Yes we are. We got hacked last week or so. I don’t know when it happened exactly but somebody managed to delete the entire website. Thanks to x-diablo13 hacker/hack group. We have restored and updated the website.

I hope it will not happen again.

Every year we publish our financial report in an effort to be open and clear towards our friends and sponsors.
Here is the report:

1) On 1 oct 2008 we donated the Edirol Audio recorder to Yadurani dd from South Africa. In 2007 this Edirol was kindly donated by HG Mahi bharta Prabhu and Sravana Ramaniya dd from Slovenia. I still recorded it in the financial report as “costs”. Since we needed to buy a new one i though this was a proper way of doing it.

2) Donation means money that was given to us by various people for our cause.

I recently bought the Zoom H2 recorder. We reviewed the Zoom H2 earlier, but now that i have some practical experience i wanted to share it with you.

Here are some of my experiences:

1) USB connection

When you plug the USB cable into the Zoom when it is not switched On then something funny happens.

First windows recognizes it, but than later will say that this hardware is not working properly. Switching on the Zoom will not help at this moment.

So you need to switch the zoom off and take the USB cable out. Then turn the Zoom On and go into the menu. Find the USB menu item and choose “Storage”. Then you can connect the USB cable and windows will recognize the Zoom properly.

2) Copying files to/from the Zoom

When you want to copy files from the Zoom then remember this is slooooow. It still uses a USB 1.0 connection… Saving money here SamsonTech ???

3) Responsiveness of the machine

I found that switching between menus and tracks can be painfully slow. Also starting recording and stopping is also quite slow. I am comparing it against the Edirol R09 and the edirol seems much more quicker in responding to the buttons.

4) Recording quality

Although this is very user interpretable i found that the microphones are less noisy then the Edirol R09. I dont know if the noise issue was resolved in the new Edirol R09HR. I will report on that when i have worked with this new gadget.

Concluding i can say that you certainly get what you pay for. The Zoom H2 can be found for around $120-150. The new Edirol start from $330. But the Edirol comes of course with a nice remote control, slicker design and overall more responsive user experience. So the Edirol stays my favorite, but if you are on a budget and dont mind the shortcomings the Zoom is an excellent choice.

We depend very much on taste in our spiritual life, we’re all looking for that because without it, the years begin to count and it becomes difficult to maintain our spiritual purity and status etc. In the beginning, okay, it’s easy because one is conquering, one is going forward, one is feeling that he’s advancing with huge jumps forward to the spiritual world and then with time it’s, ‘My God! Is it a long way? Will we ever get there? Probably not! At least not this life time!’…kind of mood tends to come. And at that state, we are really beginning to appreciate more that we are dependent on so many things. We begin to see that we are not so strong in our Krsna consciousness and with time we begin to see that we depend on many, many factors for our support: we begin to value the devotees more because we realize these are the few people that are also into Krsna consciousness: ‘They may be a little different than I am but anyway, let’s just accept them.’ In the beginning one might think, ‘well, mmm…this one’s strange, that one-no…’ But with time one becomes more appreciative for vaisnava relationships, one becomes more careful. I also, in the beginning I used to think, well…when there was a difference of opinion, I thought, well if I’m right then I’m right and then the other person has to accept. Now I may be wrong, so let me check it with other people. And if other vaisnava’s say I’m right, well if they confirm it, then I must be right. It seems right to me, others confirm it’s right, then it must be right. So in that way then, I’m right and it was just a confrontation. But nowadays I’m more careful of that because I notice that with all these confrontations, some people didn’t like me. Some people still don’t like me because of the confrontations of so many years ago! Anyway, if there’s anybody here- sorry for that! Trying to change now! What to do! We are trying to appreciate every vaisnava for whatever contribution that vaisnava is making because we know we’re depending on the vaisnava’s.

 So sometimes we take it that our activities of sadhana are like that- to kind of pump up our fading enthusiasm, our fading determination and we have to pump again and again or we’re going to bloop! But that’s on the lower end really. I’m looking here more at the other side of the hearing and chanting: that we just get into the mood of tasting very nice things in Krsna consciousness, one after another, just keep on taking the sweets and well, a salty in between as well- it doesn’t matter. But just go on and on and on as much as we can, and this is actually the process. So therefore, the process of breaking through from struggling in spiritual life to being inspired in spiritual life, is not a matter of just struggling and struggling and waiting for the day that we’ll wake up in an ecstatic mood. Rather, it must come to the point where we actively begin to taste the nectar that all the acaryas are tasting and that all the great devotees are always tasting. Whether we have so much taste for it or not- who cares! Just taste it! Let us just embrace it and go for it! And well, even if there’s not so much taste, little taste may come.

(HH Kadamba Kanana Swami Maharaja, Vrndavana)

HH Kadamba Kanana Swami has initiated two devotees on the 13th of August in the temple in Radhadesh, Belgium.
Bh Rembert became Gopinath Acarya das, 1st and 2nd Initiation
Bhn Eliane became Astasakhi devi dasi, 1st Initiation.

Here you can see some photos from the event