By His Mercy (4 min video) Indradyumna Swami: Each time we come…
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By His Mercy (4 min video)
Indradyumna Swami: Each time we come to Russia our visit to the St. Petersburg yatra is one of the highlights of our tour. Our visit this past week was no exception, as we had kirtan for hours each day with hundreds of devotees in their center downtown. All glories to Srila Prabhupada, by whose mercy the chanting of Lord Krsna’s holy names have spread to every town and village in this land!
Watch it here: https://goo.gl/coLYVz

Hare Krishna! The Best Benediction Some people fantasize about…
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Hare Krishna! The Best Benediction
Some people fantasize about accumulating immense wealth and dream of what they would buy if they only had enough. To them, happiness hovers elusively on the other side of that new car, that big house, that diamond necklace. While many of us will say, “Money can’t buy happiness,” do we really believe it? If not money, what is the solution to our hankerings? What is the greatest treasure that will bring true happiness? And how do we acquire that treasure? Srila Prabhupada answers these questions in one of his purports, which recounts the story of a fortunate brahmana who sought the best benediction from Lord Siva
Read the entire article here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=17294

Cant past-life memories be coincidences among the earth’s eight billion people’s stories?
→ The Spiritual Scientist

If someone comes up with a story, it's always possible that it will match with someone else's story among the eight billion other life-stories on earth

Answer Podcast:
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Near Death Experiences or Near Eternity Experiences?
→ The Spiritual Scientist

“Science may keep saying: 'Such things are simply impossible'; yet so long as the stories multiply in different lands, and so few are positively explained away, it is bad method to ignore them.”

–American psychologist William James

 

Near-death Experiences (NDEs) are experiences of extraordinary visions and perceptions during periods of unconsciousness among people who were medically dead or nearly dead due to various causes like accidents, diseases, surgeries or attempted suicides. These people returned from the dead or the near-dead to tell us their amazing experiences.

NDEs have been reported since time immemorial in cultures all over the world. In a cross-cultural study published in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, March 1978, researcher Dean Sheils reported that NDE beliefs appear in about 95 per cent of the world's cultures and that they are striking in their uniformity even though the cultures are diverse in structure and location. In modern times, popular interest in near-death experiences was initially sparked by Raymond Moody's 1975 book Life After Life, which reported numerous NDEs among a wide cross section of people. According to the Gallup and Proctor survey in 1980-1981, 15% of all Americans have had an NDE. In a more clinical setting, Pim van Lommel, a cardiologist from Netherlands, found that, among patients who had been successfully revived from cardiac arrests, 18% had an NDE.

During the NDEs, patients report undergoing many extraordinary experiences like travelling into a realm filled with beautiful colors, meeting effulgent beings and having life reviews – all of which often have profoundly life-changing effects on the patients. From the scientific viewpoint, the most relevant among the NDEs are the autoscopic out-of-body experiences (OBEs) in which the patients report having seen their body from a perspective outside the body – generally from above the operating bed – and also give verifiable descriptions of, say, the surgical procedures adopted by the medical staff. According to current mainstream science, patients who are unconscious cannot be aware of such details and so their descriptions can be nothing more than hallucinations or educated guess at best.

Skepticism vs Evidence

This indeed was the attitude of Dr Michael Sabom, an American cardiologist who started his NDE research in the late 1970s as a skeptic. In his book, Recollections of Death: A Medical Investigation Sabom outlined his initial plan to disprove the claimed perceptions of autoscopic OBE patients: “I would pit my experience as a trained cardiologist against the professed visual recollections of lay individuals. In so doing, I was convinced that obvious inconsistencies would appear which would reduce these purported visual observations to no more than an ‘educated guess’ on the part of the patient.”

Sabom’s initial skepticism soon faded away as evidence kept piling up during his over three decades of NDE research. Here are some of the cases from Sabom’s books, cases that changed his understanding of life and death and also the understanding of thousands of his readers.

