Planet ISKCON

This year the festival runs from 13^th to 18^th August 2016. Daily about 5,000 devotees and pilgrims come to swing Their Lordships from around Mayapur, Navadvipa and other localities. 

“Last year, this was just a dream of mine, but I was confident that Krishna would help me find a way to do something relevant for this historical anniversary,” says Villa Vrindavana President Parabhakti Das. “Sure enough, my dear friend Narada Muni Prabhu, a famous musician who is well acquainted with many influential people, came along and offered his help and that opened the doors to the Parliament.”

“The week-long festival started on the actual day that Srila Prabhupada signed the incorporation deed in New York, which was on July 11th,” explained Sura Das, President of ISKCON Kharghar. “The festival saw devotees embarking on a voyage of memories that helped us remember the 50 glorious years of ISKCON. Everyone felt real pride in sharing the joy of devotion, that was Srila Prabhupada’s special gift to all of us.”

Watch this small offering of gratitude to our dear Srila Prabhupada by ISKCON Desire Tree on the occasion of 50th Anniversary. Celebrating the Joy Of Devotion.

The diagram above is of a generic ‘Sales Funnel’ or ‘Marketing Funnel’ used in the world of business for many years to show how a customer flows through stages from initial awareness of a product to being an enthusiastic advocate of the product. Every business wants enthusiastic advocates, and that’s why its important to keep a potential customer moving from one stage to the next, maintaining and developing their interest and commitment all the while. You’ll see from the ‘funnel’ shape that the number of people exposed to the advertising is far greater than the eventual number of ‘advocates,’ and in between there’s several stages at which its easy to lose the customer.

This general flow from vague awareness to advocacy is also true of missions such as ISKCON, too. Its also true that it takes a lot of awareness creation – thousands of man-hours of it – to bring just one person to the point of ‘Consideration,’ and then a lot of personal interaction to bring them to the point of ‘Adoption.’ And, like any other business, we can lose people along the way.

How many stages are there in bringing a person from vague awareness of ISKCON to active membership? You can describe it in any number of stages, and the diagram above has six, but I counted seven. Here they are, with two things that happen at every stage:

1. Seeds  – A. Vague awareness of ISKCON by indirect exposure through friends, family or media                                  B. Developing an interest in spirituality.
2. Contact – A. Further awareness of ISKCON by direct exposure through street chanting parties, book distribution and/or festivals. B. Interacting with ISKCON members through meetings, chatting online or reading a book.
3. Considering – A. Exploring personal interests. B. Enquiring and Comparing.
4. Transforming – A. Opening up to change. B. Awakening of faith.
5. Adopting – A. Beginning the practises of bhakti. B. Making lifestyle changes.
6. Commitment – A. Accepting the parampara. B. Embracing the ISKCON family.
7. Advocacy – A. Compassionate sharing. B. Missionary spirit.

The stages are similar to those a consumer would go through in adopting a physical product. First there is hearing about the product through advertising and verbal testimony; examining the product and comparing it with other similar products, considering whether or not to become a customer; trying out the product, and finally becoming a happy customer and telling others about the product.

It may be argued that faith cannot be compared to a physical consumer item such as a can of beans, because it is ‘an unflinching trust in something sublime.’ It is typically arrived at after a long series of intellectual considerations, internal adjustments and spiritual practise, yet the comparisons with observable consumer patterns are not inaccurate.

A person is attracted to the notion of bhakti after hearing about it, examines the concepts involved, tests it by meeting others who have adopted it and then experiments with the daily practises. After finding some satisfaction the person then moves toward ‘advocacy’ of bhakti – the compassionate sharing of it with others.

As a spiritual movement dedicated to increasing its membership, ISKCON’s purpose can be helped greatly by its leading members ensuring that all the natural stages in the flow are complete, and that aspiring bhakti-yogis can easily make a transition from one stage to another. Each stage requires a different kind of engagement with the new member, ranging from the initial conversations and personal example, through teaching of the basic concepts and practises, through to pastoral care and encouraging guidance.

