Websites from the ISKCON Universe
Panoramic Magazine with most worldwide Janmastami events from all over the globe Read more › Bhakti Charu Swami, Bhagavatam class.
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Next time you land at Kolkata at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Domestic Terminal, you will be greeted by a big banner of Sri Mayapur in the baggage section. An initiative of Mayapur Tourism, after a long term of over three years discussions, repeated meetings, approaching different authorities and sending several designs for approval Airport [...]
The post Sri Mayapur in the Airport appeared first on Mayapur.com.
A lecture by Sri Srimad Gour Govinda Swami on Janmastami Lord Sri Krishna's appearance day. Read more › 
Indradyumna Swami: Tomorrow is our last harinam of the summer and the final festival of the season. Many of us are already crying .... Read more › 
Today we were told by Angira Muni Prabhu (Congregation Development Director for Russia) that there are about 535 BV Groups all over Russia and CIS countries.400 groups in Russia alone. Jai!!!!!! It is growing wild in Russia...... Read more › 
Reaching out to a suffering world is high on Srila Prabhupada’s priority list, and his call to spread Krsna consciousness is legendary. So we risk no heresy by asking the obvious question: Why doesn’t our presentation resonate with more people? Read more › 
“Janmastami is not just an ordinary day! We must celebrate Janmastami – it is our spiritual duty! It is actually a day when we can permanently deepen our relationship with Krsna!”
“One detail that is given is that at the time when Krsna appeared, Nanda Maharaj was giving charity. He opened up his treasury and allowed everyone to go inside and take whatever they wanted. Now you can imagine if they would do that to us, right? ‘Bring the truck! Bring the train! Bring another truck! You said we could take everything we desired!‘ With a magnifying glass, we would pick up the last lost pearl left in the dust in the corner. But somehow or other, everyone went into the treasury of Nanda Maharaj, took whatever they desired and was fully satisfied yet still there was something left for Nanda Maharaj. Everyone was satisfied like this. So, we see that the residents there were all wonderful personalities, all wonderful devotees. In the whole environment where Krsna appeared, everything became so favourable, so wonderful. In this way, we need not be foolishly attached to the little bit of pleasure that is here in this material world. The pleasure of the spiritual abode of Krsna is unlimitedly greater! There is no need to hesitate for a moment! Let’s run! Let’s run towards the spiritual world, not drag our feet!”
“If we want to go fast, if we really want to go quickly to Krsna then we must fill the maximum amount of time, we must use the maximum amount of our energy simply for glorifying Krsna. That can be done in many ways – it can be done by energy, can be done by possessions, can be done by intelligence, can be done by wit – but somehow or other, we must always glorify Krsna”
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, Goloka Dhama, Abentheuer, Germany, August 2006)
“Krsna is the all-attractive, all-good, all-kind Supreme Personality of Godhead; the friend of all living beings. He is the reservoir of pleasure. There is no limit to Krsna’s kindness, no limit to Krsna’s mercy. Although he is atmaram, he is totally satisfied within himself and has no need for anything, still Krsna feels something lacking when a living being goes to the material world. Why is Krsna getting impatient? He is not getting impatient for himself. He is not getting impatient just because he can’t wait for us to return. He is getting impatient because he knows that we are unfulfilled even if we are not terribly suffering! There is no other destiny than to be unfulfilled, outside of the spiritual world, outside of a relationship with Krsna. Therefore, when Krsna is applying a little bit of force to bring us back, that is for our own good because here there is no way, no way that we can be fulfilled.”
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, Durban, South Africa, 2009)
“Janmastami is not just an ordinary day! We must celebrate Janmastami – it is our spiritual duty! It is actually a day when we can permanently deepen our relationship with Krsna!”
“One detail that is given is that at the time when Krsna appeared, Nanda Maharaj was giving charity. He opened up his treasury and allowed everyone to go inside and take whatever they wanted. Now you can imagine if they would do that to us, right? ‘Bring the truck! Bring the train! Bring another truck! You said we could take everything we desired!‘ With a magnifying glass, we would pick up the last lost pearl left in the dust in the corner. But somehow or other, everyone went into the treasury of Nanda Maharaj, took whatever they desired and was fully satisfied yet still there was something left for Nanda Maharaj. Everyone was satisfied like this. So, we see that the residents there were all wonderful personalities, all wonderful devotees. In the whole environment where Krsna appeared, everything became so favourable, so wonderful. In this way, we need not be foolishly attached to the little bit of pleasure that is here in this material world. The pleasure of the spiritual abode of Krsna is unlimitedly greater! There is no need to hesitate for a moment! Let’s run! Let’s run towards the spiritual world, not drag our feet!”
