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By Shyamasundara Dasa

For some people the episode of Rama exiling Sita to the forest, while she was five months pregnant, is one of the most disturbing and incomprehensible events in the Ramayana. It seriously tests their faith; and in some cases actually breaks it, leading some to even offend Lord Rama. They forget it is a divine lila and that the Lord has His own reasons for doing what He does, and that they are not always within the purview of our tiny understanding.

To read the entire artic

The Ramayana is one of the two main itihasa - historical epics – of India, along with the Mahabharata. It describes the activities of Krsna’s incarnation Lord Rama, including the kidnapping of His consort Sita by Ravana, King of Lanka, and the subsequent military campaign to release her. Since a substantial amount of the history takes place in Lanka the actual real identity of Lanka is important to Vaisnavas and devotees of Lord Rama in general. For hundreds, perhaps thousands of years the isla

Sri Ayodhya Dharma Yatra

The Abode of Lord Ramacandra

Situated on the banks of the beautiful Saryu River, Ayodhya, also known as Saket, is the birthplace of Lord Rama and was the capital of the ancient Kosala Kingdom. Here, the Supreme Personality of Godhead in His quadruple expansion as Lord Rama, Laksmana, Bharata and Satrughna appeared as sons of Maharaja Dasaratha in Raghu dynasty in Treta-yuga.

Ayodhya was originally built by Vaivasvata Manu, who is the descendant of Svayambhur Manu, the

Today, in observance of Sri Rama-navami, we shall read a verse from Srimad-Bhagavatam, Canto Two, Chapter Seven: “Scheduled Incarnations.”

TEXT 24

yasma adad udadhir udha-bhayanga-vepo
margam sapady ari-puram haravad didhaksoh
dure suhrn-mathita-rosa-susona-drstya
tatapyamana-makaroraga-nakra-cakrah

TRANSLATION

The Personality of Godhead Ramacandra, being aggrieved for His distant intimate friend [Sita], glanced over the city of the enemy Ravana with red-hot eyes like those of Hara [who wanted

‘Lord Rama (BG 4.10)’ by Radhanath Swami, in Mumbai

janma karma ca me divyam

evam yo vetti tattvatah

tyaktva deham punar janma

naiti mam eti so ‘rjuna

(BG 4.9)

One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna.

PURPORT

The Lord’s descent from His transcendental abode is already explained in the 6th verse. One who can understand the truth of the appearance of

Dated: March 21, 1969

Location: Hawaii

Letter to: Tamala Krsna

My Dear Tamala Krishna,

Please accept my blessings. Your letter dated March 18th by special delivery is in hand and it is so gratifying that you have already saved $600 for the improvement of the temple. So I am very much pleased. Go on working like this and Krishna will give you ample money—there is no scarcity. Regarding the change of altar, you can do it later on, but your making up the feast room you can take care of immediately

Sri Hanuman, a great devotee in the form of a monkey, prays, “Since Lord Sri Ramacandra is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Vasudeva, He is not attached to anything in this material world. He is the most beloved Supersoul of all self-realized souls, and He is their very intimate friend. He is full of all opulences. . . .

“One cannot establish a friendship with the Supreme Lord Ramacandra on the basis of material qualities such as one’s birth in an aristocratic family, one’s personal beauty,

By NItai Gaurasundar Das

ISKCON devotees from France traveled to the Caribbean Islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe this past winter to perform Harinam in the streets. For some of the small towns, this was their first-ever exposure to Bhakti Yoga and chanting of the Holy Name.

The group was led by Jaya Bhakti devi dasi, a disciple of HH Guru Prasad Swami, who spent her own personal pension money to fund the pilgrimage. The harinam group consisted of Prasanatma das- a French Prabhupada disciple

You can feel spring in the air with the sun bright and any hints of snow now on a slow melt. When I step out the door, I know I have choices whether to turn left or right. Today’s choices turn right toward the Annex, the university (U of T), or just plain old Bloor Street, a favourite pedestrian-friendly avenue.

Once I got to the corner of Robert, a man by the name of Dan, 68, saw me and asked a common question, “Are you a monk?”

