Hopkins scientists turn on fountain of youth in yeast

Collaborations between Johns Hopkins and National Taiwan University researchers have successfully manipulated the life span of common, single-celled yeast organisms by figuring out how to remove and restore protein functions related to yeast aging.

A chemical variation of a “fuel-gauge” enzyme that senses energy in yeast acts like a life spanclock: It is present in young organisms and progressively diminished as yeast cells age.

In a report in the September 16 edition of Cell, the scientists describe their identification of a new level of regulation of this age-related protein variant, showing that when they remove it, the organism’s life span is cut short and when they restore it, life span is dramatically extended.

In the case of yeast, the discovery reveals molecular components of an aging pathway that appears related to one that regulates longevity and lifespan in humans, according to Jef Boeke, Ph.D.,professor of molecular biology, genetics and oncology, and director of the HiT Center and Technology Center for Networks and Pathways, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

“This control of longevity is independent of the type described previously in yeast which had to do with calorie restriction,” Boeke says. “We believe that for the first time, we have a biochemical route to youth and aging that has nothing to do with diet.” The chemical variation, known as acetylation because it adds an acetyl group to an existing molecule, is a kind of “decoration” that goes on and off a protein — in this case, the protein Sip2 — much like an ornament can be put on and taken off a Christmas tree, Boeke says. Acetylation can profoundly change protein function in order to help an organism or system adapt quickly to its environment. Until now, acetylation had not been directly implicated in the aging pathway, so this is an all-new role and potential target for prevention or treatment strategies, the researchers say.

The team showed that acetylation of the protein Sip2 affected longevity defined in terms of how many times a yeast cell can divide, or “replicative life span.” The normal replicative lifespan in natural yeast is 25. In the yeast genetically modified by researchers to restore the chemical modification, life span extended to 38, an increase of about 50 percent.

The researchers were able to manipulate the yeast life span by mutating certain chemical residues to mimic the acetylated and deacetylated forms of the protein Sip2. They worked with live yeast in a dish, measuring and comparing the life spans of natural and genetically altered types by removing buds from the yeast every 90 minutes. The average lifespan in normal yeast is about 25 generations, which meant the researchers removed 25 newly budded cells from the mother yeast cell. As yeast cells age, each new generation takes longer to develop, so each round of the experiment lasted two to four weeks.

“We performed anti-aging therapy on yeast,” says the study’s first author, Jin-Ying Lu, M.D., Ph.D., of National Taiwan University. “When we give back this protein acetylation, we rescued the life span shortening in old cells. Our next task is to prove that this phenomenon also happens in mammalian cells.”

-Scientific Research

_______

The research was supported by the National Science Council, National Taiwan University Hospital, National Taiwan University, Liver Disease Prevention & Treatment Research Foundation of Taiwan, and the NIH Common Fund.

Authors on the paper, in addition to Boeke and Lu, are Yu-Yi Lin, Jin-Chuan Sheu, June-Tai Wu, Fang-Jen Lee, Min-I Lin, Fu-Tien Chian, Tong-Yuan Tai, Keh-Sung Tsai, and Lee-Ming Chuang, all of National Taiwan University; Yue Chen and Yinming Zhao, both of the University of Chicago; and Shelley L. Berger, Wistar Institute. 

DNA barcodes reveals secrets of quack medicines, insect immigrants, and what eats what

The newfound scientific power to quickly “fingerprint” species via DNA is being deployed to unmask quack herbal medicines, reveal types of ancient Arctic life frozen in permafrost, expose what eats what in nature, and halt agricultural and forestry pests at borders, among other applications across a wide array of public interests.

This is the cover of the report: "Barcoding Life Highlights 2011." Credit: International Barcode of Life initiative

The explosion of creative new uses of DNA “barcoding” — identifying species based on a snippet of DNA — will occupy centre stage as 450 world experts convene at Australia’s the University of Adelaide Nov. 28 to Dec. 3.

DNA barcode technology has already sparked US Congressional hearings by exposing widespread “fish fraud” — mislabelling cheap fish as more desirable and expensive species like tuna or snapper. Other studies this year revealed unlisted ingredients in herbal tea bags.

Hot new applications include:

Substitute ingredients in herbal medicines

Barcoding experts have discovered that high demand is causing regular “adulteration or substitution of herbal drugs,” barcoding experts have found.

