Planet ISKCON

Understanding the unborn’s understandings 1 – How can the embryo with an undeveloped brain speak prayers?

Understanding the unborn’s understandings 2 – How can the embryo know God

Understanding the unborn’s understandings 3 – What is a human soul

Understanding the unborn’s understandings 4 – What the embryo’s desire to stay in the womb implies

Understanding the unborn’s understandings 5 – Why is the embryo’s prayer not answered

Understanding the mind through four animal metaphors 1 – Horse & Wolf – Hindi

Understanding the mind through four animal metaphors 2 – Dog & Sheep – Hindi

Understanding Surrender – Meditation on Prabhupada’s prayer Markine Bhagavata Dharma – 1

Understanding surrender meditation on prabhupada’s prayer markine bhagavata dharma from Chaitanya Charan

Understanding Surrender – Meditation on Prabhupada’s prayer Markine Bhagavata Dharma – 2

Understanding surrender meditation on prabhupada’s prayer markine bhagavata dharma from Chaitanya Charan

Understanding Surrender – Meditation on Prabhupada’s prayer Markine Bhagavata Dharma – 3

Understanding surrender meditation on prabhupada’s prayer markine bhagavata dharma from Chaitanya Charan

Understanding Surrender – Meditation on Prabhupada’s prayer Markine Bhagavata Dharma – 4

Understanding surrender meditation on prabhupada’s prayer markine bhagavata dharma from Chaitanya Charan

Understanding Surrender – Meditation on Prabhupada’s prayer Markine Bhagavata Dharma – 5

Understanding surrender meditation on prabhupada’s prayer markine bhagavata dharma from Chaitanya Charan

Understanding Surrender – Meditation on Prabhupada’s prayer Markine Bhagavata Dharma – 6

Understanding surrender meditation on prabhupada’s prayer markine bhagavata dharma from Chaitanya Charan

Understanding rasa-lila 1 – How the supreme Shelter (Ashraya) becomes sheltered (Ashrita)

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=283455372276144

Understanding rasa-lila 2- How Bhagavatam establishes para-dharma without trivializing apara-dharma

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=2150021595220795

Understanding rasa-lila 3 – Arrogance keeps us locked in ourselves, both apara-dharma and para-dharma get us out of ourselves

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=1296601320481742

Understanding Rasa-lila 4 – Radharani’s apparent pride expresses her selfless love

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=229603931246772

Understanding Rasa-lila 5 – Gopi-gita 1

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=463071174191459

Understanding Rasa-lila 6 – Gopi-gita 2

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=2220545791559022

Understanding Rasa-lila 7 – Gopi-gita 3

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=241734389831132

Understanding rasa-lila 8 – Appreciating Krishna’s mystifying reciprocation

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=2067855656860913

Understanding how our mind makes us misunderstand 1 – Misunderstanding ourselves

Understanding how our mind makes us misunderstand from Chaitanya Charan

Understanding how our mind makes us misunderstand 2 – Misunderstanding ourselves

Understanding how our mind makes us misunderstand from Chaitanya Charan

Understanding how our mind makes us misunderstand 3 – Misunderstanding Krishna

Understanding how our mind makes us misunderstand from Chaitanya Charan

Understanding how our mind makes us misunderstand 4 – QA

Understanding Destiny 1 – What is pre-determined and what isn’t

Understanding Destiny 2 – Destiny determines the scope of our free will, not our free will

Understanding attachment, detachment, commitment 1 – Frustration is not renunciation

Understanding attachment, detachment, commitment 2 – Detachment is not hardheartedness – it is levelheadedness

Understanding attachment, detachment, commitment 3 – Devotion as emotion, disposition and cultivation

Those eighteen days – Day 1

Those eighteen days – Day 2

Those eighteen days – Day 3

Those eighteen days – Day 4

Those eighteen days – Day 5

Those eighteen days – Day 6

Those eighteen days – Day 7

Those eighteen days – Day 8

Those eighteen days – Day 9

Those eighteen days – Day 10

Those eighteen days – Day 11

Those eighteen days – Day 12

Those eighteen days – Day 13

Those eighteen days – Day 14

Those eighteen days – Day 15

Those eighteen days – Day 16

Those eighteen days – Day 17

Those eighteen days – Day 18

The Son of the Sun – Part 1

The Mahabharata is a fascinating book with many of its characters not clearly black or clearly white, but multiple shades of grey.

Karna is an intriguing character – virtuous, yet choosing the side of the vicious Kauravas; born as a warrior, but treated lifelong as charioteer’s son; great archer, but defeated and killed in a fight with another great archer.

Let’s see where he falls on the spectrum of black to white through a series of question-answers.

[For those new to the Mahabharata, here’s a brief introduction of Karna:

Karna, a prominent warrior in the Mahabharata, was born to Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas. As he was born through a mystical union of Kunti with the sun-god before her marriage, the maiden mother couldn’t take care of him. He was raised by a charioteer family and so was known as ‘a charioteer’s son’, not receiving the respect accorded to warriors. Nonetheless, he became a formidable archer and was befriended by the evil Duryodhana, who offered him a kingdom. Karna joined Duryodhana in many of his machinations against the Pandavas, eventually fighting on his side in the Kurukshetra war. He was killed by Arjuna on the penultimate day of the eighteen-day war.]

Was Arjuna’s killing Karna when he was chariot-less not unfair, being against the kshatriya codes?

The unfairness had begun from the Kaurava side decades earlier when they tried to poison Bhima and burn the Pandavas alive.

In the Kurukshetra war, at its start the commanders of the two sides had agreed upon the codes to be followed in the war. Dhrishtadyumna, the Pandava commander, had declared that their side would not break the war codes first, but if the Kauravas broke those codes first, then the Pandavas would not let themselves be held back by the war codes.

In the ensuing battles, the kshatriya code that a chariot-less warrior should not be attacked was violated first by the Kauravas’ side. On the thirteenth day, six of their maha-rathas including Karna ganged together to kill the chariot-less Abhimanyu. So, Karna simply reaped what he had sown – he violated the code first by attacking the chariot-less Abhimanyu and was paid back in kind, as had been agreed at the start of the war.

And the unfair attack on Abhimanyu was not a one-off incident on the part of the Kauravas. On the fourteenth day when Arjuna was striving to fulfill his vow to kill Jayadratha by sunset, his horses got exhausted, and needed rest and water. While Krishna decided to lead the horses away, Arjuna had to get off the chariot. Even on seeing him chariot-less, the Kaurava forces did not stop attacking him. To the contrary, they attacked him with greater ferocity, hoping to fell him in his dangerously disadvantaged condition. Still Arjuna held them back with his expert archery while simultaneously using mystical weapons to arrange for shade and water for his horses. In an all-out war, quarters are rarely given and Arjuna didn’t ask for them – neither should Karna have asked.

Karna himself violated that specific code on the seventeenth day during his confrontation with Arjuna. When Karna sent an unstoppable mystical weapon at Arjuna’s head, Krishna forcefully pushed the chariot into the ground so that the arrow hit Arjuna’s crown instead of his head. Arjuna’s life was saved, but his chariot got stuck in the ground. While Krishna jumped off the chariot to get it out of the ground, Arjuna was disadvantaged with an immobile chariot. Karna still attacked him and Arjuna didn’t ask to be spared, but fought back and defended himself.

So in the final confrontation, Karna’s reminding Arjuna of the kshatriya code was hypocritical. When Karna tried to take the high moral ground, Krishna exposed him thoroughly by listing all the times when Karna had paid scant regard to morality. Krishna’s fitting riposte silenced Karna whose head fell in an admission of his guilt.

Krishna deciding to illustrate the principle of shatho shathyam: with the cunning, one can be cunning, asked Arjuna to shoot Karna. By countering Karna’s arguments, Krishna had signaled to Karna that Arjuna would not desist from attacking. Karna could have taken that as a warning, re-mounted his stationary chariot and resumed fighting – or he could have fought from the ground itself, as had Arjuna on the fourteenth day. His neglecting Krishna’s warning was a monumental blunder that cost him his life.

Was Karna a better archer than Arjuna?

Let’s look at the relevant incidents in the Mahabharata.

1. The first Karna-Arjuna encounter was in the martial exhibition organized by Drona to showcase the skills of his students, the Pandavas and the Kauravas, for the pleasure of Hastinapura’s leaders and citizens. In that exhibition, Arjuna excelled all till Karna gatecrashed and demanded a chance to exhibit his skills. When granted that chance, Karna equaled the performance of Arjuna, though he had initially claimed that he would surpass Arjuna. Then, Karna asked for a chance to duel with Arjuna, but while the logistics were being worked out, the sun set and the duel couldn’t take place.

Result: Draw. Score: Arjuna – 0, Karna – 0

2. When Drona asked that as his guru-dakshina, his students defeat and arrest Drupada, the Kauravas sped off accompanied by Karna. But Drupada at the head of his forces defeated them. Then the Pandavas led by Arjuna attacked Drupada’s forces, and Arjuna defeated and arrested Drupada, doing what Karna couldn’t do.

Result: Arjuna demonstrated his superiority. Score: Arjuna – 1, Karna – 0

3. During Draupadi’s svayamvara, when Arjuna, dressed as a brahmana, won the princess’ hand, the kings felt that Drupada had insulted them by giving his daughter to a brahmana instead of a kshatriya. So they attacked Drupada. To defend their father-in-law, Arjuna and Bhima intervened and held the kings back till it became a face-off: Karna vs. Arjuna and Shalya vs. Bhima. While Bhima bested Shalya, Arjuna more than matched Karna, who thereafter decided to desist from the fight, saying that he would not fight with a brahmana.

Result: Draw. Score: Arjuna – 1, Karna – 0

4. When the Pandavas were living in exile, Duryodhana, at the instigation of Karna, decided to rub salt into their wounds by flaunting his wealth in front of them. But some Gandharvas who were sporting in that area blocked Duryodhana. In the resulting confrontation, the Gandharvas defeated the Kaurava forces, wounding Karna and causing him to flee, and then arresting Duryodhana. Later, when some Kaurava soldiers appealed to the Pandavas for help, Arjuna routed the same Gandharvas who had routed Karna, and released Duryodhana.

