Mayapur, India, March 7, 12:15 PM - The morning session of the 2019 GBC Annual General Meeting continued with an hour-and-a-half presentation on the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, or BBT. The BBT was established by ISKCON’s Founder-Acharya Srila Prabhupada in 1972 to publish Krishna conscious literature, and is the world's largest publisher of classic Vaishnava texts and contemporary works on the philosophy, theology, and culture of bhakti-yoga.
Vaisesika Dasa made the presentation on behalf of th
Mayapur, India, March 7, 10:00 AM –The 2019 GBC Annual General Meeting is in session in Sridhama Mayapur. The ISKCON Governing Body Commission, or GBC as it is commonly known, gathers here every year at ISKCON’s world headquarters in West Bengal. Srila Prabhupada, ISKCON’s Founder-Acharya,established the GBC as the ultimate managing authority for his movement. At present, the GBC body is comprised of 37 members who are each responsible for overseeing the management and spiritual standards of I
By Sacinandana Swami
The following prayers, which Srila Prabhupada described as “the sum and substance of devotional life [v. 24]”, are spoken by the demon Vrtrasura – to Indra’s great astonishment – in the middle of his fight for life or death with the king of the demigods (Indra):
“O my Lord, O Supreme Personality of Godhead, may I again be able to be a servant of Your eternal servants who find shelter only at Your lotus feet. O Lord of my life, may I again become their servant so that my min
By Caitanyacandra das
The Independent online news reports that this weekend (24th of February) the animated cartoon Peppa Pig has attained 10 years of being broadcast for the entertainment of young children. The Independentmentions that Peppa Pig is being shown in 180 countries and has been translated into 40 languages. One might ask why does the show has so much success among little children. Basically because the episodes use children´s ordinary interests as main topics and show children natu
By Devaki Devi Dasi
In February, the leaders of the Sri Mayapur International School had requested me to spend quality time with their pupils aged 11 to 18. We had decided to first welcome the boys with a group of teachers for two days to Nityananda’s abode, and then a bus-load of girls and their teachers. What a wonderful excursion!
Our children are very special, and they start chanting in japa and kirtan already at a very young age. If we can inspire them to develop good chanting habits from
By Madhava Smullen
ISKCON’s flagship center, the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium in Mayapur, West Bengal is slated to open “on or around Gaura Purnima 2022,” according to tovp.org’s Sunanda Das, who adds that the GBC has not yet officially approved a specific date.
Construction on the 520,000-square-foot temple is now in the final phase after decades of development and nearly ten years of work onsite.
The project officially started on September 21st, 2009 with the clearing of the construction
By Anuttama Dasa
Mayapura, India—Nearly eighty top ISKCON leaders from around the world met at the society’s global headquarters in West Bengal for three full days, March 4-6, to discuss opportunities and challenges in expanding the ISKCON movement.
The meeting was the third “Sanga of Gurus, GBCs, and Sannyasis,” or SGGS (sanga means association or meeting; sannyasi is a renunciate). Prior meetings were held in 2015 and 2017.
The meetings were held at the ISKCON Mayapura community, home of
By Chaitanya Charan das
Question: Doesn’t renunciation indicate an absence of the will to keep fighting amidst frustration?
Short Answer: Not necessarily. Renunciation can also be a sign of realization; it can indicate the presence of the insight that there is more to life than fighting futilely for perishable material pleasures.
Detailed Answer:
Firstly, we need to recognize that the material eye and the spiritual eye don’t see alike, as the Bhagavad-gita (2.69) confirms.
For material
In Germany Srila Prabhupada was speaking with professor Durkheim. In that discussion they were speaking about the soul being eternal and separate from the body. Prabhupada said, “The body actually does not die because it is never alive. Never was there a moment when it was alive. It is the soul that is alive and that makes the body move and animates it. But otherwise it is not alive.”
Of course, as conditioned souls, all this philosophy is something we can only remember and remind ourselves abo
By ISKCON Mayapur
In 2019, kirtan is readily available anywhere in the world. Kirtan is daily performed in temples and on the streets across the globe. Every year, more kirtan events are held, some drawing hundreds of thousands. Kirtan recordings and albums are available online at any time. Even so-called mainstream culture in the Western world is embracing kirtan as a form of meditation in the music and yoga scene.
Kirtan is now available for all. But it wasn’t always like this. Before the 15
From Sri Mayapur Chandrodaya Mandir Date: February 3, 2019
Speaker: HH Bhakti Caru Swami
Subject: Srimad Bhagavatam 9.15 16-24
TEXT 16
śrī-rājovāca
kiṁ tad aṁho bhagavato
rājanyair ajitātmabhiḥ
kṛtaṁ yena kulaṁ naṣṭaṁ
kṣatriyāṇām abhīkṣṇaśaḥ
TRANSLATION
King Parīkṣit inquired from Śukadeva Gosvāmī: What was the offense that the kṣatriyas who could not control their senses committed before Lord Paraśurāma, the incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, for which the Lord annihilated the
Mayapur 06.03.2019
Speaker: HG Brijabasi Das
Srimad Bhagavatam 9.15.26
havirdhanim rser darpan
naran hartum acodayat
te ca mahismatim ninyuh
sa-vatsam krandatim balat
Translation
“Being puffed up by material power, Kartaviryarjuna encouraged his men to steal Jamadagni’s kamadhenu. Thus the men forcibly took away the crying kamadhenu, along with her calf, to Mahismati, Kartaviryarjuna’s capital.”
Invocatory prayers.
HG Vrij Vasi Das speaks:
My name is Brajbasi das. I am from Ukraine and I happ
In 2019, kirtan is readily available anywhere in the world. Kirtan is daily performed in temples and on the streets across the globe. Every year, more kirtan events are held, some drawing hundreds of thousands. Kirtan recordings and albums are available online at any time. Even so-called mainstream culture in the Western world is embracing kirtan as a form of meditation in the music and yoga scene.
Kirtan is now available for all. But it wasn’t always like this. Before the 15th century, the cha
By Jayabhadra Devi Dasi
Jagannatha Ratha-Yatra, the Festival of Chariots, is celebrated originally in Jagannath Puri (Odisha) from time immemorial. Srila Prabhupada, the founder-acharya of ISKCON introduced this Ratha-Yatra festival in ISKCON centers around the world. He said, “If you participate in these chariot festivals and see the Deities riding on these chariots, you will go back home, back to Godhead at the end of this life.”
This was the second ratha-yatra organized by ISKCON Amravati. F
ISKCON Girls’ forum Amravati, Maharashtra has planned to organize a one day padayatra of Vaisnavis on
10th March on the occasion of International women’s day.
The walk is dedicated to the martyred soldiers on the Indian border. The objective of padayatra is to
bring world peace through harinama and bring vaisnavis together to spread the holy names.
We invite all the vaisnavis around to join through their prayers and blessings if not possible
personally. It is a tiny attempt to please Sr
While recognizing cow protection as an important branch of our Krishna Conscious society, training and working with the oxen remains to many an ideal yet to be achieved. The upcoming Ox Training Seminar to be held in New Vraja Dhama, Hungary between April 17thand 24th, will shed more light on this important, yet less practiced side of cow protection.
The seminar will teach participants the method of voice command, the gentlest and most loving way to train oxen. This meth
On February 26th and 27th, ISKCON Ministry of Education organized a international symposium in Sridham Mayapur where the leaders of many educational institutions gathered to present and discuss their work and strategize further development. The ministry presented their new web platform, which was created with the intention to connect all the educators working in ISKCON and make the information about the different courses taught available to a wider audience. Teachers were
