Four of us set out to step in the mountainous woods of the Rocky Mountains. Even for a Monday, because it is summer after all, the big draw to nature is one. My companions, Radha Madhava, Nanda Gopal, Vallabha Hari, and I took to trail walking along the Bow River, which has an admirable aqua colour. Banff is a town, a tourist trap, where the mighty river flows. It is a place of respectable folks. It appears pedestrians, locals and visitors, show courtesy to a monk with greetings as I pass by. I
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Prabhupada’s Money Analogy and the Politics of Doing the Right Thing
- Satyaraja Dasa (Steven J. Rosen)
According to Srila Prabhupada, one can gauge a person’s spiritual status by how they react to finding money on the street: Do they keep it for themselves? Do they leave it lying there? Or do they look for the original owner? What would you do?
In Sanskrit, there are three terms that cover the gamut of possible reactions to finding money in the street: bhoga, (enjoyment); tyaga (renunciation)
By HG Tejiyas Das
It was May and already by 6 am it was sweltering hot, even for Delhi. I started the day, going house to house in Hauz Khas, business to business in Connaught place. Yesterday I had received a notice, on a white post card, from the phone company, to return the phone we had leased during the LIC grounds festival last year. At that time the only phone company, along with almost everything else in India, including the buses, was owned and managed by the socialistic leaning central
Some people hold that, having been prophesied by scripture, by Lord Chaitanya and by the previous acharyas, if Srila Prabhupada had not spread Krishna Consciousness, some other devotee, or some group of devotees, would have been empowered to do so in Srila Prabhupada’s place.
In other words, the prophecy to spread Krishna Consciousness around the world relied on empowerment, rather than an empowered individual, for its fulfillment. It is similar to saying that if we were empowered like Hanum
By Acarya dasa, All India Padayatra leader
The All India padayatris started their char dhama yatra from Haridwar on May 10, 2022, heading for Badrinath dhama via Joshimath, Kedarnath, Yamunotri, and lastly arriving at Gangotri on June 18. From Gangotri, we negotiated the steep downhill walk back to Haridwar and on June 20 returned to our preaching journey.
Padayatra headed south from Haridwar stopping at Bijnor where we celebrated the disappearance day of Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur. There are so
By Patri Das
Meeting with Honorable Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Sri Yogi Adityanath Maharaj ji. We had a nice conversation on Spirituality, Life’s Journey, the teachings of Bhagavad-Gita and many more. I am grateful for the quality time we spent together.
I am thankful for the special exchange of gifts that happened today.
Maharaj ji honored us with Anniversary coins which were unveiled by Honorable Prime Minister of India, Sri Narendra Modi ji on the auspicious occasion of the Ground Brea
One of the major fears and concerns that most of us hear about, especially in the past 10 years, is the danger of Vaisnava-aparadha. Any aspiring Vaisnava fears offenses towards devotees as they are detrimental to one's spiritual progress. However, not knowing what "offensive behavior" means is dangerous. Why? Because that may end up being detrimental to our spiritual progress as well. For example, maintaining a healthy distance from "devotee-pretenders" can be seen as "offensive", yet it is ve
By Brahmatirtha das Director, Bhaktivedanta Institute for Higher Studies
The Legacy of the Bhaktivedanta Institute: Toward Fulfilling Srila Prabhupada’s Vision
In 1974, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada expressed his desire to “establish a Vaisnava Research Institute” to present the science of Krishna Consciousness for an intellectual audience. The following year, Prabhupada requested his disciple, Dr. Thoudam D. Singh (Bhaktisvarupa Damodara Maharaja), to establish an inst
The Jhulan Festival is celebrated in the month of Shravana (August), from the eleventh day of the bright fortnight (Ekadashi) to the full-moon day (Purnima). This festival is celebrated to commemorate the childhood pastimes of Sri Krishna with His friends, the young cowherd boys, and girls, swinging underneath the trees.
In Sri Dham Mayapur, Sri Radha Madhava is decorated nicely and seated on a swing. All devotees wait patiently in a queue to swing Their Lordships. The swing (Jhulana) beautifie
It is stormy, windy and rainy in Goa for the last few days. Seeing the wind and the heavy downpour, I started wondering, "What an experience it would be to be in such a storm and wind in a boat in the middle of the turbulent ocean". A crazy thought, I guess.
