Sri Saranga Thakur Disappearance
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Vraja’s Nāndimukhi became Sāraṅga Ṭhākura in Gaura-lila.

Śrī Saranga Ṭhākura is mentioned in the listing of branches of the Chaitanya trunk of the tree of devotional service along with Rama Das, Kavidatta, Gopal Das and Bhāgavata Acharya (Chaitanya Charitamrita 1.10.113). He is also known as Sarnga Ṭhākura, Sarngadhar and Sarngapani.

He used to live in Modadrumdvīpa, which is the island in Nabadvīpa that represents, of the nine types of devotional service, the service attitude. The name of the town is Mamgachi. He would sit in a secluded place by the banks of the Ganges to perform intense bhajan. Through these practices he obtained many miraculous powers.

At first, Saranga Ṭhākura did not want to make any disciples for fear of disturbances to his bhajan, but Mahāprabhu repeatedly encouraged him to do so. The following account is given in the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Abhidhāna, “When the Lord was returning after criticizing Devananda Pandit for having offended Srivas Pandit, Saranga Ṭhākura met Him on the streets of Nabadvīpa. Mahāprabhu ordered him to give up his determination to never take disciples.”

Śrīla Bhakti Siddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Prabhupad writes in his Anubhāṣya in Chaitanya Charitamrta: “Having been ordered by Mahāprabhu to take disciples, Saranga Ṭhākura decided that he would make a disciple of the first person that he met the following morning. As fate would have it, the next morning, a dead body washed up against him while he was taking bath in the Ganges. He revived the corpse and made him his disciple. This disciple was known as Ṭhākura Murari, or sometimes as Saranga Murari.

In the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Abhidhāna, it is further said that Murari was a boy who had been killed by snake bite and his parents had set his uncremated body afloat on a raft in the Ganges, as was the custom in that time. Saranga Ṭhākura revived him by giving initiation to him. Thus, his name Saranga Murari, who became an empowered preacher of Mahāprabhu’s dharma by guru’s grace. Descendents of Saranga Murari’s disciples still live in a village named Shav.

Saranga Ṭhākura’s deities were served in the town of Mamgachi. The original temple was built in front of a bakula tree. The deities of Radha Gopinath worshiped by him can be seen in this temple, as can the deity of Mahāprabhu’s other associate, Vasudeva Datta Ṭhākura, Śrī Madana Gopal. The devotees who do parikramā of Nabadvīpa Dham visit this temple for darshan. Śrīla Bhakti Siddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Ṭhākura established a temple not far from the above-mentioned home of Saranga Murari at the birthplace of Vrindavan Das Ṭhākura.

Saranga Ṭhākura disappeared on the thirteenth day of the waning moon (kṛṣṇā trayodaśī) in the month of Agrahayan. An alternative opinion is that he disappeared on the Asharh kṛṣṇā caturdaśī.

India’s Top Businessmen Visit ISKCON Juhu’s Nilachal Vedic Village
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(Photo names left to right) H.G. Radharchana Mataji (MC), H.G. Surangi Mataji (wife of DN Pr.), Ms. Manju Gupta (Chairman of Lupin group of companies), H.H. Guruprasad Swami Maharaj (Vice chairman of GBC), Sri Balkrishna Goenka (Chairman of Welspun group), Sri Ashok Goel (Chairman of Essel group), H.G. Devakinandan Das (GBC minister for Fundraising & […]

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Ratha Yatra Makes History in Sao Paulo, Brazil
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photos by Bhakta Ronaldo Canale and Lourieni Corrêa.   On December 6, 2022, Iskcon Cidade São Paulo held another Ratha Yatra, which took Sri Sri Jagannatha, Baladeva, and Subhadra to Avenida Paulista, where thousands of people watched and followed the parade of the Deities. Despite the unpredictability of the weather, roadblocks that could have prevented […]

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Standing Against Gender-Based Violence
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November 25, 2022, marks the UN’s International Day to End Violence Against Women.  This year, ISKCON’s Vaishnavi  Ministry will join the UN’s global 16 days of activism against gender-based violence As Vaishnavas, we are mandated by our scriptures and tradition to protect the vulnerable and those placed in our love and care, including “the brāhmaṇas, […]