“If we want to go fast, if we really want to go quickly to Krsna then we must fill the maximum amount of time, we must use the maximum amount of our energy simply for glorifying Krsna. That can be done in many ways – it can be done by energy, can be done by possessions, can be done by intelligence, can be done by wit – but somehow or other, we must always glorify Krsna”
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, Goloka Dhama, Abentheuer, Germany, August 2006)
“Krsna is the all-attractive, all-good, all-kind Supreme Personality of Godhead; the friend of all living beings. He is the reservoir of pleasure. There is no limit to Krsna’s kindness, no limit to Krsna’s mercy. Although he is atmaram, he is totally satisfied within himself and has no need for anything, still Krsna feels something lacking when a living being goes to the material world. Why is Krsna getting impatient? He is not getting impatient for himself. He is not getting impatient just because he can’t wait for us to return. He is getting impatient because he knows that we are unfulfilled even if we are not terribly suffering! There is no other destiny than to be unfulfilled, outside of the spiritual world, outside of a relationship with Krsna. Therefore, when Krsna is applying a little bit of force to bring us back, that is for our own good because here there is no way, no way that we can be fulfilled.”
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, Durban, South Africa, 2009)
Day 1 Morning: Guru Puja, Jayapataka Swami
Agent 108 on the Moscow Film Festival, "I see God". The concert took place after the results of the competition. 25 August 2013 Read more › From Anand
Answer Podcast
Most people get a rush of exhilaration when they go to a new place and find recognition and admiration for them in the eyes of others. And some people make this fame as their supreme source of enjoyment, their primary purpose of life.
The Bhagavad-gita (16.04 – darpo abhimash) indicates that such obsession with fame characterizes the ungodly. And the next verse (16.05) states that such ungodly mentality drags people away from Krishna and liberation, and into illusion and bondage.
We are social beings and naturally need relationships. So there’s nothing wrong with seeking reciprocations wherever we go. But we don’t have to make ourselves the center of those reciprocations. Gita wisdom offers us a far more satisfying center – Krishna. Let’s understand why this divine center is preferable.
When we seek pleasure in our own glories, we sentence ourselves to perpetual insecurity. Because we don’t have too many praiseworthy qualities and abilities; because we can’t always translate whatever qualities and abilities we do have into laudable actions; and because we can’t ensure that others will notice and appreciate whatever we do achieve. Most detrimentally, our obsession with ourselves blinds us to others’ good qualities and even to the glories of Krishna. When we don’t even notice Krishna’s glories, we obviously can’t relish them and so we can’t develop prema, pure spiritual love for Krishna.
The process of devotional service helps us shift our center of attention from ourselves to Krishna. When we seek to delight in Krishna’s glories, we become forever free from insecurity and filled with gaiety. That’s because Krishna’s glories are unlimited and eternal – they never get exhausted. Once we get a taste for glorifying Krishna, then we never run out of material for relishing.
Why then should we let obsession with fame deprive us of prema?
**
16.04 - Pride, arrogance, conceit, anger, harshness and ignorance – these qualities belong to those of demoniac nature, O son of Pritha.
As long as he [the living entity] is in the city of the body, he appears to be the master of it, but actually he is neither its proprietor nor controller of its actions and reactions. He is simply in the midst of the material ocean, struggling for existence. The waves of the ocean are tossing him, and he has no control over them. His best solution is to get out of the water by transcendental Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That alone will save him from all turmoil.
Bhagavad Gita As It Is 5.14 purport
"The chanting and hearing is essence. Even when dealing with a practical problem, Srila Prabhupada was seeing it and soon speaking of it in absolute terms. Chanting especially promotes this: leave everything aside and chant the holy name. Then we can take up even our most demanding preaching duties in this world with vigor and endurance."Dear Srila Prabhupada,
Please accept my prostrated obeisances in the dust of your lotus feet.
