Websites from the ISKCON Universe
Distribution of Srila Prabhupada’s books in the East African country of Kenya has reached an all-time high, with 54,399 books distributed during the December marathon of 2013 by just three small temples: Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa. The score catapulted Kenya to the number seven country in the world during the marathon.
A young women becomes a nun. She travels to Brazil to work with poor children and then returns to Italy to live quietly in a convent in Milan. Now she is the star of Italy’s version of the TV show “The Voice.”
A recent study of religious mobile applications from five major world religions provides insights into common types, purpose and use of religious apps.
Kadamba Kanana Swami is NOT in South Africa but in the United Kingdom currently. He visited Cape Town from 28 March to 04 April (read all about part one by clicking here) and again from 07 to 12 April. We have a legitimate reason for the delay in this post as a backpack containing the recorder with the recordings, camera with all the photos and laptop was stolen. Thankfully, all media was shared prior to the great theft which has been recovered now and is presented to you below!
In part two of his visit to Cape Town, on the occasion of Rama Naumi, three devotees received initiation. Herman, Vera and Fallon are now Hari Vilas das, Nilachala dd and Vasanti dd, respectively. These devotees are special for various reasons. Hari Vilas das is part of the preaching team at Stellenbosch University who are translating Srila Prabhupada’s books into Afrikaans. Nilachala dd is a student at Stellenbosch University and came to Krsna consciousness through the Bhakti Yoga Society program. Vasanti dd was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at birth and doctors thought that she would never walk. However, not only can she walk but she can dance as well! On 21 December 2010, Vasanti dd met Kadamba Kanana Swami in the city centre of Cape Town where he was distributing books. She bought a book from him from which led to her coming to the temple and reawakening her Krsna consciousness.
In addition to the Rama Naumi celebration, Maharaj went out on harinam with the devotees, did a university preaching program and a program at the house of HG Medhavi Prabhu (ACBSP). As mentioned above, Maharaj is in London and will give the morning class tomorrow (10 May) at Bhaktivedanta Manor (7:30 am; GMT+1). A live steam will be available via their website.
Later in the day, he will participate in the Birmingham 24 hour kirtan which starts at 2 pm (GMT+1) and will continue until Sunday. This festival will be broadcast on mayapur.tv. On Saturday, Maharaj will lead kirtan from 6-7 pm and on Sunday from 5-6 pm.
Audio
KKS_CPT_SA_08 April 2014_Rama Naumi_SB Lecture 9.10.2
KKS_CPT_SA_08 April 2014_Rama Naumi_Initiation Lecture
KKS_CPT_SA_10 April 2014_Stellenbosch_University Program
KKS_CPT_SA_11 April 2014_Stellenbosch_SB Lecture 1.2.22
KKS_CPT_SA_11 April 2014_House Program_Lecture
KKS_CPT_SA_11 April 2014_House Program_Kirtan
Photos
If you cannot view the slide-show then please visit flickr.
People at Sanur Beach, Bali, Indonesia enjoying the colorful harinama procession.
The pain was too much for her to deal with! Better become a Hare Krishna and renounce the material world! :-) Read more › "Krishna is offered foodstuff in goodness. The foodstuffs in the modes of goodness are wheat, rice, pulse (beans, peas), sugar, honey, butter and all milk preparations, vegetables, flowers, fruits, grains. So these foods can be offered in any shape, but prepared in various ways by the intelligence of the devotees. The ingredients are always the same as above, whether you fry them, boil them, bake them, powder them, or whatever way they are combined or cooked, the idea is that they must come from this group of foodstuffs. So you can make your own recipe if you like, so long as the ingredients are within this group. This foods group is stated by Krishna in the Bhagavad-gita, and we follow accordingly."
( Srila Prabhupada letter, Los Angeles, 13 November, 1968)
ALready done, on the road or planned. Read more › 
Early the next morning, Parthasakha Dasa, the bulls' caretaker, reported that Balarama was missing. Immediately, Sivarama Prabhu, Damodar-lila Prabhu, and others started to search for him. But they were unsuccessful. We asked the villagers if they had seen our bull, and they told us that robberies were common in their village and that we would never see our bull again... Read more › 
From May 3rd to May 5th we had the Education Conference 2014 in Radhadesh. Here are some pictures taken mainly by Radha Seva prabhu. An official report and more pictures will follow soon. Read more › 
I see scriptures as divine instruction manuals. They guide us away from excessive materialism with all its attendant stresses and struggles, and toward the peace and happiness of spirituality. The real joy we seek lies within us not without. So in future I think I will try to check my massive male ego and stick to following the manual. Read more › 
Drutakarma prabhu (Michael Cremo): There's already a lot of questioning going on. And what I'm proposing is not actually so extreme. Most people already agree with what I say. It just so happens that because of this government enforced monopoly that the Darwinists now have on the education system, it's not a message that's really being gotten out [in the classrooms]. But what I would like to see is some diversity. Not that just immediately these other [Darwinian evolutionary] ideas are going to be taken out of the textbooks. But in the textbooks and classrooms it should be admitted there are other ideas. The textbooks should say, yes, today most scientists believe in this theory of evolution - but there are other scientists who do not accept it - here are their reasons. And let's have a discussion about it...let people make up their own minds, rather than having the government, through its judicial system, dictate to us what everybody should believe. Read more › 
Here are the pictures from the Surabaya (East Java) Ratha-yatra held on the 4th of May at the town's 721 birthday celebration. Read more › Spiritual Teachings: Radhanath Swami at TEDxLondonBusinessSchool 2014
I had arrived at New York's JFK Airport and was immediately struck by the hundreds of cars all around the airport.I asked my friend who had come to pick me up, "How exactly are all these cars be sustained once the fuel supply is over?"
