, but those who use it often and understand it well know it has a rich and haunting mystical side', writes Jon Katz, media critic for Wired Magazine. He goes on to say: Along with pornographers and teenagers, it attracts deeply religious people of countless denominations engaged in extraordinary searches into their own and others' souls. Ascetics, heretics and true believers searching for God (or his or her equivalent) flourish in zines, religious and mystical conferences, and on bulletin boards ... The business of sending and receiving messages has always been a core notion of mysticism and spirituality. Countless millions believe, or want to believe, that there are larger forces at work in the universe. And they want to chat with them. Those millions of Internet users might return to watching television if they heard someone had started a truly spiritual television network." ... "For television, the Internet or any form of media to carry spiritual potency, its content must be supervised by a council of qualified spiritual leaders." The same ICJ issue speaks about the problem of child abuse and mentions the internet as a medium which can help to prevent the influence of negative information but only there where devotees can access it: "Fortunately, modern communications such as the internet, are having a positive effect in this area. Since bad news travels swiftly (almost instantaneously on the Internet), members of communities can grasp the magnitude of the abuse problem and ring the ‘alarm bells’ before the ‘fire’ hits their communities. A third possible reason for poor compliance is, regrettably and paradoxically, bad communication. Despite the internet, mass mailings and word of mouth, for some reason rank-and-file devotees, especially in areas outside North America and Western Europe, simply remain unaware of the scope of the problem of abuse, or obtain their information from questionable sources, which puts them in the position of either acting on unreliable information or disbelieving information which is accurate." SP VP 2000 Tucson is a poem about the internet as a source of prajalpa and quarrels among devotees. SP VP 2000 Radio Krsna Centrale: "You are here on the Internet and Com, even when some discussion gets hot." In his SP VP 2002 offering Bhakti Ballabh Puri Goswami writes about a sort of 'Harinam spam', sending the holy names to emails of various religious communities. ;) SP VP 2002 BTG: "The most significant development for Back to Godhead in the past year was that BTG and the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust launched an ambitious project to increase the spreading of Krsna consciousness through the Internet. Although this medium was unavailable for use in your mission during your time with us, we’re confident that you are pleased to see us taking advantage of it for Krsna’s service. If the printing press is the brhad-mrdanga, the World Wide Web must be the brhad-brhad-mrdanga. You were always eager to give value to the inventions of the nondevotees by using their materialistic progress to defeat their material illusion. You challenged us to use our intelligence to preach Krsna consciousness, to always be on the lookout, as you were, for novel ways to inject the antidote for Kali-yuga into the tortured minds of the misled masses. Through the Internet we can reach the masses in every country of the world in seconds, opening up a broad new avenue for increasing the distribution of your books and Back to Godhead. Our focus, as always, is to bring people to the shelter or your books and magazine." SP VP 2003 Umapati Swami: "Now maybe it is because I am active on the Internet that I have to deal with so many people who call themselves devotees but refuse to purify their consciousness with the words emanating from the lotus mouth of Srila Prabhupada." VP SP 2004 Sankarsan das ACBSP: "For spreading Krsna consciousness I have gotten the inspiration to start an E-course for introducing the science of Krsna consciousness on the Internet. By your inconceivable mercy I have gotten results far, far beyond anything I could have ever imagined. So far over 10,000 spiritual seekers from all over the world have joined the course. We have named our sign-up web page www.backtohome.com, after your famous slogan. Please bless me, Srila Prabhupada, that this humble attempt to purely pass on your teachings may become unlimitedly successful for pushing forward Krsna consciousness and sending the personality of Kali into an early retirement." VP SP 2004 Chandigarh: "Similarly, Your Divine Grace pervades the ISKCON world, inside and outside. For those who wish to stay connected to you, all means to do so are available: holy dhamas, twenty-four-hour kirtanas, temples, yatras, festivals, sadhu-sanga, books, videos, audios, construction, Deity worship, meetings, courses, go-seva, and, not the least, e-mails and the Internet." VP SP 2004 NE-BBT: "To date, 400 million books have been distributed, and that is just the beginning. Your works are in libraries, in universities, in schools, in private homes, on the Internet, in the ether, and in purified minds." VP SP 2006 Helsinki: "Dear Srila Prabhupada, please give us the intelligence to expand the sankirtana movement here on all levels. We want to preach your message directly, indirectly, and in between, to young and old, to academics and the uneducated, through person-to-person preaching, and through books, newspapers, television, radio, the Internet, public programs, vegetarian workshops, and the Vedic arts. We want to do all this to please you, while always keeping our main focus on the primary angas of the sankirtana movement — book distribution, harinama-sankirtana, and prasadam distribution." VP SP 2007 Bhaktivaibhava Swami: "Of course, technology is not inherently bad. You taught us that utility is the principle in our attempt to spread Krsna consciousness, and many devotees are using technological devices in their preaching work. The Internet world is increasing, and many devotees take advantage of it to distribute devotional items to thousands of