A Canadian Transcendental Celebration
By Jaya Govinda dasa
July 1st marked the 149th anniversary of the founding of the world’s second largest country; Canada.
Towns and villages across the nation celebrated its birthday with fireworks, parades and a host of other joyful events.
The city of Vancouver’s celebration was extra special as our ISKCON Hare Krishna temple was invited to participate in this year’s Canada Day parade.
An estimated 300,000 people lining the route, and millions more on mai
ISKCON50 offering: ISKCON Studio, Kolkata (Album with photos)
Cutting the ribbon today to inaugurate the new studio in ISKCON Kolkata. On the auspicious occasion of the 50th Anniversary of ISKCON, Netrotsava and Gundica Marjanam, where Lord Jagannatha is revealing Himself for the first time after two weeks, in the association of H.G. Pankajangri Prabhu, H.G. Acaryaratna Prabhu and assembled devotees of ISKCON Kolkata, today, after three years of construction and renovation, we inaugurated the
Vrindavanlila Dasi: We are praying to Lord Jagannath to resolve difficulties presented to the preaching in Russia by a new law about ‘missionary activity’ (which isn’t finalized yet). Please join us in Kirtan-prayer for the Lord’s mercy to resolve this situation in a mutually beneficial way – so the government can prevent terrorism, and devotees can carry on with Harinamas, book distribution, namahattas – our usual preaching work.
This law affects all religious organizations in Russia. If law g
GOOGLE DOODLE for ISKCON50
Jaya Srila Prabhupada!
*Jaya ISKCON*
If you wish that our ISKCON should celebrate the 50th Anniversary worldwide and simultaneously include in this celebration every human being on earth (at least those who use internet), then here is a *‘ONCE IN A LIFETIME’* chance:
Google has a service called GOOGLE DOODLE (http://www.google.com/doodles), which helps people in celebrating their important days. So if you wish that they should create a GOOGLE DOODLE for us on 13th Ju
Washington, United States: The 4th of July parade was amazing. (Album with photos)
Security was tight but I was able to sneak my phone out for part of it and take some pics of the devotees. There were thousands of people all waving to the different floats.
Find them here: https://goo.gl/jL0Jyo
By Mandira mani dasi
You might remember hearing about the Christchurch earthquakes in the news. What you might not know is that there were more earthquakes after the first big one—no fewer than 10,000 of them. There were sometimes seven or eight earthquakes a day. Everybody living in Christchurch was scared all the time because each earthquake had the potential to bring major destruction. Eventually one of them did: our temple survived the first earthquake, but the biggest of those 10,000 after
Harinama in Tel Aviv, Israel, 02.07.2016 (Album with photos)
Srila Prabhupada: O my Lord! Persons who chant the holy names of your Lordship are far, far advanced in spiritual life, even if born in families of dog-eaters. Such chanters have undoubtedly performed all kinds of austerities and sacrifices, bathed in all sacred places, and finished all scriptural studies. (Srimad-Bhagavatam, 3.33.7)
Find them here: https://goo.gl/G6cK16
Prabhupada – Departing for the West (Highlights) (5 min video)
From ISKCON Pandava Sena UK.
Highlights from Something Spiritual’s first show, Prabhupada – Departing for the West at Harrow Arts Centre, London.
A true story that began 50 years ago, when a great scholar set out across the ocean on a mission, carrying nothing but a timeless message, which was to be the greatest change for humanity. He inspired an entire generation and against all odds, formed an unstoppable revolution.
Watch it her
The Confidential Meaning of Ratha-Yatra
A lecture delivered by Gour Govinda Swami on 11th July 1994, Bhubaneswar, India.
“By Vedic calculations one can determine when the Jagannatha Temple was first built, when the Temple was inaugurated and when the Deities were installed (on Their simhasana). According to the authority of Skanda Purana, this period is fifteen crores and thirty-four lakhs (more than 150 million) years ago. From this it is clear that Ratha-yātrā began in the time of Svarocisa
Last week I finished my blog post with a question – How can we stop death? Because it seems, no matter how good we are, how pious, how charitable, how humble, or how much good karma we accumulate for the future – we still have to grow old, suffer, and die. Can we conquer death?