Result: Arjuna again demonstrated his superiority. Score: Arjuna – 2, Karna – 0

5. During the Virata battle, Arjuna fought single-handedly against the entire Kaurava army and defeated all the Kaurava generals including Karna. This was the greatest solo performance in the entire epic.

Some people argue that this contest did not accurately reflect their skills because Karna had not carried his Shakti weapon. But who is responsible for Karna’s not carrying the weapon? Isn’t a warrior expected to carry his best weapons when going for war? (Imagine a batsman after getting clean bowled for a duck in a World Cup final rationalizing his cheap dismissal: “I got out because I forgot to carry my best bat to the crease.”) And Arjuna did not get his formidable array of weapons for free – he performed severe austerities in the Himalayas to appease the gods and painstakingly add each powerful weapon to his formidable arsenal.

Result: Arjuna won fair and square. Score: Arjuna – 3, Karna – 0

So, even before their final decisive confrontation on the seventeenth day of the Kurukshetra war, Arjuna had unambiguously established his superiority.

(You can read the subsequent parts here: part 2, part 3 part 4)

The Son of the Sun – Part 2

(This is a continuation of a four part series. You can read part 1 here )

Was Karna superior to Arjuna because he alone conquered the world for Duryodhana, whereas the four Pandavas together conquered the world for Yudhisthira?

Let’s first look at the incidents in question. When the Pandavas were in exile, Karna conquered all the kings of the world and with the tributes from them helped Duryodhana perform a great sacrifice called the Vaishnava sacrifice, somewhat similar to the Rajasuya sacrifice that Yudhisthira had performed earlier. For that sacrifice, Yudhisthira had sent four brothers to conquer the four directions.

Do these two incidents demonstrate Karna’s superiority? No, because Bhima during his eastward conquest had come to Anga and defeated its ruler. Guess who? Karna, no less. So if Bhima whose archery skills were not as good as Arjuna’s defeated Karna, how can Karna be considered better than Arjuna?

Was Arjuna alone capable of the world conquest that Karna had done? Actually, Arjuna was capable of much more than that, as can be inferred from two incidents.

1. What to speak of the word’s kings, Arjuna had defeated the gods combined at Khandava – something which Karna had come nowhere close to doing, having been defeated by just one relatively minor set of gods, the Gandharvas.
2. Arjuna had also singlehandedly defeated a whole army of deadly demons, the Nivatkavachas, whom the gods had not been able to defeat for a long time.  This feat was also something that Karna had come nowhere close to equaling, for he had been hard-pressed by just one demon, Ghatotkacha.

If Arjuna was capable of single-handedly conquering the world on Yudhisthira’s behalf, then why didn’t he do so? Because all four younger brothers wanted to assist their eldest brother and Arjuna didn’t want to deprive them of that opportunity.

Was Karna the second best archer after Arjuna?

No, because at least two other archers defeated him.

1. Abhimanyu: On the thirteenth day of the Kurukshetra war, when Abhimanyu penetrated into the Chakra-vyuha and wrecked havoc among the Kaurava forces, he overcame Karna twice, causing him to swoon and retreat. Karna realized that he couldn’t even match Abhimanyu, leave alone overcome him. So he prompted Duryodhana to ask Drona how the prince could be defeated.

2. Bhima: The second Pandava more than matched Karna.

As mentioned earlier, Bhima defeated Karna during his eastward conquest before the Rajasuya yajna.

During the Kurukshetra war, Bhima and Karna fought several times. On the fourteenth day, when Arjuna had taken a vow to kill Jayadratha before sunset, Karna tried to check Arjuna. To help Arjuna progress undistracted, Bhima challenged Karna and kept him engaged while Arjuna closed in on Jayadratha, Bhima matched Karna.

On the sixteenth day, Bhima held back Karna, who had been appointed the Kauravas’ commander, and then attacked Dushasana. In front of Karna’s eyes, Bhima killed Dushasana. Seeing Bhima’s power and anger, the horrified Karna dropped his bow. Similarly, in front of Karna’s eyes, Bhima also killed several other Kaurava brothers as well as Karna’s son and brother, and Karna could do nothing to stop him.

Karna did overcome Bhima once in a battle with bows and arrows, and mocked him by touching him with his bow and calling him a fat glutton. At that time, Bhima challenged Karna to a wrestling match, but Karna refused. Bhima had the power to pound Karna to death with his bare fists, but remembering Arjuna’s vow to kill Karna, Bhima desisted and left the arena. So the same event that is often seen as Karna honoring his promise to Kunti to not kill any of her sons other than Arjuna could be seen as Bhima honoring Arjuna’s vow. Overall, the results of the Bhima-Karna confrontation remain in Bhima’s favor.

So, Karna was no doubt a great archer, but he was one among many, not one above many, as was Arjuna.

Was Karna not unfairly weakened by Indra, Arjuna’s father, who schemed to take away his kavacha and kundala by coming in the guise of a brahmana asking for charity?

1. Even with that impenetrable armor, Karna had been wounded and defeated several times (as discussed earlier) by Drupada, by the Gandharvas and by Arjuna at Virata. So the kavacha was not a winning advantage.
2. When Indra came disguised as a brahmana to ask for it, eventually, at Karna’s insistent request, the god gave him the formidable Shakti in return. So, what was supposed to be a charity became a swap.

And how did this swap affect Karna’s fortune? His kavacha had not saved him from defeat earlier. And it may well not have saved him on the fourteenth night when Ghatotkacha was on a rampage, threatening to kill him and destroy the Kaurava forces. The Shakti weapon killed Ghatotkacha and saved Karna’s life. So in the swap Karna lost something that hadn’t saved him from defeat and got something that actually saved him from death.

Was the swap such a big loss for Karna? You decide.

Was Karna not a great hero – powerful, virtuous and charitable?

Yes, he had his good qualities. He was not a black character, but he doesn’t have to be made whiter than what he was.

After all, it was Karna who suggested that Draupadi be dragged into the assembly, who came up with the obnoxious idea of disrobing her publically, who called her a prostitute. It was Karna who suggested to Duryodhana the ill-advised plan of flaunting their wealth in front of the exiled Pandavas – the plan that came to grief due to the Gandharvas. It was Karna whose repeated bragging of his prowess that made Duryodhana foolhardy enough to challenge the Pandavas to an open war. It was Karna who killed Abhimanyu ruthlessly along with five other warriors, having been the first to instigate Duryodhana that some such extreme measure was necessary to bring down the young prince. It was Karna who, in response to Shalya’s sledging, foul-mouthed the women of Madras (Shalya’s kingdom), calling them unspeakable names.

So, though he had his virtues, he doesn’t need to be unnecessarily romanticized.

(Continued in part 3 here)

The Son of the Sun – Part 3

(This is the continuation of a four-part series. You can read the previous parts here: part 1 part 2)

When Krishna offered Karna kingship of the Pandavas’ kingdom if he defected to their side, Karna by the side of Duryodhana. Doesn’t this make him a glorious example of a faithful friend?

Sadly, no. It makes Karna a classic but tragic example of a good person becoming bad due to bad association – and then mistaking faithfulness to that bad association to be a matter of honor.

It is true that Duryodhana helped Karna in his time of need by giving him the kingdom of Anga. And it is laudable that Karna was grateful to him for that generosity. Yet in the larger picture the Kauravas were immoral and evil. The way Duryodhana dishonored the Pandavas and especially their wife was heinous.

When an honorable person gets unknowingly entangled in something dishonorable, then honor requires that the honorable person come out of the mess on coming to know of it, not stay on in it in the name of honor.

To illustrate with a provocative parallel, suppose a starving boy in Pakistan is offered food and shelter by a group of terrorists who brainwash people into becoming suicide bombers. The boy may not be initially aware of the evil agenda of his helpers, but when he becomes aware, should he in the name of loyalty to those who helped him once continue lifelong to be a part of a machinery of death and destruction? Is Karna’s faithfulness to Duryodhana all that different from Mohammed bin Atta’s faithfulness to Osama bin Laden in becoming a suicide bomber who brought down the twin towers and killed thousands?

Karna may not have had any idea of the evil nature of Duryodhana initially, but when he came to know about it, he should have parted ways. But unfortunately, far from parting ways, Karna not only joined Duryodhana’s way, but also egged the wicked Kaurava further along that way. Karna, in his mistaken desire to please Duryodhana, suggested the dishonoring of Draupadi. Karna’s joining Duryodhana emboldened that arrogant prince to become even more insolent, imagining that he could excel the military prowess of the Pandavas, thereby courting self-destruction and causing world destruction.

What Krishna offered Duryodhana and Karna when he came as a peace messenger shows his extremely accommodating nature – his willingness to go to any length to avoid or minimize bloodshed. Krishna asked Duryodhana to give just five villages, but that evil prince rejected the offer.

Then Krishna knowing that bloodshed was inevitable decided to try to minimize it. He knew that the various formidable Kaurava generals like Bhishma, Drona, Kripa and Ashwatthama bore no animosity towards the Pandavas – they would fight only because they were obliged to. The only formidable Kaurava general apart from the Kaurava brothers who was bent on the fight was Karna. If he could be won over, then that would break the back of Duryodhana’s obstinacy. It might even persuade him to agree for a peaceful settlement. If not, at least it would shorten the fight. With this intention to minimize violence, Krishna invited Karna to come on the side of the virtuous Pandavas. And when Krishna offered Karna the kingdom, that offer was not as a temptation but as Karna’s rightful legacy as the eldest Pandava.

It was Krishna’s accommodating nature that he not only gave Karna a chance to do the right thing, but also offered him an unparalleled reward for doing the right thing. After all the wrong things Karna had participated in or even instigated, it could well be said that he didn’t deserve such an offer. Yet Krishna magnanimously made the offer, thereby making it as easy as possible for Karna to do the right thing at least at that late stage. When Karna refused that offer, he chose wrong instead of right – all due to a mistaken sense of honor.

From the devotional perspective, Karna rejected God for the world; he gave greater importance to being honored by the world than by God. He didn’t have the intelligence to recognize that whatever Duryodhana had given him ultimately belonged to God, who had given it temporarily to Duryodhana. And it was that God who was now offering him the world’s emperorship.