Indeed, Malaysian researcher Muhammad Sharir Abdul Rahman, one fraudster in his country, treated rubber tree wood with quinine to give it a bitter taste similar to Eurycoma longifolia — a traditional medicine for malaria, diabetes and other ailments.

A library of DNA barcodes for Malaysia’s 1,200 plant species with potential medicinal value is in development, eventually offering “a quick one-step detection kit” to reduce fraud in the lucrative herbal medicine industry, says Mr Sharir.

His concerns resonate in other countries around the true contents of certain ginseng brands and other products.

DNA barcode libraries are under construction for the medicinal plants of several other nations, including South Africa, India and Nigeria.

Barcoding permafrost

From the woolly rhino to plants and mushrooms, scientists using DNA decipher what lived in the ancient Arctic environment, creating new insights into climate change.

“DNA barcoding” analyses of cylinders of sediment cored from Arctic permafrost ranging in age from 10,000 to several hundred thousand years have shed light on past animal and fungal distributions and allowed researchers to infer which plant species likely co-existed.

DNA analyses of permafrost sediment 15,000 to 30,000 years old from northeastern Siberia revealed a grassland steppe plain during the glacial period supporting a diverse mammal community, including bison, moose and the DNA of the rare woolly rhino, the first ever found in permafrost sediments.

Researchers recently completed a library that characterizes 1,264 of the 1,338 species (94 percent) of butterflies and large moths of Germany. Local agricultural pests and invasive species can now be identified by DNA and distinguished from non-harmful relatives. Credit: A HAUSMANN

Says University of Oslo-based researcher Eva Bellemain, who will present project BarFrost (Barcoding of Permafrost): “In the Arctic, fossils are scarce and time-consuming to find and analyze. However, DNA is one tough molecule. It had to be to serve its purpose the last billion years and more. It can linger in the soil for thousands of years and stay relatively intact.”

What eats what

The technology can even distinguish species contained in the gut or dung of animals, revealing what eats what. University of Adelaide researcher Hugh Cross, for example, will detail his investigation into the diet of Australia’s fast-growing, 1 million-strong population of wild camels, which severely impact the country’s ecology.

Introduced in the 1800s as pack animals, Australia’s wild camels eat 80% of available plant species.

Says conference organizer David Schindel, Executive Secretary of the CBOL, based at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: “Biologists used to sit and wait and watch to learn how food webs work in Nature and what happens when they collapse. Now they can process stomach contents and dung samples to get the complete picture in a few hours.”

Invasive pests

Until now, border inspection to keep agricultural pests, disease-carrying insects and invasive species from entering a country has been a hit-and-miss effort. Barcoding offers a tool to get same-day answers for accepting or rejecting imports, an issue of acute economic importance to Australia and New Zealand.

With European Union funding, a consortium of 20 universities, research institutes, and other organizations are partners in Project QBoL (Quarantine Barcode of Life, www.qbol.org), developing a library of DNA barcodes to help quickly identify common invasive organisms that authorities want to stop at national borders.

With the new DNA barcode tool, inspectors can more easily and surely identify and thus prevent the entry of invading pests, including bacteria, fungi, fruit flies, other insects, nematodes, viruses, plants and other organisms. Trade of timber cut from endangered species may also be slowed with barcodes to identify wood and lumber products.

Hundreds of topics in Adelaide

“From tea to tuna, DNA identification is entering everyday life,” remarked Jesse Ausubel, chair of the International Barcode of Life (iBOL) initiative, a 6-year program now in midstream of a group of the most active labs building the barcode library.

Adds Dr. Schindel: “Like Google and Wikipedia, DNA barcoding scarcely existed a decade ago, and now we are a vibrant community built on 21st-century scientific tools.”

“DNA barcoding is the express lane to solving many of Nature’s mysteries relevant to a spectrum of national interests.”

He notes that scores of additional topics will be explored in Adelaide, spanning health, cultural and environmental protection, such as:

• Identifying the prey of disease-carrying insects based on analysis of their meals of blood
• “Barcoding Nemo” and other species of the ornamental fish trade
• Identifying mushrooms and molds
• Assessment of the global status of pollinators such as bees, and
• Assessing water quality

The blood meals of biting insects

Resembling a common housefly, the African tsetse fly transmits Human African trypanosomiasis, AKA sleeping sickness, to people and animals. One of the world’s most dangerous disease vectors, it spread the 2008 epidemic in which 48,000 Ugandans died. And the annual economic impact is estimated at US$4.5 billion, with around 3 million cattle killed yearly.

