A party of 50 devotees assembled at the ISKCON Lomé temple
On December 17th 2016, ISKCON devotees of Lomé, a small town in a small country (Togo has about 6 million people), held a small but ecstatic padayatra for the pleasure of Srila Prabhupada. Several devotees from three other West African countries had joined the 45 devotee Togo team: three from Ghana (Yuga Prabhu, chairman of the West African Executive Council Board, Bhaktin Emma and Bhakta Abraham), one from the Republic of Benin (Bhakt
Q. 1. Since free will is operating with every soul’s choices, how is Paramatma’s guidance operative in relationship to this free will?
Q. 2. Another dimension is this: Sri Isopanisad says every other choice other than Krishna’s will, is degrading. So how can we exercise a free will choice that is within the realm of non-maya, or the spiritual realm – that may not be a predetermined choice?
Romapada Swami: Krishna dynamically responds to the free will choices of living entities. As Srila Prabhup
“Oh, Lord, the ocean of compassion and nectar! You are the dwelling place that is attractive for all. I offer You my respectful obeisances again and again. You - the only one who frees the fallen souls of this world. But how do you do it, very few people can understand. O ocean of mercy! Again and again I bow before You. ”
“Oh, Lord Jagannatha! Please save me. Oh, fallen friend, I again and again bow before You. Please deliver me from this terrible ocean of material suffering. After gaining You
Divya’s Kitchen, New York City’s first authentic Ayurvedic restaurant, cares not just about your taste buds – although it rewards them very well – but also about your health and wellbeing.
Whether you’re a New Yorker or an ISKCON devotee, as soon as you walk into the East Village eatery, with its homey amber lighting, pure cedar wood furniture and live plants, you’ll know you’re in for a new kind of casual fine dining experience.
Divya’s Kitchen, located on the ground floor of the Bhakti Center
Without giving attention to and genuinely caring about relationships, situations and aspirations, how can we achieve any real traction in life? Where the attention goes, energy flows, and results invariably show. Simultaneously, however, wisdom teachers constantly remind us to remain detached and aloof; everything in this world is a fleeting reality destined for destruction at the ruthless hands of time. We are building castles in the sand. So what’s the balance? When does genuine concern and r
You might not have heard of Jaya Caitanya Das, the thirty-year-old who’s been the number one book distributor in the U.S. for the past two years.
Even if he sold 85,000 of Prabhupada’s books this year alone.
That’s because until recently, the young man was living at home with his parents in Orange County, California.
Jaya Caitanya grew up in a Vaishnava Hindu family who were not ISKCON devotees but kept Krishna in the center of their lives.
During his teenage years, however, like most young men
Srila Prabhupada disciple Bhajahari Prabhu remains in a critical condition in hospital. He is due to have another brain scan on Monday 9th January. Please (continue to) pray for him.
The devotees took part in maha harinama sankirtan in honour of him on Saturday night. Kirtan had also been held at Bhaktivedanta Manor for the previous three evenings. The audio soundtrack used on the slideshow is a recording from Wednesday.
Slideshow (please turn on sound):
http://davidc.zenfolio.com/maha_ha
In India, “Oh, Vasudeva, we know everything of Vasudeva,” “Hare Krsna, oh, What you can teach? We know everything.” This is the Indian disease. Because familiarity breeds contempt. Because Indians are familiar with the name of Vasudeva, with the name of Hare Krsna, they think… Just like in Europe and American cities these boys and girls, they go for sankirtana, and the Indian people, they say, “Oh, we know everything about it. We have now come here to learn how to eat meat, how to drink wine.” T
Sometimes we get so disturbed by the past that the clock stops, “On 12 December 1937, I …” and we still remember what happened! Forget what happened! Who cares about what happened! First of all, accept that whatever happened maybe due to our past karma, that it was due to us. Now we are finished and we start again, start fresh, start positive and build up something good. Then the future is bright, the future is what you make it to be. The past does not make the future; the past is gone, dead-an
When I approached my spiritual master for initiation, he said, “Hmmm, as good as God, are you prepared to accept that?” And I thought, “Umm, well, I don’t know…” but I just said yes with a weak voice because it is not so simple to accept the spiritual master as good as God. But this is Krsna’s standard so what can we say. So somehow, gradually we must bring the guru-disciple relationship to that point. For me, it was not so easy because I had been initiated before and that relationship did not
In an initiation ceremony, we receive the maha-mantra. So it is like those birthdays where you get a big gift, you open up the box and inside is a gift that you already have, “Oh, I already got that! I got the holy name before.” Yes, we have the holy name already as we have been chanting for a long time before initiation. But at the time of initiation, what we are receiving?
