Planet ISKCON

ISKCON Bhaktivedanta Cultural Centre Youths’ Sanga (10-1-2015) (Album 9 photos)
On the 10th of January 2015, once more the ISKCON Bhaktivedanta Cultural Centre youths had successfully organised their monthly youth sanga for the pleasure of Guru and Gauranga. The purpose for this youth sanga is to generate discussion about Krishna Consciousness, the teachings of Srila Prabhupada and the roles of the youths in propagating the Hare Krishna movement. It also functions to strengthen the bond among the youths and of course to increase the taste in chanting the holy name of the Lord. This youth sanga is being held monthly and every month it is hosted by different youths in their respective home.
So as usual, for the recent youth sanga, the program started with some sankirtan, followed by a group japa and a discussion on the sikhastakam. Finally we feasted on a variety of sumptuous Krishna prashadam in which the host of the house cooked the main dishes while the other youths brought potluck. We later hit the pool and enjoyed a blissful and exciting kirtan at the park. With Mahaprabhu’s kripa the kirtan attracted a lot of people including some youths from the Middle East whom danced and chanted along with so much of enthusiasm.
Harinam Sankirtan Ki Jai…
Youth Sanga Ki Jai…
See them here: http://goo.gl/LXoooS

Preaching program in Iskcon London, Soho Street (Album 23 photos)
Srila Prabhupada: There is competition of loving Krishna even in the party of Srimati Radharani. It is a kind of rasa to compete in loving affection centering around Krishna. Letter to Brahmananda, November 18, 1967.
See them here: http://goo.gl/W1VBR3

Jean Beausejour, Chilean football player getting The science of self-realization book of Srila Prabhupada. Jaya Srila Prabhupada!

https://flic.kr/s/aHsk6Ypeyz

The post Kirtan in London appeared first on SivaramaSwami.com.

The latest news at Care for Cows
This issue of 28 pages (1.5 MB pdf document) covers events over the past four months. The articles in this issue are: 1. A brief explanation of the Govardhana Puja and Gopastami Festivals with many photos showing the joyous celebrations at our facility in Kiki Nagla. 2. A reprint of a newspaper article describing a historic decision made by the Maharastra High Court regarding their prohibition of the slaughter of 12,000 bulls. Interestingly enough the plea to the court was submitted by a national Muslim society. 3. A report by Gopa Kumar Dasa, an Ayurvedic practitioner, on how cow dung (gobar) and turmeric smoke relieves cough and other bronchial maladies. 4. Care for Cows is experimenting with a new identification tag system. 5. A transcription of a lecture on cow protection delivered by Sri Rajendra Dasa Ji Maharaja, Mahant of the Sri Malook Peeth, Vrindavan. 6. A report on four new calves born at CFC. 7. A report on two new admissions who have joined our recuperation program.
Read the entire article here: http://goo.gl/yt3iXZ

Bollywood Singer Kavita Krishnamurty and her husband L Subhramaniam recieving Srila Prabhupada’s Bhagavad Gita As It Is. Jaya Srila Prabhupada!

The Thief Who Stole The Lord’s Toe-ring
SRIRANGAM - I had the good fortune to witness the stealing of Sri Ranganatha’s ornaments by Thirumangai Alvar when I made visit to Srirangam recently enroute to Kumbakonam to order three kalasams for our BCC temple project. The amazing story of Thriumangai Alvar can be found from Wikipedia. The gist has been extracted here for easy reading.
Read the entire article here: http://goo.gl/8qOtpH

The movie PK states that people go to temples because of fear, but Gita 4.10 states that fear obstructs people from Krishna's shelter. How do we reconcile the two?

Answer Podcast:

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From Sajit P:
Lord Chaitanya enjoins us to speak Krishna's message to everyone, yet the ninth offense forbids us from speaking the glories of the holy name to faithless people. How do we reconcile?

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Scandinavian Bhakti Sangam 2015
There will be lots of exstatic kirtan, enlivening lectures, nice prasadam and many wonderful opportunities to serve the vaishnavas!
Read the entire article here: http://goo.gl/2GUsKf

Gita verse-by-verse study Podcast:

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The post Should disciples give diksa to devotees – accept disciples – in the physical presence of their own diksa guru? appeared first on SivaramaSwami.com.

