Author Archives: Vraja Kishor

Bhāgavatam continues describing the qualities of a genuine leader (4.16.7) He is patient with the disorderly and tries to uplift even them. He is always compassionate to everyone and supports the needy like the earth supports all creatures. 4) He doesn’t silence those who don’t comply, he deals productively with those who protest. He is […]

Another guy I loved was Mādhavendra Pūri, one of the three people involved in San Diego’s branch of something called the Bhaktivedānta Institute – a group of scientifically trained devotees who were trying to explain Krishna consciousness in context of modern science. I was a huge fan of modern science – my dad had majored […]

Canto Four, Chapter 16 (beginning from the fourth text) describes how the royal singers praised the newly enthroned King Pṛthu. This section reveals the essential qualities of an ideal leader. This king upholds the best dharma and shows the world how to follow dharma. He is the guardian of dharma’s rules, and the regulator of those […]

The San Diego Krishna temple was even cooler than the one in Los Angeles. The inside was decorated and decked out, completely over-the-top – but the thing I really liked were the people. It was the headquarters for the Hare Krishna magazine, Back to Godhead. I loved chief editor – Jayādvaita Swāmī. We got along […]

I am translating from Śrī Tattva Sandarbha 27: In these Six Essays (Ṣaḍ-Sandarbha) we will ascertain the supreme objective of life primarily by scrutinizing the statements of Śrī Bhāgavatam in due consideration of the context in which those statements are made. Statements must be understood in context, not as isolated quotes one found on the internet […]

And of course, it happened on Facebook. I posted: “Less intelligent” is an easily misinterpreted phrase. If women are “less intelligent” then man in the way we usually think of the English word “intelligent” – why is Devahūti the 1st ācārya of the extremely philosophical saṁkhya darśan of Kapila? Why is the Vedic personification of […]

The main thing is to want to chant Hare Krishna. Doing the chanting is extremely easy, it’s just words, anyone can say them or think of them. Wanting to chant is the trick, its the hard part. So to work on my japa I try to work on increasing my desire to chant. Here are a few helpful ways […]

“Krishna dictates everything the guru says. Everything guru says is therefore perfect, we should not interpret it.” Friends, the idea that it’s possible to not interpret the guru is a myth. Subjectivity means seeing something from your own point of view (“interpreting it” according to your own viewpoint). The idea that it’s possible to remain a conscious individual yet […]

The narrators, bards and singers then came forward. Knowing that they wanted to glorify him, Pṛthu smiled and spoke to them with a voice as grave as thunder. “Bho Narrators! Hey bards and gentle singers! I have not yet manifest my qualities, so why should you already make me the object of praise? Do not […]

A few days later I wound up with Mark and Dave in the girl’s wing again – this time to watch some type of hippie movie. A hippie girl in her third year of school was there and within minutes we spontaneously decided that we were boy- and girl-friend. I wound up watching the movie […]

The priests and spiritualists prepared Pṛthu’s coronation by gathering everything necessary from people in the surrounding countries. Everyone offered riches for the ceremony, even the deer, birds, cows, and divine serpents, even the earth, sky, seas, rivers, and mountains. At the ceremony making him emperor, Pṛthu was exquisitely dressed and wore the finest ornaments. His […]

Chanting Hare Krishna attentively is extremely easy, but wanting to chant Hare Krishna attentively is in fact very difficult. As my tired heart protests the impending hour and something I will be sitting down with japa beads, I ask myself, “Why do you want to chant Hare Krishna?” For me, the immediate answer is, “Because I want […]

I got into a terrible argument recently with a friend because of something I said. It started when someone (on Facebook of course) asked me, “What do you have to say about Prabhupada’s condemnation of homosexual activity?” In hindsight, I should have asked him to give examples and then addressed the examples one by one. I […]

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Some time later those sages began to discuss things, sitting on the bank of Sarasvatī River after having performed their daily rituals and baths. They had noticed that social problems were on the rise. “Maybe,” they said, “by killing the king we’ve left the leaderless people as prey for dangerous criminals?” Clouds of dust billowed […]

Friends, if I argue with you, I argue with you. Please don’t wear the plastic armor that by arguing with you I am arguing with Prabhupāda. It should be pretty obvious how wildly pompus that attitude is. Yes, you are a devotee, an ISKCON member, a disciple of Prabhupāda or of Prabhupāda’s disciple, etc. but this doesn’t […]

