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By His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada Lecture given in Los Angeles, May 13, 1970

A primary Vedic book warns us of the danger of culturing material knowledge without spiritual knowledge.

andham tamah pravishanti
ye ‘vidyam upasate
tato bhuya iva te tamo
ya u vidyayam ratah

“Those who are engaged in the culture of nescient activities shall enter into the darkest region of ignorance. Worse still are those engaged in the so-called culture of knowledge.” (Sri Ishopanishad, Mantra

Blame game usually involves pointing the blaming finger outwards to others whenever things go wrong.

The blaming finger can also point upwards or inwards. When it points upwards, we blame God for being unintelligent or uncaring or even non-existent. When it points inwards, we beat ourselves down with self-recrimination, “I am good-for-nothing,” ending up unnecessarily with inferiority complex.

To solve the problem, we need nott a blaming finger, but a helping hand.

Whichever way the blaming finger

Dear Devotees of Srila Prabhupada’s ISKCON,

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

It seems that this horrible Covid disease is attacking quite a number of our devotees again. We sincerely hope you are all taking precautions to prevent falling ill. There is the old saying “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”, and particularly under these circumstances this is very much true.

For those of you who are not ill, please stay safe and be careful, and for tho

From Back to Godhead

Mistakes why we make them and how we can rectify them?

To err is human … ” so goes the saying. Safely we can add three more details to the list: tendency to fall under illusion, cheating propensity and imperfect senses. A conditioned soul is bound by these imperfections, but in this article I will focus on the tendency to commit mistakes. All of us make mistakes. Srila Prabhupada says that to make a mistake is not wrong, but to make a mistake and not learn from it, that is

“This idea of creating a database and collecting contacts at all our festivals and in any situation where we come in contact with the public is very important. I tried for a number of years to teach this to devotees and I fully agree with Jayapataka Maharaja as to its importance. “We can follow up in so many creative ways when we have a list of people who we know are relatively favorable. There is a whole science to database marketing and every successful organization, including non-profit and r

Westerners see India's reverence for the cow as superstition, but for those
who appreciate her gifts, the sacred cow is worthy of her name.

Holy cow! We have all heard that expletive enough times, but what on earth is holy about the cow? I remember some years ago my mother was much maligning India for the "primitive and superstitious" practice of cow worship. To a city boy whose only contact with cows was the Sunday dinner, her criticism seemed quite sensible.

In Vedic religion there is in fact

I don’t find any scarcity in this world except the scarcity of Krsna consciousness.”
– Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati

“People are suffering for want of Krsna consciousness. We should all engage in spreading the science of Krsna for the benefit of the whole world.”
– Srila Prabhupada

Krsna is glorified by those who are completely free from material hankerings in this world. Eternally liberated souls are always engaged in glorifying Krsna. And they relish it so much that they glorify Krsna tirele

By His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhuapada
Lecture given in Vrindavan, India, November 12, 1976

To attain bhakti, or pure devotional service to the Lord, one must come to the point of desiring nothing else.

matto ’py anantat paratah parasmat
svargapavargadhipater na kinchit
yesham kim u syad itarena tesham
akinchananam mayi bhakti-bhajam

[Lord Rshabhadeva said:] “I am fully opulent, almighty, and superior to Lord Brahma and Indra, the king of the heavenly planets. I am also the b

Some years ago, George Harrison was already giving the world the gift of spiritual inspiration through his music when he donated the Bhaktivedanta Manor to Srila Prabhupada.

My sweet Lord . . .

I really want to see you
Really want to be with you
Really want to see you, Lord,
but it takes so long, my Lord.

George Harrison released “My Sweet Lord,” his first solo single, in America in November 1970. Internationally, sales soon exceeded five million copies.

The biographer Simon Leng calls the rele

Let us say we won a general election. A majority vote sweeps us into power. All state resources are at our disposal. There will still be a democratic opposition in place, but they will want to see how we give all citizens of the land a Vedic alternative. Where do we start?

