Planet ISKCON

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These memoirs seek to supplement formal hagiographies, in Hare Krishna parlance, they are “nectar books”—devotional testimonies that are to be savored like a sweet dessert, rather than merely read.   

If we continue with our inattention, some benefit is there but we are chanting shadow Japa, or the outer form of the Holy names. The inner form is the Lord's deep spiritual energy - when we really make an effort, then this energy is perceived by us (higher taste, sense of peacefulness and maybe some spiritual emotions).

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From my youth during the 60’s I remember tests of the Emergency Broadcasting System on TV, where the regular programing was interrupted. A certain symbol was flashed on the screen with a jarring sound to wake you up and get your attention. After a few minutes, we were told that that this was only a test. If there had been a real emergency we would have been given appropriate instructions—like to go to bomb shelter or something. I thought about this idea of tests and being prepared—or not—for personal emergencies in relationship to my wife and my current illness of about a week now.

I have been thinking that this flu, or whatever respiratory infection it is, is only a test, not a nuclear attack, or earthquake—something that may cause death (which is like our lifetime’s final exam—because our consciousness, attachments, and good or bad actions determine our next birth). If I am still alive, that means I have more time left to be Krishna conscious or to go deeper into my spiritual path. No, our illness likely isn’t life threatening, though still plenty miserable. However, at some point in the near future, we will have to move on and out of our current bodily apartment—we are renters here, not owners. Had I died yesterday, save some special arrangement, I would be taking birth again still full of anarthas (unwanted mentalities or habits) and petty desires.

So my lack of spiritual standing is sobering, but mainly when confronted with the possibility of my death at this moment—which is one reason we are meant to keep death—or the temporariness of our body—before our eyes! Otherwise, hey, I could live another 20 or 30 years, so no worries Mate, still plenty of time for spiritual progress, mañana! Could I use this as a new lease on the remaining days of my life? That would be a great outcome of feeling crappy. Still, I have to choose that outcome, as we tend to forget, getting absorbed in our regular life, job, and family.

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We are two continents behind in reporting Kadamba Kanana Swami’s travels! We will catch up over the next few days. Maharaj stayed in Mayapur until 19 December. During his time there, he was heavily engaged in various services: the Mayapur Master Plan, teaching in the Bhakti Sastri course, giving initiations, morning lectures, leading kirtan, doing parikrama, etc.

The Bhakti Sastri group to whom Maharaj taught the “Nectar of Devotion” (NOD) were a very lively bunch. Some interesting exchanges and discussions ensued. You can experience the classroom vibe by listening to the audio recordings which are presented below.

On Saturday, 20 December, Maharaj arrived in Cape Town, South Africa, where he spent nine days. Thereafter, he traveled to Germany to participate in the Sankirtan Festival and do other programs. This weekend, he heads-off to the United Kingdom. Detailed reports will follow…

 

Photos

Please visit flickr to see all the pictures

 

Audio – NOD Lectures

KKS_Mayapur_December 2014_NOD_seminar_Part1a

KKS_Mayapur_December 2014_NOD_seminar_Part1b

KKS_Mayapur_December 2014_NOD_seminar_Part2a

KKS_Mayapur_December 2014_NOD_seminar_Part2b

KKS_Mayapur_December 2014_NOD_seminar_Part3

KKS_Mayapur_December 2014_NOD_seminar_Part4

KKS_Mayapur_December 2014_NOD_seminar_Part5

KKS_Mayapur_December 2014_NOD_seminar_Part6

KKS_Mayapur_December 2014_NOD_seminar_Part7

KKS_Mayapur_December 2014_NOD_seminar_Part8

KKS_Mayapur_December 2014_NOD_seminar_Part9

KKS_Mayapur_December 2014_NOD_seminar_Part10

 

Audio – Other

KKS_Mayapur_04 December 2014_SB 6.1.50_Russian

KKS_Mayapur_14 December  2014_SB 6.2.3

KKS_Mayapur_December 2014_Parikrama Lecture_Bhaktivinodha

KKS_Mayapur_December 2014_Parikrama Lecture

KKS_Mayapur_December 2014_Kirtan1

KKS_Mayapur_December 2014_Kirtan2

KKS_Mayapur_December 2014_Kirtan3

 

My old friend Ilan Chester has begun an exciting project to bring India’s spiritual tradition to western theatres. The songs are Sanskrit, the orchestras classical, the stages international. Let’s applaud his enthusiasm and creativity – and support his work.

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US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard visited Sri Sri Radha Parthasarathi Mandir in New Delhi earlier this week for a darshan and arati of Their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Parthasarathi. Later, Congresswoman Gabbard who was on a three-week tour of India on the invitation of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, met Gopal Krishna Goswami, Governing Body Commissioner and BBT Trustee.

