From Back to Godhead
How we value, acquire, use, and relate to money reflects our inner state of being.
Sri Sukadeva Goswami said, “Money does not stay in one place. It passes from one hand to another. Ultimately no one can enjoy money, and it remains the property of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.” (Srimad-Bhagavatam 5.14.24) Money is God’s energy. He created it, He owns it, and He controls it: “Everything animate or inanimate that is within the universe is controlled and owned by the Lord
By His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Lecture given in San Francisco on September 11, 1968
Only one person can rightfully claim to be beyond all control.
jñanam te ’ham sa-vijñanam
idam vakshyamy asheshatah
yaj jñatva neha bhuyo ’nyaj
jñatavyam avashishyate
“I shall now declare unto you in full this knowledge, both phenomenal and numinous. This being known, nothing further shall remain for you to know.” – Bhagavad-gita 7.2
Knowledge means to know how this universe is working
By Kulavati Krishnapriya Devi Dasi
Syama Gauri Devi Dasi, originally from Hungary, shared some of her spiritual journey in a recent interview with ISKCON News. Her service over the years has taken her around Europe, including temples in Budapest, Scotland, and most recently to Folkestone, UK. She now lives there with her husband, Priya Kunda Das who hails from Liverpool, and together they run a small preaching center called Atma Lounge in the seaside town of Folkestone, in southern England.
Fro
Dear ISKCON Devotees,
Please accept our humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
We are deeply saddened to share the difficult news regarding the health of His Holiness Giriraja Swami. Maharaja has been diagnosed with Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia (bvFTD). This degenerative neurological disorder has been increasingly affecting him over the past three years, with more significant clinical symptoms emerging in the last year.
This cruel disease is characterized by the progre
This morning an hour and a half was set aside for an initiation of two devotees. From the U.K., now residing in New York, is Joseph, one of the actors from the night before. He’s a good performer, is intelligent, and shows lots of devotional qualities. His Sanskrit name is Jivan Mukta. Suneel is living here in New Vrindavana, is humble, and has a sweet disposition. His new name is Saranya.
A person from Nepal, Gambhira Gaur, received his second diksha, in the absence of Gopal Krishna Goswami who
Dear Malati,
Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated December 22, 1973.
You write that things are in a crisis in England, with oil shortage and IRA bombing. Therefore, we have to take shelter of Krsna. If Krsna wants to kill us that is not wrong, if it is His desire. Our business should just to be to follow the regulative schedule, deity worship, distributing prasadam, chanting, book distribution and never mind the material danger. Krsna Consciousness means
The secret to protection and universal welfare
“Absorption in Krsna” and “Dependence on Krsna” are the two main aspects of spiritual life demonstrated by Lord Sri Krsna in Sri Vrndavana. A materialist is generally absorbed in one’s own self and has quite a lot of faith and pride in one’s own intellectual capabilities, achievements, resources and contacts. As opposed to such materialists, the Vrajavasis are a group of people who are totally absorbed in the thoughts of how to serve Krsna and are
By Atma Tattva Das
On September 21, 2024, the streets of Rose Belle, Mauritius, hosted the Rathayatra Festival, an important festival on the Vaishnava calendar. The event featured a procession involving the deities Lord Jagannath, Baladev, and Subhadra. It was organized by a team of volunteers led by Kaunteya, a prominent figure in ISKCON Mauritius.
Kaunteya’s journey in Krishna consciousness began in 1989 when he joined the temple as a new devotee. His dedication quickly found expression in var
By Suniti Devi Dasi
ISKCON Resolve and the North American Regional Governing Body (NA RGB) announced a new free online seminar entitled “Fostering Effective Cooperation for a Unified Mission” hosted by Vraj Vihari Das to be held on Saturday, October 12th, 10 AM – 12 PM EDT. The seminar will be on the Zoom platform and a link will be emailed to you prior to the event.
Srila Prabhupada consistently emphasized that cooperation is essential for the success of his mission. However, as many of us kno
A sign of a good leader is that he does not request those under him to do something that he is not prepared to do. So before we desire to distribute this Vedic culture to the whole world, we ourselves have to be following it in such a way that nobody can find even a minute discrepency in our practice. People are too attached to their sense gratification and wont be so readily eager to give it up, and although they may have some attraction to the Vedic culture, if the mind can find an excuse for
What will happen to me after death?