Even if Karna didn’t accept Krishna as the Supreme God and so didn’t consider his word authoritative, he could at least have accepted the authority of his worshipable god, Suryadeva. That effulgent deity advised Karna that for his own well-being he should side with the virtuous family of his birth and not the vicious family that he had befriended. Yet Karna stuck to his own notion of what would be honorable.

What Krishna was inviting Karna to was not defection, but redemption – a return to the path of virtue that Karna would probably have tread had he not become attached to Duryodhana.

To err is human, but to continue in error isn’t. And to mistake continuing in error to be loyalty is stupidity. And when that mistake causes the death of millions, that mistaken loyalty ceases to be mere stupidity; it becomes monstrous perversity. Karna’s mistaken loyalty was his greatest inner enemy and it made him a puppet in the hands of the evil Duryodhana.

Was Karna not disadvantaged during the final fight because of the curses of Parashurama and the brahmana that caused respectively his forgetfulness of the mantras for his potent weapons and his chariot’s sinking into the earth?

Yes, but again he was not the only one to be cursed. Arjuna was cursed by Urvashi to become a eunuch. And Arjuna’s being cursed was even more unfair than that of Karna’s.

Urvashi had wanted to unite with him, but Arjuna respectfully refused, regarding her like a mother as she had been the wife of his ancestor Pururava. Being infuriated at being turned down, Urvashi cursed Arjuna. So Arjuna got the curse without having done anything reproachable – in fact after having done something immensely laudable. Indra lauded him later, “Your self-control exceeds even that of the great sages.” In contrast, Karna’s curses were due to his having done something reproachable, even if it might not have been with bad intention. He lied to Parashurama, saying that he had been born in a brahmana family. And he accidentally killed the brahmana’s cow, mistaking it to be an animal to be hunted.

Further, many other people have also got cursed disproportionately for minor transgressions: Dasharatha, Pandu and Parikshit, for example. So there’s nothing uniquely tragic about Karna’s getting cursed – no need to make a martyr out of him.

Moreover, what happens to us is not as important as we respond to it. By choosing right responses, the effect of unfortunate happenings can be minimized. Arjuna used the curse to live discreetly as a dance teacher during the period when the Pandavas were expected to live incognito. Karna too could have done something to deal with the curse. To minimize the effect of the “chariot-being-swallowed” curse, he could have had a backup chariot always ready or could even have switched to an entirely different carrier, say, an elephant. To minimize the effect of the “mantras-forgetting” curse, he could have done austerities and acquired other weapons along with the mantras to hurl them – Parashurama’s curse applied only to the mantras he had given to Karna. Overreliance on one weapon, especially that is known to, even fated, to let one down is a suicidally unsound strategy – entirely unworthy of anyone who wishes to be considered as the world champion archer. And of course he could have entirely avoided this ill-starred conflict if he had had the good sense to listen to Krishna and chose the side of virtue.

(To be continued)

The Son of the Sun – part 4

(This is a concluding part of a four-part series. You can read the previous parts here: part 1   part 2   part 3 )

Was Karna not disadvantaged lifelong because society considered him lowborn?

1. Yes, the notion that he was a charioteer’s son deprived him of the respect given to a son of kshatriya. Still, but he was also uniquely advantaged in having an impenetrable armor since birth. None of the Pandavas, despite being born from celestials, had a congenital armor – Karna started off with a big advantage over Arjuna. So, if in one sense, the match was fixed against him due to his presumed low birth, then in another sense, it was fixed for him due to his congenital armor. The net result could be said to be a level playing field.

Eventually, though Karna lost his kavacha, he did gain all the things due to a kshatriya: kingdom, the friendship of kings and the respect of kings – resulting again in a level playing field. Thus, his birth did not permanently deprive him of the things he merited.

2. If we look at things from a limited, this-life perspective, everyone gets some troubles despite having apparently done nothing to deserve them. Were the Pandavas not wronged when they had to live in the forest like fugitives after their residence in Varnavarta was burnt down? It was no fault of theirs that they were born in the same dynasty as the envious Duryodhana who made them the target of his wicked machinations. Were they not wronged when they were dispossessed of their kingdom and exiled through a rigged gambling match? Were they not wronged when their wife Draupadi was dishonored?

Yet despite the wrongs that happened to them, the Pandavas stayed on the side of virtue, whereas Karna chose the side of vice. If we use the wrongs that happen to us to justify our making wrong choices, then we can never make things right – we perpetuate a series of wrongs that make things worse for ourselves as well as others.

3. If we look at things from a more complete, multi-life perspective, then we understand that the problems we face in this life are due to our karma from previous lives. The Mahabharata mentions that Karna was demon named Dambhodbhava in his previous life. This demon had terrorized the universe on the strength of a blessing got from the sun-god. He had been blessed to have a thousand kavachas which:

i.                Could be destroyed only one at a time

ii.              Could be destroyed only by someone who had performed a thousand years of austerity

iii.             Would cause the immediate death of the destroyer of the kavacha.

This combination of blessings made his undefeatable till he met his match in the form of the divine sages Nara-Narayana, who are considered non-different from each other. They fought with him alternately, one fighting while the other performed austerity – both doing so for a thousand years. When the warrior would destroy one kavacha and fall dead, the ascetic would revive him by the power of his austerities and then they would swap places. The warrior would fight and finally destroy another kavacha after a thousand years till the ascetic acquired enough merit through austerity to take up the fight for another thousand years and destroy one more kavacha.

By this resourceful and arduous arrangement, those sages destroyed nine hundred and ninety nine kavachas. When just one kavacha remained, the demon fled to the shelter of the sun-god, who due to attachment to his worshiper refused to hand the fugitive over to Nara-Narayana rishis. Eventually, the demon was impregnated by the sun-god into the womb of Kunti and he was born as Karna. Simultaneously, Nara-Narayana appeared as Arjuna and Krishna to complete their unfinished mission of ridding the universe of the terrible demon.

Karna, due to his contact with the sun-god and due to his being parented by that effulgent deity, had developed some virtues. But due to the inclinations from his demoniac previous life, he also had some weaknesses. Thus, he became a complex grey character in the Mahabharata. And whatever he suffered during his life was the result of the bad karma he had done in his previous life.

4. The caste-by-birth notion that led to discrimination against Karna was a deviation from the Vedic norm, a deviation that is acknowledged in the Bhagavad-gita.

Krishna states in the Gita that the spiritual knowledge that he had given at the start of the creation (04.01) had become obscured by the power of time (04.02). Due to this decline of spiritual knowledge, the social order present at the time when the Gita was spoken (which is the same as the time when the Mahabharata occurred – the Gita is a part of the Mahabharata) had deviated from the spiritual standard. One sample of this deviation was the prevalence of the caste-by-birth idea, something contrary to the Gita’s teaching (04.13) that caste is determined by qualities and activities. As the caste system was rigid and stratified at that time, Karna was often labeled by his birth instead of by his qualities and activities.

Every age has its blind spots and its fallibilities – the problems resulting from those blind spots are one of the ways people in that age get the reactions to their past-life karma. To act virtuously while enduring various problems coming due to our past-life misdeeds is the defining challenge of life in all ages. Though Karna did act virtuously in several ways, his choosing the side of vice as a lifelong commitment was his fatal blunder.

Was it not wrong for Draupadi to dishonor Karna by stating during her svayamvara that she would not marry the son of a charioteer?

According to the Mahabharata-Tatparya-Nirnaya of Srila Madhavacharya as well as the critical edition of the Mahabharata prepared by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Draupadi didn’t reject Karna – Karna contested and failed to hit the target. In these narratives, the incident of Draupadi rejecting Karna as a potential suitor didn’t occur at all. Nonetheless, because most extant versions of the Mahabharata do include this incident, let’s analyze its ethical dimensions.

The very word svayamvara (svayam – oneself, vara – bridegroom) implies that the occasion is a forum for the bride to choose her groom. So Draupadi had the right to choose her husband. The test of archery skill was an aid for her in making the choice, but ultimately it was meant to be her choice.

In the contest, the expected competitors were kshatriya kings. Karna put himself in a potentially embarrassing situation when despite knowing that many in society questioned his kshatriya credentials, he assumed that he could participate in the contest and marched to the central arena only to be stopped by Draupadi. A less presumptuous attitude could have saved Karna of the dishonor.

Was Karna not an exemplary man of honor that he promised Kunti that he would not kill any of her sons except Arjuna and kept that promise?

Yes, that was a laudable thing he did, but it would have been better if he had done what Kunti had beseeched and what even his worshipable deity and actual father Suryadeva had asked him to do: join the ranks of the virtuous Pandavas.

Due to his perceived low birth and the attendant lack of respect, Karna was forever craving for respect. This deep-seated status anxiety clouded his judgment, making him privilege honor over virtue. He mistook that being respected as a person who kept his word of honor was more important than leading a life of virtue.

To compensate for the lack of respect due to his perceived low birth, Karna had built a reputation for himself of being unflinchingly charitable. When Kunti asked him to come over to the side of his virtuous brothers, his status anxiety prevented him from doing the right thing. Yet it also couldn’t brook the idea of refusing her entirely, for that would sully his reputation. So, to preserve his reputation, he gave her another charity: that she would always have five sons, for he would not kill any of the Pandavas except for Arjuna. And to preserve that reputation, he honored that word by sparing the other four Pandavas.

Now his sparing their life was honorable, but a similar sense of honor among the Pandavas led to his life being spared too. As mentioned earlier, Abhimanyu and Bhima had both overpowered Karna – and they could have killed him. But to honor the vow of Arjuna that he would be the one to kill Karna, they did not take Karna’s life. So he spared others’ life and others spared his life – score even; nothing extraordinarily great about it.

By choosing his own reputation over the advice of his well-wishing parents to join the side of virtue, Karna chose the word of honor over the life of honor – a subtle but serious error of judgment.

To conclude, Karna demonstrates how attachment to bad association can not only make a good person bad but can also make that person mistake bad to be good.

