New Video / Tariffs / Kasyapa Writes 02 21 26

Please comment on this video when it is up and running.

PADA: Yeah the ordinary Joe citizen is paying the tariffs, which is really a tax, estimated at $1,000 - $4,500 for the average family depending on the type of household. This is also called inflation, which MAGA said they would bring down, but instead they are making household costs go up.

Meanwhile the billionaires get big tax breaks. Meanwhile farmers, wineries, bourbon makers, airplane manufacturers, and many other USA producers -- all lose their markets because other countries are quitting, boycotting and cancelling their USA contracts to buy from USA. And many of these USA producers go bankrupt, or cannot add more workers and expand etc. 

And places like Las Vegas and other tourist places dry up because foreign tourists are also boycotting -- after the USA insulted their country as "criminals who are ripping off the USA." Then MAGA is going to bail out the USA farmers who went bankrupt due to losing their sales -- thanks to the MAGA tariff wars -- with money collected from tariffs, but the Supreme Court says these tariffs are not legal and are -- a tax. 

Where is the bail out money coming from now? And the $12B bail out will not cover the $100B farm losses. "A drop in the bucket" said one farmer. This is also producing a giantic legal imbroglio nightmare, and ocean of hundreds of thousands of courts cases, where people will sue the government to get their tariffs refunded. All these hundreds of thousands of cases were made by the "smaller government" folks! The average Joe will never get his tariff losses back.

America meanwhile loses hundreds of billions in lost tourism, lost sales, cancelled contracts, and many companies and farmers go bankrupt, which increases unemployment. Meanwhile farmers and construction companies cannot find workers because they were all deported, and they also go bankrupted. Also losing billions of dollars.  

Meanwhile China is making record amounts of trade and has a $1.2 trillion trade surplus profit, because people are stopping buying USA products, and they are switching over to buying from places like China. But all this is required so a few rich folks can get more billions. So? Do I think all this is America First? No, I think it is billionaires first.      

Meanwhile business executives are complaining that MAGA's day to day changes in tariffs, from 10%, to 25%, 50%, 100%, 125%, threats of 500% -- are creating chaos for their ordering supplies and stabilizing their business planning. They cannot project their business expenses with all this chaos going on. No one would buy a car if they did not know if the interest was going to be 4%, 10%, 25%, 125% and so on, it stops business from being transacted.

So the result is, businesses overall are cutting back, slowing down -- not adding new jobs -- and not expanding their business, because they cannot properly plan for future expenses. They thought the Supreme Court would solve this, but MAGA simply announced a series of work arounds -- so they can keep collecting money by taxing the average Joe citizen, and continue to create chaos for the business world. 

But hey, my MAGA devotee friends said they wanted someone who would shake things up, and that is what they have, a guy who is adding $4 trillion more to the deficit and he is causing higher prices for the citizens. And he is making investors move their manufacturing to China and other places where they can actually plan out their business model on a stable basis, without day to day changes in the whole process. 

OK MAGA was a mistake, and I think even some of their die hard followers are starting to figure that out. Meanwhile it looks like they are back pedaling on the Epstein files, more unkept MAGA promises. Same thing, even some of the die hards are complaining. It looks to me like MAGA is in trouble. 

ys pd angel108b@yahoo.com   

JD: Holy unstable-ness, 10% went to 15% in one day. No wonder! People are making factories in China. Needs a stable plant base. People are going to just quit trying ... and wait for the next president. Right ... average person is paying the 10% or 15%, not China. Voted to pay more, and got what they voted for! More countries will boycott USA ...  

======

The Epstein Files: So Much Fuss For What? -- (Kasya dasa)

The recent unsealing of documents connected to Jeffrey Epstein has produced the usual ritual of public shock. Headlines gasp. Commentators clutch pearls. Institutions promise “full transparency,” which in modern language means releasing just enough truth to confirm what everyone already suspected — and just a little enough to protect the machinery that allowed it.

Everyone is surprised. Again. But surprise, in this case, is not innocence. It is a theater. Because Epstein was not an anomaly. He was a symptom — a well-tailored symptom of a civilization that worships wealth, rewards manipulation, and treats restraint as a psychological disorder.

From a Krishna-conscious perspective, the Epstein story is not primarily about one man’s pathology. It is about lust when it evolves from private weakness into institutional privilege. Not the sinful inconvenience. Not the regrettable misstep. The all-devouring enemy. And lust has a predictable career path. First, it whispers. Then, it negotiates. Then, it demands. Finally, it governs. Epstein did not invent this force. He industrialized it, monetized it.

