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It's the only way we can go back home to Godhead....as much as we don't want to chant and on occassion loathe this essential practise.(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 11 September 2013, Durban, South Africa, Srimad Bhagavatam 1.3.38)
There is a part in us that does not want to surrender. That is the lazy part; it is a fight with the mind. Laziness is an affliction of the modes of ignorance and one has to fight the mode of ignorance by acting according to a proper standard. Out of laziness, when something is not a hundred percent clean then we may say, “I’ll clean it tomorrow.” But no, it must be done now!
So, by determination, one has to try and conquer this laziness. For laziness, there is no easy cure. A lazy man, because he is lazy, does not want to take the cure himself. He thinks, “Isn’t there a cure; something easy where I don’t have to do anything and I can just get rid of my laziness.”
No! Actually, one has to work to overcome laziness. That is the only solution, by doing something. Therefore we must take responsibility in devotional service because it forces a lazy person not to be lazy. Sometimes, they say that I was in charge of the samadhi construction in Mayapur and did all that. To be honest, I didn’t want to do it but they told me to do it! I still didn’t want to do it but I did it and when I was doing it, I was thinking, “I don’t want to do this.” But what to do, I was forced to do it. So, taking responsibility helps to overcome our laziness and our independent mind that doesn’t want to surrender.
The material contamination is so strong that even ayogi fully engaged in the service of the Lord sometimes becomes ensnared; but Krsna consciousness is so strong that such an occasional falldown is at once rectified. Therefore the process of devotional service is always a success.
Falling down means that due to our past conditionings or present circumstances, we succumb to temptation.
In contrast, falling away means that we give up devotional service and go away from Krishna.
Falling down is something akin to a child’s falling while learning to walk. It’s undesirable, but it’s often unavoidable – that’s just the way learning usually happens.
Nothing can make us fall away except ourselves. Temptations can make us fall down but not fall away. Why not? Because temptations don’t keep us in their grip all the time. They come, they make us fall, and then their madness subsides.
What we do at this point is critical. If we keep contemplating on the temptation, we may become agitated for another round of indulgence. Or we may become discouraged and not even try to take shelter of Krishna, thereby making ourselves vulnerable to future temptations and the resulting falls. Either way, contemplation on the temptation causes falling down to degenerate into falling away.
That’s why no matter how badly we fall, as soon as we regain our spiritual senses, we need to contemplate on Krishna. He is not a wrathful God who will despise us for our fall. That conception of Krishna comes from our misinformed imagination, not from scripture. The Bhagavad-gita (09.30) reveals his enduring love: he considers as saintly even those devotees who act abominably if they persevere in devotional service.
If we give up devotional service, Krishna won’t consider us saintly, but he will still love us. We can never do anything that can make Krishna stop loving us.
By meditating on Krishna’s unfailing love, we can gain strength to rise quickly whenever we fall. Gradually we will learn to march on without falling. And finally we will attain his abode, beyond all falls.
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09.30 - Even if one commits the most abominable action, if he is engaged in devotional service he is to be considered saintly because he is properly situated in his determination.
Vaisesika Prabhu organized the distribution of twenty-two thousand five hundred books during Ratha Yatra. The books were put in plastic bags along with other items and passed out along the parade route and at the festival grounds Read more › 
Ilford, East London Ratha Yatra, 22nd September 2013 Read more › Bhagavatam class. (English/Hungarian)
We are each born with specific gifts, work that comes naturally to us and that we do well. The perfection of engaging these gifts, according to scriptural injunctions, is for the pleasure of Krishna. This not only pleases Krishna, the Supreme Personality, but is also the means for achieving our own personal happiness Read more › 
Bhaktivedanta Academy Gurukula's mission is to provide a facility for the Academy's members to study, practice, and disseminate the teachings of Srimad Bhagavatam, along with corollary studies of the standard works of the Gaudiya Vaisnava acaryas and the branches of Vedic philosophy, culture, and science in the context of Srimad Bhagavatam and Srila Prabhupada’s teachings Read more › 
The Bhaktivedanta Cultural Center features an extraordinary exhibit of India's timeless heritage with a magnificient traditional Vedic Temple and an elaborate multimedia presentation combining exquisite sculptures with state of the art audio visual technology Read more › Video of Rupa Manjari dasi leading New Vrindaban’s 24 Hour Kirtan – June 15th, 2013.
Click here to view the video on YouTube.
Srila Prabhupada Vyasa Puja – Lecture Srila Bhakti Charu Swami. New Vraja-dhama, 2013.
