Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s instructions come to the aid of those of us who shudder at the mention of the word “surrender.”
Growing up, my older brother and I would sometimes get into physical fights. I can’t remember what we would fight about, but a few times a month when my parents weren’t home we would end up in a skirmish. He would often bend my arm behind my back, telling me to surrender by saying “uncle.” I would scream and push and stomp until the pain would become unbearable. Then I would ye
God is one. Moreover, according to Caitanya Mahaprabhu, that one God is Krishna, the cowherd boy of Vrindavan, who chooses to expand Himself unlimitedly still remain the same one Supreme Person, just to increase His own pleasure. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (1.3.28) designates this original Godhead as svayam bhagavān: Kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam.
The Supreme Personality of Godhead has three primary energies. The first is antarańga–śakti, or the internal potency. The second is known as taṭastha–śakti, th
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
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
Love is our innermost longing. Gita wisdom declares that our longing for love is best fulfilled when we learn to love Krishna. Let’s understand this central Gita teaching in five parts:
1. Loving Krishna enables our love to break free from all limi
Today, when we are noticing an increasing number of terrorist attacks across the world, when lives are being taken mercilessly in the name of religion, when it is no more easy to trust and provide shelter to another, when intolerance and hate is brewing in the society like never before, it is time to introspect into the very values and principles that make us humane and civilized, distinct from the animals.
The oldest texts of the world, the Vedic literature, give us the much required insight i
From Back to Godhead
Why we should surrender to Lord Krishna’s lotus feet.
At the junction of two ages, amidst two immense armies arrayed on the battlefield at Kurukshetra, Arjuna scans his foes and becomes confused. When Krishna expounds eternal dharma to enlighten him, Arjuna addresses Krishna as pavitram paramam: “the purest of the pure.” (Bhagavad-gita 10.12) Arjuna adds, “All the great sages . . . confirm this about You, and now You Yourself are declaring it to me.”
Apart from the Bhagavad
Loving Krishna means loving everyone because Krsna is in their heart. Conversely, applying that logic backwards, if you don’t love everyone, it means that you are not loving Krsna. Using the root and leaves example, if the leaves are looking healthy, it is to be understood that the root is receiving nourishment.
In SB, eleventh canto, it is explained that only the kanishta or neophyte sees Krsna in the temple, but not in the hearts of all, and fails to respect and develop loving relationships w
By His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Pradyumna: (leads chanting)
sanjaya uvaca
dantva tu pandavanikam
vyudham duryodhanas tada
acharyam upasangamya
raja vacanam abravit
[Gita 1.2]
Translation: “Sanjaya said: O King, after looking over the army gathered by the sons of Pandu, King Duryodhana went to his teacher and began to speak the following words:”
Srila Prabhupada
Prabhupada: Dhatarantra inquired from Sanjaya, kim akurvata: “After my sons and my brother’s sons assembled to
By Sacinandana Swami
There is one foundational principle of the Bhagavata philosophy, which is enacted and taught practically by Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu during His earthly pastimes. By understanding it you will be able to live and apply what Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu had come to teach us. This foundational principle is to establish a relationship with the Lord through the mood of separation. This is best practiced in kirtan.
RECEIVING THE HOLY NAME
We have heard it so many times – in order to re
Discipline methods should be in harmony with our educational goals. And what is the goal of gurukula education? Many devotees have proposed their own objectives. Here are a few: to produce moral citizens, to produce “not hippies,” to produce productive members of the outside society who can maintain devotional principles, to produce book distributors, to produce temple devotees, or to produce varnasrama members.
To help us decide the proper goal of gurukula, let’s look at the often quoted descr
From Back to Godhead
We all worship someone all of us but the question is…
One of the principles of worship is at traction. When you are reverentially attracted to someone, you have the desire to establish a relationship with that person, and when the relationship is established then you want to perform some worship. Therefore the most important principle is attraction. So the question is what makes a person attractive?
In a spiritual discourse if we announce beforehand that there will be a lec
Srimad Bhagavad Gita: A Pathway to Inner Awakening
This article on Srimad Bhagavad Gita has been written by Premanjana Das (Pranjal Joshi)
Premanjana Das (Pranjal Joshi) is a writer, blogger, healer, spiritualist, software engineer and a management graduate who has been writing for more than two decades in various magazines, websites, newspapers, and forums.
I have read several books in my life. Each one of them had a message to give and a purpose to serve, since words have immense power to re-
A devotee sees all as God’s dear children and wants to relieve their misery.
As eternal parts of Krishna, we naturally possess some of His quality of being concerned for the welfare of all living beings.
Krishna, the seed-giving father of all living beings (Gita 14.4), is also the well-wisher of all living beings (Gita 5.29). As a father wants the best for his children, Krishna wants the best for every one of us. And as a father provides for his children, so Krishna provides for all of us – eko
Srila Prabhupada says that Narada is a great personality and he was so pleased by the devotional attitude of Dhruva, that he could have just given him everything. He could have given Dhruva exactly what he wanted. Why didn’t he do it? [a devotee replies that it was because he wanted Dhruva to surrender to Krishna]. Yes, essentially that’s correct. He wanted him to follow the correct path, he wanted him to engage in devotional service.
You see, and this helps us to develop our perspective about
The great sage Parashara, the father of Vyasadeva, listed six essential qualities of God. Srila Prabhupada shows that Krishna has them all.
By His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, lecture given in Los Angeles on May 18, 1972
Lord Krishna meets the definition of God given in the Vedic literature, and He can teach us everything about the nature of reality.
Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you very much for your kindly participating in this Krishna consciousness movement. When this
“Is chanting all that your religion does? Don’t you do welfare or anything like that?”
Alex, my barber, works at the Pilatos salon in Queens, New York, on the cusp of a Hispanic neighborhood. The salon has mostly Latino hairdressers and clients, and it is bright and upbeat, with salsa music often playing softly in the background. On a recent visit there, instead of salsa, I heard the chanting of om namo bhagavate vasudevaya, which means “obeisance to the Supreme Lord Krishna.” I remarked to Ale
Excerpt from the lecture by HH Nirañjana Swami
Baltics Winter Festival, January 17, 2014
The following is a partially-edited transcription of an excerpt of a lecture given on January 17, 2014, at the Baltics Winter Festival – Chanting with Feeling
Today I wanted to read and speak from a few quotes about the Holy Name. Some of them I have read recently and found a lot of significance to them, not only to myself but those with whom I shared them. A lot of times the devotees struggle to make their
Have you checked, if your heart longs for Krishna or is still attached to things of this world?
Externally we may dress perfectly, speak expertly, recite shlokas scholarly, sing melodiously but these qualities may not attract the attention of the Lord. Maybe we are doing it to seek people’s attention and self-glorification.
Krishna hardly bothers about our externals instead he directly peeps into our heart to see whether our heart longs for him or it hankers for something else.
When Duryodhana
Excerpt from a lecture by HH Radhanath Swami
“Srila Prabhupada stressed the urgency to surrender to Krishna. Every line of his books, every sentence of his tapes, you would hear him urgently, just pleading with you and me, to take Krishna Consciousness seriously. Death, tragedy can come at any moment. And the greatest tragedy is that our faith is stolen away by maya and her various representatives which can come in many forms. There is no comfortable position when we are secure in material exis
