Websites from the ISKCON Universe
Here is our schedule:Love is life’s driving force. We all want to love and be loved.
Our longing for love drives our lives and our dreams – to have great looks, to earn big money, to shine professionally. Through such achievements we hope to attract the love of others or show our love for them.
Conversely, few things demotivate us as much as the feeling of being unloved, unvalued, uncared. They take away our drive to achieve, leaving us apathetic and lethargic – depressed.
And such depression seems inevitable in life. Those whom we love don’t reciprocate our love, at least not as much as we desire. And even their partially reciprocated love is terminated by time, sooner or later. Such tragedies can kill our drive to achieve, even live, thereby drowning us in a bottomless depression.
Thankfully, we can transcend such depression if we understand the Gita’s vision of a supremely loving and lovable God. Krishna always loves us, values us, cares for us – no matter what happens, even no matter what we do. He loves us so much that he constantly accompanies us as the Supersoul in our heart. Even when we keep spurning his love, He keeps striving tirelessly to change our heart so that we join him in his eternal world of love.
In fact, Krishna loves love so much that in his personal abode he conceals his divinity so that love can reign supreme. Thus, he enthrones love as existence’s crowning reality.
When we truly understand Krishna and his love, we cannot but offer all of our heart’s love to him, as the Bhagavad-gita (15.19) indicates. Then, life’s driving force never loses force, but continues forever, catalyzing us to live a fulfilling life in this world and catapulting us to an ecstatic life of eternal love in the next world.
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Whoever knows Me as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, without doubting, is the knower of everything. He therefore engages himself in full devotional service to Me, O son of Bharata.
At my lunch break and listening to Srimad Bhagavatam lecture 2.1.5 given at our temple yesterday by Gopa Vrndesh Prabhu. Drew this cartoon when these statements from the purport stood out :
“The foolish materially attached men are wasting their valuable time in the improvement of the material conditions of life by sleeping, indulging in sex life, developing economic conditions and maintaining a band of relatives who are to be vanquished in the air of oblivion.
Being engaged in all these materialistic activities, the living soul entangles himself in the cycle of the law of fruitive actions. This entails the chain of birth and death in the 8,400,000 species of life: the aquatics, the vegetables, the reptiles, the birds, the beasts, the uncivilized man, and then again the human form, which is the chance for getting out of the cycle of fruitive action.
Therefore, if one desires freedom from this vicious circle, then one must cease to act as a karmī or enjoyer of the results of one’s own work, good or bad. One should not do anything, either good or bad, on his own account, but must execute everything on behalf of the Supreme Lord, the ultimate proprietor of everything that be”.
The Supreme Lord is so full that for the deliverance of the conditioned soul He is the supplier and digester of foodstuff, the witness of his activity, and the giver of knowledge in the form of theVedas and as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Sri Krsna, the teacher of the Bhagavad-gita. He is worshipable by the conditioned soul. Thus God is all-good; God is all-merciful.
From: ankush sharma
according to varnaashram dharam a person who is working in a bank and born in brahmin family following regulative principles and chanting 16 rounds ,who is he a brahmin or a vashya.please describe.
From: ANKUSH SHARMA
how many types of bodies in spiritual world ? and how one will get that particular body and family?
From: sadhupran das
Is it okay to contribute for krsna consious purposes(like for preaching), financially even when we are personally in debt?
From: Shivam Saraogi
This is in relation to the Srila Prabhupada quote "Is a devotee an escapist." It is said that 20 generations of a devotee goes back to the spiritual world with him. Isn't this a bodily identification? Please clarify (and forgive if i have committed any offense by asking this question).
From: Prashant
Can a devotee perform the Agnihotra yagna which is prescibed to enhance the positive energy of the surroundings? Does it only helps in the material advancement or does it helps in spiritual advancement as well?
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 3 May 2013, Radhadesh, Belgium, Srimad Bhagavatam 5.19.20)
Devotee: I have also heard that there is something called jiva apradha (offense to another living entity). Is that a speculation?
