Author Archives: Dandavats

By Vijaya Dasa

Well, prabhus, it looks like a new pace has been set by Mayapur. Mayapur was again the No. 1 temple in the world in 2015. But not by much! Mayapur did 1,576,532 book points, and New Delhi did 1,533,199. Mayapur won by only 43,333 book points. What is amazing is that New Delhi more than doubled what Mayapur did during the marathon! Every year there is an intense transcendental competition between the two temples, and what a competition it is: They both increased their book distribution by 12%. Let’s see what happens in 2016. Another surprise this year took place in the annual transcendental competition between Russia and the USA. As you may know, every year for close to a decade Russia is behind the USA during the year, but in December leaves the USA in the dust, way behind. But not this year. Finally the USA did more book points than Russia! Like the competition between New Delhi and Mayapur, it was close. The USA did 802,191 book points and Russia did 798,115, so the USA won by only 4,076 book points. That was close!

By Suhotra Swami ‘How can I be certain that what you are telling me is true?’ Every thinking person asks, and is asked, this question. Vedic philosophy arrives at certitude through pramana, which refers to sources of knowledge that are held to be valid…

By Mandakini devi dasi

Preaching Krishna Consciousness in a largely atheistic, impersonal and demigod worshiping society who shun organised religion is a special skill. Devotees in the province of Taiwan are yielding positive results with a well- established and easily digestible approach. The pioneers in this field have determined that success will surely reach the inner core of the population with the regular distribution of lunch boxes, spiritual books and Harinama. However, particularly by offering Hatha-yoga classes, the devotees experience a high success rate and respectful reciprocation with the people. Divya Purusha dasa also makes tangible devotional inroads in this area by offering popular courses on Astrology twice a year. Several yoga classes each week take place at the largest Iskcon centre in the country, which is located in Taichung. The practice is followed by melodious call and response Hare Krishna mantra meditation. Many participants move on to more involvement in spiritual life.

By Dwaipayan De The Vedas are compared to a desire tree because they contain all things knowable by man. They deal with mundane necessities as well as spiritual realization. The Vedas contain regulated principles of knowledge covering social, political…

By Karnamrita dasa Beholding the unlimited opulence of Krishna and feeling dwarfed by the manifestation of other Brahmas, our universes Brahma felt like a rabbit amidst many elephants. I love what Brahma says, ‘There are people who say, ‘I know every…

By Jahnu Das

Hare Krishnas don’t have to believe in God. We know who God is, what He looks like, what He wants, why and how He created the world and who and what the soul is. This info is available in the Bhagavad Gita. Bhagavad Gita is the only book in the world in which someone claiming to be God, describes in detail about Himself, the soul and Nature and how they inter-relate. Also, we don’t have to believe in Evolution or Darwin’s theory, as there is no empirical evidence to support that theory. In fact, Darwin’s theory is pure speculation and wishful thinking. “We must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.” — Franklin Harold, Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Colorado State University, in an Oxford University Press text. If someone came and told you that everything you hold dear, everything you believe in, everything you thought you knew, all your values, all you hopes and aspirations, all your love for wife, kids, family, friends, and society, in fact, the entire foundation of your life – it is all wrong, it is all an illusion – you’d probably think that that someone was on drugs or belonged in a mental institution.

Purushottam Nitai Das: Just by buying a book of medicine and studying it on its own a person cannot become a medical doctor.

By Toronto Sankirtan Team

For your pleasure Srila Prabhupada, the Toronto chapter of your Sankirtan Army, had a glorious year 2015. We organized many sankirtan festivals, participated in several multicultural festivals in and around the city, knocked on thousands of doors, placed books in countless venues from hotels to homeless shelters. We distributed several thousands of books, distributed huge quantities of prasadam and reached out to many more souls, with a hope to connect them to you. The Toronto Sankirtan Family has grown beautifully in the past one year. While book distribution continued throughout the year, our final push for your pleasure came towards the end of our annual book marathon. The goal seemed far and our options seemed few, but armed by the mantra “With blessings everything is possible”, we marched ahead determined to try our best – the worst we thought was that we’d fail, but you have assured us that simply by the attempt, we will attain all perfection! And the final push began… everyone stretched beyond their comfort zones – some headed out on the streets to distribute books in chilling winds, some knocked door to door for hours on end, others got on the phone and reached out to all their contacts with a plea to accept your books – everyone worked together for the one goal – to make Srila Prabhupada reach up the Jaladuta.