ISKCON’s book distribution is legendary and immense in proportion to the size of its membership. Probably no other organisation can claim more voluntary teams interacting with the public on a daily basis. As a sales force it is unmatched in the business world. The movement’s membership involvement is also funnel-shaped because of the large amount of advertising and initial public contact conducted by the organisation. Thousands buy books, and hundreds of thousands hear the street chanting, and then progressively smaller percentages go on to become involved practitioners and advocates. This is a normal pattern for an organisation, particularly one with a very active marketing division.

To take a person through seven stages you have to make sure they have all the experiences that will gently take them from one stage to the next. Each stage requires its own knowledge and expertise, and it is therefore required that we divide up the responsibilities involved in each stage and make sure that someone is carrying them out. To fully capitalise on all the efforts expended by book-sellers, street chanters and festival-makers, and to ensure that as many as possible process through all the stages – not becoming lost along the way – ISKCON could examine carefully the other levels of its outreach, especially the stages where more direct, personal teaching and guidance are required. ISKCON wants to attract new members as well as retain the existing ones. A fresh look at how we help people in the important stages of consideration and transformation would be helpful. It would also benefit our movement as a whole to examine why members leave us, at what stage, and whether any changes are required in order to better care for our existing members.

Four years after acquisition, ISKCON Leicester will finally reveal major renovation to the City Centre building, allowing it to be finally used as a temple, this Saturday 30^th July 2016. A perfect offering to Srila Prabhupada on the 50^th anniversary of ISKCON, the renovations include a first floor temple room, kitchen, classrooms, and offices. On the second floor, a team of brahmacaris, led by Sutapa Das, will join Bhakti Prabhava Swami to take residency on the upper floors of the temple.

The land of believers: In India, just 33,000 people are atheists.
India is a land of believers.
Only 33,000 people declared themselves atheists in the 2011 census that puts India’s population at 1.2 billion.
Nearly half of the atheists are women. And seven out of every 10 atheists live in rural India, the data released earlier this week shows.
This is the first time in recent years that census data in public domain puts a number on atheists, people who do not believe in the existence of God. The 2001 report – the census is done every 10 years – said “only a handful few claim to be atheist”.
To read the entire article click here: http://goo.gl/r4BwpK

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 26 July 2016, Swiss Summer Camp, Switzerland, Srimad Bhagavatam Lecture)

A sadhu (holy man) is a missionary. Preaching is the fruit of his labour. However, one must first gain some depth before he can really preach. What does this mean? It means that first he must have faith! Preaching is highly dependent on this. Sraddha (faith) comes from sraddh, that which has been heard from a bona fide source, and dha, to fix in the heart. So a sadhu fixes the Absolute Truth in his heart and then makes the endeavour to preach.

So how is it that the mind goes into sense objects and that sense objects go into the mind? It is because of upadis, various designations e.g. birth, passport, education, parents, schools, etc. We think that we are the doer of things which are actually carried out by the three modes of material nature but a sadhu withdraws from these things, from these upadis.

When one is free from all these upadis then one can fix their mind on the Supreme Lord. By hearing of Krsna, by making sacrifice for Krsna, by going to places where Krsna is worshipped, in these ways a sadhu finds his wealth. And when Krsna consciousness awakens, the sadhu will find compassion

But how to be compassionate… is it by kind words? No, just kindness is not real compassion. Real compassion is only possible when we have something better then we can feel compassionate for the conditioned souls.

In the material world, things usually get easier when we have been doing it longer, for example cooking gets easier the more you practice it. But in spiritual life, for a sadhu it becomes more difficult as he has to do more and more than ever to attract Krsna as Krsna wants more and more from us.

*Notes taken by Nimai during the lecture

Final call for boarding – My recent sankirtan experience.
I had to travel to Coimbatore India from Secunderabad to meet my parents over the weekend. I had to travel by plane due to last minute decision, but still I packed a hand baggage with my cloths and another carry-on with books.

