“You may not keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.”
-- Martin Luther
We live amidst a culture of violence and indifference. Some people resort to violence at even the slightest provocation and others often just stand by, watching indifferently, as if they were seeing a movie spectacle rather than seeing the victimization of a living human being, who is essentially just like them. This prevailing culture of violence and indifferenc
In the Narada Pancharatra, it is said bhakti begins only after we give up our material designations that is connected to our body and mind. As long as we are connected to the body and mind, any devotion we perform is mixed devotion (mixed with karma and knowledge).
When a soul engages in service to Krishna from his constitutional position as servant, then that service is called bhakti. Any service to Krishna thinking I am this body/mind becomes mixed. So this mixed service is called sadhana kr
Today I read: “Reality. It used to seem so simple—reality just was, like the weather. Why question it, let alone disagree about it? And then came the assault, a mind-bending stream of ‘fake news,’ ‘alternative facts,’ and lies disguised as truths that cast so many of us tumbling into a state of moral panic. How did we get here?”
That statement and question brought me to Srimad-Bhagavatam (1.7.24–25), where the pious king Pariksit says to Dharma in the form of a bull, “In the age of Satya [trut
"We are instructed to “surrender”; and at the same time, Srila Prabhupada encourages us to achieve apparently impossible tasks, like “Krishna-izing” the whole world, and becoming fully qualified spiritual masters in our own right."
“Is my Krishna consciousness completely dependent on the mercy of the spiritual master and Krishna, or do Ihave something to do with it?”
Krishna says, “Surrender unto Me…”, and that may sound very simple and clear. However, there are many possible layers of reali
“The pullers of the carts were known as gaudas, and they pulled with great pleasure. However, the cart sometimes went very fast and sometimes very slow.28 Sometimes the cart would stand still and not move, even though it was pulled very vigorously. The chariot therefore moved by the will of the Lord, not by the strength of any ordinary person.29” - Sri Caitanya Caritamrita, Madhya Lila Chapter 13 “The Ecstatic Dancing of the Lord At
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10yLDbscgyA
This video link is about how strikingly similar ancient mythology of various parts of the worlds is. Prabhupada once said that greeks were a spinoff of Vedic culture, as the yavanas. Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati also once gave an interview with Professor Suthers, recorded in the Ray of Vishnu as follows;
In imitation of Mayavada, the evil fruit of the Indian civilisation, Anthropomorphism was invented in Greece and Therianthropomorphism was invented in Egy
By Antardwip das
One single broadcast to MayapurTV gets split at our server to reach both www.mayapur.tv, your temple/individual website and now also your temple/individual Facebook Page. This was recently developed by our lead programmer, Pushkaraj prabhu.
With a click of a button in the MayapurTV masteradmin, broadcasters can co-broadcast on their Facebook page.
One reason MayapurTV is valued is because it provides everything in one place and accessible to ISKCON members, both as vie
(The 1977 New York parade was well managed, polite and had the mood of a proverbial Sunday walk in the park. Everything was nicely arranged and in this photo you can see maybe 3-4 police officers just casually strolling along appreciating the beauty of the carts and the melodies of the chants.)
(This was the turn out I encountered the day of the parade. Even the side streets were jam packed with thousands of people pushing towards the cart to see what the Hare Krishna devotees had built fo
By Bhakti Niskama Shanta, Ph.D.
Display panels in the exhibition Light of the Bhagavata. In the foreground is the cover of the last edition of the book in Portuguese.
Many works of art with sacred themes have been painted under the inspiration of ISKCON-founder A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. These paintings were originally intended to illustrate books by Prabhupada, author of many original writings and translations, and were also meant to decorate temples and houses of devotees of Krishna.
The world, however, moves on,
Saturday, May 6, 2017: A group of four of us drove the 168 miles from Alachua, Florida to Clearwater Beach, Florida. It was very beautiful as we drove for miles across Old Tampa Bay with the ocean on both sides of the road. As we neared the venue I saw Clearwater Beach Mayor George Cretekos walking down the street with a huge maha flower garland around his neck, and looking happy. Narayani devi dasi later told me that when he spoke at the Ratha Yatra opening ceremony a few minutes earlier, he h
Pearls of Wisdom - "May there be good fortune throughout the universe, and may all envious persons be pacified. May all living entities become calm by practicing bhakti-yoga, for by accepting devotional service they will think of each other's welfare. Therefore let us all engage in the service of the supreme transcendence, Lord Sri Krishna, and always remain absorbed in thought of Him. – Prahlad Maharaj offering prayers to Lord Nrsimhadev, Srimad Bhagavatam 5.18.9
By Shyamasundar Das
Our Haight Street apartment in San Francisco was constructed after the great earthquake of 1906. There was an old iron fireplace with a mantel in the front room. On the mantel we kept our little doo-dads and sacred objects, like our gods-eye, a couple of photos of the Swami, and some shells and pretty rocks. One day in mid-February, 1967, I noticed a brightly painted wooden figurine there. It was about three inches high.
“What’s this, Malati?”
“I, uh, I got it the other day
(This is how the Nivaquine tablets I purchased from the local pharmacy were packaged in India. They spared me from the severe pain caused by the reoccurring malaria attacks that I fell victim to on several occasions when I wore my body down too much.)
“Canakya Pandita has advised that fire and disease and debt, don't neglect. You must clear.” - Audio Transcript, “The Nectar of Devotion” - January 28, 1973, Calcutta
The days crept closer to Friday July 7th, and on Wednesd
For twelve days, from April 21st – May 2nd, Lord Nityananda’s Padukas and Lord Nrsimhadeva’s Sitari led the TOVP Fundraising Team consisting of Jananivas and Vraja Vilas prabhus on a multi-city tour of Malaysia. The results were astonishing and unprecedented for a relatively small country like Malaysia. Over $2 million U.S. in pledges was raised!!!
This was the second tour to Malaysia. The first tour in 2013 was the kick-starter for our major TOVP world fundraising efforts, but we only offered
By Nitaisundara dasa
In the 1960s, literary and media critic Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase “global village” to describe the extension of people’s frames of reference and sense of responsibility beyond their immediate surroundings, or “village.” This growing sense of connectedness, McLuhan proposed, is the natural result of a world in which electronics enable our senses (at least the senses of sight and hearing—for now) to immediately experience that which is taking place across the globe,
By Gauranga Das
ISKCON’s Govardhan Eco Village (GEV, http://www.ecovillage.org.in) won Smart Cities India Award in the “Smart Village Award” category for being a sustainability project in Wada district of Maharashtra. On behalf of Govardhan Eco Village, Nimai Lila Das, Chief Sustainability Officer went to receive the Award. The Smart Cities India Award ceremony took place in Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, India on May 12, 2017. Over a hundred entries were received at the second edition of the award
