By Dr. Navnath Janjale
It was hot summer day in May 2003. I was preparing for medical entrance exam and was completely exhausted by the long hours I had put. Add to it the tremendous anxiety about carrier and future.
I desperately wanted to read some inspiring book, which would give me some peace of mind. I started searching books on the shelf. In the corner was Bhagavad-gita As It Is. It had been kept on my book shelf for nearly ten years. I opened it and began to read. I realized that every v
From Back to Godhead
How the Gita teaches the eight steps of hatha yoga, the topic of Patanjali’s Yoga-sutras.
According to a survey by the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, an estimated 13.4 million Americans practice yoga, and many more experiment with it every year. Yoga is everywhere—from Mumbai to Moscow to Monte Carlo. But while yoga is meant to bring one closer to God, many of today’s yogis have a different agenda, the most common being to keep their bodies in shape.
“They’re not
Department of Religion and Spirituality, Zefat Academic College, Safed 1320610, Israel
Abstract: This paper is engaged with the topic of reincarnation in the Bhagavad gītā, better termed “rebirth”. It first looks into the epistemological aspects of rebirth, and highlights the type of knowledge or terminology underlying the vision of rebirth, as opposed to a different type of knowledge that is not suitable for this purpose, and which leads to a different vision of reality. It then looks into the
This is a story which happened in Benares about 300 years ago:
There was one Brahmin who used to take bath in Manikarnika-ghat, a very nice bathing place. One day when he was taking bath he saw a young boy sitting on the steps crying. He felt very compassionate and he went and took the young boy on his lap and asked, “You look so beautiful, a nice attractive young boy. Why are you crying like this?”
“You look at my back,” the boy replied. So when the brahmin lifted up the young boy’s shirt and l
By Madhava Smullen
The Live to Give Campaign, run by the BBT Marketing, Communications and Innovations team, has smashed its 2 million Gita goal, distributing 2,172,456 copies of Srila Prabhupada’s Bhagavad-gita As It Is around the world.
Over 250 ISKCON communities in more than 55 countries participated, between September 17th 2020 and January 7th 2021. The campaign also commemorated Gita Jayanti, or World Gita Day, on December 25th.
Live to Give was a phenomenally successful effort to get de
By Madhava Smullen
Krishna Chandra Das of the ISKCON Daiva Varnashrama Ministry (IDVM) has been included in the World Book of Records for reciting all 700 verses of the sacred text Bhagavad-gita from memory in the minimum time of 73 minutes.
The record was originally achieved on January 27th 2020, from 5:12pm to 6:25pm in Bellary, Karnataka, South India, and was recognized at that time only in India by the India Book of Records. More recently, on December 31st 2020, Krishna Chandra Das received
From Back to Godhead
A brief analysis of Bhagavad-gita 9.4, 9.5, and 9.6.
The Bhagavad-gita is one of the world’s perennial wisdom texts. Because it offers knowledge of the Absolute Truth, some of its texts can be difficult to understand. Few are as difficult as verses four and five of Chapter Nine: “By Me, in My unmanifested form, this entire universe is pervaded. All beings are in Me, but I am not in them. And yet everything that is created does not rest in Me. Behold My mystic opulence! Alt
By HH Bhakti Raghava Swami
I was walking down Rideau Street in the city of Ottawa some time during the summer of 1973. Although I had still not found what I really wanted in life, I was somewhat relieved that I had been able to walk out of the expected social pressures of modern day society.
I had already finished my university studies, graduating from Ottawa U in 1968, had worked for three years as a Social Worker with the Children’s Aid Society in my home town of Timmins in Northern Ontario,
For those whose lives have been forever improved by meeting Lord Krishna personally in the pages of the Gita, Gita Jayanti is not only a day of celebration but also a chance to express their gratitude. And the best way to do so is to share the Gita with others. Krishna Himself says, “There is no servant in this world more dear to Me than he, nor will there ever be one more dear.” (Bg. 18.69)
The Gita teaches the essence of spiritual knowledge, purely and succinctly, in a way that anyone – in an
On Gita Jayanti, the day of the advent of the Bhagavad-gita, spoken by Lord Krishna to Arjuna, I reflected on Srila Prabhupada and how he addressed members of the Gita Pratishthan (Gita Foundation) in India, in 1976. The way Srila Prabhupada dealt with the conference was exemplary and extraordinary as I shall relate.