The power of gratitude 1 – How gratitude empowers us

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The power of gratitude 2 – How to cultivate gratitude

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Tap the mind, dont be trapped by the mind 1 – The pressure for pleasure

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=2192825560946386

Tap the mind, don’t be trapped by the mind 2 – Why mind control backfires

https://www.facebook.com/watch/ChaitanyaCharana/?ref=embed_video

Tap the mind, don’t be trapped by the mind 3 – From shakshi bhava to seva bhava

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=2193326650896277

The Vidagdha-madhava, written by Rupa Goswami, the primary theologian of the nascent 16th century Gaudiya Vaishnavism, is considered by the community to encapsulate the highest possible expression of devotional love of God. Featuring the amorous interactions between Krishna and his beloved consort Radha, the text is a sequel, and the devotional culmination of, the author’s […]

The post BOOK REVIEW: A Window Opens on Rupa Goswami’s Vidagdha-madhava, the Wonders of the Divine Play appeared first on ISKCON News.

Spiritualizing our relationships 1 – How the modes turn good intentions into not-so-good actions

Spiritualizing our relationships from Chaitanya Charan

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=2182085372020405

Spiritualizing our relationships 2 – Changing our vision of others

Spiritualizing our relationships from Chaitanya Charan

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=2182139908681618

Spiritualizing our relationships 3 – Changing our vision of our role in relationships

Spiritualizing our relationships from Chaitanya Charan

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=2182515751977367

Spiritualizing our relationships 4 – Changing our input in relationships

Spiritualizing our relationships from Chaitanya Charan

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=2182590948636514

Spiritualizing our relationships 1 – The more despiritualized we are, the more desensitized we become

Spiritualizing our relationships 2 – To improve relationships, decrease expectation and increase contribution

Spiritualizing our relationships 3 – Learning to separate people from their behavior

Spiritualizing our relationships 4 – Accept yourself to relate better with others

Spiritualizing our relationships 5 – Focus more on our intentions than on others’ dispositions

What is destiny?

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=324971928062921

Growing through adversities

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=376409919563134

Making healthy choices

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=248134225893755

Bringing out the best within us

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=1016978161808956

Spiritual Perspectives on Material Beauty 1 – Bring out each other’s higher side, not lower side

Spiritual Perspectives on Material Beauty – 2 – Should we be disgusted with the body?

Spiritual Lessons from Car Driving 1 – The mind is the passenger, don’t let it become the driver

https://www.facebook.com/watch/ChaitanyaCharana/?ref=embed_video

Spiritual Lessons from Car Driving 2 – What we are driving matters, but where we are driving matters more

https://www.facebook.com/watch/ChaitanyaCharana/?ref=embed_video

Spiritual Lessons from Car Driving 3 – Our attitude is our steering wheel

https://www.facebook.com/watch/ChaitanyaCharana/?ref=embed_video

Spiritual Lessons from Car Driving 4 – The destination is also our companion

https://www.facebook.com/watch/ChaitanyaCharana/?ref=embed_video

Prahlad Prayers 1 Krishna’s glorification is for our purification, not our glorification

Prahlad Prayers 2 The damsel in distress redefines distress

Prahlad Prayers 3 Linking manisha with Hrshikesha makes us manisha

Prahlad Prayers 4 Upward mobility can’t save us from mortality

​Prahlad Prayers 5 Those who cherish the spiritual can channel the material

Nityananda Trayodashi – NITAI acronym for appreciating Nityananda Prabhu’s glories – Hindi

Appreciating Prabhupada’s sacrifice, wisdom and legacy

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=674601032924994

Six limbs of surrender 1 – The Medical Metaphor

Six limbs of surrender 2 – Accept the favorable, avoid the unfavorable

Six limbs of surrender 3 – Understanding how God protects

Six limbs of surrender 4 – Offering ourselves by accepting ourselves

Shikshashtakam 1 Overview and flow of the ashtakam

Shikshashtakam series at alachua from pustagopika26

Shikshashtakam 2 Text 1 The mind as a window, a TV screen and a mirror

Shikshashtakam series at alachua from pustagopika26

​Shikshashtakam 3 Text 1 The flower metaphor for the blossoming of consciousness

Shikshashtakam series at alachua from pustagopika26

​Shikshashtakam 4 Text 1 From the partial nectar to the complete nectar

Shikshashtakam series at alachua from pustagopika26

​Shikshashtakam 5 Text 2 The mysterious non-difference of Krishna and his holy name

Shikshashtakam series at alachua from pustagopika26

Shikshashtakam 6 Text 3 Humility means to not let our ego interfere with our purpose

Shikshashtakam series at alachua from pustagopika26

Shikshashtakam 7 Text 3 Tolerance means to call off our war with reality

Shikshashtakam series at alachua from pustagopika26

Shikshashtakam 8 Text 4 Let your bhakti be Krishna-centered, not renunciation-centered

Shikshashtakam series at alachua from pustagopika26

Shikshashtakam 9 Text 5 The subtle interplay of endeavor and grace in bhakti

Shikshashtakam series at alachua from pustagopika26

Shikshashtakam 10 Text 6 Curb sentimentality but cherish sentiments

Shikshashtakam series at alachua from pustagopika26

Shikshashtakam 11 Text 7 Treasure devotional memories to propel your devotion

Shikshashtakam series at alachua from pustagopika26

Shikshashtakam 12 Text 8 Radharani manifests the highest summit of love

Shikshashtakam series at alachua from pustagopika26

Shakuni Character Analysis 1 – The mind rationalizes selfishness as selflessness

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=2098640233698253

Shakuni Character Analysis 2 – Evaluate whether our relationships bring out our best or our worst

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=2099423306953279

Sensitivity in relationships 1 – Why we need to be sensitive and why we aren’t

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=2240577836171158

Sensitivity in relationships 2 – From judgment to encouragement

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=2241274992768109

Sensitivity in relationships 3 – Dealing with insensitive people

Self destruction Strategies 1 – Mistake self-pity to be humility

Self-destruction strategies 2 – Be a perfectionist

Self-destruction strategies 3 – Treat the peripheral as the essential

Self-destruction strategies 4 – Let guilt come between you and Krishna

Self-destruction Strategies 5 – See your work as Maya

Seeking Karuna Amidst Corona seminar part 1

Seeking Karuna Amidst Corona seminar part 2

Seeking Karuna Amidst Corona seminar part 3

Responsible relationships 1 – Hurt people hurt people

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=542877439510438

Responsible Relationships 2 – Make judgments, but don’t be judgmental

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=319805911955244

Responsible Relationships 3 – Focus on your values, not on others’ behaviour

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=730937373956888

Responsible Relationships 4 – Look up before you look around

Reincarnation 1 – Preview of scientific, historical and philosophical analysis

Reincarnation 2 – Europe’s incredible delusion – we have only one life

Reincarnation 3 – Five intuitive contemplations for self-discovery

Ramayana Series 1 – Dasharatha’s dilemma

https://www.facebook.com/watch/ChaitanyaCharana/?ref=embed_video

Ramayana series 2 – Maricha’s miscalculation – Our destination is not as important as our action

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Ramayana series 3 – Shurapanakha’s slyness – Beware of those who manipulate us using our weakness

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Ramayana series 4 – SEES acronym – 4 explanations why Rama abandoned Sita

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=2087632298132380

Ramayana series 5 – Hanuman – There is a time and place for everything, don’t lose heart

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=2092934317602178

Ramayana series 1 – Manthara-Kaikeyi – How manipulators mislead

Ramayana series2 – Vali-Sugriva – Don’t judge without understanding

Ramayana series 3 – Rama-Lakshmana – Does destiny control everything?

Ramayana Reflection – Why Rama abandoned Sita

Ramayana Reflection – Hanuman in Lanka 1 – Overcoming Obstacles

Ramayana Reflection – Hanuman in Lanka 2 – Discouraged yet determined

Ramayana Reflection – Hanuman in Lanka 3 – Exceeding Expectations

Ramayana series 1 – Comparing Dasharatha and Dhritarashtra – What we do is not as important as why we do it

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=1940775015969924

Ramayana series 2 – Ravana’s recklessness – Attachment makes us overvalue things

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=287382915216771

Ramayana series 3 – Shurapanakha’s manipulativeness – Exploiting others’ weaknesses doesn’t make us strong

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=308409816438309

Ramayana series 4 – Sita’s faithfulness – The strength of devotional acceptance

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=embed_video&v=286441101975842

Rama at home in exile 1 – The power of acceptance

Rama at home in exile 2 – The power of diligence

Radhashtami meditation 1 – Appreciating the sacrificing spirit of Sita and Radharani

Radhashtami meditation 2 – Appreciating the two separations endured by Sita and Radharani

QA on racism Q 1 From a spiritual perspective, why does racism exist?

QA on racism Q 2 Does racism exist because of the caste system?

QA on racism Q 3 Do people of particular skin colors belong to particular castes?

QA on racism Q 4 Are varna and ashrama the only two hierarchies present in nature?

QA on racism Q 5 What does seeing everyone equally mean practically?

QA on racism Q 6 Why is racism seen in humans, but not in animals?

QA on racism Q 7 When animals of one group don’t include animals from another group, is that racism?

QA on racism Q 8 How do we balance knowing that we are not the bady and processing bodily pains?

QA on racism Q 9 Is racial injustice caused by past karma?

QA on racism Q 10 How do we as spiritualists manifest empathy (para-dukha-dukhi)?

QA on humility 1 – How are the various points of Lord Chaitanya’s verse on humility inter-related?

QA on humility 2 – While being tolerant, how can we ensure that we aren’t abused by others?

QA on humility 3 – How can we be humble with those who are exploitative?

QA on humility 4 – Social media requires self-promotion, spiritual growth requires humility – how to reconcile?

QA on humility 5 – What is it about humility that attracts Krishna?

QA on humility 6 – When pure devotees take offense, is that because of false ego?

QA on humility 7 – Is spirituality meant to make us feel good. Or does spiritual growth require us to feel bad?

Prabhupada: The moments that made his movement – Part 1

The Man …

“It’s an astonishing story. If someone told you a story like this, you wouldn’t believe it. Here’s this person, he’s seventy years old, he’s going to a country where he’s never been before, he doesn’t know anybody there, he has no money, has no contacts. He has none of the things, you would say, that make for success. He’s going to recruit people not on any systematic basis, but just picking up whomever he comes across and he’s going to give them responsibility for organizing a worldwide movement. You’d say, ‘What kind of program is that?’ There are precedents perhaps. Jesus of Nazareth went around saying, ‘Come follow me. Drop your nets, or leave your tax collecting, and come with me and be my disciple.’ But in his case, he wasn’t an old man in a strange society dealing with people whose backgrounds were totally different from his own. He was dealing with his own community. Bhaktivedanta Swami’s achievement, then, must be seen as unique.”