https://flic.kr/s/aHskAKQtJt

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Question Humanity.
Reflecting on the senseless killings going on around the world, one wonders at the state of humanity.
Animals kill other animals for hunger. Humans kill other humans, but not to eat. Their hunger is for revenge, or power and control. They will also kill out of pure anger or envy – energies that have taken over their lives, heads and hearts. They will kill to prove a point – my way of life is better than your way of life, my religion is better than your religion, my color is better than your color.
That puts us less than animals.
As living creatures we humans and animals are very similar. We both eat, sleep, mate, and defend – these are the main four activities of living and surviving life. But the human body has something more – an intelligence to step back and question why. Why are we here? What is the point of all this eating, sleeping, mating, and defending? Who started this? Who made us and what are we made for?
Animals also have intelligence but not of this kind. This is the special gift of the human body. If we don’t use it, if we don’t ask, explore, question life, question death, question suffering, we live just as the animals do. More sophisticated ways of eating, sleeping, mating, and defending, perhaps – but just the same as animals.
Each one of us has a choice to make in life – the choice to live consciously or unconsciously, the challenge to live as a human and not as an animal. Each one of us has the responsibility to be the best we can be as humans and make our time in this body count.
When the body is alive, either human or animal, that is a symptom of the presence of the soul. We are the life in the body. We don’t have a soul – we are the soul. Our body changes – from youth to mid-life and on to old age. We travel with that changing body and death simply means we leave one body and go to another. Like moving from one house to another, the soul lives in many bodies – both human and animal.
Who is that soul? Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Can I influence the journey and destination?
These are questions only humans can ask. Don’t forget to do so. For your own sake and the sake of humanity.

The Mega Photography Contest & The Divine Pen Article Writing Contest.
On the auspicious day of 50th Anniversary of ISKCON, VANI (Voice and News of ISKCON Punjabi Bagh) Team is launching two contests:
1) Mega Photography Contest
2) The Divine Pen Article Writing Contest
Dates: 1st-20th Aug, 2016
Theme: Joy Of Devotion
Prizes: DSLR Camera, Kindle Book Reader, Smart Watches, Power Banks, Pen Drives, Ear Phones and many more.
For more details visit: http://www.iskconpunjabibagh.com/article-writing/
and: http://www.iskconpunjabibagh.com/photography/

Bhakti Caitanya Swami: I’m in ISKCON Midrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. It is very cold. In the temple room this morning it was about 7 degrees. Very cold. If you’re wondering what 7 degrees looks like, or how devotees deal with 7 degrees in the temple room, see in this photo Mother Ramaniya wrapped up during japa time.

Conversation.

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An Offering of Gratitude to Srila Prabhupada by ISKCON Desire Tree Team (5 min video)
Please watch this small offering of grati...

