Author Archives: Madhava Smullen

The Museum of Sacred Art (MOSA) in Radhadesh, Belgium, is exhibiting the works of famous Indian mandala painter Om Prakash Sharma, whose meeting with Srila Prabhupada left an impact on him. Now 85 years old, Om Prakash has had a long and prod…

Jaya Chaitanya Das, 30, recently went from being a hip-hop producer to ISKCON’s top book distributor in the U.S., selling 85,000 of Srila Prabhupada’s books in one year. Now, he has come up with an innovative new program that show…

Last October, brahmachari Narottam Das and his friend Mukharavinda Das walked an incredible 654 kms from Johannesburg to Durban to raise funds for a new Sankirtana bus so that their Brahmachari ashram could bring Prabhupada’s books and …

Marie Avgeropoulos, one of the American stars of popular sci-fi TV series The 100, recently visited Food For Life Vrindavan’s Sandipani Muni School for underprivileged girls. Her visit marked the beginning of the #SheMustCount…

Documentary film Hare Krishna!, about the life and achievements of ISKCON Founder Srila Prabhupada, has won the coveted Jury Prize for Best Picture at Illuminate, the world’s premier conscious film festival. The festival ran from May 31…

New Vrajamandala, a beautiful 300-hectare farm just outside the little town of Brihuega near Guadalajara, Spain, has flower and vegetable gardens, a goshala for cow and ox protection, and gorgeous Deities of Sri-Sri Radha-Govinda Chandra and …

Keshav Das, 30, an ISKCON of Washington D.C. devotee, won the gold medal at his tri-county Special Olympics meet on Sunday May 21st, competing in the 100-meter track and field. Keshav, who was born with Down Syndrome, had been training for th…

On May 7th, well-known “spiritual scientist” Chaitanya Charan Das, a former engineer who has an online following of some 400,000 spoke on the topic “Reincarnation – Myth Versus Reality” at the five-star Hotel El …

On Monday May 15th ISKCON’s Governing Body Commission hosted a Town Hall Meeting to explain why it is opposing the pending sale of Brooklyn’s Radha Govinda Mandir, and what it plans to do about it.

Devotees at the only ISKCON center in Munich have been given six months to leave. They have been renting the center for twenty-one years since 1996. But now the landlord plans to demolish the building and turn it into new flats, and has given…

A recent Pew Research Center survey found that Muslims in the United States currently face the most discrimination of any group, with unlawful profiling, exclusionary immigration policies and hate crimes on the rise. In this environment some …

“Five Years, Eleven Months,” a memoir by senior Srila Prabhupada disciple Visakha Dasi, has been named a finalist in the spirituality category at the 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Awards (NGIBA). The book has been praised for it…

Forty communications staff will meet in Villa Vrindavana, Italy from May 13th to 16th for the European ISKCON Communications Conference. The conference will tackle several issues that are very relevant to ISKCON today. These include ISKCON an…

Smashing expectations, around 2,300 people attended the three-day festival opening the new Vedic-style ISKCON temple in Baltimore, Maryland from April 28th to 30th. They came from India, England, and all over the U.S., and included local cong…

Members of the D.C. Supersonic Kirtan group and devotees from the ISKCON temple in Washington D.C. joined together to chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra at the Peoples Climate March on April 29th. They also shared a spiritual environmental me…

“Hare Krishna! The Mantra, The Movement and the Swami Who Started It All,” a ninety-minute documentary film about the life and achievements of ISKCON Founder Srila Prabhupada, will start its nationwide roll-out in the U.S. this Ju…

A new book from the Russian branch of the BBT tells the amazing history of ISKCON in the USSR during the Soviet era, detailing the struggles and successes of some of our movement’s most dedicated and often unsung heroes. “The Kris…

The local municipality in Turin, one of the largest cities in Italy, is financially supporting ISKCON’s local Food For Life effort. Devotees feed 100 homeless people at two shelters every Monday. And local public, moved by the devotees’…

Mayapur Academy’s new Italian branch allows devotees in the Western World and particularly Europe to learn the knowledge, skills and values they need to serve as pujaris in ISKCON without traveling all the way to Mayapur in India. Units inclu…

Last week’s Sunday Feast kirtan was an emotional experience for ISKCON Baltimore devotees, who shed tears even as they danced and chanted ecstatically together. The rip-roaring session was their last Sunday kirtan in their old temple, a…

