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By Madhava Smullen

I sat at the banks of Radha Kund and had a wonderful realization I must tell you about. I had already arrived before sunrise and watched the different morning scenes. Tulasi leaves drifted by from the offering to Giriraj at the Sangam. Devotees from Delhi whom I recognized sang beautiful glorifications. Later a group of villagers from the Gujar community arrived, all dressed in the most colorful outfits you can imagine. However, what caught my special attention was a group of devotees circulati

Part of my kartik-vrata is to read Krishna’s instructions to Uddhava before He left this world from the 11th canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam. The Lord makes an important point there – that the knot in the heart, the ahankara, the false ego, is destroyed by bhakti. He says: “When one engages constantly in worshiping Me through loving devotional service, his heart becomes firmly situated in Me. Thus all material desires within the heart are destroyed and the knot in the heart is pierced, the ego k

 From its early years to present, ISKCON has witnessed droves of devotees leave their bodies while traveling in automobiles. Although devotees don’t drink and drive, many male devotee drivers that I know are virtual terrors behind the wheel. With a desire to reduce Vaisnava auto tragedies and hoping to improve our service to Lord Krishna, Srila Prabhupada and our spiritual authorities, we humbly suggest some guidelines for devotee drivers to follow.

     Let us begin by understanding that drivin

By Kesava Krsna Dasa

To say, “I am the most fallen!” at an improper time or to an improper audience, and without genuine tears, in a casual way, is probably an imitation. It will likely be an attempt to impress others. There has to be a correct mood for such an expression, and it is usually private.

When someone expresses genuine “fallen” sentiments like Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur in his Gita-mala and other works, we should realise that these are private interactions between him and his Lord and

From Back to Godhead

The race for supremacy continues even in the virtual world

This is the age of internet.People are spending more and more time online. They are emailing, socializing, chatting, downloading, uploading, sight-seeing, blogging. And of course they are searching. In fact to perform all the previous tasks, one needs the help of a search-engine like Google. Google is so famous today for helping people find something on the internet that it is almost synonymous with a search-engine.

From Back to Godhead

By Murari Gupta Dasa

Not getting what you want? Perhaps that’s good for you.

“Please cancel my tickets,” I said to my friend on the phone. “I won’t be able to go.”

I hung up the phone and sank down onto my bed, my head in my hands. My friend had arranged my tickets for the trip to Jagannatha Puri and Mayapur I had been so eagerly looking forward to, and now I had to cancel. The past few weeks in my life had been very turbulent, so when my friends proposed a spiritual retrea

By Kadamba Kanana Swami

Written by Rukmini dd

“The Varsana parikrama is situated around the Sriji Temple. The different hills here are demigods incarnating in this way to place the feet of the devotees on their heads.”

Sancaricor

First, we got lost but there is no wrong turn in Vrndavana. Following in the footsteps of the spiritual master, each step takes us closer to Krsna. A narrow path surrounded by soft sands leads us to Sancaricor; a narrow valley where two hills meet. Here, Krsna would st

By Kesava Bharati Dasa Goswami

Letting Śrīla Prabhupāda Speak for Himself

Part 2

nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale

śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāminn iti nāmine

namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe

nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe

My dearest Śrīla Prabhupāda,

Please accept my prostrated obeisances in the dust of your lotus feet. All glories to you and your spiritually refreshing transcendental books, which are sowing seeds of pure devotion (bhakti) in the hearts of cond

Sri Caitanya-caritamrta states, “Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu is the most benevolent personality in human society because His only desire is to make people happy. His sankirtana movement is especially meant for the purpose of making people happy.” (Adi 9.45 p)

And Srila Prabhupada said of himself, “I have started this Krishna consciousness movement in this country, America, to make people happy: happy in this life, happy in next life. . . . So we are making little our teeny effort, how to make peopl

Srila Prabhupada: The Spiritual Master and Krishna are two parallel lines. The train, on two tracks, moves forward. The Spiritual Master and Krishna are like these two tracks, they must be served simultaneously. Krishna helps one to find bona fide Spiritual Master, and bona fide Spiritual Master helps one to understand Krishna. If one does not get bona fide Spiritual Master, then how he can ever understand Krishna? You cannot serve Krishna without Spiritual Master, or serve Spiritual Master wit

By Deena Bandhu Das

More than 120 disciples gathered in Vrindavan to glorify Srila Prabhupada for his Disappearance Day Festival. Fabulous arrangements were made and they churned the great ocean of the nectar of Srila Prabhupada’s glories. Again in the evening, they gathered at Srila Prabhupada’s bed where he left this world. Every year I think they will never be able to make better decorations to his bed, but again, just see how gorgeous they did. Finally there was aratika at 7:20 pm, the time

By Rahul Singh

“When you are in the field of spirituality, you think you can advise anyone on any topic. We listened to experts in hydrogeological survey and Soil Biotechnology”. This was the greatest takeaway for me from the session titled “Sustainability from the Inside out” hosted in October in Singapore by Artha Forum – the fact that knowledge makes you humble. Thanks to Rajeev Srivastava and Suman Chaki’s kind invitations, every time I walk into Tanglin Club for an Artha session, I come ou

By Kadamba Kanana Swami

Written by Rukmini dd

The Vraj Parikrama is bursting at the seams this year. We are different. All 140 of us have come with a milieu of accents, skin tones, natures and cultures from all corners of the earth. Yet we have come to Vrindavan as family and Vrindavan is home.

We begin our pilgrimage in the early morning and load into three buses. Kadamba Kanana Maharaja smiles and chats to people in between managing logistics. He is a gracious host and guide on this sacred tr

By Mayesvara Dasa

Those of us who appreciate the magical potency of what Srila Prabhupada gave us know that a miracle of colossal historic importance occurred in the late 1960’s. At that time His Divine Grace came and ignited a worldwide spiritual revolution that has no historic equivalent. Those of us who were blessed to become his disciples all got an opportunity to be part of this extraordinary moment in history. Yet time is gnawing away at all of us every day. One by one we watch the discip

Let us say we won a general election. A majority vote sweeps us into power. All state resources are at our disposal. There will still be a democratic opposition in place, but they will want to see how we give all citizens of the land a Vedic alternative. Where do we start?

Sometimes devotees in their exuberance will say, “We’re going to take over the entire world.” Lord Chaitanya’s prediction has to materialise, but the sombre realities of actualising Vedic models of civilisation with VAD in mi

The Vedic scriptures proclaim that the glories of Lord Krishna are unlimited and eternal and no one is able to reach the end of them. In the same way, who can fully describe the splendid glories of Sri Giriraja-Govardhana, the best servant of the Lord and at the same time non-different from the Lord Himself? To protect his dear vrajavasis from Indra’s wrath, Sri Krishna held the Hill on the small finger of His divine hand for seven days. The area of Govardhan is full of wonderful forests, lakes