Dear Prabhus, Hare Krishna! Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!Concerning the recent flurry of articles by the ISKCON so-called Astrologers:

1. When Srila Prabhupada was personally running ISKCON, there was no such thing as an “ISKCON astrologer.” No one dared to put themselves forward as an “astrologer” within ISKCON, because they knew that Srila Prabhupada would have put a stop to it.

2. After Srila Prabhupada’s disappearance, however, certain self-motivated rascals decided to try to make Srila Prabhupada their sugar daddy in order to have an easy life of sense gratification, just like the Bhaktivedanta Archives rascals did.

3. They accomplished their nefarious deeds by flattering ISKCON’s neophite GBC/”guru”/sannyasis. Not all GBC/”guru”/sannyasis were fooled, however. One of them, in the early 80s, told me that he liked Western astrology better than the ISKCON “astrologers” brand of astrology!

4. Astrologers, according to the Vedic system, are supposed to be brahmanas. This means that they must not charge for their services. Since the ISKCON “astrologers” charge for their services, they are not brahmanas, and therefore, are not real astrologers.

5. My own knowledge of astronomy indicates that the version of astrology being practiced by the ISKCON “astrologers” makes no sense! How can stars that are light years away have any affect on us? Western astrology completely ignores the stars and bases everything on the Sun, moon and planets, which actually makes sense, because they are relatively nearby objects. Even the force of gravity of these objects affects planet earth, as is amply demonstrated by the tides.

6. My own experience with astrology also indicates that Western tropical astrology is superior. For example, if a child is conceived when the moon is in a male sign (Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, and Aquarius) then that child will be a boy.

If the child is conceived when the moon is in a female sign (Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricorn, and Pisces), then the child will be a girl.My experience is that this always holds true, and it serves as a very powerful tool for controlling the sex of our future children. But this only works using Western astrology, not the Hindu astrology being practiced by the ISKCON astrologers.

7. In the <http://harekrsna.com/sun/editorials/04-12/editorials8490.htm> article, Gaurakishor Prabhu says, “Although there is lots of assurance that ISKCON’s astrologers are doing a good job, especially marriage counseling, many wonder why divorce rate statistics seems to be telling the opposite. ISKCON astrologers are using Jyotish (Indian) astrology as the starting basis for their calculations. Now, here we encounter an area of Jyotish which is very controversial and very important: Ayanamsa.” His article confirms what I’ve been suspecting for years: The “ayanamsa” is a nonsense concoction!

8. ISKCON astrologers have proven over the years that they are unable to predict the future. Anyone with even a modicum of common sense can do a much better job of predicting the future than ISKCON’s so-called astrologers!

9. No matter how many references they may give, the ISKCON “astrologers” who have responded to Gaurakishor Prabhu’s article have not addressed the points made in point numbers 6 through 8 above. They have no explanation for the fact that Western astrology seems to work better than “Vedic astrology.” Therefore, what is the use of all of their references and boring mumbo jumbo gobbledegook that no one bothers to read? No matter how much unintelligible gibberish they come up with, the fact remains: Vedic astrology doesn’t work as well as Western astrology. “The proof of the pudding is in the tasting.”

Your servant, Pratyatosa Dasa <http://groups.google.com/group/istagosthi>, <http://causelessmercy.com/>, <http://rtvik.com/>, <http://pratyatosa.com/>, <http://feedacow.com/>, <http://llbest.com/>