Money was not Epstein’s true power. Money is just paper with better public relations. His real currency was access — proximity to prestige, influence, and vanity. He offered powerful people the one thing more intoxicating than wealth: the illusion that consequences were optional. This is how illusion — māyā — actually works. It does not appear as a monster. It appears as a private jet. It does not threaten. It reassures. It whispers: “You are different. The rules are for others.” And people believe it — not because they are stupid, but because they are attached.

Epstein did not look like a villain. He looked like a donor. This is important. Because material society rarely trusts saints, but instinctively trusts wealth. A man in simple clothes is questioned. A man in a suit is obeyed. Krishna consciousness reverses this illusion. It teaches that external polish has no correlation with internal clarity. A person may be materially sophisticated and spiritually bankrupt. Another may appear materially insignificant and yet be internally free. Epstein’s empire depended entirely on confusing these two categories. And society cooperated enthusiastically.

Many ask: how could so many intelligent people remain silent? Because silence is often more profitable than truth. Lust creates attachment. Attachment creates dependence. Dependence creates silence. This is not merely moral weakness. It is metaphysical gravity. Once one’s identity becomes tied to prestige, wealth, or influence, truth becomes dangerous because truth threatens the false self that was constructed to enjoy those privileges. Krishna consciousness calls this false identity the ahaṅkāra — the ego, the great impostor. Epstein did not create ego. 

He simply learned how to feed it.

Files will be released. Names will circulate. Outrage will trend. And then? The same civilization that created Epstein will continue producing his successors. Because the root problem is not legal. It is existential. A culture that teaches people they are merely sophisticated animals should not be surprised when they behave like unrestrained animals.

Krishna consciousness offers a radical alternative: you are not the body. You are not your urges. You are not your appetites. You are ātmā — conscious, eternal, and capable of mastery over the impulses that enslave the untrained mind. Without this understanding, intelligence simply becomes a more efficient servant of desire. People have unrestricted sex life with anything — mothers, daughters, children, animals. Nothing is shocking about Epstein's. It will get only worse until people understand the need to stop this so-called freedom of sex with anything and in any way. Sex need is a byproduct, not the goal.

Epstein’s death did not kill the disease. It merely buried one of its most visible symptoms.

Lust still governs markets. Prestige still overrides conscience. Illusion still sells itself as sophistication. And society still confuses power with purity. Krishna consciousness does not express surprise at this. It expresses a diagnosis. The real prison was never Epstein’s cell.

It is the human mind when it forgets its spiritual nature. And unlike sealed documents, that prison can only be opened from within.
#EpsteinFiles #harekrishna
https://kasyadas5.wixsite.com/.../the-epstein-files-so...

=====

"Even you insult Krishna, He will tolerate. But if you insult His devotee, He will never tolerate. Then you are finished. Then you are finished. Just like a big man. If you insult him, he may think, “All right, let him.” But if you insult or do something harm to his child, he will never tolerate. He will never tolerate. Similarly, a devotee who is dependent on Krishna in everything, and if somebody does harm to him, insults him, Krishna will never tolerate. That is explained in the Caitanya-caritamrta, vaisnava-aparadha. Tara madhye vaisnava-aparadha hati matta. So we should be very careful not to offend Vaisnava devotees. Not to offend. This is greatest offense".

=====

--- The Vaishnavi Diksha Guru: First Understand What Diksha Actually Is ---

Much of the debate about female diksha gurus suffers from a fundamental defect: 

people argue about who can give diksha without first understanding what diksha actually is. Without this foundation, the entire discussion floats in vagueness, sentiment, and institutional politics — instead of siddhānta. Before asking who can give diksha, one must ask what diksha is, what actually happens, and who the real initiator is. Until this is understood, the rest is noise.

The classical definition of diksha is given in the Hari-bhakti-vilāsa:
divyaṁ jnānaṁ yato dadyātkuryāt pāpasya saṅkṣayamtasmād
dīkṣeti sā proktādeśikais tattva-kovidaiḥ

"Diksha is the process by which divine knowledge is transmitted and sins are destroyed."

Two things happen:

Transmission of divya-jnāna (transcendental knowledge)

Destruction of sinful reactions

Not symbolically. Not sentimentally. Actually. Diksha is not the giving of beads. Diksha is not the whispering of syllables. Diksha is the awakening of spiritual reality in the consciousness of the disciple. The external ceremony formalizes it. It does not create it. The person who embodies these two principles is a guru.
Krishna confirms in Bhagavad-gita (10.11): "I destroy the darkness of ignorance with the lamp of knowledge." The guru does not manufacture realization. The guru transmits Krishna’s mercy. Krishna is the ultimate initiator (caitya-guru), acting through the external guru. The external guru is the transparent via medium. This is why guru is honored as good as Krishna — not because of bodily identity, but because of functioning conviction.

Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura strongly emphasized that diksha is not a mere ritual. He warned against reducing diksha to a social ceremony. He explained that diksha means awakening sambandha-jnāna — the disciple’s real relationship with Krishna. Without the transmission of realization, the ceremony alone is insufficient. He established initiation not as cultural, social or institutional inheritance, but as spiritual transformation. Remember, we are still talking not about formality.

A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada explained diksha in precise, practical terms. Initiation means beginning the process of spiritual purification under authorized guidance. He explained that the mantra received in disciplic succession carries spiritual potency. The mantra is not material sound. It is spiritual sound descending through parampara. The guru connects the disciple to this current. Without this connection, a mantra remains external sound. 

With it, a mantra becomes a spiritual force. That is for the initiation of any other mantra but Krishna's names. Anyone can chant Hare Krishna Mahamantra or numerous bhajans, deriving full spiritual benefits without undergoing the formal ceremony. Formality of harinam initiation falls within pancarātrika viddhi. 

Serves as confirmation of official acceptance into paramparā and the disciple's expression of a serious dedication to the process of sravanam-kirtanam. The formality is a natural consequence for the neophytes on the path of bhakti, but not an absolute necessity. There are several instances when Srila Prabhupada and Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati performed harinam diksha in rather unusual and informal ways, or not at all.

The guru is like a wire. Electricity does not originate in the wire. It flows through it. If the wire is properly connected, electricity flows. If disconnected, nothing flows. The guru connects the disciple to Krishna through parampara. This connection is diksha. This is why qualification matters, not bodily designation, and the formality of the ceremony. Unfortunately, there are many cases of formality being done, but hardly, if at all, any transmission of sambandha or removal of sinful tendencies on the disciple's part. That means a connection was lost. It is no magic. It is a tangible process.

The Shastra defines guru qualifications clearly in several places. One must be fixed in Krishna consciousness, self controlled, free from material motive, faithful to parampara, and established in realization. The qualification is realization and fidelity — not anatomy. The soul has no material gender. Krishna does not empower based on bodily form. He empowers based on surrender.

The guru does not own the disciple. Both guru and disciple are servants of Krishna. The guru’s function is to guide the disciple back to Krishna. Not to create dependence on himself as controller. But to connect the disciple to Krishna. A genuine guru decreases ego, not increases it. He removes ignorance and doubts. He enthuses the disciple.

When Diksha is misunderstood as organizational rank, depersonalized institutional authorization, and emotional social ceremony, then the spiritual essence is lost. Diksha becomes external form without internal substance. The real diksha is the transmission of realization through faithful connection. The ceremony formalizes what must be spiritually real.

If Diksha is the transmission of divine knowledge through parampara, then the relevant question is simple. Is the person properly connected and qualified? Not what is the biological structure of the temporary body they occupy. If a person is fully faithful to parampara and fixed in Krishna consciousness, Krishna can act through them. If not, external designation cannot compensate. This applies equally to men and women. Because Diksha is not a biological function. It is a spiritual transmission.

The external guru is Krishna’s representative. Krishna is the real initiator. The guru connects the disciple to Krishna. This is the essence of diksha according to shastra, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, and Srila Prabhupada. When this principle is understood, secondary debates lose their emotional charge. The real focus returns to the essence. Faithful transmission of Krishna consciousness through realized souls in disciplic succession. One is empowered to act as a guru, urged by Krishna, his guru, and other Vaishnavas. It does not work based on votes, depersonalized resolutions giving no solutions, or on one's own ambition to get a good following and income from disciples.
#iskcon #vaishnavi #FDG #VDG #diksha
https://kasyadas5.wixsite.com/.../the-vaishnavi-diksha...

====

ANOTHER GODBROTHER ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY, DEFENDING SRILA PRABHUPADA

Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja Defends Srila Prabhupada

BY: BHAGAVAT DASA (ACBSP)

Dec 7, USA (SUN) — Advice for the so-called editors of Srila Prabhupada’s books.
Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja was given the opportunity to reveal to the world the unrivalled perfection of Srila Prabhupada's masterful translation from Sanskrit into English of Bhagavad Gita. Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja was given the service by Srila Prabhupada of translating all of His books into the Odiya language. Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja was a great scholar who could write and speak in five languages: Odiya, Hindi, Bengali, English, and Sanskrit. He got his degree in English from the University with a minor in Sanskrit. He translated Srila Prabhupada’s Bhagavad Gita with the greatest love and devotion and attention for detail.

PADA: Gaura Govinda Maharaja consulted with his sankrit pals to "prove" that Srila Prabhupada's saying we originated with Krishna is bogus and wrong. He made a whole series of videos saying that Back to Godhead is a bogus idea because we were never there. He never followed Srila Prabhupada's ideas, and in fact he challenged them, which is why he was voted into a sex with taxi drivers guru parampara as well. ys pd