In East Africa, researchers analyzed blood meals of tsetse flies (Glossina swynnertoni), the vector of trypanosomiasis, documenting geographic differences in animal hosts, helping inform local control strategies. Credit: Philip Nguruma

Scientists use DNA barcodes to identify tsetse fly species and their prey based on analysis of the insect’s blood meals, unravelling the relationship between hosts and vectors.

By developing the barcode library, tools and ability to readily distinguish species of tsetse flies, mosquitos, ticks and other vectors of diseases such as malaria, leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, Japanese encephalitis, and Lyme disease, scientists can map risk areas more efficiently and alert authorities to the spread of health threats.

Barcoders have taken up an ambitious five-year goal a comprehensive library of 10,000 insect species that damage or destroy so many human lives: 3,000 mosquitoes, 1,000 sandflies, 2,000 blackflies, 2,000 fleas and 1,000 tick species.

Nemo and friends

According to scientists, over 1 billion ornamental fish — comprising more than 4,000 freshwater and 1,400 marine species — are traded each year internationally, a US $5 billion industry growing annually at 8 per cent.

Researchers at work on this issue include Gulab Khedkar of India, who says: “To facilitate ornamental fish trading, and in compliance of (India’s) Biodiversity Act, a universal method must validate the ornamental fish with their species names. This can help assure a sustainable ornamental fish trade.”

Fungi

Fungi are a taxonomic group of many prominent, distinct evolutionary lineages, ranging from mushrooms to moulds. Although two species of fungi can be more distantly related than a fish is associated with an insect, all fungi are classified in the same group.

Researchers at the conference are expected to announce the selection of the barcode region for fungi. The standard barcode regions used for animals and plants is not practical for fungi, and an international working group has been conducting comparative analyses of candidate regions for two years. The decision is expected to open the floodgates to fungal barcoding research.

A project on indoor fungi that cause human health problems will also be unveiled in Adelaide, showing the enormous potential for fungal studies.

Australian scientist Wieland Meyer argues that, given steadily increasing invasive fungal infections, inadequate identification, limited therapies and the emergence of resistant strains, “there is an urgent need to improve fungal identification” to improve the successful treatment.

Fungi also provide humanity with food and antibiotics and the services of fermentation and decay. DNA-based taxonomy promises to revolutionize the understanding of fungal diversity and connect their life stages.

Barcoders aim to create a library of at least 10,000 fungal species by 2015, especially for indoor fungi, for basidiomycetes (the “higher fungi”) and for pathogens of agriculture and forestry.

Insect pollinators

The ecosystem service of plant pollination by insects has a global value estimated at more than $400 billion annually.

Facilitated by the International Barcode of Life (iBOL), barcoders are surveying long-term population trends by assembling barcode libraries for all bees and other important pollinators — flies and beetles. Combined with campaigns to barcode moths, butterflies and birds, they will provide the database needed to assess the state of pollinator communities worldwide.

Assessing water quality

Scientists in Southern California and elsewhere are pioneering barcodes to assess freshwater marine water quality and its impact on marine life in, sand, sediment, and rocks or in mud in rivers and offshore.

Traditionally after collecting a bulk water sample, taxonomists must identify by sight several thousand invertebrates, a process requiring months and thousands of dollars. DNA barcodes enable them to analyze bulk samples in a fraction of the time at a fraction of the cost.

Similar projects underway in Korea, Iraq, Belgium and the Baltic region will be presented in Adelaide.

DNA barcoding is emerging as the tool of choice for monitoring water quality, DNA barcode libraries of aquatic insects under construction. New technologies are being developed and tested to allow faster and more complete analyses of entire biological communities in streamwater on ‘DNA microchips’ and through next-generation sequencing.

Says Dr. Schindel: “It used to take weeks or months to analyze the organisms in streams to determine water quality. Now it takes hours at a fraction the cost.”

A global barcode blitz

Scientists in Adelaide will also advance progress towards an international library of barcodes for 500,000 plant, animal and fungi species within five years – “a barcode blitz” that could transform biology science. The Barcode of Life Database includes more than 167,000 reliably named and provisional species today. Butterflies and moths are the largest well-analyzed group, with over 60,000 named and provisional species — much of the world’s estimated total of 170,000.

Gold mines for barcoding are the world’s museums and herbaria, where countless species specimens are concentrated and organized thanks to great investments of time and dollars.

