By Brahmatirtha das Director, Bhaktivedanta Institute for Higher Studies
The Legacy of the Bhaktivedanta Institute: Toward Fulfilling Srila Prabhupada’s Vision
In 1974, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada expressed his desire to “establish a Vaisnava Research Institute” to present the science of Krishna Consciousness for an intellectual audience. The following year, Prabhupada requested his disciple, Dr. Thoudam D. Singh (Bhaktisvarupa Damodara Maharaja), to establish an inst
The Jhulan Festival is celebrated in the month of Shravana (August), from the eleventh day of the bright fortnight (Ekadashi) to the full-moon day (Purnima). This festival is celebrated to commemorate the childhood pastimes of Sri Krishna with His friends, the young cowherd boys, and girls, swinging underneath the trees.
In Sri Dham Mayapur, Sri Radha Madhava is decorated nicely and seated on a swing. All devotees wait patiently in a queue to swing Their Lordships. The swing (Jhulana) beautifie
We have a family, we have a language, we have a culture and so on, and it seems like all this is a part of ourselves due to some sense of belonging. This is described, however, in the Vedic literatures as our false identity. It is explained that our true identity is totally different – we have actually no connection whatsoever with the place of our birth or culture. If one considers the land of their birth to be a part of themselves, is thinking that their body is themselves. It is then very d
The Pizza Effect
By Satyaraja Dasa (Steven J. Rosen)
It’s become a tradition at the Brooklyn Hare Krishna temple that my friends and I regularly engage in a particular game of words. It goes like this: Since Krishna consciousness is all encompassing, having relation to all material and spiritual phenomena, we choose a word at random and see how it connects to our philosophy. For example, at a recent Sunday feast, one of my friends said, “ice,” noticing that the lemonade in each of our cups cont
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
My wife and I recently invited some old friends to share prasadam with us at our home in Alachua, Florida. Although life in the Covid era had kept us physically apart for the last several months, our relationship with this couple has, both on the personal level and the service to ISKCON level, been consistent over the decades. The evening was filled with remembrances of good times, other friends, family members, including grandbabies, and yes … some trials and tribulations.
I first met my godbro
When we first met Srila Prabhupada and we told him we were artists, he immediately decided to engage us in making some paintings.
The first painting that he engaged us in was a four-foot by four-foot painting of Radha-Krishna that was to be hung in the San Francisco temple.
I had no idea what Radha-Krishna looked like so Prabhupada handed us his book cover to copy.
In the course of painting, I couldn’t tell what color Krishna’s eyes were since the picture I was copying from was too small.
In tho
By Acarya dasa, All India Padayatra leader
Having been joined at Rishikesh on May 11, 2022, by padayatris from the Maharashtra, Utkala-Banga and Uttar Pradesh padayatras along with several congregation devotees, the All India Padayatra began its char dhama yatra and after a journey of twenty days reached Badrikashram dhama on May 30, the AIP’s seventh round to Badrinath.
From Rishikesh we crossed the Panch Prayags, five confluences of the Alaknanda River: Dev Prayag, Rudra Prayag, Karna Prayag
So Vrndavana is just covered by cows. When you came to Vrndavana at the time of Krsna, you would hear the mooing of cows everywhere, and there was milking of cows everywhere too. The milk was being churned everywhere too. The cowshed of Nanda Maharaja was enormous. There were nine hundred thousand cows. And how many cows do we have here? Almost nine. So there were almost a hundred thousand times more cows at the cowshed of Nanda Maharaj, can you imagine?! I mean if we had nine hundred thousand c
Kurma Das is not just a wonderful chef and manager of his restaurants. He is a wonderful writer too and he takes us on a journey of when Srila Prabhupada visited Australia and New Zealand over the years. Five years of research and over 950 hours of interviews offer a stimulating book about Srila Prabhupada’s pastimes and ISKCON’s history down under.
Source: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=96018
This world is like an airport. Here, we are supposed to board a plane. But some people get so excited when they get to an airport because there are so many shops and they go shopping, and what happens is that they end up missing the plane. So, the purpose was that we had come to fly, we did not come for shopping, we came to fly to go somewhere.
It’s the same for us in this material world. So, this world is an airport and here we are meant to board the plane to fly to the spiritual world, that i
On the weekend of March 6-7th 2022, HG Sangita Devi Dasi (ACBSP) held a Vaishnavas CARE seminar called, “The Art of Caring for Vaishnavas” for the ISKCON Toronto Community. Sangita Devi Dasi is a hospice registered nurse and a certified grief counselor. She is an author of “The Final Journey”, a book in which Sangita Devi Dasi integrates the knowledge of hospice care for the dying with the spiritual wisdom given to us by Srila Prabhupada.
There were approximately 30 attendees who attended the s
Nepal is a 75% hilly country, so our chariot can’t go everywhere and we often need to walk from one village to another. We carry only our luggage and books and do book distribution and sankirtan. In Nepal, due to poverty and casteism many residents are converting to Christianity, having their books translated into the Nepali language.
There is less preaching of Sanatan dharma, but I was amazed to see the response of people to padayatra. As they hear harinama, they come out to join us and are v
Time ago , a particular news item caught my eye: “Shmeat: Reducing Animal Cruelty or Defeating the Purpose of a Sustainable Diet?” written by Sarah Jugovic.
The article explains that shmeat, also known as “in vitro” meat (i.e., test-tube flesh), is cruelty free – it is a lab-grown food product using animal stem cells to create an edible solid without killing the creature. Or so they say.
Shmeat has been in the works for more than a decade, the article tells us, and was conceived, in its present
By Satyaraja Dasa
In more ways than one, the word “movement” captures the essence of Lord Caitanya’s religion of the holy name.
I offer my respectful obeisances to the devotees of the Lord. Simply by their hearing the two syllables Krishna, their bodily hairs stand up in ecstasy and they become moved to dance in ecstatic bliss. With their sandals they expertly extricate the fallen souls deeply sunk in the fetid mud of the ocean of repeated birth and death.
( Rupa Gosvami, Padyavali, Text 54)
K
In Memoriam HG JAGANNATHA MISRA DAS
Hare Krishna
It is with great sadness that we acknowledge the sudden unexpected passing of HG Jagannatha Misra das, on the early morning of Saturday, July 30th, 2022 in Alachua. He was going through some health challenges.
Jagannatha prabhu was a big book distributor and collector for New Vrindavana in the early days. He also worked on the construction projects there and took care of cows. He spent a period of time in France as a married man. He was deeply af
On July 20th, Praghosa Dasa, a Governing Body Commission (GBC) member of ISKCON since 2001, resigned from the GBC. He made his resignation public in a video entitled “An Honor and a Privilege” on his personal YouTube page:
In the video, Praghosa Dasa explains his resignation is due to his disagreement with a GBC decision that is in process regarding Lokanath Swami and his position as initiating guru in ISKCON.
Praghosa Dasa outlined his reasons for stepping down based on that decision not bein
