The Golden Avatar
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(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 13 September 2018, Durban, South Africa, Northdene Program Lecture)

Radharani is known as the soft-hearted feminine counterpart of the Lord. She is therefore very compassionate. Now, Caitanya Mahaprabhu has taken that mood of Srimati Radharani. One might say that Caitanya Mahaprabhu is golden but Caitanya Mahaprabhu said it Himself that, “I am not golden. I appear golden because I touched Srimati Radharani and therefore I became golden. Actually, I am blackish but I have taken this mood to feel the blissful emotions of Radharani”.

The article " The Golden Avatar " was published on KKSBlog.

KRSNA AND THE COWHERD BOYS LEAVE FOR THE FOREST
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One day Krsna decided to take His breakfast as a picnic in the forest. Having risen early in the morning, He blew His bugle made of horn and woke all the cowherd boys and calves with its beautiful sound. Then Krsna and the boys, keeping their respective herds of calves before them, proceeded from Vrajabhumi to the forestRead More...

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You can only claim to be fit if you pass these 7 tests.
→ Travelling Monk

You want to succeed, surround yourself with the right kind of people who will support and encourage you all the way. Be with people who have utmost conviction and patience. The battle is never lost until you’ve abandon your vision. But what if you’re really exhausted physically, mentally, and most of all emotionally? Here are some sources of motivation to prompt you in reaching the peak of accomplishment.

“Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence”

Philip Reyes

Let me share with you one of my favorite quotes, as stated in that quote, there are three key factors to achieve massive success in your life:

Urban life in the city

Never ever think of giving up. Winners never quit and quitters never win. Take all negative words out of your mental dictionary and focus on the solutions with utmost conviction and patience. The battle is never lost until you’ve abandon your vision.

Martial arts figure prominently in many Asian cultures, and the first known traces.

Seeing trends before they start

Success needs hard work. Don’t listen to these ‘get rich quick’ schemes. You need to build your character and work hard on yourself and your business to achieve greatness. Work hard and work smart. Do the right things and do them in the right way. Don’t procrastinate. Take bold actions. Work long hours and craft your legacy.

Learning from failure

Successful people do not see failures as failures. They see them as important learning lessons. Lessons that are capable of giving them insights to prevent such mistakes from happening again. By adopting this mindset of turningExplore the city and new places

Explore the city and new places

Success needs hard work. Don’t listen to these ‘get rich quick’ schemes. You need to build your character and work hard on yourself and your business to achieve greatness. Work hard and work smart. Do the right things and do them in the right way. Don’t procrastinate. Take bold actions. Work long hours and craft your legacy.

Do something that keeps you live

Successful people do not see failures as failures. They see them as important learning lessons. Lessons that are capable of giving them insights to prevent such mistakes from happening again. By adopting this mindset of turning

God Inaugurates Chanting the Holy Names
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By Sri Nandanandana dasa

We should not think that sankirtana, or the chanting of the Lord's holy names, is simply part of the system of mantra-yoga, or is merely a formula that has been passed down through the ages like other yoga systems. Nor is it a ritual, ceremony, or activity meant for producing good karma or positive fruitive results. Neither is it merely a way to focus the mind and achieve peace and tranquility. It is far more than any of these. It is the Lord Himself who establishes the chanting of the holy names Continue reading "God Inaugurates Chanting the Holy Names
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Chant (at least) One More Round: Increasing our attachment to the Holy Name
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Hare KrishnaBy Hector Rosario, PhD

Now, you may ask, but Srila Prabhupada instructed us to only chant 16 rounds. Why should we change that standard? Actually, we are not asking to change the institutional standard from 16 to 64 rounds. Our suggestion is simply that, on an individual basis, devotees should consider increasing their minimum daily vow of 16 to a higher number of rounds. Continue reading "Chant (at least) One More Round: Increasing our attachment to the Holy Name
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Sunday, September 20, 2020
→ The Walking Monk

Toronto, Ontario

 

Night Tree of Colour

 

Despite cooler temperatures most trees in the area remain a rich green. Some, like the maple, are starting to show its true colour. At the end of the street from the temple/ashram you have got a majestic maple that is not just “showing” but it’s “showing off.” And it’s under that tree where, in two days, I’ll meet with my philosophical/spiritual friends for discussion. For now, a lit park lamp-post in the night is all that is necessary for the splendor of this tree to catch my fortunate eye.

