Websites from the ISKCON Universe
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 02 October 2013, Melbourne, Australia, Srimad Bhagavatam 2.3.2-7)
Fanaticism means that we have a conviction that is without knowledge and realization. It is a conviction that is born out of other motives. We want to be advanced and recognized because of ulterior motives. In fanaticism, the motive is not Krsna’s pleasure; the motive is our pleasure – name, fame, glory and recognition; all these things are at the root of fanaticism.
Krsna consciousness is meant to be natural but purified naturalness. So, we must learn; we need knowledge and we need to adjust our life according to knowledge. The first point is adau guru-padashraya; first accept the guru-principle, not first accept a spiritual master! First accept the guru-principle that you are dependent on the directions of teachers. Do not doctor yourself.
So after the joy of Kartika, and holding the second community Diwali then having one of the busiest visits to the Manor the past week has been relatively quiet a time to ponder and reflect.
December is looming and speaking to most of my clients and their relatives they are gearing up for Christmas, presents and food to buy for what should be one of the main Christian celebrations but unlike Kartika and Diwali were there is at least an understanding of the need to visit the temple few see the need to visit the church; each midnight mass I attend there is fewer and fewer in the puws whilst the temple appeared to be much more fuller this year.
So the month gives us a remarkable opportunity to reawaken the spirit soul to love of God (love of Krishna); Yes how much do we love Srila Prabhupada, how much do we desire to relieve others material suffering?
It’s the Christmas Book Marathon.
And before you get the excuse book out, it is not a temple devotee only activity but anyone’s and everyone’s young and old; even if it’s one small booklet or may be we can make it a gift for a loved one; these books are for sharing.
Weekend Warriors will always make you welcome, senior devotees will welcome you with open arms, Srila Prabhupada will beam the biggest smile, Sri Krishna will reciprocate; you will have the greatest joy.
Bring the love of Krishna into Christmas and remind the world of the real spiritual joy Jesus talked about.
SB 06.03.24 who is the better crazy person? 2011-09-14 Bhakti Sangam Russian
“One of Srila Prabhupada’s disciples in Bombay said, ‘Srila Prabhupada, the mango season is just beginning. You should stay in Bombay now.’ And Srila Prabhupada replied, ‘Preaching in the snows of Moscow is sweeter that any mango.’ ”
The thing with smartphones is your never ever away, so e-mails are received immediately but some stand out more than others, and some bring a smile and inspire.
This week I received such an e-mail so much so I checked to see if it could be shared, mainly as many live outside of the temple, work and study the balance is always difficult between the spiritual needs and practical work/study needs; so this was a deep realization from one of our shining young bhakta’s
Hare Krishna,
Dhirabhakta das,
Please accept my humble obesiances,
All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
How are you? How’s your health?
Feels like ages since we last spoke.
I am surviving, hanging on by someone’s dhoti, year 2 is most definately alot more intense. In the midst of it all I am actually enjoying it , I must be sick.
So 2 weeks ago we get an assignment, a programming assignment, I started and was getting through it quite well.
All of a sudden I hit a massive brick wall , my head hurts and I am lost in a warp of logic, if this equals that and I need to output this or that blah blah.
I stopped and started chanting, sitting infront of my altar praying to Sri Sri RadhaGokulananda, Sri Sri Sita Ram , Laxman and Hanuman as well as Sri Jagannath, Balarama and Subdra as well as Sri Sri Radha Kunjabihari. “I CANT DO THIS” was the extent of my cries and begging for help and mercy.
Well two weeks later I have finished the assignment a week before deadline and the test on it is next week (blessings request 
So amazed at how their Lordships have reciprocated. The assignment is a paired exercise, so after my requests to their lordships, literally the best programmers who are light years ahead of me approached me and asked if I wanted to work with them. Whilst feeling overwhelmed instantly as I walked back from uni that day I had a conversation with Sri Krishna and explained how grateful I was for him sending the help and answering my SOS. Stating all the way I knew it was him, I just knew it.
I am speechless whilst overwhelmed.
Its so true, the lord can make the impossible , possible , I could not have dreamed of the way Sri Krishna helped me to even ask for the help he gave.
Its so helpful as I am swimming in work, one module ends another begins and blah blah and all I think of doing is finishing my rounds, an improvement on last year whereby I wouldnt finish them all but since May 2013 and the start of this academic year, its the first thing I do.
