“Satisfaction of the self-realized spiritual master is the secret of advancement in spiritual life. Inquiries and submission constitute the proper combination for spiritual understanding. Unless there is submission and service, inquiries from the learned spiritual master will not be effective. One must be able to pass the test of the spiritual master, and when he sees the genuine desire of the disciple, he automatically blesses the disciple with genuine spiritual understanding.” (Bhagavad-git
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We may approach the Lord for something material and he may fulfill our desire, but in such a way that we don’t approach him again for that desire. So, it is better if we approach the Lord and great souls like Giri Govardhan with spiritual desires like the gopi’s—just to serve and please Krishna—without any desire for themselves. By serving and pleasing Krishna we become pramodah—we become exceedingly happy. That is how we become happy. Not by trying in our own independent way to enjoy but by
Today we honor the disappearance day of His Dive Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada with a half day fast and are celebrating your disappearance with remembrances and prayers.
The Disappearance of a Vaisnava was explained very nicely by Srila Prabhupada is a lecture given on the disappearance day lecture of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Goswami Maharaja Prabhupada on Dec. 13, 1973 in Los Angeles:
“So spiritually, appearance and disappearance, there is no difference. Just like in mate
A friend returning from India and dealing with jetlag added a small line in an email to me – my goal today: to stay awake.
That jumped out. What a goal, not just for the day, but for life.
In spiritual life when we think of being awake, we think of being conscious, being mindful of how we are relating with the world and with others. Being awake in bhakti means being awake to Krishna, to our particular relationship with Him, and our intentional effort to honor, respect, and grow that relations
This is an old post I saved many years ago in my files, which I found on The Bhaktivedantas website. After re-reading it, I realized why I saved it. It is good information.
Krishna Consciousness in a Nutshell
by Hansadutta das
Krishna consciousness is the original consciousness of every living being, and it is explained in different Vedic literatures. One of these literatures is the Chaitanya-charitamrita. Chaitanya-charitamrita means “characteristic of the eternal living force”. Every living
Continued from, "Lessons in life," Bhismadev's list of challenges for society at large to improve their quality of life…
With regards to these moral principles given by Bhismadev here in the purport, the principle of, "Not to lie," may be exempt in exceptional circumstances. When devotees are hiding in the basement and a soldier comes looking for them then we can say, "Devotees, I don't know, I've never seen them!" One must not take these principles in a fundamentalist way, they must be appl
In this chapter, the passing away of Bhismadev, in the purport to this verse there is a list of challenges for society at large to improve their quality of life. The first challenge is, "Not to become angry!" We remember Upadesamrta, the Nectar of Instruction Verse 1, vaco vegam manasa krodha vegam, one must control the pushings of anger. So even when anger is pushing, one must somehow or other subdue it. Bhismadev also said that in order to conquer anger, one must learn to forgive because it
ISKCON Youth Ministry’s annual Mexico Bus Tour is coming up December 9 – January 3, taking youth and young adults ages 16 and older on an amazing adventure of a lifetime. Young people will be flying in from all over the USA and Canada, the UK and more.
They will spend three weeks traveling across Mexico, presenting Krishna culture festivals in towns and villages, going on Harinama Sankirtana, and visiting Mayan pyramids, jungle waterfalls and beaches along the way.
Participants will get a real
Very few souls take to the path of pure unmotivated loving devotional service to God. This is because the gross or subtle egoistic disposition of the typical soul of this world prevents him/her from whole heartedly serving someone whom he/she considers "someone else". The typical soul wants to serve himself or those closely related to him materially.
This false ego is the fundamental reason for souls being averse to God. Once one understands that God is actually his most intimate relation, the
There is no easy translation into English of the Sanskrit word, bhakti. It’s a bit of an anomaly. Bhakti is love, specifically divine love, but even the word love itself is a poor attempt to describe this most cherished of all emotions.
One translation Srila Prabhupada gave for bhakti is ‘devotional service’. Love indeed means service – the things we do to make the beloved happy. When it comes to Krishna, bhakti is the expression of our love through activities for Him with our consciousness ste
One evening a drunk came to our stall and picked up a Gita and told me that it is an incomplete Bhagavat-gita. He said that by reading the first page, he understood that it is not complete.