"It's all your mercy" is common Vaishnava parlance, in the ISKCON world and beyond. This catch-all response can be anything—from routine religious jargon, to heartfelt elegance, to the deepest realisation of one's utter spiritual dependency.
Srila Bhaktivinode Thakura writes in his song to Gurudeva, "When I examine myself, I find nothing of value. Therefore your mercy is essential to me. If you are not merciful, I shall simply weep and weep, and I shall not maintain my life."
I often wondered about how he and, of course, you actually feel this declaration so extraordinarily, as your entire being.
As the years of my insignificant life roll by, I increasingly realise that any perceived faults are all mine, and any credit is all yours. Is this one short life enough to fully grasp at least half the extent of your mercy? What to speak of your disciples, even grand disciples, and their followers testify to your munificence in their life.
During your days with us in the seventies, you once commented that physical association with the guru was for neophytes. I thought at that time,"Well, all glories to the sublime theology of vani-sanga, but so that the physical association with your divine presence will always be mine, let me always remain a neophyte."
Of course, better we hold to what you write in a purport (Cc. Madhya 18.99): “Unless one is enlightened by the knowledge given by the spiritual master, he cannot see things as they are, even though he remains with the spiritual master.”
In 1977, upon your departing the ordinary vision of this world, I was convinced I had failed to attain you. Concluding that any chance for a close relationship with you had left along with your physical presence, I resigned myself to helping the next generation of devotees not to miss out as I had. Vigorously urging your fledgling grand disciples to value the physical presence of their guru with utmost care, I would instruct them to seek every opportunity to have it.
After your departure, the constantly overpowering strains, agonies, and dangers of preaching behind the former Iron Curtain consumed my life—no time to continue lamenting about your disappearance. But during such bleak years there, when the atheistic communists, sure of their permanence, ruled with iron fists of terror their sealed-off kingdoms, your vani association caught this young foolish fugitive-devotee by surprise.
In testimony to your kindness upon even a insignificant jiva, I submit this poem written way back in the eighties, during my Iron Curtain years, for the glorification of your 2013 Vyasa-puja.
East Europe Bhajana
Part One (1977)
Sailing with devotees on the ISKCON-Los Angeles sea
hoping His Divine Grace, the captain,
would personally lead me
With good faith I endeavored
every day
Sure that his pure glance
would soon cast my way
Then he left
though I was still immature
My hopes for his divine sanga
crashed to the floor
Too young to have been with him
Too old to forget him
Certainly this was a very precarious situation
Alas, come what may . . .
the mission must push on
Maybe in fifty lifetimes . . .
I'll again see his form
Part Two (1978-79)
Sailing alone on a most dangerous sea
with no hope that Srila Prabhupada
would come and rescue me
My ship is very tiny
yet the ego-mast is tall
I'm completely insignificant
and my service is so small
Naturally Srila Prabhupada ignored such a fool
I wasn’t worthy of the chance to be his tool
Part Three (1980)
Sailing alone on a most dangerous sea
certain that Srila Prabhupada
will never find me
Smash!
Down comes the door to my
sealed-off heart
"You can't come in here," I protest
"It's too late to start!"
"Surrender to your spiritual master,"
you majestically declare,
"About your rationalizations,
I definitely don't care"
Part Four (1982)
Sailing alone on a most dangerous sea
Sometimes does Srila Prabhupada stand
right beside me?
Becoming a little eager to serve him
according to his direction
Why does Srila Prabhupada shower
such care and affection?
Without his instructions
I'm a useless fool
Maybe one day I can actually
become his tool
O Srila Prabhupada!
I write of your mercy out of
great astonishment
Please forgive me, your aspiring servant, for my offenses
Since those excruciating days, let us hope that, by your grace, I have made some advancement. Now, more than a quarter century later, this microscopic servitor simply wonders what your real devotees experience—what kind of nectar you shower upon them.
In Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Adi-lila Chapter 5, Srila Krishnadas Kaviraja Goswami confesses that the attributes of Lord Nityananda, who acted as his guru, impelled him to become a madman writing of Lord Nityananda’s mercy.
