In the heart of South Africa, a dedicated team of devotees has come together to form the African Ratha Yatra Alliance or ARYA. Led by Baladev Jagannath Das, the coordinator of programs and logistics, ARYA has been enthusiastically working to bring the devotional vibrancy of Ratha Yatra festivals to different corners of Africa. In a recent interview, Baladev shared the inspiring journey of ARYA and shed light on the challenges they have faced along the way.
The origins of ARYA can be traced back
Sripada Hridayananda Babaji Maharaja was born in Radha-kunda and has been a pujari for 78 years. He lives next to the Radha-Damodar Temple. When, at the beginning of an interview, Babaji Maharaja was asked if he knew Srila Prabhupada, he began to cry. He said, “Never have I seen anyone do sadhana as he did. I have lived all my life in Vraja, and I have never seen anyone like him. Prabhupada did many arduous things. He worked very hard there at the Radha-Damodar Temple. At that time it was auste
Krsna is full with six kinds of opulences. So this is the opulence of Krsna’s beauty. Krsna wants everyone…we are offering obeisances to Krsna with awe and veneration. But nobody comes here to Krsna with a rope: “Krsna, You are an offender. I shall bind You.” Nobody comes.
That is another one of the prerogatives of the most perfect devotee. Yes. Krsna wants that. This privilege is especially given to Yasodamayi, because she’s such an advanced devotee that she has got the right to chastise the S
“No one is born hating another because of the color of his skin/ his background/ or his religion. People must learn to hate/ and if they can learn to hate/ they can be taught to love/ for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. II – Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela was born in racist South Africa. The then apartheid regime discriminated between whites and non-whites. The whites- only government declared some areas of the nation as the exclusive property of the white populat
When I was a little boy, my mother taught me a lesson. She always emphasized, more than anything else, the quality of gratitude. She told me, “If you are not grateful for whatever you have, you receive, you can never be happy. Because if you are not grateful, whatever you get, you expect something else, or you expect more, or you think that you deserved it. But when you are humble and grateful, then whatever comes to your life, the apparent fortune and misfortune, you can actually find happines
THE CONCLUSION OF VEDANTA
Compiled by Sri Nandanandana dasa (Stephen Knapp)
From Jaiva-dharma by Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur
I am one who likes to be very clear on the conclusion of any philosophy that I am studying, which may include knowledge about where I am, where I have come from, and where I am going, what is the goal of the process, and what to do to reach the goal. The following is a collection of verses that brings us to the conclusion of all Vedic thought, and comes from t
We recently spent 3 weeks in ISKCON’s prominent temples in England. I first came to the country in 1971 with Srila Prabhupada. It was wonderful to see how our movement there has expanded in leaps and bounds since those early days. How proud Srila Prabhupada must be of all the devotees, both past and present, who have contributed to making ISKCON what it is today in the UK. Check it all out for yourself in this video!
The fellow at the Air Canada agents desk took my flight documents so I could secure my boarding pass that would take me to Washington, D.C. He was curious.
“If you don't mind my asking, are you one of those martial arts masters?”
“I'm a monk, a Krishna monk.”
“That's what I meant to say, ‘monk’. That's interesting. Great!”
Another passenger in line before customs asked, “are you a Tibetan monk?”
“A Krishna monk.”
“Oh, I’m a Christian, too!”
“A Hare Krishna!” Said his wife in correcting him. Fro
From “On Kirtana” in Among Friends, Volume 2 #1 (1993):
“When I heard the question [how to keep the mind from wandering during kirtana], different phrases came to mind. One was: ‘Hear the wonderful chorus and let it uplift you.’ That chorus is a dimension in kirtana that is not available to us in japa. When we are chanting among sincere devotees, we can feel the upliftment. There is such an inspiring (and demanding) welling up of voices and we can ride that wave of sound.
“Another phrase that c
A lone eagle soars high in the sky above the craggy foothills of the Himalayas, wheeling and gliding on the thermal currents. Her golden-brown wings, extending to a gloriously feathered span of five feet, catch every breeze.
At times she seems to hover, so perfectly balanced are the calculations of her own forward movement and the counter-thrust she feels from the wind. Deep below her, over a mile away on the slopes, a small rabbit ventures out of its burrow. It’s just a grey speck in a greyish
Jaya Jaganatha Jaya jaganatha Jaya Baladeva Jaya Subhadra!
