Hello. This blog is made of words

I feel an update is in order! I've totally neglected this blog lately. If this blog were a child I'd totally lose custody.

Anyway, how are you? You can't answer that so I'll keep talking. I seem to have been off the internet for the last month or so due to an increase in real-life happenings. This is most inconvenient, why did I have to take birth in such a world. Oh well, can't dwell on that now.

Just wanna share with you guys a video I love. I was in central London on Saturday and spotted this guy on Oxford Street while I was on Harinam, not really knowing what was going on. Now I've just seen it via buddhiyogi.blogspot.com (one of my favourite google reader feeds), and it all makes sense... genius.

So yeah, I was in London giving out a few flyers for our next Loft event. I designed them myself, look at how shiny they are. Also, consider yourself invited.

I bought a new phone last week, so hopefully from now on I can start taking more pictures and post them on here, or twitter, or maybe I'll just look at them myself and not tell a soul. The man in the O2 phone shop had a really unique sales technique. He emerged from the backroom hobbling on two crutches, and for every phone he was describing he used one of the crutches as a 'pointy' stick to illustrate what he was saying, which was subsequently followed by a mini trip-over. I found it both endearing and amusing how a man would endure actual physical distress simply to demonstrate the sliding function of a sony ericsson C903, and so I thought I would save him any further bother and go with this one.

Youtube-wise, I actually have a bunch of videos I've made, but simply no time to edit them. I'm currently editing some stuff for Charlie, (you may remember him from my temple video), and then I'll get started on my own stuff. I just got an e-mail from him in India, he's over there for three months studying, sooo wish I could have gone to that, feel like I've missed such a great opportunity. But of course I have to let go of that idea. Time and space do not define us. The world is simply a manifestation of our own consciousness. You project whatever you are.

Another significant thing that happened recently was the interview I did with HH Devamrita Swami. Such an incredible personality and masterful speaker on the philosophy of Krishna. Here are the first two videos, a third is on its way.

Evidence of my cow face

OK, so the above picture illustrates the fact that I was indeed dressed as a cow in central London the other weekend. What purpose could this serve you may ask. Was there some sort of moo'ing contest? Or were you simply walking the streets offering undignified milk to thirsty hobos? The answer lies within this short film:

That's right, we were doing it for Ahimsa - cruelty free milk! We believe - like Jesus - that all animals should be shown compassion and care. ie. not hung upside down in a slaughter house with their throats slit. No sir-eee.

We rode around for hours on bikes and rickshaws, and raised a a total of 5 billion dollars. Or something similar. Hooray! Or should I say Moo-ray. No I definitely should not.

Talking of Jesus - see what I did there - do you guys remember my friend Rasa? Well he's been through a lot, and thats a long story, but now he's back with a groundbreaking new youtube channel! Some of you may find it a little controversial, but the fearless among you on a quest for truth may like to take a look.

www.youtube.com/TheyBastardisedJesus

Hot Stone Therapy

So I had to write an article on this thing called "hot stone therapy" the other day. Basically its all the rage at certain swanky-pants spas to have hot stones placed at certain pressure points on the back, and people pay a tonne of money for it. Well upon learning this, my brain automatically throught "What! I could well easily do that myself and not spend ANY money!".... so I did.

Well... I tried it out on Mandy, but didn't have any stones, so I just used pebbles from my driveway. I boiled them in a pan, then proceeded with the highly technical operation of putting them on the back. However, by the time they had reached the back area... all heat had alas depleted.

Mandy said "Ben, you've just put lukewarm gravel on my back. You're not normal"

Sometimes I look at my life and can't help but agree.

Do have a cow man

You know when you agree to something that's not due to happen for a while and you think "yeah, that probably won't happen". Well it IS happening. This Sunday, 10:30am, Trafalgar Square. I'm gonna be dressed as a cow and cycling around central London with a flock of similar cow/human associates.

I only bought my new bike a week and a half ago, and its the first time I've ridden since childhood. Since my younger years I've grown progressively worse at a number of things: optimism, being small, times tables... and now I can add riding a bicycle to the list! I'm so very out of practice and quite simply doomed to failure. If you would like to witness this failure in high definition 4-dimensional reality, please comes along. Or better still, sponsor me to do so at www.justgiving.com/benloka

Spiritual Revolution

Hey everyone, I haven't blogged for ages. Sorry about that. I've just been busy, so busy that I've barely had time to perform the most basic of human functions and thoughts, let alone put them into a cohesive blurb on the internet.

To make up for it, here is a picture of me at the London Ratha Yatra festival yesterday with my eyes closed.

I stole that from Yeo's facebook as I no longer seem to take pictures of my own anymore. It was such a nice day, and we spent the second half of it promoting our new club, which I'm gonna tell you about now.