We all wish to grow both individually and socially. Unfortunately, we sometimes adopt unwittingly an approach that backfires on both fronts.
A true materialist cannot believe in love since according to the materialistic doctrine we are merely molecules, atoms, and DNA. Love then is not something that is scientifically qualifiable or empirically evident. It is only by dint of personal experience that the empiric materialist can claim to experience love. However, since, according to the materialistic concept, we are nothing but matter, this so called love is merely a chemical reaction in the brain, nothing more. The materialist therefore loves no one, but instead feels the effect of the right blend of chemicals, which allow him or her to continue survival and propagation of DNA, nothing more.
Excerpt from “Substance & Shadow” by Suhotra Swami
The foundation of empiricism is a belief, not the objective truth. We should try to understand this carefully. Belief is defined in philosophy as a state of mind that is appropriate to truth. A state of mind is subjective. The objective confirmation of belief is truth. Now, if the claim of empiricism, that sense data is the ultimate knowledge, was a truth, empiricists would be able to demonstrate objectively that there is nothing to be known beyond sense data. But the very term empiricism (coming from the Greek empeira, experience) means that sense experience is the limit of empirical knowledge. Confined by their method within this limit, empiricists have no means of knowing whether or not there is something beyond the experience of the senses. Therefore, the claim that sense data is knowledge is nothing more than a belief.
Wasted? Totally!
My house keys. Bwahahaha!
Man! I dropped my keys.
Dang! What to do? It’s so dark here.
No sweat. I got this.
Skateboard guy: “Dude, I saw it all. You dropped your keys by the door. What are you doing here?”
The drunk: “Here I can see. Over there is too dark.”
It’s pretty obvious what’s wrong with eating meat – you have to kill other living beings to get it. But its not so obvious why some other foods are forbidden on the plates of yogis.
Some are easy or obvious. Wines and so on, for example, obviously have a fuzzing effect on the mind and a liberating effect on animal instincts. So a yogi avoids intoxication. But there are some prohibited foods that just seem mysterious. Garlic and onion is the most popular. There are other vegetables also, but for some reason they mostly get overlooked by most contemporary Western practitioners these days.
Garlic-abstainers will often quote fabulous stories about how these vegetables originated from the corpse of a slain cow, or the blood of a demon, or some variety of tale. We are going to ignore these, because they do not appeal to logical persons. They are meant for the masses who simply require a vivid storyline.
There are valid reasons why certain vegetables should be avoided.
Every substance in the world has a specific effect on you when you perceive it. It’s just the way the world works, food included. Each food has a different effect on you when you ingest it. We don’t even notice it most of the time. If your room is filthy you don’t notice a little extra disorganization in your top shelf, but if you are trying to keep your room very clean and organized, you notice things right away. Similarly, our psychological nature is so radically disturbed by things like FaceBook, text messages, billboards, talk shows, and video games that we really have no idea at all if something as innocuous as garlic might or might not have some effect on our mind.
So perhaps it’s a bit myopic for an aspiring yogi to insist on fastidious abstinence from onions, garlic, and so on, while at the same time indulging his eyes in the comparatively raucous stream of images, videos, and ideas from FaceBook and Twitter on an iPhone in a movie theatre? Yes. Priorities, please.
Still, if you are one of those very few people who really sit down and want to focus your mind clearly on mantra-meditation, you will rightly want to not only govern (or abandon) your addictions to the internet and so on, you’ll also want to double-check your choice of vegetables.
What garlic does (and I guess presumably onions and other “forbidden” vegetables too; although, I have to admit that in my personal experience onions seem innocuous compared to garlic) is make the mind “fuzzy.” In yogic terminology it aggravates “rajas” – the effect of which is to disturb clarity of mind, and make it more easily distracted by “interesting” ideas and plans.
There are a few non-yogi, modern-medical-type people (like Bob Beck) who have also noticed this. And it’s not just an Indian thing. Romans (like Horace) and Chinese (like Tsang-Tsze) also noticed this. But as for you and I… we should also be able to experience it. And we can. But here is what you would have to do to notice it:
(a) For one month abstain entirely from: internet, video games, television, movies, newspapers, and casual reading.
(b) During this time abstain of course from intoxications, meats, and sexual activity of any sort.