Though nothing compared to Kaviraja Goswami, yet according to the measure of our own realizations, why don’t we publicize the merciful presence of Srila Prabhupada in every ISKCON devotee’s life, through his vani-sanga, especially via his books.
The Goswami explains that generally it is not proper to reveal an account as spiritually esoteric as his, “for it should be kept as confidential as the Vedas, yet I shall speak of it to make His mercy known to all.”
Similarly, whether highly advanced or neophyte, let us all broadcast the eternal relevance of Srila Prabhupada’s mercy for all generations of ISKCON devotees.
Clarifying his motivations, Kaviraja Goswami explains: “O Lord Nityänanda, I write of Your mercy out of great exultation. Please forgive me for my offenses.”
He concludes: “Who in this world but Nityänanda could show His mercy to such an abominable person as me?”
Seeking to follow these perfect parampara footsteps, in my imperfect capacity, I end: Who in this world but you, Srila Prabhupada, could show his mercy and kindness to such a guilty transgressor as me?”
Dear Srila Prabhupada,
Please accept my prostrated obeisances in the dust of your lotus feet.
"It's all your mercy" is common Vaishnava parlance, in the ISKCON world and beyond. This catch-all response can be anything—from routine religious jargon, to heartfelt elegance, to the deepest realisation of one's utter spiritual dependency.
Srila Bhaktivinode Thakura writes in his song to Gurudeva, "When I examine myself, I find nothing of value. Therefore your mercy is essential to me. If you are not merciful, I shall simply weep and weep, and I shall not maintain my life."
I often wondered about how he and, of course, you actually feel this declaration so extraordinarily, as your entire being.
As the years of my insignificant life roll by, I increasingly realise that any perceived faults are all mine, and any credit is all yours. Is this one short life enough to fully grasp at least half the extent of your mercy? What to speak of your disciples, even grand disciples, and their followers testify to your munificence in their life.
During your days with us in the seventies, you once commented that physical association with the guru was for neophytes. I thought at that time,"Well, all glories to the sublime theology of vani-sanga, but so that the physical association with your divine presence will always be mine, let me always remain a neophyte."
Of course, better we hold to what you write in a purport (Cc. Madhya 18.99): “Unless one is enlightened by the knowledge given by the spiritual master, he cannot see things as they are, even though he remains with the spiritual master.”
In 1977, upon your departing the ordinary vision of this world, I was convinced I had failed to attain you. Concluding that any chance for a close relationship with you had left along with your physical presence, I resigned myself to helping the next generation of devotees not to miss out as I had. Vigorously urging your fledgling grand disciples to value the physical presence of their guru with utmost care, I would instruct them to seek every opportunity to have it.
After your departure, the constantly overpowering strains, agonies, and dangers of preaching behind the former Iron Curtain consumed my life—no time to continue lamenting about your disappearance. But during such bleak years there, when the atheistic communists, sure of their permanence, ruled with iron fists of terror their sealed-off kingdoms, your vani association caught this young foolish fugitive-devotee by surprise.
In testimony to your kindness upon even a insignificant jiva, I submit this poem written way back in the eighties, during my Iron Curtain years, for the glorification of your 2013 Vyasa-puja.
East Europe Bhajana
Part One (1977)
Sailing with devotees on the ISKCON-Los Angeles sea
hoping His Divine Grace, the captain,
would personally lead me
With good faith I endeavored
every day
Sure that his pure glance
would soon cast my way
Then he left
though I was still immature
My hopes for his divine sanga
crashed to the floor
Too young to have been with him
Too old to forget him
Certainly this was a very precarious situation
Alas, come what may . . .
the mission must push on
Maybe in fifty lifetimes . . .
I'll again see his form
Part Two (1978-79)
Sailing alone on a most dangerous sea
with no hope that Srila Prabhupada
would come and rescue me
My ship is very tiny
yet the ego-mast is tall
I'm completely insignificant
and my service is so small
Naturally Srila Prabhupada ignored such a fool
I wasn’t worthy of the chance to be his tool
Part Three (1980)
Sailing alone on a most dangerous sea
certain that Srila Prabhupada
will never find me
Smash!
