To remember Krsna
→ KKSBlog

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 21 November 2012, Cape Town, South Africa, Evening Talk)

Philosophy helps us to remember how everything is connected to Krsna, even when we forget him all the time. I mean, I’ve given these examples of how good we are in forgetting Krsna. I mean, we can chant sixteen rounds and not think of Krsna even once (laughter). Chant sixteen rounds, never thought of Krsna once. You know what I’m talking about? You know, not even once, right!!

krishna-flute-balarama

We are amazingly good in forgetting Krsna even in the middle of the Hare Krsna temple where everything is Krsna, Krsna, Krsna, Krsna - we forget Krsna. Maybe in the temple you remember Krsna a bit but as soon as you step out the gate, Krsna is gone. As soon as there is a movie playing…

I was sitting in the dentist’s waiting room yesterday and then this thing started with some mummies, drooling mummies on the screen. It is really hard, you know… terrible monsters… and then the fight. Again and again, it sucks you in. It is just amazing, the power of the video screen. It is stupid and you know it’s stupid. You are watching it and you say, “This is totally stupid,” but still you are watching it. God, oh, God.

So the power of the material energy to help us forget Krsna is very strong. Therefore, philosophy helps us to see that everything is connected to Krsna, so we need it. We need all these crutches of karma and jnana (knowledge) at this stage.

 

30+ Years To Finish New Vrindaban Beads
→ View From a New Vrindaban Ridge

Thirty some years ago my wife made me a set of japa beads out of some tulasis who had appeared and left their bodies in New Vrindaban. At the time we had ideal circumstances for growing tulasis in the Northern Temperate zone with the winters and all. We had a greenhouse that was attached to a heated building so she had maximum natural light and a warm space to grow in. The benches were made on top 55 gallon steel drums laid on their sides and filled with water.

I painted the south end of the drum flat black so during the day the drums would soak up heat with their thermal mass and at night give bottom heat to the tulasi plants.  They got over a meter high (4 foot) and quite bushy so the stems got big enough to make beads.  As a matter of fact, while the beads were regular japa size, the head bead  is 7/8″ (17 mm) in diameter. Which may be normal in more moderate climates but big for here.

I treasured that she made them for me but put them away and never used them out of fear of losing them  I have lost several sets of beads over my lifetime, including the ones that Srila Prabhupada handed me when I was initiated. I used to travel a lot and would leave them in places I couldn’t get back to so I held these in reserve.

A few years ago I realized i wasn’t traveling anymore  and as my life expectancy diminished I figured I better use them now or never. I never take them out of the house and on the rare occasion I do want to take some beads i have a second pair I use so there is no risk of losing them.

After using them for a couple of years I noticed that they tangle more than regular beads. The inner dynamics of bead movement in a bag while chanting sometimes causes the beads to get snarled which usually just needs a couple of shakes and they flow again but I realized it was happening a lot.

I took them out and thad a close look  at them and could see that while Vidya had  done a few passes with the file after cutting the individual beads to approximate roundness there was still a flat edge on the bottom so I got a file and started to roundthem off some more. This took several hours in a few different sessions.  The large head bead itself was quite square and was the main culprit for tangles to I really rounded off the ends of that as well as all of the beads

Tulasi’s stem is square so that had made some sharp corners but I round them as well as at the edges. Some of the beads were a little misshapen and I had noticed when I came to them that they distracted me so I smoothed them up so they glide unnoticed through my fingers now.

So although it took decades to complete I now have a set of New Vrindaban tulasi beads that are top notch to chant on and it adds a dimension to my chanting  I believe.


