Planet ISKCON

Lecture Podcast

Lecture Podcast

Lecture Podcast

The Mahabharata is the longest Sanskrit epic. Its longest version consists of over 100,000 shloka or over 200,000 individual verse lines (each shloka is a couplet), and long prose passages. About 1.8 million words in total, the Mahabharata is roughly ten times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined, or about four times the length of the Ramayana... Read more ›

Answer Podcast

O Kesava! O Lord of the universe! O Lord Hari, who have assumed the form of a dwarf-brahmana! All glories to You! O wonderful dwarf, by Your massive steps You deceive King Bali, and by the Ganges water that has emanated from the nails of your lotus feet, You deliver all living beings within this world Read more ›

By hook or by crook Krsna makes us surrender everything, and not only can’t we complain, he wants us to be happy about it.

View the gallery: Vamana’s Appearance Yesterday we had a very sweet festival in honor of Vamanadev’s appearance. Srila Prabhupada had told the devotees that to honor these festivals they could dress up, and worship, a small boy as the particular avatar, in this case Vamanadev. Here in Mayapur one of our gurukula boys acted as Vamanadev, […]

From Keshav Nimai P

Answer Podcast

From: Latha M
"This material world is the manifestation of the inferior energy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead." BG 9.8
how can lords energy be inferior? He is supreme and everything about the lord is superior. can you please clarify this doubt .

Answer Podcast

Welcome to the ISKCON Hare Krishna Temple in Brooklyn New York – Sri Sri Radha Govinda Mandir. Come and Visit the Temple! ISKCON - Sri Sri Radha Govinda Mandir. 305 Schermerhorn Street Brooklyn, New York. 11217. (718) 875 6127 / (347) 249-4064 Read more ›

From Rahul

Srila Prabhupad had said " All Men should remain as Brahmacharis and All Women should get married" . So by saying so , does srila Prabhupad mean sexless marriages are the best kind of marriages and are highly respected.What is the Vedic prespective on the topic of sexless marriages?

Answer Podcast

 

From Rahul

Answer Podcast

For our yatra festival on Saturday.

Lecture Podcast

Bhaktivinode Thakura, in his Sri Chaitanya Siksamrita, has described that the soul naturally evolves upwards, first from animalistic materialism, to the theistic morality of varnasrama, to vaidhi bhakti and finally to raganuga bhakti, but none of these transitions are automatic. Each requires great effort and desire to overcome the attachment to the former rung Read more ›

HH Radhanath Swami – Radharani leaves Vrindavan and comes to London to be with Londonisvara?

Niranjana Swami, Indradyumna Swami and famous international kirtaniyas as Madhava Naidoo and Bada Haridas have arrived in Evpatoriya, Ukraine for the annual Bhakti Sangam Festival. According the organizers over 10,000 devotees have registered. Yesterday night (September 16th) took place the first kirtan in the main tent. Read more ›

Presentations and People

Calgary, Alberta

We enjoyed a packed house attendance, what was literally true, a house that was packed with people in Calgary’s north east section.  It was in the residence of Asitosh and Shirpal, a Bengali family which included a feast of green subji and sweets of misty dahi and rasagula.  I’m not a great fan of sweets, but am surrendered to the mild sweet yogurt of dahi.  Nice chanting session and an attentive group was special – all an experience of previous nights.

Sahadev, the coordinator of the Krishna community, took me to a prospective new lot with building which indicates the need for an expansion for the now existing Radha Madhava Cultural Centre in downtown Calgary.  It was a healthy sign to see a bursting attendance here also for a morning session on topics from the Gita.

Last evening we spoke from verse 6.25 which reads:

“Gradually step by step, one should be situated in trance by means of intelligence sustained in full conviction.  And thus the mind should be fixed on the Self alone and should think of nothing else.”

And this morning I spoke from 3.7 where in our guru, Srila Prabhupada, in his commentary on the verse about karma yoga, expressed this:

“A sincere sweeper in the street is far better than the charlatan meditator.”

I was thrilled to be part of a second speaking engagement today at the home of a Fijian family when another squeezed in group came to listen.  It was a reading and interactive discussion on Krishna’s entering the ancient city of Mathura.  The light that glared the most for today was a three hour kirtan chanting session at Princess Island, which is hugged by the fresh water flow of the Bow River.  The public response was tremendous.

