It was tough for a second night in the bus, and not due to intense night heat in sharing space with thirty other people. An additional AC unit was installed. It was the irregular driving from the detours on Hwy. 90 in New York that caused many turns on secondary roads that made the ride somewhat uncomfortable. We were heading north to Quebec where it is a bit cooler. Hoping those notorious fires from Canada were subsiding.
I'm relatively happy despite inconveniences. I have all these younger fo
Wednesday morning, after clamoring aboard a United 747 Jet, I flew over the Pacific Ocean, crossed the international dateline, and landed in Tokyo, Japan at 2:30pm Thursday afternoon.
Ten minutes before our jet landed in Tokyo, our chief purser asked the passengers - who had been without sunlight for nearly eleven hours - to open their window shades.
The instant the passengers opened the shades we were treated to a most magnificent sight: the green earth below with all its majesty and variety.
From Back to Godhead
Making sense of Vedic Rituals
Are traditional rituals mere acts of blind faith, or are there scientific reasons behind following them?
An envelope protects and carries something valuable. It is the inner content of the envelope that’s actually precious. Similarly empty, meaningless rituals are like an empty envelope: devoid of any substance at best or downright offensive at worst.
Going beyond the externals of religion
Twenty five year old Nitin Sawant, a software engineer,
By Chirag Dangarwala
In many of Srila Prabhupada’s lectures he exclusively explains about the two topics sreya and preya. He explains that sreya means the ultimate benefit and preya means immediate profit. Just like children want to play all day long that is preya, but the parents know that they must go to school and learn in order to become educated, which in the long run will be beneficial for them, so that is sreya.
In Bhagavad Gita Lord Sri Krsna talks about sreya and preya in terms o
By Atma Tattva Das
In a recent interview, Visnu Murti Das, the driving force behind Vanipedia, shared an inspiring vision for the online platform and the new BLS Vani-Village project in Radhadesh – Belgium. With a passionate call for dedicated devotees, talented writers, and researchers to assist the platform, Vanipedia is poised to become a beacon of knowledge and inspiration for followers of Srila Prabhupada’s teachings.
Vanipedia, an integral department of BLS, is a groundbreaking online pla
By Khusboo Basan
The Bhaktivedanta Research Center (BRC) displayed priceless treasures from their library collection at the 52nd Kolkata Rath Yatra festival held June 20-28th. The Kolkata Rath Yatra is a grand chariot festival celebrated in West Bengal, India. The annual event is organized by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) and welcomes thousands annually.
The booth highlighted the important aims of BRC to collect, preserve, exhibit, research, publish, and teach the
Our bus pulled in from Washington into the ISKCON Brooklyn centre on Schermerhorne at 6:30 AM. A jump into the shower and a second jump into the street level temple room for conducting a Bhagavatam class was like a sudden splash into the water off the dock. Kichari, a mix of rice, dahl, and veggies, is becoming a constant at breakfast time. From energy giving to energy expending with a drama practice, our bus crew took to the New York subway to the Bhakti Center for darshan – a view of the Radh
We may be surprised to learn that many things we consider as acts of spiritual advancement in Krishna consciousness, like tapasya or austerity, are actually acts of selfishness, and will impede our real growth. Even following the four regulative principles in certain ways, can divert us.
“So this austerity is called tapasya, denial, self-denial” (class on SB. 5.5.1 in Vrndavana, Oct 23, 1976). To give up certain forms of selfishness is required to progress in spiritual life, and this is usual
The self has an unlimited capacity to sense, being sat-cit-ananda. These sensations are limited or defined by the body being inhabited. For example, the human body senses light energies across a spectrum that we interpret as red orange yellow green blue indigo violet. Above violet in energy, is ultraviolet, which is not detected by the human eye. Similarly, energies below this light spectrum include infra-red, which again is not visually sensed. Yet we know that these energies are there, becaus
By Thomas Haribol
In June, ISKCON News reported on devotees returning to survey the ISKCON Kherson Temple in Ukraine, which was severely damaged during the ongoing conflict there. Bhakta Max, a native of Kherson, had moved back into the building to remove debris and begin the restoration process. Sadly, within weeks, on July 4th, a rocket struck the Temple, smashing all the windows and putting a massive hole in the roof of the building. Thankfully, no one was harmed in this latest strike.