On the the 25th of June, the city of Love was inundated by the Names of Jaganatha, Baladeva and Subhadra in what is known as the Ratha Yatra—the procession of the Lord of the universe. During this 35th annual Jaganatha festival, thousands of devotees gathered in place the la Chapelle to pull the chariot of Lord Jaganatha Baladeva and Subhadra into the streets of Paris. “Everyone was astonished to see the decorations on the Ratha car.
Th
Jai Jagannath!
The fact behind the celebration is that Lord Jagannath who is none other than Lord
Krishna himself travels to his garden temple-Gundicha located in Sundarachala.
This travelling of Lord in his chariot from his palace to temple is called Rath Yatra
or Gundicha Yatra by Odiya devotees. On the other hand, when Sri Krishna left
for Mathura and then Dwaraka, the gopis of Vrindavan did not like it. Their was
a feeling of separation from Sri Krishna. Once Gopis with Srimati Radha Rani m
By Thomas Haribol
The Prabhupada Memories project is not only nearing a significant milestone of nearly 100 DVDs totaling 450+ interviews of direct disciples of Srila Prabhupada, but it is also reaching thousands of new listeners thanks to the power of social media. The Memories project now has a social media team producing eye-catching short posts across several social media platforms. Most recently, the Prabhupada Memories YouTube channel quadrupled its subscribers in just a few weeks (now ov
Veda means knowledge. The word Veda is related to the Sanskrit root ‘vid’ meaning ‘to know’. So, it encompasses the entire corpus of knowledge, both phenomenal and numinous. Actually, knowledge is established through three primary epistemological premises, viz., sense perception, logical-mathematical inference and reliable testimony. However, when a subject employs inductive methodology to acquire knowledge, it is inhibited by four defects, viz., limited senses, illusory perception, mistaken in
From Back to Godhead
Prescience and the Vedic Literature
One aspect of the Vedic culture knowledge of the future may seem at first glance to contradict free will, but this is not so. In fact, St. Augustine’s explanation of this phenomenon in relation to the omniscience of God parallels the Vedic understanding. Others had argued that if God already knew what we were going to do, that would prevent us from having free choice; we could not help but act in the way God had foreseen. In response, Au
By Thomas Haribol
On a recent trip to India, Vraj Vihari Das was a speaker and panelist at a major conference on Mediation in Delhi that included the Chief Justice of India’s Supreme Court, Singapore’s Chief Justice, five Supreme Court judges, high court judges from around India, and India’s Attorney General. He was not only able to share his experience as a mediator, but he related that experience to the Bhagavad Gita, how he came to Krishna consciousness, and his early life as a monk/brahmaca
73/08/25 London, Bhagavad-gita 2.19-20
Srila Prabhupada:
ya enam vetti hantaram
yas cainam manyate hatam
ubhau tau na vijanito
nayam hanti na hanyate
[Bg. 2.19]
“He who thinks that the living entity is the slayer or that he is slain does not understand. One who is in knowledge knows that the self slays not nor is slain.”
na jayate mriyate va kadacin
nayam bhutva bhavita va na bhuyah
ajo nityah sasvato ‘yam purano
na hanyate hanyamane sarire
[Bg. 2.20]
“For the soul there is never birth nor deat
Perhaps one of the more endearing images in the Bhagavad-gita is Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, driving the chariot of His friend, the warrior Arjuna. When we accept the notion of God as a person then we can begin to ask, What does he do? How does he interact with us, and especially how does he interact with his pure devotees, such as Arjuna? Krishna chooses to be the chariot driver of Arjuna in the Battle of Kurukshetra where the Bhagavad-gita was spoken.
This role of charioteer
By Thomas Haribol
Since Monday, June 26th, devotees at New Mayapur in France have been experiencing a week-long blackout after the untimely failure of their electrical transformer, which supplied power to the property.
The 100-year-old Château d’Oublaise castle, now known as New Mayapur, is situated in the serene countryside of Centre-Val de Loire, France, and was established in 1975 by Srila Prabhupada, Founder-Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).
It’s the on
By Atma Tattva Das
In August of 2023, the global Hip-Hop community will celebrate the 50th anniversary of this influential cultural movement. Hip-Hop music has not only served as a platform for artistic expression but has also become a powerful tool for broadcasting specific qualities of consciousness. To discover the intersection of Hip Hop and Krishna Consciousness, ISKCON News interviewed AZitiZ (Lalita Garrett), a Krishna-conscious hip-hop artist, to explore her journey and the significance