In May a prominent industrialist named Ramkrishna Bajaj (almost everyone in India knows Bajaj Autos and Bajaj Electricals) wrote Srila Prabhupada that he was organizing a conferenc
By Srimati Dasi
Let’s face it. It’s not easy trying to live Bhagavad-gétä in today’s world — it’s tough! And the taste is more often bitter/sweet than sweet/sweet. Govindadeva gives the practical essence of living Bhagavad-gétä in verse 18.66. The Kali-yugian heart has no trouble with the first half of the equation — abandon all varieties of religion. That’s very much in tune with today’s life standards. But the second half — surrender unto Me — that’s the tough part. Why do we find it so tough
Hare Krishna,
Please accept my humble obeisances
All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Just wanted to share this news with you that Jacinda Ardern- Prime Minister of New Zealand received Bhagwad-Gita on Thursday 6th August 2020 (Photos Attached)
“It was a great honor to meet New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Arden today. I gave her the gift of the most valuable transcendental knowledge Bhagavad Gita. She mentioned that she has heard Mahatma Gandhi talked about Bhagavad Gita quite a lot and she was
The podcast boom has accelerated in the first half of 2020, perhaps partly due to the appetite for more streaming content while people stay at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. ISKCON devotees have also embraced the medium, and recently a new podcast, 5 Minute Meditations, has emerged as a digestible weekly slice of Bhagavad-gita philosophy, practically applicable to everyday life.
Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Anchor.fm and Youtube, the podcast is hosted by ISK
The Bhagavad-Gita is a theological and philosophical classic. In 700 concise verses, it summarises the conclusions of the Vedas, ancient scriptures written approximately 5000 years ago in the Sanskrit language. It covers topics ranging from religion to relationships, science to sociology, leadership to lifestyle management: the keys to all aspects of life, the universe and everything. For thousands of years, it has been a source of limitless inspiration for thinkers, leaders, and spiritual see
sarvopaniṣado gāvo
dogdhā gopāla-nandanaḥ
pārtho vatsaḥ su-dhīr bhoktā
dugdhaṁ gītāmṛtaṁ mahat
(Gītā-māhātmya 6, cited in Bhagavad-gita, Introduction)
It is said that there is a herd of cows and these cows are all a personification of the upanisads. The gita-upanisad is the best of these upanisads. The cows are being milked by Gopalananda, being Gopal, the son of Nanda Maharaj. His pārtho, being Arjuna, is the calf that creates the milk. And sudhīr is the bhoktā, the wise person who is drinking
“This material world is certified by the Lord in the Bhagavad-gita as a dangerous place full of calamities. Less intelligent persons prepare plans to adjust to those calamities without knowing that the nature of this place is itself full of calamities. They have no information of the abode of the Lord, which is full of bliss and without trace of calamity. The duty of the sane person, therefore, is to be undisturbed by worldly calamities, which are sure to happen in all circumstances. Suffering
When the late Sridhar Swami introduced Steven Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to ISKCON in 1995, Serbian-born Akrura Das was intrigued, and began to take leadership training seminars.
Starting a newsletter called Leadership Excellence, which was read by many top leaders of ISKCON, he was further inspired by the leadership books of Bhakti Tirtha Swami, and learned that people need personal coaching as a follow-up to help them apply their leadership training.
I was distributing in Byron Bay, Australia. When I approached a man, he asked, “Do you remember me?”
“No, sorry, I don’t.”
“Three years ago, you gave me the Bhagavad-gita, and I gave you a donation.
I thought it might help me through my troubled times. I had lost my business and my family, so I was drinking a lot. Basically I wanted to drink myself to death. Miserable.
“I would drink and then read a few words from the Gita. Then I would drink more, then would read more. This went on for quite a
By Vidura Dasa ACBSP
In Nairobi, many moons ago, Kenya was hosting the annual meeting of the African Union where the heads of state of all countries in Africa gather. We happened to have recently received a container of Bhagavatams and Gitas cleared through customs. I went to the Kenyatta Conference Centre and tried my luck at getting in. If you think Western politicians are paranoid about security you should see these African ‘Boss Men’ and their ever nervous heavy dudes. Somehow, in dhoti, ku
One year on Gita Jayanti, the day on which Lord Krishna spoke the Bhagavad-gita to Arjuna, I heard a talk in which Srila Prabhupada spoke about the perfection of reading the Gita.
“When Lord Chaitanya was traveling in South India, in a big temple, Ranganatha temple, He went to see the Deity, and He saw one brahmana was reading Bhagavad-gita. And people were joking with him, ‘Oh, Mr. Brahmana, how you are reading Bhagavad-gita?’ Because they were neighbors, they knew that this brahmana was illit
