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Due to the fact that, we are, by nature social beings, if we don’t find satisfaction in our spiritual relationships, we will certainly look for friendship elsewhere.

If we associate with persons with little interest in spiritual life, our own devotional endeavour will dim.

When Lord Caitanya was asked to define what a devotee is, He replied, “A devotee is one who avoids the association of nondevotees.”

Attachment to nondevotees and their habits opens the door to material life, whereas attachment

When we think of the word 'death' we are immediately overtaken by a swarm of morose emotions - shadows of pain, torrents of tears and disconsolate grief. The darkness of fear grips us and we shudder at the slightest dint of this inexorable phenomenon.

However, being mortal conditioned souls, we need to accept the inevitability of death, comprehend the unalterable temporality of our bodies, and most important, about the eternal nature of the soul. 

According to the knowledge of transmigration of

A self-realized soul should be depended on because he or she is not restricted by selfish desires. In fact a Krishna conscious person, being satisfied, is in a position to perfectly relate with others. A study of the life His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada- the Founder Acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, will reveal this secret of perfection. Srila Prabhupada did not want anything from anyone, and yet he was always requesting people to do things - pe

The material world is a perverted reflection of our real home - the spiritual world. As such, every relationship is imperfect only partially mirroring what it could be and what we yearn for. Nevertheless we keep trying. Yet material existence imposes powerful restrictions on developing satisfactory relationships with others.

Because we have willfully separated ourselves from God - Lord Krishna, the reservoir of all loving relationships, we are now suffering from a spiritual psychosis and consequ

The more we hear about God’s unlimited qualities, the more we’ll comprehend that nothing can satisfy like friendship with Him. The desire for friendship is universal. It is based on our propensity to love and serve someone. 

We are all servants of God, so it is important for us to remember that any attempt to approach Him must be attended by a serving attitude. Just as the Lord, out of His kindness, is always busy making arrangements for His devotees’ happiness, we must also try to act for His pl

God or Lord Krishna is our most faithful and considerate friend. He will never abandon us or allow us to feel neglected. Although His propensity to love is so great that He desires to interact with countless living beings simultaneously. He can do so without neglecting even one of them. When Krishna was in Dvaraka, He expanded Himself, by His supreme mystic power, into many Krishnas, giving spiritual bliss to each one of His sixteen thousand queens, each of whom thought that Krishna was residing

The attractive, dynamic qualities of the soul tend to remain static in the material world because of the soul's marriage with inert matter. As a result, the thrill of material relationships diminishes quickly. We grow bored seeing the same faces day in and day out. But God or Lord Krishna is never boring, for His transcendental qualities are ever fresh and ever expanding.

In the Vedas it is stated that even if the scientists could count all the grains of sand on a beach or all the atoms in the un

Since we are eternally parts and parcels of the Supreme Lord Krishna, there is a natural intimacy between Him and us. In the Bhagavad-gita we learn that He is residing within our hearts as the Supersoul, graciously accompanying us as we wander throughout the universe, life after life, in search of lasting happiness. Unlike us, God possesses a spiritual vision that is never dimmed by material contact, and thus He is perfectly aware of our folly. As our true friend, He exhibits His kindness upon u

Through the fascinating journey of my life I have been fortunate to experience a myriad of friendships, all of whom I deeply cherish and value. However, the underlying fundamental question arises that who is our true friend? Can we boast of an eternal friend for life?

A true friend is a treasure worth discovering in the multitude of people who appear in our life. Now what are the qualities that we look for in a true friend? The prime quality is unconditional love.The basic principle of the livin

There are six chief criteria mentioned in the authoritative Vedic scriptures that determine the authenticity of a guru.

First, the guru’s teachings must be fully spiritual: he must not cheat his disciples by promising them material benefits; rather, he must teach them how to become free from material life and obtain liberation from the miseries of repeated birth and death.

Second, the guru must have attained the highest realization of the Absolute Truth—the personality of God—which is beyond the i

A bona fide spiritual master makes broadcasting the glories of the Supreme Personality of Godhead his only business. He never wastes time making materialistic plans or concocting dry philosophical speculations about God, for he knows full well that all people will be completely satisfied if they simply glorify God. Lord Krishna describes such genuine mahatmas(great souls) as follows: “Always chanting My glories, endeavoring with great determination, bowing down before Me, these great souls perpe

Sometimes a so-called guru seeks to help humanity by performing some social welfare mission, such as opening hospitals or uplifting the poor. Such a man is generally an atheist, devoid of any real spiritual knowledge.

Such a true guru has complete faith in Narada Muni’s words in the Srimad-Bhagavatam: “As pouring water on the root of a tree energizes the trunk, branches, twigs, and leaves; and as supplying food to the stomach enlivens the senses and limbs of the body; so simply worshiping Lord K

Since renunciation is a criterion for a genuine guru, then what about yogis who remain alone in silent meditation, seeking to stay pure by avoiding all material contact? Are they the ideal gurus?

No—because such withdrawal from the mass of people does not help those who are suffering without God consciousness.

One of the greatest God-realized guru, Srila Rupa Goswami, states in his Bhakti-rasamrita- sindhu, “If one rejects material things which could be used in the service of Krishna [God], his

A genuine guru must not only speak the truth; he must also live it. In other words, his character must be perfect and his behavior exemplary.

In the West we commonly see that a professor or philosopher achieves renown on the basis of his teachings alone, regardless of his personal life. But in Vedic society, if a man is a drunkard or in some other way violates the ideal principles he teaches, then he is considered not a teacher but a cheater.

According to the Bhagavad Gita a real guru, who teach

An important criterion for a guru is that he himself must be a disciple of a bonafide spiritual master—one who is part of a succession of spiritual masters coming from Lord Krishna Himself.

A guru’s teachings are genuine only when he has received his knowledge by this process of disciplic succession, because one who is not part of a genuine disciplic chain can have no access to the Vedic knowledge. So we must comprehend the importance of disciplic succession in determining the credibility of a s

Since we are all servants of the Supreme Lord, a bona fide guru must be a devotee of the Supreme Lord and teach others how to become His devotees. In fact, unless the guru is a devotee of Lord Krishna, he cannot understand transcendental knowledge—what to speak of imparting it to others.

An ideal example of a qualified recipient of transcendental knowledge is Arjuna, whom Lord Krishna empowered to understand the Bhagavad-gita because of his devotional attitude.

Krishna explains in the fourth cha

Just as it is a fraud for a so-called guru to offer only gross material benefits, or to collect money from his disciples for selfish aims, or to teach the disciples that they are God or can become God—so it is an even greater fraud for the so-called guru to proclaim that he himself is an incarnation of God.

The Vedic scriptures predict the incarnations of God and describe their extraordinary qualities and activities. So any ordinary person who poses as a guru and says he is an incarnation of God