Four years after acquisition, ISKCON Leicester will finally reveal major renovation to the City Centre building, allowing it to be finally used as a temple, this Saturday 30th July 2016. A perfect offering to Srila Prabhupada on the 50th anniversary of ISKCON, the renovations include a first floor temple room, kitchen, classrooms, and offices. On the second floor, a team of brahmacaris, led by HG Sutapa Das, will join HH Bhakti Prabhava Swami to take residency on the upper floors of the temple. Together, they will work on outreach, supporting the congregation, and serving the City of Leicester with a variety of educational programs. The deity of Srila Prabhupada will be carried into the new temple this Saturday, almost six years after the previous temple was destroyed in a gas blast. Continue reading "ISKCON Leicester to reveal working temple for 50th anniversary
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The Walking Monk takes his path through Ames.
Austin Harrington: Bhaktimarga Swami, who is often referred to as the Walking Monk, made his way through Ames on Wednesday while continuing his mission to walk from New York City to San Francisco.
This is the first time Swami has walked border to border in America, but this is not a new mission. In the past, he has walked across his home nation of Canada, Ireland, Israel, Fiji, Mauritius, Trinidad and Guyana.
These treks are not simply a spiritual journey for the orange-robed Hare Krishna monk but more of a way to spread his message of health and self consciousness.
“I’m saying let’s slow down. Let’s get more in touch with ourselves by walking,” Swami said. “Really, it’s to check the imbalanced lives we live. We are very much in the consumer world, capitalism, and we just don’t take enough time for introspection. So when you walk, you have time to just process things.”
Swami said that being in Ames on Wednesday was also a celebration of a momentous occasion for followers of the Hare Krishna movement because it marked the 50th anniversary, to the day, of the movement being started.
“It’s a movement that has its challenges but it exploded, went all over the world, but here we are 50 years later,” Swami said.
Born John Peter Vis in 1952 in Chatham, Ontario, Canada, Swami said he found the Hare Krishna movement to be similar in many ways to Catholicism, which was the religion he was raised in as a child. Since making the transition into being a monk, Swami said he started making his pilgrimages to help spread his beliefs but to also meet people and learn more about himself.
“It’s walking, meditating, connecting with people, getting more in touch with yourself, your soul and just trying to be more contemplative about things,” Swami said. “When you walk at the human pace that we’re supposed to, there’s an appreciation and sensitivity that develops.”
While traveling from place to place, Swami said that the vast majority of his encounters have been positive and people are usually very receptive of his message. However, there have been some troubling encounters as well, including some close calls with grizzly and black bears.
“I have been mistaken many times for being an escapee from a prison wearing an orange jumpsuit,” Swami said.
He added that someone also called the police on him when he was walking near a mental institution close to Iowa City because they were worried that he was an escaped patient.
According to Swami, he averages about 20 miles per day and at that pace he believes he could complete his entire trip in about five months. However, due to a prior commitment, he will stop for the summer once he reaches Nebraska and then pick up where he left off next summer to continue on to San Francisco.
Swami said that during his trip in America, he has seen a different kind of culture that he hasn’t come across in the other areas he has traveled. He said that he has seen most affluent of neighborhoods and the poorest of ghettos. According to him, America has several issues that has caused him to be concerned for the world.
“America’s a place of a lot of extremes,” Swami said. “Obesity is a big problem. It’s embarrassing to be human sometimes. People could do better.”
One thing that walking across a country has taught Swami, is that no one is above the pains associated with growing older or putting strain on your body. He said it is also part of his mission to accept those pains for “austerity purposes.”
“It means to voluntarily take up a little bit of inconvenience so to build character, to toughen up a little bit, to be a tough boy,” Swami said.
Source: http://goo.gl/nDR8fG

Jacksonville Beach Festival of Chariots, Saturday August 13.
Festival of Chariots is a free, fun, conscious living, Bhakti Yoga Festival celebrating the ancient spiritual traditions of India and the modern, multi-cultural wellness and yoga movement. Bhakti yoga is the yoga of love. If you’ve ever dreamed of visiting exotic cultures, you can get a taste of the East without leaving Florida! The event includes entertainment, live music, singing, dancing, healthy living booths, gift bazaar, an interactive Wellness Tent with all day classes, workshops and presentations and a free vegetarian feast.

The festival has been welcomed by The City of Jacksonville Beach since 2002 and celebrates its 15th year this August. In 2009, Mayor Sharp made a proclamation and an official Festival of Chariots Day on May 29, presenting festival organizers with a key to the city.
Two stages host an array of dynamic activities, entertainment and powerful life changing education. We welcome healing arts leaders and guest speakers including Amrit Yoga Institute, who will offer a Yoga Nidra class and Freddie Zeringue, author and publisher of Natural Awakenings Magazine, Northeast Florida, who will present a Green Business Entrepreneurs & the Art of Flow workshop with Q & A. There will be a Healthy Kids Zone with bungee jumping, skateboarding, face painting, yoga, meditation and other fun interactive opportunities.
Festival of Chariots is the oldest known parade in the world. The parade’s unique feature is a huge 25 ft tall, brightly colored chariot ornately decorated with swans, lotus flowers, flags and auspicious symbols. The chariot has 100 ft long ropes that are pulled by anyone who wants to join in, propelling the chariot along the beach. Riding on the Chariot is the Lord of the Universe, encouraging everyone to come together and celebrate life, peace and well being while uplifting our consciousness. Accompanying the parade is live, spiritually inspired kirtan music and dancing, backed by exotic drums & hand cymbals. It’s an ecstatic, exciting event, a vision from another world!
To read the entire article click here: http://goo.gl/sSEfge