I know its NOT a business we are in and how much of a rascal I remain but boy it is so reassuring knowing THE LORD, I mean THE LORD is there hearing you and reciprocating accordingly. Whilst I always knew its just weird realising. As Srila Prabhupada says, “self realisation” and as HG Prayojana says, “Self Realisation, not people realisation” hehe
So I just wanted to share this episode with you as its thanks to you I am and never will I forget how much you did for me back then and still continue to do, so BIG THANK YOU..
All glories to Sri Guru and Sri Gauranga
your servant,
dee
They also included this wonderful video
Devotee volunteers from ISKCON invited the public to offer what they called 'lamps of love' to Krishna. Most of the visitors came forward to participate in the festivity with a lot of enthusiasm. "I am living away from home, and Diwali is not so grand when we are away. But offering this lamp here to, it has surely made it a wonderful Diwali for me" said Ankita Agarwal, 2nd year student at MCC. Read more › 
Our Food for Life North Florida program has been delivering prasadam to the needy in our community for about a year now. Temple volunteers prepare and package the meals every Friday, and drivers distribute them to various families and individuals in greater Alachua Read more › 
After a full year of exciting individual events all over the world ISKCON’s 50th anniversary will culminate in one huge event in either India or the US. “Look, we’re the Hare Krishnas. We’ve been here for fifty years, and we’re still strong, still standing, and we’re going to be here for another fifty and beyond.” Read more › 
Indradyumna Swami: After our month-long parikrama finished, I just kept walking ...
[ Photos by me :) ] Read more › 
The post All glories to Caitanya-Nitai Prabhu from Leicester England appeared first on SivaramaSwami.com.
Sri Sri Radha Gopinath – Mangal Arati
(this blog is recorded on the full page: quick time player is needed; works best with Firefox or Explorer; if you are using Google Chrome it will automatically play, so to not listen, mute your speakers.)
My wife, Archana-siddhi, a veteran facilitator of the wildly successful japa retreats of some years ago, presented a class on japa at our small temple. After our signature arotik and kirtan with guitar, mandolin, and vocal harmony, she began her talk in her favorite facilitator style by asking the class to write down why they chant japa. Fortunately, as she discovered by asking, everyone present chanted japa on their beads at least some days if not regularly. Then, as she had hoped, we all found the shared answers inspiring, hearing some perspectives we hadn’t considered in the exercise, but thoroughly appreciated.
While we generally cite certain verses in Vedic scripture proclaiming that Shri Chaitanya, the avatar for this age, came to propagate the congregational chanting of the holy name, chanting japa is a very important aspect of the life of a sadhaka, or spiritual practitioner in Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Lord Chaitanya and his followers all took a vow to chant a certain amount of japa. The general principle is to always remember Krishna and never forget him, and it could be argued that the holy name is the same whether in kirtan or in japa—and for many devotees, kirtan is easier to do than japa—which brings us to today’s topic, of why should we chant japa.
Those who chant 16 rounds of japa on their beads find it takes from 2-3 hours, so why can’t we just do kirtan for that time? Certainly we can do that if we have a taste, and yet, we find that new initiates take a vow to chant a certain amount of rounds of japa, rather than to do a certain amount of kirtan. From this we can conclude that chanting japa is not less important than kirtan. Many of the leading kirtaneers consider that their focused japa helps the purity and taste of their kirtan.
From Sanjay Agarwal P
Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 2.10.26
निरभिद्यत शिश्नोवै प्रजानन्दामृतार्थिनः।
उपस्थ आसीत् कामानां प्रियंतदुभयाश्रयम्।।
nirabhidyata śiśno vai prajānandāmṛtārthinaḥ;
upastha āsīt kāmānāṁ priyaṁ tad-ubhayāśrayam.
A penis certainly differentiated itself on the Universal Body, as a result of the desire to experience the bliss of procreation and the endeavor for immortality. The deity of procreation generated the counterpart genital, the vulva, and the two things required to enjoy sexual pleasure: desire and affection.
In the Bhaktivedanta Purport on this verse, Śrīla Prabhupāda comments: “The impersonalist must know from this verse that the Lord is not impersonal, for He has His genitals.”
This verse comes in a section where Śukadeva answers Parīkṣit’s request to more clearly explain the relationship between the objects in the universe and the Universal Form of the Puruṣa (Original Person). Śuka explains how each sense became manifest on the Universal Form as a result of specific desires, and thereafter how a divinity of perception empowered that sense and generated the corresponding sense objects, thus creating the template or blueprint from which all of the senses, sense perceptions, and sense objects in the universe could later become manifest.
The whole context of answering this question is as a way to demonstrate that God is the Ultimate Refuge of everything, and everything is dependent on him – because this is the 10th and most important theme of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, which Śuka is about to begin reciting to Parīkṣit.