A retired Air Force pilot who had suffered a massive heart attack recounted the resuscitation procedure in rich detail. He even described the motions of the two needles of the defibrillator, which is an electronic device used to administer electric shock to attempt to restore the normal functioning of the heart: “It [the defibrillator meter] was square and had two needles on there, one fixed and one which moved… the first needle moved each time they punched the thing and somebody was messing with it. And I think they moved the fixed needle and it stayed still…It [the moving needle] seemed to come up rather slowly, really. It didn’t just pop up like an ammeter or a voltmeter or something registering…The first time it went between one-third and one-half scale. And then they did it again, and this time it went up over one-half-scale, and the third time it was about three-quarters.”

Sabom explains the significance of this specific observation: “I was particularly fascinated by his description of a ‘fixed’ needle and a ‘moving’ needle on the face of the defibrillator as it was being charged with electricity. The movement of these two needles is not something he could have observed unless he had actually seen this instrument in use. These two needles are individually used (1) to preselect the amount of electricity to be delivered to the patient [patient’s description: “they moved the fixed needle and it stayed still”] and (2) to indicate the defibrillator is being charged to the preselected amount [patient’s description: “the moving needle seemed to come up rather slowly, really. It didn’t just pop up like an ammeter or a voltmeter or something registering”]. This charging procedure is only performed immediately prior to defibrillation, since once charged, this machine poses a serious electrical hazard unless it is correctly discharged in a very specific manner. Moreover, the meters of the type described by this man are not found on more recent defibrillator models, but were in common use in 1973, at the time of his cardiac arrest.”

How could a person who was (1) in the middle of a cardiac arrest (2) about to be jolted by an electric shock (3) while being almost certainly unconscious (4) not in a physical position to observe the defibrillator meter (5) methodically observe the motion of the needles on its dial?

In another Sabom case, a woman provided a medically accurate and detailed description of her lumbar disk surgery which was performed with the patient in supine position. She reported that her surgery had been performed, to her surprise, not by her surgeon but by the chief resident in neurosurgery, a detail that was correct but had not been divulged to her.

In addition to Sabom, many other researchers have also come across NDEs involving veridical or factual perceptions.

How could the subjects have acquired such accurate information of what had happened while they were medically unconscious? Could they have got the information about the medical procedures from prior general knowledge? Such precise knowledge seemed unlikely among patients not directly connected with the medical profession, still Sabom, being a rigorously scientific researcher, decided to evaluate this possibility. So he questioned a control group of twenty-five cardiac patients, whose backgrounds were similar to the backgrounds of those reporting NDEs. When the control subjects were asked to imagine what they would see happening in the operating room when doctors resuscitate a cardiac arrest patient, two of them could not give any description at all and twenty among the remaining twenty-three made major errors. In marked contrast, of the 32 subjects who reported having NDEs, 26 gave general descriptions that did not include any major errors and six gave very detailed reports that exactly matched their medical records, which had not been seen by them. Based on this study, Sabom concluded, “These NDE accounts most likely are not subtle fabrications based on prior general knowledge."

Could the subjects have been partially conscious and thus acquired this information possibly through sounds and touches?

Information beyond one's vicinity

But this hypothesis fails to explain the NDE cases in which the subjects provide accurate information from outside their immediate vicinity, information that they could not have obtained from sounds and touches or by any normal means even if they were conscious.

Sabom reports a case in which a patient recovering from sickness suffered an unexpected cardiac arrest. After he was revived, he reported that he had an OBE in which he had travelled down the hall and had seen his wife, eldest son and daughter arriving there, which was what had actually happened. This information is highly significant because (1) as he was soon to be discharged, he was not expecting his family members to visit (2) even if he had known that they would be visiting him, he couldn’t have known who would be visiting because he had six grown children, who took turns accompanying their mother when she came to see him (3) his family members were stopped in the hall that was ten doors away from the room where he was being worked on by the doctors and nurses (4) his face was turned away from them and (5) he was in the middle of being resuscitated from cardiac arrest.