Filed under: News, Ramblings or Whatever

Spiritual Embassies of the World – Sri Vrindavan Dhama, India (51 min beautiful video)
→ Dandavats.com

“Spiritual Embassies” is an ambitious project which aims to create documentary films about at least 108 temples around the world established by ISKCON founder Srila Prabhupada or his followers. Russian film student Shaktyavesha Avatar Das, who joined ISKCON around five years ago and now lives in London, was inspired to begin the series when he read a letter written by Srila Prabhupada to his disciple Bhagavan on December 18th, 1970: “The more we open branches, the more I feel encouraged. These branches are like the oasis in a vast desert. In the desert there is no water, but occasionally if one is fortunate he may come in contact with an oasis and he is saved. Similarly in this material world we are drying up due to lack of spiritual knowledge. Our ISKCON centers are meant to give relief to the dried up conditioned souls who are searching after the nectar of joyful life.” -- Read more ›

New Vrindaban daily Darsan @ December 25, 2013.
→ New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

Link for more photos …
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To drink: the freely flowing streams are filled with clear sweet water as nectar. To eat: the dried leaves from the trees are foods as palatable as one could desire. The warm breezes are just as one would have them. To reside: there are clean mountain caves and other suitable residences. Alas! Alas! How unfortunate I would be if I wished to leave Vrindavana!

It was a good year – Welcome 2014!
→ KKSBlog

2014 greetings kksblog

I wish you a happy Hare Krishnamas. 2013 has been a wonderful year and things are getting even better.  However we had our fair share of problems – bad hosting, being offline for a week, uploading not working… but we pulled through! And, we did amazing things – new Facebook profile, new newsletter, new media page, new hosting, improved speed. Some other new features include the author displayed on each post and a refreshed layout. There is more good stuff in the planning!

KKSBlog numbers for 2013

statistics countries 2013 kksblog

Click to zoom

  • received 8510 page views/month
  • most visitors came from South Africa, India and the UK
  • our best month was November 2013 in terms of number of views
  • had 400+ new articles posted
  • most read article was “Strong Medicine” with 848 views
  • was offline for one week
  • is using 35 GB of data
  • has 6780 photos and 486 mp3 files

Our Team

Who gives you the daily news? And who creates all these wonderful quotes and transcripts? This is not possible without the constant work & energy of our core team. We like to say an extra special thank you to:

Our team is much bigger. Check out our team page

Our Backers

KKSBlog is made up of our team and supported financially by our backers. All in all, it is a community effort and were are very happy that it works out beautifully. We like to thank our backers that supported us in 2013 and will hopefully support us in the future again. Special thanks to:

  • Aindavi dd, Australia
  • Anonymous
  • Astha Sakhi dd, Netherlands
  • Bahulasva das, Sweden
  • Csaba Szabo, Hungary
  • Csitraketu das, Csaba Szabó, Hungary
  • Doyal Govinda das, Germany
  • Gita Govinda devi dasi, The Netherlands
  • Govardhanesvari dd, Germany
  • Keshava Madhava das, Switzerland
  • Madhava das – Mica Pilsbury, Australia
  • Nadia mani dd, Netherlands
  • Nama rupa devi dasi, Sweden
  • Padmanabha, Australia
  • Ravindra Svarupa Das, The Netherlands
  • Shiva Nanda, Syama Chandra das, Australia
  • Stritama Shereitt, Hawai
  • Subash Velagapudi – Sudama das
  • Sveta Ganga dd, Nayanabhirama d, Australia
  • Vanessa Schutz, Switzerland
  • Yajneshvar Arumugam

Our backers supported us financially with almost 1800 euro. Visit our support page for all the details.

 

2014 – Things to come

2014 will be a year of “things to come”. We started in Nov 2013 by making all the albums of Kadamba Kanana Swami available for purchase & download. More media will be added in the coming months. Nama-rupa dd from Sweden is helping us to edit our mp3 media collection. Thanks to Saurabh Agrawal, we have corrected many problems with our website. This proves yet again that KKSBlog is a community effort, already running for 8 years. Lets continue it…!

2014 Already??! – What did i miss?

A lot.