0 KM

Highway Home

Walsh, Alberta

A Doctor Brewster Higley had composed in 1870s a well known song, ‘Home On The Range’.  His description of the countryside and the atmosphere is quite spot on when venturing through the Prairies.

Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam
And the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard
A discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day.

I had three hours to trek before reaching a landmark – the Alberta border.  Two provinces to go.  Hip Hip Hari!  That milestone, Brenda and Victoria, from the town East End, joined Daruka and I for that special moment.  This called for a celebration with a picnic, compliments of our friends, the two additional walkers.  For me, the hummus was the main feature of the roadside meal before we picked up to meander the quiet streets of Walsh, population 52.

The cross-the-border-feat entailed Daruka and I leaving Highway 13 which had turned to gravel in a practically peopleless zone, and making one more leap north to the only nearby east west passage, Highway 1, or the Trans Canada Highway.  It was not so much by choice that we came to this much busier four lane road.  There is less charm here, but it was a practical move we had to make.

Obligations for an evening talk in Calgary cut the pleasant walk short today and the three of us, most notably Daruka, and let’s not forget our feathered friend Billy, and I will revisit this piece of the road Tuesday, and resume trekking the amazing trail.

I was left to contemplate on our three hour ride to Calgary of memories stuck in the mind of some fine exchanges with people from Highway 13.  It left me pining over that ‘back home feeling’.  And then, one farmer, a cattle rancher we met, who had actually turned vegetarian for a time and who had been reading the Gita, remarked in a warm tone, “I’ll be ending up life meeting a big guy who’s blue and has an extra pair of arms.”  To that, I had a laugh at the cowboy’s genuine remark.

Home, home on the range!

18 KM

I think it’s sort of funny (even maybe a little disturbing?) that a post about garlic gets more views that a post about Radharani.

BY SANTI VARDHANA CAITANYA DASA

KUALA LUMPUR - HH Bhakti Vrajendranandana Swami is in ICU Mawar hospital now.

Maharaja's mucus lining inside stomach is gone or eroded because of the liver problem.The acids are attacking the blood capillaries directly and wounding the stomach. So, blood coughs.

The Doctor just examined Maharaja, who is 10% conscious, and said if the blood shot occurs again, it may be fatal. 

Doctors say it need a miracle and prayers are the only answer.

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 25 July 2013, Durban, South Africa, Srimad Bhagavatam 1.3.6)

In the opening verse of the Hamsaduta, Srila Rupa Goswami says that he is praying that a certain blissful personality may enter into his heart. It is a nice way to start writing – about a certain blissful personality. We can see that he is meditating on how blissful Krsna is.

We don’t think like that. We are just so covered by ignorance that we think, “Alright, I have to serve Krsna otherwise I’m going to have to suffer in the material energy. Krsna gives us so many rules and…”

How often do we think of Krsna as a nice blissful personality? Actually we don’t. So our attitude has not yet developed into an attitude of appreciating Krsna, of actually seeing him as amazingly blissful.

Blissful Krsna! Everything about him is just blissful. He is the most blissful personality and everyone is looking for somebody blissful.

 

 

 

 

 

In the Brihad-Gautamiya Tantra, Radharani is described as follows:

 devi krishna-mayi prokta

radhika para-devata

sarva-lakshmi-mayi sarva

kantih sammohini para

“The transcendental goddess Srimati Radharani is the direct counterpart of Lord Sri Krishna. She is the central figure for all the goddesses of fortune. She possesses all the attractiveness to attract the all-attractive Personality of Godhead. She is the primeval internal potency of the Lord.”
Radharani is the queen of Vrndavana. She is most always seen with Lord Krishna and this year I was able to get Her divine darshan on Radhastami at New Govardhana.

Myself and Bada Haridas have arrived in Evpatoriya, Ukraine for the annual Bhakti Sangam Festival. The organizers told me over 10,000 devotees have registered. Tonight we had kirtan in the main tent. It’s difficult to describe kirtan with 10,000 enthusiastic devotees chanting and dancing in great bliss! We’ll start with just a few photos and [...]

Haribol!

All glories to Sri Sri Guru & Gauranga!
Jay Sri Krsna! Jay Srila Prabhupada!

Thank you for inviting me to this group.
I´m alreading reading the japa group messages since about two months and it´s being really enlightful. The messages are always helping me to think better and try to improve the process of chanting the Holy Names.