Five Biodiversity Institute of Ontario researchers conducted a barcode blitz in the Australian National Insect Collection a year ago. Focusing on moths and butterflies for 10 weeks, they processed over 28,000 specimens representing over 8,000 species and 65 per cent of the country’s 10,000 known insect species. Meanwhile, at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, another team recently barcoded over 3,000 frozen bird tissues from over 1,400 species, adding more than 500 new species to the world avian DNA library, now covering about 40% of known birds.

New DNA extraction techniques bring older and older specimens in natural history museums into the age range where DNA barcoding can be effective. These breakthroughs will open up new research questions about changes in species over the past centuries of human impact on natural populations.

The Munich Botanical Garden is the latest institution with an essential collection of authoritative reference specimens opening its collection to a DNA barcode blitz.

-Latest Research

__________

The ability to identify and distinguish known and unknown species ever more quickly, cheaply, easily and accurately based on snippets of DNA code grew from a research paper in 2003 to a burgeoning global enterprise today, led by the Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) at the Smithsonian Institution.

The International Barcode of Life Conference in Adelaide is the 4th series that began at the Natural History Museum, London, in February, 2005.

Psychopathic Pathology

The brains of psychopaths have a different structure than healthy brains, perhaps explaining their antisocial and impulsive behaviors.

By Jef Akst | 

Flickr, Sarah G...

 

Psychopaths are usually diagnosed by their behavioral patterns: an eccentric personality, including lack of empathy and remorse, deceptiveness, and abusive actions. Now, researchers have shown that psychopaths also have differences in particular brain regions, with fewer connections between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), a brain region involved in feelings of empathy and guilt, and the amygdala, which mediates fear and anxiety, according to a study published in the November 30 issue of Journal of Neuroscience.

Michael Koenigs, assistant professor of psychiatry in the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, and his colleagues scanned the brains of 40 inmates at a medium-security prison in Wisconsin, and compared those with psychopathy to those who had been convicted of similar crimes but did not have clinical psychopathy. The researchers used diffusion tensor images (DTI) to visualize the white matter fibers connecting the vmPFC and amygdala and functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI) to visualized neuronal activity. They found reduced structural integrity in the vmPFC-amygdala connections and less coordinated activity between the two brain regions.

“Those two structures in the brain, which are believed to regulate emotion and social behavior, seem to not be communicating as they should,” Koenigs said in a press release

 

 Indeed, previous work has shown that psychopaths make decisions similarly to patients with damage to their vmPFC.

“The combination of structural and functional abnormalities provides compelling evidence that the dysfunction observed in this crucial social-emotional circuitry is a stable characteristic of our psychopathic offenders,’’ added co-author Joseph Newman, a psychology professor at UW. “I am optimistic that our ongoing collaborative work will shed more light on the source of this dysfunction and strategies for treating the problem.”

Source: TheScientist
http://the-scientist.com/2011/11/28/psychopathic-pathology/

 

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

The Trap of Deeds

“A man engaged in devotional service rids himself of both good and bad actions even in this life. Therefore strive for yoga, O Arjuna, which is the art of all work.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 2.50)

One of the heavier truths of Vedic philosophy to digest is the fact that there is really no good or bad, for what is favorable to one person may not be to another. Even something favorable can later on turn out to be unfavorable for the very same person, with the shift sometimes occurring within seconds. Think of taking an evening stroll to relieve tension. Seems like a harmless enough act, something which doesn’t cause any harm. Feel the evening breeze on your face, look to the sky, keep your body in motion, fight off inertia, and clear your head. But while you’re looking for peace, the mosquitos can come out and start biting you. They play no favorites in this regard, and neither will they cease to attack once they have tasted your flesh. Thus the apparently favorable activity of taking an evening walk becomes unfavorable almost within seconds. Lord Krishna, in the Bhagavad-gita, tells His disciple Arjuna to follow real yoga, bhakti, in order to be rid of all good and bad work and their reactions. On the surface the instruction appears contradictory, for by persuading someone to follow yoga, you’re essentially telling them to take action. Since actions are known to produce favorable and unfavorable results, what is the difference between following yoga and following anything else?

