Like so many parts of India, the holiest city of Vrindavan is suffering from the ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic.
Due to the ongoing outbreak of the Corona Virus, ISKCON Vrindavan reports that it has recently lost five wonderful devotees who were a part of the community.
Throughout the pandemic, if a Devotee of ISKCON Vrindavan contracts the virus, the Devotee Care Department provides them with medical and emotional support, to the best of their abilities. They are always ready to give any sort of a
By Madhava Smullen
A second Covid wave has struck India hard, with deaths passing 200,000, although according to the BBC “the real number of fatalities is thought to be far greater, with many not being officially recorded.” There have been at least 300,000 new infections every day in the past week, with over 17.9 million cases registered altogether. Some parts of the country, such as Delhi, Mumbai, and parts of Maharashtra have been affected worse than others; however acute stress on the medical
By Jayadvaita Swami
I was neutral, ambivalent and uncommitted about getting a vaccination for COVID-19. On one hand, the available vaccines have been well tested and shown highly effective. On the other hand, they have not had the benefit of long-term testing, the kind that goes on for years. We do not know how long their effectiveness will last, how effective they may be against variants, and what side effects might show up in the long term.
Apart from that, it seemed that if I came down with
By Bir Krishna Goswami
To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate that is the Question!
The answer to this question is not so simple. In this short essay I would like to present my thought processes.
First of all, I do not blindly accept any of the information that has been presented in the lay media either pro or con. In addition before making any decision especially decisions regarding health, I weigh different factors; especially the risk factors.
Everything we do in this world is risky. As we hear fr
One year on from the first lock-down in the UK due to the Coronavirus, Jaya Krishna das from Bhaktivedanta Manor shares his reflections during a most challenging yet unforgettable year:
Reflecting back to exactly this time last year, I remember it as highly unsettling. There was lots of news coverage about a new virus that had completely gone out of control. By then some parts of Europe were already in lockdown and there was a political debate about whether the UK should follow suit.
The govern
By Bhakti Bhringa Govinda Swami
Many times in life we have heard the saying, “A single twig will break, but the bundle of twigs is strong.” For practicing devotees the connotation was that we always live, practice, and teach in the society of like-minded Vaisnavas. Then we will maintain spiritual strength. Yet, this past year has given us a new perspective on the simple understanding that in unity we remain strong and withstand weakness.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a once-in-a-century event
By Vaisesika Dasa
While getting vaccinated against COVID-19, I remembered these words from Āyurveda-śāstra: auṣadhi cintayet viṣṇum. When taking medicine, one must remember Viṣṇu because ultimately He is the active ingredient that makes any medicine potent.
More prominent in my mind, however, was my recollection of Śrīla Prabhupada’s mood when it came to vaccinations, or for that matter, his approach to life in general. Srila Prabhupada once nonchalantly commented “All right, let us have,” when
By Nrsimhananda Prabhu
At the age of 73 years, I am in the so-called “high risk category” for COVID-19 so I decided to get vaccinated.
My vaccination story, however, begins in the 1950s when I was a child and another virus was overtaking America and the world.
As a small boy, I saw scary magazine photos of young children lying inside riveted, cylindrical devices called “iron lungs” (now relics of the past). Polio, an infectious viral disease affecting the central nervous system, was crippling k
By Indradyumna Swami
In light of the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the development of COVID-19 vaccines, many of my students have inquired whether they should get vaccinated or not.
As a result, I wish to share my views on this matter with my students and those who look to me for advice. Of course, the final decision whether or not to get vaccinated rests with each individual.
After consulting several devotee doctors who have literally saved my life on five separate occasions (thre
By Shyama Sakhi Dasi and Shyama Gopi Dasi
Globally, as of today, there have been 104,370,550 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 2,271,180 deaths, reported to the World Health Organization. Many lives have been upended, disrupted and impacted in unprecedented ways as a result of the pandemic. Monumental efforts are undertaken to counteract the tightening grip of this novel coronavirus, an entity not even visible to the naked eye.
