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By Madhava Smullen
The Vice Principal of an ISKCON school in Dallas, Texas, is offering online bhakti courses for teenagers during the COVID-19 pandemic, teaching them The Nectar of Instruction using Srila Prabhupada’s purports and Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Along with her other classes, Gopi Gita Schomaker of TKG Academy shifted her Bhakti Leadership series to the video conferencing platform Zoom when COVID-19 struck in March. Current online courses include “The C
I heard Srila Prabhupada’s talk on Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.7.34–35 (September 28, 1976, Vrindavan), and in the wake of George Floyd’s recent death, caused by the police, and the subsequent riots, the following excerpt seemed especially relevant and poignant:
“Kshatriya . . . Kshat means injury. And trayate, to deliver. Kshatriya’s duty is to save the citizens from being injured by others. That is kshatriya. Even an animal. Just like Kali was trying to kill a cow. Maharaja Pariksit was on his tour, a
Panihati Cida Dahi Festival is a sweet summer festival. Although Summer is not very welcome due to heat, yet summer festivals have a unique flavor in itself. This is the season of king of fruits- Mangoes, jack fruit, litchis … and Panihati festival is all about feasting on cooling yogurt, chipped rice and fruits!!
Sitting on the banks of Ganges, in the holy town of Panihati, 500 years ago, Sri Nityananda Prabhu inaugurated Chipped rice, yogurt, fruits feast festival , by showing mercy to Srila R
🥳 Krishna Contest by Hare Krsna Television 🥳
Good news for kids and parents.
Hare Krsna TV giving you a platform to show your skills.
We are organising Krishna contest for
Drawing,
Bhajan Singing and
Story telling.
Age groups
- 05 to 10 years
- 10 to 15 years
- 15 to 20 years
Top 5 winners 🕺from each group will get chance to come on
Hare Krsna Television
Registration fees - 200 Rupees
️ Last Date of Registration - 10 June 2020
Winner will be selected as per Judges
Regis
Recently another responsibility has landed on my lap. Canada’s territory has been expanded to include Alaska, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming; all of this for nurturing the mission. Leaders of ISKCON, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, have now recognized this as one zone, and, in the context of the continent (minus Mexico), this zone is called the North Zone. This additional chunk of land, snow and people (with an altogether fairly low population)
Video: Click here
Debate
• is oppositional: two sides oppose each other and attempt to prove each other wrong
• has winning as the goal
• lets one side listen to the other side to find flaws and to counter its arguments: “listening to refute”
• defends assumptions as the truth
• causes critique of the other position
• defends one’s own positions as the best solution and excludes other solutions
• creates a dosed-minded attitude, a determination to be right
• prompts a search for glaring differe
Since I became a monk in the spring of ’73, I’ve made it a practice to have my japa beads (meditation beads) near me. This is how I was trained. My mentor at the time insisted, “Anything can happen at any time! It’s good that your beads can be within reach.” I was also cautioned that Lord Yamaraja, the God of death can appear at night, in your sleep, and with his agents, the Yamadutas, can drag you from your gross body preparing you for a torturous ride.
The kunti mala, the neck beads, and the w
By Madhava Smullen
In the darkness of COVID-19, with devotees around the world under stay-at-home orders for months on end, virtual programs have brought much needed inspiration and association. One of the stand out bright spots has been the Towaco Zoom Sangas.
Organized by ISKCON of New Jersey’s Towaco temple in the USA, the program has delivered talks by some of the most illustrious speakers in the Hare Krishna Movement eight times a week online, providing the kind of experience that wou
Krsna is everywhere because He is all-pervading. Not only is the brahmajyoti (effulgence) of Krsna present everywhere, on which everything is resting, but Krsna Himself is present everywhere in different forms. Sometimes He is in the form of Nrsimhadeva, sometimes He is in the form of Varaha and other times He is in His sweet form playing His flute. So basically, Krsna’s mercy is constantly there.