Ilan Chester´s impressive musical pieces, have been lifted to a new dimension in a stage production, never presented this way before.

Since a long time, devotees of ISKCON Baroda were inviting Guru Maharaj to kindly visit ISKCON Baroda temple. Guru Maharaj mercifully agreed to visit ISKCON Baroda on the evening of 7th January 2015. Although his stay was relatively short(1.5 days), it inspired the devotees of Baroda and nearby places very much. It was a long(...)

Kadamba Kanana Swami will be visiting London next week. Programs at Bhaktivedanta Manor will be streamed live via Mayapur TV or the Bhaktivedanta Manor website.

Sunday, 10 January 2014;18:30 – 22:00; “Holy Name Fiesta”

Wednesday, 14 January 2014;7:30 am; SB 9.10.16

Friday, 16 January 2014; 7:30 am; SB 9.10.21-22

Monday, 19 January 2014; SB 9.10.23

These times are as per GMT.

Speaking With India’s Leading Industrialists
On December 13th, 2014, Radhanath Swami spoke at a program for over fifty of India’s leading industrialists on the terrace of the South Mumbai residence of Mr N.D. Desai the chairman of APAR group of industries.
Read the entire article here: http://goo.gl/YuJqRc

Omsk festival 2015, Russia (Album 59 photos)
Srila Prabhupada: Living entities are in the air, in the water, in the holes, everywhere. And the vibration of this sound is so powerful because it is spiritual that it will act even on the ants and the trees and birds and the bees, what to speak of the human beings. (Lecture on Bhagavad-gita, 5.17-24, Los Angeles, 1969)
See them here: http://goo.gl/llWo9m

Bhaktivedanta Manor.

The post Doing our duty in the wake of the great Jatayu appeared first on SivaramaSwami.com.

Sankirtan Festival 2014/2015 in Simhachalam, Jandelsbrunn, Germany (Album 144 photos)
Srila Prabhupada: Devotional service is just like a seed, and if it is sown in the heart of a living entity, and if he goes on hearing and chanting Hare Krishna, that seed fructifies, just as the seed of a tree fructifies with regular watering. (Bhagavad-gita, 10.9 Purport)
See them here: http://goo.gl/C9jpA8

Sunday feast:at Iskcon Guyana Crane Temple, January 4, 2015 (Album 12 photos)
Srila Prabhupada: This chanting of Hare Krishna is welfare work for all sentient beings, even the worms, the microbes, the cockroaches. So many living entities are in this room and by hearing this vibration of Hare Krishna mantra they will be also derive benefit. (Lecture on Bhagavad-gita, 5.17-24, Los Angeles, 1969)
See them here: http://goo.gl/q8a7rC

Malacca Ratha Yatra - ISKCON Malaysia (Album 6 photos)
Srila Prabhupada: My dear Lord, when will My eyes be beautified by filling with tears that constantly glide down as I chant Your holy name? When will My voice falter and all the hairs on My body stand erect in transcendental happiness as I chant Your holy name? (Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, Antya-lila, 20.36)
See them here: http://goo.gl/RPOAmr

Harinama in Guarujá, Brazil (Album 12 photos)
Srila Prabhupada: Although a Vaishnava is the most exalted person, he is prideless and gives all respect to everyone, knowing everyone to be the resting place of Krishna. If one chants the holy name of Lord Krishna in this manner, he will certainly awaken his dormant love for Krishna’s lotus feet. (Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, Antya-lila, 20.25.26)
See them here: http://goo.gl/dmwNPb

A website for Srila Prabhupada (for non devotee audience) Prabhupada.net.
Hare Krishna Dear devotees,Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. We had a lot of feedback from devotees regarding the need of having an official website for Srila Prabhupada. One of the reasons is that when someone out there goes to look up Srila Prabhupada they end up getting all kinds of ritviks and other twisted websites, on him. So, with the blessings of the whole GBC body, we made a website for Srila Prabhupada (for non devotee audience). The website has been launched for a few months now. As far as coming up in the search, even if you search for ‘Prabhupada’ it still shows up at about number 15. According to our web team, we need your help. This website needs to get more ‘hits’ and more ‘links’ to get its rating improved and come up higher in ‘search’. Our humble request to the leaders: if all ISKCON preaching websites will put a button on their home page for more information on our Founder Acarya please click at ‘prabhupada.net’ that would help us a lot. We welcome your feedback.
Your ServantAkrura DasSPPC (Srila Prabhupada Position Committee) PS: We are working on a ‘devotee friendly’ website for Srila Prabhupada
(Founderacharya.com). Right now it only shows our booklet but we are working on the contents, in the background, to fully launch it soon.
http://prabhupada.net/

Huge plotting discovered about …escaping from the material world to reach Goloka Vrindavana, taking along as many others as possible! Here in this dated photo the known devotees while they are plotting :-)

The post January 7th, 2015 – Darshan appeared first on Mayapur.com.