We have also launched the new media page. Here you will find media and links from Kadamba Kanana Swami and Jayadvaita Swami. All audio albums by Kadamba Kanana Swami are easily available…

http://www.kksblog.com/media

Other updated pages
http://www.kksblog.com/support/
http://www.kksblog.com/servantfund/
http://www.kksblog.com/volunteer/
http://www.kksblog.com/sitemap/

Finally, thank you to you, OUR READER, for following KKSBlog and for liking & sharing our posts!

Narcissus Flowers for Krishna in New Vrindaban
→ New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

Narcissus for Krsna

By Lilasuka dasi

Perhaps you’ve seen them.  If you’ve been up on the second floor of the Radha Vrindaban Chandra temple building, you’ve probably seen the beautiful “paper white narcissus” flowers growing in the front window.  Their brilliant white color thrives on all the direct sunlight there.  ECOV is growing these durable, fragrant flowers inside, during the cold winter months, for offering to the Deities.

Narcissus Flowers Bloom in the temple.

Narcissus Flowers Bloom in the temple.

Most of the mature narcissus have already been picked and offered, but see the new baby ones coming up!  By planting 125 a week, a steady supply is available for Their Lordships Radha Vrindaban Chandra.

Krsna says in the Bhagavad Gita, “If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, flower, fruit or water, I will accept it.” [BG 9.26]   Srila Prabhupada’s vision for New Vrindaban included self-sufficiency, along with four other aspects, all for the purpose of loving Krsna.  So, the growing of these lovely little, aromatic narcissus flowers is a small part of fulfilling that vision.

Baby Narcissus Plants Patiently Wait their Turn

Baby Narcissus Plants Patiently Wait their Turn

Bhadrinarayan Das on Strategic Planning
→ ISKCON News

Badrinarayan Dasa has been a member of ISKCON’s Governing Body Commission (GBC) since 1987.  He became a member of ISKCON in 1970, and was initiated by Srila Prabhupada the following year in Los Angeles.  An eloquent speaker, he is noted for his discourses which link current affairs with spiritual matters in a very relevant and practical way. 

Rain or Shine, the Show must go on!!
→ ISKCON Malaysia

BY MULAKARANAM DASA

More photos here

KLANG - 19th Annual Chariot Festival, the Ratha Yatra Klang, a grand finish despite the heavy rain! Well done organisers! It was a stunning experience with the Bengoli devotees came out in full force chanting and dancing. They distributed their own T-shirts beautiful bright yellow with black wordings. HH Janananda Goswami Maharaja and another sannyasi from Australia added great blissful feeling to the visitors and devotees. Hari Hari Bol! All Glories to Srila Prabhupada!

 

 

An Unforgettable Night – Candlelit Sunday Feast
→ The Toronto Hare Krishna Temple!

With the City of Toronto in the throes of city-wide power outages due to a massive ice storm which had hit the city overnight on Saturday, there were more than a few pensive moments as the temple scrambled to keep things going with no power.  The lack of power meant no lights, no heat, no hot water in the temple.

However, spirits remained high and all of the aratis (services) and offerings for our beautiful Deities, Sri Sri Radha Ksira-Chora Gopinatha, went right on schedule.  As Sunday wore on, it became evident that we wouldn't have power for our weekly Sunday Feast.  At first, we thought nobody would show up, but we decided the show must go on and planned a simple evening program.  Of course, the temple was hosting HG Vaisesika prabhu and HG Nirakula mataji and their presence took things from "simple" to "simply wonderful"!

What played out was a stunningly beautiful Sunday Feast, with (amazingly) approximately 100 guests present.  Candles were placed ALL around the Temple Room and with no microphones, it was pin-drop silence that welcomed each inspiring word that HG Vaisesika prabhu spoke.  Everyone's collected voices chanted in kirtans that warmed the heart, if not the entire body!

Of course, words can only say so much.  So allow us to present some stunning pictures from the event.  Captured with high exposure and wide aperture settings (thanks to Tarun and Manish prabhus), we were able to capture some incredible visuals from the program, despite the very low lighting!  These might very well arguably be some of the best photos of 2013!  Check them out: