Beyond any dream
→ KKSBlog

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 2010, South Africa, Lecture)
Kirtan

This is the world where the dream is bigger than reality but in the spiritual world, the reality is way beyond the dream. The chanting of the maha mantra is coming directly from the spiritual world and if we place the holy name in the center of our life then everything will happen…

The name of Krsna is Krsna and when we chant his name, the sound vibration enters our ears then enters our hearts and connects the soul directly to Krsna…

Thaipusam Book Distribution Marathon In KL , Malaysia (Album 134 photos)
→ Dandavats.com

Christmas Marathon is famous for book distribution. However, in Malaysia, the best time for book distribution is during the annual Thaipusam Festival for Lord Skanda. The world famous Batu Caves Temple for Lord Karthikeya, is the best place because hundreds of thousands of Hindus and tourists gather to pay homage to the Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Devas. The festival goes on for about 10 days. -- Read more ›

Lord Nityananda’s Appearance Day
→ The Toronto Hare Krishna Temple!

One of the sweetest festivals of the year falls on Wednesday, February 12th! A warm invitation goes out to you and your family to join us as we celebrate the advent (appearance) of Lord Nityananda this Wednesday evening, starting at 6pm. 

Lord Nityananda (also known as Nityananda Prabhu, Nitai, Nityananda Balarama) appeared as Lord Chaitanya’s principal associate for spreading the congregational chanting of the holy names of the Lord. He is considered an incarnation of Lord Balarama.

This festival is a special one for ISKCON Toronto and often features very sweet, intimate and spiritually-soaked festivities! We are very excited to announce that joining us for the festival will be Her Grace Malati Prabhu.


The whole festival will be based on following verses: "The lotus feet of Lord Nityananda are a shelter where one will get the soothing moonlight not only of one, but of millions of moons. If the world wants to have real peace, it should take shelter of Lord Nityananda. Unless one takes shelter under the shade of the lotus feet of Lord Nityananda, it will be very difficult for him to approach Radha-Krsna. If one actually wants to enter into the dancing party of Radha-Krsna, he must firmly catch hold of the lotus feet of Lord Nityananda." 

The program will be as follows (subject to change):

6:00pm to 6:30pm - Kirtan (Arati)
6:30pm to 6:40pm - Welcome & Announcements
6:40pm to 7:15pm - Class by Bhakti Yoga Prabhu
7:15pm to 7:35pm - Special Presentation by Krishna Funskool
7:35pm to 8:00pm - Vegetarian Feast (Prasadam)
8:00pm to 8:30pm - Kirtan (Arati)

Devotees are encouraged to come to the program wearing the colour blue, the colour commonly associated with Lord Nityananda! 

Parama Karuna…
→ The Toronto Hare Krishna Temple!


As we prepare to celebrate Nityananda Trayodasi, the advent (appearance) of Lord Nityananda this Wednesday, February 12th, starting at 6pm. Click HERE for more information about the celebrations. We found this nice video of Srila Prabhupada singing the famous Bengali bhajan "Parama Karuna Pahu Dui Jana" (Official Name: Sri Gaura Nityananda Daya). This bhajan (devotional song) written by Srila Locana Dasa Thakura really encompasses the merciful nature of Lord Chaitanya and Lord Nityananda, see the translation of the lyrics below.



parama karuṇa, pahū dui jana
nitāi gauracandra
saba avatāra-sāra śiromaṇi
kevala ānanda-kanda

The two Lords, Nitai-Gauracandra, are very merciful. They are the essence of all incarnations. The specific significance of these incarnations is that They introduced a process of chanting and dancing that is simply joyful.

bhajo bhajo bhāi, caitanya nitāi
sudṛḍha biśwāsa kori
viṣaya chāḍiyā, se rase majiyā,
mukhe bolo hari hari

My dear brother, I request that you just worship Lord Caitanya and Nityananda with firm conviction and faith. If one wants to be Krsna conscious by this process, one has to give up his engagement in sense gratification. One simply has to chant, "Hare Krsna! Hari Hari!" without any motive.


dekho ore bhāi, tri-bhuvane nāi,
emona doyāla dātā
paśu pākhī jhure, pāṣāṇa vidare,
śuni' jāńra guṇa-gāthā

My dear brother, just try and examine this. Within the three worlds there is no one like Lord Caitanya or Lord Nityananda. Their merciful qualities are so great that upon hearing Them even birds and beasts cry and stones melt.

saḿsāre majiyā, rohili poriyā,
se pade nahilo āśa
āpana karama, bhuñjāye śamana,
kahoye locana-dāsa

But Locana dasa regrets that I am entrapped by sense gratification. Since I have no attraction for the lotus feet of Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityananda, then Yamaraja, the superintendent of death, is punishing me by not allowing me to be attracted by this movement.

Mesmerized
→ travelingmonk.com

These are Ananta Vrindavan’s excellent photos of our festival program in Bharuch, a town of 400,000 people on the banks of the sacred Narmada river in Gujarat. The people of Bharuch were mesmerized by the show, reminding me of Srila Prabhupada’s statement that the Krsna consciousness movement would, “take the world over by culture.”

Adelaide Ratha Yatra
→ Ramai Swami

IMG_0486IMG_0485

Australia Day is the official national day of Australia. Celebrated annually on 26 January, it marks the anniversary of the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet of British Ships at Sydney Cove, New South Wales, and raising of the Flag of Great Britain at that site by Governor Arthur Phillip. In contemporary Australia, celebrations reflect the diverse society and landscape of the nation, and are marked by community and family events, etc.

This year, as is with every year in Adelaide, there was an Australia Day Parade where about 150 groups, originally from different cultures, came together with floats and marched through the streets of the city.
The devotees were invited to attend and borrowed the Rathayatra Cart from the Sydney temple. This was the first ever Rathayatra Parade in Adelaide so it was an even more special occasion and everyone was very excited. The big crowds down King William Street were amazed at the form of Lord Jagannatha riding majestically on his beautiful Ratha Cart to the kirtan of His ecstatic devotees.
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Sweet Science: Researcher Develops Energy-dense Sugar Battery
→ View From a New Vrindaban Ridge

by Zeke Barlow, Virginia Tech

A Virginia Tech research team has developed a battery that runs on sugar and has an unmatched energy density, a development that could replace conventional batteries with ones that are cheaper, refillable, and biodegradable.

The findings from Y.H. Percival Zhang, an associate professor of biological systems engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Engineering, were published today in the journal Nature Communications.

While other sugar batteries have been developed, this one has an energy density an order of magnitude higher than others, allowing it to run longer before needing to be refueled, Zhang said.

In as soon as three years, Zhang’s new battery could be running some of the cell phones, tablets, video games, and the myriad other electronic gadgets that require power in our energy-hungry world, Zhang said.

“Sugar is a perfect energy storage compound in nature,” Zhang said. “So it’s only logical that we try to harness this natural power in an environmentally friendly way to produce a battery.”

In America alone, billions of toxic batteries are thrown away every year, posing a threat to both the environment and human health, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Zhang’s development could help keep hundreds of thousands of tons of batteries from ending up in landfills.

This is one of Zhang’s discoveries in the last year that utilize a series of enzymes mixed together in combinations not found in nature. He has published articles on creating edible starch from non-food plants and developed a new way to extract hydrogen in an economical and environmentally friendly way that can be used to power vehicles.

In this newest development, Zhang and his colleagues constructed a non-natural synthetic enzymatic pathway that strip all charge potentials from the sugar to generate electricity in an enzymatic fuel cell. Then, low-cost biocatalyst enzymes are used as catalyst instead of costly platinum, which is typically used in conventional batteries.

Like all fuel cells, the sugar battery combines fuel — in this case, maltodextrin, a polysaccharide made from partial hydrolysis of starch — with air to generate electricity and water as the main byproducts.

“We are releasing all electron charges stored in the sugar solution slowly step-by-step by using an enzyme cascade,” Zhang said.

Different from hydrogen fuel cells and direct methanol fuel cells, the fuel sugar solution is neither explosive nor flammable and has a higher energy storage density. The enzymes and fuels used to build the device are biodegradable.

The battery is also refillable and sugar can be added to it much like filling a printer cartridge with ink.


Filed under: Cows and Environment

New Vrindaban Daily darsan @ February 7, 2014.
→ New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

01

I pray that as I reside in Vrndavana I may consider with equal vision severe poverty and great wealth, great happiness and intense suffering, great fame and infamy, a jewel and a clod of earth, and my greatest friend and bitterest enemy.

[Source : Nectarean Glories of Sri Vrindavana-dhama by Srila Prabodhananda Sarasvati Thakura, 1-56 Translation.]

