As devotees, we talk a lot about getting free from the material energy, free from the influence of maya, free from our attachments to material sense pleasures and their objects.
Why do we want to do that? What would be the reason?
Sometimes it can be confusing. It may seem like we’re taking all this too seriously, when really it’s all Krishna’s creation and life in this world can have so many pleasures to offer us.
Here is an example that perhaps will illustrate the reasons.
Suppose you are in
By His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
God’s names are a divine gift that can lift us from the conditions of material life and return us to our original spiritual freedom.
Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you very much for kindly participating in this Krishna consciousness movement. This knowledge, bhagavata-dharma, was spoken by Bhagavan Himself, Lord Sri Krishna. Bhagavan is a Sanskrit word. Bhaga means fortune, and van means one who possesses. So bhagavan means the supreme fortu
Cholars, artists and folk cried after freedom from time immemorial. Unfortunately, it frequently continues to be cry only for a simple reason – nobody of them knows what constitutes freedom and what slavery. So the meaning of the freedom itself is degraded.
In this essey I will deal with with bondage in its unalloyed and primary form as defined in Bhagavad-gita, the oldest book of freedom. My subject is easily understandable analogy of thraldom, w
Karuna Sindhu is a safe driver behind the wheel and so I was his passenger, safely seated as we moved along eastward bound. It was momentous because this morning marked my first time beyond the Ontario border in approximately 16 months. We both felt a kind of freedom; enjoying what we could not for all this time. Entering into the city of Montreal was a sweet sensation and being greeted by the community of Vaishnavas I haven’t seen (many of them fairly new to bhakti) for so long was a real brea
Cholars, artists and folk cried after freedom from time immemorial. Unfortunately, it frequently continues to be cry only for a simple reason – nobody of them knows what constitutes freedom and what slavery. So the meaning of the freedom itself is degraded.
In this essey I will deal with with bondage in its unalloyed and primary form as defined in Bhagavad-gita, the oldest book of freedom. My subject is easily understandable analogy of thraldom, w
We may think that we are free because we are making our own choices according to our own liking. But what we fail to see is that when we are not following the four regulative principles closely, we are actually in the grip of kali. This is why Srila Prabhupada formalised the four regulative principles. Pānaṁ (intoxication), dyūtam (gambling), striyaṁ (illicit sex) and śunām (meat eating) are all mentioned as the four types of adharma (irreligion). Therefore, Prabhupada pointed out that we must
Everything in Julie’s life had spun out of control. Her dream job as a hotshot corporate banker had turned into a nightmare. It kept her working late into the night. The heels and the power suit in the Sandton high-rise building felt no different to a prison suit in a jail cell. There just wasn’t enough hours in the day. “God, why?” she murmured to herself in frustration. “Why am I not in control?” Julie contemplated resigning from work.
But it filled her with guilt for the family she has to ta
From Back to Godhead
A ten-year-old wonders, “Will Krishna recognize us when we return to Him?”
“Oh, these ropes of desires are strange indeed! A person tightly bound by them runs all around seeking happiness, but one freed from them stays calmly in one place.” (Niti-shastra)
“What’s it like to go back home to Krishna?” wondered ten-year-old Kiran at the weekly gathering for children from our congregation.
I responded by speaking about Goloka Vrindavana, our real home, where we aspire t
To be a well wisher of others, one could say: “Well, from now on, I’ll give something to every beggar on the street!” That is nice, but what will that person do with it? Maybe something destructive to himself? Maybe buy some intoxication? What good is that?
So no! We have to change the world into a world where everyone gets divine consciousness. We were out today and as we came back, we saw some police cars on the highway. The blue lights were flashing on the side. It looked like they were catc
Full happiness means full freedom. As long as we are not fully happy, we are chained, we are trapped and we are not free. Only in full happiness are we actually free. Therefore, only in Krsna consciousness we can be really free, because nowhere else are we able to be fully happy.
So this is nice to remember that devotional service is voluntarily performed. It is performed out of free choice and no one is forced in this way. Service can be our life, but this is our choice because Krsna does not
