Srila Prabhupada: In 1936, just on the 13th, December, I wrote him one letter. Not 13th. I think by the beginning of December, 1936, I wrote one letter to Guru Maharaja. I knew he was little kind upon me, so I wrote that “Guru Maharaja, you have got many disciples. I am also one of them. But they are doing direct service to you. Some of them are brahmacaris, some of them sannyasis, but I am a householder. I cannot…” Of course, I was giving sometimes some monetary help, but I could not give any
srila prabhupada (755)
By Srila Bhaktisiddhanata Sarasvati Thakura
In the early 1930s, the intrepid preacher of Krishna consciousness receives grand receptions from the devoted people of South India.
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura was the spiritual master of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. This article is an excerpt from Sri Bhaktisiddhanta Vaibhava.
South India, 1930–31 and 1932
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati wanted to install 108 pada-pithas (replicas of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s f
By Aisvarya Kisori Devi Dasi
Gitanushilanam 2024 is the world’s largest online Bhagavad-gita competition dedicated to ISKCON Founder-Acharya His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. It is the annual flagship event of Learn Gita Live Gita (LGLG) to celebrate the Gita Jayanti 2024.
Learn Gita Live Gita is an initiative under the leadership of Lila Purushottam Das (Director-IIT Mandi, Director-BGIS Vrindavan) to bring success and happiness to every person in this world, irrespective o
The Deep Ecology movement is rooted in the conclusions of Professors Lynn White and Arne Naess. By the late 1960s, Prof White, a historian and university president who had studied the development of technology from medieval times to the present, published “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis”. In that influential article, he identified society’s mentality of anthropocentrism (human-centrism) as the root cause of the ecologic crisis. Shortly after that, Prof Naess, philosopher and enviro
By Giriraj Swami
Today is the auspicious occasion of Gita Jayanti, the day Lord Krsna spoke the Bhagavad-gita to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kuruksetra, the day of Moksada Ekadasi. To begin, we shall read from Bhagavad-gita As It Is, Chapter Nine, “The Most Confidential Knowledge,” two verses that can provide us with guidance for our lives:
TEXT 30
api cet su-duracaro
bhajate mam ananya-bhak
sadhur eva sa mantavyah
samyag vyavasito hi sah
SYNONYMS
api—even; cet—if; su-duracarah—one committi
The Advent of Srila Prabhupada's
Bhagavad-gita As It Is
— Presented by Srimati Dasi and team
ISKCON, Sri Vrndavana Dhama
Read more: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=92124
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
The desire to see God, to touch God, to talk to God is in itself probably the strongest argument for His existence; besides the logic and evidences from the scriptures, this direct experience is very significant indeed. Bringing Deity Worship from the insiders circle of elderly pujari-priests and making it part of the congregational development is probably the only way it may become part of the positive future for many places in ISKCON. While everyone hankers for direct experience of God in per
From Back to Godhead
How we value, acquire, use, and relate to money reflects our inner state of being.
Sri Sukadeva Goswami said, “Money does not stay in one place. It passes from one hand to another. Ultimately no one can enjoy money, and it remains the property of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.” (Srimad-Bhagavatam 5.14.24) Money is God’s energy. He created it, He owns it, and He controls it: “Everything animate or inanimate that is within the universe is controlled and owned by the Lord
Looking to post my daily Srila Prabhupada quote I stumbled upon the beautiful chapter 22 of canto 8, describing pastime of Bali Maharaj. It was amazing to read how Krishna expertly, what else can we expect from Him, bestows opulence on His aspiring devotees. On one hand He grants a lot to some while on the other hand He takes away everything from others.