But then I got this insight that, "Well, we are already in the middle of an ocean with violent winds around." The scriptures explain that, this material world is a huge ocean of birth and death, with turbulent winds and storm of problems
We have a family, we have a language, we have a culture and so on, and it seems like all this is a part of ourselves due to some sense of belonging. This is described, however, in the Vedic literatures as our false identity. It is explained that our true identity is totally different – we have actually no connection whatsoever with the place of our birth or culture. If one considers the land of their birth to be a part of themselves, is thinking that their body is themselves. It is then very d
The Pizza Effect
By Satyaraja Dasa (Steven J. Rosen)
It’s become a tradition at the Brooklyn Hare Krishna temple that my friends and I regularly engage in a particular game of words. It goes like this: Since Krishna consciousness is all encompassing, having relation to all material and spiritual phenomena, we choose a word at random and see how it connects to our philosophy. For example, at a recent Sunday feast, one of my friends said, “ice,” noticing that the lemonade in each of our cups cont
Today is the world friendship day and great friends embrace each other and celebrate the occasion exchanging jiggles and giggles. A good friend is not always the one in need, but the one in deed. The best of all buddies is the supreme friend, the master of all. He created and protects us and unto Him we all return. He dwells in us although we are unaware of Him. That Supreme friend is Krshna and here is a brief about an absorbing story of a great friendship with Him.
The Bhagavata Purana descr
My wife and I recently invited some old friends to share prasadam with us at our home in Alachua, Florida. Although life in the Covid era had kept us physically apart for the last several months, our relationship with this couple has, both on the personal level and the service to ISKCON level, been consistent over the decades. The evening was filled with remembrances of good times, other friends, family members, including grandbabies, and yes … some trials and tribulations.
I first met my godbro
When we first met Srila Prabhupada and we told him we were artists, he immediately decided to engage us in making some paintings.
The first painting that he engaged us in was a four-foot by four-foot painting of Radha-Krishna that was to be hung in the San Francisco temple.
I had no idea what Radha-Krishna looked like so Prabhupada handed us his book cover to copy.
In the course of painting, I couldn’t tell what color Krishna’s eyes were since the picture I was copying from was too small.
In tho
By Acarya dasa, All India Padayatra leader
Having been joined at Rishikesh on May 11, 2022, by padayatris from the Maharashtra, Utkala-Banga and Uttar Pradesh padayatras along with several congregation devotees, the All India Padayatra began its char dhama yatra and after a journey of twenty days reached Badrikashram dhama on May 30, the AIP’s seventh round to Badrinath.
From Rishikesh we crossed the Panch Prayags, five confluences of the Alaknanda River: Dev Prayag, Rudra Prayag, Karna Prayag
Hare Kṛishna!
Please Accept Our Humble Obeisances, All Glories to Srila Prabhupada!
ISKCON Mayapur welcomes all you for a Festive Month!
An all-auspicious Month and one you wouldn’t want to miss out!
Festivals are the Summum Bonum of ISKCON. exude with colourful decorations, palatable feasts, elaborate rituals, kirtans, dance and dramas, the festivals make spiritual progress a fun-filled experience for the devotees of ISKCON. The original Vedic flavor is thus revived, and anyone wh
So Vrndavana is just covered by cows. When you came to Vrndavana at the time of Krsna, you would hear the mooing of cows everywhere, and there was milking of cows everywhere too. The milk was being churned everywhere too. The cowshed of Nanda Maharaja was enormous. There were nine hundred thousand cows. And how many cows do we have here? Almost nine. So there were almost a hundred thousand times more cows at the cowshed of Nanda Maharaj, can you imagine?! I mean if we had nine hundred thousand c
Kurma Das is not just a wonderful chef and manager of his restaurants. He is a wonderful writer too and he takes us on a journey of when Srila Prabhupada visited Australia and New Zealand over the years. Five years of research and over 950 hours of interviews offer a stimulating book about Srila Prabhupada’s pastimes and ISKCON’s history down under.
Source: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=96018
This world is like an airport. Here, we are supposed to board a plane. But some people get so excited when they get to an airport because there are so many shops and they go shopping, and what happens is that they end up missing the plane. So, the purpose was that we had come to fly, we did not come for shopping, we came to fly to go somewhere.
It’s the same for us in this material world. So, this world is an airport and here we are meant to board the plane to fly to the spiritual world, that i
