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
A large number of books with a devotional element were displayed and distributed to visitors during recent Gaur purnima festivities in Mayapur. There were also posters of some newly released books and books that shall be released in near future. Through this post, we are sharing the images of books and posters that were on display in Mayapur Temple. […]
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 […]
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
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.
Read the entire article here: http://goo.gl/i48Mwi
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
Govardhan Seva (6 min video)
A small team is making a big difference to holy places in India. Renovating holy sites, and feeding widows and children, this film was created to increase awareness of their efforts.
Watch it here: http://goo.gl/fJ6ai7
Artist rendering of the Radha Gopinath Mandir under construction in New Vrindaban.
“Therefore, I may once more request you to try your best to construct New Vrindaban an exact duplicate of Vrindaban, and that will give me the highest pleasure.” – Srila Prabhupada, 1970.
Click here to read the rest of the letter at the Vanipedia website.
This year, again we had the great honour of extensive association of His Holiness Kadamba Kanana Swami in Mayapur (14-27 February). As the process of transforming the management structure of Mayapur, from a temple to an actual city progresses, Maharaja consolidates his position as a central figure in that transformation. This means that Maharaja will spend roughly three months a year in Mayapur, and he will be very busy while here.
A seemingly endless array of meetings take up the majority of his time but fortunately for us, he is very committed to also making time for evening kirtans, home programmes, parikramas and such, because as he says, “This is what keeps me sane!” All the devotees in Mayapur are very appreciative of Maharaja’s presence. Just keeping devotees up-to-date with what Maharaja was doing and arranging darsanas became a daily routine for me, one of which I was honoured to do, of course.
As usual, Maharaja also served as teacher for the Mayapur Institute Bhakti Sastri course, teaching Nectar of Devotion. Several of the students, independently of each other, told me confidentially, that he is their favourite teacher. Also this year, Maharaja was one of the most prominent kirtaniyas of the annual Mayapur Kirtan Mela. His trademark fired up kirtans took over the crowds of devotees as we have become accustomed to. One evening, he kept going until 10.30 pm and only ended because the organizers were getting tired. “I could have easily kept going for another hour,” Maharaja said afterward and this was after a whole day of meetings with GBC and Mayapur management. One group of devotees, who were staying in Nabadvip, contacted me to find out Maharaja’s schedule for Kirtan Mela. They were completely disinterested in any of the other kirtaniyas on the programme. Once they got information of when Kadamba Kanana Swami was leading kirtan, then they knew when to come to Mayapur.
Having the opportunity to be close to Maharaja for longer periods of time, makes me appreciate what he does so much more. The level of commitment to Srila Prabhupada’s mission is amazing, and his personal renunciation and regulation is incredible. But what really wins me over every time is that, just like Sri Mayapur Dhama, Kadamba Kanana Swami always has some extra added mercy. I think that is one of the reasons why Sri Sri Panca Tattva, Sri Sri Radha Madhava and Sri Nrsimhadeva keep him around so much!
“We have been given the opportunity to get the holy name but if we maintain material attachments in our heart we will not be able to accept the gift fully. To really accept the gift we have to cleanse our heart of material attachments and motives then there will be room for the holy name. Otherwise if our heart is crowded with all sorts of material attachments and ambitions there won’t be much room for the holy name. This is what our acharyas are telling us. Of course by making the effort to chant attentively it does cleanse the heart—ceto darpana marjanam, but we have to want the heart to be cleansed, We have to be chanting with the desire for the holy name to enter and clean the dirty things. Otherwise if you chant to get something material it still helps but it will take longer.”
O Krsna! Thakura Bhaktivinoda has warned us that inattention is the main door into the house of aparadhas. O Krsna! Please let me taste some pleasure in Your names, so I can focus my full attention on chanting. May Your holy names become deeply impressed in my mind.
The Toronto Hare Krishna Temple is very excited to announce our next Mridanga course! With great success and feedback on our first Mridanga course in January, and a huge demand for another one, it's finally here! This mridanga course is for anyone and everyone - all ages and mridanga playing levels welcome! The course will be taking place over the long weekend of May 15th to 18th, 2015.
The course will be taught by Devala Prabhu, a young, second-generation Hare Krishna youth from Alachua Florida who is a masterful mridanga player. He will be facilitating the course at the temple and everyone is invited.