By Giriraj Swami Why is Lord Shiva considered the greatest Vaishnava? Because he is always absorbed in thought of Vasudeva (Krishna). The state in which one can always be absorbed in Krishna consciousness, in thought of Vasudeva, is called vasudeva, or…

By Anuttama das

We all get messages that there is something beyond ordinary life, and that what we are doing is not the all in all. Whether it’s through a holy book, experiencing the loss of a loved one, an intuition, deja vu, or just watching Matrix or Star Wars and wondering about our origins – we all are reminded from within from time to time, that there is more to life than a few years of hard struggle and mixed results. Do we respond to that call, or just shake it off?

By Zayani Bhatt

Temple Presidents and communications teams from ISKCON temples across the UK gathered at Bhaktivedanta Manor to mark National Communications Day 2016 on Saturday 30th January. The day was dedicated to workshops, presentations and discussions centred on the communications strategy for the year, ideas for the 50th year celebrations and essential media training. The national communications team intends to enhance cohesion across ISKCON temple communications throughout the UK and provide media support to both devotees who give interviews and those who write about ISKCON. The long-term aim is to unify the branding and messaging of all centres whilst maintaining the individuality and creativity of each. The day also included a talk from special guest The Reverend George Pitcher, a journalist, author, public relations pioneer and Anglican priest. He spoke to the assembled devotees about the common barriers religious organisations face when communicating with the secular public and media.

By Padmapani das “You can chant anyway, anywhere. Whether you are in the college, whether you’re on the street, whether you are sleeping, lying, or whatever, you can chant. Because God has given you this tongue and you can chant. “Don’t think that Kri…

By Kesava Krsna Dasa

Some spiritual practitioners think that now they have achieved some reasonable control of the physical sex urge, they are well nigh up there in the wispy clouds of victorious abstinence, deserving of respect and honour. Wrong! Congratulations on becoming a decent human being. Welcome to the world of subtle selfishness. Srila Prabhupada states: ‘Illicit sex is the most prominent sin due to lusty desire.’ This is because it is sometimes called ‘ adi-rasa ‘ the primeval, original pleasure, which sadly for us, is a twisted iron-like perversion enjoyed separately from Krishna. With a little enlightenment some people can see the problems arising from lust, but; ‘The conditioned soul sometimes personally appreciate the futility of sense enjoyment in the material world, and he sometimes considers material enjoyment to be full of miseries. However, due to his strong bodily conception, his memory is destroyed, and again and again he runs after material enjoyment, just as an animal runs after a mirage in the desert.’

By Urmila Devi Dasi

Anyone who has worked with children knows they are vulnerable to their environment. Yet children also carry from their previous lives a complex burden of good and bad karma and a particular tendency of character. In fact, the mentality of the parents during conception attracts a particular soul—with particular inclinations—to become their child. Because of this, enlightened parents prepare themselves so that they can be in spiritual consciousness during conception. Thus their child will be receptive to the training they will give him. Srila Prabhupada says, “You can mold the children in any way. They are like soft dough.” So the mold is essential when considering the shape of the final piece of sculpture. But the quality of the material one puts into the mold is also important.