– Thomas Hopkins in Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna: Five Distinguished Scholars on the Krishna Movement in the West

The Movement …

“Guess again if you think Bollywood, or Indian writing in English, is the country’s biggest cultural export. You may not come across any of these if you visit Cochabamba in Bolivia or Gaborone in Botswana; what you will find instead is a centre of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).”

– The Times of India, Editorial, Jan 6, 2006

The Moments …                     

Every life has its defining moments. And in the lives of great souls who have inspired millions, such moments become all the more consequential.

Here we will take a look at the defining moments in the life of a great modern-day saint, His Divine Grace A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada, founder-acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).

1896: Birth: He was born in Kolkata on Sep 1, 1896. The day itself was significant, being the day of Nandotsava, the day when millennia ago Lord Krishna’s father, Nanda Maharaj, celebrated exuberantly the birth of his son, who had been born the previousmidnight. His appearance on that day was significant too: Just as the day was marked by devotional celebration, he too would bring devotional celebrations to various parts of the world. Named Abhay Charan by his parents Gaur Mohan De and Rajani, he was born in a devout family. One of his earliest childhood memories was waking up to the sound of bells being rung in worship. And he started learning to play mridanga, a kind of drum used in kirtans, in his early childhood when his hands were barely long enough to reach the two sides of the drum. Little did the observers of this gifted child know that he would play the mridanga all over the world – and inspire scores of people from various parts of the world to play it too.

1901: Childhood Ratha-Yatra: Children while playing often mimic their elders. Little Abhay played like other children, but he also had a special play: organizing a Ratha-Yatra festival on the streets in the vicinity of his house. Right from getting a cart of the right size to leading and guiding the procession while playing mridanga, he re-enacted with earnest devotion the spectacular chariot festival that annually attracts millions to Jagannatha Puri. His childhood play signified what he would be doing in future: organize Ratha-Yatra festivals all over the world.

1922: Met his spiritual master: Abhay had grown into a well-educated, articulate young man. Being a concerned citizen, he had joined Gandhiji’s non-cooperation movement that protested against the exploitative policies of the British government. To express non-cooperation, he had boycotted the trendy clothes manufactured in the mills of Manchester and had started wearing clothes made of the local material, khadi – a dress-choice that was a strong political statement. Not only that, he had refused to accept the graduation degree that he had earned after years of diligent study at the respected Scottish Church College. Yet a momentous meeting in 1922 spiritualized his zeal, transforming him from a political activist to a spiritual activist. That meeting was with the saint who would later become Abhay’s spiritual master: Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura, the founder of the Gaudiya Math, a spiritual organization dedicated to sharing the message of divine love. Abhay had seen many sadhus living like parasites on society, so he had been reluctant to meet what he thought would be one more such sadhu. Only at a friend’s unrelenting insistence had he come for the meeting. However, what was to be a ritual offering of respects to a religious teacher became a confrontational discussion about the best way to contribute to India and the world. The saint saw the spiritual potential in the young man and asked him, within moments of their first meeting, to share the bhakti tradition’s message of love with the world. Astonished, Abhay countered that India needed political independence first before its spiritual message would have respectability. The master responded that the greatest need of the world was the raising of human consciousness through spiritual love – without it, no other solution would offer any lasting relief. The project of raising human consciousness was so urgent and so universal that it cut across all worldly considerations, including those of political independence or its absence. As they discussed and debated, the saint impressed on the seeker the primacy of pure consciousness as the foundation for all individual and social change. Though a forceful debater, Abhay accepted defeat with disarming grace, resolving that the one who had mastered him would become his spiritual master.

1925: Visited Vrindavan for the first time: Aspiring to assist his spiritual master’s mission by providing financial support, Abhay busied himself in expanding his pharmaceutical business, the profession he had entered after completing his education. As his business tours took him across the country, he frequently remembered his spiritual master and longed to be in his presence again. On coming to know that the master was leading a pilgrimage tour in Vrindavan, the holy place where Krishna had appeared and sported millennia ago, Abhay joined the tour. He relished the devotional vibrancy of that holiest of all places for the devotees of Krishna. More importantly, he heard his spiritual master’s discourse for hours and found himself enriched and enlivened by the wisdom therein.

1932: Received spiritual initiation: The memories of the life-transforming first encounter with his master would gestate within Abhay for a decade before they manifested in his becoming a formally initiated disciple. While he was being initiated, his master showed him special favor, appreciating his spiritual acumen as evidenced in his eagerness to hear and learn. While granting Abhay a spiritual name, his master added Aravind – thus Abhay Charan became Abhay Charanaarvind, signifying that the fearlessness (abhay) the human heart longs for is found in the lotus (aravind) feet (charan) of the Supreme, who is the source of the ultimate security.

1937: Received the first instruction again as a final instruction: Abhay’s master departed from the world at the start of this year, leaving him afflicted by separation. But just a few days earlier, his master had in a letter to Abhay reiterated the instruction that he had given in their first meeting: share the message of spiritual love with the world. Abhay felt the presence and grace of his master in the parting instruction, and deepened his resolved to make fulfilling that instruction his life-mission.

1939: Is bestowed the title Bhaktivedanta: Abhay had been writing articles and poems in the magazines run by his master’s mission – and the insights in his writings had so pleased the master that he had declared, “Whatever Abhay writes, publish it.” After the master’s departure, Abhay continued and intensified his writing. Appreciating his scholarship and zeal, his godbrothers from the Gaudiya Math gave him the title “Bhaktivedanta” The title meant that love for the divine (bhakti) is the conclusion (anta) of all knowledge (veda) –a truth that Abhay had consistently and convincingly communicated through his writings, and would continue to do so.

1944: Began Back to Godhead magazine: While the world was limping towards the end of the worst war in recent history, World War II, and while Kolkata was still threatened by Japanese bombardment, Abhay felt inspired to address the spiritual bankruptcy that underlay the world’s numerous problems. To make spiritual wisdom accessible to people, he started a magazine called Back to Godhead. Its name conveyed its mission: to re-harmonize human consciousness with the supreme source of all consciousness. He singlehandedly typed, proofread, published and distributed the magazine, approaching people on the hot streets of tropical India. Once, a stray cow knocked him down. Another time, he fell unconscious on the streets due to sunstroke and exhaustion. Still, he never wavered in his determination to keep publishing and distributing the message of spiritual love. The magazine he started continues even today in over a dozen languages with thousands upon thousands of copies distributed worldwide.

1953: Initiated his first disciple and started the League of Devotees – both in Jhansi: Abhay was now less a pharmaceutical businessman and more a traveling spiritual teacher. And his traveling brought him to Jhansi, where several interested people urged him to make his base. A Sanskrit professor at a local college, Acarya Prabhakar, became his first initiated disciple. His local admirers offered him an unused building, which he decided to make the main office of his outreach mission that he named The League of Devotees. Though the results of his outreach in Jhansi had been modest, he had grand plans for expansion. Unfortunately, a clique involving local politicians and businessmen sabotaged his efforts and compelled him to vacate the premises. Disappointed but undaunted, Abhay returned to the life of a traveling teacher.

1956: Moved to Vrindavan: In the course of his travels, Abhay felt driven to settle in Vrindavan. Many pious senior citizens would retire there for investing their sunset years in focused devotion to Krishna, but Abhay’s purpose was different. He wanted to reside there to get the blessings of the great saints who had lived there in the past – and being thus empowered, share Krishna’s message with the world. Living in the premises of one of Vrindavan’s sacred temples, he prayed, worshiped, studied, contemplated and wrote – all in preparation for the great mission that was beckoning him from within.

1959: Received sannyasa: Abhay got recurrent dreams in which his spiritual master urged him to accept the renounced order of life so that he could exclusively focus on outreach. Accordingly, after having shouldered his family responsibilities for four decades, he took the vows of sannyasa in a small temple in Mathura and became A C Bhaktivedanta Swami. In went an elderly man dressed in white and out came a monk holding a renunciate’s staff, wearing saffron robes and carrying within his heart a deepened determination to share spiritual wisdom with the world.

1960: Published first book, Easy Journey to Other Planets: Tapping into the popular fascination with space travel that had been triggered by the space race among the two Cold War super-powers, America and Russia, A C Bhaktivedanta Swami wrote a timely book that used contemporary scientific terminology and presented the Vedic perspective on space travel. This small book entitled appealingly as “Easy Journey to Other Planets” was the first in what was to be a prodigious literary career that produced over eighty books.

1962: Published the Srimad Bhagavatam, Canto One, Volume One: Demonstrating the spiritual saying that a saint hears the voice of God everywhere, A C Bhaktivedanta Swami saw divine guidance in the suggestion of an acquaintance: Write books instead of magazines – books have a much longer shelf life. He envisioned a multi-volume translation-commentary on one of India’s greatest devotional classics: the Srimad Bhagavatam. Also known as the Bhagavata Purana, this most celebrated of all the Puranas is a spiritual masterpiece with thousands of verses spanning across twelve cantos. It had never before been available in English translation-commentary. Working with the same incredible industry that had characterized his magazine publication, he typed, proofread, solicited sponsorship and published the first volume of the series. His work was appreciated by many eminent people, including the Prime Minister of India, Lal Bahadur Shastri, who recommended that libraries across the country stock the series.

Over the next two years, he completed the translation-commentary on the first canto in two more volumes before venturing abroad.

During the next decade, despite a demanding traveling schedule, he continued working on this magnum opus till his last breath. Today the 18-volume 10,000 plus page rendition of the Srimad Bhagavatam has been translated into over 40 languages and distributed in millions all over the world.

1965, Aug 13: Started for America on Jaladuta: A C Bhaktivedanta Swami’s attempts to share spirituality in India had got lukewarm response, primarily because most Indians were enamored with Western notions of progress. He was both a realist and a visionary. As a realist, he recognized that Indians were unlikely to take their spiritual legacy seriously as long as they were enamored with the West. As a visionary, he envisioned that if he could inspire Westerners to take the message of spiritual love seriously, then Indians would do so too. So he resolved to go for sharing spirituality to the West, specifically to America, which had replaced Britain as the Western superpower after World War II.