Down comes the door to my
sealed-off heart
"You can't come in here," I protest
"It's too late to start!"
"Surrender to your spiritual master,"
you majestically declare,
"About your rationalizations,
I definitely don't care"
Part Four (1982)
Sailing alone on a most dangerous sea
Sometimes does Srila Prabhupada stand
right beside me?
Becoming a little eager to serve him
according to his direction
Why does Srila Prabhupada shower
such care and affection?
Without his instructions
I'm a useless fool
Maybe one day I can actually
become his tool
O Srila Prabhupada!
I write of your mercy out of
great astonishment
Please forgive me, your aspiring servant, for my offenses
Since those excruciating days, let us hope that, by your grace, I have made some advancement. Now, more than a quarter century later, this microscopic servitor simply wonders what your real devotees experience—what kind of nectar you shower upon them.
In Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Adi-lila Chapter 5, Srila Krishnadas Kaviraja Goswami confesses that the attributes of Lord Nityananda, who acted as his guru, impelled him to become a madman writing of Lord Nityananda’s mercy.
Though nothing compared to Kaviraja Goswami, yet according to the measure of our own realizations, why don’t we publicize the merciful presence of Srila Prabhupada in every ISKCON devotee’s life, through his vani-sanga, especially via his books.
The Goswami explains that generally it is not proper to reveal an account as spiritually esoteric as his, “for it should be kept as confidential as the Vedas, yet I shall speak of it to make His mercy known to all.”
Similarly, whether highly advanced or neophyte, let us all broadcast the eternal relevance of Srila Prabhupada’s mercy for all generations of ISKCON devotees.
Clarifying his motivations, Kaviraja Goswami explains: “O Lord Nityänanda, I write of Your mercy out of great exultation. Please forgive me for my offenses.”
He concludes: “Who in this world but Nityänanda could show His mercy to such an abominable person as me?”
Seeking to follow these perfect parampara footsteps, in my imperfect capacity, I end: Who in this world but you, Srila Prabhupada, could show his mercy and kindness to such a guilty transgressor as me?”
One of my favourite stories is the one about the boiling frog, who simply fails to realise that the water is getting hotter. His failure to comprehend the incremental rise in temperature (he’d jumped into a pan of cool water on an outdoor fire, you see) spelled his death. Similarly, the heat of fashionable nouveau atheism is increasing all around us. One writer who regularly does notice – and speaks up about it – is Melanie Phillips. I want to share her latest piece with you today.
Like a poorly knotted woggle, the attempt by the Girl Guides to rope in the new generation is now steadily unravelling.
In June, the Guides announced they were changing the historic promise made by all Guides and Brownies from ‘to love my God’ to ‘be true to myself and develop my beliefs’.
They would also drop the pledge to ‘serve my country’, which was to be replaced by ‘my community’.
According to the Chief Guide, Gill Slocombe, the old promise put some girls off because they found it confusing. The new formula, she said, would be easier for Guides to make and keep.
The change – which comes into force in six days’ time – was received with horror and outrage by Christians, and left many others bemused and uneasy. It seemed to be just a crude and shallow attempt by the Guiding establishment to rebrand itself as modern, by dumping timeless values.
Much worse was to follow, though. Guide groups in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, rightly dismayed by the proposed change, announced last week that they would encourage their girls and leaders to continue to use the old promise.
In a letter written jointly with a local vicar, they insisted the movement had to keep God at its core. Impeccably fair-minded and inclusive, they also proposed to offer the new promise to anyone who might prefer that form of words.
Yet in response, Ms Slocombe said such rebels need to accept this change, and even suggested they could be forced out of the movement altogether if they did not.
So much for diversity!
For with this not-so-veiled threat, the true intention of the movement’s leaders has been laid bare. A move they claimed to be more inclusive has turned out to be entirely the opposite.
Indeed, it now stands revealed as being actively discriminatory; far from pulling down any (mythical) barriers to joining the movement, the Guide leaders are actually putting them up.
Under the spurious guise of encouraging membership by atheists, or (inexplicably) those with an aversion to serving their country, the Guides are now threatening to expel those who wish to express a religious belief.
A belief, moreover, which forms the basis of the Christian values in which the Girl Guide movement is rooted, and on which its identity rests.