“Yes, I am. A Krishna monk.”

“I had a friend who worked with me i

Rishabh Verma: Reflections on the essence of the Valmiki Ramayana

The Vedic scriptures describe many different types of charity or dana. Of these, Srila Ramanujacharya identifies two types of charity as the highest – charity of self-knowledge (Jnana dana) and charity of fearlessness (Abhaya Dana). These forms of charity are not only recognized by Bhakti Yogis, but also by Buddhists. Both schools agree that Abhaya Dana is superior to Jnana dana because it removes the fear of repeated birth and d

By Vasant Pancami Das

Hare Krishna!

Dear Prabhus,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

Ai is the buzzword on everybody’s mind. I decided to use it as a powerful preaching tool. So I worked hard on it and came up with BhaktiAi a system within ChatGPT the most advanced and talked about Ai language model in existence today.
Microsoft has invested 10 billion dollars in the system. I invested time and conversational machine learning intelligence (because I don’t have

We’re spirits inside material bodies. If we do something about our own spiritual life—like find out who we really are and what we’re meant to do—life can only improve. We generally prefer consciousness to unconsciousness, except during surgery. Putting zero effort into finding our true identity and purpose while keeping our bodies and minds pleasantly occupied is like always stopping for gas but never eating. What good is keeping our car’s fuel tank full if we’re starving? How can we have a bal

By Thomas Haribol   

Springtime in New Vrindaban is like stepping into a colorfully painted landscape, and Mother’s Day weekend will unite its beauty with some of our movement’s most talented artists, musicians, writers, and creators in the second annual Vaishnava Arts Festival, May 12-14th, 2023.

Fittingly, the idea for the event came through the creative collaboration of HG Kalakantha Prabhu and HG Anuradha Dasi. “Coming from a background of Waldorf School’s pedagogy, I’m always looking for w

A very enthusiastic marathoner, Nitai Priya, spent hours on restructuring and redesigning a slide presentation for our much-needed Kirtan Standards Workshop. 40 to 50 attendees sat to listen, observe, and interact in this 4-hour seminar on how to approach and deliver the practice we almost like to do dash chant. The themes of this presentation are what our guru, Prabhupada, desired in the realm of sharing mantras, and secondly, inclusivity.

When we say ‘inclusivity’ in the matter of kirtan enga

There have been a number of scientific studies recently that try to analyze if animals have any form of morality. This is obviously complex since it is nigh impossible to get inside the mind of a poor dumb creature and there is always the accusation of anthropomorphizing.

The subject is important to many people because there seems to be various beliefs with vested interests in the interpretations. For instance, Charles Darwin believed that animals expressed morality and that what we understand a

Coco is a lovable dog proudly owned by an also lovable household couple who hosted this evening's ‘Gita Chat.’ While we conducted our discussion, Coco seemed to bark occasionally and spontaneously at times when it was just right, as if to confirm profound statements made. He is 3 1/2 years of age, full of energy, and moved about from participant to participant, who were all just sitting in the Lotus position (well, most of them). He is well behaved, like the people in asana formation, and was l

The disappearance of Srila Ramanujacarya. I will speak a little bit on his relationship with Mayapur dham. He visited Puri with his disciples. He was conquering the whole of India with his philosophy visistadvaita-vada. He was conquering and at that time he was in Puri and he was questioning the pundits that the system of worship recommended in Kali Yuga is pancaratrika worship but you all are using vaidiki worship because vaidiki worship, tantric worship. Pancaratriki worship is slightly in be

Chris from Hamilton gave me a call with a surprise. “Are you free on Tuesday coming up?”

“Mahabharata, the live drama, is showing at Shaw Theatre in Niagara-on-the-Lake for several days in two parts, ’Karma’ and ‘Dharma’.”

I told Chris that I’m game, so we are set to go to the theatre on Tuesday. Such performances come rarely.

Shortly after the news of the coming drama, I left for Queen’s Park for the weekly kirtan. Gabriel brough his guitar, so a group of us sat at the monumen