Holy Name Meditation Podcast:

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New Year 2015 celebration in ISKCON Riga, Latvia with kirtan (20 min video)
Srila Prabhupada: These four principles: Always think of Krishna, become Krishna’s devotee, worship Krishna and offer your respect, obeisances to Krishna. That’s all. This is Krishna consciousness. Hyderabad, November 17, 1972.
Watch it here: http://goo.gl/8uvNHr

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)

(To be continued)

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.

It is no more cowardice than is a small child’s going to parents out of fear. But just as the child is meant to outgrow the fear, so too are religious people meant to grow up spiritually and outgrow the fear motive for going to God.

There are four broad levels at which people approach God: fear, desire, duty and love.

1. Fear: People who are afraid of life’s problems go to God out of fear. Such fear is a good beginning in one’s relationship with God, just as children need to have some healthy fear of their parents. That fear checks their unruliness and fosters discipline in them, thereby preparing them for a bright future career. Similarly fear of God helps instill basic morality in people. But just as children are not meant to live lifelong in fear of their parents, but are meant to develop higher emotions such as love, so too are we meant to grow in our relationship with God from fear towards love.
2. Desire: When people want things that are difficult for them to get by their own efforts alone, they go to God out of desire. This is one step higher because their conception of God is not negative as a discipliner but positive as a potent desire-fulfiller. But still their relationship with him is utilitarian, based on give-and-take rather than love.
3. Duty: Some people understand that God has already given me so much

– life, body, health, food, clothing, shelter. So they feel dutybound to go periodically to his temple for thanking him. Here the relationship is based on gratitude for what has already been given and not on desire for what one wants to receive. So the relationship is steadier. However, duty can over time become a burden. Moreover, the focus in this level is still on what God has done for me, not on God himself.

4. Love: This is the purest level of approaching God, where people understand that God is their supreme object of love and they find the supreme fulfillment in loving and serving him. At this level, we see all living beings as members of the same one family of God. Thus love for God blossoms into love for all living beings.

The purpose of religion is to help people rise from the level of fear to the level of love. To that end, temples should have educational forums where people can learn about this progression and raise themselves accordingly. PK goes about caricaturing temple-goers as fearful ninnies and thereby discourages many people from getting the relief and strength available through temples. If instead it had guided people to rise to the level of love for God, it could have done far greater service to society

Could be, but then people who are afraid go to watch PK too. Many people who watch movies seek relief from worry, stress, and tension – all fear by other names. If an activity is to be stopped just because it is done out of fear, then watching PK should also be stopped. Just as people watch movies for many reasons other than fear, people go to temples for many reasons other than fear – reasons that we will discuss in the next answer. Let’s focus on the fear motive here.

The simple undeniable fact about life is that so many things can go wrong at any moment. Such uncertainties naturally worry us. Different people deal with this fear in different ways: for example, by drinking, watching movies or going to temples.

Rather than parodying an activity based on its motive, we need to evaluate it based on its utility, that is, based on whether it serves its purpose.

Does watching movies help people deal with their fears? Not really, except that it helps them forget their fears for a few hours.

Does going to temples help people deal with their fears? At the very least, it offers people what a movie offers – relief from fear. The serene, spiritually vibrant atmosphere of the temple brings peace to people’s minds and hearts, thus helping them forget their worries.

But for the devout going to temples offers so much more. People pray for solutions to their problems and sometimes they do get solutions – not necessarily through a miraculous intervention, but through the arrival in their mind of positive ideas, insights and inspirations. Even if their specific problem is not solved, still the very act of going to the temple and praying often makes them feel reassured. When we share our heart’s anxieties with a loved one, even if that person doesn’t offer any solutions, still the very act of sharing makes us feel lighter, unburdened, strengthened. Similar is the enlivening effect of going to a temple and praying to God. Such enlivenment empowers them to perform better, thereby contributing towards solving the problem.

Some skeptical people might consider such enlivenment illusory. Does that give them the right to caricature religious people’s beliefs? What happened to democracy and the right of all people to their beliefs?

A famous cricketer believed that placing a red handkerchief in his pocket helped him perform better; a batsman believed that kissing his bat each time before facing the bowler improved his batting. If we don’t lampoon such superstitious idiosyncrasies, then why do we consider it fair game to lampoon something – going to temples – that has offered relief and strength to millions for millennia?