2015 01 04 SB 10 54 48 Nature of False Ego Is Unnatural to the Soul Radhanath Swami ISKCON Chowp

Present day Humpi in Karnataka, India is located in the vast ruins of the Vijayanagara Empire, which flourished in the 13th and 14th centuries. The many stone temples, gardens, palaces and ancient market places are protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Of particular importance to Krsna and Rama bhaktas is the fact that Hanuman [...]

Chanting Hare Krishna attentively is easy.

Wanting to chant Hare Krishna attentively is not so easy.

- – – – = – – – -

Attention goes, and stays, wherever we put it. By its very nature, it goes wherever we will it to go. If this doesn’t sound like our experience, its likely we are hiding from and not admitting to our true wants and desires.

We can engage in exercises, disciplines, and techniques to help us tolerate and ignore our true wants and desires so that we can keep our attention focused on things we need to focus on (whether it’s meditation or whether it’s homework), but that is a very external, mechanical, artificial approach and will always be very limited and temporary in its success.  The real, true, best way to improve our attentiveness to meditation/chanting is to increase our desire to attain the objective of the meditation/chanting, and increase our appreciation for the singular efficacy of the meditative/chanting/mystical process.

In more specific terms, the best thing we can do for our attentive meditation on Krishna-nāma is to deeply hear about Krishna (sambandha), about the process to attain Krishna (abhidheya), and about the result of attaining Krishna (prayojana). This is the purpose of Śrīmad Bhāgavatam. If we aren’t a studious type (or for some reason don’t read Vraja Kishor’s exciting renditions of Bhāgavatam as Beautiful Tales of the All-Attractive ;) ) then we have to find the rare soul who does understand and appreciate Bhāgavatam deeply, and engage in deep conversation with that person, about it.

When we understand the value of Krishna, and we understand the unique power and importance of Krishna’s name as the means of attaining a realized connection to Krishna, then chanting Hare Krishna attentively is easy. As easy as eating ice cream.

Tagged: Attention, Chanting, Concentration, Hare Krishna, Japa, Meditation

A very nice Japa seminar by Candramauli Swami based on Bhurijana prabhu's book "Japa".

(Published in Spanish devotee magazine "Mas Cerca" December 2014 issue) Sananda devi dasi: Why have you decided to specialize in devotee care? Gita Coaching: Because I have seen the need, and because I like devotees. We have festivals, we have Deity worship, we have books, we have educational programs, we have wonderful food, music, but devotee care is actually not very developed. So,

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, October 2014, Mayapur, India, Siksastakam Seminar: Verses 1&2, Part 1)

Question: Maharaj, you were explaining how each acharya practices the jewel of transcendental knowledge he receives from the predecessors and adds his personal touch. Sometimes we listen to different devotees and each adds their touch, so it is difficult to consolidate.

That is why you have a spiritual master. The spiritual master is your anchor and you follow your spiritual master. There may be different vaisnavas and they may have a different emphasis at different points in time which may sometimes confuse us. One may say that you must chant and another may say that you must distribute books! And yet, another may say that you must worship the deity. At the end of the day, you do not know what to do anymore but you have to choose one of these things, so who do you listen to!? Ultimately, the spiritual master will determine! This is where we say that all these things are there in spiritual life but for me, the order of my spiritual master is the jewel that I carry on my head, guru siromani, what he wants us to do shall be done!

Every year, Sydney devotees, Pratapana das and Jayasri dd, organise a gathering and dinner for all the Prabhupada disciples and senior devotees in the area.

Giriraj Swami read and spoke from Srimad-Bhagavatam 2.3.23.

“One can achieve the highest position of spiritual life by serving the dust of the lotus feet of the pure devotee. So, what does serving the dust of the lotus feet of the pure devotee actually mean? In general it means to follow his instructions. If one is fortunate enough, it can also mean to actually serve his lotus feet. But it can mean to serve the devotees who have taken shelter of his lotus feet. So being the servant of the servant of the servant of the servant will please the devotee or the spiritual master and that in turn will please Krishna.”

——————-
Srimad-Bhagvatam 2.3.23 , Mumbai

During our 8-hour drive from Udupi to Hampi we passed through the town of Hari Hara and took darshan of the combined form of Visnu and Siva in the Hariharaesvara Temple. The left side of the deity is Visnu and the right side is Lord Siva. The temple was built in 1224 AD by Polalva, [...]

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