Planet ISKCON

1973 July 17: "I understand you wish to remain as householders living outside the temple that is perfectly all right. However, as a householder you cannot go into the streets and hold sankirtana and sell our books as a means of maintenance. This is not a good idea for householders."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1973

1974 July 17: "Yes, it will be very nice if the Chinese boys come there to the Hong Kong center. That is our mission - that local boys take up interest in our movement."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1974

1974 July 17: "All our sannyasis will be present there. You also come there as a regular sannyasi and take part. That is my desire. So long I am living I wish you all be strictly under my guidance without any fratricidal disagreement."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1974

1975 July 17: "We are selling 30-40 lakhs around the world so we shall expect at least sales in India of one lakh of Rupees per month. Did the Oberoi-Sheraton Hotel purchase our books? The hotels must purchase our books for putting in their rooms."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1975

1975 July 17: "Expenditure must be stabilized and scrutinized. Nothing should be spent extravagantly. That you have to see. Do not bother my brain how to do it. I have put you in charge how to do it."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1975

SB 10.60.46 Lord Krishna’s Exchange with Queen Rukmini, Durban, South Africa.mp3

Bhagavatam class in Romania. (English)

The post Different kinds of perfected devotees and different kinds of devotees seeking perfection (Part 1) appeared first on SivaramaSwami.com.

Susan: When I was in my late teens he joined the religion Krishna Consciousness. I was horrified and upset when he did as I thought it a foreign strange group and for many years rejected him from my life. As I grew in maturity and he grew in his religion I realized I was wrong and felt ashamed of my behavior. In a world where we all struggle for inner peace, spirituality, and centeredness I saw a lot of that in him as well as a beautiful loving human being who I have come to admire and love even more. Thank you Donn (Deena Bandhu Das) for teaching me. Travel safely. Love you always. Your little sister Read more ›

...with Bhakti Prabhupada Vrata Damodar Swami. The hallmark of a mahabhagavata (the most elevated devotee) in kali-yuga is that he chants the holy name of the Lord constantly. (Skanda Purana) Read more ›

Duplicity is something required in the material world but from the spiritual plane duplicity is a real problem. It is actually one of the activities that can really block our spiritual advancement and it’s important that a vaisnava is not only truthful in what he says and that he doesn’t speak any lies, but that he’s just truthful about what he is experiencing, because then one can actually take shelter of the vaisnavas. If we are on the platform of pretending, always playing a part for everyone, then we are very alone because we never share our real self with anybody else. So we have to come to the point where we just share wherever we are, whatever we are going through with other vaisnavas, because then we get the shelter of the vaisnavas. Read more ›

Ritualistic religious practices like yajna, charity, sacred baths and chanting of Vedic hymns are all regulated by rules of times, cleanliness, etc. To consider that the chanting of the holy name is subject to the same restrictions is a gross blunder. There are no hard and fast rules for chanting. Therefore, everyone chant Krishna's name at all times. Read more ›

Under the Influence – Janmashtmi 2009

Facebook isn’t like marmite – I hate it and love it. I can’t stand it, but I can’t get off it. How many of you feel the same? It’s the first thing I check in the morning and the last thing I check at night. It seems to be devouring my entire life.

What is the connection between social networks and being lonely? Quoting the words of Sherry Turkle from her TED talk - Connected, But Alone.

New Vrindaban’s Transcendental Throwback Thursday – 07/17/14.

Each week we highlight an earlier era of ISKCON New Vrindaban.

This week’s challenge: There are at least nine recognizable faces in this photo. How many can you identify?

Extra credit: What are they doing and when were they doing it?

What to do: Post your guesses on the “who, what, when, where & why” in the comment section at the New Vrindaban Facebook Page.

Technical stuff: We share a photo Thursday and confirm known details Sunday. Let’s keep it light and have a bit of fun!

Special request: If you have a photo showing New Vrindaban devotees in action, share it with us and we’ll use it in a future posting.

Lately, in India there has been an ongoing war of words between the Shankaracharya and the followers of Sai Baba. Now there is a threat that the conflict will escalate and apart from the court cases, it will spill over into a physical fights. ISKCON Communications Minister Anuttama Dasa and Communications Delhi representative Yudhisthir Govinda Dasa have released an official statement addressing the situation.

Listen audio...

This talk is a part of the "Fascinating Mahabharata Characters" series. To know more about this course, please visit: bhakticourses.com

Listen audio...

