The Vedic scriptures reveal that Mayadevi, Lord Krishna’s deluding potency, works with certain energies that have the capacity to make material life seem like normal life.
As we go about our everyday activities in the material world, we are continuously confronted with the normality, or normalness, of material existence. In other words, we are constantly bombarded with the notion that material life, with all its mundane rationality, constitutes normal life and that this world
From Back to Godhead
“My father and the coach at UCLA were pleased with my volleyball successes, and my mother was satisfied with my academic work. But I wondered if Krishna was pleased.”
I was born in Los Angeles in 1949. My parents were avid volleyball players. My father had been one of America’s best, and my mother had been a third-team All-American. I started playing volleyball when I was four. I passed through school easily. Sports dominated my free hours, and generally my childhood was a
From Back to Godhead
In the Bhagavad-gita (7.14) Lord Krishna refers to maya, the deluding material energy, as mama maya: “My maya.” We Vaishnavas accept His word on this, with profound philosophical implications.
The chief philosophical opponents of Vaishnavas are the Mayavadis, or impersonalists, who posit ultimate reality as one homogeneous impersonal energy, with no second thing: All the unique entities we perceive, whether things or living beings, are merely mirages. Variety and individual
The Sanskrit word maya means that which is not. In other words, it is illusion. For example, if a servant of a king thinks that he is the king, that is illusion. Generally, it is the illusion of all human beings that they are the lords of all they survey. But the actual fact is that they are under the grip of strict laws. They are trying to exploit the resources of material nature, but are becoming more entangled in nature’s complexities. Since this maya is illusion, or unreality, it can be s
In the world of modern science, consciousness is reduced to a fading epiphenomenon, leftover after the brain has been physically explained.
It seems to arise when matter is suitably organized, but scientists and philosophers have been unable to explain why complex organization should produce anything beyond complex physical behavior. Yet consciousness won’t go away. This groundbreaking book shows how conscious beings
Srila Prabhupada: Infected or disinfected. In the material world we are all infected. This is the disinfecting process: simply remembering Krishna—yah smaret pundarikaksam. This initiation is to teach how to always remember Vishnu and Krishna. As soon as we hear this Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare, we immediately remember Krishna, His speech in the Bhagavad-gita, His form, His name, His qualities, His pastimes. Everything come
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
The habit of criticizing devotees is like cancer. One may think that I'm doing it for many years but nothing has happened. Cancer can stay in the body for many years undetected before it finally strikes. This habit of fault-finding and duplicitous behavior keeps increasing with time. Under the influence of Maya we think everything is alright but actually the disease is spreading before it finally strikes.
Lecture on Srimad-Bhagavatam 7.15.23
(- By H.H.Gopal Krishna Goswami Maharaj 31.01.17 in Juhu
We see that the residents of Vrndavana may forget Krsna’s divine nature, but they never forget Krsna Himself. And that is the thing, we should always remember Krsna. So whether we come together with many and sit in a pandala and discuss how Krsna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, or whether we are alone. There is no difference, because in reality, we are never alone. We are always with Krsna. In this way we realise that loneliness is actually maya. Loneliness is illusion. When we are feeli
