The Most Extreme Migration on Earth?

by Rebecca Kessler 

Way up in the Himalayas, where thin air and low oxygen pressure hinder speech and movement, weary mountaineers have observed bar-headed geese (Anser indicus) honking away as they ascend powerfully overhead. Every year the geese make an epic migration from sea level in India up over the immense mountain range to their summer breeding grounds in Central Asia. A new study shows that they do it quickly and under their own steam, without the help of upslope tailwinds thought to loft them over the sky-high peaks. The discovery, argues the study’s lead author, makes the birds’ annual journey “the most extreme migration on Earth.”

In recent years, researchers have illuminated a number of adaptations that enable the bar-headed goose’s migratory feat. These include proportionally bigger lungs than many other bird species, a better supply of oxygen to the muscles and heart, denser capillaries, and hemoglobin that carries more oxygen. Even so, most experts have thought the birds couldn’t make the trip without the help of winds that rush predictably up the mountains during the day.

To settle the matter, biologist Lucy Hawkes, a postdoctoral researcher at Bangor University in the United Kingdom, and her colleague physiologist Charles Bishop, also of Bangor University, led an international team of 13 scientists in tracking the birds’ Himalayan overflights for the first time. The researchers captured 25 bar-headed geese in India, attached satellite tags to them that logged their location, altitude, and speed, and then freed them to make their springtime northbound migration. They also captured and tagged a total of 38 geese in Mongolia before their autumn southbound trip. In the end, the study included a smaller subset of birds whose tags successfully collected data each hour, as planned.

The northbound geese typically made the trip from sea level over mountain passes of up to 6000 meters in just 7 or 8 hours at speeds of 64.5 kilometers per hour. They also logged the highest sustained climbing speed known from any bird species, of just under 1.1 vertical kilometers per hour. (Southbound geese do much less climbing because they start out high up on the Tibetan Plateau, so their trips took 4.5 hours or less.)

Most surprising was that the geese completed most of their journeys not during the day with the uplifting winds at their backs, but during the night or early morning, when headwinds were likely, according to data from a Mount Everest weather station. The researchers think the cooler night and early-morning temperatures, which would help dissipate body heat and increase oxygen availability, may be more helpful than any tailwind assist. The geese might also prefer calmer conditions for safety and maneuverability.

“These birds maintain an incredibly high oxygen consumption, one that might be maybe 10 times greater than resting, and they have to maintain that for ... hours on end,” Hawkes says. “It sets a new bar for aerobic exercise.” A few other bird species, including ducks and storks, also migrate over the Himalayas, but even less is known about their strategies and physiologies, Hawkes adds, so it’s uncertain whether they are in the same athletic class as the geese.

The study is “a nice confirmation that these geese are doing this climb by their own muscle power,” Anders Hedenström of Lund University in Sweden, an expert in animal aerodynamics and migration who has studied bar-headed geese, says via e-mail.

Physiologist Jessica Meir, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia in Canada who studies flight in bar-headed geese, agrees, praising the new study for finally providing field data to lay to rest the entrenched notion that the geese take advantage of tailwinds, as smaller migratory birds have been shown to do. In fact, the geese’s strategy makes good sense, since loss of control could be deadly in the rugged Himalayan terrain, says Meir, who collaborates with some of the present study’s co-authors. “They showed in this paper that the birds were actually staying quite close to the mountain,” she says. “If there’s any change in the wind, then they might accidentally be hurled into the rock.”

Ancient Farmers Started the First 'Green Revolution'

by Michael Balter 

The 1960s marked a turning point for agriculture in Asia: plant breeders launched a "green revolution" in rice production, selecting variants of a single gene that boosted yields across the continent. A new study finds that prehistoric farmers were revolutionaries, too. They harnessed that same gene when they first domesticated rice as early as 10,000 years ago.

The history of rice farming is complex, but the basic facts are well established. All of today's domesticated rice belongs to the species Oryza sativa, which descends from the wild ancestor Oryza rufipogon.O. sativa has two major subspecies, japonica (short-grain rice grown mostly in Japan) and Indica (long-grain rice grown mostly in India, Southeast Asia, and southern China).

During the 1960s, plant breeders working in Asia greatly increased rice yields by selecting for mutations in a gene called semi-dwarf1 (SD1), which shrinks the length of the plant's stem. Dwarf plants require less energy and nutrients, raising the number of rice grains that can be harvested, and they are also less vulnerable to being knocked over by storms, which can decimate rice fields.

