Websites from the ISKCON Universe
ISKCON’S very first literature on Vraja Mandala Parikrama, the book promises its readers a walkthrough of Vraja through its 608 colorful pages and poetically gives one the immersion experience of the sights and the smells of the twelve forests of Vrindavan. It contains 30 chapters each for a day of parikrama with 246 photographs, 107 paintings and 28 precise route maps obtained from Google Earth.
A standard war strategy for defeating a strong enemy is divide and rule. The Bhagavad-gita (06.06) states that the mind can often act as our enemy. Acting inimically, it targets us with this strategy when we practice bhakti-yoga.
This lyrics of this song was written by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in his tiny room on board the commercial ship Jaladuta during his first journey to the United States of America in 1965 at the age of 69. Performed by Indradyumna Swami.
“These are very important compositions where Srila Prabhupada has revealed the mood in which he completely depended on Krishna before he visited America,” said Romapada Das, International Coordinator for the 50th Anniversary.
The insatiable hankering of the modern man has deprived him of spending quality time with himself and his family and, it has landed him into an island where he finds himself all alone surrounded by the ocean of threats
Hare Krishna Festivals UK: The Hare Krishnas, who are often seen at Glastonbury, on Oxford Street or all over the world, are joining in at Bestival for the first time with their enchanting mantra music that brings joy to the heart.
Read the entire article here: http://goo.gl/IxESUw
Yamuna: One day I made Bengali meals and arranged them on the thalis in a Bengali fashion. Srila Prabhupada sat behind his desk, and Pishima sat on the floor directly opposite Srila Prabhupada. As soon as I brought the thalis in and set them down, Srila Prabhupada started making little comical, teasing remarks about his sister. He said, “You know, she says that it is water. I say it is fat.” I thought, “My goodness. He is talking about her weight. What’s going on?” Since Prabhupada’s voice was light-hearted, Pishima started chuckling. He said, “All this,” he was flapping his arms back and forth, “is fat but she calls it water.” He started talking about the days in their childhood when they flew kites, and he said, “I always used to beat her at kites.” He spoke very brother-sisterly about his little sister, and she was laughing, although she didn’t understand a word. In the course of all this jesting, I was bringing in chapatis. When Srila Prabhupada finished his meal, he piled every katori (the little round bowls that all of the moist preparations are in when serving a thali) one on top of the other from the largest to the smallest, nearly twelve inches high. When I walked into the room, Prabhupada knocked down the whole stack with his finger and said, “Yamuna dasi mayi ki jaya!” I said, “Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!” Pishima said, “Gaura Nitai ki jaya!” Then I said, “Oh, Srila Prabhupada. You ate everything.” Srila Prabhupada said, “Excellent!” This was my first meeting with Pishima, and Prabhupada’s mood was light, sweet, jovial, and humorous. Although she didn’t understand a word of what was going on, Pishima truly loved it. She was very fond of Srila Prabhupada. From the day I met her until the very last day I saw her with Srila Prabhupada in 1976 in Vrindavan, I saw that she worshipped her brother, and that he was obviously very fond of her.
Read more: https://goo.gl/UQhDy5
Hare Krishna! Help Take ISKCONOnline.com to the next level
Gopal Bhatta das and Pancharatna dasa: We’re happy to announce that since our web site ISKCONOnline.com was launched over 8,000 people have visited our site, more than 200 devotees completed our online participation form and over 450 subscribed to our newsletter. Thus we have had a good start towards our primary purpose of “creating an association of interested devotees who will improve the quality, relevance and relatability of ISKCON’s presence on the internet.” Now, we want to take this effort to the next level by engaging a qualified devotee as the ISKCONOnline.com Site Director.
Read the entire article here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=19727
Bhaktivedanta Research Centre: This is a postcard written by Srimad Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur to Mahendra Nath Datta. BRC Bengali librarian Bharati Roy has translated it as follows:
“Niskincanasya”.. read this sloka all the time, try to understand its meaning, that is the main thing of Bhajana. You may know that Karma Marga and Prakrtarasanusilana both are against the life of a devotee. We are living a sorrowful life as we cannot do Harinama. You are a veteran Vaisnava, so you may protect us by your Bhajana.
Vaisnavadasanudasa
Dina akincana Sri Bimalaprasad Siddhanta Sarasvati.
The post This is the trailer for the recent Jaladuta festival appeared first on SivaramaSwami.com.
Hare Krishna! An Unforgettable Experience
Hare Krishna, dear devotees! My name is Radha, I’m 19 years old and I am a student in my final year at Sri Mayapur International School. I want to share with you my incredible experience of book distribution in London this summer. I hope that it will please the senior devotees and reassure them that book distribution is still alive and well. And I hope it will encourage all the devotees of my age to give it a try. Here is how it started: for a long time I had wanted to feel myself like a real, active preaching brahmacarini from Srila Prabhupada’s time.
