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
The London Saturday Night Harinama Sankirtan Party's ranks were
boosted this weekend as many Srila Prabhupada disciples came along to
celebrate Srila Prabhupada's Disappearance Day, which had fallen
earlier in the week.
Please find photos below.
Slideshow (please turn on sound):
http://davidc.zenfolio.com/maha_harinama_sankirtan_05112016/slideshow
Gallery:
http://davidc.zenfolio.com/maha_harinama_sankirtan_05112016
Sri Harinama Sankirtan Yajna Ki Jaya!
Srila Prabhupada Ki Jaya!
Nitai Gau
Please find below photos from Annakuta, Go Puja and Govardhan Puja
2016 at Bhaktivedanta Manor.
Slideshow (please turn on sound):
http://davidc.zenfolio.com/govardhan_annakuta_gopuja_2016/slideshow
Gallery:
http://davidc.zenfolio.com/govardhan_annakuta_gopuja_2016
With best wishes,
Hare Krishna,
David.
During the London leg of my tour of the West, the most memorable engagement was a talk show at Queens College, Cambridge University. The format was that the program coordinator acted as a host for a talk show entitled “Debunk the monk.” He shot a flurry of questions at me, challenging my beliefs and practices and the students got into the spirit and followed shoot. I was enlivened by the program format and the QA soon went in the direction of science and spirituality, as I had hoped.
Ever since
Honoring our Godbrothers and Godsisters
by Padmapani dasa
“Regarding serving your godbrothers, this is a very good practice. The Spiritual Master is never without His followers, so to serve the Spiritual Master also means to be the servant of His disciples. When you want to serve the king, you must also serve his minister, secretary, and everyone who serves him. And to serve his servants may please him more than to serve the king personally. So the Spiritual Master is not alone. He is always wi
Sometimes people think that the ancient Vedic literature no longer has any real usefulness in this day and age. That it is little better than an antique of foregone days. However, this article shows the universal and ever-relevant nature of the Ramayana, and how it explains the symptoms of society when there is no ruler, or when there is an unqualified leader. This is from the discussion between Markandeya and the great sages and Visishtha when they urge him to install a proper king onto the th