Kadamba Kanana Swami: Well, udvege divasa (CC. Antya- Lila 20.40), there are such statements for example, that one should not cause any anxiety to any living being and if we do then there are also reactions; that we should know. We should be ready to offer respect to all others. It does not say to all other devotees but ”to all others”. So, there are plenty of injunctions that we should not offend any living beings but the reactions are different when we start to offend vaisnavas. But we should not just stop at the vaisnavas and treat everyone else like dirt - no, we should be respectful to everyone.
Devotee: With vaisnava apradha, it is also by speech but with jiva apradha, we may speak badly of the karmis and so on?
Kadamba Kanana Swami: Sometimes a little bad is also all right. Narottama Das Thakur says that if we have anger that we can direct it towards the non-devotee, not towards the devotee. Sometimes you have to call a “spade a spade” and call people nonsense rascals which Prabhupada liked to do very much. And Prabhupada said things like, “I kick on their face,” and that was not offensive - that was appropriate.
However when we start imitating that, it may not be appropriate because we do not have the depth and vision. We start imitating left and right, “I kick this one on the face and that one is a rascal….”
So, especially in the beginning, we must be very careful and when we become more mature then we may be able to more clearly say who is at fault.
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 3 May 2013, Radhadesh, Belgium, Srimad Bhagavatam 5.19.20)
Devotee: I have also heard that there is something called jiva apradha (offense to another living entity). Is that a speculation?
Kadamba Kanana Swami: Well, udvege divasa (CC. Antya- Lila 20.40), there are such statements for example, that one should not cause any anxiety to any living being and if we do then there are also reactions; that we should know. We should be ready to offer respect to all others. It does not say to all other devotees but ”to all others”. So, there are plenty of injunctions that we should not offend any living beings but the reactions are different when we start to offend vaisnavas. But we should not just stop at the vaisnavas and treat everyone else like dirt - no, we should be respectful to everyone.
Devotee: With vaisnava apradha, it is also by speech but with jiva apradha, we may speak badly of the karmis and so on?
Kadamba Kanana Swami: Sometimes a little bad is also all right. Narottama Das Thakur says that if we have anger that we can direct it towards the non-devotee, not towards the devotee. Sometimes you have to call a “spade a spade” and call people nonsense rascals which Prabhupada liked to do very much. And Prabhupada said things like, “I kick on their face,” and that was not offensive - that was appropriate.
However when we start imitating that, it may not be appropriate because we do not have the depth and vision. We start imitating left and right, “I kick this one on the face and that one is a rascal….”
So, especially in the beginning, we must be very careful and when we become more mature then we may be able to more clearly say who is at fault.
I’ve uploaded the recent classes recorded during my visit to Bhaktivadanta Manor it’s on the cloud as I enjoy listening to them whilst on the move but even nicer to share
HH Bhakti Rasamrita Swami (1).mp3
From Subramanian
Athyahara means accumulating more than necessary. A vaishnava should keep only what is necessary for upkeep for daytoday existence. In this context how do we understand , Rupa and Sanathan Goswami accumulating boat loads of gold?
Last week 30 good hearted people decided to sacrifice their time and energy by coming to Matchless Gifts in London and spend the day decorating the whole building.We took this as a good opportunity to revamp the whole place.
Now we have new toilets,sinks,floors and a full paint job. It was all in honor of Nelson Mandela and his ethics. In the 80′s I used to distribute prasad to those people who would protest out side the South African embassy.
People love to support those personalities who put a cause about their own existence. Let’s distribute Srila Prabhupada lilmrita and in the future we will see thousands of volunteers engaging in devotional service.
Your servant Parasuram Das
East London Rathayatra will be on the 22nd September 2013.
We are calling all devotees from the UK and abroad to attend the second Rathayatra in Ilford, East London.
All brahmacaries, brahmacarinies, householders, sanyasis, Pandava send, devotee youth and children for the greatest party in East London ever.
Please come hungry to the best Rathayatra feast ever and invite your friends to be amazed by our wonderful stage program.Jai Jagannath, Jai Srila Prabhupada.
Enjoy the movie,(put together by Rajesh Hirani prabhu)
your servant Parasuram Das
For the old time New Vrindaban devotees who remember him, Vahna has left his body. We were notified 7/24/13 it may have been the 23rd. There will be a memorial service in about two weeks, details forthcoming.