With the first canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam translated, he felt equipped – he saw the message as the actual illuminator and saw himself as the humble conveyor of that message. Being a mendicant with no money, he had to depend on the support of well-wishers for financing his US trip. One well-wisher arranged for his son who was based in America to act as the sponsor for the visa. But financing the travel proved to be much more difficult. After being turned down by many sponsors, he had to sit for hours on the steps outside the office of a potential patron to get an appointment. Only after earnest persuasion during the meeting could he secure free passage on an America-bound cargo ship.

Still, when he eventually boarded the ship from Kolkata, he had with him only forty rupees – worth just a few hours of subsistence in America. Just as his financial assets were insignificant, so too was his departure inconspicuous – only a handful of acquaintances came to see him off. Yet his departure was far from inconsequential. The ship’s name Jaladuta (the water-messenger) would turn out to be symbolic: it carried a transcendental envoy whose message would attract thousands to India’s treasure of spiritual love.

1965: Darshan of Krishna on Jaladuta: His voyage began ominously. After undergoing bouts of seasickness, he endured two heart attacks on two successive days. And he had to endure them without any medical attention whatsoever, being the lone passenger in a cargo ship with no medical facilities. Fearing that a third successive attack might be fatal, he intensified his prayer to Krishna – and that night instead of a heart attack came the Lord of his heart. Krishna appeared in a mystical vision, offered his blessings and assured that he would personally steer the ship across the ocean and would ensure the success of his devotee’s mission. At the end of their journey, the ship-captain remarked that never before during his forty years of navigation had the Atlantic Ocean been so calm. Prabhupada wrote in his diary that Krishna had taken charge of the ship.

Prabhupada: The moments that made his movement – Part 2

1966: Went to the land of the hippies: When A C Bhaktivedanta Swami first beheld the American shoreline with its impressive skyscrapers, he saw not material prosperity but spiritual bankruptcy. And he prayed fervently to be used as an instrument of divine compassion, beseeching the Lord to make him dance like a puppet. He had come to America not to enjoy its comforts, but to share the spiritual comfort of God’s love. So, as he initially explored the terrain for its spiritual receptivity, he stayed first with his sponsor in Butler and then with a yoga teacher in New York. But once he found a spiritually promising territory, he plunged deep into it, although it was materially inhospitable. That territory was Lower East Side, New York, where hippies from all over America had settled to pursue their experiment in counterculture.

A C Bhaktivedanta Swami had arrived in America at a turbulent phase in its cultural history – the phase of the counterculture when its youth were rejecting the materialism that was the fuel and the goal of the mainstream culture. Not knowing where to find a satisfactory alternative, many of these well-intentioned but uninformed youth were seeking spirituality through psychedelic drugs. And tragically they were ending up not as spiritualists but as drug-addicts.

Into this confusion and degradation, where thievery was commonplace, where trigger-happy kids roamed unfettered, where drug-induced babble was seen as spiritual revelation, came A C Bhaktivedanta Swami. A greater cultural mismatch would be difficult to imagine: an elderly, scholarly monk who had never drunk even tea during his life was living amidst college dropouts whose lives centered on sex and drugs. And yet the spiritual music and message he brought united hearts together in divine love, transcending the cultural incompatibility.

Fearlessly and compassionately, the Swami, as he came to be known in America, invited those troubled youths to replace the chemical high of drugs with the spiritual high of the holy names of God. Initially, the invitation seemed to boomerang. The first youth who showed some serious interest and who came to live with the Swami to learn from him turned violent under a drug-induced mania. When he charged to attack the Swami, the elderly teacher had to flee – and found himself homeless in a foreign land.

But his spirit was indomitable – he quickly regrouped and soon relocated to a storefront aptly titled “Matchless Gifts” and reissued his invitation to the hippies, who started coming regularly. Soon, he was conducting programs on three evenings every week. During the programs, he spoke on the Bhagavad-gita and sandwiched his talk between long kirtans. These kirtans featured dancing in tune with the responsive singing of the maha-mantra: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. The hippies were into music and they came to love the Swami’s spiritual music.

1966: Did first public kirtan at Tompkins Square Park, New York:

Appreciating the positive response to the storefront kirtans, the Swami decided to take the kirtan to the place where the hippies hung out. He went to a prominent local park, the Tompkins Square Park, and started singing under a tree while some of his followers started dancing. Intrigued, a few onlookers joined till eventually hundreds were singing and dancing in a two-hour jubilant celebration of spiritual love – the first of its kind outside the Indian subcontinent. After that first success, there was no looking back; public kirtans soon became one of the Swami’s principal outreach methods. Today, kirtan processions are a familiar sight on the streets of the world’s major cities and kirtan festivals are celebrated in numerous parts of the world. In fact, kirtan has become such a popular and influential genre in music that there’s an increasing demand to make it a new category for Grammy awards.

The elm tree under which the Swami led the first kirtan still exists in Tompkins Square Park. Called the Hare Krishna tree, it bears a plaque commemorating this historic event.

1966: Incorporated ISKCON: As the Swami attracted a small but significant group of dedicated followers, people started calling his storefront the temple. And amidst the Lower East Side hubbub, the temple became a spiritual happening place. But the Swami’s vision went far beyond the small storefront to encompass the whole world: Just as this small group had become enlivened by spiritual love, so too could the whole world. To actualize his vision, he established on August 8, 1966, in New York the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). Though some of his followers signed as members and a few well-wishers signed as trustees, hardly anyone thought that the movement would go beyond the Lower East Side. However, the Swami saw the storefront success as just the first stage in a multi-stage divine plan that would spiritually enrich the whole world – a divine plan that ISKCON would implement.

1967, Jan: Took his first flight to San Francisco: Some of the Swami’s enterprising followers went to San Francisco, attracted people there to the spiritual chant of the holy names and invited him to come there. They sent a flight ticket and thus he flew for the first time in his life – from New York to San Francisco. On disembarking, he was welcomed by an enthusiastic group of young people chanting the holy names. When asked how his flight had been, the Swami’s reply revealed his constant absorption in Krishna. He said that on noting how small the giant buildings looked from the airplane, he had contemplated how small everything would look from Krishna’s perspective.

1967, July 9: Inspired the first Ratha-Yatra in the West (San Francisco): The Swami constantly meditated on how to make the sweetness of bhakti more accessible to his Western audience. Once, when he saw a flatbed truck going along the road, he got the divine inspiration to utilize it as a vehicle for replicating the Ratha-Yatra festival. One of his disciples had coincidentally found in a nearby antique shop small images of Jagannatha, Baldeva and Subhadra. Seeing the coincidence as a divine arrangement, the Swami asked a disciple who had some experience in sculpting to fashion larger replicas of those images. And thus manifested the first Ratha-Yatra festival outside the Indian subcontinent. Jagannath rode atop his improvised chariot through the streets of San Francisco with people who had never before heard of him beholding, cheering, clapping, singing, dancing, receiving prasad and being blessed.

The Ratha-Yatra, or the Chariot Festival as it came to be known, became immensely popular. The hippies loved the public dancing and singing – while earlier they would have been arrested for dancing on the streets, now they were being escorted by the police.

Since that beginning in San Francisco, Ratha-Yatra has gone on to become a global cultural phenomenon. It is celebrated in scores of countries and hundreds of cities, from Boston to Belfast to Brisbane; and from Dublin to Dubai to Dnepropetrovsk.

1967: Got third heart attack and returned to India for treatment:

The strain of the Swami’s relentless outreach efforts took a heavy toll on his seventy-year-old body. One fateful night in San Francisco, he got a heart attack – his third – and it was nearly fatal. By his determination to carry on his master’s mission and by the fervent prayers of his followers, he pulled through. But the convalescence took time and the cold American weather didn’t help. So, he decided to return to India for its healing warmth and its holistic Ayurvedic treatment. His disciples, who were in their physical youth and in their spiritual infancy, were forced to grow up rapidly as the responsibility for carrying on their master’s mission was thrust on them. During his absence, they were nourished by his regular affection-filled letters – a mode of communication that the Swami would use extensively to guide his followers. Their love for him grew in separation. And a year later, they welcomed their beloved Swami, now recovered and rejuvenated, back to America.

They recognized that their master had saved them from directionless and meaningless lives. In gratitude and reverence, they longed to address him with a title more special than “the Swami.” Accordingly, after consulting him, they started addressing him with the honorific “Prabhupada.” The title refers to one who has taken shelter of the feet (pada) of God (prabhu). Abhay Charan thus metamorphosed through Abhay Charanaarvind, A C Bhaktivedanta, AC Bhaktivedanta Swami to Srila Prabhupada, the last being the name by which he would be lovingly addressed by millions the world over.

1968: Inspired ISKCON’s first eco-friendly spiritual community in New Vrindavan, West Virginia: Srila Prabhupada repeatedly stressed simple living and high thinking as the most conducive lifestyle for cultivating spiritual love. To demonstrate this, he inspired and guided his followers to establish self-sufficient communities that featured God-centered eco-friendly living. When some of his dedicated followers started developing such a community New Vrindavan, West Virginia, he stayed with them for months, demonstrating the simple spiritual lifestyle that he taught in his books. This was the lifestyle that devotees had lived for millennia in India, that Krishna himself had demonstrated during his stay in Vrindavan.During his stay at New Vrindavan, his disciples were amazed to see the breadth of his knowledge – it extended from the topmost transcendental subjects about esoteric spiritual love to the down-to-earth details of fashioning a cart that wouldn’t sink in the marshy terrain.

New Vrindavan has now become a Western place of pilgrimage for devotees and seekers. It features a magnificent Prabhupada Palace of Gold that when inaugurated was called by the New York Times the “Taj Mahal of the West.”

Over the decades, many similar communities have been developed in various parts of the world. They serve as not just serene spiritual sanctuaries but also as crucibles of ecological research – they demonstrate prosperity through living in harmony with nature as a viable, even preferable, alternative to prosperity by exploiting nature.