It is a misplaced perception that Krishna does not grant opulence to His devotees, in fact His devotees receive limitless opulence, there are
By Gopika Radhika Devi Dasi
Books were what set Mayapriya Dasi on her road to Krishna Consciousness. A practitioner of Krishna Consciousness for over five decades now, Mayapriya dasi is a disciple of Srila Prabhupada. She says that her strong connection with Srila Prabhupada’s vani has sustained her unswerving service to his mission. Back in the 1960s, like numerous other American college students, Mayapriya Dasi and her husband-to-be were spiritual seekers who considered various yoga groups unt
In Krishna Consciousness we hear many viewpoints about spreading the movement of Lord Caitanya. In reality there is not one fixed way to attract a conditioned living entity. A conditioned living entity who has achieved a rare benediction of having a human body has a unique existence and is driven by a unique desire and a unique fear. Preaching strategies differ from person to person and community to community. We need to understand the culture of a place and a counter-culture. The identificat
The following is a partially-edited transcription of a lecture given on May 01, 2001 in Moscow – Our Progress in Life is Gauged by Our Chanting
I am very happy to be back in Moscow after six months. It’s hard to believe it’s already been six months since the last time I was here. One realization I am getting a lot is how fast time goes. Doesn’t seem very long ago that I was sitting here giving a class, but it’s already been six months.
As we all know from various understandings of Kṛṣṇa conscio
The names of Krishna are the repository of all happiness and the greatest wealth. If we chant properly, we will not experience material miseries, but we may experience what the materialist might mistake as misery: the spiritual joy of intense separation from Krishna.
Since that joy comes from proper chanting, we might wonder how we can chant with attention and concentration, even if we are not yet pure devotees of Krishna. How can we control the mind? How can we keep ourselves from thinking of
ŚB 3.12.3
dṛṣṭvā pāpīyasīṁ sṛṣṭiṁ
nātmānaṁ bahv amanyata
bhagavad-dhyāna-pūtena
manasānyāṁ tato ’sṛjat
Synonyms
dṛṣṭvā — by seeing; pāpīyasīm — sinful; sṛṣṭim — creation; na — did not; ātmānam — unto Himself; bahu — much pleasure; amanyata — felt; bhagavat — on the Personality of Godhead; dhyāna — meditation; pūtena — purified by that; manasā — by such a mentality; anyām — another; tataḥ — thereafter; asṛjat — created.
Translation
Seeing such a misleading creation as a sinful task,
Srila Prabhupada came to the Western world to give us the holy name. He did so on the order of his spiritual master, with full faith in the holy name, that if people like us would just chant the holy name, everything else would follow.
Srila Prabhupada had a godbrother named Akinchana Krishnadasa Babaji, whom Prabhupada said was a paramahamsa, a liberated soul. Babaji Maharaja approached another godbrother of Prabhupada’s, who had been sent by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura to England
By Sri Chaitanya Chandra Das
The last thing people would like to discuss or even think is ‘Death’. But they often don’t last till last to discuss or even think about what really death is! Man has made so much innovation in technology that with little remote control he can control satellites from thousands of miles away. Or he can put so much complexity into a small electronic chip to work wonders. But death challenges all human advancements. It is an affront to the genius of modern human. Nobo
By Satyaraja Dasa (Steven J. Rosen)
I recently heard a woman say, “least but not last.” She meant to say the usual, “last but not least,” but somehow, due to a slip of the lip, or perhaps because of some mild form of dyslexia, she inverted the words in this somewhat humorous way. And this got me thinking about humility, which people sometimes confuse with low self-esteem, thus viewing it as an inferior quality. To think of oneself as “least” is the last thing one would want to do.
Our Krishna-c
The hero of India’s epic Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna, is at a crossroad. He is intelligent, well-intending, and overwhelmed by a dilemma we all might recognize: the apparent incompatibility of worldly responsibilities and other-worldly aspirations. Arjuna is a warrior who feels the call to a more peaceful, non-invasive life. On the verge of a mammoth war he refuses to fight, even though the enemy is an aggressor who must be brought down. Like Arjuna, once we acknowledge the call to a more enlightened
By Kulavati Krishnapriya Devi Dasi
The Gift Prabhupada Project is an initiative undertaken by a group of devotees to gift a miniature (54 mm) brass murti of Srila Prabhupada, particularly to his direct disciples. Alloyed within the brass murti are coins donated for Srila Prabhupada’s books from each of the 25 countries he personally visited, symbolizing the global impact of his teachings.
The box enclosing the murti features a backdrop that includes fragments from the original jackfruit tree un