To see what role SD1 might have played during the early domestication of rice, a team led by plant geneticist Makoto Matsuoka of Nagoya University in Japan examined the evolutionary history of mutations in this gene that could be associated with shorter stem length. The enzyme produced by SD1 is known to control a biochemical pathway that promotes growth in the stems and leaves of the rice plant, so the team measured the effects of different SD1 mutations by introducing genes with those mutations into bacteria and seeing how much enzyme was produced.

Matsuoka and his colleagues identified an ancient mutation called SD1-EQ that was closely associated with shorter stem length. And while this mutation was found in japonica and to a lesser extent in indica varieties, it did not appear in the wild ancestor O. rufipogon. This suggested that SD1-EQ might have been selected during rice domestication.

For further evidence, the team looked at the variability of genes that lie adjacent to SD1 in the genome, in 16 varieties of japonica, 15 varieties of Indica, and 16 varieties of O. rufipogon. Usually, when genes have been favoured by selection, neighbouring genes show much less variation among different individuals. The team found that genetic diversity around the SD1 gene in japonica was only 2% of that in O. rufipogon—suggesting that a variant of SD1 in fact had been selected in ancient times. The SD1 region in indica, however, still had 75% of the diversity of the wild ancestor.

In its report online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Matsuoka and his colleagues conclude that the stem-shortening mutation SD1-EQ arose during prehistoric times in japonica, when the plant was first being domesticated. They suggest that japonica and indica each evolved from O. rufipogonlong before rice domestication began and then were independently domesticated in different regions. Later, theSD1-EQ mutation found its way into indica plants, perhaps through crossbreeding of the two subspecies.

The findings fit well with the archaeological record of early rice production, particularly in northern China, says archaeobotanist Dorian Fuller of University College London. Wild rice, Fuller points out, is a plant that prefers large bodies of standing water. "It produces extremely tall, long [stems] to grow in deeper water." But the earliest rice farmers cultivated the plants at the margins of wetlands, where the water was deeper. In doing so, they might have unconsciously selected for shorter plants, Fuller says.

Early farmers might have also consciously cultivated shorter plants, given their greater yield and ability to survive storms, adds Susan McCouch, a plant geneticist at Cornell University. McCouch says that this deliberate selection of dwarf plants, in effect, led to genetic selection for the SD1-EQ gene by farmers who had no knowledge of modern genetics.

Kenya Economic Update: Turning the Tide in Turbulent Times

Climate Change, Natural Disasters and the Urban Poor.

The state of the carbon markets is Messy - not Messi

SUBMITTED BY ANDREW STEER 

Last week Barcelona brilliantly beat Manchester United to become the soccer Champions of Europe.  This week Barcelona hosted delegates at Carbon Expo, the annual jamboree for carbon marketers organized by the World Bank and others.  But sadly, the style, strength, efficiency and confidence shown by Messi, Villa, and Pedro are not much in evidence in global carbon markets today. More like my old fourth division club, Bexley United, which I believe has now ceased to exist.

• There’s certainly a lot to be gloomy about in the world of carbon trading over the past year:
• The overall size of the market worldwide shrank for the first time ever in 2010
• The primary CDM market (Clean Development Mechanism) – the principal window of carbon markets to the developing world – fell another 46% to $1.5 billion, down from $7.4 billion in 2005, and the lowest since trading began in 2005.
• Legislative disappointments in the USA, Australia and Japan, and the market have now become even more concentrated, with well over 90% of trades originating in Europe.
• Serious irregularities and fraud in the European Trading System (ETS), and suspicions of monkey business in some CDM HFC (Hydrofluorocarbon) transactions.  

Above all, confidence in the post 2012 market, when the first Kyoto Protocol Commitment period comes to an end, is on the floor, and thus demand for post-2012 deliveries is close to zero.

These points are all documented in the Bank’s new State of Carbon Markets Report, 2011launched this week. And yet 3,000 people turned up at the Carbon Expo this week, and seemed to doing deals and having a good time. Is there anything positive out there? Yes, actually.

First, the overall size of the market was still $142 billion, no small change, although overwhelmingly concentrated within the European Trading System.

Second, negotiators in Cancun last December made some good decisions that over time could breathe life into the CDM. Delegates agreed to standardized baselines, inclusion of forests in the system with measurement at the national level, city-wide carbon trading, and a move towards new trading platforms allowing significantly scaled up activity, such as through sectoral crediting etc.