Dallas Morning News,Each week we will post a question to a panel of about two dozen clergy, laity and theologians, all of whom are based in Texas or are from Texas. They will chime in with their responses to the question of the week. And you, readers, will be able to respond to their answers through the comment box.
Let’s take a break from the weariness of finding the right strategy for the Mideast and deal with sports. Namely, football.
I confess that I have — again — grown to love college football. I enjoy going to TCU games with my 10-year old son, who loves to run the field before the game and root loudly for the Horned Frogs. In fact, it is hard getting him out of a TCU T-shirt these days.
I enjoy the game because it is fast, exciting and strategic. It also is just fun watching the bands and streamers and frivolity. And, being a fan, I like to see my team(s) do well. (As a graduate of the University of Texas who grew up attending TCU games, I spread my cheering around each weekend!)
But as I watch these games, and see players carted off the field, I often inwardly wince. Am I participating in some kind of modern lions-and-Christians blood-lust? And I am doing this at someone else’s expense? The NFL just settled with retired football players to the tune of $750 million over the concussions some of them received. For some players, they have been life-altering concussions.
Related to all this, I felt sick when I picked up our paper and read that CBS Sports was putting a “Johnny Cam” to cover every move of A&M’s Johnny Manziel in his game against Alabama. The guy is a showboat, but he is still only a kid.
So, are we reaching the point where rooting for college football teams is too much? In this Christianity Today essay, Owen Strachan raises the penetrating question: Should Christian fans step away from such a physically devastating, violent sport?
I would broaden his question to ask this question:
Should people of faith who love college football step away from such a physically devastating, violent sport?
NITYANANDA CHANDRA DAS, minister of ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness), Dallas
As time progresses we invent more and more ways to waste time. Spiritual life is not meant to be belief on the backburner but rather something that actually satisfies. A satisfied soul is not interested in wasting time in material activities.
Why is time important?
Because that which you hold dear to your heart will decided where you go after death. If you are invested in the temporary, you will take birth again in this temporary world. So one should use this valuable form of human life to seek and experience the eternal by developing a loving relationship with God. Hare Krishna.
of life: People misidentify the self/soul with this temporary ever changing material body, this is called ignorance.
To see all responses of the TEXAS Faith panel click here.
“That’s not practical.” We may thus dismiss forms of spirituality that require commitment like devotional service. We usually consider as practical that which requires little commitment and makes us feel good fast.
Little do we realize that our demand for instant spirituality is like a chronically sick person’s demand for instant cure. Just as opportunist doctors fleece such patients by giving painkillers, so do opportunist spiritualist teachers by giving pop spirituality. Just as authentic doctors insist on commitment to the necessary treatment, so do authentic spiritual teachers insist on commitment to devotional service.
Narrow preconceptions of what is practical can be self-destructive. After all, sickness itself isn’t practical. It doesn’t politely accommodate itself within our practical plans. When sickness comes, especially serious sickness, we have to revise our conception of the practical and make time for the treatment. Else we become sicker, suffer terribly and die.
Gita wisdom indicates that we all are spiritually sick. We are eternal beings infected with the disease of materialism that subjects us to the sufferings of old age, disease and death – lifetime after lifetime. Our devotion to the practical can’t save us from these miseries. Only our devotion to the transcendental can save us, as the Bhagavad-gita (07.29) indicates.
That’s why we need to expand our definition of the practical to include the spiritual and make time to practice devotional service. Learning to love Krishna thus helps us discipline our stray desires, focus our mind and sharpen our intelligence. This enables us to do things earlier considered impractical, just as the recovery of health enables a sick person to do things earlier considered impractical. And ultimately redefinition of the practical to include the spiritual elevates us to Krishna’s world of love, where the spiritual becomes eternally, ecstatically practical.
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07.29 - Intelligent persons who are endeavoring for liberation from old age and death take refuge in Me in devotional service. They are actually Brahman because they entirely know everything about transcendental activities.
We are celebrating Srila Prabhupada’s arrival in the U.S.A this Thursday Sept. 26 in Srila Prabhupada’s pushpa Samadhi (aka Srila Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold). Please come if you can. Our guest speakers will be Balabhadra, Jayasri and Samkirtan Prabhus.
5:45 p.m. Bhajan
6:00 p.m. Reading – Markine Bhagavat Dharma
6:10 p.m. Realizations shared by guest speakers
6:45 p.m. Sharing from assembled devotees
7:00 p.m. Arotika for Srila Prabhupada
7:30 p.m. Prasadam
Your servant
Krpamaya das
There is a specific plan being carried out in this material world. What is this plan? This cosmic manifestation is a chance for the conditioned souls to go back to Godhead, back to home. As long as they have the domineering mentality which makes them try to lord it over material nature, they are conditioned. But anyone who can understand the plan of the Supreme Lord and cultivate Krsna consciousness is most intelligent.
