Harimedia Forum

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"Community is something we all long for. We long to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, to love and to be loved, to give to others, and to receive that greatest of gifts – friendship." .~ Found on the web


..Social Networking Site: Mail.ru - MyWorld@Mail.Ru - agent.mail.ru/en

Mail.ru is the largest free e-mail service of the Runet. The company started to operate under its present name on October 16, 2001. Before that time its brand name was owned by Port.ru. (more)

Registered Community Users:
Friends of Hari: my.mail.ru/community/hari > Community/hari/journal
Alfir Sitdikov > Robert Campagnola > Marat Hasanov (Maha) > Irina Rubinstein (Sati) > Nalini > Myself


.Siva Parvati of Sankt Petersburg


.Radha Krishna of Sankt Petersburg

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.Siva Parvati

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..Murti of Durga devi


.Ganesh Murti, (Ganapati)

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Sri Radha in St. Petersburg. Source: Alfir Sitdikov, mail.ru/community/hari

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..A music performance in the temple. Source: hari@community » More...

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.Hari and Siva-ratri


.» Photos with Hari from 2008

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.» Videos: Hari Speaks about His Understanding of Community in the Society » Part 2 » Part 3

The whole lecture on video Hari gave and streamed online from Gainsville on November 06, 2010 you can download at: http://files.mail.ru/IWCX5K

...Interview in St. Petersburg

Harsi: How you made it possible in this broadcasting to broadcast your lectures all over the world? I can imagine it is a great art to do it and a great task.

Hari: I started broadcasting around 2004, I started in the middle of 2004. By the end of 2004 I have done some very preliminary kinds of broadcasting as tests. The difficulty being that I have an intercontinentaly situated translator, somebody who is on another continent. There is a lack (of network interconnections) between continents and also the connection is not always working properly, so there is cut off or just dropouts. (> Wiki: History of the Internet) And the first thing I had to do was find some kind of a video conferencing, or some kind of conferencing program that would compensate for that as much as possible. And Tom Grangent assisted me with the TAConf program that he had (grandgent.com/tom). But than the second problem was to make it in Stereo and to broadcast Video and Audio at the same time at different bit rates, so that people who only had dialup modems could listen and people who had vaguely reasonable broadband connections could also watch Video.

So this was requiring a lot of Hardware, a lot of Audio interfaces. I usually need three computers, two cameras and three Audio interfaces. Now I've gotten that much more much simplified due to the increase in technology and also the extreme power of the computer that I have. I still need two computers, one Windows computer, one Mac computer and so on... So technologically speaking it was about maybe a three month endeavor to work it all out. I have my own server which streams, so that was the first problem. The second problem was to feel a connection to the people who I was speaking to, because I didn’t see them. Now initially I had a couple of people connecting to me through TAConf, so I saw them vaguely, but they were little itsy bitsy images on a screen and it didn‘t really worked. So I stopped that after a while it didn‘t matter.

But when you are speaking to a camera and you have a disembodied audience, that’s an audience situated somewhere, you don’t know really who they are, you can only just vaguely feel sometimes what they might give you as feedback, it’s a very subtle experience. So learning how to speak to an audience that you are vaguely aware of, is quite an art. Maybe it's not such an art when you are doing it for TV and you already have a preconceived notion. But I do it live on the spot, I have vaguely some idea what I'm going to talk about, and I do it. It started of in a kind of stumbling kind of way. I mean the lectures weren’t so great and the translators were getting used to the idea of being in another continent and doing it. We by the time 2005 rolled around we were going pretty good. And we have all of the lectures, I mean most of them, sometimes there were bridges, but most of them are there on the Harimedia site from even the end of 2004 all the way up to the present day.

The other problem was in broadcasting every Saturday was to figure out something to say. I mean what do I say?! So, you run out of like, you need topics after a while. So you have to figure out how to say things in a way which is useful, it’s interesting, is something that the people will benefit from and something you are interested in personally. Because if what I’m talking about bores me, well, than I can’t speak about it. It’s to boring and I just give up and say ok, everybody go home. But, so I’ve managed to use my experience during the week, to use my realizations that I might have had, even in simple things, to come up with some kind of a topic which inspired me to a certain extent and than it would develop. So that worked out quite well, it’s even still working today.

And that’s basically the history up to this moment. I’ve broadcast not every week now. Well, I did it just recently, but I was broadcasting every other week, so that I thought that I could keep myself fresh, but I've broadcasted every week for the last five weeks and it didn’t bother me, all was OK. So I think I might just continue to do that, I'm not sure. I know that I’ll continue broadcasting, it’s easy to do now, it’s not a problem. It used to take me days and days and hours and hours to prepare for broadcast, because there were so many things which broke all the time. But now it’s not, it’s pretty steady an so I can just the night the day before practice it for ten minutes. And in the morning I just get up at eight. I start, get up means the server starts going around at eight o’clock and it takes me around 20 minutes to set it up now. And by the time I show up at ten everybody knows where to be and how to do it.