Third, new players are warming up on the bench, albeit not within any globally binding legal system. California and some western states and Canadian provinces are scheduled to launch a trading system next year. Australia is exploring carbon trading legislation again this year, and everybody is watching Tokyo’s cap and trade system, which is the first city-level system to allow international trading.

Fourth – and most exciting of all – a number of non Annex 1 countries are designing their own internal schemes. In Barcelona we listened to the plans of countries like China, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Mexico, Thailand and Turkey. Some will adopt cap and trade systems, not because they must, but because they feel it will boost technology and competitiveness, and because they want to be part of the solution. These countries and others will be supported in these plans by the World Bank’s new Partnership for Market Readiness.  

Bottom Line: With flows to developing countries from carbon markets of only $1.5 billion per year it is not worth the large effort of the World Bank Group and others on this market. We’re staying in this business because we don’t believe it will stay this way. Carbon markets have been shown to dramatically reduce the costs of reducing GHG emissions, and to transfer technology to developing countries. As in the case of all markets the future will depend on demand, supply and the regulatory system that brings the two together. We’ve a lot of work to be done on all three areas. While it’s demand that’s the binding constraint right now, we need to work on all three, so that the market is ready when scale up is inevitably required. I laid out these thoughts in my opening speech to the Expo.

We don’t know when or if there will be a legally binding global deal. Carbon markets would benefit hugely from such a deal, and can grow without it. As long as individual countries and groups of countries are committed to reducing their carbon footprint, and understand that this will be cheaper if part of their obligations can be bought from others, this market is set to grow.

The global carbon market is 11 years old this year, and like its human counterparts, entering that awkward stage. The good news is that even teenagers grow up. 

How Governments Can Engage the Private Sector to Improve Health in Africa

The Healthy Partnerships Report assesses how governments and the private health sector are working together in forty-five countries in Africa. The Report starts from the premise that collaboration between the government and the private health sector can improve the quality and access of care. Researchers working on this report created a new framework to measure the level of engagement between the public health authorities and private sector providers in Africa, informed by over 750 in-person interviews with stakeholders at every level of the healthcare system. They identified five domains that collectively comprise engagement: policy and dialogue; information exchange; regulation; financing; and public provision of services.  

How exposed are MENA households to global food price increases?

SUBMITTED BY ELENA IANCHOVICHINA 

There is widespread belief that consumers across Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are largely insulated from global food price increases due to government food consumption subsidies and other policies. This, perhaps, explains why prior to its April edition, the World Bank’s Food Price Watchand many papers written on the topic did not report changes in domestic food prices in any MENA country. Limited access to microeconomic data has been another reason for focusing mainly on the macroeconomic implications of food price shocks in the region.

Still the absence of systematic monitoring of domestic food price movements and analysis of their implications for households in MENA are surprising. Food security has featured prominently in public policy discussions and higher food prices are thought by some to have been a contributing factor in the region’s recent unrest. The MENA region is the largest wheat importer in the world, and wheat prices have doubled since the end of 2005.  Malnutrition rates are high, and a large number of people live close to the poverty line. Domestic food prices are influenced not only by world prices, but by a number of country-specific factors, including domestic supply chain efficiency, infrastructure and exchange rates, to name a few. With substantial and sustained increases in international prices of a broad range of foods, coupled with a fast-growing domestic food demand, some MENA countries are facing growing fiscal and inflationary pressures.

Nearly all the countries in the region have experienced an increase in their domestic food prices, with the country average increasing by almost 40 percent since January 2007. Importantly, the fiscal pressures vary by country, with some spending as much as 3.5% of GDP on food subsidies.  Since the 1980s most MENA countries have attempted to reform their consumption food subsidy systems, but some governments have been more successful than others in doing so. Measures such as self-targeting, increasing prices by stealth, subsidy rationing and replacing subsidies with cash transfers succeeded in reducing the government subsidy burden, but many others fell short and in some cases, following public pressure, reforms were reversed. The result has been partial reforms, with all MENA countries still offering at least some consumer price subsidies. Meanwhile, social assistance schemes do not adequately channel resources to the needy.

Our recent Economic Developments and Prospects (EDP) report finds that MENA households are indeed highly vulnerable to international food price increases as well as inefficiencies in domestic markets. International food price shocks have been transmitted to various degrees into domestic food prices in nearly all MENA countries.  The strongest pass-through effects (above 0.4) have been observed in West Bank and Gaza (WBG), Iraq, Djibouti, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The pass-through is smaller but still sizable – varying between 0.2 and 0.4 – throughout the rest of the MENA countries. The exceptions are Algeria and Tunisia where government policies, including subsidies, effectively safeguard against price transmission. Importantly, in all countries, a decline in global food prices barely translates into a reduction in domestic food prices.

The EDP report shows that rising world food prices have been a major factor behind increases in domestic food prices in MENA, explaining some 20 to 30 percent of the variation in these prices. International prices have been a particularly strong driver of food inflation in Iraq and West Bank and Gaza, where they accounted for over 50 percent of food inflation, followed by Egypt, Djibouti and the United Arab Emirates, where they contributed 40 percent to food inflation. Domestic factors such as inflexible procurement methods, poor logistics, inadequate stockpiling practices and insufficient use of financial instruments and planning techniques, have also played a major role in explaining domestic food inflation in nearly all MENA countries.

What these numbers show us is that countries could reduce food price pressures considerably by tackling domestic issues and the fiscal burden by improving the targeting of subsidies and other food consumption policies. But any efforts regarding the latter must of course be sensitive to political-economic realities: refining subsidy targeting to the poor will, by necessity, make price increase transmission to the not-so-poor much stronger. Today’s authorities are especially challenged to make transmission pressures to those who can afford to pay more palatable. The findings also underscore the importance of regular monitoring and reporting of domestic food price developments in the Middle East and North Africa.

Sri Lanka: Roads to Development

Should It Be our Business to Promote Business Training?

SUBMITTED BY BILAL ZIA, CO-AUTHORS: MIRIAM BRUHN O

Firms in developing countries face many constraints, from lack of access to finance and physical capital to poor infrastructure. Recently, however, there has been a growing focus among researchers on “managerial capital”, or business skills, as an important determinant of entrepreneurship in developing countries. Policymakers have been equally interested in the perceived deficit of managerial capital, and have been pouring resources into financial and business literacy education programs around the world (see my earlier post on The Fad of Financial Literacy?).

Yet we still have a very incomplete understanding of the effectiveness of these programs, and their specific impact on business outcomes. Until recently, there were only two completed randomized impact evaluations of business training programs in developing countries: one in Peru for rural women, which found positive effects on certain business practices but not on profits (Karlan and Valdivia, 2010), and the other in the Dominican Republic, which found that basic rules-of-thumb-based training had a greater effect on business outcomes than formal business training (Drexler, Fischer, and Schoar, 2010).
We contribute to this sparse literature by conducting a randomized evaluation of business training on slightly larger, more established businesses run by young entrepreneurs in Bosnia Herzegovina. In addition, we have data on  potential entrepreneurs who had outstanding business exploration loans with our partner financial institution.

Our 5-session business training course covered basic business concepts and accounting skills, as well as investment and growth strategies, with a particular emphasis on the importance of up-front capital investment.

Both the setting and the sample are of special interest for several reasons. As an emerging post-conflict economy, Bosnia and Herzegovina has a low business survival rate, as well as a very high rate of youth unemployment (about 58 percent, 2007 Labor Force Survey). Both factors contribute to making business training programs a high-value proposition.

We find that financial literacy is a strong predictor of baseline financial and business outcomes, consistent with the existing literature. Further, our experimental results show that the training program led to significant improvements in basic financial knowledge for those who start out with low levels of financial literacy at baseline. Our results on business outcomes, on the other hand, are quite stark. We do not find any significant impact on business start-up or survival. However, we find that among businesses that survived, the impact of business training is quite significant. These businesses exhibit improvements in business practices and investments, and business owners with higher levels of ex-ante financial literacy further exhibit improvements in sales and profits.
  
Our analysis indicates that while business training programs can have a significant impact on surviving businesses, particularly for those entrepreneurs with higher ex-ante levels of financial literacy, in our context it does not seem to affect business start-up or business survival itself. This is perhaps not so surprising in a country like Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is recovering from war and lacks a host of complementary institutions and environments for healthy business growth.

One aspect that is quite clear is that business training has positive effects on businesses that do survive, encouraging them to implement production processes and make investments that they otherwise would not have. This is promising, given that the course specifically emphasized these behaviors. The course seems to have been particularly effective at promoting business growth for those entrepreneurs who exhibited higher levels of financial literacy at the baseline. Policymakers might therefore consider targeting business training resources towards existing firms, with an emphasis on particularly teachable behaviors.