The answer is that yoga is meant for the soul, which is beyond duality. Good work and bad work are considered harmful because they give man the impression that he is the creator of his fortunes. But isn’t he? If I eat a satisfying meal and my hunger goes away, should I not take credit for the result? If I commit a crime and get punished for it later on, is my perilous condition not my fault? Can I blame someone else for my punishment? The issue is a little tricky to understand, as good and bad reactions certainly do follow fruitive activity. The term “karma” originates with the Vedas, the ancient scriptures of India. Karma essentially means work, but it has a specific connotation. The work must carry results, or fruits. The fruits can be bitter or sweet in taste, can manifest immediately or many years into the future, and can remain in existence for a long or short period of time. Regardless of the nature of the reaction, there is always an initial action which serves as the cause.

“Unseen and indefinite are the good and bad reactions of fruitive work. And without taking action, the desired fruits of such work cannot manifest.” (Lakshmana speaking to Lord Rama, Valmiki Ramayana, Aranya Kand, 66.17)

Reactions to work arrive even without knowledge of karma, so fundamental is the system. Considering these facts why would anyone argue that good and bad are the same or that they need to be eschewed? Also, how can thinking that I am the shaper of my destiny be harmful? The material elements consist of earth, water, fire, air and ether, along with mind, intelligence and false ego. Though we are responsible for the actions we take, and ultimately for the good and bad karma that follow, the living entity is actually not the doer. He is situated on a machine which follows nature’s dictates.

“The Supreme Lord is situated in everyone's heart, O Arjuna, and is directing the wanderings of all living entities, who are seated as on a machine, made of the material energy.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 18.61)

This same fact is revealed in the Bhagavad-gita, which further adds to the work’s value. A book that can provide profound truths, which are presented in an easy to understand manner, which are not available in any other work, becomes the most valuable reference tool, containing knowledge most worth gathering. The spirit soul is transcendental to both the material and subtle elements. What are good and bad relate only to the body, which we don’t have much control over, even though we might think otherwise. By taking a specific action and receiving a certain fruit, we think that we are the cause. But who controls the beating of the heart? Who makes sure that we breathe in and out when we’re not paying attention? Who creates the material elements that produce the fruits that we need?

The simplest example that can be used to understand these higher concepts is the planting of a seed that eventually sprouts fruits. This is the perfect analogy because the results of karma are referred to as phala, or fruits, in Sanskrit. Let’s say you get a plot of land, plant a seed, water it regularly, and then wait for the plant to blossom. At the stage of maturation, you’ll get some nice fruits to eat. When the fruits finally arrive, who is ultimately responsible for the enjoyment, the favorable condition? Is it the person who poured the water down, planted the seed, and picked the fruit?

Though the living entity took the impetus for action, none of the results could have arrived without outside intervention. For starters, a severe rainfall could have flooded the entire area and made the land unsuitable for raising crops. On the flip side, a drought could have befallen the area, thus not allowing the plant to get the water it needed. Some misery could have stricken the person planting the seed, rendering them unable to tend to the plant and pick the fruit when it was necessary. Meanwhile, the sun is rising and setting at regular intervals. If the living entity is responsible for the outcomes to action, what did he do to create the sun?

The young child has no concept of money, earning a living, or responsibility. Whatever they have they take for granted, taking their possessions to be aspects of life that will always be there. The child thinks that “my room” is where “I do everything”. Never mind the fact that I did nothing to purchase this room, nor do I pay rent. The playroom is filled with toys given by my parents, so anything I create in there is actually not due to my efforts. Without the hard work of the superiors, no one would be able to do anything in the various rooms of the house.

The material creation, which is the largest room one can imagine, operates in a similar manner. The Supreme Lord, the original cause, created the material nature and put into place a system of management to distribute the necessary rewards to man. You’ll notice that the animal community does not have rules governing sin and piety, i.e. they have no good or bad work. Their necessities are provided by nature, which does not favor or disfavor anyone. Therefore if the animals have no concern for good and bad work, why do the human beings?

The human form of life is the opportunity for understanding God, which is aided through learning about the differences between matter and spirit and what the purpose to one’s existence is. Good and bad actions are presented to the neophyte lacking any knowledge of the true nature of spirit so that at least some acknowledgment of a higher power can exist. The more we understand that we are not the doer, that we have scant influence in this inconceivably large universe, the greater our chances will be for finding God, serving Him, and relishing the fruit of our existence.

If we keep life’s ultimate mission in mind, we see that good work and bad work divorced of their relationship to God are all the same. Whether a particular athlete is extremely successful or perpetually a loser really makes no difference in the end. Once their career is over, the past memories are forgotten very quickly, leaving the person in a neutral state. The same goes for those enjoying material amenities on a large scale. The person sleeping on a mattress set to its own firmness level and the person sleeping on the bare ground really aren’t in different situations. The urges of the senses will be present in both individuals, so there is no such thing as good or bad sleeping conditions.