Thank you!

And I hope I can be inspired to never let this determination wane and keep chanting and begging fot the mercy to serve the Lord.

Your friend from Brazil,

D******* Das

Holy Name Meditation Podcast

We want to make things better, to make our life better, to make the world better. This urge for betterment drives our various activities – economical, social, cultural, political, and even religious.

Gita wisdom informs us that this urge is natural because we are meant for a better life than what we presently have. We are souls who are entitled for everlasting happiness at the spiritual level of reality.

As long as we remain uninformed about what’s available for us spiritually, we let our urge for betterment drive us towards better things at the material level. Today, people seek material improvement primarily through technology, hoping that its gadgets and comforts will make them happier. In a more religious culture, as existed in the past, people sought material progress by aspiring to go to heaven by performing elaborate religious rituals – that was their version of material technology.

Though some people today may not believe in heaven or in the rituals that take one there, the basic belief motivating both heaven-seekers and hi-tech paradise-seekers is the same. It’s the belief that better material things will make us happy. The Bhagavad-gita (09.21) exposes the falsity of that belief – even the best material things are temporary, so they can never make us truly, permanently happy.

Instead of seeking higher material happiness, Gita wisdom urges us to seek higher than material happiness. It informs us that we are entitled for far greater joys than even the best material pleasures. We can have the everlasting joys of eternal spiritual love if we just redirect our heart’s love from matter towards Krishna. When we concentrate our drive for betterment on increasing our devotion to Krishna, he reciprocates mercifully by granting us the best happiness forever. That’s alone fulfills our longing for betterment perfectly.

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09.21 - When they have thus enjoyed vast heavenly sense pleasure and the results of their pious activities are exhausted, they return to this mortal planet again. Thus those who seek sense enjoyment by adhering to the principles of the three Vedas achieve only repeated birth and death.

Everyone should attach himself to the bosom of the Supreme Personality of Godhead so that he can be eternally happy. The devotional service of the Supreme Lord is the only process by which all problems of all classes of men can be solved. Everyone should therefore take to Krishna consciousness and make his life perfect.

Bhagavad Gita As It Is 9.34 purport

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VICARU DAS
BHAKTIVEDANTA MANOR
ISKCON UK

SB.12.2.1
Sukadeva goswami said;Then ,O king, religion, truthfulness, cleanliness,tolerance,mercy,duration of life,phalysical strength and memory will all diminish day by day because of the powerful infiuence of the age of Kali.

In Kali yuga,wealth alone will be considered the siqn of the man’s good birth, proper behaviour and fine qualities. And law and justice will be applied only on the basis of one’s power

Men and women will live together merely because of superficial attraction, and success in business will depend on deceit. womenliness and manliness will be judged according to one’s expertise in sex, and a man will be known as a brahmana just by his wearing a thread

A person’s spiritual position will be ascertained merely according to external symbols, and on that same basis people will change from one spiritual order to the next. A persons propriety will be se manriously questioned if he does not earn a good living. And one who is very clever at juggling words will be considered a learned scholar

A person will be judged unholy if he does not have money, and hypocrisy will be accepted as virtue and Marriage will be arranged simply by verbal agreement, and a person will think he is fit to appear in public if he has merely taken a bath.

A sacred place will be taken to consist of no more than a reservoir of water located at a distance, and an beauty will be thought to depend on one’s hairstyle. filling the belly will become the goal of life, and one who is audacious will be accepted as truthful. He who can maintain a family will be regarded as an expert man, and the principles of religion will be observed only for the sake of reputation.

As the earth thus becomes crowded with a corrupt population, whoever among any of the social classes shows himself to be the strongest will gain political power.

Harassed by by famine and excessive taxes, people will resort to eating leaves, roots, flesh, wild honey, fruits, flowers and seeds, struck by drought,they will become completely ruined.

The citizens will suffer greatly from cold, wind, heat, rain and snow, They will be further tormented by quarrels,hunger, thirst, disease and severe anxiety and maximum duration of life for human beings will become fifty years in Kali yuga.

Pete Doherty supports Food for All last night,
5,000 people turned out at the Brixton Academy for a sold out concert.

The manager of Matchless Gifts took to the stage to introduce the band and talk a little about our prasad distribution project.

Your servant Parasuram Das

Here is the video taken at the Brixton Academy gig by Achintya