By Ithamar Theodor

It is sometimes said that Srila Prabhupada built a house in which the whole world can live. Inspired by this idea, I would like to suggest a three-storey house model as a reflection of the nature of ISKCON. The idea is grounded in the Bhagavad-gita and is designed to offer a supporting framework for the sankirtana movement, as well as to further the ongoing discussions of implementing varnasrama within ISKCON. The house described here has three storeys, each having fundamental distinctions that can best be demonstrated by the differences in ontology and ethics characterising each level. The idea presented here favours an individual-centred, as opposed to an organisation-centred, paradigm. Before addressing the issue, let us acknowledge the two-dimensional realm in which ISKCON exists.

Brajsunder Das: We wish to bring out our e-magazine in Russian, Chinese and Hindi Languages.

By Sri Nandanandana das

This is a step by step process for affecting the villages of India to become a part of the spiritual revolution that could be developed across the country. Why worry about the villages? The 2001 census showed that India’s population has gone past the 1 billion mark. Nearly three-quarters of its population, 72.2 percent, live in its more than 500,000 villages, which are primarily dependent on agriculture. Its urban population of 285 million, 27.8 percent, is almost the equivalent of the total population of the United States. But we can see that a good majority of the Indian population lives in the villages. The villagers are also very simple people, pious, and also the most vulnerable to the conversion tactics that are brought in by outside religions. This is also why Christian missionaries are increasingly preaching and working to build churches in the villages. And this is also why we should focus more on fulfilling the spiritual needs of villagers.

By ISKCON 50 Global Office

The Global Office for the 50th Anniversary of ISKCON has called upon all ISKCON temples around the world to ’50-ise’ their regular festivals in 2016 by following a few simple steps. “We need to take every opportunity to spread awareness about our 50th anniversary to the general public,” said Anuttama Das, GBC Minister for Communications, and a member of the International Executive Committee for the 50th Anniversary. “Our regular festivals such as Gaura Purnima, Rama Navami, Janmashtami, Ratha Yatra and Diwali offer us a big opportunity to put the 50th anniversary right out there in the public domain. Every temple should follow these steps to ‘50-ise’ their festivals, so that the world becomes aware of ISKCON’s achievements in the last 50 years.” “There are six simple steps that every temple can follow to ‘50-ise’ their festivals,” explained Romapada Das, International Coordinator for the 50th Anniversary. “And we have created several resources for you to make your job simpler. Please follow these guidelines so that we can engage the maximum number of people around the world in the 50th Anniversary.”

By Madhava Smullen

The Service Appreciation Ceremony – a semi-annual custom introduced in 2014 that honors those who have contributed years of service to the New Vrindaban village – was held for the third time at ISKCON New Vrindaban’s Community Hall on Sunday December 6th, 2016. Previous ceremonies honored the late Madhava Gosh and his wife Vidya, Kripamaya and his wife Krsna Bhava, Malati Devi, Navin-Shyam, Jamuna, and Kacey Orr for diverse services from GBC to board member to cow and garden care. This time, around fifty people gathered to honor ECO-Vrindaban veteran farmhand Ray Kuderski, cook and mother Dharmakala Dasi, performer and author Sankirtan Das, and his wife Ruci, a longtime teacher at New Vrindaban.

By Vaillant George

This paper proposes that eight positive emotions: awe, love (attachment), trust (faith), compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, joy and hope constitute what we mean by spirituality. These emotions have been grossly ignored by psychiatry. The two sciences that I shall employ to demonstrate this definition of spirituality will be ethology and neuroscience. They are both very new. I will argue that spirituality is not about ideas, sacred texts and theology; rather, spirituality is all about emotion and social connection. Specific religions, for all their limitations, are often the portal through which positive emotions are brought into conscious attention. Neither Freud nor psychiatric textbooks ever mention emotions like joy and gratitude. Hymns and psalms give these emotions pride of place. Our whole concept of psychotherapy might change if clinicians set about enhancing positive emotions rather than focusing only on negative emotions.