These kinds of NDEs have been reported for over half a century and are nowadays being reported with even greater frequency. In 1954, Hornell Hart published a summary study of out-of-body experiences during which the subject reported information that required some kind of paranormal knowledge. Hart (1954) found 288 cases mentioned in various publications and determined that in 99 of these cases the information reported by the subject was later confirmed. This indicated that the reports were genuine. Furthermore, in 55 cases, witnesses reported seeing an apparition of the subject at a location different from the subject's body.

Hallucinations?

Could these experiences simply be hallucinations of people wanting to avoid fear of death? But NDEs are markedly different from hallucinations in their contents and effects, as is evident from the table below:

Halluciations NDEs
Hallucinations generally comprise disorderly events with hazy visions NDEs generally comprise orderly events with clear perceptions
Hallucinations usually leave their subjects feeling disturbed and agitated NDEs usually leave their subjects feeling peaceful and serene
Hallucinations have little noteworthy long-term effect on the subjects NDEs are often profoundly life-transforming, inspiring the subjects toward a more purposeful and spiritual reorientation of beliefs and lifestyle.

 

NDEs differ from hallucinations not only in their experiential aspects, but also in their scientific causative mechanism. In near-death situations the most likely cause for hallucinations is anoxia, or lack of oxygen in the brain. But anoxia leads to a confused state of mind, whereas NDE subjects experience great mental clarity – often greater then what is experienced in normal consciousness. Another known hallucinogen is hypercarbia or excess of carbon dioxide. But this is highly unlikely to be the cause of NDEs because almost no hospital would allow excess carbon dioxide in their intensive care units or operating theaters, where the NDEs generally occur.

Hallucinations can also be caused by unusual drugs treatment. But many NDEs are known to have occurred when the medical treatment of the subjects was monitored and did not involve any hallucinogenic drugs.

Moreover, in an article in the medical magazine, The Lancet, Pim van Lommel and her Dutch co-researchers expose a fatal flaw in all such physiological explanations of NDEs: “With a purely physiological explanation [for NDE] such as cerebral anoxia for the experience, most patients who have been clinically dead should report one.” Lommel points out that among all the people under similar hallucinogenic or physiological conditions, only some undergo NDEs. This selectiveness of NDEs shows that they are not hallucinations and also that they are not caused by any physiological conditions.

Add the compelling fact that many NDE subjects give factually accurate information that could never have been obtained through hallucinations and the hallucination hypothesis about NDEs can be safely buried deep under the ground.

Could the NDE researchers themselves be somehow at fault in giving these reports? To those who argue like this, it can be pointed out that many of the NDE researchers were skeptics who undertook their research not with an agenda to “prove” their religious beliefs, but with the intention to disprove what they initially thought was pseudo-science. Thus it is not their beliefs led them to “find” evidence, but rather that their evidence compelled them to revise their beliefs. Moreover, NDE research is not the monopoly of a few non-mainstream scientists; hundreds of scientists all over the globe are engaged in NDE research. In fact, these scientists have formed several global forums such as The International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) which critically researches and discusses the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual nature and ramifications of near-death experiences. That IAND is a serious research body is evident from its publications: the quarterly newsletter Vital Signs and the peer-reviewed Journal of Near-Death Studies.

How?

If consciousness were emerging from the brain, as mainstream science would have us believe, then an unconscious person cannot have

  1. Clear thought process,
  2. Knowledge of one’s surroundings and
  3. Knowledge beyond one’s surroundings.

But these NDEs – and many more – show that what is theoretically considered impossible has actually happened, as has been documented by rigorous researchers, under well monitored conditions. In science, the purpose of theory is to explain the facts, and not to quarrel with the facts. Given the facts, NDEs strongly disprove the theory of the cerebral origin of consciousness. Indeed, just one of the hundreds of NDE cases is enough to disprove that theory; if even one person’s consciousness continues when his brain is non-functional, then that one case proves that consciousness does not originate from the brain.