In the second chapter of Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna explains this subject to Arjuna in great detail. Arjuna was faced with a situation where, in order to uphold dharma, he had to fight and kill people who were very dear to him, his own relatives and friends. As one might expect, it caused great disturbance to Arjuna, and when he finally saw the people with whom he was going to fight, he lost all composure and began to cry.
Arjuna threw down his bow and told
From Back to Godhead
Lessons on life, death, and living in a spirit of devotion
ISKCON devotees commonly use the phrase, “Going back home, back to Godhead.”Have you ever thought about what this means when a traveler is anxious to return home? Home is where our family is, where there are people who love us, who trust us. It’s the place we’re comfortable and happy. It’s the place we feel most natural.
The world we live in is foreign to the soul; we are strangers in a foreign land. In this alien p
ISKCON congregations around the world contributed their part in caring for the Earth, Mother Bhumi, by picking up trash and removing unsightly litter along rivers, parks, and roadways as well as tidying up their own temple properties. Their inspiring efforts were in response to an invitation from the ISKCON Environmental Initiative (IEI) encouraging our communities to participate in the global “World Cleanup Day” initiative.
Originating as a small initiative in Estonia in 2008, World Cleanup Da
By Kulavati Krishnapriya Devi Dasi
On the auspicious occasion of Radhashtami, Harikatha Studio, an innovative initiative led by Raghavendra Bazari under the guidance of Kartikeya Das, Hariksetra Das, Acyuta Arjunasakha Das from ISKCON Whitefield, launched the first episode of their animated web series based on Bhagavad-gita As It Is. Currently, it is only available in Hindi.
This series marks a significant step forward in presenting the wisdom of the Bhagavad-gita to modern audiences in a digita
Providing a strong challenge to established academic perception and methodology, Drutakarma Dasa presents the Vaisnava Hindu worldview on the fundamental concepts to the approach to and interpretation of the archaeological record. His presentation is articulate and thorough and the extensive research he has undertaken to support his thesis is very impressive. He contrasts the currently accepted time concept, which closely resembles the Judaeo-Christian model, with the ancient Puranic model and
Here is the text of the Speaking Tree article:
Caring for cows can have a healing effect, says Iskcon monk KENNETH R VALPEY, aka Krishna Kshetra Swami, to SONAL SRIVASTAV
French philosopher Rene Descartes suggested that animals are merely reflex driven and have no intellectual capacities that imply self-consciousness. “It actually goes all the way back to Aristotle,” says Kenneth R Valpey, aka Krishna Kshetra Swami, a Gaudiya Vaishnava theologian with a D Phil degree on Gaudiya Vaishnava philos
On September, HH Radhanath Swami was in New York City to speak at The Bhakti Center for their 3rd Annual Pearl Festival, celebrating Radhastami (the Divine appearance of Srimati Radharani). A special feature of this festival is that all guests received the opportunity to write a prayer on a paper pearl and offer it, along with a real pearl, to Radharani. All the real pearls were then collected, strung into a necklace and offered to Radharani as a gift. Below are some excerpts of his talk.
“The
Gopal Patel (Gopal Lila Das), who hosted a multifaith meeting at the NYC Climate Week events last week, was also interviewed by Religion News Service (RNS) about the close relationship between religious faith and urgent environmental issues facing the world.
Patel, who has worked for over a decade to educate and mobilize Hindu and other faith communities globally for environmental action, now advises several interfaith and environmental initiatives. Gopal is Founder of FutureFaith, a new think
Recently, several UK schools were nominated for “World’s Best School 2024.” Avanti House Secondary School was named one of the top three finalists for the coveted honor. It is part of the Avanti Schools Trust, a collection of state-funded schools that teach Sanskrit, meditation, yoga, ethics, and philosophy alongside traditional academic subjects.
The World’s Best School Prizes program, which aims to “celebrate schools which make a difference,” was founded by T4 Education in collaboration with g