We are receiving the holy name along with the prayer of the spiritual master who has his credit with Krsna as a result of
There was a Mr Gupta who lived in Indore in India and he had a shop selling truck parts and the whole day people would visit his shop. But there was something special about his shop in that everywhere there were pictures of Krsna! Never ever before had I seen in one space that many pictures of Krsna! There were pictures all over the wall, there were pictures on the ceiling, pictures on the door, pictures on the door knob, pictures on the table – everything had a picture of Krsna! And every day
One may want family life but how can you have a good family life without Krsna. Family life without Krsna will not be satisfactory; it will become very frustrating. It is only when we add Krsna that family life can actually start to work.
What is a job if it is not related to Krsna!? Money, money, money just for eating, sleeping and these other things. You are going to get frustrated, I guarantee you! But if you use that money for Krsna then it is okay.
In every situation, we have to make an ef
Once in India, I saw a serious drawing. It was a drawing of a frog and this particular frog was in somewhat of a precarious position because a snake had crawled up from behind and had half swallowed the frog! The mouth of the snake was slowly engulfing the frog and the front of the frog was still sticking out. Then a little fly flew past the nose of the frog and frog’s tongue shot out to catch the little fly…
So, who is the frog in the painting and who is the snake!? The snake represents time a
Are you a teenage girl between 17 & 20? You are welcome to the fun filled Girls’ Mela at Ekachakra dham. We teenagers go through a very special phase in life. We want to gradually establish ourselves in this world, and we want to be accepted as individual and almost grown-up personalities, with our own desires, talents, inclinations, hopes and plans for our future.
We don’t like to be corrected and instructed by our parents any longer – we have heard this for so many years! Now we need other ro
Every year, prominent people take part in ISKCON Hungary’s annual Divali dinner. This year, as usual, government officials, public personalities, sponsors, decision-makers, artists, representatives of other religions, university professors, scientists and others from the fields of politics and media all enjoyed the Hungarian devotees’ hospitality.
The main theme of the event was the 50th anniversary of the incorporation of ISKCON, which was showcased by an onsite exhibition and a stage program,
This year, my plan was to go outside of Vrindavan for book distribution with a team of devotees. I never even thought of doing book distribution in the Holy Dham. But because the traveling bus that we had last year was cancelled, circumstances forced me to remain in the Holy Dham. And for me, it was something new and exciting. Sometimes I would meet other devotees doing the same service having hands full of SrilaPrabhupada’s transcendental books. It was extremely inspiring for me.
Every day t
The 25th Annual Jagannath Rath Yatra Mahotsava of ISKCON, Coimbatore and ” ISKCON 50″ Golden Jubilee celebrations was flagged off on 6th January 2017 in a grand function at Sri Annapoorna Auditorium at R.S.Puram. The occasion was graced by the presence of several dignitaries and VIPs like Sri. Srinivasan, Chairman, Sree Annapoorna Sree Gowrishankar Hotels, Dr. K.G.Bhaktavatsalam, Chairman , KG Hospital, senior ISKCON sannyasis and GBC like HH Jayapataka Swami, HH Bhakti Vinoda swami ( Zonal Sec
Satyanarayan Dasa (head of BBT Far East, Middle East):
What magnifies the importance of this special book distribution, especially in these Far Eastern and Middle Eastern languages, is what happens to these books after they are received. We are just seeing the beginnings of their long and remarkable journey here. These fortunate tourists and university students become emotionally moved by seeing and obtaining these literatures translated into their own beloved mother tongue. And because the bo
In our backyard garden, we installed an automatic watering system invented in Israel. Hoses run underground throughout the garden and, extending from them, smaller tubes tipped with color-coded nozzles terminate near the roots of each plant. The color-coded nozzles deliver a specific amount of water appropriate for each plant.
With this automatic “drip system” in place my plants thrive. They always get the water they need even as I keep up with other duties in my life.
In a similar way, expert