Yet this movement is now actively discriminating against those who wish to proclaim the continuation of those religious values at its own core.
Having dumped God and country altogether, it is now actually forbidding Guides – on pain of excommunication – to promise to serve anything beyond themselves.
Is this not beyond perverse? For there is no reason why the new promise needs to be exclusive of any other. After all, the Scouts apparently intend to offer atheists an alternative promise rather than abandon the existing one.
Other institutions have long done something similar to accommodate both believers and non-believers. When you swear to tell the truth in court, for example, or take the oath of allegiance as a new Member of Parliament, you are given the choice to swear on the Bible or to affirm.
Just imagine if you were forbidden to give evidence in court or take your seat in Parliament if you insisted on swearing on the Bible!
Of course, this would be utterly unthinkable. And yet that is precisely what the Guides are now doing. As church leaders have pointed out, this is nothing other than secular totalitarianism.
There is thus a weary absence of surprise upon learning that the Guides’ chief executive, Julia Bentley, formerly headed an abortion and contraception group. For it is hard to think of a background which more powerfully symbolises merciless and doctrinaire individualism.
Indeed, to Ms Bentley the Guides are the ultimate feminist organisation but – tsk! – too middle-class.
Thus she revealed herself to be just another politically correct zealot, standing for the secular sectarianism of group rights.
For far from serving the whole of society, each such interest group exists to gain power over everyone else – and damns anyone who stands in its way.
Indeed, this is why ‘political correctness’ is not remotely liberal at all, but viciously oppressive. It is simply a mechanism for re-ordering the world according to a particular dogma – and thus inescapably stifles all dissent.
Innately hostile to traditional morality, it paves the way for a secular Inquisition in which today’s Torquemadas are the ideologues of such group rights – and it is Christians and other religious believers who are the heretics to be silenced by force.
It is, indeed, the principal weapon of unholy war wielded by the forces of militant secularism, which are intent upon destroying the Judeo-Christian basis of western morality.
It supplants traditional morality and the concepts of right and wrong, truth and lies by a creed which says in effect, ‘Whatever is right for you is right’.
It also seeks to replace patriotism and service to one’s country by serving ‘the community’. This is yet another slippery concept, which today can simply amount to membership of just such an interest group, which is in the business of elbowing out other interest groups in the greedy clamour for entitlements.
So the new Guiding promise is all about being true to me, myself and my beliefs, whatever they may happen to be. It represents the antithesis of duty to others. It says, more or less, ‘I promise to serve myself’.
It is a promise for a narcissistic, self-centred and morally vacuous age.
And now we can see also that it is about brutally trampling underfoot the beliefs of others. Pinch yourself: this is the Girl Guides we are talking about, for heaven’s sake!
They have now managed to embody the aggressive secularism and hyper-individualism that the retiring Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, talked about yesterday when he told BBC Radio’s Sunday Programme that British society was losing the plot.
As he said, religious faith underpins the existence of trust. When religion breaks down, trust breaks down. When society becomes secularised, the collapse of trust and the rise of individualism mean the breakdown of social institutions such as the family.
Worse than that, by replacing God with an ideology which brooks no dissent, individualism is a mechanism for illiberalism and even tyranny as these groups get their way through tactics of insult, professional ostracism or outright banning.
Now, though, some Christians are fighting back. Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester, said that he hoped many others would join the rebellion by the Harrogate Guide groups.
And now some churches are saying they will deny the Guides the use of church halls, which hitherto hundreds of their groups have used for free.
As the Rev Paul Williamson, vicar of St George’s church in Feltham, west London, has said, it would be hypocritical of the Guides to expect to use the church’s premises after abandoning its core beliefs.
That’s the spirit! Such responses show that, faced with the kind of secular intolerance that is now in danger of pushing Christianity to the very margins of society, the Church is not altogether on its knees.
Churches should deny the Guides use of their premises. Guide groups should offer the old promise, and people should refuse to join those that do not.
Only through such mass resistance will the secular zealots who have hijacked the Girl Guides be faced down, and a great institution be restored to the defence of a decent society, rather than hastening its demise.
Largest Hare Krishna temple in Latin America is haven for those who want quiet in SP Read more › 