THE LOFT is a new thing we're doing every 2 weeks in central London. We're calling it a SPIRITUAL CHILLOUT SESSION for young people. Like a cool place to hang out on a Saturday afternoon, and it's just off Oxford Street so really easy to get to. Please come along if you would like to, and we can hang out, eat free vegetarian food, and chant Hare Krishna. Plus its all totally free! See details below...

EVERY OTHER SATURDAY • 2PM - 4PM

@”Radha Krishna temple”, 10 Soho Street, London. W1D 3DL

Nearest Tube: Tottenham Court RD (JUST OFF OXFORD STREET)

CLICK HERE for a map

CLICK HERE to join the facebook group

- Free vegetarian food (2PM - 3PM)

- Interactive Discussions

- Live Music ‘Sounds for the soul’

- And a chance to meet like minded people

ALL ABSOLUTELY FREE!

COME ALONG TO THE LAUNCH EVENT! 'MORE TO LIFE'

Saturday 4th July 2009, 2PM - 4PM

Live cooking show this monday!!

Hello blog enthusiasts! I have an announcement to make. As some of you may know, its WORLD VEGETARIAN WEEK this week, and I know some of you may find this hard. So as a handy solution to all your woes, I've got together with the people at Ahimsa, and we're gonna do a live Blog TV show this bank holiday Monday (25 May) at 3pm - 9pm GMT to show you how to cook!!



DATE: 25 May:
TIME: 3pm - 9pm GMT
or 10am - 4pm EST
WHERE: www.blogtv.com/people/benloka

In the process we're also hoping to raise some money for Ahimsa, which is charity that seeks to improve the lives of cows and attempt to stop all the current cruelty thats going on. So if you care about all living beings within this universe - and I know you do - please please donate whatever you can HERE at www.justgiving.com/thelotustrust/donate

For everyone who donates... drop me an e-mail here to let me know, and I'll put you into a prize draw which will be picked later this week. The winner will receive the following:

- Cookies (personally cooked by me)
- A "You're cool" certificate
- Personal DVD message from me to you
- Plus a MYSTERY GIFT

To win all that, simply donate whatever you can, and then send me a quick email to benloka@googlemail.com saying you did! eg. "Hi Ben, I gave £10, aren't I good"

On the topic of competitions, I've been so rubbish at not announcing the winners of the last competition! Fear not, the winners were notified immediately, but I seem to have left a few of you hanging. So here we go... WHAT IS THE GOAL OF LIFE? The supreme winner of all the humorous answers was Craig (verywittyname on youtube) from Brighton in the UK.

He correctly answered. "The Goal of Life does not exist, as there is no Wikipedia article."

Of the more poetic entries, our winner was Leanne (iamleanne on youtube) from West Sussex.

Then a number of runners up prizes (the same prize) went to the following:

Ryan (eshninerforest) from Georgia, USA

Alexandra (M4rple) from Canada



Shiva from Leicestershire, UK

Asal from London, UK

Shruti from Georgia, USA

Kara from San Diego, CA, USA
(well done for guessing the goal of life is Chuck Norris)



Jennifer from Torronto, Canada

All the above won a copy of The Science of Self Realisation AVAILABLE HERE. If you still want to enter please feel free, some more free books may be given out in the future if I can get hold of some. =D

Thankyou SO much to everyone who entered. There were hundreds of entries, and so many amazing answers. One of the criterea for the competition was to keep answers to one sentence only which hardly anyone kept to, but I'm glad because I got to read some really nice e-mails, like this one from Elizabeth, which I'll finish on...

For attractive lips speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes see the good in people.
For a slim figure share your food with the hungry.
For poise walk with the knowledge that you never walk on your own.
People, even more than things have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed and redeemed. 
Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms.
As you grow older you will realise that you have two hands for a reason.
One for helping yourself and one for helping others.

Fun with Google Image Search

Google image search your answers to the following questions, then click here to summarise yourself in grid-form...

1. What is your name?

2. What is your favourite food?

3. What is your hometown?

4. What is your favourite colour?

5. What is your favourite movie?

6. What is your favourite drink?

7. What is your dream vacation?

8. What is your favourite desert?

9. What is one word to describe yourself?

10. How are you feeling right now?

11. What do you love most in the world

12. What do you want to be when you grow up?

Portugal

I just got back from the Algarve at the weekend. Those who have seen me this week will have noticed I'm a healthy shade of 'slightly less pale'. I achieved this feat by applying a cocoon of sunscreen and closing my eyes so no sun could get me, phew!

We went for Mandy's Birthday, and her friends Nic and Char came too.

I really do make the best birthday cards ever (she's into High School Musical).

Much of the holiday was spent on the beautiful beach and I caught up on a lot of reading and listened to a bunch of wonderful lectures on my iPod. Of course there's actually no such thing as a holiday when you consider the uncontrolled mind and senses as your greatest enemy, but in a traditional sense... it was a holiday.

