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"Bhakti-sastri, Bhakti-vaibhava, Bhaktivedanta, and Bhakti-sarvabhauma. All our brahmanas and anyone wanting to become brahmana, will have to sit for examination once a year at Mayapur. They will be expected to know Bhagavad-gita, Nectar of Devotion, Nectar of Instruction, Sri Isopanisad, a book soon to be published on Deity worship, as well as all the small paperbacks. If they pass the examination they will be awarded Bhakti-sastri certificate. Sannyasis will be asked to sit for Bhakti-vaibhava

"Bhakti-sastri, Bhakti-vaibhava, Bhaktivedanta, and Bhakti-sarvabhauma. All our brahmanas and anyone wanting to become brahmana, will have to sit for examination once a year at Mayapur. They will be expected to know Bhagavad-gita, Nectar of Devotion, Nectar of Instruction, Sri Isopanisad, a book soon to be published on Deity worship, as well as all the small paperbacks. If they pass the examination they will be awarded Bhakti-sastri certificate. Sannyasis will be asked to sit for Bhakti-vaibhava

Question: In Sri Isopanisad, Srila Prabhupada says, "The killer of the soul is destined to enter the darkest region of ignorance to suffer perpetually." Does perpetual here mean eternally? Do such living entities ever have hope again or are they condemned forever in the lower planetary regions? 

Romapada Swami Maharaja Answers: Lord Krishna also makes a very similar statement in Bhagavad-gita (16.19,20): "I perpetually cast such persons in the ocean of material existence, into various demoniac sp

For a hundred years this elegant American elm at the center of Tompkins Square Park was just a tree. Then, in 1966, the Hare Krishna mantra was chanted under its sprawling canopy for the first time, and it became the birthplace of a religion.

To Hare Krishnas this tree is a sacred site. For everyone else it would be easy to stroll by the old elm in Manhattan’s East Village and have no idea it’s a religious landmark. It’s a handsome tree — American elms are quite rare now, known for their wide-s

We were on an airplane from Mexico City to Caracas and Prabhupada started taking his puffed rice, puffed rice and peanuts. He ate for about 10 minutes or so, and then he just looked and said, "OK." So I moved the puffed rice over and I gave half to Paramahamsa, the other half I had in front of me. After a few minutes, there was this stewardess, she was walking down the aisle and she stops right in front of us and she reached over, put her hand in my plate and grabbed a handful of puffed rice an

On Saturday morning, April 9, 2016, the quaint Florida costal town of St. Augustine hosted the Lord of the Universe, Jagannatha, along with His sister Subhadra and brother Balarama, for Their traditional, annual Rathayatra parade and festival. The weather was perfect, the townspeople curious and friendly, and the devotees jubilant to be participating in the first Rathayatra of the year.

The mayor of St. Augustine, Nancy Shaver, was delighted to attend. She said, “The Festival of Chariots is a m

The VIHE in Vrindavan was established to fulfill Srila Prabhupada’s desire for an educational institute in Vrindavana. The VIHE in the holy Dhama provides an ideal facility and atmosphere for you to improve your sadhana, develop your devotional qualities, engage in serious study, associate with senior devotees, and receive training in practical skills relevant to management and preaching.
The VIHE also aims to preserve and disseminate standards Srila Prabhupada set for acting in Krishna conscio

There is a lot of emphasis nowadays on the need for love and trust among devotees. We can cite the six loving exchanges between us. We can also use the strength of the often quoted, “your love for me will be shown by how you cooperate.” In spite of our efforts to promote this ideal, can we ever expect a situation where love and trust dominates in all of our devotee interactions?

Are we too big as an organisation to assume that this will happen? Can each of us get by simply by being polite to ea

When Lord Krishna played on this Earth as a child, He lived in a community of cowherds in the region known as Vraja, in northern India. He was in charge of the young calves and took them out each morning to the pasturing grounds.

Accompanied by dozens of His friends, and with hundreds of calves each, Krishna would walk through the Vrindavan forest in search of lush vegetation. The cowherd boys’ herding and adventurous play went on all day, stopping only for a picnic, when they’d happily share t

The three steps of anything: 1) Initial enthusiasm, 2) doubts, disinterest and struggle 3) eventual reward for the committed. This seems to be the standard pattern for most things in life: studies, career, relationships, hobbies, and yes, even spirituality. The beginning of our spiritual journey is often characterised by idealism. Everything is fresh and fascinating, a whole new world to explore and unlimited opportunities to pursue. We can’t imagine any problems, since it all seems so simple a

From Back to Godhead

By Urmila Devi Dasi

Pure chanting of God’s names requires reverence for God in all His forms , including revealed scripture.

Esteem For Sacred Writings

This article discusses the offense of blaspheming Vedic literature or literature in pursuance of the Vedic version.

IT IS FASHIONABLE in modern secular societies to regard sacred literature as the mythological musings of undeveloped people. Schools teach that with our current understanding of physics, medicine, psychology, d

My first connection with the Hare Krishna maha-mantra happened during the “Summer of Love” in August, 1967 in the course of a wedding within a three-room apartment in Powelton Village, the budding hippie district in Philadelphia. The wedding epitomized the time and place.

The groom and I had become close friends during our travails as fellow philosophy majors at the nearby University of Pennsylvania. Thin, angular, his pale beak-nosed face densely hedged with a curly black beard, Steve presente

After the disappearance of Jayananda Das on May 1, 1977, His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada instructed devotees all over the world to commemorate the event every year as they would any great Vaishnava’s disappearance day.

Therefore we respectfully submit these pages to all devotees and friends of ISKCON as a means to remember and understand more about Jayananda’s devotional service. Of course, we will see how he joined ISKCON and how he left this mortal world. More importantly, we shall see the

Samsiddhir Hari Toshanam -  Everything for the pleasure of Lord Hari 

Whatever we do in our life must be for the pleasure of the Lord. Once when Hanuman heard from mother Sita that the kumkum she puts on her fore head is for the pleasure of the Lord, then Hanuman covered his whole body with kumkum to please Lord Rama, without even thinking how he will look, what the people in society will think of him. His only concern in life was how to please Lord Rama.

  Sri Hanumanji ki Jay

Kirtan London presented kirtan at the ‘Amazing Grace’ multi-faith concert at Union Chapel in Islington, London, England today. It was a beautiful evening and hundreds of voices joined in chanting the Hare Krishna mantra with us.

Srila Prabhupada: The secret of surrendering to Krishna is that such surrendered devotee sees that everything is part of Krishna’s plan. Whatever is meant to be I am doing. Let me do it with my full attention to every detail. Let me become absorbed in such service, neve

Women of ISKCON: Past, Present and Future

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“It is better to go deep in Krishna consciousness than to go broad to go here and there looking for different philosophies and processes. I think of an incident with a devotee of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu named Mukunda. In His Maha-prakasa Lila, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu called His devotees one by one and gave them sublime mercy, but he refused to call Mukunda. When Srivasa Pandita asked, ‘Why aren’t you calling Mukunda?’ Mahaprabhu replied, ‘When Mukunda is with us, he speaks like one of us, but when he

“It is better to go deep in Krishna consciousness than to go broad to go here and there looking for different philosophies and processes. I think of an incident with a devotee of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu named Mukunda. In His Maha-prakasa Lila, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu called His devotees one by one and gave them sublime mercy, but he refused to call Mukunda. When Srivasa Pandita asked, ‘Why aren’t you calling Mukunda?’ Mahaprabhu replied, ‘When Mukunda is with us, he speaks like one of us, but when he