Course Details:
Dates - Friday, May 15th to Monday, May 18th, 2015 Fee - $108 for 4 days (meals included) Registration - Registration is mandatory and payment must be made before the course date (registration form at the bottom of this post) Other Notes - please let us know if you will be bringing your own drum or if you need one Contact - KirtanToronto@gmail.com Nipun at (647)466-7735
2015 Gaura Purnima Abhisheka in Hare Krishna Melbourne (Album 78 photos)
O my merciful Lord Caitanya, may the nectarean Ganges waters of Your transcendental activities flow on the surface of my desertlike tongue. Beautifying these waters are the lotus flowers of singing, dancing and loud chanting of Krishna’s holy name, which are the pleasure abodes of unalloyed devotees. These devotees are compared to swans, ducks and bees. The river’s flowing produces a melodious sound that gladdens their ears. (Chaitanya-caritamrita 2.2)
See them here: http://goo.gl/pidWJu
Radhakunda Seva: February 2015 Photos and Updates (Album 85 photos)
Happy Gaura Purnima, dear friends! On this most auspicious day of Mahaprabhu’s 529th appearance anniversary, we are happy to share with you that the promotional video Prananatha Prabhu so kindly made for us will be posted shortly. Finally! :) We are praying to Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu for His mercy so that we can do some service in the Dhama. He asked the six Goswamis to restore the Dhama and reestablish the sites of Radha and Krishna’s pastime. If we can play some small part in this desire of Gauranga Mahaprabhu, we feel ourselves to be most fortunate.
We are still working to transfer the land that was donated to the name of our trust. We will keep you informed as to the progress of that.
Raised beds and benches were built at the Sakhi Kunda Garden area this month and we are really excited to put plants there soon.
We’re trying to get government cooperation to fix the leaking pipe. We’ll keep you informed on that too.
The prasadam distribution to pilgrims and residents of Radha Kunda has expanded. Besides their daily meal of roti and sabji, the widows are now getting two feasts per month. And we’ve added puris to the bi-monthly kitri distribution.
See them here: http://goo.gl/fpW0Vb
The New Vrindaban 2015 Gaura Purnima festival on March 5 was very special. It is said that “You can’t buy a ticket to Vrindavan – you have to be invited by Srimati Radharani Herself.” It seems that Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra of New Vrindaban gave out special mercy invitations to those who braved sub-zero temperatures and seven-inch deep snow drifts to come from Pittsburgh and surrounding towns to see Sri Sri Gaura Nitai on this Gaura Purnima day. The snow-covered roads and the trees lining the roads of the dhama were a milky scene from a winter dreamland.
Gaura Purnima’s serene snow scene.
Despite the extreme snow, Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu spread out His golden rays of mercy and warmed the hearts of the souls attending the celebration. In the early morning, a few people had the good fortune to attend Malati Prabhu’s uplifting class on Lord Caitanya. Sweet, soft bhajans began early in the afternoon, when a few more stalwarts drifted into the temple room. Then, Sankirtan prabhu gave his slide presentation of “How the Hare Krsna Mantra Came to the West” to a slightly growing crowd. This was followed by the beautiful abhishek of little Gaura Nitai, where a steady stream of devotees took their turns bathing the deities at the front of the altar with great reverence.
Sri Sri Gaura Nitai
Varsana Maharaja’s class was well attended as he held everyone’s attention with the pastimes that flowed from his mouth. The evening kirtan exploded with all the devotees’ exuberation and enthusiasm. We finished the day with a sumptuous Gaura Purnima feast.
An added bonus to the significance of the day is that we were fortunate enough to get a live phone interview on a local radio station, WKKX, a few days before the “Rising Moon Gaura Purnima Festival”. The interviewer had been to the Palace of Gold before and he was very interested in letting the people of the local Ohio Valley know about this special celebration in honor of the founder of kirtan, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. All in all, Gaura Purnima 2015 was a smashing success.
In Australia, devotee academic Padma Dasi was chosen to receive first prize in a Bhagavad-gita As It Is Essay Competition amongst 200 university and tertiary education students across the country. The competition was organized by Satya Armstrong and other disciples of ISKCON guru Bhakti Charu Swami to encourage people to delve more deeply into the ancient spiritual text.
The GBC’s Strategic Planning Network (SPN) recently concluded its five-day bi-annual meeting in Mayapur. Facilitated by the GBC’s Strategic Planning Team, the numerous SPN committees, made up of GBC members and ISKCON leaders and thinkers from across the globe, continued to explore new ideas and initiatives with the view to providing documents that will form a comprehensive plan for the future of ISKCON.
On 4th March, HH Bhakti Purusottama Swami gave the lecture on CC 220.119. Below is the transcript of the lecture. I’ll tell one verse from Caitanya Caritamrta but this verse is quoted from Srimad Bhagavatam. As all of you know Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu He has not written any books upon His teachings except Siksastakam. So but […]
We are scheduled to be featured for three minutes on tonight’s edition of BBC’s ‘The One Show.’ It will probably be at the end as the show plays out. Expect lots of throwing of colored powder.
