Can we preach without using technology as such use can distract one from Krishna?
During preaching, how important is it to provide relevant material information in addition to the paramapara’s message?
→ The Spiritual Scientist
If the son practices bhakti, then will his non-devotee parents’ get a good next-life destination due to their son’s bhakti?
→ The Spiritual Scientist
How is Draupadi’s polygamy justified especially when it involves the same man being required to see her alternately as wife and as sister-in-law?
→ The Spiritual Scientist
How does attachment to result make us the cause of action, as the Gita 2.47 purport states?
→ The Spiritual Scientist
How do see spiritual organizations that are largely Vaishnava except for considering their founder as an incarantion?
→ The Spiritual Scientist
Unnatural Solutions Cause More Problems
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If someone is following an Abrahamic religion, should we encourage them to follow that religion or to take up Krishna consciousness?
→ The Spiritual Scientist
We Must Accept High Cost of Cow Protection, Says New Minister
→ ISKCON News
We can have successful cow protection projects in ISKCON. But only if we’re willing to accept the high cost of violence-free milk, and of caring for cows and their handlers.That’s the message that Shyamasundara Das, the recently appointed Global Minister for Cow Protection and Agriculture, is bringing to communities around the world.
The Meeting of Cultures on the Ancient Silk Road (Album 44 photos)
→ Dandavats.com
Lord Nrsmhadeva Festival (Ugra Nrsmhadeva in Philippines) (Album 187 photos)
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Radhadesh – Chateau de Petite Somme
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Russell Brand – Awakened Man
→ ISKCON News
Yesterday’s round table topic at the ECRL
→ SivaramaSwami.com
Restriction of religious symbols in the public space.
The post Yesterday’s round table topic at the ECRL appeared first on SivaramaSwami.com.
Lord Nrsimhadeva Appearance Day 2014 at the Manor (Album 148 photos)
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Why Be Part of An Institution?
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Harinama at Byron Bay – 14 May 2014, Iskcon Australia (Album 68 photos)
→ Dandavats.com
Narasimha chaturdashi celebration in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine (Album 208 photos)
→ Dandavats.com
Radhanath Swami at 24 Hour Hare Krishna Kirtan Festival 2008 New Vrindavan
→ Gouranga TV - The Hare Krishna video collection
Radhanath Swami at 24 Hour Hare Krishna Kirtan Festival 2008 New Vrindavan
Mahavishnu Swami will be arriving early this Sunday morning!! He will be attendi…
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New Vrindaban’s Transcendental Throwback Thursday – 05/15/14
→ New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit
New Vrindaban’s Transcendental Throwback Thursday – 05/15/14.
Each week we highlight an earlier era of ISKCON New Vrindaban.
This week’s challenge: Can you identify all six devotees in the photo?
Extra credit: What’s the occasion & when was the photo taken?
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.
How we are different from God
→ The Spiritual Scientist
An imperfect living being does not even know what is happening within his own personal body. He eats his food but does not know how this food is transformed into energy or how it sustains his body. When a living being is perfect, he is aware of everything that happens, and since the Supreme Person is all-perfect, it is quite natural that He knows everything in all detail.
Srimad Bhagavatam Introduction
HG Kalakantha Prabhu / SB 10.60.46
→ Kalachandji's Audio Archive
Interview With Award-Winning Author Sankirtana Das
→ NY Times & Bhagavad Gita Sanga/ Sankirtana Das
Clear Everything In Due Course
→ Japa Group
Brahmā’s “Straight Talk”
→ The Enquirer
SB 3.9.3:
There is nothing superior to your supreme beauty, which is the intrinsic form of uninterrupted, undivided bliss itself. I see you as the singular individual who creates everything, and yet is not a part of anything created. I am intoxicated by identifying with my own body and senses, but I take shelter of you.
“uninterrupted, undivided bliss itself” = brahman, spiritual reality. It is an indivisible, uninterruptible substance of joy.
This brahman is “intrinsically” expressed as the beautiful form of Bhagavān. Joy is beauty and sweetness, so joy cannot be without form and attribute. Therefore the idea of Brahman which does not include the idea of Bhagavān is flawed, incomplete. The most complete understanding of Brahman is Bhagavān.
Nothing is superior to the form of Bhagavān, the Brahman is simply the elemental constituent of that form.
4-5:
You reveal this beauty in the meditations of those who come close to you with love. All your forms, including the one I see now, grant auspiciousness to even the most auspicious things in the world. Therefore what am I in comparison to the All-Attractive? Let me carry out your orders and serve you! Those who do not do so become drawn to unreality and populate the hells, but those who adoringly embrace your feet above all else are never separated from your joyous beauty. The scent of your lotus-like feet, carried on the breeze of your name’s sound, enters their ears and resides eternally as the husband of the lotus of their hearts.
