Rouge National Urban Park is a real gem located in the east end of the city of Toronto. To my understanding it is one of the largest green spaces in a major city in North America. Recently there have been bear sightings in the area. Unfortunately (or fortunately) our group from the Bhakti Academy didn’t see any, although I did take home a tick crawling on my dhoti (lower robe).
This might be the last of our outings for the group this season before late autumn chills set in. For today the scener
Srila Prabhupada: One time, Indra, the king of heaven, was cursed to become a hog, and he became a hog. He had a wife and many kiddies and was living in a filthy place, eating stool. Brahma came to him because in his absence the management in the heavenly kingdom was not going nicely.
Brahma requested, “Indra, now please come with me.”
“Where shall I go, sir?”
“Heaven.”
“What is that? I cannot go. I have responsibilities. I have my wife, my children, and I am happy here. I do not know what heav
“The cardinal principle of gṛhastha āśrama is that no one may be the owner of any property or service of another.
Everyone is only a servant whose activities are ever in the service of the Lord.
Similarly, the sole object of everyone’s service as the only master, only friend, only son and only consort is Krishna.
Marrying and giving in marriage do not give rise to any rights of a master either to the husband or to the wife.
Men and women are joined in wedlock for the purpose of serving each oth
“If one is capable the Bhisma-panchaka vow will be observed for the sake of love of God for the five days from the eleventh day (of the bright lunar fortnight in Kartika) up till the full moon day. The prescriptions for this have been given in the Vrata-Khanda-Kartika Mahatmya of the Padma-purana, in the Skanda Purana and in the Visnu-rahasya.”
After observing the fast of Prabhodhini Ekadasi in the month of Kartik, one should fast for the last five days of Kartik which are called Bhisma Pancaka
This kind of 5 day fast is also prescribed for the last 5 days of Kartika (Damodara) Month and it is known as “Bhisma Pancaka”. During that vrata puja offerings to the Lord are also prescribed. I am listing them below. There are also mantras that go with these offerings. However, I didn’t find any specific mention about this for Purusottama month. In the Padma Purana it only stated that in addition to ekadasee one can observe a “pancaratrika” fast until amavasya. Here are offerings prescribed f
The more we hear about Krishna, the more we become purified. We cannot understand Krishna because we are not purified. But if you hear the Krishna name, Hare Krishna—Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare—if you chant and hear, you become purified. So why should we not take this simple method, as it is recommended in the shastra, harer nama harer nama harer namaiva kevalam [“In this Age of Kali there is no other means, no other means, no other means for self-realization than cha
Our visiting monk (swami) from Belgium is Bhakta Prabhava Swami, and he was emphasizing at one portion of the Bhagavatam class the importance of sadhu sangha, which means to be in the right company. We all do find ourselves in the situation of the person next to you at work, school or recreation to be not always the best association, therefore downtime is needed through some moments of solitude. A second approach would be to reach out to the acquaintances that you have known to excite and enthu
I often have to encourage devotees, especially those not living in the temples, to rise early in the morning and come to the temple for the morning program, or to have one at home. Devotees should generally rise by 4 am, which means that their lives must be organized in such a way that they get sufficient rest, meaning taking rest early.
Certainly there are many considerations for individual cases; however, we will see from the collection of quotes from Srila Prabhupada below (not referenced) t
For the past six months a party of brahmacaris has preached in Lyon, France.
Recently, Rasananda Sankirtan Dasa from Spain joined them, and here he writes about a recent preaching adventure on the streets of Lyon.
I met the man in the attached photo a while back and offered him a book, but he did not break his meditation on Heavy Metal even to look at me.
Today, however, when we arrived in a park and passed this man, he said, “If you have a book on Heavy Metal, I will take it!” The subculture i
This is one of many stories told by Harisauri dasa who was Srila Prabhupada’s personal servant for a number of years back in the 70’s:
As I laid out the straw mat on the sunlit veranda to prepare for his massage, Srila Prabhupada drew my attention to some sparrows making a nest. They had chosen a hole in the wall behind the electrical circuit box just outside Prabhupada’s sitting-room window. He said that their chirping disturbed him at night while translating his books. So before they could bu
I really had to think over what I would speak about at the Brampton ISKCON Sunday program. I was in the premises just one day before conducting workshops on kirtan standards, which went well. So, it dawned on me that not everyone attended from the congregation. “Let me try an abbreviated version of the previous day’s workshop, now that I have a larger audience today.”
