By Urmila Devi Dasi
Activities and stories about Lord Balarama! Lots of fun things to do for children aged 2-18.
Here are many stories about Balarama, along with activities about the stories. The story activities were created by the Hare Krishna School in Auckland, New Zealand, under the direction of Prana dasa. There are also dozens of Balarama-centered activities in the areas of scripture, Deity worship, devotee association, holy places, and Balarama’s holy name. Have some transcendental fu
This is her writing from back in the eighties:
http://www.backtogodhead.in/three-days-in-nicaragua-by-lavangalatika-devi-dasi/
This is something I compiled:
Here in Los Angeles we are remembering the unique book distribution of Lavangalatika devi dasi, ACBS, that inspired everyone. She would regularly access areas of the world that no distributor had considered yet. I used to think of her as a secret agent. Now she has accessed the spiritual world. She just recently left us to go to Krishna.
A
By Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura
In his book of essays, entitled Upakhyane Upadesa, “Instructions in Stories” (Gaudiya Mission 1936), Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura gives the following commentary on the story of Ekalavya: The translation from the original Bengali is by H.H. Bhakti-caru Svami.
To many people, Ekalavya’s devotion to his guru is ideal, but there is a special consideration…What was Ekalavya’s fault? That should be considered. Wearing the mask of guru-bhakti (devo
I was a junior in high school and had one more year to go before I could be free of all my bad association, but the Laguna temple president Rsabhadeva recommended me to Prabhupada for initiation, so a letter went off to him.
So what did Krishna do while the letter went to Srila Prabhupada? My parents put me in the Santa Ana Psychiatric Center as a way of deprogramming me.
All of a sudden I wasn't coming to the temple, so Ratnanabha, who worked for the phone company, tapped my parents' phone and
Just after the 12 years of exile of the Pandavas was completed, they were considering where to spend the remaining 1 year incognito. While still in the forest, a brahmana came to them and reported that the sticks which he used for igniting his sacrificial fire had somehow gotten entangled in the antlers of a deer, and the sticks were now gone. The sage asked the Pandavas to see if they could possibly return the sticks. In a search for that deer, a very unusual event took place. They could not f
In Navadvipa lived a brahmana’s son who had no peer among the thieves. He was a brahmana in name only. His heart was filled with evil. He was the commander of an army of thieves. There was no mercy in his body. He always happily stayed among thieves. Seeing Lord Nityananda’s ornaments and His glistening necklaces of gold, pearls and coral, and seeing the many valuable things that decorated His graceful limbs, the brahmana thief decided to rob them all. Concealing his desire, the thief stayed al
Once Narada Muni could see that Kali yuga was going to come very soon.
So, he thought he will ask Krishna what the solution for this was, so he went to Dwaraka.
That time Krishna was staying at the house of Satyabhama and he had to inform Rukmini that He was going to her palace.
So, she had cleaned the palace with all her maidservants, and she got the kids dressed up.
She got the pandits there to chant Vedic mantras.
She had filled water pots and banana leaves also trees of sugar cane.
She did
In the spirit of Srila Prabhupada Marathon, here is a story from some thirty years ago in Russia, as told by Gautama Rishi Prabhu.
