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By Mahatma Das

I want to tell you a story that you may have heard. The part you may not have heard, the second part, it is so beautiful!
So Prabhupada was being guarded by a devotee and late at night two or three in the morning Srila Prabhupada came out to use the restroom and that devotee asked: “can I serve you?”
He said “yes you can go where I’ve never gone, you can go in the future, after I die, you can go where I can’t go because you will go on in the future that I can’t go. Then Prabhupad

(Adapted from classes by His Grace Vijaya Das and His Grace Chaitanya Charan Das)

In August 1965, Srila Prabhupada, under the instruction of his spiritual master Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur, traveled with a mission to share the timeless wisdom of Krishna consciousness with the Western world. Srila Prabhupada sailed from Calcutta, India to New York City aboard a cargo ship, with a mere seven dollars in Indian rupees and his translations of sacred Vedic texts. Upon reaching America, Sr

By Radhapriya

ISKCON Toronto will once again be holding Toronto’s biggest annual kirtan to commence its Ratha Yatra festivities. Being held at the ISKCON Toronto temple on Friday, July 15th, kirtan leaders from around the world will be descending upon the city to chant for 12 continuous hours. As part of ISKCON Toronto’s 50th annual Ratha Yatra festival celebrations, this year’s 12-Hour Kirtan will be bigger than ever and is an event that is not to be missed. 

In 2020 and 2021, the Toronto kirt

Not but a few days ago I signed papers for registering ISKCON Saranagati with the property in Venables Valley, British Columbia. Today I signed papers for our newest project, ISKCON Milton. Also, I noticed when I returned form the airport, our downtown centre at 243 Avenue Road has got a new paint job. The work on all window and door frames is still in progress. It looks spiffy, classy, handsome.

Anyway, all the above achievements indicate we are growing and improving, yet much work still needs

By Sunanda Das

Please take a look at these elegant marble railings that will be placed on all three levels of the museum floors of the main temple room.

These wonderful railings, with exquisite peacock reliefs, are made of the highest quality marble and brought to us here directly from Makrana (Rajasthan), the only place in India where there is a deposit of such marble. The famous Taj Mahal in Agra was made from the same Makrana marble. The peculiarity of this marble is that it does not turn ye

On June 22nd, 2022 at the Vedic wedding ceremony of Jayesh Dasa and Elsa Thunander, ISKCON Almik Farm community had the honor of receiving the Indian Ambassador to Sweden and Lativa, H. E. Mr. Tanmaya Lal and his wife, Mrs. Sumita Lal.

Read more: https://iskconnews.org/swedens-indian-ambassador-visits-iskcon-almik/

New initiate, Mukunda Madhava, sent me a pic of his five-day old baby, Hari Priya. Sweet indeed. It is the hope of her parents (Nancy is her mother) that naturally Hari Priya will grow up to be a strong devotional human being.

Mukunda, Vallabha and I went for that early stroll to the nearby Chinese/Punjabi farming district. There is it peaceful and calm.

By noon, the Vancouver areas was heating up and I found the temple room a trite stuffy, but visitors were anticipating a recharge, spiritually

Man has the chance to bloom spiritually by raising himself to the highest level of love of God.The Vedic scriptures divide consciousness into five categories, namely covered, shrunken,budding, blooming, and fully bloomed.

Trees and plants, for example, are almost inert. They fall into the “covered consciousness”category. They seem to show no sign of consciousness, but when we observe them carefully, we see they have a limited consciousness.

Other living entities, such as worms, insects, and oth

In Stratford, I met Sandy, a Westpac Bank worker from New Zealand, who told me that she has most of these books and LOVES reading them. She said that every time a devotee comes through, she buys another book.

“These are not books you just read once and move on,” she said. “I read them through fully, then after a few months I re-visit them and start reading them over again.”

She was so inspired, and she really takes shelter of Prabhupada’s books. This time, we sat on a park bench, and I showed h

As I was chanting my rounds in the metro, somewhat disheartened because I wasn’t able to preach to anyone (they were all into phones & magazines), a man around 40, wearing fashionable cloths – yet quite worn out and dirty after a more careful look – entered the train with many bags in his hands.

I concluded that he was yet another homeless (there are more and more of them lately) and perceived his sad, bitter smile. He came by me and said something I didn’t hear, so I faintly smiled back.

“Oh,

Bhaktivedanta Manor’s goshala, New Gokul Farm, is dedicated to the welfare of a beautiful herd of cows, oxen and two bulls. Beyond meeting their everyday needs, the goshala team love preaching to our community about Śrīla Prabhupāda’s teachings of Cow Protection! We enjoy delivering courses on Cow Protection with the School of Bhakti, hosting retreats, and doing workshops. But for the very first time, we headed to a school to preach about Cow Protection to young students!

Friday 8th July 2022 w

Fluff floats in the air at this time of year, which is actually seeds sent off by poplars. Well, that is what is occurring in many places in North America, and the several acres off of Marine Drive, the location of the “Sage the Earth” event at ISKCON, is also having that magical touch.

Ananda Gauranga, the priest for the event, is conducting the fire ceremony, not missing a beat with his Sanskrit mantra pronunciation. “He sounds like an auctioneer,” happily blurted out Patrick, the sound man a

All of us need to find an identity in Krsna Consciousness. We are all servants but we need to find a service that meets our nature and ability.

Source: https://www.kksblog.com/2021/06/finding-a-service/

These are all the activities of sadhana-bhakti-yoga, it cleanses the heart from the conception that “I am the body” and it changes the spirit of possessiveness from “I want to possess things for myself, my enjoyment” to “I only want to possess Krishna”. And when we give ourselves to this process of hearing and chanting about Krishna, then the more we do it the more we want to do it, because we get the taste and there is nothing that’s more powerful than the taste. And when we get the taste for

We hired a gardener for a job at our home in Perth. His job was to help our plants get some nutrition. I offered to be his assistant, for which he offered us a small discount.

James arrived on the scheduled day, and I put on my gardening hat and was out on the earth. As we worked, laying down heaps of soil conditioner and mulch, my laptop played some nice kirtans.

James commented, “This music is really nice. It is very soothing.”

I agreed and told him it is spiritual music.

After working in the

I was out in a remote village in Gujarat, walking through the village, and many people said, “We already have the Gita.” This is a common response. It’s true, most households do have a copy, so then I ask the question, “Do
you read it?” The answer is often no. So I reply, “Please read at least a verse a day.” Or I introduce those stuck on their mobiles, who have “no time” to read to Mayapur.tv or another devotional site.

After receiving many rejections for the above reasons, I passed two homes

Congratulations to Bhakta Michael who accepted diksha initiation. What a fine person he is! A gourmet chef and caterer, he is also a good devotee. His Sanskrit name now is Mukunda Madhava.

Offering initiation to Mukunda Madhava is one of my reasons for coming to Vancouver. I’m also here to participate in an event called “Sage the Earth.” I just finished a poem on the topic.

Sage the Earth

She goes by the Vedic name Bhumi

And is worshipped by many a sage and muni

Sometimes she’s described as

By evening I was able to reflect on the day’s affairs as I strolled down on Marine Drive. It was past the sun’s setting. The air was cool; good for contemplation. I’ll add that overall, it is the coolest spring (and now the dawn of summer) that I’ve ever experienced.

A five-hour flight from Toronto and a three-hour time-zone change threw the biological clock a slight bit off course. I settled down in a room by the ISKCON facility, visited Govinda’s Restaurant for physical and spiritual nourishm

One of Prabhupada’s intimate followers after Prabhupada’s departure had a period where it was difficult to connect. For many devotees after Prabhupada left, it was not so easy. Those disciples of Prabhupada who had his association and who were there during his time, were there during the difficult period when Prabhupada left and ISKCON went into the hands of new leaders. As a result, many withdrew. So as they withdrew, the standard of Krsna consciousness also went down a little bit, or external

Krishna Das and I invited two young guys who bought a book to the temple of Villa Vrndavana. They came, stayed a while, and then we left in a week.

After a year, we went back to the Villa with a group to do harinamas. I went to the dining room to eat prasadam and sat down with the Italian devotees. I saw a devotee, and his face looked familiar to me.

I asked, “Do I know you?”

He replied, “Did you forget me? You came last year, you distributed a book to us and I stayed here.”

He began to follow