I took full advantage of the situation. The end result is that people listened, were delighted and informed. The president of IS
For decades, the usual academic hero was depicted as the detached, unbiased, value-free, objective observer revealing the secrets of nature to us. This view is now largely regarded as a pious myth. We can’t get away from it even if we tried: knowledge is state-specific. Our state of consciousness determines what we can know. Devamrita Swami elaborates on the yoga of subjectivity in a lecture given at New York University:
I’d first like to present to you the possibility that in your studies you’
The Auckland Loft recently received a letter from a prisoner in the Auckland Correctional Facility, saying that he wanted The Nectar of Devotion, Teachings of Lord Caitanya and the Krsna Book. Munjaranya went to great lengths to connect with him on the phone, and after a week she succeeded. It turns out that he had just moved there from the Christchurch prison, where he had found a Bhagavad Gita and read it. Then he had contacted the temple in Christchurch, which sent him japa beads, and he sta
Because there is a need to regulate and standardize the practice of kirtan in ISKCON centers, I have taken up the task to do so in my areas of influence, which is referred to as zone one within the context of several US states and all of Canada. Last Saturday, by God’s grace, we pulled off a successful standardization workshop in Montreal. Today it was Brampton. The attendant was approximately forty-five, and to my surprise some of them were children, well behaved.
The questions that naturally
Once Srila Prabhupada shed a tear when he saw people playing golf.
His tear of course was a tear of compassion, compassion for those who have succumbed to the attraction of distraction (in this case via golf). Once we succumb to the allure of distractions, it is all but impossible for us to focus on what is of real and critical importance to us — who we are and how we should conduct our lives to re-establish our eternal relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Source: http://www.d
Srutakirti Prabhu, a disciple and former personal servant of Srila Prabhupada, recounts Prabhupada’s practical instructions regarding chanting rounds.“It was easy to understand that Srila Prabhupada enjoyed chanting japa. He always stressed the importance of chanting our 16 rounds. He once told me that as a householder, he used a simple process for completing 16 rounds that we could apply.
‘When I was a householder,’ Srila Prabhupada said, ‘I would chant four rounds before each meal and four ro
This book distribution story needs a little background. It’s like many stories from so many devotees all over the world, which give us a sense of the unexplainable magic of book distribution.
Those deeply mystical points in time, those strange moments, when synchronicity only gives a vague explanation for what just happened. Points in time when you just know deep down in your soul that Paramatma, the Supersoul, is actually the person doing everything. He is in the heart of the distributor, He i
Yesterday we celebrated Gopastami in Sridham Mayapur, which was accompanied by the disappearance day of three auspicious personalities. From today the countdown has begun as we have just merely 6 days to go until the Kartik month comes to an end.
Coming up are auspicious dates to note.
From the 4th to the 8th is Bhisma Panchaka, this is the last 5 days of the Month of Kartika and is said to be very important for all observers of Kartik Vrata. In the Hari BhaktiVilasa, it is said that if one is
The class today was mine to move and shake a heart and brain. If I was able to do that with just a pinch or an inch of effectiveness then I consider it at least a minor success.
The topic of this morning was about the monk, Kapila. Born of outstanding parents, Kardama and Devahuti, he was an obvious product of pureness. In the book Bhagavatam he is put in the category of Mahajan, being one of twelve trail-blazing bhakti masters. He was a teacher of sankhya philosophy which delves into details o
We frequently hear that such and such exalted Vaishnava is an eternal associate of Krishna or Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Some other terms used for an eternal associate of Lord are Sangi or pāriṣada. Let’s hear from Srīla Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura what is the real significance of being called an eternal associate of Lord and what is the qualification needed to be called one.
The Gauḍīya: Ṭhakura [Narottama dasa] Mahāśaya writes, gaurāṅgera saṅgi-gane, nitya-siddha kari māne, se yāya braje