1968: Macmillan published his Bhagavad-gita commentary: The Bhagavad-gita is among the best known philosophical classics from the Indian wisdom-tradition. Though many commentaries had been written on it, few if any focused on the transformational power of love that is its underlying, unifying essence. Srila Prabhupada brought that essence out in his commentary titled Bhagavad Gita As It Is. He finished writing this commentary in America in 1967 and wanted to publish it there.

But as he was relatively unknown in America and as his book was seen as the religious book of a minority religion that would not attract many readers, no publisher was forthcoming. Nonetheless, through a miraculous series of events, the respected publishing house, MacMillan, published his commentary, albeit in an abridged edition. Exceeding expectations, the commentary was widely appreciated and soon re-printed repeatedly. Eventually, Prabhupada published the unabridged edition through his own publishing house.

Over the last five decades, his Gita commentary has become the world’s most widely read English commentary. Millions of copies have been distributed all over the world in over sixty languages.

1969: Established ISKCON’s first Radha-Krishna temple in Los Angeles: As his followers became increasingly devoted to Krishna, Srila Prabhupada decided that the time was right to unveil the next phase in his spiritual transplantation of the bhakti culture: introducing Deity Worship. In Los Angeles, where he had attracted a substantial following and which had thus become the de facto Western headquarters of his movement, he installed ISKCON’s first Radha-Krishna Deities. For worshiping those Deities, he trained and initiated some of his dedicated disciples, making them ordained priests. That temple was to become the first among hundreds all over the world – temples that offer spiritual retreat and rejuvenation to millions.

1969: Established Radha-Londonishvara temple in London: Srila Prabhupada had sent three couples to England to share the message of spiritual love there. After an initial period of intense struggle – struggle that they weathered by the strength of Srila Prabhupada’s encouraging and guiding letters – they got a major breakthrough when they met the “spiritual” Beatle, George Harrison. The legendary musician had already heard an album of Srila Prabhupada’s singing the Hare Krishna mantra – and had found it spiritually fascinating. With his assistance, the devotees moved forward much faster in setting up an ISKCON center in London. At their invitation, Srila Prabhupada came to London and installed Radha-Krishna deities.

Five decades ago, Srila Prabhupada had been an Indian political activist against English colonial rule. Now, he was in London as a spiritual teacher, initiating as his disciples descendants of those colonist English, and establishing in London a temple that was a part of the same culture that the English had subjugated for two centuries. Geopolitical realities had changed, but the sovereignty of the one God whom different religions addressed by different names remained unchanged. Enshrining this eternal reality in a transcendental neologism, Srila Prabhupada named the Deities Radha-Londonishvara, thus conveying God’s sovereignty over everything, including London.

1969: Inspired George Harrison to spiritualize his music:

During Srila Prabhupada’s stay in London, the famed Beatle George Harrison came to meet him on several occasions. The saint encouraged the musician to compose devotional songs with lyrics that included the holy names. Inspired by this guideline, George Harrison produced several devotional songs such as the celebrated “My Sweet Lord,” a composition in praise of Krishna. The Rolling Stone magazine ranked it 460^th among the 500 greatest songs of all time. He also teamed with the devotees to produce albums such as the Radha Krishna Temple. The song “Hare Krishna mantra” from that album became a global bestseller. The devotees performed it twice on BBC-TV’s Top of the Pops and in multiple concerts across Europe, thus introducing the holy names of Krishna to millions.

1970: Did first Indian tour with his Western disciples: This tour across India gave his Western disciples a fuller experience of the bhakti culture that was still widespread in India; and it showed Indians how Westerners had so diligently embraced the very culture that they themselves were neglecting or rejecting. His tour created a spiritual sensation with Indians astonished to see young Westerners adopting traditional Indian practices and principles: Young Western women wearing sarees; and young Western men with shaven heads wearing dhoti-kurtas. His tour won the hearts of thousands of Indians, many of whom went on to become his ardent supporters .

1971: Established ISKCON’s first temple in India at Kolkata:

When Srila Prabhupada came to Kolkata with his Western disciples, his pandal programs were attended by twenty to thirty thousand people, with some programs being among the biggest the city had ever seen. Soon, Kolkata warmed up to the achievements of its illustrious son.

But not everyone was pleased. Anti-social elements threatened him with “Fly or Die” notes. Unfazed, he continued his outreach. When one evening, some rowdy youths came to disrupt the program, he fearlessly led from the front and diffused the volatile situation by his saintliness and his presence of mind.

It was in Kolkata that Srila Prabhupada established ISKCON’s first temple in India. While growing up as a child there, he had worshiped the Deities of Radha-Govinda in a neighborhood temple – and now, expressing his gratitude and his resolve to preserve and propagate the bhakti heritage, he installed Radha-Govinda Deities in that same city.

Prabhupada: The moments that made his movement – Part 3

1971, May: Visited Australia for the first time:

As a part of his vision to share spiritual love with the whole world, Srila Prabhupada had sent his disciples to Australia. They had initially faced suspicion and opposition, even being arrested for dancing on the streets. But gradually their spiritual sincerity shone through and they attracted many interested people. When Srila Prabhupada came to Sydney, Australia, at their invitation, he inspired both followers and visitors by his words and actions.

Given his age, he knew that he didn’t have much time for sharing the bhakti movement in Australia. Still, wanting to give it a strong fillip in the available time he came up with a transcendentally bold move. Though the devotees in Australia were young and not adequately trained, he still installed Radha-Krishna Deities and prayed to their Lordships to guide the novice devotees from within their hearts about how to render devotional service properly.

His faith in the devotee’s sincerity was well-placed, as he saw during his next annual visit. The devotees had learnt proper devotional principles and practices – and were maintaining high standards of Deity Worship, standards that are being continued even now.

1971 June: Visited Moscow: Having shared spirituality successfully in the Western super-power America, Srila Prabhupada had set his sights on the other superpower: Soviet Russia. But that country’s communist government and underlying atheistic ideology made it much more difficult to penetrate spiritually. But even the Iron Curtain couldn’t hold Srila Prabhupada back. Finally, through his correspondence with a respected Russian professor of religion, he was able to visit USSR for five days. But he wasn’t allowed to do any public programs, and he had to spend most of those days in a small hotel room. Nonetheless, his spiritual potency couldn’t be suppressed by anything material. Through a series of transcendental coincidences, one sincere Russian seeker, Anatoly Pinyayev, came to meet him in his hotel room. Anatoly heard from him like a starving man getting a feast. Srila Prabhupada blessed and empowered him, granting him the initiated name Ananta Shanti das.

Through this first Russian Krishna devotee, the message of spiritual love spread gradually but unstoppably to thousands. Unfortunately, the devotees faced severe persecution from the KGB. The devotees were nonviolent and tolerant – and wanted to do nothing more than simply follow their heart’s calling to love Krishna, and share that love with others. Yet the KGB deemed Hare Krishna one of the three main threats to the Soviet Union, the other two being pop music, Western culture, and Hare Krishna. Decades of persecution resulted, till finally communism fell. Thereafter, devotees were able to follow their heart’s calling much more freely and with amazing results – the Newsweek magazine (1994) noted that the Hare Krishna movement was the fastest growing religion in Russia.

1971, Nov: Visited Africa for the first time:

Srila Prabhupada had sent his followers to Africa, but they hadn’t been able to make much headway with the native African population. So they had focused on cultivating the Indian diaspora there. But Srila Prabhupada’s vision was universal – he saw the message of spiritual love not as the property of any particular religion, but as the ultimate destiny of all people. So when he came to Nariobi, he told his followers to perform kirtans in a centrally located Hindu temple and open the doors for everyone. The joyous singing and dancing attracted Africans to enter and join the celebration. As the joy of spiritual love linked them all together, centuries of racial stereotypes and prejudices were swept away in the flood of devotion.

Later, while addressing two thousand students at the University of Nairobi, he urged them to avoid the path of uni-dimensional material development that the West had followed, for it led only to disappointment and frustration, as seen in the hippie culture emerging in the West. Instead, he urged them to give due time to spiritual growth and thus achieve balanced progress.

By his inspiration, the bhakti legacy is going strong in Africa, with the Hare Krishnas being among the most rapidly growing religious groups in Ghana.

1972, Feb 29: Conducted ground-breaking ceremony for a magnificent temple in Mayapur: Srila Prabhupada represented and presented a spiritual lineage coming from Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, a medieval saint who had spread the culture of sankirtan throughout India. Lord Chaitanya is revealed in esoteric bhakti texts to be an hidden incarnation of God descended for propagating the yuga-dharma, the recommended spiritual practice for this age: the congregational chanting of the holy names. Since Lord Chaitanya had appeared in Mayapur, Srila Prabhupada desired to establish the spiritual headquarters of his movement in this sacred place. The project that started with a deserted patch of land surrounded by overgrown fields and forests has now become a vibrant community, indeed a spiritual township wherein people from various parts of the world live in devotional harmony. A beautiful temple there attracts millions of pilgrims annually. And under construction is what will become the biggest Hindu temple in the world with a height of 340 feet, a covered area of 6,750,00 square feet – and a 75-feet domed planetarium theater, the only one of its kind in India.

1974: Established Food for Life: When Srila Prabhupada was in Mayapur in 1974, once he saw local village children struggling with stray animals for scraps of food. Moved to tears, he called his followers and told them that no one should go hungry for ten miles around a temple. That compassionate pronouncement became the rallying call of ISKCON Food for Life, which has gone on to become the world’s biggest vegetarian food relief program. Its activists have distributed food in many of the world’s most destitute areas and in the world’s worst disaster-hit areas. The New York Times (December 12, 1995) stated that Food for Life volunteers in Chechnya were having “a reputation like the one Mother Teresa has in Calcutta: it’s not hard finding people to swear they are saints.”

Food for Life, through its projects in over 60 countries distributes two million free meals every day, that is, 23 free meals every second. Its Indian wing, ISKCON Food Relief Foundation, distributes free meals to 1.2 million school children daily.

 1974: Published Sri Chaitanya Charitamrita in 17 volumes. This Bengali biography-cum-theological treatise on the life and teachings of Lord Chaitanya is a storehouse of exalted insights on spiritual love. Wanting to make its wisdom available to the world, Srila Prabhupada worked on his translation-commentary with phenomenal speed, as if on a literary marathon. He completed all the seventeen volumes of his translation-commentary in just two years.