 

With this vision my weekend ended, after Zoom classes and meetings. The day also included a good salad, endorsing papers for furthering spiritual education at one of our centres, speaking to Russians about the power of sweet mantras, watching videos of people who met our guru, Prabhupada, and much more. All culminating in the admiration of a tree.

 

My walk was deliberately brief—advice from my physio-therapist. I’m not doubting him, like I won’t doubt Mars getting close, and like I did not doubt, in our reading today, that a great avatar by the name Chaitanya, descended to establish this phenomenon of kirtan, under the plea of a concerned saint who sought a world that was slipping into darkness and danger.

 

I’m glad there are trees of color that offer hope.

 

May the Source be with you!

3 km



 

Saturday, September 19, 2020
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Scarborough, Ontario

 

Big Small

 

A good friend of mine, a former schoolteacher, sent me images of the subject: “The Scale of Things,” featuring a seven-foot long leatherback sea-turtle at 2000 pounds, and a whole bunch of other astounding statistics of what’s big on Earth and in our universe. One picture he forwarded featured an eagle’s talon/claw as enormous. Another one lined up a cut-and-paste Titanic next to a modern cruise liner. Quite the difference in size, showing how modern-day shipbuilding has truly excelled in 100 years. There’s an image of Michelangelo’s David, the size of three men. Terrifying is the scale of a gorilla’s hand in comparison to a human’s. One display showed how 1.3 million Earths fit into the sun.

 

I got back to my friend after looking at these images and I proposed to him to consider setting up the soul against the ego. The Vedas say that the atma, the soul, is one ten-thousandth the size of a tip of a hair. Compare that tiny spark of life we call a soul against the average human’s ego, and you’d have trouble comparing the difference in scale.

 

What we might draw as a conclusion, from imagining such, is the need to deflate that crazy entity we call ego. Yes, indeed, it’s the ego that gets us into trouble. Think of it in terms of a hot air balloon. It looks substantial but it’s really so much less than it poses to be.

 

Another thing that is big is our dreams. Some dreams become reality. It would be nice to get back Home, where we all belong.

 

May the source be with you!

0 km


 

Friday, September 18, 2020
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Queen’s Park, Toronto

 

Numerals

 

These days many numbers are thrown at us—stats about Covid. How many people are infected this very day? How many died from the virus? Stay at home and keep your number of people gathering down to ten. Outside you can have twenty-five, etc.… The numbers are on the rise for those found with the virus. It’s not good! It’s a second wave. The number two.

 

However, someone sent me some figures about saving lives if the world switched to a plant-based diet. It reads like so:

 

If the world switched to plant-based food by 2050:

-        8.1 million human lives would be saved every year.

-        Food related greenhouse gas emissions would fall by 70%.

-        $1 trillion would be saved every year in healthcare costs.

Source: Oxford study.

 

Those are lofty numbers concerning sparing humans. Animals too.

 

For those of us who made vows, whether a monastic, like me, or a grihasta, householder, we’ve committed ourselves, to our guru, to chanting a minimum of sixteen rounds on our meditation beads, to follow four regulative principles, to the seven purposes of ISKCON, to honoring the avoidance of ten offenses to the Holy Name, cultivating nine processes of bhakti (devotion), and the list goes on.

 

Oh yes! And today I was to remember to follow a schedule. At 4:30 pm I was to meet Saurav, a young student who has questions on the goal of life. By 5:45 pm I was to return to the ashram. A nice few minutes with him.

 

May the source be with you!

3 km


 

DESCRIPTION OF AUTUMN
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Vrndavana forest improved from the rains and was replete with ripened dates, mangoes, blackberries, and other fruits. Lord Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, accompanied by His cowherd friends and Lord Balarama, entered the forest to enjoy the new seasonal atmosphere.