Previously I had to be text support too. I used to get hundreds of e-mails, “ I can’t connect what do I do?”, “The image is not working what do I do?”, I don’t have a clue what to do, what do I do?” So I set up a full explanation on Harimedia how to do it, and there is also another site called bcastlive.com and in there is a mirroring of the text in Harimedia. It’s simply for telling you how to connect to the broadcast, it’s very simplified. So that’s basically it.

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Harsi: You wrote also a book which appeared right now only in Russian, what is the content of it? What inspired you to write such a book?

Hari: Well, that book is a composite of about, I don’t know, maybe a hundred pages of original material and the rest of it was taken from techniques, meditations and exercises, which I had posted on Harimedia in the form of essays to give people an idea how to come to their own experiences, giving them tools to find their own experiences. That they may enter into the realm of spiritual mysticism in the easiest way for them; a way which is feasible, which is sustainable, which they could actually grab. But the first part there was no need for me to elaborate more in those pages. I felt it went from A to Z in that amount of time. I review books all the time, so I dislike it when authors pad books just to have 320 pages. What they usually do is everything they can say fits into 60 pages, sometimes people say everything in 40 pages.

Harsi: Its so condensed.

Hari: That’s what I did. I made it condensed. I didn’t try to pad it and add a lot of fluff, add a lot of material. Repeat things in other ways, copy and paste from other materials, or just repeat what other people said to simply come up with a book that you could publish in a certain amount of size. So what I did is: I tried to say the essence of what I speak about, not from the point of view of technique or from the point of view of a philosophy, but the very basic core essence of the fundamental principles of the differences and similarities between Being and Doing, or Essence and Expression of Essence.

So, I boiled it all down to the fact that Being is something that we may all contact easily, it is what we are, but we do not experience it regularly in life because what we experience in life is the Expression of Being, whether we know it or not. Its an expression of what we are, its an expression of our experiences, our consciousness, our awareness. So, ones we are aware that Essence is the foundation, the fundament, everything that exists about us, all our energy, all of our consciousness is intimately emanating and related to Essence, or it is what we are. Than the expressions we make when they are not related to the Essence, or not related to what we are, are seen as incompatible, are seen as an aberration in our consciousness.

So, what is most interesting I find, is that its very easy to experience what we are. I don’t even call it “Self-realization” because its not a realization, its simply accepting our experience of what we are. Accepting ourselves and getting rid of, or letting go of things that are not, by simply recognizing what you are, and therefore recognizing what you are not, letting go of what we are not, accepting what we are, and than when you accept what you are the expressions you make will be a directly, will be directly coming from the Essence. They will be an attempt to maintain your integrity as Essence in the world in which you live; which is the whole struggle I feel that we all face every day, and in every way.


.Conscious Evolution by Hari > Pangeya.ru ->

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Harsi: When I first reached this place, Jamaraja brought me from the airport, I was really amazed to see the beautiful Deities directly on Janmasthami, it filled my heart with wonder. Also I had a great inner touch, I was touched by the atmosphere here. Now I live in Germany in Nuremberg and I am for the first time here, and its interesting for me also to hear the translations, Mahasaya you have to make the translation in Russian, one can switch them off, if you like but if not we can hear you speaking directly, how is it possible for you, sometimes Hari makes very large sentences, how do you catch all the meaning and then translate it, you have experience in this?

Mahasaya: Yes I had first, initially I had a struggle with this, because it’s a problem for many interpreters but in a sense it is a skill you develop. But here the difficulty is that sometimes its not just the simple explanation. Sometimes there are very subtle points in it, sometimes there are concepts which are really not familiar to people. Which are, they might think they understand but actually they don’t if they don’t have experience. So, I had to learn to be more open to the concepts themselves and its in a sense I suppose we developed some kind of a telepathic connection, or something like that. So, and Hari is somehow managing to convey his energy, or translates his energy through me, or even concepts. And than what requires from me often is to be relaxed completely, but at the same time to be alert and focused, and the mind, so the mind should be focused to convey, to try to convey precisely. But even still I have difficulties with this, so I cannot say earnestly to do it perfectly but I try.

Harsi: I saw you often try to get some feedback from Hari what he actually meant.