Please see the link for more photos

Nityananda Trayodasi – Wednesday, 12th February 2014
→ Welcome to the official site of ISKCON Perth

Dear Devotees & Friends,

We would like to invite you all for the “NITYANANDA TRAYODASI” - THE APPEARANCE DAY OF LORD NITYANANDA Wednesday, the 12th February 2014.

Lord Nirtyananda is Lord Balaram who appeared in this Kali yuga to save the fallen conditioned souls. He is the Adi Guru (Original spiritual master)
Please come and hear about him and receive unlimited blessings

Program Details
5.30 Bhajans
5.50 Tulasi Arati
6.00 Abhishek ( The bathing ceremony of their Lordship)
6.30 — Class about the tatva and pastimes of Lord Nityananda
7.15 — Cultural program
7.25 — Offering gifts
7.30 — Special Gaura Arati
7.45 — Honoring of feast prasadam

Please bring a gift for Lord Nityananda

Hare Krishna

NityanandaAppearanceDay2014.pdf-page-001

Beyond any dream
→ KKSBlog

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, South Africa, 2010)

KirtanThis is the world where the dream is bigger than reality but in the spiritual world, the reality is way beyond the dream. The chanting of the maha mantra is coming directly from the spiritual world and if we place the holy name in the center of our life then everything will happen…The name of Krsna is Krsna and when we chant his name, the sound vibration enters our ears then enters our hearts and connects the soul directly to Krsna…

 

 

Program for inmates in Tihar Jail, Delhi (Album 9 photos)
→ Dandavats.com

Last week devotees visited the Tihar Jail to conduct pastoral care programs for the inmates. Tihar Prisons is the largest complex of prisons in South Asia. The prison is styled a correctional institution. Its main objective is to convert its inmates into ordinary members of society by providing them with useful skills, education, and respect for the law. It aims to improve the inmates' self-esteem and strengthen their desire to improve. -- Read more ›

Join us for this Sunday Feast and hear from His Grace Vaisnava Dasa
→ ISKCON BRAMPTON


Sunday Love Feast

When?
Sunday, February 8th
Program starts at 11 am

Where?
6 George Street South
Brampton, Ontario
L6Y 1P3, Canada

New! Listen
Click here to listen to previous class recordings on our blog
Make a Donation
 Bhagavad-gita As It Is 9.3
dharmasyāsya parantapa
 
          TRANSLATION
Those who are not faithful in this devotional service cannot attain Me, O conqueror of enemies. Therefore they return to the path of birth and death in this material world.
             PURPORT
Program Schedule:
11.00- 11.15               Tulsi Puja                                           
11.15 - 11.30               Guru Puja                                            
11:30 –11:55               Aarti & Kirtan                                      
11.55 - 12.00              Sri Nrsingadeva Prayers                  
12.00 – 1:00               Vedic Discourse by His Grace Vaisnava Dasa
[While you're hearing,your kids can participate in the Sunday School,one of the best in the North America] 
  1:00 –  1:30                Closing Kirtan

 
 Best Vegetarian
Govinda's Natural Foods Snack Bar


                                                                             

Govinda's has always been a giver of love and friendliness, food with a home cooked feel, Check this out Sunday your own Govinda’s Snack Bar at ISKCON Brampton for dine in or take out.

This snackbar definitely has the best selection of cruelty-free eats with a bang for your buck.

                   Why go else where,when Govinda’s is there!!     

                         

                         UPCOMING CELEBRATION
                      APPEARANCE OF NITYANANDA PRABHU
                    
                                                                                                                        On feb 12,at 7pm.                                                                                              
How may I be helpful with this festival?

To help with this festival,please contact Prema Gaurangi Devi Dasi.

If you would like to Finance/sponsor the festival,  please contact Krsna Smaran Devi Dasi [kavitabalram@yahoo.com],you’ll be duly provided a tax deduction receipt towards your donation.

Details of the celebration will follow shortly. We’ll keep you updated for those.

Please note that ISKCON Brampton is a nut free environment in order to support those with allergies. Your cooperation is appreciated.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
Chant and Be happy!

Temple Profile: La Paz, Bolivia
→ ISKCON News

Krishna consciousness was first introduced in Bolivia in 1977, but from 1985 onwards, devotees had to work undercover while they were harassed by the country’s constantly changing military regimes. Finally, on December 18th 2012, ISKCON was given legal recognition by the Bolivian government, now a Democratic Republic. So in a way, Krishna consciousness is really just starting to take off in the country.