Those who are not inclined to adore Bhagavān are drawn to unreality, which generates suffering. But those who are inclined to adore Bhagavān are never separated from him.
This is an ideal contemplation for kīrtan and japa: The sound of his name (or also of his glories, any sound related to him) is like a breeze, carrying his fragrance that we smell with our ears. Bringing that fragrance into our ears, it enters our hearts and embraces us.
6:
Until the world lovingly embraces your fearless feet, they will instead think only of themselves. Flocking to illusion to enhance their self-concept, they nourish the very root of suffering. Out of constant fear for their property, their body, and their loved ones, they become greedy for anything that might better protect these assets, and thus drown in worry and envy.
Nothing needs to be added or subtracted from Śrīmad Bhāgavatam. No new thing needs to be discovered or invented. No new “preaching strategy” or “technique” needs to be mastered. Simply learn Śrīmad Bhāgavatam deeply and really, and teach it to others. All the power to make the universe Krishna consciousness is already present in Śrīmad Bhāgavatam.
If we do not have love for others, we are left only with our love for ourselves. As long as our love does not center on the root of reality, we must substitute ourselves into that place as the root. This substitution is the illusion that we flock to embrace, and it is the very root of all sorrow.
Since it is an illusion it takes great effort to maintain the existence of. Therefore we constantly worry that the components of our illusion — our property, body, loved ones, etc. — will be ruined by reality, so we become greedy to invent and obtain technological devices that protect us and ours. Thus our lives become a mess of technological stress, and stress about how to obtain the money to buy better health insurance and better food, clothes, and shelter, or if these basic needs are met, to buy better property, bodily parts, and “loved ones” to enhance our illusory concept of “I.”
And this is what we hang on to, in preference of forgetting about all our soup for just a few minutes a day to meditate on Krishna’s names? Why not just forget everything, everything, for at least the amount of time it takes to chant the Hare Krishna nāma-mantra at least for 1 māla, or at least for 1 mantra, or at least for 1 name!?
At the same time as we are such fools, we have the gall to claim that we are Vaishnavas and warrant some attention and respect?
Prabhupada Letters :: Anthology 2014-05-14 23:46:00 →
"Ekadasi. The whole day I was in Ananda Ashram I came back at 5 P.M. Yolanda brought me back by her car. She has promised to come here on Wednesday next."
Prabhupada Journal :: 1966
Prabhupada Letters :: Anthology 2014-05-14 23:45:00 →
Prabhupada Letters :: 1969
Prabhupada Letters :: Anthology 2014-05-14 23:44:00 →
Prabhupada Letters :: 1971
Prabhupada Letters :: Anthology 2014-05-14 23:42:00 →
Prabhupada Letters :: 1972
Prabhupada Letters :: Anthology 2014-05-14 23:41:00 →
Prabhupada Letters :: 1972
Prabhupada Letters :: Anthology 2014-05-14 23:40:00 →
Prabhupada Letters :: 1972
Prabhupada Letters :: Anthology 2014-05-14 23:38:00 →
Prabhupada Letters :: 1974
Prabhupada Letters :: Anthology 2014-05-14 23:25:00 →
Prabhupada Letters :: 1975
Don’t be a hard-head!
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(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 30 March 2014, Cape Town, South Africa, Srimad Bhagavatam 10.39.39)
Spiritual life is like that – there is always a higher standard and there is always another level of realization. That is why we always remain a fool before the spiritual master. Tamal Krsna Maharaj said in front of Srila Prabhupada, “Yes, I am just a fool.” Prabhupada said, “It is very good as long as you think like that because then I can instruct you. But as soon as you think that you are intelligent then I can’t instruct you.”
The relationship with the spiritual master is the most difficult one because here is a person who has a level of authority in our life that even our parents never had! I mean, when you are a small child your parents have all authority, up to a point. You can cry and protest but then when you can speak, you can say, “NO!” You can go into your ‘no-face’ which is a well-known face that each child goes through and many of us never get out of that. What to do, that’s very strong…
Then suddenly, you get involved with the Hare Krsna Movement and there is a spiritual master and now you have to stop saying, “NO!” There are more sophisticated ways of saying, “NO!” One is, “I don’t agree!” Or better still, “His arguments don’t make sense!”
But Bhaktisiddhanta was speaking about this; he says that mundane logic does not apply. When the spiritual master speaks, in the beginning we think that it doesn’t make sense what he is saying. But if ones hears submissively; then with time it begins to make more sense and ultimately, it begins to make full sense!