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Celebrating Sri Caitanya-Caritamrita with the GBC Strategic Planning Team 
 

As part of our efforts to serve devotees worldwide the GBC Strategic Planning Team (SPT) is extending an invitation to every ISKCON devotee to participate in our 5-week online festival “Celebrating Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta”

We wish to stimulate great enthusiasm for Srila Krishna das Kaviraj Goswami’s masterpiece, Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta , and Srila Prabhupada’s wonderful commentary on the same. Towards that goal, we have

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Our Mission
The mission of The Grihastha Vision Team is to support, strengthen, educate and enliven the individuals, couples and families who are or will be involved with the grihastha ashram.

Our Goals
We want to help you spiritualize your marriage and make it an act of seva. Remember, Vaisnava etiquette begins at home.

Source: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=93303

A true preacher is a true disciple. I believe all of us can agree that a thorough study of Srila Prabhupada’s books is so badly needed in our society in the age of Kali, the age of quarrel, hypocrisy and misinformation.

All of us come across devotees (or sometimes ourselves) answering other people’s questions without proper reference.

Without commiting offenses or looking down upon anyone, these following examples are illustrating pure, innocent ignorance. So these are one of the most bizarre st

2021 marks the 125th Appearance Anniversary Year of ISKCON Founder/Acharya His Divine A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Ambarisa Das and the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium (TOVP) management in Mayapur, India, have decided to officially begin celebrating this occasion on Nityananda Trayodasi, February 25th (24th in the U.S.), and simultaneously launch major promotion for the PRABHUPADA IS COMING! Campaign announcing the installation of the new Prabhupada murti in the TOVP in October this year

Temperamental weather today. The gods are at work. All was melting. Rains came. Wet snow. Then a blast of arctic freeze hit the land. Ice predominated and walking was unfavourable. Walking Monk out of work.

I did receive a vintage pic from my friend Krishnadasa today reminding me that I’m not just The Walking Monk. I’m also referred to as Drama Swami. The content of the photo is of Krishnadasa and myself in the 1980 drama called, “The Pandavas Retire Timely,” titled after a chapter in the book B

अध्याय चौदह – राजा चित्रकेतु का शोक (6-14)

1 राजा परीक्षित ने श्रील शुकदेव गोस्वामी से पूछा -- हे विद्वान ब्राह्मण! रजो तथा तमो गुणों से आविष्ट होने के कारण असुर सामान्यतः पापी होते हैं। तो फिर वृत्रासुर भगवान नारायण के प्रति इतना परम प्रेम किस प्रकार प्राप्त कर सका?

2 प्रायः सत्त्वमय देवता तथा भौतिक सुख-रूपी रज से निष्कलंक ऋषि अत्यन्त कठिनाई से मुकुन्द के चरणकमलों की शुद्ध भक्ति कर पाते हैं। [तो फिर वृत्रासुर इतना बड़ा भक्त किस प्रकार बन सका?]

3 इस भौतिक जगत में जीवात्माओं की संख्या उतनी ही है जि

Speaking on Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.26.47 on January 22, 1975, in Juhu, Bombay, Srila Prabhupada appealed to us not to be preoccupied with the temporary miserable and happy conditions of life but to put a permanent end to the real problems of life and make our lives successful:

“Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, says personally, ‘These are your miseries.’ What? Janma-mrtyu-jara-vyadhi: [birth, death, old age, and disease (Gita 13.9)] ‘Repetition of birth and death.’ This is your real mis

Everyone is trying to be happy in the material world. Real happiness however is found on a deeper level. Now, the art is to develop a bigger vision. The Bhagavad-gita, in the beginning, talks about Arjuna, who is a member of a royal family, and has found himself in a difficult situation, a war situation which made him depressed. But then Krsna explained to Arjuna na jayate mriyate va kadacin nayam bhutva bhavita va na bhuyah (Bhagavad-gita 2.20). He explained that the soul never takes birth, th

My Father-in-law was at first alarmed by the framed photo of Srila Saraswati Thakur adorning our living room wall captioned with His Divine Grace’s bold declaration that “…Western civilization must be crushed.” I explained that the whole world was contaminated by the ideology of extreme exploitation which has it’s heart inextricably intertwined with the roots of what History portrays as Western “civilization.” This idea of exploitation ruins any realm in which it exists like a malignant cancer

"jīv jāgo, jīv jāgo, gauracānda bole

kota nidrā jāo māyā-piśācīra kole"

अध्याय तेरह – ब्रह्महत्या से पीड़ित राजा इन्द्र (6.13)

1 श्रील शुकदेव गोस्वामी ने कहा : हे महादानी राजा परीक्षित! वृत्रासुर के वध से इन्द्र के अतिरिक्त तीनों लोकों के लोकपाल एवं समस्त निवासी तुरन्त ही प्रसन्न हुए और उनकी सब चिन्ताएँ जाती रहीं।

2 तत्पश्चात सभी देवता महान साधु पुरुष, पितर, भूत, असुर, देवताओं के अनुचर तथा ब्रह्मा, शिव तथा इन्द्र के अधीन देवगण अपने-अपने धामों को लौट गये। किन्तु विदा लेते समय वे इन्द्र से कुछ बोले नहीं।

3 महाराज परीक्षित ने श्रील शुकदेव गोस्वामी से पूछा – हे मुनि! इन

By Madhava Smullen

The Grihastha Vision Team is offering an online Q & A on “Creating Meaningful Relationships” from 5:00 to 7:00pm on Saturday February 13th, the day before Valentine’s Day. The session will be broadcast live on the Grihasta Vision Team Facebook and Youtube, and via Zoom.