people. When I asked one devotee in the country where I live what item is being ordered in large quantity, he replied that your books are being ordered the most." VP SP 2007 New Dvaraka/LA: "The temple broadcasts our morning and evening programs of kirtana and lectures to hundreds of internet viewers." VP SP 2007 Rio de Janeiro: "The spiritual energy that continues to electrify our earth is coming from Prabhupada. We can feel it when we see his smile, when we sing together, or when we hear the maha-mantra on a corner, in a store, at an event, from a good man, on a flute, from the new generation of devotees, or in a choir. Let us not forget, of course, about Krsna on the Internet." VP SP 2007 Western Pacific BBT: "How else could all of this worldwide book distribution and these global preaching projects continue and expand so nicely? If we but open our eyes and ears, we can see that your transcendental magic is happening, in some way, nearly everywhere on the planet (e.g., your divine message now travels and changes hearts through the Internet, through Krsna.com, to those rare places where we may not be able to physically go at present)." VP SP 2007 BTG/Krsna.com: "You followed in the footsteps of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, using technology in the service of Krsna. Someone once said to me, “Srila Prabhupada would never have used computers or the Internet. His message was all about simple living.” I couldn’t disagree more. We cannot forget about the “high thinking” part, without which the “simple living” has no spiritual basis or significance. You were in the forefront of dovetailing technology in the 1960s and 70s, using everything for Krsna, including jet airplanes and printing presses and the then state-of-the-art Dictaphone tape recorder. You knew that the perfection of these devices was to use them to spread Krsna consciousness, just as Srila Rupa Gosvami taught with his principle of yukta-vairagya. Krsna.com also tries to follow in this tradition and use everything at our disposal to bring Krsna’s holy name and message to every town and village. I can’t help thinking that you would be so pleased to see your movement and the message of Lord Caitanya spread so widely over the Internet through Krsna.com. Over one million people came to the Krsna.com website last year, including over 10,000 unique visitors on Janmashtami day 2006 alone! Through the use of webcams, Krsna.com is now bringing the temples to people who would otherwise have no access. Temple kirtanas, programs, and lectures are broadcast on our website and heard by thousands of people as part of their daily sadhana. All of your books are available online for persons in other countries who have no access to your books or who are forbidden by their country to receive this literature. Anyone can listen to your bhajana recordings on our website. Krsna.com Live Help volunteers are available to chat online with persons with questions about Krsna consciousness. And new this year is Krsna.com’s weekly Sanga podcasts, designed to bring news, discussions, interviews, and meditations to our worldwide audience. This is your brihad-mridanga at work today. Krsna.com has been translated into Chinese and Portuguese, too, with more languages to come. All of your timeless teachings are freely available with just a click of the mouse, and they continue to inspire devotees and aspiring Vaishnavas alike, reaching households everywhere in this digital age. I strongly believe that these technologies have been created just so that we can archive all of your recordings, books, videos, photos, etc., to preserve them and to share them for generations to come." -- The attitude of Srila Prabhupada to modern technologies is shown in this experience (SPL 5.40): "Ananga-manjari: Prabhupada was going around looking at all the different temple offices. In one office Karandhara was showing Prabhupada a new computer. "Prabhupada," he said, "all we have to do is type the words Rupa Gosvami, and then it will automatically write everything you have ever said or written about Rupa Gosvami." Prabhupada had been looking at the computer without showing much interest. But when Karandhara said the name Rupa Gosvami, Prabhupada raised his eyebrows and said, "Oh? Yes, everything can be used in Krsna's service." Then we walked out of that office and went to the telex machine. Prabhupada sat before it in the chair, and everyone stood around him while Karandhara explained what the machine did. "It can write a message all the way to New York, and they can send a message back immediately, Srila Prabhupada." So Karandhara typed on the telex machine, "Hare Krsna. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. Please respond." There was no answer, so he typed it out again, and again there was no answer. So he typed it out again, and this time he typed out, "All glories to Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada is sitting right next to the telex machine. Please respond." All of a sudden the machine started typing out a reply, and Prabhupada was sitting there watching it. The type read, "Dear Srila Prabhupada, please accept our most humble obeisances at your lotus feet. We will be very eager to see Your Divine Grace in three days in New York." Srila Prabhupada spoke out, "Jaya! Haribol!" The message from New York was signed by many devotees, and Prabhupada just smiled and said, "This is very nice." -- VP SP 2007 Sankarsan das ACBSP: "By your mercy, in December of 2002 I experimented with starting a Krsna consciousness training program, an e-course, on the Internet. Since Krsna consciousness is the ultimate self-realization system, I named the course the Ultimate Self Realization Course. By your mercy, the program has expanded like anything. There are now over six thousand people enrolled in over a hundred countries. In order to provide the best possible support for my readers, I am now traveling and preaching all the over the world practically full time to meet as many of them as possible, to encourage and help them fully surrender themselves at the lotus