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Kartika

In the Padma Puräëa it is said, “The Lord may offer liberation or material happiness to a devotee, but after some devotional service has been executed, particularly in Mathurä during the month of Kärttika, the devotees want only to attain pure devotional service unto the Lord.” The purport is that the Lord does not award devotional service to ordinary persons who are not serious about it. But even such unserious persons who execute devotional service according to the regulative principle

By Brahmatirtha Das

ISKCON, Chowpatty, in academic collaboration with the Bhaktivedanta Institute for Higher Studies in Gainesville, Florida (BIHS) and the Bhaktivedanta Research Center in Mumbai (BRC), will be hosting an international hybrid conference at the Govardhan EcoVillage (GEV) just north of Mumbai, November 4 – 6, 2022, entitled, “Puranic and Siddhantic Cosmology: Within an Experiential Mathematical Framework.”

For people trained in the modern sciences, Vedic knowledge offers many con

My first class for today was held in Stouffville, a new and upcoming urban sprawl place. Along with it comes young families who are adherent to the culture of the Vedas. In the quaint lobby of a relatively current plaza unit is pinned on the wall’s bulletin board an invitation to talk about “The Nine Goddesses.” I thought that was a Vedic concept for sure. “Nine Mothers” is what some of us call it. 

Inside the main presentation room, which comfortably sits around fifty folks, the intensely pain

When a budding sculptor approached his master for guidance, he received some cryptic advice. After quizzing him on his purpose, the young craftsman replied: “More than anything else, I would like to sculpt a beautiful elephant.” Without the blink of an eyelid, the master set a block of stone and some tools in front of the young boy. “Here is some marble, a mallet, and a chisel” the master said, “all you have to do now is carve away everything that does not look like a beautiful elephant!” Simpl

Being sick is a serious ordeal these days. If it is a serious illness, it is double trouble. Willpower and wallet are put to test. Gauranga Dasa, a devotee from Odessa, found himself in such a difficult situation.

In March 2022, after an emergency operation for peritonitis, Gauranga Prabhu heard a terrible diagnosis – cancer.

There was a difficult operation where some of his intestines were taken out and his stomach was put in place, followed by an exhausting 5 cycles of chemotherapy. By the Lo

Today is Bahulastami or appearance day of Radha-kunda . In this month of Kartik, the presiding deity of the month is Srimati Radhika and in the same month is also the appearance day of the lake which is the embodiment of the Love of Radharani. On this day, devotees from Mayapur visit Sri Caitanya Mutt and take holy dip in Radha Kunda snana on Bahulatami & do Parikrama.

Following is the description of Radha Kunda in Navadvipa Dham by Sri Nityananda Prabhu, Bhakti vinoda thakura and Sri Chaitanya

There were two of them – twins – just babies, Ronik and Ronok at six months are at an age where they receive their first grains in the form of kheer, a rice pudding, which signifies that they are entering a period of growth. This sweet ceremony where a brahman or priest feeds the first spoonful is a samskara, or sacrament, and is called anna prasanna. I was the priest.

One of them, held in parent’s hands, didn’t take too well but the other relished it like anything. When it came to their choice

“No matter what was going on, Srila Prabhupada always related it to his service to Krsna.”

Srutakirti dasa, ISKCON Mayapur

During my first trip to Mayapur with Srila Prabhupada, the guesthouse had not been built, so our quarters were very austere. We stayed in a goshala, a thatched hut, which had been prepared for his stay. Srila Prabhupada stayed in one room and the rest of us stayed on the other side of a partition. I had never seen so many mosquitoes in my life. It was so bad that by the tim

Srimati Radharani is wandering in the forests of Vrndavana and she is not entirely in a calm state of mind. Her love for Krsna is not casual. It is not love that you put on the shelf and sometimes take it off and dust it off for a romantic moment. It is not love that is there after work and after business is done. It is not love in between. It is there all the time and with intensity. It is not that sometimes it peaks and other times it is sort of flat. No, this love is existing constantly in gr