Now that I had gone to the Hare Krishna temple and survived, I felt brave enough to try one of their “Sunday Love Feasts.” The temple was a lot less imposing on Sunday afternoon with dozens of people around, a lot of them “normal looking.” Inside, the temple floor was rich checkered marble. Marble pillars […]

By the time I left New York, Beyond had become pretty huge, at least relative to the size of Hardcore Punk. What started off as the offshoot of a battle-of-the-bands project now played real shows with real bands to real people paying real money. What started off as a high-school hobby now had national attention … Continue reading A Lot of Musicians Are Into This Book

“Plants have souls, too – but you eat them” OK, that’s true. Life = “soul”. Anything that’s alive therefore has “soul.” Plants have souls and animals have souls and humans have souls, yes. And so do germs. But the BODIES of different life-forms are different, and expose different degrees of the life-force/consciousness. The human body … Continue reading Revisiting Arguments About Vegetarianism

The scholars concealed their anger and approached Vena, placating him with gentle words. “Great and beloved king,” they said, “we would like to reveal something to you. If you accept and understand it, your health, wealth, power, and fame will greatly enhance.” “Speak,” said the king. “Religion is a most important thing,” the scholars explained. … Continue reading Your father, husband, boss, king, Bhakta Leader, Temple President, and GBC is GOD, but…

Nāma-japa is meditation on a mantra composed of Krishna’s name. We should therefore consider ourselves “meditators,” and we should be aware that we are supposed to be practicing our nāma-mantra meditation for 1 – 2 hours daily. In meditation, negative simply clears the path for positive. Pratyahāra is the negative step – removing, silencing, negating all thoughts, all … Continue reading Japa Tips 2: Be COGNIZANT

The more I read that book, the more I became the local authority on the subject. Not many people asked me much, but Tom was a bit interested in the whole Krishna thing, so at one point, while we were driving slowly through my neighborhood, he asked, “So, Krishna’s have four rules, right? And one … Continue reading Ridiculously Esoteric Stuff From a Teenager

Scholars headed by Bhṛgu always look out for the welfare of the world. They had seen that humans become just like animals when they are without guardians, so those spiritualists called for the heroic mother, Sunīthā, to coronate Vena as the guardian of the world – even though he was not really qualified for it. … Continue reading Totalitarianism, Secular Communism, and King Vena

We encounter worship of (or via) stones in many diverse cultures across the world. It is a particularly fascinating phenomenon because it uniquely exemplifies “aniconic” worship. In contrast to the more prevalent iconic worship of an idol/statue, worship of a sacred stone is aniconic because the stone does not have visible correspondence to the deity … Continue reading Govardhana Śila – A Gauḍīya Hallmark: Original and Modern Approaches

ŚB 4.13.25 ~ 34 Aṅga was indeed a great philosopher-king, but when he undertook an elaborate horse sacrifice, the gods would not attend no matter how the learned priests tried to summon them. Perplexed, the priests explained to the proponent of the sacrifice, “King Aṅga, the gods do not accept our offerings. They are not … Continue reading When Things Just Don’t Go Right… Leaders Blame You

The best time to chant is whenever we find it easiest to let go of the deep-seated habit of driving our thoughts from one personal desire or interest to the next. I’ve found that this tends to be either (a) immediately after waking up, or (b) after taking care of everything I’m supposed to take … Continue reading Japa Hints – 1: The Right TIME

Here is a presentation of paragraphs 61.3-5 of Śrī Tattva Sandarbha by Jīva Goswāmī We might think that the ten topics are covered sequentially and systematically in Śrīmad Bhāgavatam’s cantos, but how can this be when there are ten topics and twelve cantos? We might propose to drop two of the cantos as introductory or … Continue reading Organization of Bhāgavatam

In modern academic scholarship, almost every interpretation of anything relating to the classical and ancient history of India is based on the assumption that the culture – encapsulated in their sacred text, the Veda – has evolved over time. The Veda themselves, in the form we currently have them, also admit their chronological origin, but … Continue reading Do the Vedas Evolve over Time?

