#idt (41)

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The world around us is changing at an ever-increasing rate. The notion of keeping up with the changing world may have relevance in devotional service. But is this perspective relevant in all areas of our practices of bhakti? Are there some elements of devotional service that must always be constant? Srila Prabhupada wrote:

The greatest danger to our movement will come when we manufacture and create our own process for worshiping the deities. … Whatever is going on, follow it just to the exact

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From Back to Godhead 

For anyone interested in spiritual progress,
gambling is more than just a harmless amusement.

High’s convenience store is bustling with last-minute shoppers picking up odds and ends for a holiday dinner. Having run out of milk, I find myself in the crowded store, standing in a line that wraps around the food aisle. I resign myself to the waiting, and chant the Hare Krsna mantra softly to myself.

An elderly shabbily dressed woman at the counter draws my attention. She’s fr

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(An Excerpt from the book Mysteries of the Ancient Vedic Empire, by Sri Nandanandana dasa–Stephen Knapp)

As we look over the various cultures and religions of the world, we may ask if all religious systems are divine. Though they seem to conflict with each other on various points, still there are many areas of truth in which they all agree. Or you could say that some of the same essential truths can be found within each of them. And by a careful comparison, we can trace the essence of that trut

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From Back to Godhead

The desire to be soul-conscious inspires a move to a soul-compatible place.

“The soul [jivatma] is unborn, eternal, immortal, and primeval. It does not die when the body dies.” (Bhagavad-gita 2.20)

I first heard details about jivatmathe soulin 1971 during my maiden overseas trip. I was reuniting with my then-boyfriend (later husband) John in India, and to me, a born and bred atheist, jivatma was a quaint irrelevant idea.

An idea, however, can be like a seed: it can germinat

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Receiving guests at the Temple

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Quotes from Radhanath Swami

1) From letters

  1. “The culmination of all our preaching efforts is when a sincere soul experiences his or her spiritual home when they visit our temple. I cannot overestimate the great importance the service, which you have accepted as a guest receptionist. I am most indebted to you for taking this service so seriously. Any person who ever visits our temple should feel so personally welcomed that they feel they have made a true friend. A devotee who genuinely is con

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From Back to Godhead

“My exposure to the young devotees and to Swami Bhaktivedanta as well as the chanting of Hare Krsna has brought me moments of inner peace and has enabled me to live a little more spiritually with my family and in my profession. My two older children also spent some beautiful moments with the Swamiji times we will always treasure.
“It is not necessary to shave your head and to become fully absorbed in the teachings to absorb some of the spiritual vibrations which flow from t

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From Back to Godhead

Are we simply puppets, helplessly manipulated by the strings of our past activities?

I look on with dismay as the tow truck drives away with the wreck that used to be our car.

“It’s all right,” my wife tries to console me. “Probably some bad karma.”

I consider her words. She has just mangled our car by driving it into the rear end of a truck, and she seems quite eager to let destiny take responsibility for her actions. I wonder if it’s really bad karma, or just bad driving.

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Kirtan: Are there rules? By Rasananda das

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“How any spiritual activity should be done is understood from three sources: saintly persons, standard scriptures and the spiritual master”. (Srimad Bhagavatam 3.28.4, purport)

Proper sankirtan – a phrase used by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati in his Sri Sanmodana Bhasyam and by Lord Caitanya Himself – means certain tunes, certain instruments, a certain musical style, certain dress and certain kinds of dancing by the members of the chanting party. In Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s sankirtan movement, r

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2515109138?profile=RESIZE_710x  The common understanding of an Advanced Civilization in today’s context is to be advanced in Technology, having a comfortable lifestyle, Earning Lots of money and having enough or rather lavish facilities to enjoy the senses to the fullest. This is the yard stick that is generally used to gauge the Advancement in Civilization. Owing to this yardstick Countries like United States of America, Great Britain etc are considered as First world Countries and more advanced in civilization then others.

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From Back to Godhead

Why are some people by nature outgoing and talkative while others are quiet and shy? What are the forces of nature that compel people to act the way they do? How do these forces work, and who is controlling them?

Dr. and Mrs. A. B. Bright and their two children have a small home, just suitable to their needs, in a peaceful country town. Dr. Bright is the local, M.D., a thoughtful, qualified man, respected for doing his job honestly and selflessly. His hobby: reading books o

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Stone-Alive by Abhijit Tolley

 

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From Back to Godhead

Presence of joy is higher than absence of sorrow.