The nature of time is that it is constantly passing. Everything comes into being, everything grows, everything flourishes, gives some by-product, dwindles and then ceases to exist. Our meetings are also going through these stages and we are coming to the latter stages of these meetings. So many people are coming to say goodbye to me. I was calculating – say if people come in groups, 200 people come to say goodbye, with 5 minutes per person – that is 1000 minutes alone! That is over 15 hours of

Every morning our reader, Vallabha Hari, who is a natural Master of Ceremonies, projects out on the microphone a passage from the Bhagavad-Gita: As It Is and it is always a reassuring message from God. Today’s passage went as such from chapter six: 

“For one who sees Me everywhere and sees everything in Me, I am never lost, nor is he ever lost to Me.” And, very closely connected to verse thirty is the sloka of yesterday, verse twenty-nine, “A true yogi observes Me in all beings and also sees ev

Dear Devotees,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

The Annual General Meeting of the ISKCON GBC Society will begin in February 2023. Following the ISKCON GBC Society’s Rules of Order, the GBC Secretariat requests proposals, duly sponsored by two GBC members, to be submitted by *November* 15, 2022. Note that no proposals will be entertained after this date.

Please follow the format for GBC Proposals. The PDF is found here:

https://gbc.iskcon.org/wp-content/upload

It was today, with umbrella in hand, that I walked to my old spiritual stomping grounds, or, to put it in another phrase, my spiritual birthplace. 187 Gerrard St. is the actual location, currently a house and formerly a temple, where my spiritual training took place. That was back in the spring of 1973, almost a half a century ago. I almost shed a tear looking at the place when actual raindrops fell from the sky.

It is only a few doors down on Gerrard, which is the home of Praharana, my godsist

The Pastimes of Lord Damodara.
Just as there is no yuga equal to Satya-yuga, no scripture equal to the Vedas, and no place of pilgrimage equal to the Ganges, so there is no month equal to Kartika. Even unserious persons who execute devotional service according to the regulative principles during the month of Karttika, and within the jurisdiction of Mathura (or Vrindavana) in India, are very easily awarded the Lord’s personal service”. During the Kartika month millions of devotees worship Damoda

How many of us hide behind the will of God as an excuse to inactivity or laziness? And how many of us attribute our successes to our efforts alone? The Vedic scriptures teach us that nothing in this world moves without the will of God—He is the creator, controller, overseer of multifarious universes, the benefactor of speech, intelligence, talent, and everything else without which we would be considered useless; however, do we just sit back, waiting for God’s will to save or direct us without e

We should be prepared to open ourselves up. We should be prepared to take down our guards. We should be prepared to dismantle our protective fences that we have around us. And we should say:
“I’m ready to serve You. So You just please do to me whatever is necessary so that I would serve You purely”.
And that’s called “unconditional” love. But generally we have many conditions. And that’s because of our long conditioned nature. Now, the fact that we’re going to the direction of Krishna is a good

When Lord Brahma ordered Drona, the best of the Vasus, and his wife Dhara to increase progeny, they said unto him, “Dear father, we seek your benediction. Please let us be born on earth so that after our appearance the Supreme Lord will appear as our son and spread devotional service.
In this way those born in the material world may very easily be delivered from misery.” Brahma agreed, and thus when Drona and Dhara took birth in Vrndavana as Nanda Maharaja and mother Yasoda, Lord Krsna appeared

I get concerned these days about travel and the time it takes to get somewhere by a vehicle. It can take so long with so many more people and so many more cars.

The drive to Niagara Falls from Toronto used to be one and a half hour — max. These days it’s a frustrating extra hour. There and back is almost a whole, or at least a chunk of, your day. But we were lucky, maybe smart. It’s all in the time of day you leave and time of return that can determine a good or bad trip. Our return was a mere

Kartik and offering lamps 🪔are synonymous. While you must be offering at your home, even at the local Temple but then there is a unique 👉 advantage of offering lamps 💫in the 💥holy Dham of Sri Mayapur in the auspicious month of Kartik🌅, so why would one want to miss this cumulative ✨spiritual ✨benefit?

Just as there is no yuga equal to Satya-yuga, no scripture equal to the Vedas, and no place of pilgrimage equal to the Ganges, so there is no month equal to Kartika. During the Kartika month, mill