Just to catch up on things... some of you may not have seen my appearance as 'The Mighty Leek' in the latest Global Cool campaign. Is it me or doesn't that just make me sound like I have a huge bladder problem

Me and a bunch of other youtube types went out and shot this in London last month. The end product was this professional motion picture. Prepare yourself for some acting of the highest degree.

Following in the footsteps of Jasmine and Johnny, I've been playing around with 'Face of the Future' lately - its so much fun. I've always wondered what I'd look like as an Asian, now I can wonder no more!!

On a totally different note, my friend at work said she was 'getting it on'with her boyfriend the other night, and then I came on the TV (confused.com ad) and apparently totally killed the mood. The fact that I exist in a world where this kind of thing happens - I think is hilarious.

While we're on the subject of getting it on - 'it' of course being the universal pronoun for copulation, I've been reading the teachings of exalted 5-year-old devotee - Prahlada Mahraja recently, and the whole thing is just so wonderful and beaming with truth. 

Among other things, he describes that sex life is compared to the rubbing of two hands to relieve an itch. People of this world are convinced that this is the greatest platform of happiness, when actually its the source of distress. Then coincidently I was listening to a lecture by Devamrita Swami who talked about material desire as an itch. We don't stop scratching because we're satisfied, we actually only stop when there's blood. ie. we have to wait till we've made a total mess of things before we can start to look at what we're doing with a sober mind. Understanding the futility of material enjoyment is the only thing that can motivate us towards spiritual life, otherwise we may be here for quite a while. Like Krishna says...

"A person who is not disturbed by the incessant flow of desires - that enter like rivers into the ocean, which is ever being filled but is always still - can alone achieve peace, and not the man who strives to satisfy such desires"

Word.

Confused.com

As many of you may have noticed... I'm on the new confused.com adverts. People I haven't seen for ages have been texting me united by the phrase "was that you I just saw on TV?" If you've yet to witness this historical pastime, please proceed to the following clip...



It seems that the whole world is selling out this week, not just me and my adoration for car insurance. Youtube are been rumored to be switching their layout over the next few days, which the electronic community is positively freaking out over. The commercialisation of things we cherish is an incessant force that knows no boundaries. We all thought youtube was safe, but a website is no more immune to degredation than our own bodies are to the pangs of old age and death.

Further regrettable happenings came in the form of the new Red Dwarf Episodes this week! I for one have been a die-hard fan of the sci-fi comedy since I was knee-high and playing with lego. No no, I didn't used to be a midget with simple tastes... I'm referring to childhood!

I believe the majority of my own sense of humour was seeded deep within the hours I put into watching that show as a kid. However, the new episodes, in short... sucked! Everybody I spoke to concluded the same, and personally I blame the writer - clearly just after a bit of spare cash and so just put together a few cliche attempts at wit and sold it off to the cheapest bidder. Way to destory a legacy Naylor! 

Oh well, in other news, here is an interview I did the other day for Don't Panic Magazine. I've been a bit misquoted with regards to the cow protection and youtube stuff, but you get the general idea. 

Number 2

So it turns out I'm only the second sexiest vegetarian to walk the streets of Europe. Some guy from Sweden won, think his name was Beethoven or something. Thankyou so much to everyone who voted, and also I'd like to express my sincere gratitude for all your messages of commiseration on twitter (twatitude?). In response to the masses... Yes I was robbed, and yes it probably was a fix (I'm hated by both peta and the swedish government).

If anything, the experience has been a timely reminder of modern society's archaic stance on the topic of compassion to all living entities. Just see how this Invicta FM DJ pontificates the time-honored yet stereotypical view upheld by your typical '80s dad' during my interview with him. "Vegetarian? What you mean some kind of poofta?"



The media's subtle vilification of both me and the vegetarian lifestyle arrived once more in the form of an article in the Kentish Express. They took peta's sexiest vegetarian competition as an opportunity to push free poultry onto an undiscerning audience.

Great Britain, your once magnificent empire has been lost. Your words no longer carry any gravitas, having been reduced to hollow advertising sludgery, and I now question your integrity at every level. Have a nice day.

Watchmen & Twitter

So I went to see Watchmen yeterday at the London iMax. Mental. It's like about 10 films in one! I really liked it though. My brother nudged me when we saw the blue man (dr.manhattan) and said "Krishna's buffed up a bit hasn't he". During the film I noticed even more connections between the two, and said to Mandy "he's nicked that bit from the Bhagavad Gita!" She was more concerned with the fact you could see his blue willy throughout the entire film. I got this text from her an hour after the film finished: "Y didn't they show his willy in the scenes where he was massive??" Filth.

Also, I've finally given in now and joined twitter. Goodbye life, its been nice knowing you etc.

The above excerpt is in relation to the latest "Stephen" craze, recently publicised by the Adam & Joe show. The idea is that you have to shout STEPHEN in a public place, and then someone else shouts "Just coming" in response. I tried it, but alas my Stephen fell upon deaf ears =(

Also, laugh out loud, I got sent the following picture this morning. Amazing!