This talk is a part of the "Fascinating Mahabharata Characters" series. To know more about this course, please visit: bhakticourses.com

The Hare Krishna movement has been trying to build a temple in Russia since 1990. They still don't have one. It's not for lack of funds.

Scientism is the belief system that science alone is the source of all knowledge. If anyone points out the limitations of science, devotees of scientism misrepresent such criticism of scientism as criticism of science, and deride the critic as an “anti-scientific obscurantist.”

The claims of scientism notwithstanding, science cannot encompass the subjective relishable aspects of many cherished human fields such as poetry and music. Science can count the length of the words or the frequencies of the letters occurring in a poem and accordingly give us some pointers towards the quality of the poetry, but even the most scientifically advanced data processing devise can’t relish a masterly poem or feel bored with a mediocre piece. The same applies to music. Science can measure the decibel levels of the sounds and the rate of their modulations in a musical composition, but we need to use, not science, but our trans-scientific capacity for sentience to discern whether the piece is shoddy or superb.

Some extremist reductionists try to reduce all aesthetic phenomena down to neurochemical firings and ultimately the random oscillations of unconscious fundamental particles. But Nobel Laureate physicist Erwin Schrodinger in his book Nature and the Greeks encourages us to treat such explanations with the strong skepticism that they deserve: “I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously.”

Some scientistic extremists may argue: “Fields such as poetry and music are inconsequential; they don’t lead to any human progress – as does science. In things that really matter, science alone can provide knowledge.”

Given that poetry and music have enriched the human heart for millennia, dismissing them as inconsequential amounts to disrespect of humanity.

Anyway, let’s focus on the area that even scientism deems important: science. Consider the critical question: How do we determine what are the proper and improper uses of science?

Science can’t provide the answer.

Why?

Because it operates by the principle of amorality. To promote its purpose of studying nature objectively, science stays silent on moral issues. Schrodinger in the same book states: “The scientific worldview contains of itself no ethical values.”

For example, science can tell us the results of putting arsenic in our grandmother’s breakfast, but it can’t tell us whether doing this to quickly get her property is right or wrong. Most people would hopefully find such a scheme revolting.

But where would that revulsion come from?

Not from their science, for its amorality would keep it deafeningly silent.

That revulsion would come from their ethical and spiritual fabric – something that scientism dismisses as an invalid or nonessential source of knowledge.

But such dismissal can be catastrophically consequential.

The absence of morality amidst the ascendance of science paved the way to the worst manmade horror in recent history: the Holocaust.

Hitler’s Nazi Germany prided itself on its scientific progress, yet it (ab)used science to exterminate six million Jews in its gas chambers. What can be a greater disrespect of humanity than the cold-mass murder of millions?

The partisans of scientism will protest: “Nazism caused the Holocaust, not scientism.”

Agreed. But would scientism have given any reason for stopping it?

It would have relied on science alone, and science would have stayed amorally mute.

Nowadays it has become fashionable among reductionists to invent explanations of the origin of morality in terms of psycho-evolutionary processes that supposedly operated on a non-existent mind in an unrecorded past through unknown mechanisms in non-demonstrable non-repeatable ways. But such explanations are pop psychology that is not science – it is science fiction. And, as Schrodinger put it, such explanations are “so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously.”

A genuine scientist, unlike a scientistic zealot, appreciates humanity’s all-round potentials and accomplishments, In fact, Albert Einstein recommended such due deference in the essay Moral Decay in his book Out of My Later Years: “All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.”

 

"To be attentive purification of the heart is required. This means keeping silence and avoiding unfavourable talking. While chanting, one must affectionately remember the meaning of the mantra. Steadiness, patience, and attachment to chanting are all treasures of chanting."

Hari-bhakti-vilasa

Every year, BBT Africa holds a conference to bring together our book-publishing team with the devotees who read and distribute the books. This year, in June, we held our conference in Accra, Ghana. Here’s a photo of the attendees and of some members of our team.

The post From the 2014 BBT Africa conference appeared first on Jayadvaita Swami.

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 20 June 2014, Stockholm, Sweden, Caitanya Caritamrta Madhya 22.75)

Sadhana-bhakti is like the Ganga. When we take bath in Mayapur, in the Ganga, then on the side, the water is not moving very much – it is slow. If you want to move in the water then you have to swim on your own strength but you go a little further out, you do not have to swim on your own strength. The current will just grab you, right, and just take you along.