References:

Bruhn, Miriam and Bilal Zia (2011), “Stimulating Managerial Capital in Emerging Markets – The Impact of Business and Financial Literacy for Young Entrepreneurs,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 5642

Karlan, Dean and Martin Valdivia. 2010. “Teaching Entrepreneurship: Impact of Business Training on Microfinance Clients and Institutions,” Forthcoming, Review of Economics and Statistics.

Drexler, Alejandro, Greg Fischer, and Antoinette Schoar. 2010. “Keeping it Simple: Financial Literacy and Rules of Thumb,” LSE Working Paper.

Maintaining progress amid turmoil

SUBMITTED BY GLOBAL MACROECONOMICS TEAM 

The World Bank's latest update on the world economy leads with a message for developing countries—the crisis is over for most developing countries, and it is time these countries shifted their focus from crisis-fighting to tackling inflationary pressures and dealing with high commodity prices.

Global Economic Prospects—June 2011 (produced by the team managing this blog) says that these developing countries need to return monetary policy to a more neutral stance and rebuild the fiscal cushions that had allowed them to respond to the crisis with counter-cyclical policies.

Sustaining balanced growth in the medium term will depend on the kind of slow-acting social, regulatory and infrastructural reforms that generate improved productivity and sustainable growth.

In contrast, high-income countries and many of Europe’s developing economies are still saddled with crisis-related problems such as high unemployment, household and banking-sector budget consolidation, and concerns over fiscal sustainability, among other factors.

Taking into account these factors as well as the recent events in Japan and the Middle East and North Africa, global GDP is expected to grow 3.2% this year before edging up to 3.6% in 2012. But further increases in already high oil prices could significantly curb economic growth.

Already, high oil prices and production shortfalls due to bad weather have contributed to higher food prices, which has negative consequences for the poor who spend a higher proportion of their income on food.

Although domestic food prices in most developing countries rose much less than international prices during the 2010/11 spike (7.9% since June 2010 versus 40% for international prices; see chart), local prices may rise further as international price changes slowly pass through into domestic markets.

And if the 2011/12 crop year disappoints, food prices may rise further, placing additional pressures on the incomes, nutrition, and health of poor families.

To read the detailed outlook and access the data underlying these main highlights, please visit our online interactive edition: www.worldbank.org/globaloutlook. 

Over the course of the week we will discuss the trends in major macroeconomic indicators and main risk factors facing the global economy—starting tomorrow with the ongoing uncertainty in oil-producing regions.