ISKCON of Washington D.C. and ISKCON Communications are supporting the massive People’s Climate March in the U.S. capital this Saturday April 29th, and will be sending devotees to attend. The march will be held on the 100th day of the n…

Shri Radhe, the opening track of charity kirtan album “Bhakti Without Borders,” has been listed by Yoga Journal as one of the “10 Best Yoga Tunes of the Year.” The uplifting track, by second gen devotees Madi Das and C…

ISKCON’s Congregational Development Ministry, based in Mayapur, India, has launched a new online marriage counseling service that draws from Srila Prabhupada’s teachings. With the divorce rate in many countries at over fifty per c…

Two ISKCON authors have won in their categories at the Independent Book Publishers Benjamin Franklin Awards this year, which received nearly 1,400 entries published during the 2016 calendar year. Over 150 librarians, booksellers, and design a…

Today, many schools in the U.K.  and beyond are teaching children mindfulness, a widely acclaimed therapeutic technique that focuses our feelings, thoughts and emotions, and induces calm and emotional wellbeing. Jayadev Dasa, a well-know…

ISKCON devotees are serving alongside Sri Vaishnavas to celebrate Ramanujacharya in the lead-up to his 1,000th appearance day (Sahasrabdi) on May 1st. A great saint in the Sri Vaishnava tradition, Ramanuja lived between 1017 and 1137. He…

Jai Uttal, one of today’s best-loved and most popular kirtan artists, has released his latest album Roots Rock Rama! with Mantralogy, an ISKCON devotee-run record company that has also worked with The Mayapuris, Jahnavi Harrison, Gaura …

Over the Easter Weekend from Friday April 14th to Sunday April 16th, hundreds of devotees at ISKCON Auckland celebrated the 45th anniversary of their Deities, Sri Sri Radha-Giridhari, with love and great pomp. The celebrations included a mass…

Recently, a high court in India declared the Yamuna river a living entity, bestowing on her the same legal rights as a person. Many shared the news on social media, excited about this seemingly major move towards cleaning up the heavily pollu…

Since Cyclone Debbie made landfall on March 28th, it has brought heavy downpours and flooding to many areas of Queensland, Australia. In the small town of Murwillumbah (population: 8,523), ISKCON devotees from nearby New Govardhana have done …

The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust was present at the American College and Research Library Conference in Baltimore, Maryland from March 22nd to 25th this year, with its own booth. Representing the BBT was Jaya Chaitanya Das, 30, a former…

“Transcendental Journey: Hare Krishna Celebrates 50 Years,” an historic variety stage production put on by Australian devotees for ISKCON 50, is now available on Youtube and for pre-order on DVD. The film is a nearly two-hour pres…

Feedback is now flooding in from audiences around the world who have watched the first comprehensive documentary film made about ISKCON in 30 years – “The Joy of Devotion,” released on December 10th for Gita Jayanti. In…

One of the first of the retreat-style festivals currently so popular in ISKCON, Festival of Inspiration, launched in New Vrindaban in 2000, has always offered something a little unique. “Whereas previous Festival of Inspirations we…

An interreligious dialog, held in ISKCON Germany/Austria’s headquarters near Frankfurt from April 21st to 23rd, will discuss the very topical question, ‘Religion: Peacemaker or Cause of War?” This will be the third annu…

EnChant is Kirtan Vancouver’s “bread and butter,” a kirtan, short talk, and prasadam at a yoga studio every second Saturday that attracts an impressive fifty to seventy people of all ages each time – some from differen…

The Mayapuris were one of the original second generation ISKCON groups to bring Gaudiya Vaishnava kirtan to the forefront of the burgeoning mainstream kirtan scene. Since their debut, others have continued to forge the path, with Madi Das and…

After a very productive year in 2016, the team working on ISKCON’s upcoming flagship temple – the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium (TOVP) – have reported that the superstructure of the 520,000 square foot building has been co…

There are going to be a lot of tears and smiles in Christchurch, New Zealand from March 3rd to 5th. During what’s set to be an emotional three-day festival, devotees will see their brand new temple open after their old one was dest…

Today, a new Krishna conscious subculture seems to be growing out of the tattoo scene in North America, particularly in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Devotee tattoo artists – or “tattooers” as they’re more commonly know…