You know how Sanskrit names sometimes sound funny in our languages? So this Gautama Rishi went on sankirtana with a friend called Akula Das. Akula means "shark" in Russian. Not "sounds like" but literally means shark. For our English speakers, internet says that Akula class attack submarines make lion’s share of Soviet/Russia’s nuclear submarine force. "Akula" is tou
In Jagannatha Puri, besides the deity of Lord Jagannatha, there is another famous deity which was the Gopinatha deity of Gadadhara known as Ṭoṭā-gopīnātha. We had just described in the Caitanya Caritamrta that Gadadhara had taken a vow of ksetra-sanyasi. The vow was to just stay in Jagannatha Puri and serve the deity, but Caitanya Mahaprabhu said, “How can you break your vow?” And Gadadhara said, “I am not interested in keeping that vow. I am interested in the association of the Lord.” But Lord
The photo of Srila Prabhupada eating Sugar cane was taken in the first preaching center in Hawaii in an area named Kaaawa in March of 1969. It was Srila Prabhupada’s first visit to Hawaii and Govinda Dasi had arranged many preaching programs. We had borrowed Vamanadadev’s car and driven Srila Prabhupada into town(Honolulu) to KPOI radio station where Srila Prabhupada was going to be interviewed and talk about the chanting of Hare Krsna. Goursundar drove and Govinda dasi sat in the back seat behi
New manual on raising children in Krishna Consciousness was released on Amazon Kindle. “The fruits of childhood – On Raising and Educating Little Vaiṣṇavas (English Edition)“ by Labangalatika dd. Free preview is available here https://amzn.eu/0NMsG2a. It is based on teachings of Lord Krishna in Bhagavad-gita and His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Srila Prabhupada, on studies of academic literature as well as on personal and professional lifelong experience with preschool children. It offers ma
Andy Fraenkel was born in Germany in 1947 and came to America with his parents at the age of five. He is a multicultural storyteller, author, and workshop leader. He is the author of Mahabharata: The Eternal Quest and Hanuman’s Quest.
Andy is a long-time resident of New Vrindaban Community in West Virginia. He was initiated by Swami Prabhupada in 1973 and given the name Sankirtana Das. He is a presenter of the Krishna-Bhakti tradition and offers Katha – a traditional Vedic format of dramatic st
Since most of our temples and communities are currently in lock-down mode, The Bhaktivedanta Players have generously made their Vedic Stories for Children Audio series available to keep families enlivened and engaged in Krishna consciousness. Enjoy!
Read more: https://www.bhaktivedantamanor.co.uk/home/?p=13658
Dear assembled Devotees,
I was doing some work at my home, and I was listening to some Srimad Bhagavatam lectures giving by His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada told a humorous story about a rabbit that killed a lion. It was so transcendentally pleasing that I thought I would share this nectar with all the assembled devotees on this world wide web site.
“God’s energies are a variety. All those varieties are grouped into three divisions. Out of the three divisions there are tatas
A long time ago in China a girl named Li-Li got married & went to live with her husband and mother-in-law. In a very short time, Li-Li found that she couldn’t get along with her mother-in-law at all.
Their personalities were very different, and Li-Li was angered by many of her mother-in-law’s habits. In addition, she criticized Li-Li constantly.
Days passed, and weeks passed. Li-Li and her mother-in-law never stopped arguing and fighting.
But what made the situation even worse was that, accordi
The Patient
The attractive woman in her mid-thirties knocked on the door of the consulting room. Her usual pleasant face was clouded with worry and the picturesque journey from Mumbai to the hill-station Mahabaleshwar had done little to cheer her up.
“Yes?” asked a voice from inside the room.
She entered and said, “Dr. Sathe?”
The portly man with the ruddy complexion looked up from his desk and smiled. “Yes, that would be me. Good afternoon, please take a seat. How may I help you?”
She settled uneasi
The Test
November, 1982
“Hare Krishna. What do you make of this?”
Ramanand Prabhu, President of the revered Radhika-Krishna Temple, Vrindavan, pushed the letter across the table towards Laxmi Dasi.
The young devotee read the letter carefully and looked up in surprise. “I-I don’t
understand Prabhuji…”
“Nor do I,” said Ramanand Prabhu and shook his head wearily. He had recently taken up the post of the Temple President and was already beginning to feel the pressure of the responsibilities that went with
The Man in the Antique Shop
My acquaintance with him began a year ago.
After being laid off from my well-paying job in York, I had taken up a job in a factory in Manchester, fifty miles from my home. The job was tasteless, but at least it helped put some food on the table. My wife had cleaned me out after the divorce and my resources were meagre.
Every evening after work, my factory bus would leave me at this bus-stop. Here, I would have to wait for a connecting cross-county bus to take me on my ho
