By Madhava Smullen 

A new ISKCON Youth Ministry initiative, loosely based on the Mormon Mission trips and dubbed “The Krishna Conscious Gap Year Experience,” was endorsed by the GBC Executive Committee in a March 2021 letter to ISKCON leaders. Now, various international temples are piloting the program. 

“The idea is to create incentives for our young people to spend a semester – three, six, or nine months – or an entire gap year, living at a temple,” says ISKCON Youth Minister Manorama Das. “Th

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By Sunanda das

In almost every ISKCON temple and center worldwide, a large or small murti of ISKCON Founder-Acharya His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada can be found. The murti is worshiped daily no different from any deity of the Lord, and Srila Prabhupada is thus considered to be personally present to accept our service and bless his devotees and followers.

What many devotees don’t know is, who made most of these marvelous, lifelike deities of Srila Prabhupada that look s

By Madhava Smullen

Books are the Basis Week, run by the ISKCON Ministry of Education from September 22nd to 28th, is encouraging devotees worldwide to read Srila Prabhupada’s books by providing resources and guidelines, and facilitating grassroots level engagement.

The Week is part of a larger effort to “enhance the culture of reading Srila Prabhupada’s books globally.” It was officially added to ISKCON’s calendar in 2020, after the society’s Governing Body Commission (GBC) accepted a proposal f

Dear community devotees,
Hare Krishna

With sadness we wish to inform you that H.G. Kulashekar Prabhu, a disciple of Srila Prabhupada, left his body in Sri Mayapur Community hospital this morning at around 1am. He joined ISKCON in Canada and was initiated by Srila Prabhupad in 1967. In his early days as a young brahmacari he was together in a brahmacari ashram with HH Jayapataka Svami. He remained a brahmacari throughout his life. For more than 35 years he served as a pujari in various ISKCON tem

My knee surgeon, Dr. Backstein, saw me at the hospital where I was to take the final X-ray. He confirmed I’m doing good for 6 weeks after the knee replacement. I respect the man for having done a splendid job.

I’m proud to say I walked the entire way there and back – 6 kilometers, no sweat. No cane. In the afternoon, I met Bob back outside of the ashram quarters. Bob says he was raised Catholic but never took it too seriously. He claims Krishna has been speaking to him. I won’t deny.

“What did

The relationship with Krsna in the Spiritual world (The Kingdom of God) is NEVER a "one-way" forced unproductive affinity.  

One's relationship with Krsna is ALWAYS based on free will that allows a variety of voluntary offerings of service to Krsna.

Only then can genuine love exist.

The jiva-souls in their full potential in Vaikuntha and Goloka Vrindavana, are forever positively re-inventing themselves by always choosing how to increase their variety of devotional service to Krsna.

This is achieved

The word "tatastha-sakti" refers to the marginal living entities (jiva-souls) in their FALLEN conditioned state in both the material creation and when dormant in the (impersonal) Brahmajyoti.

Lover of God- this term evokes different feelings or images in our hearts. Who is a lover of God? What are his symptoms? How does he behave?

And do we know that all of us, yes each one of us, has love of God within our heart and the perfection of our spiritual life is get eternally and permanently reinstated as a lover of God!

Our present condition

By nature, we are lover of God, but here, being illusioned, we think God as our enemy and we don’t like God. We like this māyā.

(SP Lecture, January

By Nrsimha Caitanya dasa, Czech Padayatra leader

While the world was still gripped by the Covid-19 madness the twenty-ninth Czech Padayātrā took place in the second half of July, and according to its participants was one of the best padayātrās in which they’d been involved. For a second successive year we were able to find a sweet spot during the summer holidays when most of the restrictions had been lifted. After all those lockdowns people were happy that something was going on and as there we

Krsna consciousness should be the first and foremost thing in your life. Krsna is first. A wife can say to her husband, “You are the dearmost person in my life, however, after Krsna”. So let Krsna be number one, let Krsna be the most important, let Krsna be the centre of your life, let Krsna be your everything!

Source: https://www.kksblog.com/2021/09/my-dearmost/

Walking was meagre. Resting was maximized more than the norm. It’s Labor Day and the last day before school starts. Karuna, K. Chandra, and I wanted to do something, not necessarily laborious but meaningful; devotional. So, we drove to North York and there we met Lila Mayi, who lives but a mere 5-minute walk from Avondale Park. We sat on a madras and started chanting to the accompaniment of harmonium, kartals, tambourine and drum.

“What is that?” asked a young man pointing to the drum.

“This fi

Dear Devotees,

I have a confusion regarding Ekadashi Ingredients used especially Cardamom or Elaichi. On Hare Krishna Calender website (following link) under the spices not to be used on Ekadashi Cardamom is listed whereas on Desire Tree website I see several places that Cardamom can be used on Ekadashi, so I am confused to use or not use it on Ekadashi. Please advise.

Ekadashi | Hare Krishna Calendar

Ekadashi - Forum - ISKCON Desire Tree | IDT

Ekadashi halwa - Bhoga (Recipes for Thakurji) - ISKCON

By Sivarama Swami

Some years back, in response to repeated requests to write something about prayer, we published the prayers I recite daily upon rising. The name of the book is My Daily Prayers. While that book is now out of print, Lāl Publishing would like to make it easily available to devotees as an ebook, which can be downloaded from here: https://srsbooks.com/gift/.

At this time our planet and our devotees need prayer. No doubt many devotees have their own prayers. Yet some do not. It ca

George Harrison placed a Hare Krishna sticker on the headstock of Eric Clapton’s famous guitar—the red Gibson ES-335 that he played throughout his career until auctioning it for charity to benefit his Crossroads Centre in Antigua, a residential-care facility dedicated to the treatment of drug and alcohol dependency and addiction.

“‘I think this is the star of the show,’ Clapton said prior to the 2004 Crossroads Guitar Auction at Christie’s, where it sold for $847,500. Even though the guitar was

By Madhava Smullen

After Hurricane Ida hit the US State of Louisiana on Sunday August 29th, the devotees, deities and cows at ISKCON New Orleans and the New Talavana Farm in neighboring Mississippi have been reported safe and unharmed. The temples’ public Janmastami festivals, however, had to be canceled or delayed to next weekend.

Hurricane Ida made landfall as a Category 4 storm the day before Janmastami, but dropped to a Category 1 as it moved inland. New Orleans was hit by gusts over 100 mp

It’s only an hour’s drive to Innisfil, which is set along a southwesterly edge of Lake Simcoe. I had been hankering for being in water for my joints and for a healing left leg. Tony is fun-loving, a senior, who declares himself as Greek Orthodox and he opened up his driveway for seekers of beach pleasure. The deal was $25 dollar parking for each of our vehicles for as long as we want. Actually, he saved us from the turmoil of parking many blocks away. This was our picnic and it was the birthday

Vaishnavi Ministry NA is organizing a gofundme fundraiser to benefit The Dasi-Ziyad Family Institute and help fund the production of this film. 

Documentary Film Project Proposal

The film project’s purpose is to pay tribute to Krsnanandini Dasi by presenting her inspiring life and the impact she made on her family, spiritual community, and society at large.

Your donations will help us to preserve Krsnanandini Dasi's life and legacy with a documentary that depicts Krsnanandini Dasi’s journey and