By Tamohara dasa The spiritual or eternal self is not the sensations which the soul experiences within and from the body. “yantra rudrani mayaya”. What we directly experience is not actually the external hard physical material world, but a REPRESENTATI…

By Urmila Devi Dasi

One of the most obvious qualities of the air is its subtlety. Although air is all around us, pushing on our body with a pressure of fifteen pounds per square inch (one kilogram per square centimeter), we are practically oblivious of it. We usually breathe unconsciously too, so subtle is the air moving in and out of our lungs. We see air only through its effects, such as when it moves branches and straw or carries smoke and water vapor. Krsna too is almost imperceptible to a materially conditioned soul, visible only by His effects. We see His handiwork in a flower’s beauty or the predictability of the planets’ movements, but we do not see Him. The natural laws on which we base our math and science imply a lawmaker. But much of the nature of that lawmaker stays unknown. Subtle air can move things that to our senses are far more substantial than air. Violent air in tornados and other storms can throw buildings afar and push wood splinters into metal. Similarly, with only the indiscernible movement of His will, Krsna can move, shape, change, and scatter everything we can perceive.

By Jonathan B. Edelmann This phenomenal world or material world in which we are placed is complete in itself because the twenty-four elements of which this material universe is a temporary manifestation, according to Sankhya philosophy, are completely …

By Bir Krishna Swami The names of Krishna are the repository of all happiness and the greatest wealth. If we chant properly, we will not experience material miseries, but we may experience what the materialist might mistake as misery: the spiritual joy…

By Padma Devi Dasi It may be safe to say that deterioration of the global natural environment is today no longer a contested issue. All nations acknowledge pollution, salination, deforestation, desertification, depletion of the ozone layer, the prevale…

By your servants from Russian & CIS ToVP team

We are grateful to you for engaging us in fulfilling Srila Prabhupada’s personal desire – construction of the magnificent Temple of the Golden Age! Please accept our efforts as an offering. For 2015, we collected and transferred to a bank account in Mayapur over USD 160,000. This money was collected by many different ways. Particularly, we invited donors to pay for square feet and bricks. They paid for 300 square feet, 37 Nrisimhadeva bricks, 54 Mahaprabhu bricks, 12 Radha-Madhava bricks and one silver coin. We hold talks about the New Temple at many big festivals, did promotions on the Internet, as well as presentations in different cities. We are asking for your blessings to be able to collect at least double the amount we did this year, in 2016 for Srila Prabhupada’s pleasure.

By Indira Rodericks

MUMBAI: Empowering the young with a new level of spirituality will be one of the foremost missions of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Iskcon), as it gears up to celebrate its fifty years. Iskcon, also known as the Hare Krishna movement, has expanded widely since it was founded by Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupda in New York City in 1966. Although Mumbai is home to three temples, Juhu, Girgaum and Mira Road and the under-construction temple at Kharghar, a mammoth rath yatra is being planned so that all devotees can culminate at one place. Also, preparations are rife as a three-day spiritual and cultural festival is scheduled to be held on February 5, 6 and 7.

Madhucchanda das: It is a project created to support Srila Prabhupada’s and Iskcon’s mission to present Srimad Bhagavatam to the world.

Dr. Avnish Pandey (Anantasimha Das): Today, January 27, 2016, at the Bhaktivedanta Hospice in Vrindavan, India, His Grace Janaradan Das, a disciple of His Holiness Tamal Krishna Maharaja and citizen of Fiji, peacefully passed away in the Holy Dhama.

By Arcana Siddhi Devi Dasi Sanatana Goswami, a prominent disciple of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, lived under a tree as a renunciant. Once, a poor brahmana heard that Sanatana possessed a stone that could turn anything it touched into gold. The brahmana eager…

By Mayesvara Dasa Saint Tukaram: “I want to taste sugar; I don’t want to be sugar.” Can water quaff itself? Can trees taste of the fruit they bear? He who worships God must stand distinct from Him, So only shall he know the joyful love of God…

By N. Swaminathan, Ph.D.

When I entered the spacious temple and looked to the right, I was stunned on seeing the huge and extremely beautiful deities of Radha-Madhava, with four sakhis on each side gazing at the perfect beauty of Lord Madhava and Srimati Radharani and very eager to serve Them. The temple was full of devotees offering ghee lamps, an act that symbolizes how our heart burns in separation from Krishna. My family and I also got ghee lamps and offered them to Radha-Madhava and the eight sakhis. We then went to the adjoining hall, also spacious. When I saw the huge golden Panca Tattva deities, I couldn’t imagine ever having to leave Mayapur. The devotees’ graceful dancing and the beautiful kirtana enchanted me. And before I could recover, I was in front of the deity of Nrisimha. Dressed in silver, He looked like silver fire. He was so ferocious, and yet so assuring. I don’t remember how many times I offered obeisances to Him, or maybe I didn’t at all.

By Praghosa Dasa A common denominator for practically each of the unlimited varieties of material bodies is that the spirit soul dwelling within is to one degree or another attached to the particular body they reside in. In turn most resided in bodies…

By Mahatma das If you are like me – or for that matter everyone I’ve ever met – you resist negative things. When others tell you what they don’t like about you, point out a mistake you made, criticize you, etc., you probably get defensive. Give Me Some…

By Kesava Krsna Dasa

The spiritual master is the central object of vision for every disciple. Quite often, the imposition of external conditions can deflect the natural bias from something, which is essentially internal, or hidden from unqualified worshipers. ‘The solid truth of religious principles is hidden in the heart of an unadulterated self-realized person.’ (Mahabharata, Vana Parva 313-117) If a disciple fails to discern the difference between external and internal worship of the guru, it can mean a divergence from understanding the inner or outer words of the spiritual master. This also applies to understanding Srila Prabhupada’s universal siksa instructions pervading his writings. ‘Please wake up and try to understand the boon that you now have in this human form of life. The path of spiritual realization is very difficult; it is like a razors edge. That is the opinion of learned transcendental scholars.’ (Katha Upanishad 1.3.14) The disparity can be as stark as that between arcana ‘ which means worship; and bhajana ‘ which also means worship, for want of a better word, and point towards normal or higher worship. The process of worship does not guarantee receiving the Lord’s grace. Lord Krishna says ca cejyaya ‘ ‘nor by worship’ can He be understood. (BG 11.53)

By ISKCON 50 Global Office

All temples requested to display new posters prominently to publicise the 50th “We have one general poster about the 50th, and seven other posters – one for each of the seven purposes of ISKCON,” said Anuttama Das, GBC Minister for Communications who is part of the International Executive Committee for the 50th Anniversary. “One of the aims of the 50th Anniversary is to educate the general public about ISKCON. The posters depicting the seven purposes will attempt to do that with attractive imagery and relevant information.” The posters were designed by Paramsiddhi Devi Dasi from ISKCON Ahmedabad with storyboards and visualisation provided by the ISKCON 50 Global Office.

By Hare Krishna Devi Dasi

To see the true value of the Vedic social system, we need to understand it in its original form. Thinkers throughout history—from Plato to Locke to modern political theorists—have always discussed the ideal form of social organization. Vedic literature also addresses this question and presents as the ideal the social system known as varnashrama, which divides society into four varnas, or occupational groups, and four ashramas, or stages of life. The four varnas are brahmanas (priests and teachers), kshatriyas (rulers and warriors), vaishyas (farmers and merchants), and shudras (laborers and artisans). The four ashramas are brahmacharya (student), grihastha (householder), vanaprastha (retired), and sannyasa (renounced). When His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada carried the wisdom of Vedic literature to the West, he was hoping for nothing short of a spiritual revolution. He knew that without Krishna consciousness, people cannot be happy. An important part of his strategy to spread Krishna consciousness around the world was the revival of varnashrama. For many years, his followers have pondered his instructions about varnashrama, but so far have made little progress in fulfilling his vision for it.