Other
Yudhistir Govinda Das, Director of Communications at ISKCON India, recently was awarded the designation of Fellow in the prestigious International Visitors Leadership Program (IVLP), administered by the United States government.
Spanning across notable cities such as Washington DC, Orlando, Salt Lake City, Raleigh, Charlottesville, and Santa Fe, the program facilitated fruitful meetings and engagements with a wide array of esteemed governmental, educational, civil society, and religious organiz
Washington is the place to be on the 4th of July. Our youth bus tour group which I've tagged along with for now, delighted in the fireworks. For me, no problem. I decided to hang out with Manorama, the bus coordinator, and his assistant, Madhava. I carried on with my regular Gita Chat Tuesday evenings while sitting in the bus dwelling on chapter 5, text 14, regarding the city that this body is. Yes, we are embodied, and while we are not this body, we still are in it. And as Chris, who was on th
In the first canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, in the dialogue between king Pariksit and Dharma (that appeared in the form of a bull) there is a passage that I struggled to understand for a long time:
“The King said: O you, who are in the form of a bull! You know the truth of religion, and you are speaking according to the principle that the destination intended for the perpetrator of irreligious acts is also intended for one who identifies the perpetrator. You are no other than the personality of re
In the heart of South Africa, a dedicated team of devotees has come together to form the African Ratha Yatra Alliance or ARYA. Led by Baladev Jagannath Das, the coordinator of programs and logistics, ARYA has been enthusiastically working to bring the devotional vibrancy of Ratha Yatra festivals to different corners of Africa. In a recent interview, Baladev shared the inspiring journey of ARYA and shed light on the challenges they have faced along the way.
The origins of ARYA can be traced back
Sripada Hridayananda Babaji Maharaja was born in Radha-kunda and has been a pujari for 78 years. He lives next to the Radha-Damodar Temple. When, at the beginning of an interview, Babaji Maharaja was asked if he knew Srila Prabhupada, he began to cry. He said, “Never have I seen anyone do sadhana as he did. I have lived all my life in Vraja, and I have never seen anyone like him. Prabhupada did many arduous things. He worked very hard there at the Radha-Damodar Temple. At that time it was auste
In Srimad-Bhagavatam (1.5.24), Narada Muni explains to Srila Vyasadeva how he attained, through the mercy of the Vaisnavas, an exalted spiritual position:
Although they were impartial by nature, those followers of the Vedanta blessed me with their causeless mercy. As far as I was concerned, I was self- controlled and had no attachment for sports, even though I was a boy. In addition, I was not naughty, and I did not speak more than required.
Srila Prabhupada explains in his purport:
But before
Krsna is full with six kinds of opulences. So this is the opulence of Krsna’s beauty. Krsna wants everyone…we are offering obeisances to Krsna with awe and veneration. But nobody comes here to Krsna with a rope: “Krsna, You are an offender. I shall bind You.” Nobody comes.
That is another one of the prerogatives of the most perfect devotee. Yes. Krsna wants that. This privilege is especially given to Yasodamayi, because she’s such an advanced devotee that she has got the right to chastise the S
“No one is born hating another because of the color of his skin/ his background/ or his religion. People must learn to hate/ and if they can learn to hate/ they can be taught to love/ for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. II – Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela was born in racist South Africa. The then apartheid regime discriminated between whites and non-whites. The whites- only government declared some areas of the nation as the exclusive property of the white populat
When I was a little boy, my mother taught me a lesson. She always emphasized, more than anything else, the quality of gratitude. She told me, “If you are not grateful for whatever you have, you receive, you can never be happy. Because if you are not grateful, whatever you get, you expect something else, or you expect more, or you think that you deserved it. But when you are humble and grateful, then whatever comes to your life, the apparent fortune and misfortune, you can actually find happines
