Huge Harinam down Oxford Street Central London (Album 178 photos)
Gaura Purnima Harinam 2015
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Gaur Purnima @ Sri Sri Rukmini Dwarakadish Mandir, Mauritius (Album 61 photos)
Taken last night at the Gaur Purnima festival organzied by Mukta Purus Prabhu @ the Sri Sri Rukmini Dwarakadish Mandir, Triolet, Mauritius
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Sri Jagannatha Mandir, ISKCON Malaysia: Gaura Purnima 05/03/2015 (Album 185 photos)
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Hare Krishna! Bhaktivedanta Hospice: Aid for the Journey Home
Shortly before passing away in Vrindavan, a devotee requested her spiritual master to establish a “Back to Godhead” clinic there for Srila Prabhupada’s followers. The land is adjacent to the parikrama road trod by pilgrims during their devotional walks around Vrindavan. It is a sacred grove of mostly kadamba and tamala trees known as Giriraj Bhag (“Giriraj’s garden”). For five generations it belonged to the family of Sri Padmanabha Goswami, hereditary priests and caretakers of Vrindavan’s Radha-ramana Temple.
Read the entire article here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=15967

Hare Krishna! Why are Women in today’s India not Safe
The Bhagavad-gita (16.21) identifies lust, anger, and greed as the “three gates leading to hell.” Present-day society is unfortunately well equipped to aggravate the disease of lust. Obscenity has become so common in movies, TV, advertisements, Bollywood songs, and so on. Some leading newspapers and magazines are stuffed with semi-nude pictures of women just to increase circulation. Internet and mobile pornography is at its peak. Even in cricket tournaments like IPL semi-clad cheerleaders are brought in to entice the audience.
Read the entire article here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=15964

Middle Elementary students have been busy!  In January, they became Oceanographers as part of their Science and Social Studies Unit on Oceans. Here are a few of their accomplishments!  Ocean Currents Experiment, Geographical Regions, Oceans Book Swap, Layers of the Ocean Posterboard Project, Marine Pollution, Why Not to Eat Fish, and the Dallas World Aquarium Field Trip.  Full “gallery” of pictures is at the end of the blog.

Ocean Currents:  Currents travel around the continents, mixing the warmer waters surrounding the equator with the cooler waters from the poles. Students replicated this by blowing through straws to create wind, and seeing how ice cubes melt, and boiling water mixes, with different colored drops of food coloring.    After they stopped shrieking in excitement, they recorded their observations.

Continental Shelf, Continental Slope and Ocean Floor:  Students built their own Ocean Wall, where they labeled and described geographical locations in the ocean.  Seamounts, Trenches, Underwater Volcanoes, Coral Reefs, etc.  They were given assigned jobs and independantly worked, with little teacher’s assistance, to create their Ocean Wall.

Oceans Book Swap:  For research, students brought a total of 21 different ocean books from the library and home!  At research time, they sat at 2 books, gathered as much information as they could into their Science Notebooks, and then 15 minutes later, swapped the books with the next student.  This enabled them to determine which books would be helpful for their project.

Layers of the Ocean Posterboard Project:  This was the finale to the session!  Students studied almost 100 sea creatures, all set in the different layers of the ocean.  They researched, gathered facts, made mini-books, painted and presented their findings to the class.

Marine Pollution:  After studying the ecosystems in the ocean, we were surprised to learn about all the pollution dumped by humans!  Among other books, we read Abigail the Happy Whale and her decision to work with the other sea animals remove all the pollution on the ocean floor.  Did you know that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is an area of pollution greater than Texas?  Students wrote persuasive expository pieces to convince us to keep our oceans clean!

Eating Fish:  Because of all the toxins in the ocean, fish have also become poisonous.  Students were able to explain why eating fish, harmful for one spiritually, is also harmful from a biological health standpoint!

We ended the unit with a field trip to the Dallas World Aquarium.  How amazing it was to see all of the creatures that were studied in real life!    Field trip pictures can be found here.

Hare Krishna! Narada Muni – The Father of Devotional Service
NARADA MUNI is exalted in Vedic texts as one of the twelve mahajanas, or great authorities on eternal truth. Details of his life and teachings are recounted in the Narada Purana, the Padma Purana, and throughout Srimad-Bhagavatam. So advanced is his level of spirituality that in these texts he is even sometimes called “Bhagavan,” a term usually reserved for the Supreme Lord, and in the Bhagavad-gita (10.26) Lord Krsna Himself says, “Of the sages among the demigods, I am Narada.”
Read the entire article here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=15961

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Maha Harinama in Israel for Gaura Purnima, 5/03/2015 (Album 81 photos)
Srila Prabhupada: When there is large-scale congregational chanting of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, we keep our temples open for everyone to join, and by the grace of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu this policy has given good results. (Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, Adi-lila, 17.35 Purport)
See them here: http://goo.gl/3WrjR8

Guest leaves his body amongst devotees chanting the Lord’s Names!
Kadamba Kanana Swami: There was this man lying on the floor, flapping and totally grey… and, you know, he was clearly on the edge and there were three hundred devotees chanting Hare Krsna for him. The temple president called the emergency number and a helicopter came flying in. These men in red overalls came out of the helicopter and tried to revive the man with electric shock but three hundred devotees were chanting and praying, “Let him die!” because what better way to go than with three hundred chanting devotees! They could have revived him and put him in a hospital on some respirator and he may have lived a few days longer until somebody pulled the plug but instead, it was better to let him die in the middle of the kirtan which was his best chance.
Read the entire article here: http://goo.gl/rH4AkV