He was 68 years old. He was preceded in leaving the planet by his father and his second wife Hladini. He is survived by his first wife Visvadhika, his son Rich (Paratha Sarthi) and two grandchildren.
He ran a poetry magazine at the end of the beat era and was the original publisher of some of Allan Gingsberg’s poetry, that was the crowd he rolled with. He was a poet himself and wrote hundreds if not thousands of poems. He has a book of poetry available from Amazon.con, The blind receptionist and other poems.
He moved to New Vrindaban in the early 1970″s (that was before my time (1973) so someone correct me if it was earlier) and was initiated by Srila Prabhupada. He built the house across the road from the Madhuban temple and was married to Hladini who lived with him there where she was the pujari at that time. His father was an early supporter of New Vrindaban.
He was a brilliant tortured soul who struggled with alcohol for most of his life. This caused him to avoid the direct association of devotees of whom he always spoke well and respected. As his son is going through his affects, he discovered a medical diagnosis that Vahna was schizophrenic and had some bipolar issues.
As his son said, he dealt with it by writing poetry, and had a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand and a bead bag in the other. When he was at the funeral home making the arrangements for cremation, the director asked him if he wore any jewelry. He told him he always had his bead bag. They looked and found his hand in his bead bag.
When he wasn’t drinking, and he would have periods where he could keep it together months or even years at a time as in his early days at New Vrindaban, he was the sweetest person, who was always interesting to talk to.
To newer devotes all they would know of Vahna is seeing him walking from his house in Talaban to the Limestone General Store. Although he was walking there to get his booze, he had his hand in his bead bag as he walked.
He continued to live in New Vrindaban in Talaban until his passing. Once when Srila Prabhupada was here he told the devotees to just stay in New Vrindaban no matter what. While Vahna may have had his struggles, he did obey that instruction. He also never deviated from the instruction to chant Hare Krishna.
From Sheela Mataji
Srimad-Bhagavatam class.
Tuesday 19th and Wednesday 20th
5pm yoga classes + 6pm on the path with Devamrita Swami + dinner = $12!
New Vrindaban Welcomes You!
ISKCON New Vrindaban Board Meeting Minutes – 6/13/13
Participating Board Members: Dayavira, Chaitanya Mangala, Jaya Krsna, Ranaka & Tamohara.
1. Increase Transparency
It was discussed and approved that we begin publishing the minutes of the monthly board meetings.
2. Community Investment Fund
The report on the Community Investment Fund (CIF) was explained. The balance of the CIF account will be $17,863.37 if all project budgets are completely used. The reconciled balance of the CIF account on 5/31/13 was $85,686. The different CIF projects are in line with their respective budgets, except the restaurant, which is over budget by $28,366. The amount will be paid back from the operational account sometime in August or September.
3. Jaga Account
The Jaga account reconciled amount is $119,229; the available balance is $79,549. The Jaga funds are dedicated to create housing in New Vrindaban; this is done either through acquisition of new properties or to improve the general infrastructure. Some of the projects currently financed through the funds are the Temple area water supply, the road to Kestners, the set up generators for the temple and the lodge. Projects are in line with the budgets, except the water project which is over budget by $11,652.
4. Bahulaban Pink Building Demolition & Securing the Utility Building
The budget for the demolition of the pink building is in total $30,000. ECOV is donating half of the amount and providing a loan to INV for the other half. ECOV also decided to donate $5,000 to secure the Utility Building at Bahulaban. Madhava Gosh had a quote for a new metal roof on the pink building for $20,000. The combined amount of $35,000 should cover the costs for the demolition as well as the other measures to secure the Utility Building.
5. Improving Community Spirit
Chaitanya Mangala Prabhu listed three topics for discussion.
a. Individual counseling by a devotee counselor from outside NV.
b. Group counseling for community members about past events & experiences.
c. Professional interpersonal communications training.
Jaya Krsna Prabhu mentioned that he is waiting for a proposal from Vrajalila Prabhu for counseling sessions in New Vrindaban. Sukhavaha Prabhu had done a number of good mediations last year. She was so far not active this year.
Jaya Krsna informed the board members that he is organizing family and organizational constellations with Krsna Lila devi dasi from New York. She is respected for her service all over the world. A number of senior community members joined for the recent seminars. It can be easily detected that the devotees participating are making substantial progress.
Jaya Krsna mentioned that he is organizing his schedule so he can spend more time focusing on devotee care and community building.
6. Succession
During the Community Dialog in April Sankirtan Prabhu mentioned three prerequisites to attract new community members: housing, income, schools.
Along these lines it was mentioned that NV needs new apartments & town houses; we have to create income opportunities for grhastas and develop high school level education.
To attract new temple devotees, additional accommodations for support staff are needed. It will allow a clearer separation between devotees following strictly the temple program and the staff who are engaged in various services but not ready to follow a temple standard.
The department heads need additional training in their day-to-day service as well as in developing successors within their staff. Jaya Krsna is actively inviting devotees from all over the world to assure succession for the temple and community.
7. Service & Employment Structure
Points discussed:
- Develop a clear structure outlining which occupations are volunteer service and which may be paid.
- Needs of devotees/staff to stay long term in New Vrindaban.
- Clarification is needed to separate devotional and organizational relationships.
- Members of the Board sees this as an important topic that should continue to be discussed again in the near future.
After the kirtan festival in Villa Vrndavana (Italy), Maharaja attended the traditional summer camp in Serbia (8-14 July) which was held at the national park Fruska Gora near Novi Sad, capital of the Province of Vojvodina.
We are still not sure of the reason that Maharaja keeps coming to the camp for the tenth year in a row now but it couldn’t be the mosquitoes, the accommodation or the weather; yet we are so grateful that he has included this event into his travel schedule. Many devotees, spiritual masters and deities attended the camp; and the mercy flowed in all directions.
During his stay, Maharaja gave several classes and amongst others, a seminar on the topic of How to actually enter Sri Vrndavana Dham. The main point made was that one cannot merely buy a ticket and fly to Vrndavana as no amount of money can take us there but rather that Vrndavana is a state of consciousness.
The central event of the week was definitely the Ratha Yatra festival which was held in the city of Novi Sad, on the 10 July. Two hundred devotees sang and danced in front of Lord Jagannatha’s chariot and distributed prasadam, books and the holy name to everyone around.
The day after the Ratha Yatra, devotees organized a twelve hour kirtan, which has now become a tradition, and relished the nectar of the holy name, just like the bees who are constantly humming in the search of nectar. Maharaja sang at the final part of the evening, ending the day in a most ecstatic way.
During Maharaja’s last full day at the camp, he initiated two new diciples, giving them the names Dahani Devi Dasi and Nandarani Devi Dasi. It was held on the grass just outside of Maharaja’s room and the whole occasion was auspiciously blessed by the personal presence of Sri Giriraja Govinda.
Please find below, the various classes given by Maharaja during his stay. To download a class, just right-click on a title and “save target as“.
KKS – CC. Madhya 3.137 (introducing the seminar) – 08 July 2013 in Fruska Gouranga, Serbia
KKS – Seminar Part I – 09 July 2013 in Fruska Gouranga, Serbia
KKS – Seminar Part II – 10 July 2013 in Fruska Gouranga, Serbia
KKS – Seminar Part III – 12 July 2013 in Fruska Gouranga, Serbia
KKS – SB. 10.14.36 – 12 July 2013 in Fruska Gouranga, Serbia
KKS – Initiation Lecture – 12 July 2013 in Fruska Gouranga, Serbia
If you cannot view the slide-show below then please visit flickr.
After the kirtan festival in Villa Vrndavana (Italy), Maharaja attended the traditional summer camp in Serbia (8-14 July) which was held at the national park Fruska Gora near Novi Sad, capital of the Province of Vojvodina.
We are still not sure of the reason that Maharaja keeps coming to the camp for the tenth year in a row now but it couldn’t be the mosquitoes, the accommodation or the weather; yet we are so grateful that he has included this event into his travel schedule. Many devotees, spiritual masters and deities attended the camp; and the mercy flowed in all directions.