ISKCON Namahatta Aruppukottai Celebrated ISKCON 50th Year Anniversary & and 2nd Annual Rath Yatra at Aruppukottai on 23rd July 2016. HH Bhakti Ashraya Vaishnava Swami Maharaj inaugurated new Rath for Lordship, HG Sumitra Krishna das Prabhu Temple president Iskcon Chennai, HG Rukmeiya das Prabhu ,HG vanamali Gopal das Prabhu , HG Jai gopinath das Prabhu, HG SriGridhari Prabhu & Iskcon leaders from various part of tamilnadu took part and Sri Ramalinga mills chairmen Dr.T.R.Denekaran participated and enjoyed the Kerthan & Pastime of Jaganath Lela, over 4000 plates of prasadam distributed at end of the festival. Continue reading "ISKCON 50th & Rath Yatra celebration 2016 @ Aruppukottai
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Majority of the devotees who attended were surprised at the spontaneous response of the public and the participation and remarked that in future they would ensure people from all nearby villages will participate in greater numbers. Throughout the Rath route, there was accompaniment of Vedic Chanting by Vedic Panditas, Nadaswaram and Prasadam packets containing Halwa and Pulihara was distributed to nearly 50000 participants and onlookers. The people really enjoyed the gaiety, fun and the wonderful darshan of their Lordships on the rath. The rath stopped at various key points on the way to receive arathi and offerings of the public. Police had made robust bandobast arrangements to ensure everything went off peacefully. Continue reading "ISKCON Hyderabad Farm celebrates First Rath Yatra
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Bruce Visits the Swami

This question arose when studying chapter three of Bhagavad Gītā in our online course, in reference to text 41.

Question: Why is it easiest or most efficient to correct selfishness through disciplining the senses FIRST, as opposed to the intellect or emotions? Intuitively, that seems backwards to me since everything flows from the mind.

My Reply: I agree it is backwards in a sense. And also seems to be directly at odds with something Krishna brought up at the beginning of the chapter. 

At the beginning of the chapter (3.7) says, yas tv indriyāṇi manasā niyamyārabhate ’rjuna (“To control the senses you must begin by controlling the mind.”) At the end of the chapter (3.41) however, he says, tasmāt tvam indriyāṇy ādau niyamya bharatarṣabha (“[To reclaim control of your heart and mind] begin by controlling the senses”)

However, this contradiction arises only from an incomplete reading of 3.7. The complete text says yas tv indriyāṇi manasā niyamyārabhate ’rjuna (“To control the senses you must begin by controlling the mind.”), and the second half of the text says, karmendriyaiḥ karma-yogam asaktaḥ sa viśiṣyate (“The best way to control the mind, however, is to use the active senses for responsible, un-selfish work.”)

So, the first half of the 7th text admits that, as you noted, volition flows from the mind into the actions of the body, and therefore a self-disciplined mind will automatically result in self-disiplined body, senses, and actions. However, the means to transform the mind from undisciplined to self-disciplined is to regulate its freedom to flow into the body. The mind’s freedom to flow its desires into our actions meets resistance by our effort to discipline our actions, and this resistance (as in any exercise) is what causes things to change in us.

If done improperly, the desires of the mind become pent-up and soon burst through the attempts at restriction. This happens when the restriction is too strict, sudden and unrealistic. It’s like a person who suddenly takes to working out after being completely lazy, follows a very strict program, and gets a heart attack or at least wrecks all their muscles.

The proper way to do it is to let enough selfish energy through, releasing some of the “steam” in the mind, while also holding some back. This regulated resistance strengthens the “discipline muscles.” We gradually increase the force of the regulation.

The person Krishna described at the beginning of Chapter Three – the mithyācarī “pretender” – is a person who leaps into sudden and unrealistically strict disciplines. The mental energy of selfishness has not subsided or been subdued, and it simply builds up in frustration behind the ostentatious attempts to damn it up. Krishna denounces this type of “renunciation” as a fraud.

The person Krishna advises Arjun to become, at the end of Chapter Three – the karma-yogī – gradually drains the selfish energy from the desires of the mind by gradually advancing their discipline and restriction, replacing selfish deeds more and more thoroughly with self-less equivalents that serve others far more primarily than they serve oneself.