Over 70:000 people hear the Holy Names in Kumeu, New Zealand! (Album 28 photos)
See them here: http://goo.gl/qPmuf7

SB 06.17.15 by Jayadvaita Swami at ISKCON Juhu on 2015-02-02

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 15 January 2015, Soho Temple, England, Srimad Bhagavatam 10.77.33-37)

I like to tell this story. I was in the Czech Summer Camp one year and it was prasadam time. So the devotees went into the prasadam hall and I was expecting to hear, “Sarira avidya-jal…” but instead, I heard, “Namaste Narasimhaya…” The wrong song! What was going on, so I went to have a look.

There was this man lying on the floor, flapping and totally grey… and, you know, he was clearly on the edge and there were three hundred devotees chanting Hare Krsna for him. The temple president called the emergency number and a helicopter came flying in. These men in red overalls came out of the helicopter and tried to revive the man with electric shock but three hundred devotees were chanting and praying, “Let him die!” because what better way to go than with three hundred chanting devotees! They could have revived him and put him in a hospital on some respirator and he may have lived a few days longer until somebody pulled the plug but instead, it was better to let him die in the middle of the kirtan which was his best chance.

We started to ask around, “Who was he?” One devotee knew and said that he was someone who had always bought books. He had bought many books over the years, including the Bhagavatam, and recently he had finished reading the Bhagavatam. The devotee had invited him to Summer Camp and that was the first day that he had ever chanted japa and walked around Tulasi… and then, he just collapsed during prasadam! It was all so auspicious. When the corpse was being taken away, everybody was saying, “Jaya… Haribol…” The mood was not heavy because we had appreciated that somehow or other, this man had made an eternal connection in his life!

Gita Verse-by-verse Study Podcast

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Holy Name Meditation Podcast

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Holi 2015 Celebration at Sri Sri Radha Gopinath Temple, Mumbai (Album 108 photos)
Holi Celebration with Small Deities Radha Gopijana Vallabha at Sri Sri Radha Gopinath Temple, Chowpatt, Mumbai, India on 6th March 2015 in presence of HH Radhanath Swami
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Hundreds of bhaktas received initiation in Mayapur on Gaura Purnima day
An initiation ceremony took place on auspicious Gaura Purnima day (5th Mar, 2015) in auspicious Mayapur dham. Around 300 devotees got initiated from HH Jaya Pataka Swami Maharaj .There were several others who became Maharaj’s aspiring disciples. Many devotees also took His shelter on the occasion. The ceremony took place in Namhatta prasadam hall and it went from morning till late afternoon. The program started with a lecture by HH Danavir Goswami. He told the assembled devotees about importance of human life and how by practice of bhakti one develops brahmanical qualities listed in Bhagavad Gita. This was followed up with a lecture by HG Sankarsan Nitai Prabhu in both English and Bengali. He explained the ten offenses against chanting of the Holy Names. He concluded his talk by saying that diksa is glorious but the disciples need to be serious in carrying out their vows.
Read the entire article here: http://goo.gl/a3kqFH

Harinam Nectar from Melbourne, Australia (Album 72 photos)
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What Are The True Qualities Of A Vaishnava?
Ananta Acharya called the devotee and told him that he will now reply to his question. *He answered that a true Vaishnava is like a crane, like a hen, like salt and like you.* The devotee thanked him but he could not understand its real meaning. He comes back to Parasara Bhatt, narrates him the whole story and then requests him to explain its meaning to him. Parasara Bhatt, of course, understood it all and explained as follows…
Read the entire article here: http://goo.gl/Ae1ohw

The post Books on display during Gaur purnima appeared first on Mayapur.com.

Beautiful Mayapur during the festival (Album 89 photos)
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Hare Krishna! ISKCON-London Annual Review 2014
Department Heads presentation Annual Review. This year’s Annual Review is out! Once again we have tried to create a more visually appealing and interactive experience. You can play videos, visit web pages and contact persons in the areas of your interest. We hope you will enjoy revisting the past years activities and events of the London Temple of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness
Read the entire article here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=15958

Puri Parikrama.

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Puri Parikrama.

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Gurukula Puri Parikrama.

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Puri Parikrama.

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Puri Parikrama.

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Puri Parikrama.

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ISKCON Chowpatty celebrated Holi festival in a grand way on 6th Mar 2015
This festival of colors, Holi, is being celebrated all over India since ancient times. And celebration for devotees means another chance to offer a service to Radha Krishna. Thus at Radha Gopinath temple we play this festival with dry natural colors and colored water by smearing them at our Radha Gopijanavallabha Deities.
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Hare Krishna! Nedzad and his amazing Sankirtana experiences
Nedzad was born in a family of practicing Muslims in the city of Tuzla in present day Bosnia in the year 1965. His father was from Tuzla, but his mother was born in Montenegro. His father was not very strict in his practices and was into music. But his mother was a very strict Muslim and she had attended Muslim school. “My mother was from a strict family tradition wherein the girls were trained in high standards. They were much regulated with no illicit sex even in mind and they knew even as a child that they were meant to be married to and stay loyal to one man throughout the life,” Nedzad quips.
Read the entire article here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=15955