During his stay, Maharaja gave several classes and amongst others, a seminar on the topic of How to actually enter Sri Vrndavana Dham. The main point made was that one cannot merely buy a ticket and fly to Vrndavana as no amount of money can take us there but rather that Vrndavana is a state of consciousness.
The central event of the week was definitely the Ratha Yatra festival which was held in the city of Novi Sad, on the 10 July. Two hundred devotees sang and danced in front of Lord Jagannatha’s chariot and distributed prasadam, books and the holy name to everyone around.
The day after the Ratha Yatra, devotees organized a twelve hour kirtan, which has now become a tradition, and relished the nectar of the holy name, just like the bees who are constantly humming in the search of nectar. Maharaja sang at the final part of the evening, ending the day in a most ecstatic way.
During Maharaja’s last full day at the camp, he initiated two new diciples, giving them the names Dahani Devi Dasi and Nandarani Devi Dasi. It was held on the grass just outside of Maharaja’s room and the whole occasion was auspiciously blessed by the personal presence of Sri Giriraja Govinda.
Please find below, the various classes given by Maharaja during his stay. To download a class, just right-click on a title and “save target as“.
KKS – CC. Madhya 3.137 (introducing the seminar) – 08 July 2013 in Fruska Gouranga, Serbia
KKS – Seminar Part I – 09 July 2013 in Fruska Gouranga, Serbia
KKS – Seminar Part II – 10 July 2013 in Fruska Gouranga, Serbia
KKS – Seminar Part III – 12 July 2013 in Fruska Gouranga, Serbia
KKS – SB. 10.14.36 – 12 July 2013 in Fruska Gouranga, Serbia
KKS – Initiation Lecture – 12 July 2013 in Fruska Gouranga, Serbia
If you cannot view the slide-show below then please visit flickr.
The office is empty. Everyone’s gone to a team party. I chose to stay back. Few asked why I wasn’t joining. I said, “8 hours work, 8 hours sleep and 8 hours chanting, meditation, prayer, temple service, family life, reading”. I have a packed life, you know. No time to party while I am on the road to purify, self-realize, liberate and back to Godhead.
Srila Sivarama Swami Maharaja – lecture on Gundica Marjana . Budapest, 2013.07.07.
“This doesn’t make sense.” We may get such doubts while studying Gita wisdom.
To ensure that doubts don’t swamp our spiritual prospects, we need to focus on the Gita’s essential message: a call for endless spiritual love between us and Krishna. The Gita elucidates this eternal message with contextual examples drawn from the culture in which it was spoken. For example, its tenth chapter illustrates Krishna’s opulences through metaphors drawn from the Vedic cultural and cosmological worldview.
As we have been educated in a different worldview, those metaphors may raise many doubts. Such doubts are peripheral; obsession with them can distract us from the opportunity to relish Krishna’s love by practicing devotional service. And life is too short and too precious to be wasted in doubting.
If we are sick, we don’t delay medical treatment till we get comprehensive understanding – something that requires a lifetime of study. If the treatment comes from a medical authority and makes basic sense, we take it and become healthy. The Gita offers a spiritual treatment for healing our heart of the malady of misdirected love. It comes from the greatest authority in all of existence: God himself. And its message makes profound sense; it resonates with our deepest intuition that we are meant for love and happiness and life eternal. Gaining comprehensive understanding of the Gita requires a lifetime of study. But we don’t have to delay our spiritual healing till then.
Arjuna illustrates this spiritual pragmatism when he accepts the Gita’s message (10.14) based not on a hair-splitting evaluation of all its statements but on the omniscience of its speaker and the coherence of its essential message.
We too can be similarly intelligent. Why let peripheral doubts deprive us of the essential love that can satisfy our heart’s deepest longings?
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10.14 - O Krishna, I totally accept as truth all that You have told me. Neither the demigods nor the demons, O Lord, can understand Your personality.
The purpose of Bhagavad-gita is to deliver mankind from the nescience of material existence. Every man is in difficulty in so many ways, as Arjuna also was in difficulty in having to fight the Battle of Kuruksetra. Arjuna surrendered unto Sri Krsna, and consequently this Bhagavad-gita was spoken
From Rupa Gaur Pr