Read the entire article here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=19721
The Spiritual Journey (6 min video)
The real loving nature of God is that He gives us all an opportunity to understand Him and return to Him.
How can we develop our attraction and devotion to Him? What is the facility for each one of us to be able to engage our natural tendencies in devotional activity?
Watch it here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=19724
Hare Krishna! Temples around the world requested to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Prabhupada’s Jaladuta poems
The Global Office of ISKCON’s 50th anniversary has requested temples around the world to try and observe the fiftieth anniversary of two poems that Srila Prabhupada wrote on board the Jaladuta in September 1965. Srila Prabhupada wrote the first poem, ‘Prayer to the Lotus feet of Krishna’ on 13th September 1965 on board the Jaladuta, and the second one, ‘Markine Bhagavata Dharma’ while the Jaladuta was docked at Boston Harbour on September 18th 1965.
Read the entire article here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=19718
Just one week after the grand opening of an 18,000-square-foot temple in Plainfield, New Jersey, comes the news that a Bhumi Puja ceremony will be held to break the ground for another new ISKCON temple in Parsippany on September 26th. Brahmana priests headed by Amara Das from Germany will carry out the elaborate fire ceremony on the 3.2 acre site at 170-180 Troy Road, which was acquired back in 2008 for $1.9 million.
Kaulini Devi Dasi, a much-loved disciple of Srila Prabhupada known for her simplicity, surrender and purity, and for her many years of dedicated service at Gita Nagari, passed away on September 3rd. She was 69. Born and raised in Northern California, her life changed when she received Srila Prabhupada’s Bhagavad-gita in 1972 while on a trip to Mexico.
Written and Produced by Michael J Martin & Gareth Wakeham, Directed by Michael J Martin. Produced by Alfie Ambrose
Due to the onset of festival season with festivals like Janmashtami, Srila Prabhupada’s Vyasa puja and Radhashtami, thousands of pilgrims are visiting Sri Dhama Mayapur. This is a stark contrast when we look a month back as devotees were leaving Mayapur due to the flood. Entire ISKCON Mayapur campus was flooded then which led to […]
The post Thanks to Flood Relief Donors appeared first on Mayapur.com.
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 27 June 2015, New York, USA, Bhagavad-gita 9.33)
I remember in Vrindavan when we were listening to a lecture in our temple, sometimes there were a lot of ants in the temple and not small ones but those big ones with the tweezers on their nose. So when they would come for you, you could see them coming. So everyone would sort of wait till they came close and then flick them back to where they came from because no-one wanted an ant bite. But, the ant would immediately turn around and come straight back; they have a compass. Then we would like try to divert it to our neighbour. So while the class was going on, people were sending ants from one person to the other. In this way, we managed to detour the ant but they were determined to go on their path. They have a will of their own, that means they are individuals and they have a strong desire!
So all living beings have an individual nature. If all living beings have desires then all living beings have a heart and all living beings have bodies. The Supreme Lord also has a heart and he also has desires but some say he has no body! But all living beings have a body and if there is a body in the creation, then these qualities in the creation must also exist in the creator! Therefore the Supreme Lord is a person also. He has his divine energies and at the same time, he is a personality. So those who understand that the Supreme Person is full of love, ultimately to enter into a loving relationship with the Supreme and this is the highest state a living being can achieve.
Love is such a thing that when you are very small, it is only your mother and that goes on for quite some time. The father is sort of there on a second level, second place, sorry to say. But overtime, that can all expand and then there is family – your brother, your sister, friends and then community. Practically, your sense of identity is increasing. But ultimately, the highest state of love is where we see that the whole purpose of the creation has a loving purpose and that behind this world, is the loving Supreme Lord and that we develop our loving relationship with the Supreme Lord.
The post Daily Darshan – September 11th, 2015 appeared first on Mayapur.com.
Lord of The Universe And His Day Out Part 1, A Short Film
All-Attractive Viṣṇu, the powerful and carefree master and the true objective of all sacrifice, was pleased by Pṛthu’s ceremonies and appeared before the emperor along with powerful Indra. Glancing towards Indra, Viṣṇu said, “Here is the one who disrupted your hundredth horse-sacrifice. He seeks your forgiveness, so I think he deserves it.”
“Should I really forgive his immoral deeds?” Pṛthu seemed to wonder.
Viṣṇu encouraged him not to by angry. “Oh god of humanity,” he said, “the best humans, good people with good intellect, don’t hold onto malice towards anyone.”
“How is that possible?” the king would surely wonder. “How can they feel no malice towards those who cause them harm?”
Viṣṇu explained, “They know the difference between their true self and its body.”
“So?”
“People who don’t understand the difference between the self and its body work very hard, and for a very long time, to secure what their bodies desire, but in the end wind up with no profit except their sweat. Such frustrated and irritable people are very easily moved to malice.”
“If the body is not exactly the self, what is it?” Pṛthu would ask.
“The wise know that the body is the tangible result of our self-ignorant desires. This is why the wise are not terribly attached to the pleasures that might be acquired by their body.”