Such stereotyping is definitely undesirable, but then why does PK stereotype all religious teachers by depicting them in just one color – black. If there are shades among Pakistanis, aren’t there shades among religious teachers? The popular media frequently portrays religious teachers as manipulators and mercenaries out to profit from people’s faith and fear. And PK by depicting only that kind of religious teachers simply perpetuates that stereotype. If stereotyping all Pakistanis as cheaters is simplistic and misleading, then isn’t stereotyping all religious teachers as cheaters also simplistic and misleading?

Someone might argue, “But those are the kind of religious teachers who are most popular and influential. So it’s only right and educational that PK depicts them.”

Won’t that argument apply to Pakistanis too? The common Pakistani people may not have any strong anti-India prejudice, but they don’t determine Pakistan’s policies towards India. Those policies are determined by Pakistan’s political and martial leaders – both of whom usually find it convenient to keep anti-India sentiments high among Pakistanis because blaming India for Pakistan’s problems helps deflect attention from their own ineptness. So if Indians are to be educated, then they should be educated about the dangerous mindsets of such influential Pakistanis also, not just about un-influential Pakistani Romeos pining for Indian Juliets.

Further, if PK truly wanted to educate people about India’s religious landscape, it could have highlighted or at least depicted the sincere religious teachers who unselfishly serve God and humanity. Then people could have endeavored to find and follow such teachers, thereby staying protected from the harmful influence of self-serving teachers.

But depicting such complexity isn’t easy and it isn’t entertaining. Much easier to paint all religious teachers as black, make fun of them and make big money out of it. PK’s purpose is not educational – it’s simply commercial. PK accuses religious teachers of making a business of faith. Though not all religious teachers do such business, PK itself surely does that. It makes a business of faith, just from the opposite side – not by promoting faith, but by bashing faith. Agar dharma-guru shraddhaa ka dhanda kar rahe hain, to PK dharma ki ninda ka dhanda kar raha hain.

And if PK had bothered to find some authentic religious teachers, it would have discovered that they see everyone with equal vision, as the Bhagavad-gita (05.18) describes. They see that beyond our different bodily shells the spiritual substance that animates all of us is similar. Accordingly, they teach that all living beings, whatever their nationality, religion or race, are all beloved parts of God. So authentic religious teachers, far from stereotyping others, provide the spiritual vision by which people can rise beyond such stereotyping.

This is the 3rd in a series of 4 entries by Gopisa das to his India Journal about his recent first-time pilgrimage to India.

His 1^st India Journal posting: Day 1 & 2 “Rotis and Spirituality”:

http://www.brijabasispirit.com/2014/12/26/new-vrindabans-gopisa-das-discusses-rotis-and-spirituality-in-the-land-of-bharatavarsha/

His 2nd India Journal posting: Day 3 & 4 “Adventures”:

http://www.brijabasispirit.com/2015/01/05/new-vrindabans-gopisa-dass-adventures-on-his-spiritual-retreat/

DAY 5

Dearest family,

Today was a quieter day in anticipation of the 64 rounds day at Srila Rupa Goswami’s bhajan kutir tomorrow. We had an adventure shopping this morning and finding the post office which appears to be much more modern according to Jaya Krsna… while it is a small hole in the wall place with a couple steps leading in, they do have bar codes and a computer. It’s just a matter of firing up the Honda generator, plugging in the power strip, booting up the computer and working through the start up to finally get to the program that will give a cost to send a small package. Everything in India has its own way of getting to the goal…it’s just that it usually takes a parikram around Govardhana hill to get there.

Everything we purchased was at the tourist price. That’s just the way of it here. They are so happy to engage in a little cheating….160 rupees for a small bunch of bananas, 4 huge apples and a papaya…it’s highway robbery I tell you! Of course it’s also 3 dollars US…

I’m off to bed now with hopes and prayers that I’ll accomplish my goal of chanting 64 rounds, a task which will take me about 10+ hours.

Love and Krsna to you all!   G

Post Office in India

 DAY 6

Dearest family,

Today was our 64 rounds day in Srila Rupa Goswami’s bhajan kutir. It is a very peaceful atmosphere with beautiful trees and many meditation areas. The facility is run by a very ebullient and energetic goswami originally from Bengal. Sacinandana Swami has a very good relationship with him and the experience was both serene and enlivening.