Then, where does consciousness originate from? For the answer to this question, we need to go beyond material research to spiritual revelation. The scriptures of the great religions of the world reassure us that life doesn’t end with death. Ancient texts like the Egyptian Book of the Dead and the Tibetian Book of the Dead describe otherworldly journeys. But by far the most comprehensive and coherent exposition of the afterlife is found in the Vedic texts of ancient India. The Vedic texts contain many descriptions of NDEs with the most well-known being the remarkable NDE of Ajamila narrated in the Srimad Bhagavatam (Canto 6, chpts. 1-3), which closely parallels many modern NDEs. But more importantly the Vedic texts like the Bhagavad-gita systematically analyze the mechanism of interaction between the body and the soul, an analysis that helps understand the mechanism of NDEs too.

Unlike the Western tendency to use the words “soul”, “mind” and “consciousness” interchangeably, the Vedic texts precisely define these terms and clearly differentiate between them. The Bhagavad-gita, the world renowned classic that is the essence of all Vedic wisdom, proclaims that the soul which pervades the body with consciousness is indestructible (Bhagavad-gita 2.17). Thus the consciousness is like the energy of the soul just like the sunlight is the energy of the sun (Bhagavad-gita 13.34). The mind is a subtle material element that acts as a connecting link between the body and the soul.

In its current material existence, the soul channelizes its consciousness through two kinds of bodies: gross and subtle. The gross or visible body is what we normally call our physical body and the subtle body is comprised mainly of what we normally call the mind. Usually the consciousness of the soul is channelized through the mind to the brain and the body to the external world.

But because the soul and the body are essentially different, the soul can separate from the body under special circumstances like when the body is damaged. Upon such separation, the soul continues to be conscious through the subtle body even when the brain is dysfunctional. This is how NDEs take place. This mechanism is diagrammatically depicted below:

(Diagrams adapted from the doctoral thesis of Mukunda Madhava Dasa)

Normal vision

 

NDE vision

The characteristic of a good scientific theory is that it not only explains coherently the phenomenon that it is intended to explain, but it also explains other related phenomenon. The Vedic paradigm helps us to explain NDEs and OBEs, but also a related phenomenon known as mindsight. In his book NDES of the blind: Mindsight, Kenneth Ring describes many blind people who were able to see only during their NDEs and never again. The Vedic texts explain that the mind has subtle sensory faculties which when coupled with the gross sensory organs enable the soul to see. Among the blind, due to biological factors, their sensory organ is impaired and so they are unable to see. But they as souls still have the power to see and so when their subtle body is decoupled from the gross body in OBEs, the subtle eye which is no longer obstructed by the dysfunctionality of the gross eye is able to see. Similarly, the Vedic paradigm can also explain many other paranormal phenomenon like telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience etc. But that will the subject of other future discussions.

To conclude, NDEs offer a dramatic and authentic demonstration that consciousness is not dependent on the brain and life is not dependent on the material body. By giving some of us experiences of life beyond the perishable body, the NDEs beckon all of us to strive for the complete experience of eternity. Indeed, the import of the NDEs resonates with the universal message of the Vedic scriptures to reclaim the eternal life that is our eternal birthright:

Mrtyur ma amrtam gama

"Go from death to eternity."

 

Give Up, It’s Too Difficult
→ The Enquirer

“Okay,” Nārada said, “Your mother instructed you to strive for divine mercy, but I personally think it is very difficult for anyone to properly worship that Supreme Person. Great sages try to walk that path, giving up everything to search for him with severe determination and absolute concentration. Even after many lifetimes they still don’t discover him. So give up your fruitless decision. Later on, when you grow up, you will have a better chance.”

The boy would want to know why he would have a better chance later, so Nārada explained that he should first experience life properly, and then attempt this path of renunciation. “Be satisfied by experiencing whatever happiness or sadness destiny delivers,” Nārada advised. “That is how an embodied person can get beyond darkness.”