I was zooming along a beautiful tree-lined highway when I slammed on the brakes. Screeeech! Thud! Generally, when you run over a squirrel scampering across the road just a little too late for you to stop, you get a sinking feeling. Unless you’re stone-hearted, the next few minutes are not joyful. The guilt of having taken a life lingers until it’s replaced by more important things. But this time I was not gripped by remo

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In this article, I compare the origin of universe as described in the Srimad Bhagavatam (SB) and the Big Bang (BB) theory .

 

1. The initial state

According to SB, the initial state of matter immediately previous to its manifestation is calledpradhāna (SB 3.26.10p). In the BB theory, this initial state is called the singularity. The table below compares these two states:

 

 

Pradhāna

SB 3.26.10p, SB12.4.20,21

Singularity

ref : [1]-[4]

*Unmanifested/undifferentiated form of matter.

*No

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 “For humankind, the mind is the cause of bondage and the mind is the cause of liberation. The mind absorbed in sense objects is the cause of bondage, and the mind detached from sense objects is the cause of liberation.” (Amrta Bindu Upanishad)

Yoga literally means “to connect.” A bhakti-yogi seeks to connect to Krishna, the personal aspect of the Absolute Truth, through a variety of devotional practices. These include chanting Krishna’s names congregationally (kirtana) and serving the

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I found this talk by Yamuna-devi, from the Pune Yatra 2001, so profound and powerful, I wanted to share it with you all. If you wish to learn more about—and from—this extraordinary devotee and disciple of Srila Prabhupada’s, you may visit the beautiful new website Unalloyed: The Yamuna Devi Legacy Project (www.unalloyed.org). —Giriraj Swami

Radhanath Maharaja has requested that my godsisters and I speak something. Last night, after we left the transcendental program and before I took rest, I wa

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By Rama vigraha Dasa

From Back to Godhead

To say that most politicians are incompetent, and in many cases downright dishonest, isn’t very controversial. We’ve all read about their blunders, their tricks, and their schemes. So the aim of this article is not to give proof of their failure to bring about world peace and prosperity; it is rather to show that the root cause of their incompetence is selfish materialism, and that the remedy is the re- spiritualization of society through the worldwide

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We sometimes think of ourselves as being good adjudicators of who is serious in Krishna consciousness, and who is not. Who is pure, or not. Expecting that “More people will leave Krishna consciousness than stay,” we easily become proud of being one of the “privileged few” to remain.

Being of the surprising few and rationalising this way is certainly premature, and signals immediate complacency. The adage, “It is how you finish that counts; not how you start,” usually escapes our attention when

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Sri Guru-purnima, or Vyasa-purnima, is the divine disappearance day of Srila Sanatana Gosvami, the eldest of the Six Gosvamis of Vrndavana. The authorized poet Sri Kavi-karnapura, in his book Caitanya-candrodaya-nataka (9.34, 35, 38), quoted in Sri Caitanya-caritamrta (Madhya 24.348–350), tells how Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu blessed Sanatana Gosvami with His specific mercy.

gaudendrasya sabha-vibhusana-manis tyaktva ya rddham sriyam
rupasyagraja esa eva tarunim vairagya-laksmim dadhe
antar-bhakti-

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How many of us are fortunate to have not just good friends, but close friends with whom we can phone at any time, and for no particular reason, than to simply share a Krishna conscious realization?

How many of us are blessed to be able to shed all institutional and scholarly roles, simply to sit down in an informal setting once in a while, and discuss none other than Krishna katha?

Does it ever occur to us sometimes, particularly if we are second initiated, that the services we try to render fo

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Jananivas Prabhu’s service was to bring frankincense to Srila Prabhupada’s room in the evening. He mentioned that usually after you fill a room with frankincense, you open the doors and windows so that the mosquitos go out with the smoke. Srila Prabhupada however liked to keep the smoke within the room and stopped Jananivas Prabhu from opening the doors and windows. Since it was Srila Prabhupada’s darshan time, there would usually be many western devotees in the room and these western devotees

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In the 1960s, literary and media critic Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase “global village” to describe the extension of people’s frames of reference and sense of responsibility beyond their immediate surroundings, or “village.” This growing sense of connectedness, McLuhan proposed, is the natural result of a world in which electronics enable our senses (at least the senses of sight and hearing—for now) to immediately experience that which is taking place across the globe, just as we would in o

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