“How does this lack of attachment make them less malicious?” Pṛthu would ask.
“They are not terribly attached to pleasures connected with their bodies,” Viṣṇu reiterated. “So, they are not disturbed and moved to malice if someone or something presents a disruption or obstacle to such things. They are, wisely, not excessively defensive of their household, assets, or lineage.”
“If the body is not the true source of identity,” Pṛthu would ask, “what is?”
“The true source of identity is a singular, pure, self-luminous entity; not limited by any characteristic or quality, but sheltering distinct characteristics and qualities. It spreads everywhere, and its all-witnessing sentience cannot be impeded. Beyond the false-self, it is the supreme self of the self.”
“Does the false self have any relation to the true self?” The emperor would want to know. “Does the limited self have some relation to the Supreme Self?”
“Yes!” Viṣṇu affirmed. “The wise know themselves to be situated within that Supreme Self. The unwise determine their identity by looking towards the qualities of their external bodies, but the wise determine their identity by looking inwards toward the Supreme Self who is the ultimate root of all individuals.”
Inspired by and following in the footsteps of the artists Jackson Pollock and Aelita Andre, Lower Elementary students expressed their artistic talents and had loads of fun! I wish the pictures could capture the sounds of their giggles and laughter as they splashed the paint onto their boards.
Giriraj Swami and Vaisesika dasa read from Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead during the festivities.
“The art of focusing one’s attention on the Supreme and giving one’s love to Him is called Krsna consciousness. We have inaugurated the Krsna consciousness movement so that everyone can satisfy his propensity for loving others simply by directing his love toward Krsna. The whole world is very eager to satisfy the dormant propensity of love for others, but the various invented methods like socialism, communism, altruism, humanitarianism, and nationalism, along with whatever else may be manufactured for the peace and prosperity of the world, are all useless and frustrating because of our gross ignorance of the art of loving Krsna. Generally people think that by advancing the cause of moral principles and religious rites they will be happy. Others may think that happiness can be achieved by economic development, and yet others think that simply by sense gratification they will be happy. But the real fact is that people can be happy only by loving Krsna.”
— Krsna, Preface
Sri Krsna Janmastami, a most sacred and auspicious day for Vaisnavas, has just been celebrated. It was grand and festive. TKG Academy students, since the beginning of the school year, have been preparing for this special occasion in many ways.
Each class, including students from Kalachandji’s Sunday School, prepared posters, portraying verses from the Brahma Samhita prayers, with which they decorate the Temple hallway.
TKG Academy students also opened the performances on the main stage. Preschool through 1st grade students sang about Krsna and Balarama going to the forest with Their friends and cows. 2nd through 9th grade students chanted the bhajan “Bhajahu re mana” by Govinda Dasa Kaviraja and enacted a dramatic narration of its meaning.
View the full gallery: Offerings and Abhishek Similar to earlier years, ISKCON Mayapur had a week filled with festivals glorifying Srila Prabhupada on occasion of His Vyasa puja. The bramacharis, other temple staff, international devotees, Bhaktivedanta National School, and Sri Mayapur International School all held their own celebrations. These festivals enabled many devotees to read […]
The post Srila Prabhupada Vyasa Puja 2015 appeared first on Mayapur.com.
The post Srila Prabhupada’s Vyasapuja Gallery appeared first on Mayapur.com.
Srila Prabhupada Vyasa Puja 2015 at ISKCON-Delhi (Album with photos)
See them here: https://goo.gl/JBssP6
Bhadra Rupa, alias Luis De La Calle, is signed to Sony World Music, has performed at theaters around the world, and is a member of the US, British, and Japanese national flute associations. At his music academy in Geneva, Switzerland, he teaches students how to play devotional songs by Vaishnava composers like Narottama Das Thakur.
Inauguration of New Seminar Hall (Album with photos)
Inauguration of New Seminar Hall by HH Gopal Krishna Goswami Maharaj at ISKCON New Delhi.
See them here: https://goo.gl/N8q6xN
Hare Krishna! The Absolute Nature of the Vedic Literature
The Seed Verses of Bhagavad Gita (Bg 10.8-11) The word seed suggests that it has the potential to grow into something bigger then itself. The verses that are accepted as the “Seed” verses of the Gita do exactly that. They are also sometime referred to as the Catur-Sloka because there are just four (Catur) seed verses (Slokas). The 700 verses of Bhagavad Gita are generally accepted as the summary study of the entire body of Vedic knowledge. Yet within the Gita these “Seed verses” are acknowledged for how nicely they summarize the essence of the Gita’s message into four concise sutras. Now consider these four powerful Sanskrit verses provided below. If you can enter into their profound meaning, you will have effectively attained the highest stage of realization that the entire cannon of Vedic literature points towards.
Read the entire article here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=19708
Transcendental soldiers in the service of His Divine Grace!
"The smallest act of kindness worth more than the grandest intention." (Oscar Wilde)