Manor’s milk hits the headlines
→ Dandavats.com

After a film company gave young Dom Dwight the task of travelling the world in pursuit of the best ingredients for a cup of coffee, he finally ended up in the Manor's New Gokul farm to sample the cow's creamy milk! After declaring that the Manor's cows were the 'happiest in Britain', he concluded their milk was of the highest quality. The mini documentary received coverage in the Daily Express newspaper. Read more ›

Cheer up Brazil, there’s more to life…
→ The Vaishnava Voice

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The Great Vishnu, transcendentally situated in a place beyond winning and losing

Three weeks ago I was in Cologne, Germany. We were celebrating the 10th annual Hare Krishna chariot festival there. For four hours we sang and danced our way round the town in the sunshine while members of the team threw rose petals from the top of the wagon, and another handed out smoking sticks of incense. The locals loved it.

It was a Saturday, and the German football fans were getting ready to watch their national team play another game in the sun. Luckily the fans were happy enough to take part in our singing as our procession passed them, standing in groups or filling the pubs noisily to bursting point. They may not have been so accurate with their choice of lyrics to sing back at us, but they cheered us on.

Last night those fans would have been enjoying something close to religious ecstasy, with their 7-1 defeat of Brazil. And last night the Brazilians would have been feeling, no doubt, considerable pain of loss, as their national team passed into football history as losers of the greatest defeat of the World Cup. What an upset for such a footballing nation.

Yet although football is a religion for some, it does not contain all the ingredients that a religion does. Religion, ultimately, is to help us not to become too depressed in our sad moments, and not too elated during our happy ones. Too much of emotional extremes – and not being able to cope in between – is one of the factors leading to stress; and from stress comes depression.

With 53 million prescriptions for depression being handed out in the UK in 2013, there’s an awful lot of people that could do with something to help them get through life. I don’t know what its like in Germany for depression (although there’s probably significantly less depression nationally this morning) but no doubt its comparable. So without medication what is the solution for stress-induced depression?

Religion can also be a cause for mood swings – especially when the religion is the man-made type – as many religions are, but genuine religion, as found in the Bhagavad-gita, will always take us above the ups and downs of life, the winning and losing and the happiness and distress of changing fortunes.

So the people of Brazil can change their fortunes immediately – or their perceptions of their fortunes – by taking to the other thing they like to do, singing and dancing in the streets, and by adding the Hare Krishna chant to their music.


Pandava Sena for A Life Less Ordinary!
→ Dandavats.com

Being based in Machester Temple, starting with Morning Program and class by Sutapa prabhu and others, they will go to a different town each day to do Sankirtan and then in the evening, they would participate in the local Namahatta! The towns include Sheffield, Preston, Liverpool, Bolton and Birmingham before heading back home to the manor. The whole reasoning behind the trip was to make an offering to Srila Prabhupada, who stressed the distribution of his literatures more than anything else in this movement. Read more ›

GITA SEVA INFO
→ Gita Coaching

GITA SEVA BIO I joined ISKCON in 1983. From 1985 I translated Srila Prabhupada's books to Serbo-croat for about 6 years. I also served as a temple cleaner, pot washer, cook, temple president, bhakta leader, communications officer, congregational preacher, teacher, mentor, and life coach. From 2001 I served at ISKCON London as an executive secretary, Life Coach and Counselor System Coordinator.

Volunteers’ Retreats in Bhaktivedanta Manor
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The volunteers at Bhaktivedanta Manor are an integral part of the community. After all, huge and spectacular festivals such as Janmashtami and Diwali would simply be impossible to have without them! Last Easter Weekend 130 volunteers stayed over at Buckland Hall in Brecon, South Wales where they shared a morning program and participated in a variety of outdoor and indoor fun activities, including a quiz. There were also presentations by, Akhandadhi das, Gaura Gopal das, Navadvip Chandra das, Sahil Agarwal (Chair of the Pandava Sena), Saurabh, and VrajaValasini das spoke on Deity worship. Just weeks later 200 adult and 3 Read more ›

Upcoming New Vrindaban Summer Festivals
→ New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

Spiritual Fun Coming Up This Summer in New Vrindaban:

Two Festivals and A Seminar:

1.  Lord Jagannatha’s Ratha Yatra/Festival of the Chariots on Sat. July 19, 2014.

New Vrindaban Ratha Yatra ISKCON

New Vrindaban’s Country Style Ratha Yatra

2.  Then, the 4th Annual Pushpa Abhishek on Sat. July 26, 2014.

New Vrindaban ISKCON Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra Puspanjali flowers

Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra covered with flowers

3.  On Pushpa Abhishek  weekend July 26/27, our esteemed guest His Grace Gauranga prabhu from ISKCON Chowpatty, Mumbai, will give seminars Sat. and Sun., speaking on “Lessons on Vaishnava Relationships” from Gaura Lila .

His Grace Gauranga das

His Grace Gauranga das

Faithful devotion attracts blessings
→ The Spiritual Scientist

One need only be firmly convinced by the spiritual master that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. If one decides this, he can make further progress by thinking of Krishna, chanting of Krishna, and glorifying Him. There is then no doubt that such a fully surrendered devotee will receive the blessings of Lord Krishna”

Srila Prabhupada, Chaitanya Charitamrita, 2.11.51 purport.

Basics Of BHAGAVAD GITA In 5 Sessions
→ Welcome to the official site of ISKCON Perth

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Hare Krishna,
It is our great pleasure to announce that Iskcon Perth’s Gita Group would be commencing another series of Bhagavad Gita Introductory Course this month. The course will run over 5 weeks (1.5 hours each Saturday) and will cover BG’s most important and essential topics in brief.

