Author Archives: H.H. Giriraj Swami

Giriraj Swami at the Question and Answer Tent at the Ratha-yatra festival. “Material wealth may not be the best thing for you. What people really want is happiness. It is well documented that wealth does not bring an increase in happiness. Unless you are really poor — then a little increase to bring you to the […]

A Skype call with devotees in Mumbai. “Srila Prabhupada gave the example of the swan: in a mixture of milk and water, the swan can take out the milk. Similarly, in the material world there is a mixture of Maya and Krishna. We have to extract the Krishna part and leave the Maya part. That […]

A Skype call with devotees in Mauritius. “The idea with the mitra system is that everyone should have a friend in Krishna consciousness, someone to whom one can reveal one’s mind. Srila Rupa Gosvami in his Upadesamrita discusses priti-laksana — the symptoms of love shared between devotees. And Srila Prabhupada explains that ‘the life of the Krsna […]

——————————————————————————————————— “One should practice bhakti-yoga with firm determination and faith and not be disturbed if there is a little delay in achieving the desired goal. In Srila Prabhupada’s commentary he quotes the verse: utsahan niscayad dhairyat tat-tat-karma-pravartanat sanga-tyagat sato vritteh shadbhir bhaktih prasidhyati We have to be enthusiastic, and we have to be determined and […]

Today is Guru-purnima. Srila Prabhupada has explained that the system of honoring the spiritual master is current in all sections of Vedic followers. In the Mayavadi (impersonalist) sects, disciples offer respect to the spiritual master once in a year, on Guru-purnima. And in the Gaudiya Vaisnava sampradaya, disciples also offer homage annually—on the appearance day […]

“Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura shows us extraordinary determination. We see that even in the life of such a great devotee, empowered with Gaura shakti, still the material world is no rose garden — although we long for it to be so. We hope, in our neophyte mentality, that by our performing bhakti Krishna will make the material world nice. It seems […]

“Mukunda and his wife, Janaki, were actually planning to go to India. It occurred to Mukunda that maybe he should ask the Swami whether or not there was something he could do for him before he went. The answer was, ‘Since you are going to the West coast, why don’t you see if you can […]

“All the time we would joke when people would come and not fit into that tiny temple room. ‘Look, we fit three thousand people in here before, so don’t complain, just move in a little closer.’ At least five times during every lecture we would have to say, ‘Everyone please move up.’ And then Krishna […]

“As he’d done when we’d walked the streets of New York City, he instructed me how to walk the paths of Raman Reti—how to deal with the monkeys. First, you carry a stick with you. We grew up in kind of tough neighborhoods. He sometimes said that the choice for him of which way to walk home […]

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Kirtan led by Sarvatma Dasa
Nrsimha Prayers led by Giriraj Swami

“If someone approaches you and offers to serve you in your home and in your business and wants nothing in return — just wants to make you happy — then you will naturally feel inclined toward that person. ‘This is a sign of your sincere devotion.’ With God it is the same way. If you approach God with no […]

Giriraj Swami and Indradymna Swami awarded first and second initiation to devotees prior to the Panihati festival at the Laguna Beach temple on Friday. During the ceremony, Giriraj Swami initiated Srila Tamal Krishna Goswami’s brother and sister-in-law, Bhakta Carl and Bhaktin Stella Herzig, as well as Saroj Wadehra. Now  Saroj will be known as Tulasi Manjari dasi, Stella as Shraddhanjali dasi, […]

—————————————————————————————————————— Bhaktin Mira, in Pringle Bay, South Africa, was initiated by Giriraj Swami by Skype — and given the sweet spiritual name Madhurika dasi. “Today’s ceremony is especially significant because you [Bhaktin Mira] have waited so long and prepared yourself for so many years before coming to the stage of accepting initiation. And because you have […]

“Indradyumna Swami spoke on the bhakti movement of Lord Chaitanya at Bhakti Yoga Shala in Los Angeles. After the talk, as the kirtana built and the ecstasy rose and almost everyone in the room was dancing, I thought, “Maharaja is not an ordinary person; I should take full advantage of every moment I have with him—and other such great […]

Diary of a Traveling Monk, Volume 13, Chapter 12 Anatoli Fedorovich Pinyayev (Ananta-santi dasa) was the first Soviet Hare Krsna devotee. Because of his active preaching throughout the USSR and because of the spiritual influence he had on many people, he was subjected to severe persecution for five and a half years at the hands […]

Bhakti Charu Swami spoke at New Dwaraka Dhama. “So many young Americans came forward to help Srila Prabhupada. Obviously they were somehow previously related to him from their past lives. It was not just a chance happening. One devotee, in  a humble mood, told Srila Prabhupada, ‘Before meeting you I was so fallen, so engrossed in all kinds […]