I read, with sadness, of the death of the young Indian girl who was gang raped in Delhi.

My prayers go to that departed soul, to her family, and to her friend who was also beaten and thrown off the bus.

The present perverted culture of India allows rape and molestation of women to take place anywhere and everywhere in the nation.

I have been shocked in hearing the stories of my female students in Vrindavan;

A western lady told me how while standing in front of Radhe Shyam, her eyes closed in prayer, an Indian man approached her, grasped her breasts, touched her buttocks, and rubbed his hand against her private parts.

A forty-ish year old Indian lady told me how on Sri Krishna Janmastami, an Indian man pushed his genitals onto her as everyone was wedged in the crowd trying to have darshan.

I heard tonight on Indian TV that in one political party alone there are 31 accused rapists.

This tragedy stirs me up.

I wish the Indian youth were savvy enough, and courageous enough, to use the social media in the same way that it has been used over the past few years to bring a change to the status quo.

But I think the Indian youth are too afraid of what their parents and society would say. Rather, they use the social media to ape the degraded materialistic culture.

I wish the Indian old elite would do the right thing, step aside, and allow brains that work to develop a structure for the nation in which all the citizens were equal before the constitution.

Yet … a drastic change would bring no good result if there were no Krishna consciousness, God consciousness.

It has been said that the fish rots from the head down.

The world is rotting, India included.

Maybe India is rotting more … for turning away from its ancient spiritual traditions.

Did you ever visit a country of 1,241,491,960 people where over half of the people perform their toilet activities on the train tracks or the sides of the roads daily?

Urination in public is so socially acceptable?

Where people in towns and villages heap their trash in the middle of the national highways?

The rich build huge mansions, high boundary walls, and dump their garbage outside their walls.

Where sacred rivers have been killed, officially declared dead by the World Health Organisation.

Why? Due to the the unrestricted dumping of pollutants from factories and waste from slaughter houses? All run by greedy materialistic men.

A country where over 100,000 people die on the roads yearly, and where hundreds and thousands are left maimed for life.

Where there is noise everywhere, plastic everywhere, smoke and smog everywhere.

And to get the most simple deed accomplished you must give a gift?

As Prabhupada sat and wrote in his rooms at Radha Damodar, he stated that what we are seeing today is simply the burnt remnants of India’s great tradition of culture.

That was 50 years ago.

Yes, a revolution is needed. But, it should be a revolution of consciousness. Krishna consciousness, God consciousness.

These situations make me think, “if I were young I would join a revolution and pull down the rotten machine.”

Now, alas, I am too old to sling stones and could never tolerate gunfire.

But then, when I was young, I did join a revolution. And I am still a small part of it, and I am still trying to pull.

bharata-bhumite hoila manusya janma yara
janma sarthaka kari karo para-upakära

This is Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s mission, para-upakara.

His mission is to be very merciful to all people.

So, I will continue in the revolution of Srila Prabhupada and Caitanya Mahaprabhu.

I will continually try to assist my master to change the degraded consciousness of the world.

Please everyone, take the holy names, study the message of Bhagavad Gita, worship Sri Krishna.

By these activities, the degraded material consciousness of this world will change.

One poet said, “I’m starting with the man in the mirror.”

Another small Indian man said, “Be the change that you want to see in the world.”

Together …. Let’s make that change.