Mahasaya: Yes it is recommended for a professional translator to look mostly to the audience but I prefer to look at Hari. Because it is easier for me to perceive his messages and its easier for me to make sure that I present it right. Because I noticed he is able to trace when I say something wrong and if I translate some word wrong somehow he perceives it. I don’t know its his mystic power or so. I suppose he is also tracing how the message is conveyed. So I am trying to develop.

Harsi: Yes, I heard sometimes he reacts on Russian words and says change the word, I mean its fantastic, like this.
Mahasaya: Yes that is true.


...Mahasaya

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Harsi: Sati, you are one of the persons who always is on Harimedia and on the Forum, and one who listens to Haris’s lectures, what impresses you to listen to Haris’s lectures in your daily life?

Sati: I met Hari, I think three years ago only, or three and a half. And what impressed me really is that the information that Hari gives, that he gives really tools that you can use to change your life. Like I’ve been to different lectures and was in a different directions like to find also some way in my spiritual development so… I had different experiences and something were real, but here I see that I can grow all the time and every time its very new experience. So, its not like some information or concepts that I hear and than I think about it and like it or dislike it. I just can have an experience directly like I can say I hear something and I can check it - is it true or not. And this when I check it, most times its true and I like it very much. So, I don’t have to believe anything.

So, its only matter of experience and I like my experience and I like changes like I want it. And I think that all the people who come to the lectures they are all different and you cannot find two people who live the same type of life, we’re all completely different. This people who are sitting here, we just have absolutely different life’s, we have absolutely different interests and our growth is very unique. Hari just gives the tools where you can yourself find out what you want, how you want it. Find out your connection to yourself and find how to express it, and how to deal with your life in your own way. To be harmonious and to feel how you are divine, how everything in us is divine around, and establish a connection with the Deities and with the Divine all around. Thats for me its... I like it very much.

Harsi: For me the first time when I came hear and experienced first hand this experience of meditation, I told Hari that through the Internet you cannot catch it really but when you are here you get caught by it, by its energy, what it really means. Since five years I’m now always following it up on the Internet and it was very hard for me, but when I got here from the first day I got caught by this - I don’t know we can describe it as spiritual energy, he explained it to me later that it’s a kind of in the Ether you can feel it.

Sati: I think that this place is very unique. The Deities are here and the spiritual energy is very intense and also of course the personal contact. I think its more intense but I also feel, I started to feel it during the broadcast like my first connection to myself and to the divine energy I felt it not just when I was here but also at the broadcasting. So, I think that the meditation that Hari gives during the broadcasting and the lectures and the energy he sends, I don’t know - the work he does, one can perceive it easily also by listening to the broadcasts. I think that the beautiful Deities they - like pushed here and gave you more intense experience, but you could also get it during the broadcast. Perhaps you were not ready, we never know when it happens to us, like you can just do something but before you are ready to experience it nothing can happen. So, it happened to you here, its very nice experience.


...Sati.

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..Video: Interview with Hari and others in St. Petersburg, 2010


Harsi: Kamalamala you are the driving force behind this project. Where did you get the inspiration to install all this divine beings in their deity form, and bring them from India I heard here in this place? How is the reaction of the public, of the people in general who are visiting this place?

Kamalamala: Actually I’m not the driving force of this project, because the driving force is Hari. I am one of the forces - there are many forces here - and I am doing my best just trying to keep this temple alive. Because Hari is far away, he is doing his Broadcasting and all kinds of other things and I have to manage this people to collaborate. People like very much and I am happy that people really appreciate the new understanding of, the new presentation of the Deities, which I never heard in other places, in other temples. And they appreciate it so much - they are attending the programs, they are coming and meditating with the Deities, going into Their energy, and they are - they don’t have any obligation to us, they are not into any organization - we don’t even know them.

Harsi: People are coming as we want to do something here.

Kamalamala: Some people are coming for the meditation, some people are coming to get the energy, some people are coming doing some services they like without any obligation, without you know instructions, so everybody is happy.

Harsi: How is it by the public in general what is the reaction by the people here in St. Petersburg?

Kamalamala: Reaction is very good, there are so many esoteric clubs and groups in our building. All the leaders of this esoteric groups are coming to the programs, are coming to the Deities. And they feel the power of the Deities and appreciate it. We are grateful to them.


Harsi: How do they react sometimes I saw they are all (coming) from different backgrounds, all this groups, what is their common force what is keeping them all together?

Kamalamala: They are spirit. All other things, the methodology and all kind of ways but if one is open really to the spirituality you can feel the energy and appreciate it.


.» Photos from Saint Petersburg 2010


..Kamalamala...Harsi


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During the recording of the interview there was some problems with my second video camera which ...


