Gratitude
The health of a marriage depends on the emotional health of the individuals in it. It is gratitude that keeps those individuals healthy and free from dullness and complacency. Couples dedicated to spiritual cultivation enter not only a marriage but an ashram, the grhastha-ashram. This ashram is founded on each spouse respecting, honoring, and appreciating the other as Krishna’s dear devotee. The husband thinks, “My wife is the sacred and holy property of her spiritual master and of Kr
She grew up in a nishada family, and it was the day before her marriage, her father having brought thousands of goats and sheep to be sacrificed for her wedding. With compassion and sadness in her heart, not being able to bear to see the slaughter of those animals the young woman ran away into the forest and stayed.
She went to many rsis and asked them to accept her as their disciple and teach her true knowledge, but all of the rsis rejected her considering her unworthy to become their disciple
Two South African devotees – brahmachari Narottam Das and his friend Mukharavinda Das, both from ISKCON Sandton – have walked 654 kilometers from Johannesburg to Durban, to raise funds for a new sankirtana bus.
Because they are humble, unknown brahmacharis without the pull to draw instant financial support, and their ashrama doesn’t have enough funds to pay for a bus, they decided to get creative to manifest what was important to them.
“Our motivation was that there’s very little sankirtana hap
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura appeared in Jagannatha Puri on February 6th 1874 as the son of Srila Sacidananda Bhaktivinoda Thakura. In his childhood he quickly mastered the Vedas, memorised the Bhagavad-gita, and relished his father’s philosophical works. He became known as “The Living Encyclopaedia” for his vast knowledge.
He preached convincingly against casteism and philosophical deviations from Gaudiya Vaisnavism. He tried to unite the four Vaisnava sampradayas by publishing thei
Dear Gopinatha Acarya,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
It was with great sadness that I learned of your sudden departure the day before yesterday. Though we never served together, we had a number of nice exchanges over the years whenever I would visit Australia and New Govardhana in particular.
In your long career as a devotee, two contributions stand out in my mind. The first is your dedication to book distribution in the early days of the Australian yatra,
In recent hours we have received the news of the departure of Phanindra Prabhu, dear disciple of Srila Prabhupada.
Phanindra Das was one of the oldest devotees in Venezuela and from the beginning was engaged in the service of collecting with incense and other articles for the maintenance and development of the program in our country and then in Brazil was one of the pioneers who supported the Expansion of the Srila Prabhupada Movement in those lands. We always remember him for his jovial, kind
“13. Resolved that we the undersigned members and servants of the Governing Body Commission of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, today, the 11th of February, 1996, in Sridhama Mayapura at the ISKCON Sri Mayapur Candrodaya Mandir, express our profound bereavement on the passing of our dear Godbrother and fellow Governing Body Commissioner His Divine Grace Om Visnupada Sri Srimad Gaura Govinda Goswami Maharaja, the beloved disciple of ISKCON Founder/Acarya His Divine Grace A. C
'BHAKTI as it is' through the eyes of a scientist who turned from atheism to science of LOVE and SELF-REALISATION.
"BHAKTI VIJNANA GOSWAMI was born in Tashkent, former Soviet Union. He took to spiritual life in 1980, during a difficult time during the communist era in the former Soviet Union, when the National Security forces were harassing any type of spiritual practitioner. Despite these obstacles, Bhakti Vijnana Goswami—a scientist, a Moscow State University graduate and postgraduate student
Yesterday at our ashram in Carpinteria we celebrated the appearance day of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, Srila Prabhupada’s spiritual master, whose divine instruction led to Prabhupada’s coming to America and spreading Krishna consciousness—the teachings of Lord Chaitanya—all over the world. And we were happy that Balarama das, Sripada Tamal Krishna Goswami’s former servant, secretary, and pujari, also joined us.
Balarama shared with us many of his wonderful experiences with Tamal Kr
A new solo exhibition opened at the Museum of Sacred Art (MOSA) in Radhadesh, Belgium on January 28th, during the Radhadesh Mellows kirtan festival, entitled “The Many Colors of Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami.”
Satsvarupa Maharaja’s bright and colorful works filled MOSA’s two exhibition spaces during Radhadesh Mellows -- which was attended by about a thousand devotees -- and continue to be on display now.
Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami is well-known in ISKCON for his prolific writings, which include Srila Pr
We are very happy to inform you that this year HG Radheshyam Prabhu, the temple president of ISKCON Pune, stood 1st Rank in the world in the distribution of full sets of Srimad Bhagavatam and Chaitanya Charitamrita.
He distributed 150 full sets in cities like Pune, Hyderabad, Secunderabad and Adilabad. He also visited the homes of most devotees and personally installed the Srimad Bhagavatam sets there.
Also, by his inspiration ISKCON Pune stood 3rd Rank in World by distributing more than 1, 58,
It was thirty-five years ago, and today my memory is a bit vague, but I recall the incident went something like this.
The Meeting
Vrindavana, 1974-5: It might have been the always-blissful English brahmachary Gunarnava or maybe the philosophical Scottish devotee Smara Hari who approached me with the news. “Hey, Patit,” he called, “A sadhu just asked Shrila Prabhupada for initiation.” “Wow, good luck to that Maharaja,” I chuckled pessimistically. After all, we had both been Prabhupada’s disciple
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur’s Paduka!
Decades ago I met the music of Al Jarreau & for me it was a magical meet-ing of pure intrigue & inspiration. I immediately told my 5 best friends about him coz it was obvious to me that hardly anyone, even performer or musician, was ab-le to attain the height & profundity of Jarreau’s masterful genius, which was sim-ply unparalleled. 7 Grammies tell that story better than I ever can, & his rhythm-mic scatting that moved across the globe told even more. See, all who knew him know that Jarreau us
We are both shocked and saddened to receive news that the Bank of England have already printed ten pound notes containing tallow. As a temple community our ethos is nonviolence. As such we stopped accepting the new five pound notes which in turn impacted the donations we depend on. Now with news of the ten pound note we will have to review our stance on banning tallow notes. We now find ourselves having to choose between compromising our core religious principles and spiritual values or sufferi
The Nagara Sankirtana party of Ibadan, Nigeria became West Africa’s book distribution marathon champion for 2016. The sankirtan party led by Yadhunath Das has distributed 901 books in December.
The Nagara Sankirtan project started off in 2015 with the purpose of reviving the Harinama Sankirtana spirit initially in West Africa, by providing special support and care for book distribution devotees, who are serving and traveling in groups. Now, there are over 30 such groups exist all over the world
“Aargh! How deep is the heart of these saintly souls, just like the ocean bed.” — thinking in this way and angry due to being unable to fathom it, the cruel creator of the world filled the hearts of the saintly souls with the sorrows of other living entities." — Subhāṣita-ratna-bhāṇḍāgāra, Sajjana-praśaṁsā
This text uses a rhetorical expression to highlight its main message: the selfless compassion of the saintly. The rhetorical expression is: the creator is cruel. The mood here is reminiscen
There's a saying "You don't get a second chance for a first impression."So this devotee that the lady met made such a good impression on her
that she eventually took a book. The main rule that we should remember when engaging people is that everyone walks away with a good impression. Even
if they don't take a book, at least have them walk away with a good impression.
This kind, patient and respectful nature will come if we maintain good sadhana. Krsna says in the 5th chapter of the Bhagavad gi
Then Prabhupada came to New York. And there was a reception at the airport and then Prabhupada arrived at the temple, as I remember, a couple of hours late may be even more than a couple of hours. And of course everyone wasn't inside, but then Prabhupada arrived. And Prabhupada spoke on Prahalad Maharaj, that whole time actually Srila Prabhupada was speaking on Prahalad Maharaj extraction from Srimad Bhagavatam. And I remember that on this occasion Srila Prabhupada quoted maya-sukhaya bharam udv
It is 10.00 am in a conference room in Mayapur. A group of senior ISKCON leaders comprised of GBCs, sannyasis and gurus wait expectantly in anticipation of the morning’s proceedings. They are here for the third sanga, held here every second year to, amongst other aims, strengthen camaraderie in ISKCON leadership.
After a thoughtful prayer by Sesa Das (the GBC chairman), Gopal Bhatta Das (chairperson of the GBC strategic planning team) initiates the event with a short presentation. Today the dis
