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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

By Thomas Haribol

When people say, “God will give you a sign,” they usually don’t mean that literally, but for me, that’s exactly what He did.

In 2015, I was driving south on I-15 to vacation at Capitol Reef National Park. This busy interstate carries millions of cars to the “Mighty Five” national parks in southern Utah. I’d traveled this western artery many times, but on this particular drive, I was gobsmacked to see a colorful “sign” along the road, a billboard showcasing a “Krishna Temple.”

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

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 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

From Back to Godhead

When Krishna leaves Vrindavana to become the ruler of a great kingdom, He remains the same Krishna, the treasure of His devotees’ hearts.

The Krishna deity worshiped at the Hare Krishna temple in Los Angeles, where I live, is named Dvarakadhisha, “the Lord of Dvaraka.” Dvaraka is the pristine island Lord Krishna rules in His adult years. (Although Krishna lived in Dvaraka when He was present on earth five thousand years ago, Dvaraka exists eternally in the spiritual world.

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

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

The luxurious growth of one of Krishna’s greatest devotees, who appears in a special form, attests to the devotion of two of her dedicated caretakers.

Srila Prabhupada once quoted an atheist as saying, “What is the use of watering the Tulasi plant? It is better to water eggplant. By watering the eggplant one can get some fruits, but what is the use of watering the Tulasi?”

Rudrani Devi Dasi, one of Tulasi’s caretakers at ISKCON Vancouver, responds to this challenge.

“Tulasi is not an or

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

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

By Prof. Keith Ward

Can a scholar be a true believer? Can a believer be a good scholar? Two parts of a problem that has exercised many in the West since at least the Enlightenment. Prof. Keith Ward, Regius Professor Emeritus of Divinity at the University of Oxford, takes a fresh look at the conundrum by examining some of the main problems and outlining a few principles that may help modern-day devotee-scholars.

Religion calls for total commitment and faith. Scholarship calls for critical reason

Since we don’t hear of a demon named Madhu in Krishna’s pastimes, why does Arjuna address Krishna as “the killer of Madhu”?

Madhusudana. The name always seemed curious to me. Where did it come from? In the Bhagavad-gita, one of our most sacred texts, Krishna is referred to as Madhusudana, or “the killer of the Madhu demon,” no less than five times (1.35, 2.1, 2.4, 6.33, and 8.2). And yet, Krishna didn’t kill a demon named Madhu. I looked through the vast storehouse of Krishna’s pastimes over an

Madhu means sweet. It means honey. Krishna is also called Madhu. In this material world there is one type of honey and in the spiritual world there is also a type of honey. The sweet honey in the spiritual realm is the real honey which we should hanker for. In this material world there is Kandarpa (Cupid) but in the eternal world, Madan (Cupid) is Krishna and everyone is attracted by Him.

The holy name and Krishna are non different. Even great personalities such as Brahma chant the holy name in

Perhaps we are the only society who is proclaiming, “Here is God, Krishna. Take it.” We are the only society in the whole world. Otherwise they are all misled, all misled.

Others may cooperate or not cooperate; we don’t mind. But we cannot change our policy. Our policy is, “Krishna says, ‘I am the Supreme.’ ” We must declare throughout the whole world that Krishna is the Supreme. Krishna says, mattah parataram nanyat kincid asti dhananjaya. (Gita 7.7) [“O conqueror of wealth (Arjuna), there is

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

How could your life change if you choose to think this way?

1. My human life is sacred and I am responsible to honor it in that way.

“The human body, which can award all benefit in life, is automatically obtained by the laws of nature, although it is a very rare achievement. This human body can be compared to a perfectly constructed boat having the spiritual master as the captain and the instructions of the Personality of Godhead as favorable winds impelling it on its course. Considering all th

From Back to Godhead

A devotee-bookseller explains.

Have you ever met a Hare Krsna devotee in an airport, a parking lot, or on the street distributing books and collecting donations? Many people wonder why we do this. I’ve been distributing books for over six years, and I’d like to tell you something about the origin of book distribution.

Devotees are not ordinary booksellers; their bookselling is transcendental. It is sankirtana, the glorification of Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead