On Saturday morning, April 9, 2016, the quaint Florida costal town of St. Augustine hosted the Lord of the Universe, Jagannatha, along with His sister Subhadra and brother Balarama, for Their traditional, annual Rathayatra parade and festival. The weather was perfect, the townspeople curious and friendly, and the devotees jubilant to be participating in the first Rathayatra of the year.
The mayor of St. Augustine, Nancy Shaver, was delighted to attend. She said, “The Festival of Chariots is a m
From Back to Godhead
By Urmila Devi Dasi
Pure chanting of God’s names requires reverence for God in all His forms , including revealed scripture.
Esteem For Sacred Writings
This article discusses the offense of blaspheming Vedic literature or literature in pursuance of the Vedic version.
IT IS FASHIONABLE in modern secular societies to regard sacred literature as the mythological musings of undeveloped people. Schools teach that with our current understanding of physics, medicine, psychology, d
My first connection with the Hare Krishna maha-mantra happened during the “Summer of Love” in August, 1967 in the course of a wedding within a three-room apartment in Powelton Village, the budding hippie district in Philadelphia. The wedding epitomized the time and place.
The groom and I had become close friends during our travails as fellow philosophy majors at the nearby University of Pennsylvania. Thin, angular, his pale beak-nosed face densely hedged with a curly black beard, Steve presente
After the disappearance of Jayananda Das on May 1, 1977, His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada instructed devotees all over the world to commemorate the event every year as they would any great Vaishnava’s disappearance day.
Therefore we respectfully submit these pages to all devotees and friends of ISKCON as a means to remember and understand more about Jayananda’s devotional service. Of course, we will see how he joined ISKCON and how he left this mortal world. More importantly, we shall see the
In Vedic culture, the welfare of the cows and the welfare of the brahmanas are essential. Without a proper arrangement for developing brahminical culture and protecting cows, all the affairs of administration will go to hell. - Srila Prabhupada in purport to S.B. 7.3.13
Mistakes why we make them and how we can rectify them?
To err is human … ” so goes the saying. Safely we can add three more details to the list: tendency to fall under illusion, cheating propensity and imperfect senses. A conditioned soul is bound by these imperfections, but in this article I will focus on the tendency to commit mistakes. All of us make mistakes. Srila Prabhupada says that to make a mistake is not wrong, but to make a mistake and not learn from it, that is wrong.
In this regard
Hariiiiibol!
Join The Hanumen this summer for any (or all) of 3 amazing weekend retreats for old school community gatherings immersed in nature and song. At these beautiful heartfelt events there will be lots of swimming in beautiful lakes and chanting and story and poetry and kayaking and more. These have become annual love fests of music, beauty, bhakti and fun.
July 14-17 ~ Hanumania in Damarisscotta ME.
July 22-24 ~ the Adirondacks. Camp Sagamore NY.
Aug 1-5 ~ Kripalu Center, MA / Rasa Viny
Appreciation only costs you a few words, but what it buys is priceless. When Dale Carnegie said to be appreciated is the greatest human need, those who paid attention found appreciation one of the greatest motivating forces known to man.
Years of research has taught us this important lesson: if you don’t pay people enough that they feel secure in life, you will get a small percentage of their creative abilities because they are worried about their future. So, it would seem logical that if those
Radhanath Swami: When I was a little boy, my mother taught me a lesson. She always emphasized, more than anything else, the quality of gratitude. She told me, “If you are not grateful for whatever you have, you receive, you can never be happy. Because if you are not grateful, whatever you get, you expect something else, or you expect more, or you think that you deserved it. But when you are humble and grateful, then whatever comes to your life, the apparent fortune and misfortune, you can actua
Today is the most auspicious occasion of Sri Gadadhara Pandita’s appearance day. As many of you know, Lord Caitanya is Krsna Himself in the role of a devotee. He is Krsna, but with the complexion and mood of Srimati Radharani. There are different purposes for the Lord’s advent. The internal reason for Lord Caitanya’s appearance was that He wanted to experience the glory of Srimati Radharani’s love for Him, the wonderful qualities in Him that She alone relishes through Her love, and the happines
I saw this photo and post yesterday on the Prabhupada Connect web page. It was such a special photo that I thought we should share it with you all here as well.
“The Lord is seated in the heart of all living beings, and thus, He knows very well the movements of all individual persons. As soon as the Lord finds that a particular soul is very eager to go back to Godhead, the Lord at once sends His bona fide representative. The sincere devotee is thus assured by the Lord of going back to Godhead.
A Talk by Giriraj Swami, on April 17, 2007 at Dallas
Srila Prabhupada: Pious activity is on the material platform, but chanting of the holy name of Krishna is completely on the spiritual plane. Therefore although pasandis do not understand this, pious activity can never compare to the chanting of the holy name. (Sri-Caitanya-caritamrta, Adi-lila, 3.79 Purport)
This morning I was reading from the Srimad Bhagavatam, First Canto, Chapter 7, entitled “The Son of Drona Punished”. This chapter has always intrigued me, because although the Srimad Bhagavatam was compiled by Srila Vyasedeva five thousand years ago, there is mention of the ultimate weapon, the brahmāstra [nuclear weapon] being used. We think that Atomic energy or Nuclear energy is some modern technological advancement, but actually this knowledge has been around since the time that Srimad Bhag
On the 11th of April our party traveled to Paksi-tirtha also known as Tirukalukundram. The town is located 15 kilometers southeast of Chingleput and 17 kilometers west of Mahabalipuram. The town is known for its Hindu temple called the Sri Vedagiriswarar and it is also popularly known as Kazhugu koli (Eagle temple). The temple is dedicated to Lord Siva and sits high atop the Veda-giri hills. A long expanse of steps leads up to the temple, the presiding deities of which are a Siva-lingam and Par
“Jananivasa told me about a conversation he had had in the temple with a middle-aged Bengali guest who had asked him, “Are Radha-Madhava made of brass or gold?”
“Well, what are you made of?” Jananivasa replied.
After a pause, the gentleman answered, “Flesh and blood.”
Jananivasa told him, “As long as you think you’re made of flesh and blood, then you’ll think the Deity is made of one metal or another. But if you can understand that you’re not the body, that you’re spirit soul, and also that the
In an effort to compete with Sabjimata Mata's and Kurma Prabhu's delicious prasadam blogs, I hereby submit our twelve month sandwich.
There are five main cooks who are always involved. The first one is Gaurachandra; on His right side stands Nitaichand, and on His left side stands Gadadhara. Cooking nearby is Advaita, and Srinivas is holding the spatula. Sweet Mrdanga sauce is mixed in with spicy kartals - all accompanied with side orders of conch and bells. All the demigods headed by Lord Bra
I believe in the power of prasad.
My dad has been telling me for the past several years, "Prasadam, prasadam!! You must serve prasadam always; if someone eats prasadam their lives will change forever."
He's not exaggerating.
My father and mother would frequent the Hare Krishna temple while they were finishing up their degrees at University of California, Berkeley. The food was cheap and tasty, and - little did they know - it was spiked. With love, of course. Little did they know that food th
Alachua, Florida is already home to the largest group of ISKCON members in North America, with some 500 congregational families. Now devotees are planning an intentional devotional community there for couples or singles aged 55 and over.
Prabhupada disciple Kirtiraja Das, who served as a GBC and regional secretary in the former Soviet Union before moving to Alachua with his family in 1991, is developing the project as its managing director. He has worked as a realtor for the past twenty years,