As a pertinent example of how to be satisfied regardless of what destiny brings, Nārada said, “When destiny brings you into contact with highly qualified people, be delighted. When it links you with people who lack good qualities, feel sympathetic towards them. When it puts in you contact with your equals, be friendly with them. Don’t envy superiors, hate inferiors, or compete with equals. If you follow this advice, your father, co-mother and step-brother will not trouble you at all.”

Dhruva replied very plainly, “Great Devotee, because you are compassionate you try to help people who suffer from the dualities of happiness and sadness. But we cannot pay much attention to your advice about equipoise and neutrality. My warrior nature is horribly untamable. For me, Suruci’s evil words are like spears that pierce and break my very heart.”

“Then, my boy,” Nārada said, “how can I help?”

Dhruva replied eagerly, “Teach me the best way to attain what I desire!”

“What do you desire?” Nārada asked.

“I want to attain the very best thing that can be had in all the three worlds; which neither my fathers nor anyone else could attain!”

Worried that Nārada might say that he was incapable of helping him attain such an incredible goal, Dhruva said, “You are a great devotee, born directly from the limbs of the Supreme Creator, Lord Brahmā. You can certainly grant me this wish! Indeed, that is why you roam through the world, illuminating it like the sun by playing your Vīṇā.”

Comment: “Playing your Vīṇā” indicates that Nārada wanders the worlds doing musical Saṁkīrtan, and that such Saṁkīrtan is the primary way he grants the impossible wish of removing the arrows from our hearts and filling us with the very best thing that can be had in all the three worlds (Krishna-nāma-bhakti).”

— Śrī Bhāgavata 4.8.30 ~ 38

Vraja Kishor dās

VrajaKishor.com


Tagged: dhruva, dualities, Narada, Relationships, Samkirtana

Bhagavatam-daily 204 – 11.10.09 – Maximizing the contact of senses and sense objects is the expressway to entanglement
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Bhagavatam daily Podcast:
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Sexual entanglement
→ KKSBlog

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 03 April 2015, Durban, South Africa, Ratha Yatra Lecture: Sexuality and Spirituality)

The body is not offering us just enjoyment alone. Sex, how much does it satisfy… does it fully satisfy… and for how long? Then, we get some by-products and are they wanted? Sometimes they are and sometimes not, right? But it is no problem because the other day, I saw in Mangosuthu, Umlazi (in Durban), just outside the university, that abortion was safe, happens on the same day and for only R200. Cheap and best! So, just see, problem solved. But what about the karma… the karma for murder… the charges? Because abortion is murder! Murder in the womb because there is a living being in there. When the baby is out of the womb and if you cut its throat, they will come to pick you up, right? The guys with the blue lights, they will take you in. With abortion, not so much happens now but after this life, the reactions come. Karmic reactions come.

1402292_10200698820695865_922217675_oThe point is that sexuality always has strings attached. When the boy wants the girl, it is going to cost him a lot of money. That is how it works, is it not guys? You have to spend some money, if you want the girl. That is the way of the world, so what to say. My point is not to highlight these things but my point is that no matter how we turn it, sexuality never exists as an isolated thing. There always are many things connected to it. If you want to do it in an honourable way, then you have to be married. You may want to be married, but sometimes you may not want to be married. That is the nature of being married! Some people really want to be married but then they have moments when they really do not want to be married… so many complexities. It does not come alone, sexuality weaves a web of entanglement.

I am a sannyasi for many years; celibate! Life is so simple since I do not have a family. I do not have a house. What do I need it for? I do not need it. When you have a wife, kids and all that then you need a house. I also do not have a car. It starts… when you are alone, you need a small car and after a while, you change to a four wheel drive, you get the family car then it just grows… it expands. So, sexuality by nature leads to expansion, somehow or other. Even when you try to avoid the responsibility and you are on the hit and run program, then it also costs you money, so there is no way around it. We have to understand that sexuality entangles us with the body and material nature. That is the point!