Practical Application

Practical Application “The name of Krishna and Krishna are nondifferent, but we cannot realize this intellectually. We have to practice chanting Hare Krishna to realize it. When we actually advance in devotional service and chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra offenselessly, we will realize that Krishna and His name are nondifferent.” (Shrila Prabhupada, Teachings of Lord Kapila, Ch 12) The most important tenet presented by those following the bhakti school of spirituality, or devotional service, is that the sound vibration representation of the Supreme Lord, i.e. the holy name, is non-different from the person it represents. Therefore simply repeating, “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare”, with firm faith and enthusiasm is enough to realize the presence of God and take to His service for the rest of the time spent on earth. Such a practice will bring about a change in consciousness, with a resulting mindset being so pure that no amount of attack from the impeding forces coming from material nature, the body and the mind, or other living entities will ever break the devoted yogi from his connection to the Supreme Consciousness. While these principles are easy enough to describe and teach to others, real understanding only comes about through practical application. There is only so much that a mental exercise can do towards attaining the final goal. Time must be spent implementing these ideas for there to be results. The simple example of acquiring a high school diploma illustrates the need for practical field work very nicely. At the most basic level, the passing of high school indicates that the student has achieved a certain level of understanding and thought, especially as it pertains to subjects like math, science, reading, writing and social affairs. But in order to complete high school, one must traverse upwards through the twelve grades eventually leading up to graduation. At the beginning of the process, we could tell the student what he or she needs to do in order to successfully complete the required courses, but the intellectual understanding wouldn’t bring about the proper mindset that is required at the end. For instance, we could tell a student that they will have such and such understanding at the end of the process, that they will be able to read properly and solve mathematics problems, but unless and until they take the courses and do the necessary work, they won’t be able to properly realize what this understanding entails. As another example of the same concept, young children and adolescents are often told of the difficulties faced by parents. A good mother or father will constantly worry about their child. “Did they eat enough today? Are they doing their homework? What if they constantly defy my wishes and never do anything I ask of them? What will happen if they don’t pass their courses in school and don’t end up getting a good job later on in life? What if they never get married and have to live the rest of the life alone?” These worries are present to some degree or another in every parent, and simply understanding these fears prior to entering marriage and having children provides a good foundation for expectation. Nevertheless, it is not until the first child is born that the person previously instructed on all the ins and outs of parenthood really gets a feel for what others go through. That first drive home from the hospital with your son or daughter sitting in the backseat immediately brings a desire to protect, wherein the interests of the newborn, helpless individual are taken to be of utmost importance. Every second is spent in the child’s company in the early years, with the primary intention of having them grow up to be independent. In this sense, the attached parent is only asking for future separation pain, for the child will grow up to be independent and not reliant on the parents for anything. Because of the desired result, the job of a parent, especially a mother, becomes the most thankless task, one that proves beneficial for the person being served, while ultimately leaving the loving parent all alone. In the realm of spirituality, the answers to all of life’s puzzling questions, realizations that remove all doubts, can be found in bhakti, which is love or devotion to the Supreme Lord. While other processes of spirituality such as meditational yoga, intense study of the scriptures, and sacrificing the rewards of work to higher causes signal elevation in consciousness from the animalistic mindset inherited at the time of birth, it is not until the loving propensity of the soul is allowed to burst out and act without impediment that a permanent shift to a blissful consciousness can be achieved. Lord Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is the ideal candidate for receiving the endless love just ready to be supplied by the love-starved conditioned soul, who has been thrown around in the clothes dryer known as material existence for far too long. While Krishna may be considered a sectarian figure, the god of the Hindus, His appeal is universal. The Supreme Lord, to be the most powerful and pervading entity, must be the worshipable figure for every single person. Just because one person is born in India and another in America doesn’t mean that they should have different objects of worship. After all, what is the difference in their makeup? If we were to switch the two people at birth, they could very easily grow up to become accustomed to their surroundings. Therefore a simple geographical shift can bring about all the requirements conjured up by those who take family lineage and place of birth to be the determinant factors for caste, stature and corresponding religion. Krishna is a Sanskrit word that means “all-attractive”; therefore His is the perfect name to use when addressing God. The celebrated scriptures of the Vedic tradition, such as the Shrimad Bhagavatam and Mahabharata, describe Krishna as blackish in complexion, having the bodily hue similar to that of a dark raincloud. He wears a peacock feather in His hair and holds a flute in His hand. Instead of being invisible or an old-man, Krishna never ages in appearance. He always looks like he’s around sixteen years of age. In this way His attractiveness never diminishes. Since He is Bhagavan, He has full control over the attributes of beauty, wealth, strength, fame, renunciation and wisdom. He holds these qualities simultaneously and to the fullest extent. Proof of His abilities has been well-documented in the Vedic texts, which describe His innumerable pastimes enacted on this and many other planets. Since Krishna exists eternally, His activities know no end. Though He appeared on this earth five thousand years ago and took part in playful sports in the land of Vrindavana, Krishna’s pastimes never stop. Just as the sun is always rising in some part of the world, Krishna-lila is always taking place in some