March 15 2009

kalah kalayatam aham
“Of subduers I am Time.”
Lord Krsna [Bg 10.30]

Astrology, or Jyotish, is one of the tools given to us by Krsna for understanding the progress of our lives. Although it is largely dismissed by ‘educated’ modern man, its use is gaining in popularity even in such areas as the economy.

Here’s an article I fished out of my 2008 emails about the use of astrology to predict financial markets. Makes interesting reading considering the current turmoil. According to this, just wait till 2012:
Paranormal & Unexplained,
Written by Danny Penman

Christeen Skinner blinks at the screen of her computer and takes another slurp of coffee. It’s half past seven in the morning and she’s preparing for a crucial meeting with the chief executive of the High and Mighty fashion chain.

Apart from the black cat dozing on her lap, the only clue to Christeen’s occupation as a 21st century astrologer is a copy of an Ephemeris that lies open at a page marked “Mercury March 25th”.

“The financial crisis has ensured that I’m busier than ever,” says Christeen. “People in the City need to know what is just around the corner. I can help with that.”

Christeen is one of a growing, albeit secretive, network of astrologers who work for seemingly conservative British institutions such as high street banks, City investment funds and retailers. Desperate to avoid financial meltdown in the ongoing ‘credit crunch’ and to spot fashions and consumer trends before they start, these institutions have turned to the stars to divine the future.

“Most academics distrust astrology and regard it as mumbo-jumbo,” she says. “The thing is, it works. Nobody’s sure how it works but it does. Most of my clients are businesspeople who are very canny. If it didn’t work for them, then why
would they use  it?”

Read the rest of this entry »

  Read/Write Comments ( 0 )

October 1 2008

“How much money does a man need in order to be happy?”

“Just a little more!” — Nelson Rockefeller

Nowadays the Indian economic ‘miracle’ is all the rage. Just this year alone entrepreneurs are building over 100 new malls in the major cities around the country. A few days ago the newspapers reported that India is making more new millionaires per year than any other country in the world.  India is in a get-more-money fever it has never witnessed before. Lust for money is spreading like meningitis in the minds of India’s citizens and the government is proud of touting its new found wealth and opportunities and its consumer society.

 Like the legendary lemmings, its populace is being urged to pursue a suicidal course — literally.

It is now witnessing its first financial suicides:

Kolkata Telegraph: The stock market crash claimed its first victims when Abhishek Banka, a sub-broker, committed suicide and, unable to bear the loss, his wife Sona threw herself from a highrise.

The bloated body of 22-year-old Abhishek, missing since Wednesday, was today found floating along the bank of the Hooghly.

Six hours later, Sona jumped to her death from her parents’ ninth floor apartment on Russel Street.

Police said Abhishek appeared to have been driven to suicide after suffering losses of Rs 86 lakh in the stock market collapse since the budget. They said the sub-broker with Suresh Kumar Fogla & Associates blamed himself for the losses.” -[end quote] 

And on the land, scores of farmers kill themselves every week. Unable to cope with the changes in the markets they have no control over, many get into overwhelming debt and the meagre earnings from cash crops fails to cover their repayments.

Kolkata Telegraph:

Kadegaon/Tasgaon (Sangli in western Maharashtra), Jan. 30: The scourge of traditional agriculture has spread to new-age crops with at least 86 debt-hit grape farmers killing themselves in Sangli and Solapur districts of western Maharashtra since January 2005.

In Sangli district, 400km from Mumbai, there have been 61 cases of suicide by farmers growing table grapes, a capital-intensive fruit, since 2003.

The suicides were not triggered by one failed crop: they were a result of five years of crop failure; unscrupulous middlemen who have kept the purchase price static at Rs 10 per kg; a prolonged period of rising input costs; and unremunerative prices for the produce.” [end quote]

Monetary despair is not just happening in the countryside either:

Kolkata Telegraph: Aasra, a Mumbai-based suicide prevention NGO, claims to have recorded a 30 per cent increase in 10 years in the number of people who call because they are in a monetary mess and are contemplating suicide. Most of these people are young, ambitious, high spending and impatient to get rich, says Johnson Thomas, director, Aasra. “As the avenues for spending increase, most young Indians have started living beyond their means. This leads to debt, depression and suicide,” says Thomas. [end quote]

 Srila Prabhupada was never enamoured by ‘economic advancement’. He always told us it was an illusion that would end in distress.

In December 1975 Prabhupada was visiting Sananda in Gujarat. On his first morning there he took a walk through the fields in the local district:

Read the rest of this entry »

  Read/Write Comments ( 0 )

September 16 2008 

Every country likes to brag about their economy and how many millionaires and, nowadays, how many billionaires they have.

Well, now there’s a country where every single person is a billionaire.    

This is not a spoof. The note is real, or rather it is legal currency. If you are wondering what the three eggs are for, that’s how many you can buy with this one hundred billion dollar bill.  

Yes folks, if you want to be paper rich beyond your  dreams, just move to Zimbabwe where inflation is running at several billion percent.    

Srila Prabhupada writes about the prostitution of  gold in SB 1.17.39: 

Although Maharaja Pariksit gave Kali permission to live in four places, it was very difficult for him to find the places because during the reign of Maharaja Pariksit there were no such places. Therefore Kali asked the King to give him something practical which could be utilized for his nefarious purposes. Maharaja Pariksit thus gave him permission to live in a place where there is gold, because wherever there is gold there are all the above-mentioned four things, and over and above them there is enmity also. So the personality of Kali became gold-standardized. According to Srimad-Bhagavatam, gold encourages falsity, intoxication, prostitution, envy and enmity. Even a gold-standard exchange and currency is bad. Gold-standard currency is based on falsehood because the currency is not on a par with the reserved gold. The basic principle is falsity because currency notes are issued in value beyond that of the actual reserved gold. This artificial inflation of currency by the authorities encourages prostitution of the state economy. The price of commodities becomes artificially inflated because of bad money, or artificial currency notes. Bad money drives away good money. Instead of paper currency, actual gold coins should be used for exchange, and this will stop prostitution of gold. Gold ornaments for women may be allowed by control, not by quality, but by quantity. This will discourage lust, envy and enmity. When there is actual gold currency in the form of coins, the influence of gold in producing falsity, prostitution, etc., will automatically cease. There will be no need of an anticorruption ministry for another term of prostitution and falsity of purpose. 

Maybe its time to go back to the land and the real wealth of grains, milk, fruits, minerals and other natural resources.  

  Read/Write Comments ( 0 )