The GVT, established in 2004, is a group of Vaishnava couples who have all been in healthy marriages for over twenty-five years. The team members, who work professionally as premarital educators, psychotherapi

“The supreme Lord walks and does not walk. He is far away, but He is very near as well. He is within everything, and yet He is outside of everything.”

The above quote is referenced from mantra five of the text Sri Isopanisad. How may we analyze this mantra?

There are three aspects of God (the Absolute) — brahman, paramatma, and bhagavan. The first aspect or feature a God is a depersonalize feature of the Absolute. It would be hard to explain this feature which is defined as an all-pervasive pres

अध्याय बारह – वृत्रासुर की यशस्वी मृत्यु (6.12)

1 श्रील शुकदेव गोस्वामी ने कहा: अपना शरीर छोड़ने की इच्छा से वृत्रासुर ने विजय की अपेक्षा युद्ध में अपनी मृत्यु को श्रेयस्कर समझा। हे राजा परीक्षित! उसने अत्यन्त बलपूर्वक अपना त्रिशूल उठाया और बड़े वेग से स्वर्ग के राजा पर उसी प्रकार से आक्रमण किया जिस प्रकार ब्रह्माण्ड के जलमग्न होने पर कैटभ ने श्रीभगवान पर बड़े ही बल से आक्रमण किया था।

2 तब असुरों में महान वीर वृत्रासुर ने कल्पान्त (प्रलय) की धधकती अग्नि की लपटों के समान तीखी नोकों वाले त्रिशूल को अत

Karnamrita, a man who is missed
A man who believed morals should persist
For him family was at the top of the list
A principal which in early days we’d resist

A true brahmin – devotee sincere
One who wanted things to be clear
As truth will always drive away fear
This loss – puts the cheek to the tear

He fought a fierce cancer combat
Now the body is a mere new stat
So many, you could shake a stick at
Resilient soul moves to a new flat

He was determined in helping the other
His was a vision for ea

By The Grihastha Vision Team

On February 9th, beloved Grihastha Vision Team member and premarital counselor Karnamrita Dasa passed away after a long battle with cancer.

Karnamrita Dasa was initiated by Srila Prabhupada in 1970. For fourteen years, he lived in various ISKCON temples around the world. In the beginning of his devotional service, he participated in street sankirtana and book distribution, and eventually became a head cook and pujari, specializing in emergency devotional service.

Af

Wow! So, one of our monks, a student of Bhakti Raghava Swami, Canadian monk extraordinaire, has accomplished something wonderful. At a length of 73 minutes, Krishna Chandra, broke the world record for reciting by heart the entire text, Bhagavad-Gita. There are 700 verses of wisdom that form the entire text; a poetic work of literary power.

Congratulations!

I would also like to express my thanks once again to Dwarkanatha for a daily brewing, steeping spices for a tea to combat the effect of the C

Direct devotional service is divided into five transcendental humors or flavors, and indirect devotional service is divided into seven transcendental humors. 
Nectar of Devotion 34: Transcendental pleasure derived from devotional service can be divided into two groups: direct devotional service and indirect devotional service. Direct devotional service is divided into five transcendental humors or flavors, and indirect devotional service is divided into seven transcendental humors. Direct dev

By Karnamrita Das

I saw the grim reaper in my dream,

feeling no fear, I was curious to see him.

Coming near, he pointed his bony, pale hand toward me.
His other palm raised in blessing pose
where it was written, the number 65—my age!
Then with both hands, he pointed to the sky, and shrugged.
His sickle and dark robes then transformed.
He showed his true self, as a blissful, radiant sage.
Smiling enchantingly, he said, “People dress me with their fear,
thinking I have come to destroy them and tak

अध्याय ग्यारह – वृत्रासुर के दिव्य गुण (6.11)

1 श्रील शुकदेव गोस्वामी ने कहा: हे राजन ! असुरों के प्रधान सेनानायक वृत्रासुर ने अपने सेनानायकों को धर्म के नियमों का उपदेश दिया, किन्तु वे कायर तथा भगोड़े सेनानायक भय से इतने विचलित हो चुके थे कि उन्होंने उसके वचनों को नहीं माना।

2-3 हे राजा परीक्षित! समयानुकूल अवसर का लाभ उठाकर देवताओं ने असुरों की सेना पर पीछे से आक्रमण कर दिया और असुर सैनिकों को ऐसे खदेड़ दिया, मानो उनकी सेना में कोई नायक ही न हो। अपने सैनिकों की दयनीय दशा को देखकर असुरश्रेष्ठ वृत्र