The dust jacket of the First Canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam is very special as Srila Prabhupada de
“While teaching Rupa Gosvami, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu said, guru-krsna-prasade paya bhakti-lata-bija: one can achieve the seed of devotional service by the mercy of the guru, the spiritual master, and then by the mercy of Krsna. This is the secret of success. First one should try to please the spiritual master, and then one should attempt to please the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura also says, yasya prasadad bhagavat-prasado. One should not attempt to please the S
“A sleeping person imagines an alternative reality for himself and, seeing himself as having various names and forms, forgets his waking identity, which is distinct from the dream. Similarly, the senses of one whose consciousness is bewildered by illusion perceive only the names and forms of material objects. Thus such a person loses his memory and cannot know You.”
-Bhag. 10.84.24-25
These two beautiful passages from the Bhagavatam were the topic of our discussion this morning as our small g
Many people say “By your mercy, I will surrender” or “Give me your blessings so that I will surrender” or “When Krishna wants”. Srila Prabhupada says these are spoken under “FALSE PRETENSE”–These are just “PLEA’S” Not to Surrender.
Srila Prabhupada: Surrender is willing. If you don’t like to surrender who can make you obliged to surrender? Surrender is voluntary. “Yes I surrender.” Determination, “Yes I surrender.” Who can make you obliged to surrender? Nobody can make. Even Krsna can not work.
This essay is taken from the book “The Art of teaching” by Burijana dasa. It is written for gurukula teachers, but is equally applicable to all devotees.
Teachers wishing success in their service must cultivate the mode of goodness. But wait a minute! Am I hearing protests from hard-pressed devotees sincerely striving to serve their Lord with a passion? Are they not crying out from the distance that there’s no need for goodness? Are they not emphatically stating that devotees are transcendental
I was always intrigued with this verse and am often in my walks reminded of this tree of knowledge by reflections seen as an ordinary tree by a pond of water or an image of a double-up upright and upside-down pos
We have to conquer in relationships. We can never take them for granted and we can never think, “Now this person’s commitment is assured, so there is no need to put in effort.” When there is a marriage and the ring goes on the finger, it does not mean much; it is just a little piece of metal. Marriage actually means that one has to conquer. So we should not think that now that the ring is there, there is no need to conquer the other person.
This is the same in the relationship between a guru a
I met up with Ajamila at the corner of Wellesley and Sherbourn. We hadn’t seen each other since the lockdown started although the occasional meet by phone. He’s doing well and is singing bhajans on-line.
Bhajans are songs expressing devotional sentiments, in this case, to honour Krishna.
I had a thought that before long we could possibly sing and play together at this very corner by the library. There is a nice flow of pedestrian traffic, a good intersection for exposing mantras where there
How many of you want to see Krishna and meet Him? Here is a good news - Krishna is more eager to show Himself to us than we are to see Him. We just need to be excited to want to see Him. Krishna is always somewhere around the corner waiting to reveal His darshan to us.
He could reveal Himself in any Mahamantra that we chant. He could pop out of any page of the Bhagavad-Gita or Srimad-Bhagvatam that we read. He can show Himself in any of His deity that we see. He could reveal Himself through a
The place was the Weston Family Quarry Garden at the Evergreen Brickworks where two young boys were fishing for gold or catfish, whatever would go for the bait.
“What have you got there? Worms?” I asked.
“No, bread. We already caught 3 catfish but we threw them back in the pond. That’s what you’re supposed to do.”
I asked the boys if they would allow me to film them. They declined but still we consider each other friends.
“They (meaning the fish) are really enthusiastic (for the bre
The real point is that narayana-paranmukham. Without thinking of Narayana or Krsna or Visnu, no method will be able to purify you. Vita-raga-bhaya-krodha, mam upasritah… [Being freed from attachment, fear and anger, being fully absorbed in Me and taking refuge in Me, many, many persons in the past became purified by knowledge of Me – and thus they all attained transcendental love for Me. (Bhagavad-gita, 4.10.)] – the simple process to become purified. And that simple process is this chanting. Ch