 

Harinama in Prague (Album with 200 photos) Srila Prabhupada:…
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Harinama in Prague (Album with 200 photos)
Srila Prabhupada: Fire will act, regardless of whether handled by an innocent child or by someone well aware of its power. Similarly, one may or may not know the power of chanting the Hare Krishna mantra, but if one chants the holy name he will become free from all sinful reactions. (Srimad-Bhagavatam, 6.2.18 Purport)
See them here: https://goo.gl/etXFsF

Hare Krishna! Parenting as Service to God The best parents are…
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Hare Krishna! Parenting as Service to God
The best parents are good role models for their children. They demonstrate the spiritual way of life through words and deeds, understanding that children learn what they live. They seek out other parents or families trying to raise God-conscious children. In this way, they create a much-needed support system. Truly “It takes a village to raise a child.” (Ancient African Proverb).
Read the entire article here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=17291

Day 15 FOOD FOR LIFE NEPAL 10th May 2015 Nuwakot (Album with…
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Day 15 FOOD FOR LIFE NEPAL 10th May 2015 Nuwakot (Album with photos)
After the 15 days of massive Earthquake we are facing minor earthquakes in these days too. Our 8 volunters from FFL Nepal with 9 other volunters from #SahidBhagadSinghBrigate from Hariyana, India went to Belkot Gaun, Nuwakot on 10th May 2015. They Left at 11am reached that effected place at about 3pm. They Started cooking Khichadi. Distributed cooked, hot, delicious Khichadi to 650+ victims.
See them here: https://goo.gl/uauC1r

There is hope! In Skanda Purana, Bhagavat-mahatmya (the glories…
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There is hope!
In Skanda Purana, Bhagavat-mahatmya (the glories of Srimad-Bhagavatam) Suta Goswami narrates the conversation between Lord Krishna and Brahma. While describing the glories of His name, Krishna says, “If a person remembers Me every day, chanting, ‘Krishna, Krishna,’ I will save him from all misfortune. One who worships Me just for fun, or out of hypocrisy, or due to foolishness, greediness, or even fraudulently, is My devotee. There is no need for him to repent. When death is imminent, if a person chants, 'Krishna, Krishna,’ he will not have to see Yamaraja or his servants, even if he was sinful. Earlier in his life, a man might have committed so many sins but at the time of death, if he remembers or utters the name, Krishna, he will attain My eternal abode. If a helpless, miserable person says, 'Obeisances to Sri Krishna, the Supreme Lord,’ he attains My eternal abode. When death has arrived, if a person chants, 'Krishna, Krishna,’ and dies, the Yamadutas stand at a distance and watch as he ascends to an exalted destination. Whether it be in a crematorium or in the street, if someone chants, 'Krishna, Krishna,’ and dies, he comes back to My eternal abode. There is no doubt of this.”

TOVP Tour Diary Day 43 – Lunch prasadam with Chaitanya Hari And the Thursday Evening Temple Fundraiser
- TOVP.org

On Thursday, April 22nd we visited the home of Chaitanya Hari, one of the temple managers, for prasadam.

In the evening he had arranged for a second fundraiser for the TOVP at the temple, and after Radha Jivana prabhu’s and Jananivas prabhu’s talks another $150,000 was pledged by the attending devotees bringing the Vancouver pledge total to $415,000.

The post TOVP Tour Diary Day 43 – Lunch prasadam with Chaitanya Hari And the Thursday Evening Temple Fundraiser appeared first on Temple of the Vedic Planetarium.

New Collaboration on MEP (Mechanical, Electric, Plumbing) Systems
- TOVP.org

A group of consultants from Chennai came to the TOVP to discuss working together on the TOVP’s MEP (Mechanical, Electric, Plumbing) systems.

The group consisted of Bhaskar S., Roopa V., Sankaran, Mohan Reddy, R. Shaktikumar and Raga P.N.. Sachitanuga also came from Pune, and along with Sadbhuja, Vilasini, Premavatar Gauranga and Radha Vallabha they all met to discuss the details of these important services which will be essential to the smooth operation of all the temple operations. The meetings were highly successful, and significant progress was made in these directions.