I actually managed to chant all 64 rounds though I didn’t finish till 8:30 pm. Still, that was a first for me. We leave tomorrow for Vrindavan and should arrive by 3 pm. Hopefully we’ll have internet there and these emails will all hit you at once.

Need to get to bed…we’re hiking up to Srimati Radharani’s temple for the morning program which starts at 5:30 am.

Love and Krsna to you all!   G

It's good to be here and to have your association. I receive a lot of inspiration from the Japa Group. The pithy and often succinct advice goes straight to the heart and often after reading one I will go and do some more japa. You can tell its doing something good and the pure seva it is for devotees, if it causes one to desire to chant more, to be more focused and pure of heart and be with the Lord. He is just waiting for us.

Giriraj Swami read and spoke from Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.25.21 during a program at the house of Brijmohan Sethi.

“It just so happens that Srila Prabhupada saw the same Juhu Beach land many times before he went to America. In order to get a passage to America, Srila Prabhupada approached Srimati Morarji of the Scindia Steam Navigation company. She had a large Bungalow just on Juhu Beach. She was a devotee of Krishna and in order to encourage her spiritually, Srila Prabhupada would visit her bungalow. On the way he would pass Mr. Nair’s land which was known as Nair Wadi. Srila Prabhupada thought that this would be a nice place to have a temple. So, we can see how powerful are the desires of a pure devotee. Several years later, when Srila Prabhupada returned from America with some of his American and European disciples, some of his disciples met Mr. Nair who offered them the same land”

Program at Brijmohan Sethi’s House, Mumbai

Bhagavatam-daily Podcast:

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Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami Appearance Day in ISKCON-Delhi (Album 25 photos)
Srila Prabhupada: The name Krishna and the Personality of Godhead Krishna are identical. There is no difference in the absolute realm between the name, form or person of the Absolute Truth because in the absolute realm everything is transcendental bliss. (Srimad Bhagavatam, Introduction)
See them here: http://goo.gl/5RyGFT

Srila Prabhupada accepts the “Friend of the Humble” as His Disciple!
Deena Bandhu Das: I remember it was one of the last ceremonies where Srila Prabhupada did everything. It was in the old La Cienaga Temple in LA on 25th January, 1970 . He came down off his Vyasanana, sat on a cushion in front of the yajna kunda and chanted on the beads in front of everyone. There was about 10 of us, so it took a long time. At the end of each round, he then asked the regs, and how many rounds to the person who handed him the beads. When he got to me, I remember, those old natural wood beads from Tandy Leather Co. (didn’t have Tulasi in those days, we strung our own) looking like a string of pearls in his lotus hands! Then he asked me and I rattled off, “16 rounds. No meat eating, no illicit sex, no gambling….” My mind just went blank and I couldn’t think…I froze. Somewhere behind me, some brahmacarini was whispering over and over, no drugs! “Oh, and no intoxication.” He said, “Yes, no LSD!” and broke out into one of those smiles where a thousand suns rise in the sky, completely delighted with his own sense of humor. Then he handed me the beads, and said, “So your name is Dina Bandhu, friend of the humble.” I didn’t quite hear and he must have seen it in my face, so he repeated it and added, “Is it alright?” with a big smile.
Read the entire article here: http://goo.gl/mMKyGP

Harinama in Kiev, Ukraine (Album 65 photos)
Srila Prabhupada: One can be free from all sinful reactions after reaching a place of pilgrimage, but one can have the same benefit at home or at any other place simply by chanting the holy name of the Lord. (Srimad Bhagavatam 2.7.15)
See them here: http://goo.gl/MwGwOy

The post How chanting Hare Krsna leads to remembrance of the Lord appeared first on SivaramaSwami.com.

Ananda Vidya milking a protected cow in New Vrindaban.

“The whole idea of New Vrindaban is that men who are living there should produce their own food, of which milk is the principal thing.” – Srila Prabhupada, July 1969.

Click here to read the rest of the letter at the Vanipedia website.

Mangla Arati Of Sri Sri Radha Gopinath;5th Jan 2015