By following bhakti-yoga, or devotional service, the reactions of good and bad go away. The reason for this is that karma has no place in yoga. For the yogi material nature essentially turns into a poisonous snake which has its teeth removed. The elements are still there but they no longer shape the fortunes of the soul. The controller of both matter and spirit, the fountainhead of all energies, takes the devoted soul under His wing and guides Him through different situations. What were previously considered good or bad all of sudden become universally auspicious.

How does this work exactly? In karma, competition results in success or failure, with elation after victory and dejection after defeat. In bhakti, competition is spiritualized, so regardless of the outcome, the consciousness of the individual will remain pure. If I perform devotion better than someone else, I will feel good, but my desire will focus on continuing to love God even more. If I see someone else serving the Lord better than I am, I’ll take that as an impetus to step up my efforts.

In the bigger picture, there is no such thing as being better or worse at devotional efforts than someone else. There is no quantitative analysis with respect to the results of bhakti-yoga because each person is born with different inherent qualities. For instance, if one person is adept at cooking and another at writing, it doesn’t mean that the person writing books is a better devotee than the person cooking food in the home and offering it to a deity of the Lord. The offered food then turns into prasadam, which is spiritualized. Any person fortunate enough to eat the remnants of foodstuff offered to Shri Krishna - the same person worshiped around the world by the name of God - gets tremendous spiritual merits.

The book written by the devotee may affect a larger number of people than the prasadam cooked in the home, but the results are never within the hands of the doer. The living entity is a spirit soul at the core situated in a machine that is ever-changing. In bhakti, the results are controlled directly by the Lord. What the spirit soul does control, however, is the degree to which the potential for action is used. Therefore it is not the quantity of the engagement but the commitment to it that counts. If sincerity is there, if the person is trying their best, then there is no difference between the large and small outcomes in bhakti.

Under karma, good and bad create a false sense of proprietorship over outcomes. In the Bhagavad-gita, when Krishna tells Arjuna to follow yoga and thereby remove the reactions to good and bad action, it seems like He is advising Arjuna to take to a specific course, which would make Arjuna the cause of the resulting reaction of Krishna consciousness. If I tell you to follow a specific activity to reach a certain end, and you follow my advice, are you not the cause for the resultant reaction? If you think you are the cause, how is your behavior any different from that performed under karma? The difference is that bhakti-yoga is followed under the direction of the Supreme Lord, who broadcasts the science of self-realization through the mouthpiece of the spiritual master, the guru who assumes the difficult task of teaching the highest truths of life and presenting the Vedas to those sincerely interested in transcending karma.

The living entity is not the doer in either case, in karma or bhakti. The distinction results from the fact that the reactions in karma are never favorable, even if the actor thinks they are. Meanwhile, in bhakti, irrespective of the particular outcome, the conditions are always favorable. Even Arjuna’s lamentation on the battlefield of Kurukshetra was beneficial, for he was immersed in bhakti by being in Krishna’s company. Outwardly Arjuna appeared to be concerned over the welfare of the fighters of the opposing army prior to a war to end all wars, but he was actually just in Krishna’s company and instigating a transcendental talk that would liberate countless future generations. If under karma, Arjuna’s concern over good and bad action would have resulted in a neutral condition regardless. In bhakti, Arjuna’s concern created an opportunity for becoming even more immersed in bhakti, or divine love.

The actor following bhakti creates favorable circumstances through the divine will of the Lord, who controls the spiritual energy personally. The material energy also operates under His direction, but it lacks a personal oversight. This means that no one is really favored or disfavored by the material energy; the reactions that are due them arrive at just the right time. The follower of real yoga, however, remains firmly fixed in the devotional consciousness by regularly chanting, “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare”. Through chanting they slowly get pulled out of the trap of good and bad actions and realize that the only auspicious activity is found in bhakti, which provides endless opportunities for actions which maintain Krishna’s loving association.

In Closing:

Follow good and bad to get a reaction,

But either case brings same condition.

The body is only temporary after all,

Same is meteoric rise and catastrophic fall.

In bhakti results controlled by the Supreme,

Negative reactions of devotee does He clean.

Is not the cause of action in bhakti the same,

Auspiciousness the devoted worker’s gain?

Difference is that for bhakta Krishna controls the result,

Thus in behavior always guru’s teachings do you consult.