As we can all see the modern day society is groping with problems of all sorts. We do not know where and how to find solutions. And because of these disturbances of mind caused by ethical and social conflicts, indecisions, confusions, material miseries and sufferings etc, the life has become filled with restlessness, dissatisfaction and unhappiness. As we shall see, the Gita helps us make intelligent decisions in every sphere of our life. Bhagavad Gita is also an ultimate guide to step by step spiritual advancement. It contains words of wisdom and practical teachings that contain the answers to the above-mentioned condition of the present-day individual.

Many people in the past have sought help from this book in various aspects and fields of their life and have become successful in understanding themselves, the Supreme and the Supreme Dharma. Hence we encourage you all to please and register for this course and benefit from this timeless wisdom of Gita.

Bhagavad Gita Intro Course
19th July to 16th August

Day and time: Saturdays, 5 to 6.45pm
Venue: ISKCON Perth, 155-159 Canning Rd, Kalamunda
Course Fee: $25 for 5 sessions including prasadam (payable on or before the start date)

You are welcome to circulate this email to your friends and colleagues who might be interested to join the course.

For registrations please call or email-

Punya Sloka  0402 883 883
Raj Kiran   0410 159 789
Rupavati Radharani   0400 883 841

ip.gitagroup@gmail.com

Regards,
Gita Group

Festival of Lanterns
→ Ramai Swami

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The Lismore City Council committee in charge of the Festival of Lanterns asked the devotees from the Bhakti Centre to participate in their parade by bringing Lord Jagannatha on His Rathayatra chariot.

Many New Govardhana devotees also came and everyone pulled the Lord through the streets that were lit with hundreds of lanterns. There was a crowd of about 30,000 along the route and all got the mercy in the form of the Lord’s darshana and the holy name.
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A state of emergency
→ KKSBlog

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 16 April 2014, Durban, South Africa, Srimad Bhagavatam 1.7.34)

Transcribed by Radhadyuti dd

KKS_seriousOur strength is not brahman-tejas (brahminical power). Our strength is to carry the mercy of Sri Caintanya Mahaprabhu. That is our strength. Our strength is to, somehow or the other, chant Hare Krsna and induce others to chant Hare Krsna. To become great qualified brahmanas is not so easy. Srila Prabhupada describes in his purports to the first canto of Srimad Bhagavatam that it is an emergency in this age of kali. Therefore for the sake of emergency, we give positions to people although they are not really qualified; we give them positions of brahmanas, we give them positions of sannyasis. Prabhupada said we do this because we need leaders in society. We need leaders! But what is their qualification?

So, this is something to take upon our head: Our acute lack of qualification and the urgency to become more qualified.  We have just been given these positions out of emergency and that for once in our life, we should begin to embrace the principles very seriously and not only four regulative principles but also the principles of vaisnava behaviour and so on. Because that is a brahmana; brahmana means principled life and that is a great challenge for us because it means that we have to change. So Krsna consciousness means a great commitment to change and we are given the systems by which we can change.

 

We Will Bond With Him
→ Japa Group


"We should always be very grate­ful to Krishna for giv­ing us the Hare Krishna mantra, and we should show our grat­i­tude by chant­ing it as much as pos­si­ble. That way, we will bond with Him, which is our heart’s great­est desire."

From Japa Transformations
by Satsvarupa dasa Goswami

New initiative: Every wedding guest gets a book now in Bhaktivedanta Manor!
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Every wedding guest gets a book. A new initiative to distribute books at the Manor weddings is under way. The wedding guests at Bhaktivedanta Manor often includes many people that might not normally visit a temple. They enjoy their visit and often request tours and have many inquiries. Thus the temple wanted to make sure everyone gets a small book to take away with them. Over last two months they have already distributed 2000 books. Read more ›

Vaishnava is simple at heart
→ Servant of the Servant

Vaisnava means one who is able to sit down anywhere, under any conditions, and be happy. He wants only a place to lay down, a little prasadam, and if there's a little service he can do, gladly let me do it for Krishna, that's all. As long as we are thinking I want this, that is not to my liking, or if I adjust things a certain way everything will be better, these thoughts are material. Devotional service is not conditional.

So stop this dreaming state. Try to understand things with the light of your intelligence, and if your are sincere in this way, without a doubt Krishna will give you full facility to understand Him and become freed of the bondage of ignorance. Nowadays it seems many of the older disciples like yourself are having difficulty. If you do not set the example for the younger students and take the responsibility for instructing them in the right line, how will things go on?

Try to always study our books and see our philosophy from different lights of directions, become convinced yourself of this knowledge and without a doubt all of your difficulties of mind will disappear forever and you will see Krishna face-to-face.

- Srila Prabhupada letter July 8 1972

A note of caution for all visting devotees to Sri Dham Mayapur
→ Dandavats.com

It is very important that devotees who are travelling must have a travel insurance which will cover any accidents or flight delays or unable to catch your flight due to accident or other issues. This you can buy from your airline company which you are flying or outside insurance companies and this is valid for few days the insurance company will cover you for any accidents, train delays ,baggage lost ,accidents,hospitalization etc. You must have a comprehensive medical insurance (atleast for Rs 3 Lakhs) which will cover you for accidents ,hospitalization etc etc this is non-negotiable .You can do this from india or your home country where you are resident. Do not disregard this as you are important to everyone of us and your life is also precious for us and we always pray for your safety and safety of your family. Read more ›

Prabhupada Letters :: Anthology 2014-07-08 16:31:00 →

1972 July 8: "Regarding your question of dancing-show; whatever it may be, it may not deviate from the real Krishna Consciousness program. We are Hari Kirtana men, that's all. We can attract people by some gorgeous show, but inside there must be strict purity and seriousness, otherwise, they shall be attracted by a gorgeous show only."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1972