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.
Living beings who are entangled in the complicated meshes of birth and death can be freed immediately by even unconsciously chanting the holy name of Krishna, which is feared by fear personified. SB 1.1.14 Read more › 
With Bhakti Chaitanya Swami. 
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. 
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. 
"I am not in Vaikuntha nor in the hearts of the yogis. I remain where My devotees engage in glorifying My activities." It is to be understood that the Supreme Personality of Godhead does not leave the company of His devotees. Padma Purana 
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 
Bhakti Caitanya Swami visits and preaches in Chita. Chita is a city and the administrative center of Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia 