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The Yajna of chanting 10 Million (Koti) Names of LORD-HARI
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We often hear that devotees live a life of mature compassion. They perform multifarious activities out of their compassion for the welfare of all living entities. While performing these compassionate acts, their vision is set on serving the Supreme Lord and begging for mercy, not for themselves, but for others. Each mature devotee performs different acts of compassion according to his inclination and capacity

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Freedom through the Holy Name
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Hare KrishnaBy His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

“My dear Lord, I received this valuable human form of life, but I have wasted it for nothing. This life is meant for understanding Radha and Krishna, but I did not do so. Therefore I have knowingly taken poison.” Sometimes a person takes poison to commit suicide. He knows that as soon as he’ll take the poison he’ll die. Similarly, one who is not taking to Krishna consciousness is drinking poison. Continue reading "Freedom through the Holy Name
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The Monk’s Podcast 67 with Gauranga Prabhu – Intellectuals in bhakti @ Bhaktivendanta Research Center
→ The Spiritual Scientist

Podcast


 

Video:

The post The Monk’s Podcast 67 with Gauranga Prabhu – Intellectuals in bhakti @ Bhaktivendanta Research Center appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

New Vrindaban Endures Through COVID-19, Provides Visitors with Respite in Safe Space
→ ISKCON News

At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, ISKCON temples around the world closed their doors, and many found challenges in maintaining themselves without traditional in-person outreach activities. By June, some had begun to reopen, with locally mandated restrictions. New Vrindaban, ISKCON’s first farm community, in West Virginia, faced particular economic challenges due to the size […]

The post New Vrindaban Endures Through COVID-19, Provides Visitors with Respite in Safe Space appeared first on ISKCON News.

The story of Ṭoṭā-gopīnātha
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(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 13 April 2020, Durban, South Africa, Caitanya Caritamrta Lecture: Deities)

In Jagannatha Puri, besides the deity of Lord Jagannatha, there is another famous deity which was the Gopinatha deity of Gadadhara known as Ṭoṭā-gopīnātha. We had just described in the Caitanya Caritamrta that Gadadhara had taken a vow of ksetra-sanyasi. The vow was to just stay in Jagannatha Puri and serve the deity, but Caitanya Mahaprabhu said, “How can you break your vow?” And Gadadhara said, “I am not interested in keeping that vow. I am interested in the association of the Lord.” But Lord Caitanya instructed him to stay. Anyway, the deity of Ṭoṭā-gopīnātha is a very large deity and Gadadhara in his old age found it very difficult to actually decorate the head of the deity. So one day, the deity just sat down overnight. When they opened the door, the deity was in a sitting position, in a crossed-legged position. So this is a very famous deity in our line. Gadadhara is very significant and very important to us.

The article " The story of Ṭoṭā-gopīnātha " was published on KKSBlog.

KRSNA, THE DARLING OF VRNDAVAN
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When Lord Krsna wanders in the forest of Vrndavana with His friends on an equal level, there are innumerable cows grazing. This is one of the Lord’s blissful enjoyments. When He plays on His flute, all living entities-including trees, plants, animals, and human beings-tremble and are saturated with jubilation. Tears flow constantly from their eyes.

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Request for prayers
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We have been informed that Caitanya Candra Carana Prabhu, one of our Russian GBCs and his wife, Gauracandrika Devi, have tested positive for Covid-19. They have both been extremely ill for quite some days now but are on the mend.

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Latest Sannyasa Ministry Newsletter
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Bhakti Prabhava Swami: "Our life is very short. The Krishna consciousness movement is not meant for fulfilling one's personal ambition, but it is a serious movement for the whole world. I am therefore going to the Eastern hemisphere, beginning from Japan. We are going four in a party and all of us are sannyasis. In this old age I am going with this party just to set an example to my disciples who have taken recently the sannyasa order... Take it now with great responsibility and every one of you may serve jointly for Krishna's satisfaction. That is my request to you all."

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Japa Affirmations – World Holy Name Week
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Be aware of how your lifestyle, attitude and activities are supporting your chanting. The more you change your lifestyle, around the sound vibration of the Maha-mantra, the more your consciousness will change. The more your consciousness changes, the more your lifestyle will change. Purified consciousness leads to purified lifestyle, and purified lifestyle leads to purified consciousness. Therefore, it is important to consciously organize your lifestyle to support better chanting of the Maha-mantra.

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