The Religion News Association (RNA) has released its annual Top 10 Religion Stories of 2025, highlighting a year in which faith, politics, and global affairs collided in dramatic and often unsettling ways—from the historic election of Pope Leo XIV as the first U.S.-born pontiff to the far-reaching impact of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown on religious communities. Voted on by religion journalists across the United States, the list offers a snapshot of how belief and public life
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August 1973 at the Bhaktivedanta Manor, in the countryside near London. Several thousand guests (including the Indian High Commissioner) listen to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada speak about the day Lord Krsna made His appearance on earth.
Your Excellency the High Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you very much for your coming here and participating in this ceremony -Janmastami, the advent of Krsna. In the Bhagavad-gita [4.9] Krsna says,
janma karma ca me divyam
e
By Vikramini devi dasi
Looking at the ruins of what we’ve been calling until recently Western civilization, I can say that the mankind is illogical and irrational. Led by misguided and selfish leaders, people themselves planned and led their existence to its end, such as we knew it. How come we got here? Couldn’t the ruination of our world be prevented? Couldn’t any of the world leaders remember the bitter lessons of the millenary bloody history of mankind? And why the progress of material sc
Our consciousness is a very important factor. The most important factor in anything we do is our consciousness. And if we have material consciousness we will suffer, for sure. And if we have vaisnava consciousness we will be able to assimilate and digest different situations.
It may be one of those situations like walking through fire; and when you come out the other side you’ll be a new person. Many times with think if we walk through fire we will just get burned to ashes. And sometimes Krishn
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
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 Pusta Krishna das
The Glorification of the Holy Names is the Great Benediction for all the World’s Theistic People
Lord Chaitanya is not merely a prophet or messenger. We accept that He is the Supreme Lord appearing to give His great benediction upon the human society. By observation, we can understand that those of the Christian religion, those of the Islamic faith, those of the Jewish faith, and other theistic religions are rarely likely to give up their passionate faith in God according to
With the advancement of the ages, human consciousness had changed too. It is believed that today modern society has advanced far more than the ancient civilization. With more technology and equipments available at disposal, everything has become fast paced and instant. Material science has achieved a lot of progress than the yester years. This progress is thought of as an advancement in Civilization and is looked upon as a great achievement by the society. Today any nation, not using the lates
Kirtan is the call-and-response form of chanting that characterizes the Hare Krishna movement. It is the fundamental religion of the age – the soul crying out for God as a means to reunite with Him.
Robert Gass, author of Chanting: Discovering Spirit in Sound, believes that ritual chanting is among the most universal of human impulses, as well as one of the first: “We have no recordings of the earliest humans,” he writes, “but when we encounter indigenous tribes who’ve had little contact with m
Today is the world friendship day and great friends embrace each other and celebrate the occasion exchanging jiggles and giggles. A good friend is not always the one in need, but the one in deed. The best of all buddies is the supreme friend, the master of all. He created and protects us and unto Him we all return. He dwells in us although we are unaware of Him. That Supreme friend is Krshna and here is a brief about an absorbing story of a great friendship with Him.
The Bhagavata Purana descr
By A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
On the 16th of February 1957 a meeting was held at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan to discuss the above subject matter. Distinguished gentlemen from different categories spoke on the subject, but practically nobody could give us a definite direction as to what actually the matter was that was troubling the whole situation. This feeling of pinching in the existence of our life is a good sign for progress. It is an urge for enquiry what is the wrong in the world
Maya: The World as Virtual Reality By Sadaputa Dasa (Dr. Richard L. Thompson)
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
By Yogesvara dasa
Introduction
A Native American storyteller named Ron Evans tells a tale that warms the heart of all who agonise over the effects of contemporary media. Ron visited Africa some years ago and was present the day electric lines were installed for the first time in a tiny village. Along with wiring came a gift from the local government: the village’s first television. Ron describes how the entire village sat mesmerised for three days watching every programme. Then as if on cue, r
A man of experience—meaning middle-aged—and dressed very finely, spotted me on the park bench where I was alone chanting on my beads. He came toward me, stopped at a healthy distance and asked, “So you a man of faith; what do you make of all of this?“
“You mean corona?“
“Yes.“
“It’s an opportunity to slow down our pace, enjoy more of the quiet, enhance our gratitude for what we have, become introspective and hold onto our patience.“
The gentleman smiled approvingly. He mentioned that he
Walking along Spadina, to my right I observed a lovely Presbyterian church with a message out front: “The world is both beautiful and terrible.“
Minutes later, a cyclist with longish hair pulled over. “Didn’t the Buddha say, “The world is a place of pain?”
“My response was: “Krishna states, ‘The world is a place of suffering, and that it’s temporary.’“
Then on Augusta Avenue, I met one of the musicians who would venture our way at the local park to join us in Kirtan. Still around, I thoug
I'm off to India again, this time with Corrado. Do I like India? Yes and no, like any place on this planet. I love spiritual India, her sacred places, retreats. Overall, people are nice. They go the extra yard/metre to win the favour of a swami.
You have to make the most of any place where you are. And India, with her dense population, noise, contaminants in the air, and traffic can be one big hurdle. I have come to the point where I try to overlook that side and view the faces of smil
By Brahmananda Dasa
From the beginning of time, man has yearned for the perfect home a paradise, a Shangri-la, a Walden where he could live eternally in peace and happiness. Such a place cannot be found anywhere in the material world, however, for the material world is by its very nature temporary and frustrating. To end our weary searching, we must go beyond this world of duality, beyond the boundaries of space and time, into the spiritual realm.
Vrndavana, India, is that sought-after eternal