Why not just go directly to work on the mind’s desires? Because it is simply too mysterious, subtle and slippery for a common person like you or I to face in a one-on-one battle. We would never be able to win and bring that foe under our control. Therefore Krishna’s plan of attack at the end of Chapter Three is to start with easier targets, and from there advance into the enemy’s deeper strongholds. Our actions are the most tangible, practical, and visible parts of our personality, so this is the easiest target of attack for we who want to gain mastery of the more mysterious, deep aspects of our self.

Vraja Kishor das

vrajakishor.com

07.26.16, Kishori Youth Ministry performance in Carpinteria from Derek Carter on Vimeo.

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Giriraj Swami spoke to the touring devotees about his first meeting with Srila Prabhupada and his early days in the Hare Krishna movement.

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Meeting With the Kishori Youth Ministry

The Final Cut (7 min video)
Indradyumna Swami: Krsna’s Village of Peace at the Woodstock festival in Poland was everything a devotee of the Lord would want it to be: huge kirtans, massive prasadam distribution, Ratha Yatra, numerous tents depicting Vedic culture and more. But the main ingredient was the enthusiasm of the tens of thousands of guests who participated in those activities. Seeing their happy faces was more than any devotee could ask for. All glories to Sri Krsna samkirtan!
Watch it here: https://goo.gl/9ZiqRu

It’s great to connect with people hundreds of miles away, as long as we don’t forget to say hello to our neighbors. It’s nice to know what’s happening in every corner of the world, but let’s not forget to make a positive impact in our immediate circle of friends, family and community.

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So why doesn’t He set a good example for everyone?

The post Visakha, asks: In the Bhagavad Gita Krsna says He comes to reestablish religious principles but then He dances with other people’s wives (the gopis) appeared first on SivaramaSwami.com.

3 Meditations.
Ananda Vrindavana Devi Dasi: Before I pick up my beads to do my chanting meditation, I have 3 points of focus – I’m not this body, God is a person, and I have a relationship with Him.
I’m not this body is one of my favorite meditations. I like to sit quietly and hold my body still. I am the observer. I am conscious of my hands, my breath, my thoughts. I remember – yesterday, years ago, minutes ago. I think ahead – tomorrow, old age, the next hour. When I remember I am not this body I feel relief, more complete, and a real sense of freedom.
My second meditation, another favorite, is that God is a person. Although I heard this from a very young age in Catholicism, it wasn’t until I studied the path of Bhakti yoga that it made more sense to me. Krishna, the Sanskrit name for God, makes the idea of a personal God very attractive. The source of all life has to be credibly incredible. When I meditate on the premise that God is a person, I sense His presence, I sense protection, grounding, connection and belonging.
My third meditation is another, another favorite. Here my meditation is that I have a relationship with Krishna. When I hold still, slow down, or rise early I reflect on this. What does this relationship look like? Is it one of fear or love or both? How do I present myself? What do I ask for, or not? What does Krishna ask of me? What does the best, most complete form of this relationship look like?
When I pick up my beads and begin to chant the mantra, I am facing into that relationship. My 3 meditations have brought me here. Now I connect. Throughout the chanting I find myself returning to them in different ways. I chant with a longing to return to the spiritual world, a desire to engage in service, and a wish to develop affection and love for Krishna.
I also ask not to blow it – that I don’t lean too much on spiritual rules that my emotions are tied, or fall too much on the human side that I don’t touch transcendence. I pray for balance – that my humanity can nurture my spirit and that my spirit reminds me to be a better person, and a better human.

In the "Prabhupada Lilamrita" there is a wonderful description of the first harinama the devotees went on without Prabhupada. The devotees were just so ecstatic because they were so eager to go back and tell Prabhupada what they did. They couldn't wait. They burst into his room, "Prabhupada. We went out and we chanted today!" And Prabhupada was so pleased. Oh yes. Now you are understanding. Now you understand what pleases me. This makes me very happy. You have understood my message. Thank you so much. This is how to serve the devotees. Even if we don't have taste. We do it for our own purification because by serving them, we develop some taste. We benefit and anyone who comes in contact with us benefits. We don't water down. We give the essence because it is the essence which purifies the heart, puts us on the path of pure devotional service and keeps us on the path. It keeps us awake, so that we won't fall back asleep again and forget what the purpose is of this life. Continue reading "“How can I attain any good fortune in this life?”
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