planet in the many universes in existence. Bhakti-yoga allows the consciousness of the individual, who is always seeking a pleasurable object to focus on, to tap into the train of Krishna’s divine sports, a transcendental car that never stops; it just keeps on rolling along. This train can accept passengers at any time, and those who wish to remain onboard never have to depart. Every need and want is met, as the only desire is to associate with Krishna or one of His non-different forms known as avataras for all of eternity in a variety of transcendental mellows, or rasas. We like to travel and take up hobbies because the lifestyle we have at home sometimes becomes monotonous and boring. Yet if we were able to have all of our desires for variety and enjoyment met in one place, why would we ever want to travel far away? The bhakti mindset achieves this very condition, essentially turning the mind into the greatest amusement park, one filled with rides and attractions all related to Krishna and His exploits. This all sounds wonderful, but how do we actually go about acquiring the proper consciousness? It is in this area that bhakti’s true supremacy is revealed. Unlike other rewards in the realm of spirituality which come about through strict regulation and difficult practice followed for an extended period of time, Krishna consciousness can come about in one second. As long as one constantly chants the names of the Lord found in the maha-mantra and refrains from sinful activities like meat eating,gambling, intoxication and illicit sex, there is every chance of a purified consciousness coming about in a very short amount of time. Even if one is averse to chanting the name of Krishna because it is viewed as sectarian, if there is another authorized name available to repeat which represents the same Supreme Lord then there is no harm. The key is the holy name after all, as it represents the person that it addresses. The same can’t be said of any other entity or object. We may chant the word “television” over and over again, but that won’t put our favorite program on right in front of us. With Krishna, thoughts of His pastimes and the sounds of songs glorifying Him are not different from Him. The very name of Krishna is the Lord Himself. These concepts are certainly difficult to understand, especially for the conditioned soul who has been trapped in a cycle of birth and death fueled by the desire for material enjoyment since time immemorial. But through steady practice in bhakti, the realization of the potency of Krishna’s name can be had. The solution of “chant Hare Krishna” applies to every situation. If there is poverty, the remedy is a purification of consciousness. Statistics show that in free countries poverty is almost always caused by poor life decisions, such as dropping out of high school and having children out of wedlock. Chanting the name of Krishna in the discipline of bhakti-yoga solves these problems because illicit sex is automatically eliminated, and the thirst for higher knowledge never ceases. The sincere soul will always want to increase their knowledge acquiring capabilities so that they can read and hear about Krishna even more. Indeed, the legendary acharyas loved Krishna so much that they dedicated their whole lives to describing His glories in book, poetry and song form. The length and breadth of the literature compiled by the vishnu-bhaktas, or devotees of Vishnu[Krishna], are unmatched in human history. Normally when a book is published or a newspaper article written, the relevance of the content is lost as time goes on. If the writer only focuses on current events or some specific political or social issue, once a new issue takes on a higher importance or when the matter in question gets resolved, the previously written words lose their importance. With books about Vishnu there is never any chance of diminution in importance. The relevance of the compiled works remains for as long as God continues to be worshiped. A great example of this is seen with Shri Hanuman, the faithful servant of Lord Rama. Rama is non-different from Krishna; therefore His name is included in the famous maha-mantra, the sacred formula that purifies consciousness. Rama is also a historical personality who appeared on earth many thousands of years before Krishna’s advent in Mathura. Hanuman, as a faithful and dear servant, exhibited strong devotion and bravery in acting for Rama’s benefit. Therefore Rama granted Hanuman the boon of remaining on earth for as long as the Lord’s glories and pastimes, which are nicely related in the Ramayana poem, continued to be told on earth. Since the Ramayana is still glorified today, we can understand that Hanuman is still alive and deriving the topmost transcendental pleasure from hearing about his beloved Rama. A fact which might get overlooked in all of this is that Hanuman’s relevance hasn’t decreased at all. Since he performed such wonderful service for Rama, he was obviously praised and adored during the Lord’s time on earth many thousands of years ago. But since he is always tied in consciousness to Rama and His inexhaustible activities, Hanuman remains relevant for as long as the object of his affection is glorified. Therefore simply through bhakti, which is Hanuman’s only engagement, the devotee’s thoughts, words and deeds remain ever worthy of hearing about. The works which describe Krishna’s glories and attributes are just as everlasting in their importance as is Krishna Himself. Therefore those who author these praises remain objects of worship for all of time. “In this endeavor there is no loss or diminution, and a little advancement on this path can protect one from the most dangerous type of fear.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 2.40) Presented with the wonderful theoretical and historical evidence about bhakti, there really is no reason not to at least try the practices so fervently recommended by those who purified their minds by wrapping their thoughts and desires around the interests of the Supreme Lord. The name of Krishna is the key element; it can save us from any and all calamity. Only one who is extremely wise and lacking in false ego will have the fortitude and courage necessary to find eternal life in bhakti. The proof of the tangible results offered by devotion to Krishna is well-represented, but not until we actually take the steps ourselves to see what the fuss is about will we gain any benefit. With bhakti-yoga there is no loss, as Bhagavan becomes powerless when facing His dearmost devotees. Divine love is such a potent force that Krishna Himself cannot convince the devotees to stop their desire to serve Him. Therefore there is no chance for any sincere bhakta to fail in their endeavor. Just as Krishna cannot stop anyone from loving Him, He can’t allow anyone who is dedicated in their desire to perform bhakti to ever go permanently back to the miserable way of life that is the material existence