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Our Seven Mothers
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Our Seven Mothers.
“Our own biological mother; a guru or wife of our guru; a queen or head of state; brahminis, or wives of our teachers; the cow; one’s nurse, and finally, Mother Earth. Manu Smriti says,“The gods dwell where women are honored and respected”.Perhaps that’s why there are so many problems in the world today. So, first of all, our own mother, our first guru, the one who gave us birth. Srila Prabhupada writes in his commentary to Srimad Bhagavatam that, “only fools are ungrateful to their benefactors”. (SB 1.16.26-30, purport)


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Cleanliness In The Home
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By the Minister of Deity worship

When articles are mildly contaminated through contact with impure items such as food remnants, they may be purified in the following ways: gold, silver, conch shells, jewels, stones, and spoons are purified by water; yajïa utensils, such as the sruk and sruva (wooden ladles), by rinsing with warm water; other yajïa utensils by scrubbing with kuça grass and water; an äsana, bed, and vehicle by water; and grains, deerskin, cloth,4 thread, linen, fruits, flowers, grass, and leaves by washing them in water if extensively contaminated, or simply by sprinkling if the contamination is slight. Continue reading "Cleanliness In The Home
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JAPA AND FAMILY RESPONSIBILITY
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A friend recently wrote to me looking for a solution to a dilemma he found himself in. One of his spiritual mentors was heavily pushing him that he should start chanting 64 rounds a day. Our friend obediently started doing that, but very quickly found that if he did so it was not possible for
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Kaliya Krishna Dasa Disappearance
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Srila Kaviraja Goswami writes (Chaitanya Charitamrta-lila Adi 11:37.) that Kaliya Krishna Dasa Thakura was one of the principle devotees of Nityananda Prabhu. He knew nothing other than the lotus feet of Sri Nityananda Prabhu.

According to Srila Kavi Karnapura’s Gaura-Ganodesha-Dipika (text 132.), he was one of the 12 gopals in Vrindavana, and in the pastimes of Krishna in Vrindavana was known as Labhanga, one of Krishna’s cowherd boy friends. Here he is refered to as Kalah Krsnadasa or Kalakrsnadasa.

On the twelfth day of the dark moon in the month of Caitra, Sri Kaliya Krishna Dasa Thakura disappeared from this world. This is not the same Kaliya Krishna dasa who accompanied Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu to South India. At present, Kaliya Krishnadas’s descendents live in different holy places in Bengal.

His birthplace is in the Bardhaman (Burdwan) district of West Bengal within a short distance from the Railway station at Katwa, at the village called Akai Hatta. This village is situated on the old king’s road between Nabadwipa and Katwa. Akai Hatta is a very small village.

Life Beyond Cultural Shame
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Life Beyond Cultural Shame.
A Second Gen’s Perspective on Never Have I Ever.
By Gopika-kanta (Gopika Sharma)
I remember leading the Bhakti Club at Rutgers University. The Western students loved the kirtan and embraced our genuine attempts to explain the practice of mantra meditation in an impactful way. The Indian kids? Their feelings of judgment made my insides shrivel. I hated feeling looked at by my own people as if I was less because I finally was doing the hard work of figuring out the value of my culture. But why do we have to live life like this? It feels like we either embrace our Western ideals while disregarding our cultural and religious roots, or we don’t disregard our culture but just respect it from afar, engaging with religious practices in an uncommitted or lukewarm manner.


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UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Lecture – Bhagavad Gītā as a Source Text for Pedagogical Modeling
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HG Garuḍa Prabhu, PhD (Harvard) ACBSP, presented a lecture on November 8th for the Cambridge Philosophy of Education Seminars series at the University of Cambridge with the following title:    Bhagavad Gītā as a Source Text for Pedagogical Modeling   The abstract for his talk reads as follows:    The seven hundred philosophical poetic verses
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Dear Bhagavatam!
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Dear Bhagavatam!
When there is no other glimmer of light
And the clouds of illusion cover my power of sight
Your every word illuminates my path from within
And You give me the faith to let my journey begin
When the unceasing rain of this world starts
It drips through the holes in the ceiling of our hearts


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