Vaccines to prevent the COVID-19 are perhaps the best hope for
By Shyama Sakhi Devi Dasi
Diagnosed Covid-19 cases and deaths as of October 30th, 2020.
Shyama Sakhi Devi Dasi (Shivani Agarwal, PhD Biotechnology, MSc Biochemistry) She is a Research Assistant Professor at the Department of Pharmacology and Regenerative Medicine, University of Illinois (UIC), Chicago, Illinois.
277 days ago, none of us had heard of coronavirus and everything we did was not shrouded with the specter of COVID-19. We welcomed the new decade, filled calendars, planned events and t
With the coronavirus death toll now exceeding one million people worldwide, the World Health Organization reported a record one-day rise in global coronavirus cases on Thursday October 8th,saying the total rose by 338,779 in 24 hours.
In this environment more ISKCON devotees are also falling ill with COVID-19 around the world. Most recently, senior Russian sannyasi Nitai Chaitanya Goswami was admitted to the ICU with severe symptoms. Yadunandana Swami, president of New Vrajamandala, Spain, has
By Gopal Bhatta das
Please do watch this valuable and informative interview about Covid-19 with Dr Madhavananda Das, Director, Bhaktivedanta Hospital. It is a simple but very insightful discussion.
About Madhavananda Das Dr. Ajay Sankhe has passed his M.D. in Pediatrics from Mumbai University in the year 1989.
For more than 25 years, he is in clinical practice and is renowned as a well known Pediatrician in the North region of Mumbai and Thane.
He is the Director of Bhaktivedanta Hospital and R
ISKCON Desire Tree and Hare Krsna TV have an extensive global reach which is fueled further during this pandemic. Learn more about what they are doing during the Covid 19 crisis and what is the scope for ISKCON in the future.
Braja Hari Das, among ISKCON India’s most respected and beloved leaders, Temple President of the Juhu temple (Mumbai), has been hospitalized with COVID-19. He is undergoing treatment in good medical hands and he is stable.
No other case of COVID-19 has been detected. We extend our heartfelt prayers for Braja Hari Das and the ISKCON Juhu devotee community.
ISKCON JUHU’S OFFICIAL STATEMENT:
We wish to share with the ISKCON devotee community that unfortunately one positive case of COVID-19 has bee
With your good wishes, since the lockdown, ISKCON has so far served 4 Crore healthy meals through its 73 kitchens across India to low-income families & migrants.
We thank all the volunteers & supporters for coming forward & helping in this time of need.
With the number of COVID19 patients on the rise, human society needs an introspection about the what’s going wrong about it. The series of two articles would help analyse the same. This article addresses those citizens who are suffering COVID19 and may seem to not win the battle. Life all of a sudden seems completely different from what it was a month ago for individuals affected by this disease. The thousands of dreams that were being built seem to be shattered. All of a sudden we realize that
By Madhava Smullen
ISKCON UK has been amongst the worst affected communities by COVID-19, with twenty-one confirmed cases in the greater London area congregation, and five devotees passing away.
Although the names of the others have not been officially released by their families, one of the deceased was Rameshvara Das, a disciple of Bhakti Charu Swami in his mid-seventies. A devotee for over thirty years, Rameshvara was instrumental in the campaign to save Bhaktivedanta Manor from closure i
For many years, the ISKCON GBC Strategic Planning Team (SPT) has been serving the GBC by offering strategic advice, guidance and solutions for the benefit of the whole of ISKCON. Now, to help devotees stay safe and cope with the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the SPT has put together a global task force team that gathers and disseminate both spiritually uplifting and materially useful information.
They collect content from anywhere in ISKCON (and beyond) and will share:
1. Ideas
She is a doctor fighting COVID-19 in the front line.
Materially she is helping the patients to recover from Coronavirus and Spiritually she is saving their souls from repeated birth and death by encouraging everyone to chant the Holy Name of Krishna. May the Lord and Srila Prabhupada give her all protection.
Salute to such warriors & other medical personals who are out there risking their lives for us!
May the Lord give them protection & more strength to help others.
Source: http://www.dandavat