Bhagavad Gita As It Is 11.33 purport
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 10 July 2013, Serbian Summer Camp, Fruska Gouranga, Seminar Part 2)
When a living being leaves the spiritual world, it is not that you were in the pastimes with Krsna then you went to the material world. Let’s say you were cowherd boy and suddenly there is one cowherd boy less! Then one day, you are back to Godhead and suddenly, there is again another cowherd boy running, “Somebody came back to Godhead!” It is not described like that.
Sanatana Goswami describes that Gopa Kumar comes back to this land and in this land everyone is absent minded. Gopa Kumar asks, “Where am I?” No one answers. Everyone is sort of looking in one direction, even the branches of the trees are pointing in that same direction, the birds are all looking in that same direction. That is the direction in which Krsna left that morning to go to the forest and all those remaining behind are looking in that direction, waiting for the evening, for the sign of that cloud of the dust coming in the sky. Before that cloud of dust, one can already hear the flute but it’s just the wind blowing into the bamboos in the forest that makes the sound of the flute. The dust is just created by some wind. It is not Krsna yet, it’s too early! So, everyone is waiting for the whole day and he sees that. So, finally when Krsna comes back from the forest and sees Gopa Kumar who in his spiritual body is known as Sarupa, he says, “Sarupa!!” Krsna sees him and faints.
And gopas who see this ask, “Who is he? Is he an agent of Kamsa?” And they are ready to get heavy. Balarama says, “No, no, no. He is actually an old friend of Krsna. Krsna is very happy to see him.” Balaram takes Sarupa by the hand and tells him, “Chant into Krsna’s ear.”
Sarupa chants into Krsna’s ear and Krsna comes back to his senses, he embraces Sarup says, “Come! You take prasadam with me!” And they go to take prasadam in the house of Nanda Maharaj who is already waiting. Radharani has cooked all these delicious sweets and actually, it turns out that Sarupa is a family member. He is related to Srimati Radharani, in the family of Sridham. Sarupa is sitting next to Krsna, then some sweets are placed on Krsna’s plate and Krsna tastes them and makes a face; horrible! Everyone is shocked, what is this? Yasoda is looking at Radharani, “What did you do? What did you make here? Are you poisoning my child?”
Krsna says, “These are inedible!” He takes the sweets and throws them on Sarupa’s plate and says, “Here, you taste them since it is your family that has produced them.” And Sarupa tastes the greatest nectar, he has not tasted such nectar ever, amazing!
So in this way he returns back to Godhead; he is not just suddenly back. No, Krsna welcomes him back personally. It is a very personal thing, going back to Godhead. It is also very personal thing when we leave; it hurts Krsna very much. So like this, yes indeed, the relationship is very personal.
The vivaha-samskara (wedding rite) offers an excellent opportunity to spiritualize thoughts, emotions, and commitments that accompany being united with one's chosen partner. A Vaishnava wedding (a wedding of devotees of Krishna) is not only a colorful, joyful ceremony but also a source of devotional inspiration for years to come. When difficulties arise in the relationship, we may ask ourselves, "How did I get into this situation? Why did I marry this person?" Then the mind will go back to the wedding day and automatically remember Lord Krishna, His devotees, and His loving service. Read more › 
The Dead Sea, also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake bordering Jordan to the east and Israel and Palestine to the west. Its surface and shores are 423 metres below sea level Read more › The post September 24th, 2013 – Darshan appeared first on Mayapur.com.
“I know people who were Krsna’s and said the chanting didn’t work for them.”
This ceremony is held every evening before sunset to please Sri Yamuna Devi, at Kesi ghat, Parikrama path, Vrindavan, Uttarpradesh, India. Sri Yamuna Maharani Ki Jaya ! Sri Radharani Ki Jaya! Read more › 
Locanananda, Radha, Mohit and Pooja are some of the devotees who help organise the many programs at the Bhakti Centre on the Gold Coast. On Janmastami there were so many guests that they streamed right out the door, down the stairs and onto the street.
Indradyumna Swami: Already 6,000 devotees have arrived at an old resort on the Black Sea for ISKCON Russia's annual Sadha Sanga Festival. More are expected over the next few days Read more › Srila Niranjana Swami Maharaja Lecture – Radhastami – New Vraja dhama, 2013.09.14.