Recently I became disgusted with the frequency and extent to which I encountered violent abuse of women even among those who we suppose also try to practice bhakti-yoga. Since I live in relative isolation from the English-speaking world, Facebook (for better or worse) is something of an outlet for me. So I made a Facebook … Continue reading On Women and Cows – Domestic Abuse

हरे कृष्ण हरे कृष्ण कृष्ण कृष्ण हरे हरे । हरे राम हरे राम राम राम हरे हरे ।। Most mantra have a sentence structure, making their meaning relatively specific and simple to express. The Hare Krishna mantra, however, is not a sentence at all. It has only nouns, no verbs, and these nouns have identical … Continue reading Meaning of the “Hare Krishna” Mantra

The word rama literally means “pleasure.” With a long initial “a,” rāma, it means “pleaser and enjoyer” – a “lover” in the romantic and erotic sense. It is a name for the god of eros, kāma-deva, and is used amongst commoners to denote any extremely seductive and attractive man or woman. The words rāma and krishna … Continue reading The Meaning of “Rāma” in the Hare Krishna Mahāmantra

I was really inspired to see how much interest there was in my article on chanting. There were a few consistent or excellent questions I heard amongst the responses, so I’ll try to reply to them. About the Speed I was surprised that a few people found it hard to believe that it is possible … Continue reading Q & A about my Chanting Article

Nāma Kaumudī’s fundamental definition of the word krishna is, “The supreme spiritual substance.” This harkens to Gopāla-tāpanī Upaniṣad, which explains (in pūrva.1.1) that krish- means “existence.” and –ṇa means “carefree.” The word krishna therefore indicates an entity whose existence is effortless, self-establishing, causeless, without defects, and blissful. That entity is brahman, the supreme spiritual substance … Continue reading What does “Krishna” Mean?

Cakṣuṣa’s wife Ākūti gave him a son named [Cāksuṣa] Manu. This illustrates that humanity (manu) has desire (ākūti) in their eyes (cakṣu). They covet everything they see. Manu’s Empress, Naḍvalā delivered Manu twelve sons, representing twelve facets of the ceremonies that fulfill humanity’s desires like a flowing river (naḍvalā). She named her first son after … Continue reading “Sacred Herb” in Vedic Ceremonies

Why Worry About It? First I have to want to improve my japa. That won’t happen until (a) I’m sincere, and (b) I realize that chanting japa is more important than anything else (more important than how many times or ways I get high, have sex, consume onions, eggs and slaughterhouse milk, wear karmī clothes, don’t put on tilak, … Continue reading Step One (of one): Improve Japa Chanting

Here is Bhāgavatam’s description of Dhruva’s oldest son (4.13.6~11): When Dhruva retired finally to the forest, his eldest son Utkala had no interest in the opulence and kingdom granted by the royal throne. From the beginning, Utkala was a detached and desireless person, seeing everything in the world as having the same value, since the … Continue reading Enlightened or Blind?

I’m writing a memoir now about the days when I first became a Hare Krishna, so a context is how [poorly] I treated my mother and father. Today, I translated the last śloka of the 12th chapter of Canto 4, and it’s related: “O Great Kuru,” Maitreya said to Vidura, “I am now finished telling … Continue reading Abandon your Family for God?

4.12.13: “By enjoying, he destroyed his good karma, and by self-discipline he destroyed his bad karma.” He was creating no new karma because he was simply performing his duties perfectly (described in the 12th text). So by enjoying whatever enjoyment came, and suffering whatever suffering came (by discipline, by carrying on through it) he destroyed … Continue reading Interesting Things About the Final Part of Dhruva’s Story

Śrī Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī did a lot of revolutionary, controversial things. All of them were done to hammer home specific philosophical points that were extremely relevant to the audience he was dealing with in early 19th century Bengal. Adoption of Sanyassa and Saffron, for example. Wearing of the “brahmana’s thread” and śikha. He did this to boldly and vividly … Continue reading Bhaktisiddhānta Paramparā Controversy

Bhāgavatam 4.12 athāyajata yajñeśaṁ kratubhir bhūri-dakṣiṇaiḥ dravya-kriyā-devatānāṁ karma karma-phala-pradam (10) As a king, Dhruva conducted ceremonies to give generous charity as a means to worship the Lord of Sacrifice who is the essence of all wealth, all rituals, all gods, and all endeavors, and who bestows the fruits of all efforts. sarvātmany acyute ’sarve tīvraughāṁ … Continue reading Seeing Everyone as God / Slaughtering Animals in Sacrifice