Instead of arguing, I was trying to avoid him & looking for an interested person. But the drunk stayed at our stall arguing with me.
Suddenly another drunkard showed up and told the first drunk, ”You cannot take the Bhagavad-gita, because you are not a Hindu.“
The first drunk said, “No, I am Hindu.”
The seco
His Holiness Bhakti Charu Swami continued to engulf Headquarter corporations in London with the spiritual wisdom of Lord Rama in commemoration of Diwali. On 26th October, 2016, HSBC invited His Holiness Bhakti Charu Swami to join over 200 Bankers and Executives at its Headquarters in Canary Wharf, London to make relevant the teachings of Lord Rama for one of the largest corporations on the planet.
Even after 150 years, HSBC continues to provide multinational banking and financial services t
Originally, the living being was with Krsna in the spiritual world and the living being, upon eternity, came to understand that he also had independence, that he did not have to serve Krsna and that rather he could be served too! At this point, he was not yet envious but when he made the choice to be served, then envy came.
It is said that this state of consciousness where one is contemplating the possibility of not being engaged in the service of Krsna is a neutral state – one is neither abso
April 4, 2010 Los Angeles
We have gathered on a most auspicious occasion, the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the manifestation of ISKCON Los Angeles here on Watseka Avenue, which came to be known as New Dvaraka. Srila Prabhupada, our founder-acarya and spiritual master, had said, “You have New York, New England–so many ‘New’ duplicates in the USA–why not New Vrndavana?” And so we also have New Dvaraka.
At the time that Srila Prabhupada and his disciples acquired New Dvaraka, I was i
It is a qualification of a vaisnava that he is adosa-darsi: he never sees others’ faults. Of course, every human being has both good qualities and faults. Therefore it is said, saj-jana gunam icchanti dosam icchanti pamarah: everyone has a combination of faults and glories. But a vaisnava, a sober man, accepts only a man’s glories and not his faults, for flies seek sores whereas honeybees seek honey.
In his Sarartha-darsini commentary on Srimad Bhagavatam 4.4.12, Srila Viswanath Chakravarti
As we were driving through West Bengal, I spotted a newly built house, with two words painted in large black letters across the entry portico – God Gift (written as spelled :). I imagined how every day the family would get this message as they arrived home and could not help but smile.
It also reminded me of a quote posted at one of the seminars at the ISKCON Leadership Sanga last week – Interrupt anxiety with gratitude. Anxiety is a given in most of our lives. It seeps in all over the place, i
After our taking a swim in the river along the gorge between Otaki and Napier in NZ, Ameyatma bathed me in the purifying waters of his door-to-door book distribution mission just before the sun went down. We knocked on about twenty doors and took turns doing the presentation of Srila Prabhupada’s books.
It is a bit inconceivable how sweet and gracious the people of Napier were. One lady, whose name is Storm, raced to beat us to the door and had it open before we got there. She was eager to chat
Many disciples of His Divine Grace attended and each one of them offered his homage and realizations for the glorification of Srila Prabhupada. Many concluded that although Srila Prabhupada was no longer physically present on the earth he is still very much present in this world in the form of his books and his instructions given to his followers.
Many programs were held at the Krishna Balaram temple in his honor like an Abhisek, performed to his deity, arati and pushpanjali at his Samadhi.
A
One of my closest friends, Dr Abhishek Ghosh, who is a faculty member at Grand Valley State University, Michigan, USA, invited me to speak to his students for a World Religions course. As most of the students were from a Christian background, he asked me to give an insider perspective on how I as a Hindu see Christianity in particular and other religions in general.
I spoke on how God is bigger than the religions we dedicate to him (Religion is meant for God; God is not meant for religion) and
Spiritual life has been challenging in every age, even in the satya yuga! Although in the satya yuga, conditions were very easy and very nice. There was no need to work; grains were growing naturally, fruits were everywhere. All that needed to be done was meditation but it needed to be done for a very long time – that was the problem. Now everything has to be done for a short time and quick results are there but in satya yuga, everything had to be practiced for an extremely long time. So then a