feet of Lord Sri Krsna. I have never before tasted such wonderful, sweet happiness. This is all due to your mercy because you are engaging me constantly in propagating your mission. I have unlimited preaching work to do every day. I have weekly lessons and daily meditations to write. Plus every day I have a large volume of correspondence to answer, responding to the questions of my students from all over the world. While all of this writing is going on, I am also simultaneously traveling and preaching in an ever-expanding number of countries around the world." VP SP 2008 Mumbai (Juhu): "With the increased number of visitors, our book distribution has also increased. In addition, we are distributing books on the Internet under the “e-distribution” program." VP SP 2008 ISKCON Television (ITV): "Now you are available on television stations, Internet sites, and DVDs, and the conditioned souls can experience your darsana and receive your teachings just by pressing buttons. Your face and voice transcend the chasms of time. There you are, instructing anyone who will listen about topics relating to Krsna." VP SP 2008 Sankarsan das ACBSP: "So this accepting everything in relation to Krsna is what you are teaching your followers how to do. It is the essence of Krsna consciousness. Entering into this spirit, we at The Ultimate Self-Realization Course are engaged in utilizing the Internet to spread the mission of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu to the far corners of the earth. By the power of the Internet we are reaching and guiding more than eight thousand people every day in over one hundred countries in English, Spanish, French, and Russian. By your mercy and the mercy of the previous acaryas, so many people are learning about Krsna’s teachings in the Bhagavad-gita, so many people are feeling enlivened to take up the simple and wonderful path of chanting Hare Krsna. In fact, we are considering that this Internet technology is simply one of the instruments given by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu to rapidly expand the Krsna consciousness movement further and faster than anything before. Indeed, people are taking to chanting Hare Krsna and reading your books that haven’t had any contacts with devotees other than through the medium of the Internet, and they are very quickly coming to the standard of initiation." VP SP 2009 BTG/Krsna.com: "There are now 1.6 billion people online. The Internet, an invention intended to facilitate communication, has become a virtual world, where people spend many hours a day trying to find 'something or other' and attempting escape from 'whatever.' As a result, people often become more isolated; their demands for faster and more easily available information and/or sense gratification only increase, causing more frustration in their lives than ever before. By spreading Lord Caitanya's movement, you showed us how to truly unify people which the World Wide Web can't do. The holy names of Krsna are your prescription. What you said in 1968 is as true as ever: by chanting Krsna's names we are truly together, though physically separated by thousands of earth miles. At BTG/Krsna.com, we are trying to make your association available to the often-lonely virtual world of the Internet. By your grace, many people in every nook and corner of the world can now read your books, hear the chanting of Krsna’s names, and see the worship of Deities you or your followers have established. Where there are no temples, where devotees haven’t even visited, Krsna.com is able to go." BrendaLee Riley in How I Came to Krsna Consciousness (BTG #43-01 2009) writes about the preaching of Sankarsan das (see above) on the internet: "I started going to school early so I could do Internet searches about Krsna consciousness. One day I came across "The Spiritual Revolutionary," the website of the ISKCON devotee Sankarsana Dasa Adhikari. He had an e-mail course on the Gita, so I enrolled. I started sending him my questions, and he always kindly answered them. Over time, I began depending on him more and more. I already knew the rule against meat-eating, and he taught me the other three "regulative principles" that ISKCON devotees follow. Whenever I've had trouble, he has given me helpful suggestions. I look forward to meeting him soon, and I hope to take initiation someday. Coming to Krsna consciousness is a continuous progression for me, and as I learn new things, I put them into practice the best I can. Since that first encounter with Jun at school, my progress has been steady. And I love every minute of it. I've learned to get up early in the morning to practice my spiritual disciplines and to chant and pray. I watch the morning lecture at the Los Angeles temple live on the Internet. I can even use the chat box to ask questions about the topic of the lecture. I'm learning so much and will be forever grateful to the young man who handed me that Bhagavad-gita in the supermarket parking lot so many years ago." VP SP 2010 Richmond Hill/Markham: "You encouraged, for Krsna, the use of all sorts of communications. Now devotees use everything from radio to the Internet to create the Krsna connection." VP SP 2010 Padayatra Worldwide (by Lokanath Swami): "The night before we left, Cesar came before the Deities to offer prayers. Afterwards, without any trace of shyness, he asked if he could have a picture of Them. When we gave him a picture, he said very happily, “I am going to put Them on an altar and pray to Them.” He took his picture, thanked us, looked one last time at the murtis of Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundara, and just before we left asked us to keep in touch with him through the Internet." In his book Jayananada Thakur its author Vishoka dasa explains that this books of memories originated as a web site. -- From the above it's obvious that internet is a tool which can be used both positively and negatively. It's going to stay with us so we should learn to use it positively for Krsna's service in the spirit of yukta-vairagya as many of the above examples show.