Srila Prabhupada once asked a magician the same question.
“In September 1976 a circus magician visited the Krishna-Balaram Mandir in Vrindavana and showed Prabhupada and the devotees his repertoire of tricks. Several time
About the year 1500 A.D., the incarnation of God Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu began the Hare Krishna Movement in Navadvip, a city in the Indian province of Bengal. This movement, based on the philosophy of ancient Sanskrit texts of devotion to Krishna like the Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam, spread all over India within a short time. The movement popularized sankiritan, the congregational chanting of the maha-mantra Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Ram
The tale of how one boy decided to bathe in the morning.
Yulia Shevchenko: I wrote that really to highlight the theme of cleanliness, in an accessible form explaining it to children. I had an idea to try to compose small Vaishnava tales on the theme of cleanliness to inspire young Vaishnava bathe, brush their teeth and wash their hair.
The basic idea in this case is that our body is the Lord’s temple and we should try to keep it clean, because in our hearts is the Lord who resides, always lov
10th anniversary of Kuli Mela (Album with photos)
The 10th anniversary of that Mela, which also took place in New Vrindaban from June 15th to 19th this year, took those themes further and showed new levels of maturity and stability amongst the Kuli community, while still being full of joy and celebration.
Around 700 people flooded into the emerald hills of New Vrindaban for the event. They included Kulis from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and across Europe and South and Central America; but al
In 1885, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura wrote: “Lord Chaitanya did not advent Himself to liberate only a few men in India. Rather, His main objective was to emancipate all living entities of all countries throughout the entire universe and preach the eternal dharma. Lord Chaitanya states in Sri Caitanya-bhagavata, ‘In every town, country, and village My name will be sung.’ There is no doubt that this unquestionable order will come to pass… . Although there is still no pure society of Vaishnavas, Lo
ISKCON holds Iftar gathering.
To celebrate the over 400-year-old amity between the Hindu and Muslim communities in West Bengal’s Nabadwip, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) Mayapur on Wednesday organised an Iftar party with elected Muslim panchayat members as its guests inside the temple premises.
The event upholds the legacy of brotherhood between the two communities, the seeds of which were sown in the 16th century by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and his relationship w
I came across a line in a book about caring for roses which said, ‘if you water the roses in the right way they will happy.” Making roses happy. What a meditation.
And then I thought how we try to make so many things happy in our life – our dog, our lawn, our children, our family. And of course ourselves, we are always trying to make ourselves happy.
Sometimes we succeed and sometimes we fail in our happiness projects. Life is just like that.
And then I thought about how to make God happy. If we
It’s not the first time the news is filled with outrage against ill-made remarks. What a sad state to be in – to think we pull ourselves up by putting others down. Prabhupada calls the kind of remarks made by Donald Sterling, symptomatic of ‘skin disease’, or identifying people based on their body, ignoring the spiritual reality.
The Gita says it is a fact that we are not this body; we are more than this body. We say ‘This is my hand’ or ‘this is my foot.’ so who is this I? To whom does the body
One of the 8 teachings left behind by Sri Caitanya speaks of humility. It says that one must be in a humble state of mind in order to meditate properly. We should feel lower than a piece of straw in the street actually. What does that mean and what are the implications for our practice?
Humility is a huge topic and true humility can’t be faked. It is grounded in the deep realization that we are not these bodies and not the owner of our things nor the controller of our lives. It’s coming to the p
Lately I’ve been wrapped up in the non-essentials of spiritual life: work, family, money, car problems, entertainment, sense gratification, etc. The only glimmer of devotional activity in my life right now is listening to Srila Prabhupada lectures on my commute to work. Even that has become sketchy lately, as I’m usually only half paying attention or zoning out.
I feel no enthusiasm for the devotional process right now. I don’t feel eager or excited to chant. I don’t have much desire to make t
By Daamodara Dhananjaya Prabhu
During one of our meetings between GBC-SPN (Strategic Planning Network) Outreach Committee and the ISKCON Congregational Development Ministry, the subject matter of discussion was how to improve our outreach during the festivals that we celebrate in ISKCON. It has been observed that most of our festivals are successful in creating a majestic impression in the minds of the people, but fail to generate new devotees in a large number. In spite of so much time, labo