The post New Collaboration on MEP (Mechanical, Electric, Plumbing) Systems appeared first on Temple of the Vedic Planetarium.

Dhubulia Nagar Sankirtan
→ Mayapur.com

11 May Mayapur Local Preaching (MLP) has decided to hold large scale Nagar Sankirtan programs in as many local areas as possible like Krishnanagar, Dharmada, Dhubulia and Nabadwip. Recently, on 28th April, MLP held one huge Nagar sankirtan at Dhubulia. Even Namhatta and School Preaching departments took part in this sankirtan program. The local people […]

The post Dhubulia Nagar Sankirtan appeared first on Mayapur.com.

Hare Krishna! Jaladuta Yatra & Golden Jubilee celebration of…
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Hare Krishna! Jaladuta Yatra & Golden Jubilee celebration of ISKCON in Kolkata
On 13th August 2015 ISKCON Kolkata is kick-starting the yearlong celebration of Jaladuta Yatra and Golden Jubilee celebration of ISKCON. On that occasion we want to present a 21 to 25 minutes chanting of Mahamantra by devotees from 7 different continents of the world namely: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia/Oceania, Europe, North America, and South America. While they will be singing, their respective continent map and country map will be displayed on the big LED Screen’s.
Read the entire article here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=17273

New Mayapur, France Between 1970 and 1974 ISKCON in France was…
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New Mayapur, France
Between 1970 and 1974 ISKCON in France was rapidly expanding, along with the rest of Srila Prabhupada’s worldwide movement.
Seeing this, Prabhupada told the local management to acquire a rural property connected to the city temple in Paris. He wanted a place that would house the increasing number of devotee families under conditions favorable to their spirituality and public reception.
In July 1974, after visiting several properties in France, Srila Prabhupada personally chose the field of Oublaisse. Upon it sat a beautiful chateau that had been built in 1905. “This property will be perfect for the devotees,” he said. With his usual charm, he soon convinced the owner to sell it to him cheaply, and used the proceeds from the sales of his books by the French devotees to make the payment. Devotees moved to the property that fall, and installed Deities of Sri Sri Gaura Nitai in the winter. In Their honor, and in honor of the sacred West Bengal town They appeared in in the fifteenth century, he named the new community “New Mayapur.”
Read the entire article here: http://goo.gl/Cu3sso

Hare Krishna! His only goal was to infect as many people as…
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Hare Krishna! His only goal was to infect as many people as possible with love of Krsna
This was one of Srila Prabhupada’s qualities. He was very careful not to discourage anyone through criticism. If they were capable of dealing with it then he would chastise them. Otherwise, he was the greatest transcendental diplomat there ever was. His only goal was to infect as many people as possible with love of Krsna and if you had the chance to personally associate with him then there was a strong possibility of becoming deeply attached to him, no matter how hard you fought it.
Read the entire article here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=17267

Dealing with Distress
→ The Enquirer

Nārada heard about what had happened and went to see what the boy was doing. Amazed by what he saw, Nārada thought, “Aho! Powerful royalty cannot forget an insult. He is just a little boy, but his heart is obsessed with the ill-words of his co-mother.”

Then he spoke, “Little child, why are you already so concerned about dishonor and honor? Children are supposed to be obsessed with games and play. Dualities like honor and dishonor exist only in our minds, and are not the real cause of our unhappiness. A person who is not bewildered knows that he his different from the worldly results of his own karma. My dear, the wise are very satisfied with whatever destiny brings, because they see it all as favorable to attaining the Supreme.”

Śrī Bhāgavata 4.8.25 ~ 29

Vraja Kishor dās

VrajaKishor.com


Tagged: dualities, happiness and distress, honor, insults

Always In Krsna’s Company
→ Japa Group

"...the devotee who knows that there is no difference between the name and the form of the Lord chants Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare, and realizes that he is always in Krishna’s company."

Srimad-Bhagavatam 10.2.36