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.
“Anyway, print books, distribute profusely, and that will be the best preaching work. What will your three minutes; preaching do?—but if they buy one book, it may turn their life. So make this your important task, to print our books…and distribute widely, and that will please my Guru Maharaja. Never mind it takes little time to make progress, our process is slow but sure, and we are confident that if we continue in this way we shall go one day back to home, back to Godhead.” - Srila Prabhupad
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
Context and Crux of Uddhava-gita
Bhagavad-gita is the great philosophical song by Lord Krsna on the battlefield of Kuruksetra to motivate His bewildered friend Arjuna. There is yet another Gita that Krsna sang in Dvaraka to pacify another of His friends named Uddhava. Famous as Uddhava-gita it forms the longest philosophical section of the magnum opus literature Srimad Bhagavatam.
Lord Krsna’s descent into this world was requested by the devatas headed by Brahma, to reduce the burden of the ear
By Chaitanya Charan Das
We all worry sometime or the other. And to some extent, worrying is just natural and unavoidable because so many things that are important for us are not in our control.
Still, if we consider the amount of mental time we spend on worrying, we will recognize that it is enormous – and enormously unproductive, in fact counterproductive.
While there are no quick fixes to the problem of excessive worrying, still we can progress towards a solution by appreciating that the sam
Traditions across the world have stories similar to the Western classic about Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde. In such stories, the same person acts sometimes like a principled, selfless benefactor and sometimes like an opportunistic, self-centered malefactor.
And similar is our own story too. What makes us behave like this? Our mind, or more precisely, the way we respond to our mind. Our mind reacts impulsively to external perceptions and internal recollections; it becomes infatuated with some things and
In our times, equality is considered one of the most cherished values. Few things provoke as much indignation as incidents of discrimination – or even allegations of discrimination. Such outrage is healthy, for it helps create a world where everyone has equal opportunities.
Still, what is the basis for our longing for equality? Intuition, we might say – we innately feel that everyone should be treated equally. Yes, but what is the basis of that intuition? In other words, what is the worldview t
By Chaitanya Charan Das
Suppose we accidentally take a drink that acts like poison for us in our particular health condition. As soon as we realize what we are doing, we will immediately stop drinking it and take some antidote.
When we gain spiritual knowledge, we understand that sensual indulgence acts like poison, even if it tastes initially like nectar (Bhagavad-gita 18.38). Despite understanding this, we still succumb to sensuality because our conditions or conditionings highlight the initi
There were three poor men who always desired great riches. One day a special delivery man handed to each poor man an envelope and informed each man, that within the envelope is a great fortune.
The first poor man did not think very much of the envelope, thinking it to be junkmail, he tossed it on a pile of similar mails that was supposed to make him a millionaire, or win a special prize, sweepstakes etc.
The second poor man opened the envelope and found a golden card. Thinking it to be real gol
We all have certain abilities that enable us to make a contribution and gain satisfaction.
When we use our abilities properly, we get a sense of self-worth and specialness. But sometimes those talents can also make us proud because we may feel superior to those who do not have such talents. To avoid such pride, we need to see our abilities appropriately. Gita wisdom explains that our talents are not our entitlements, that is, we are not entitled to have these talents. Even if we have certain ab