1975, Feb: Visited South America for the first time:

Having shared spiritual love on four continents, Srila Prabhupada came to Caracas, Venezuela, South America to enrich spiritually this last among the inhabited continents. His followers had already established a vibrant center there, and they welcomed him with a jubilant kirtan. Seeing their enthusiastic devotion as the mercy of the Lord whom he had strived lifelong to glorify, Srila Prabhupada broke into tears during a rare public display of spiritual emotion. In a choked voice, he urged all the assembled devotees and newcomers to treasure the gift of spiritual love – it was life’s only eternal treasure.

His words and actions created a lasting spiritual impression among all present. The inspiration and wisdom he provided powers the bhakti legacy’s ongoing expansion in South America.

 1975, April 20: Conducted grand opening of temple in Vrindavan:

Returning to the place where he had lived and prayed and written, Srila Prabhupada envisioned an elegant temple that would showcase the beauty of Krishna and Vrindavan for the whole world to relish. And in 1975 on Rama Navmi day manifested a marvelous temple, the Krishna-Balarama Mandir. While the temple has Radha-Krishna Deities, as to most temples in Vrindavan, its distinctive feature is that the central altar features Deities of Krishna-Balarama. This special feature reflects the significance of its location: it is situated in the part of Vrindavan where Krishna and Balarama played during their descent to this world.

1975: Established ISKCON’s scientific wing: Recognizing the enormous influence that science had on the modern mind, Srila Prabhupada inspired his scientist-followers to form a special wing for scientific outreach: Bhaktivedanta Institute. Drawing insights from the Vedic literature, this wing would counter the atheism that had hijacked contemporary science and reinstate the spiritual paradigm. Today, many of his followers carry on the legacy of scientific outreach by presenting papers, arranging conferences and writing books.

1977: Went to Krishna: In his life, especially in his last decade, Srila Prabhupada had, by Krishna’s grace, achieved far more than what most people could achieve or even dream of achieving. And at the end of his life he also achieved what is the cherished aspiration of a devotee of Krishna: to leave the world remembering Krishna in Vrindavan. After having taught how to live in devotion, he taught through his death how to leave in devotion. Despite suffering from a prolonged and debilitating illness, he remained absorbed in Krishna, dictating his commentary to the Bhagavatam with the final reserves of his energy. Even when his lips could barely produce any sound, he remained fixed in sharing spiritual wisdom. Surrounded by loving devotees singing the holy names, he uttered the name of Krishna with his last breath on Nov 14, 1977, and went to the abode of his beloved Lord.

His legacy

Though he left the world in 1977, he left for the world an enduring legacy that continues to spiritually enrich millions even today.

Among his most significant gifts are his books, temples and followers. When he was still an unknown Swami taking walks on the streets of New York, he could envision scores of temples and thousands of devotees – and he declared that time alone separated him from them. His vision was astonishingly prophetic. In little over a decade after he took his first step outside India, he had circumnavigated the globe fourteen times, built hundred and eight temples, and inspired millions to take up the path of spiritual love.

From 1965 to 1977, he wrote eighty books, all based on India’s spiritual wisdom-literature. That worked out to be about 7 books every year, or more than one book every two months continuously for twelve years. Such was his literary proficiency that the Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year in 1976 noted, “[ Bhaktivedanta Swami] astonished academic and literary communities worldwide by writing and publishing fifty-two books on the ancient Vedic culture . . . in the period from October 1968 to November 1975.”

Similar appreciation had been expressed by the CNN in an article on 16^th May, 2010, which deemed him one of the ten most successful people in the world who launched their careers after 50.

Appreciating the magnitude and significance of his legacy, the renowned scholar on Indian history and culture, A L Basham, author of The Wonder that was India, wrote, “The Hare Krishna movement arose out of next to nothing in less than twenty years and has become known all over the West. This is an important fact in the history of the Western world.”

A momentous step for humanity

Though the first forty years of his outreach efforts in India met with only a lukewarm response, Srila Prabhupada was not one to take no for an answer. With an indefatigable determination that stemmed from his transcendental love for Krishna, he pressed on and decided to go to America, despite being in his late sixties, despite having no reliable contacts, despite having no money worth mentioning and despite having no organizational backing. Given these crippling disadvantages, his stepping on the Jaladuta to embark on an outreach mission to America could well be seen as one of the most courageous steps in human history. What was one small step for a man was to become a giant leap for humanity in its spiritual evolution – an evolution that we all have an opportunity to participate in and carry forward.

Prabhupada life-story 01 – A devotionally vibrant childhood

Prabhupada life-story 02 – From political activist to spiritual activist

Prabhupada life-story 03 – The dedicated disciple takes up the mission

Prabhupada life-story 04 – League of Devotees – A clique thwarts the promise

Prabhupada life-story 05 – Indian Partition – Transcendence amidst turbulence

Prabhupada life-story 06 – Taking sannyasa & starting Bhagavatam commentary

Prabhupada life-story 07 – Seeking to reach the Western mind

Prabhupada life-story 08 – Journey on Jaladuta – Physically demanding, Divinely revealing

Prabhupada life-story 09 – Alone and unaided in an alien land

Prabhupada life-story 10 – How Krishna set the stage for Prabhupada

Prabhupada life-story 11 – On the bowery – A follower turns attacker

Prabhupada life-story 12 – Through serious difficulties to serious seekers

Prabhupada life-story 13 – Fearless amidst disturbed and disturbing audiences

Prabhupada life-story 14 – Incorporating ISKCON – The seven visionary purposes

Prabhupada life-story 15 – From spiritual shoppers to spiritual seekers

Prabhupada life-story 16 – Establishing the foundation

Positive Thinking 1 – Countering external and internal negativity

Positive Thinking 2 – Understanding the four kinds of thoughts

Positive Thinking – 3 Science and positive thinking

Positive Thinking 4 – Thoughts lead to things – and are things

Positive Thinking 5 – Think positive – think spiritual

Positive Thinking 6 – Don’t just see reality positively – see the positive reality

Positive Thinking 7 Get the IDEA Identity, Divinity, Eternity, Activity

Positive Thinking 8 – I of IDEA – Understanding our identity boosts our positivity

Positive Thinking 9 – D of IDEA – Divinity underlies the universes order

Positive Thinking 10 – E of IDEA – Eternal love provides inexhaustible positivity

Positive Thinking 11 – A of Activity – Spiritual vision inspires positive action

Positive Thinking 12 – IDEA at work 1 – Facing untimely death positively

Positive Thinking 13 – IDEA at work 2 – Facing reversal after reversal positively

Positive Thinking 14 – Understanding willpower 1 – Beyond genes, upbringing and association

Positive Thinking 15 – Understanding willpower 2 – Potential and actual

Positive Thinking 16 – Understanding willpower 3 – Sharpen and strengthen the intelligence

Positive Thinking 17 – Unearth the treasure within

Positive Thinking 18 – Bhakti alchemizes our inner world

Positive Thinking 19 – The six-point ENERGY sutra

Positive Thinking 20 – Smart expectations 1- Hotel or Hospital?

Positive Thinking 21 – Go DEEP – Desire Envision Endeavor Pray

Positive Thinking 22 – Cherish your uniqueness – avoid comparing with others

Positiive Thinking 23 – Cure the cancer of comparison

Positive Thinking 24 – Don’t let a wrong definition of success defeat you

Positive Thinking 25 – See life as a marathon, not a sprint

Positive Thinking 26 – Don’t let the world’s opinions determine your decisions

Positive Thinking 27 – Avoid mental viruses

Positive Thinking 28 – Let gratitude energize you

Positive Thinking 29 – See the invisible, feel the intangible, achieve the impossible

Positive Thinking 30 – Faith reveals the integrated beyond the fragmented

Positive Thinking 31 – Complement diagnosis with prescription

Positive Thinking 32 – PIES – 4 dimensions for all-round well-being

Positive Thinking 33 – Tap the power of meditation

Positive Thinking 34 – No time?

Positive Thinking 35 – Let the IDEA lead to ENERGY

Excerpt from: “St. Theodora’s Journey Through the Aerial Toll-Houses”: http://orthodoxinfo.com/death/theodora.aspx The Separation of Soul and Body Theodora describes the moment of death as excruciating, comparing it to the agony of being burned alive [4]. Evil spirits, appearing as menacing creatures, surround the dying person, attempting to instill fear and claim the soul [4]. Theodora notes
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Are rituals wrong numbers to God? (PK QA 1)

PK QA – article series

1. Are rituals wrong numbers to God? (PK QA 1)

2. Can we reject as wrong numbers the rituals that don’t make sense? (PK QA 2)

3. Why do religious teachers stereotype people as when they pronounce all Pakistanis as cheaters? (PK QA 3)

4. Do people who are afraid go to temples? (PK QA 4)

5. Is it cowardice to go to God out of fear? (PK QA 5)

6. Are there two gods: the god who created man and the god whom man created? (PK QA 6)

Are there two gods: the god who created man and the god whom man created? (PK QA 6)

Why only two? Why not thousands?

Yes, it is true that man has concocted notions of God. But if we were to count such concoctions, then there would be not two gods but thousands of gods, because thousands of people have come up with their own myriad notions of god.

PK says that we don’t know anything about the God who made man. The how do we know that this God is different from the god whom man created? If we don’t know anything about the real currency note, how can we say that the currency note in front of us is false? To say that the God who created man is not the god whom man created implies having some knowledge about that God. If we don’t have any knowledge about God, then how can we say what god is not?

More incoherently, PK says that he has faith in the God who made man. But if he doesn’t know anything about this God, then on what basis does he believe in him? Might his faith be blind? Or might the differentiation between the two Gods be a subtle and sinister tool to make people stop doing all practical acts of worshiping God, while giving them a pseudo-assurance that they haven’t become atheists because they worship some unknowable true God?

To authentically know what God is and to differentiate between him and man’s concoctions about God, we need to not stop doing rituals but start studying scripture, the authoritative books about God. Such study will protect us not only from the pitfall of blind faith that PK depicts but also the pitfall that PK pushes us into – blind faithlessness.