So it is like that. Only in the beginning of bhakti is it depending on our endeavor until we get swept up in the current of attraction to Krsna. That attraction is very natural because Krsna has so many genuinely amazing qualities.

 

 

 

Meet Nancy and you’ll be touched by her soft-spoken demeanor, her willingness to serve, and her attention to detail.  She first visited the temple, Sri Radha Kalachandji Dham,  in January 2009.    She had written lists of questions for His Holiness Indradyumna Swami, who happened to be visiting for the TKG Academy Valentines Day Festival.  When those questions were answered, Nancy came back with more.

She was attracted to the Hare Krishna philosophy, and the focus on the difference between the body and soul.  She strives to break free from the grasp that the material world defines us by and embrace self-realization according to Krishna’s desires. She was endeared by the ability to build an intimate loving relationship with the Lord.

She wants to serve the Lord and His devotees (all other living entities) with sincerity.  This philosophy allows the ability to understand and manifest Real Love of Krishna, and she is absorbed in wanting to please the Lord.

Walk into her store, Gowns of Grace:  A Bridal Boutique, located on West Lovers Lane in Dallas and be immediately surrounded by this exact loving mood she practices.  As a distinquished entrepreneur, she built this successful business out of years of hard work, experience and mounds of love.  Her focus on one-on-one customer service and attention to detail, is proof of how her love and personalism have flourished.

She is happy to support TKG Academy?   Why?

“An integrated approach to education is vital for our children,”  she replies emphatically.  “By involving spirituality within the realm of education, the impact reaches deeper and is more applicable to our entire life.”

 

Thank you Nancy!

SB 10.54.45 All the Worlds a Stage, Durban, South Africa.mp3

Lord Krishna said to Arjuna, 'O Arjuna! Listen attentively. When the living entity chants My name, whether out of devotion or indifference, I never forget this act. It remains always close to My heart. There is now vow like chanting the holy name, no knowledge superior to It, no meditation which comes anywhere near it, and it gives the highest result. No penance is equal to it, and nothing is as potent or powerful as the holy name. Read more ›

1966 July 16: "I have further risked in the matter of rent of house. I am completely independent and I have taken a telephonic connection. My lecture hall is on the ground floor and my apartment is on the first. This Second Avenue is one of the ten longest roads in New York City."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1966

1966 July 16: "The controversy is now closed and there is no need of help from any one else. We are not always successful in our attempts in preaching work but such failures are not certainly ludicrous. In the Absolute field both success and failures are glorious."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1966

1968 July 16: "Your appreciation of Rathayatra and the beauty of Kirtana and Jagannatha are some of the wonderful things I mark in your progressive advancement. Please continue and you will be more and more happy and at the end, gain entrance into the association of Krishna."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1968

1969 July 16: "If you can increase the number of BTG's to 25,000 monthly, that is the nicest idea. We want to distribute as many issues as possible, so the more you can print and distribute, the more my Guru Maharaja will be pleased to see His Great Dream being fulfilled."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1969

1970 July 16: "I met my Guru Maharaja in 1922. I was born in a Vaisnava family - Kasinatha Mullick Thakuravati - so by the grace of Krsna from the very beginning of my life I was Krsna conscious by family tradition and by my father's caretaking."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1970

1970 July 16: "I think very confidently that this Krsna Consciousness Movement will solve all the problems of the world - political, social, economic, etc. I am writing books and articles on this subject strictly in the line of Acarya Parampara. So there is great potency of spreading this movement all over the world."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1970

1975 July 16: "If the farm cannot be utilized, then it may be sold. What is the use of keeping a bad cow? Somehow or other you have to keep the men who are there engaged. If they are allowed to become idle gradually they will again become hippies."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1975

1975 July 16: "Why they should get salary? There should be no salary. You are working without salary, so why they should take. So after this month arrange for no one to get any salary there. That will be nice."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1975

Toronto, Ontario

Not Much But So Much


Not much to say other than the event.  The 42^nd Annual Ratha Yatra Chariot Festival was a smashing event.  I saw all kinds of people come out of the woodwork, so to speak, at the Yonge Street procession, as well as Centre Island where crowds were enjoying good clean fun.  As pointed out in the past, no drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, sex, and at the same time having a blast, is practically unheard of in this day and age. 

That’s what happened!

May the Source be with you!

10 KM