The genitalia is one of the 10 sense organs, so at a certain point in the discussion Śuka explains how it manifest. All the organs are described as appearing by way of nirabhidya or ruruha, which means “differentiating” or “sprouting” respectively. This is a very fascinating image, which is similar to how an embryo develops into a fetus. Śrīla Prabhupāda noted this in an earlier commentary, and I appreciated that this can also be one reason why the Universal Form is said to exist within the “Womb-Ocean” (garbhodaka).
The penis (śiśno) differentiated itself (nirabhidyata) on the Universal Form… certainly (eva). Why “certainly” has to be said? Maybe to make it emphatic so listeners are not like, “What? Are you serious?” Or maybe to show that the genitals are an especially important organ.
What desire caused the penis to appear/differentiate itself on the Universal Form? A two-fold desire: (1) the bliss of procreating (praja-ananda); and (2) the quest for immortality (amṛta-artha). Each desire has two meanings. “The bliss of procreating” means (i) the happiness that arises from children, and (ii) the pleasure inherent in the act of procreation itself. The two meanings of “the quest for immortality” are: (i) the inherent instinct to create new life to avoid extinction – a type of immortality (here amṛta literally means immortality); (ii) the desire to enjoy nectar, heavenly pleasure (Here amṛta figuratively means “nectar” – the elixir of immortality).
Essentially, two simultaneous desires in the universal blueprint cause genitals to exist in the universe: the desire to enjoy and the desire to procreate.
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s comment indicates that these two are interwoven, a singular two-fold desire, and cannot be separated. “No one would have taken the trouble to maintain children if there were no taste of heavenly nectar by means of sexual intercourse.”
Genitals are empowered to fulfill their two-fold purpose by means of two divine powers: (1) lusty desire (kāmānāṁ) and (2) affection (priyaṁ). The word lust need not be read with a negative connotation here. It should be read as “desire” with the sense of sexual desire. The genital will not function without these two empowerments. There has to be sufficient desire (kāma) for children and pleasure, or else the genital will not prepare itself for activity. And there has to be sufficient affection (priya) for the sexual partner, otherwise the pleasure involved will be quite deficient and disturbing. Another meaning here is that desire (kāma) empowers the genital to fulfill it’s purpose of enjoying nectar and procreative bliss, while affection (priya) empowers it to fulfill its other purpose: creating new life and raising children correctly.
The word “genital” appears twice in this śloka; in the first half of the verse as śiśnaḥ, and in the second half as upastha. The first, śiśnaḥ primarily refers to the male genital, a penis – because the root of that word indicates penetration. The second, upastha, primarily refers to the female genital, a vulva – because the root of this word connotes a receptive area. Ācāryas analyzing this śloka, Śrīla Prabhupāda and Śrīla Viśvanātha for example, indicate that the vulva is produced in the universe as a result of the Universal Form generating a penis.
Feminists may sometimes take exception to the vulva being denoted as the sense object and the penis being denoted as the sense organ. An explanation could be offered that this relationship is relative to the Universal Form. However I don’t imagine that this explanation alone would fully satisfy most objectors. It would therefore take a bit of patient, well-educated, and careful explanation to help them understand why the Absolute Truth possess both male and female characteristics – primarily adopting the male character as his own subjective point of view and investing the female character into all the divinity that eternally emanates from him. Some elaboration on this seems required to fully answer such an objection, since this masculinity of the Universal Form,and femininity of the Universe is a reflection of that intrinsic dynamic in the Absolute Entity.
The name of the divinity of the genital is curiously lacking from, or hidden in, this śloka, unlike most other ślokas in this section. Viśvanātha Ṭhākur takes praja in prajānanda to indirectly indicate Prajapati as the divinity of genital perception. Prabhupāda follows this in his translation. Prajapati literally means “master of procreation.” In keeping with this, and in deference to the fact that the literal demigods who bear the names of these divine powers have not yet been created when this “fetal development” of the Universal Form is happening, I identify praja as the divinity of genital perception and translate the term as, “the divinity of procreation.”
In closing, it is amazing how many people are shocked to hear that God has a penis. For sure its not an ugly, exploitive, misappropriated penis such as we have sole experience of among the various temporary forms of pretenders to masculinity amongst the expansive species in this world. Nonetheless, God has a penis. Call it a “divine penis” if it helps. Realization of divine beauty of this fact will help us lose obsession with our own genitalia and gain the liberating fascination with his. Surely this is beyond the level of many readers to comprehend – but it’s nice to throw some ideas out there over people’s heads every once in a while. It tends to make them try to reach up a little higher.
Hare Krishna.
