Ruslan is my steady walking partner these days. He is from Ukraine. His English is practically nil, so when we go for our daily trek, we communicate through his phone by translation. It's fun. We mostly chant on our beads and resign ourselves to not talking much, but to sound meditation.
While descending along the iron switch back at Ramsden Park, just in front of us was a senior woman who carried with her a state-of-the-art camera. I noticed the yellow-toned snow, and pondered how it got that
From Back to Godhead
Are we simply puppets, helplessly manipulated by the strings of our past activities?
I look on with dismay as the tow truck drives away with the wreck that used to be our car.
“It’s all right,” my wife tries to console me. “Probably some bad karma.”
I consider her words. She has just mangled our car by driving it into the rear end of a truck, and she seems quite eager to let destiny take responsibility for her actions. I wonder if it’s really bad karma, or just bad driving.
There is a story in the Mahabharata, about Dronacarya testing the young Kauravas’ and Pandavas’ skill at archery. An artificial bird was placed in a tree and, as each of his students came forward, one by one, Drona asked,
“Do you see the bird at the top of the tree?
“Yes, I do.” each replied.
“Do you see anything else?”
“Yes, I see the tree, myself, my brothers and the me.”
Drona was not pleased and ordered, “Stand aside! You are not fit to strike the target.” Only Arjuna pleased him by replyin
By Achintyarup Das, PA to Devakinandan Prabhu
Jharikhand comes from the word Jhar + Khand, meaning the land of forest. This is the holy place where Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu made the tigers and deers dance together in Harinam Sankirtan ( Place: Charan pahadi, Kujju) where the footprints of the Lord and animals are still engraved in the rocks. Presenting some preaching reports of Jharkhand.
Reports from Ranchi1)
ISKCON Ranchi’s Manager, Madhusudan Mukund Prabhu, is delighted to share that the Me
A Blizzard confined me to the indoors for the day. In such circumstances, I find that I can at least do some pacing within our sizable temple room period no, I will not surrender to a clunky treadmill. No space for such devices but I will wait until the storm clears an accept some snowy uneven terrain. ‘Natural’ comes first in my books period I feel very much the same about cars. Walk if you can. Avoid those deathtraps when possible.
Prabhupada Priya, visiting us from Florida, began teaching th
One day I was having a really nice conversation with my friend, KB, and then all of a sudden he looked at his wrist watch and I thought oh he is in a hurry. So I said, “ KB, You’ve somewhere else to go?” He said, “No No! I was just looking at my watch. I did not mean anything by it.” But later I thought, how tiny diversions of attention have a big impact. And then I started to consider how many inattention habits have I developed over time.
A few months later, I was at a conference and I was si
A conversation with His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
In June 1976 at New Vrindaban, a Hare Krishna farm community in West Virginia, Srila Prabhupada fields questions sent to him from the editors of Bhavan’s Journal, one of Bombay’s leading cultural and religious periodicals.
Devotee: Here is the first question:
“It is said that the greatest strength of Hinduism is its catholicity, or breadth of outlook, but that this is also its greatest weakness in that there are very fe
सीतानाथ समारम्भां रामानन्दार्य मध्यमाम्।
अस्मदाचार्य पर्यन्तां वन्दे श्रीगुरू परम्पराम् ।।
Guru Parampara Sri Sampraday (Ramanand Sampraday) starts from Sri SitaRam. This is one of the most oldest lineage in Sanātan Dharm whose mentions are found in Vedas, which is continuing till today & will further continue. Few people have a very silly confusion regarding the Sri Ramananda Sampraday that it started when Śrīmad Jagadguru Rāmānandāchārya appeared. But this is false at all. Before Śrīmad Rāmānand
Keshava Prabhu, from Hare Krishna Valley (New Nandagram) in Bambra, Victoria, invited Devamrta Maharaja and I to the Radha Krishna boat festival at the farm.The previous day was hot and gusty but the weather turned more pleasant on Sunday and there were 300-400 guests who attended.
The day started with arati and kirtan at the temple, then everyone went in procession down the hill to the lake. There was a joyous mood as the devotees anticipated seeing Their Lordships, Sri Sri Radha Krishna in a
Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s Pada Pitham Inauguration in Iskcon Namahatta, Mayapur
Anyone who has accepted the two lotus feet of Lord Caitanya can understand the true essence of devotional service. If one is captivated by the pleasing pastimes of Lord Caitanya, the dirty things in his heart will all become cleansed.
Queen’s Park has become one of the most popular spots to go for kirtan, meeting people and doing book sales. Why? The legislative building for the province of Ontario is just South of the park, and the greenspace (now snow white) is at the core of the nation's largest university, U of T. Thoughtful people come here. They walk through the multi tread area to go from classroom to classroom. One other advantage to this destination is that it is a mere one and a half kilometres from our ashram.
It
The following account is related by Malika Mala Devi Dasi, a preacher in Russia and Kazakhstan.
Once, with Kirtirani Mataji, we performed at a festival in Astana, Kazakhstan. We did not have time to have dinner and rushed to the plane because we were going to be late for the flight. The local devotees handed us a big bag with prasadam.
I said, “Krishna! The flight from Astana to Alma-Ata is just an hour and a half. We don’t need anything, especially at night.”
But Kirtirani said, “I’m hungry!”
An irresistible offer from the Supreme Lord
What is the current situation of the world? Miseries and suffering everyday. Terrorist attacks, global warming, deadly diseases, earthquakes, floods. The list goes on.
But there is hope.
God has decided to give an offer to uplift ourselves from this miserable condition of life. How? By giving personal loans of His special mercy. God is our father, our best friend, and our ever well-wisher. He is supreme, so He can give unlimitedly—so much that you can
By Vegavati Dasi
Hare Krishna dear devotees, just to let you know, Goursundar Prabhu, Prabhupada’s first personal secretary, left his body this morning peacefully in Alachua. Prayers welcome for this dear servant of Srila Prabhupada.
In the photo Goursundar with Srila Prabhupada in the very early days of ISKCON.
Krsna dasa Kaviraja Goswami writes (CC Adi 10.115): “The three brothers, Govinda, Madhava, and Vasudeva were the eighty-second, eighty-third, and eighty-fourth branches of the Caitanya tree. Lord Caitanya and Nityananda used to dance in their kirtana performances.
In his Caitanya-Caritamrta commentary, Srila Prabhupada writes: ”The three brothers, Govinda, Madhava and Vasudeva Ghosh all belonged to a kayastha family. Govinda established the Gopinatha temple in Agradvipa, where he resided. Madh
Turned away by his father King Uttanapada, five-year-old Dhruva craved an even greater kingdom: “My only desire is to occupy a post within this universe more exalted than that yet achieved by anyone else.”
It was millions of years ago, just after the creation of the universe. Uttanapada, the king of the earth, was relaxing in the royal chambers with Suruci, his favorite of two queens. Suddenly Suruci’s little son Uttama climbed onto the king’s lap, and the king patted him with fatherly affectio
Papamochani Ekadashi 
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of The Lord. Any pious activity leads to manifold benefits on the auspicious day of Ekadashi. 
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One of the things I like to do most is to give a class on bhakti. Today was my turn to deliver the message from the Bhagavatam, Canto five, which addresses the complexities of cosmology from the Vedic perspective. The verse was technical presenting the measurements or distances between our planets, beginning with Chandra, the moon.
The task in delivering some inspiration from the more technical side of things is to motivate th listeners towards devotion. It becomes obvious that one can become a
What he said cleared things up for me. “If I throw a handful of stones into the water, the circles they make will overlap and clash. But if I could throw the stones all at one center point, the circles would never clash. In the same way, if I have my center of interest and you have your center of interest, our interests will clash. But if we find the perfect center, we’ll have perfect harmony.”
“Ever since the Stone Age, people have come up with so many nonsensical ideas to explain the forces o
When people’s yards are snowbound like these days (‘jaya’ to the gradual meltdown), and the sidewalks, although cleared, are quite narrow. Pedestrians get challenged. I have to think twice as to which side of the sidewalk to walk on when seeing an oncoming walker. God knows I just came from India, and the general rule there is ‘stay to the left’, whereas here in North America, you ‘stay to the right.’
Let me clarify one point – when the British ran India, they were rigid about being to the left
