World Wide Web

Like a brhad-mrdanga on steroids

Ah, the wonders of the internet! As a former Silicon Valley network administrator and webmaster for Cisco Systems ("Empowering the Network Generation"), I should know all about it, yet even I am sometimes surprised at how fast the internet works, or what a wonderful, inexpensive tool the world wide web can be when it comes to preaching. It is like a brhad-mrdanga on steroids. (Can I say that, or is that some kind of abhasa?).

At about midnight last night (2:30 a.m. Indian time) I email Srila Gurudeva's secretary, Mahananda Prabhu some digital photographs and a preliminary report about Paramahamsa Maharaj and my historical arrival here in Turkey. Four hours later, Mahananda Prabhu replies:

"His Divine Grace repeatedly saw the pictures in a continuous slide show on his Macintosh. Please continue to send regular 'picture-news' and 'mini-reports' like these for Srila Gurudev; he appreciates these very much."

And by mid-morning, the photographs and report of our reception in Turkey are available for all the world to see, along with pictures of Srila Gurudeva looking at the pictures that I sent.

We are the modern monks — the imonks — we put the internet in itinerant. In the spirit of yukta vairagya, we traverse the globe on behalf of Srila Gurudeva, with computer laptops and digital cameras, hooking up to the internet, and reporting back to headquarters or blogging our progress on the web.

Because let's face it, if you can't hack the web, you're stuck.