Sometimes devotees in their exuberance will say, “We’re going to take over the entire world.” Lord Chaitanya’s prediction has to materialise, but the sombre realities of actualising Vedic models of civilisation with VAD in mi

Question: You gave an example of Vyasadeva, who compiled the Vedic literatures and Narada Muni said it was all useless because it didn’t have a connection to the Supreme Lord, so is there any use of propagating Ayurveda, Yoga and things like that, to attract people or better we should represent pure devotional service?
His Holiness Bhakti Bhringa Govinda Swami: We should always represent pure devotional service. There’s no question about that. We’re not here to teach people how to make money. We

“If we connect with Krishna, then we are illuminated.”

“Actually Krsna is the original Supreme Being, original spirit soul. We are
simply minute part and parcel of Krsna. Exactly the same example: just like
the fire and the small sparks. You can see. This fireworks is going on. The
fire is there, and there are small sparks. So long the fire and the small
sparks are together, they are illumination. Similarly, if we connect with
Krsna, then we are illuminated.” [Srila Prabhupada Bombay, November

Bilvamangala Thakura was a wealthy south Indian Brahmin and belonged to a cultured family. But he got attracted to a prostitute named Cintamani. The attraction soon became attachment. And as it happens when we get attached to worldly enjoyment we lose our intelligence and subsequently our dignity. The fire of lust was so intense that he was not at all moved when his father died; in fact standing near the pyre of his father he was engrossed in the thought of Cintamani. The body of his dead fathe

If you have read or heard even a small sampling of the vast Vedic literature, you have come upon the name of Narada. He is a great bhakta (devotee) of the Supreme Lord Narayana, or Krsna. Etymologically analyzed, nara means of Narayana or the Lord (Krsna), and da means deliverer. Narada is the deliverer of the Lord and the Lord’s message. Of course there are countless preachers, gurus, evangelists, mendicants and religious representatives traveling all throughout this planet, but Narada Muni is

In the ashram we arrange a reading on the memories of our founder/teacher Srila Prabhupada. Croatian-born Vallabha Hari was reading and, with English not being his first language, he came upon the word “seasoned.” He asked, “What does this mean?” So, I explained that it means experienced, mature.

Then I got to thinking that the word seasoned is such an appropriate word. The dictionary describes it as an adjective noun, “You can use seasoned to describe a person who has a lot of experience of som

This is her writing from back in the eighties:

http://www.backtogodhead.in/three-days-in-nicaragua-by-lavangalatika-devi-dasi/

This is something I compiled:

Here in Los Angeles we are remembering the unique book distribution of Lavangalatika devi dasi, ACBS, that inspired everyone. She would regularly access areas of the world that no distributor had considered yet. I used to think of her as a secret agent. Now she has accessed the spiritual world. She just recently left us to go to Krishna.

A

December 22 is National Mathematics Day, which is the birth anniversary of Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujam.

That Ramanujam had a humble yet extraordinary beginning in his career is evident from his letter to G. H. Hardy, his guide and mentor in Cambridge:

Dear Sir, I beg to introduce myself to you as a clerk in the Accounts Department of the Port Trust office at Madras on a salary of only Rs. 20/- per annum. I have had no university education but I have undergone the ordinary sch

Video: Clcik here

Erin Centre Trail had a surface of slush on it but that didn’t discourage this walking monk. The trail is flat and the area is peaceful. Only when it approaches the open fields do I hear the call of the coyote community. Of course, at this predawn hour, they clear their throats, causing a howling and marking the time.

I was grateful to Dharma and Manasi Ganga, whose home is a minute’s walk from the south end of the trail. My two-day stay was pleasant. It ended at noon when Dha

IGF preacher at ISKCON Amravati Padayatra is the best way to preach. It includes book and prasadam distribution and it also increases the enthusiasm of those who participate. By the mercy of our spiritual master, Lokanath Maharaja, I am always meditating on how we can organize a padayatra in any village. One day in Amravati’s Sri Sri Rukmini Dwarkadhish temple Meghashyam dasa and I met Bhakta Ramjivan from Malegaon village. I asked him, “Can we come to your village and have a padayatra?” He imme

Each morning Srila Prabhuupada would take a walk to the nearby Swanzy Beachpark and walk briskly back and forth on the grassy expanse that was about the size of a football field. It was right by the ocean and bordered by rock walls, with a beautiful view of miles of bright blue Pacific Ocean. The beach itself is a bit rocky there, so we would walk on the grassy areas just above the beach.
Walking to Swanzy Beachpark
Sometimes Srila Prabhupada would sit resting on the low rock walls, chanting. He