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...took me some time to fix so in the meantime Hari went to see the Deities.




After he came back the "guests" in my improvised talkshow in the temple room had some small talk...




... which obviously made a lot of fun, viewed from one of my camera instaled there...







... somehow Kamalamala seemed to fall asleep while Sati was explaining something to Hari and Maha.




Hari and Maha are listening somehow amused at what Sati was explaining in a somehow enlivening way.







Kamalamala seems to agree at what Sati had to say...




... if judged from his laughing which kept all others amused too.




Sati seems to enjoy the discussion also as all others present there when looking at her bright face.





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.Radha Krishna Deities in Saint Petersburg.

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After the 2 hours concert Hari got a rose as a gift from one of his youngest music fan present there.




Hari and Siva-ratri exchanging words in regard to sound of music after the concert in St. Petersburg.




The Neva river in St. Petersburg seen from the street nearby the Books Coffe Club after the concert.

.Photos: Heinrich Emrich (Harsi)

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People walking on the streets of St. Petersburg on the 6th September 2010




The Eremitage Museum at the side of the Neva river in Saint Petersburg.




The St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia


.Neva river in St. Petersburg

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.> Interview between Jasmuheen of the Self Empowerment Academy and Hari


Question: Can you please introduce yourself to our readers?

Hari: Hello! My name is Hari, although my legal name is Robert Campagnola. I was born in New York in 1948, however at the age of 22 I left America and only recently returned to live in Florida in January of 2004, 33 years later. During those 33 years I was a member of the Hare Krishna movement and traveled all over the world giving lectures, counseling people, managing large projects, making music CDs, and writing. In many ways this was a rewarding period of my life, yet at the same time it was extremely stressful, demanding, and draining. I left the Hare Krishna movement in 1998 at the peak of power and influence. Although my departure was a time of tension and trial for all, I look back on my life without much regret. My experiences were required for my evolution and the pain was an integral part of that process. Since my departure I have researched and studied many esoteric, mystical and alternative systems of healing, self-development, and the practical challenges of life. Part of that process was the creation of a spiritual center in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the creation of a esoteric book publishing company. Since we published the books of Jasmuheen in Russia, we invited her to do seminars. I must honestly say that the meditations she performed were the best I have ever attended and since that time we have become good friends.


Question: Can you explain a little of your background in metaphysics and maybe even your involvement with Hare Krishna?

Hari: I suppose the foundation of my interest in the metaphysical comes from previous lifetime's experience and I'm not sure if a description of these experiences is within the scope of this interview, but I do know that when I was quite young I came to understand that I saw the world and dealt with it in a different way than everyone else I knew. Since I do not like to be alone, I suppressed that way of being and tried to become similar to all my friends. This was very hard to do as it was unnatural. I went to the University in the mid and late '60s and received a degree in the social sciences. It was at that time I started to take up transcendental meditation, the Baha'i faith and Zen Buddhism, spiced with a sprinkling of hallucinogenics. After a while I discovered I could cause anyone I wanted to call me on the phone simply by thinking of them doing so. This was more of a conversation piece than a useful tool. In the summer of 1970, after having been through the Woodstock experience and the loss of flower power's innocence, I became an existentialist and my infatuation with the non existence of anything but the present became solidified. After the death of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, there was a subtle and fundamental change in my perception of my future. In January of 1971, a friend of mine introduced me to the Hare Krishna movement and I entered the temple to remain until June of 1998.

While in the Hare Krishna movement, I met hundreds of extremely interesting and talented people throughout the world. Experts in the medical field, expert astrologers, healers, and a few powerful mystics capable of doing deeds which were simultaneously fascinating and useful. India was a treasure trove of mystical experiences and all in all I spent about seven years there. Not all of those years were pleasant or happy for I had my share of physical sickness and managerial stress while developing community projects there. Yet those times when I could taste the mystical energy within that rich, yet contradictory, land still remain with me and guide me throughout my activities today.

Coming to understand and taste the sweet, powerful, sometimes demanding and and always forgiving, energy of the predominating deities of that ancient land has given me the foundation of my life and the hope that regardless of my situation I can be of service as they desire. Learning the art of audible and etheric sound vibration and the ways in which it influences meditative practices was a great gift. There were many things about my experience within the Hare Krishna movement which were unpleasant, fundamentalist, and abusive, but my personal spiritual experiences were usually nice and I had the pleasure of working with many very wonderful people. Although I have left that organization, it is impossible to separate these experiences from my life and neither would I want to. Read more...

> EoP document
http://selfempowermentacademy.com.au/htm/training.asp -> Video: Introduction to the focus of Jasmuheen & The Embassy of Peace various web channels