(c) During this time, abstain also from garlic (and why not also onions).
(d) Try to meditate for an extended period on a single mantra, with great focus.
The purpose of this cleansing month is to “organize the room of your mind.” Then, after one month of this, eat a nice big dose of the “forbidden” veggies (while still practicing the A andB) and take a note how it makes you feel when you try to do D.
When you compare your mantra meditation in the few days at the end of the month with your mantra meditation after you feasted on garlic like a cured vampire, you’ll notice for yourself that this is for real. Garlic, and so on, really does make a difference to the quality of your concentration.
But you’ll also notice that unless you are regularly doing A and B pretty fastidiously, it doesn’t really matter.
So, my advice?
Focus on D, the mantra.
If you do, you will want to try your best to do A and B.
If you do, C will make a difference, too. But if you are not really focusing on the Mantra, eating or not eating smelly or non-smelly veggies is not going to help or hinder your spiritual life enough to register on any micro-sensitive yogi-ometer.
Priorities please! Not checklists for being “on the team.” Thanks.
Hare Krishna.
The purpose of this cleansing is to “organize the room of your mind.”
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 03 April 2014, Cape Town, South Africa, Evening Lecture)
The Supreme Lord is unlimitedly beautiful. But not the sort of artificial external beauty that is kind of cosmetic, but beauty that also reflects his noble nature. So we’re dealing here with true beauty.Beauty is an interesting thing because beauty suggests that somebody is very exalted. If you see a beautiful person, then you think this person is very noble and exalted. Not necessarily so, in this world. But on the spiritual platform, yes, that’s Krsna!
Pause for Thought, BBC Radio 2, Sun 4th May
Recently I took delivery of a new mobile phone. Quite a complex affair, boasting a range of amazing new features. Being a typical male with a stubborn resistance to being told how to do anything, I tossed aside the instruction manual and set about figuring it all out. Soon I had managed to have a conversation with the phone itself, take a close-up photo of my hand, and record a short film of the clutter on my desk – but had not set up my speed dials, which is what I was attempting. Needless to say I ended up consulting the manual.
Sadly it is not only with phones that I have this problem of ignoring instructions. Although I daily study my scriptures I have to admit that I don’t always do what they say. As they say, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. However, the inevitable result is the same as with my new phone. I end up frustrated. But one lesson I have managed to learn over the years is that such frustration is a good thing, a sign that I am getting something wrong and, not connecting with the divine.
For me that connection is crucial to achieving peace and happiness. In truth we have little control over this world. Things so often don’t work out the way we hoped. We try our best, but ultimately there is a higher power in control. When we recognise and accept that control, life becomes so much easier. Martin Luther King used to say that when he faced a particularly difficult time he would spend an extra hour on his knees in prayer, rather than working longer and harder trying to solve the problems himself.
I see scriptures as divine instruction manuals. They guide us away from excessive materialism with all its attendant stresses and struggles, and toward the peace and happiness of spirituality. The real joy we seek lies within us not without. So in future I think I will try to check my massive male ego and stick to following the manual.
“We have so much to learn from Mother Archa Vigraha. When we read about the people in the Srimad-Bhagavatam and Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, they may seem far away. They were different people; they lived in a different time and in a different culture. Even our recent a acharyas are in a different category. Srila Prabhupada is in a different category. But when we hear about her it is very encouraging, both to the listener and the speaker. And because her heart was so open to everyone, she welcomed everyone into her heart.” —Giriraj Swami
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Narottamananda das
Rupa Raghunath das
Kuntidevi dasi
Ranchor das
Giriraj Swami
In one of my prior postings I wrote about returning to my root’s in as much as applying the house to house ministry and have home bible study system I used to do as a Jehovah’s Witness in distributing Srila Prabhupada.
However I have to admit it was with nervousness and some doubt about its effectiveness but this wasn’t the case I’ve actually hit a technical difficulty due to the high uptake within a month 8 individuals have started a home Gita study and 4 have now also taken up japa one achieving 3 round’sround’s.
Each visit averages 2 hours and after some quite contemplation decided to also include some prasadam which is well accepted; over time the plan is to bring them together for a small sanga.
It reminds me how how much people are hungry to hear about Krishna and read Srila Prabhupada books.
I hope this meets with some approval from the devotee community
In one of my prior postings I wrote about returning to my root’s in as much as applying the house to house ministry and have home bible study system I used to do as a Jehovah’s Witness in distributing Srila Prabhupada.
However I have to admit it was with nervousness and some doubt about its effectiveness but this wasn’t the case I’ve actually hit a technical difficulty due to the high uptake within a month 8 individuals have started a home Gita study and 4 have now also taken up japa one achieving 3 round’sround’s.
Each visit averages 2 hours and after some quite contemplation decided to also include some prasadam which is well accepted; over time the plan is to bring them together for a small sanga.
It reminds me how how much people are hungry to hear about Krishna and read Srila Prabhupada books.
I hope this meets with some approval from the devotee community