Planet ISKCON

In a little over one month ISKCON will be celebrating another milestone event at the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium in preparation for the opening in 2022: The Grand Opening of the fully completed Pujari Floor. On February 13, 2020, in observance of the 146th anniversary of the appearance of His Divine Grace Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati and in preparation for the relocation of our beloved world Deities into Their new home, the Pujari Floor will be inaugurated with great pomp and celebration.

This will be the largest pujari space of its kind in the world at a size of 2.5 acres, with over 20 dedicated rooms for Deity seva designed under the scrutiny and guidance of Their Graces Jananivas and Pankajanghri prabhus, ISKCON Mayapur’s Head Pujaris. Details of the level of professionality, resources, and the multi-faceted elements that are part of this highly specialized pujari area can be found in this Pujari Floor Report from Cushman & Wakefield who have overseen the work from its start.

Srila Prabhupada said, “Mayapur is my place of worship.” Here he established the Mayapur Chandrodaya Mandir to facilitate that worship, eventually to a scale that would influence the entire world through the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium. Indeed, the TOVP is the long-awaited new home for Their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Madhava, Sri Pancha Tattva and Sri Nrsimhadeva, and this Pujari Floor opening ceremony heralds the relocation to Their new home in 2022. Here They will be worshiped in the most impeccable and grandiose manner for thousands of years to come, offering Their merciful darshan to devotees and pilgrims from every corner of the world.

21 of the rooms on the Pujari Floor have also been selected for eager donors to sponsor. This once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to directly serve ISKCON’s Main Deities at our World Headquarters in sacred Sridhama Mayapur won’t come again. You can personally serve Their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Madhava, Sri Pancha Tattva and Sri Nrsimhadeva by financing the completion of one of these rooms in Their long-awaited new home, and have your name placed over the entrance as the sevaite responsible for this unique service. Make your pledge today and receive Their Lordships’ eternal blessings.

For more information go to the TOVP Rooms of Worship page.

Grand Opening Schedule

9:00 – Svagata: Welcoming the Deities, Padukas and Srila Prabhupada
9:30 – Invocation Prayers
9:45 – Addresses by Senior Vaishnavas
11:30 – Vastu Puja/Homa Yajna
12:15 – Puspanjali for H.D.G Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur
12:30 – Pujari Kaksha Udghatana: Pujari Rooms Opening
2:00 – Bhandara: Celebration Feast

The full event can be watched live or recorded on Mayapur.tv

Below are several CGI compositions from the TOVP Architecture Department showing what some of the finished Pujari Floor rooms will look like.

 
[See image gallery at tovp.org]

The post TOVP Pujari Floor Grand Opening – H.H. Gopal Krishna Maharaja Speaks Out appeared first on Temple of the Vedic Planetarium.

Boat Sankirtan by Sydney Opera’s House, Australia (1 min. video)
Srila Prabhupada: “Although Kali-yuga is full of faults, there is still one good quality about this age. It is that simply by chanting the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, one can become free from material bondage and be promoted to the transcendental kingdom.” (Srimad-Bhagavatam, 12.3.51 Purport)

H.H Mahavishnu Swami’s letter to the Prime Minister of Australia Scott Morrison.

Dear Honourable Prime Minister Scott Morrison,
Happy New Year! Hare Krishna!

I am a traveling monk, an ISKCON* Spiritual Master visiting branches in Australia. Our society is teaching the science of how man’s consciousness affects the ecology of God’s nature.

In this bushfire emergency so far material solutions seem to be of no avail. Therefore I humbly offer my service to inspire the public to participate in an enjoyable spiritual solution which can by God’s Grace bring rains to put out the fires.

This is called ‘sankirtan yoga’ or the “all together ” chanting of God’s Holy Names. It is nonsectarian so anyone can sing their preferred names of God…like Christ, Allah, Buddha, Krishna, Rama etc.

After we arrived in Australia from NZ on 24th December, 15 of us chanted on the streets in downtown Sydney and it immediately rained for about 20 minutes. If through the media we can inspire thousands or more to join in this yoga practice by God’s grace it can do the job we all want.

What is the loss if we try? After all, it is said, “necessity is the mother of invention”.

I humbly request you to take this seriously and if necessary give me time to discuss this with you personally.

Yours sincerely
Mahavishnu Swami
(Mr John Riddihough,UK citizen aged 74)

*International Society for Krishna Consciousness.

This is *Mohammed Khalil* He was rushing to catch his UBER when he zoomed past us at Tambaram Railway Station in Chennai where we were distributing Bhagavad Geeta. A devotee shouted *Hare Krsna* right in his ear when he was passing by us. Fast forward 2 minutes he came back and asked me to give 2 copies of Bhagavad Geeta one in Tamil and one in English. Gave donation and got lost in the peak hour crowd. We never know who will take the mercy. *Hare Krsna*

Mantra Chaitanya das, 33, on how spirituality has changed his attitude towards money.
Interview by The Guardian.
Name: Mantra Chaitanya das
Age: 35
Income: £12-£15,000
Occupation: Gardener, teacher and voluntary university chaplain, Canterbury

Bhakta Dasa: With the tragic bush fires around Australia at the moment, the Hare Krishna devotees in Melbourne are contributing in a variety of ways. We are supporting the JET Australia Foundation ( the Ramanuja Sampradaya ) by providing funds to them to distribute bottled water to the Firefighters. We are also looking at ways Hare Krishna Food for Life can assist with Vegetarian meal distribution. There are also plans to have a joint Hindu temples and organizations Yajna where we will be performing the Hare Krishna Maha-mantra Sankirtan Yajna. At the temple tonight also there is a Bushfire Kirtan relief prayer session starting at 5.00pm. All welcome.

By th GBC

Conditions for Second-generation Diksa-gurus—2019 [Governing Law]. Whereas at the 2019 AGM, it was resolved that, under certain conditions, disciples can give initiation in the physical presence of their spiritual masters; Whereas this resolution called for the Guru Services Committee to develop a more detailed process of implementation; Resolved: That the responsibility of ensuring that all conditions for Second-generation Diksa-gurus as listed in resolution “701.2, Conditions for Second-generation Diksa-gurus —2019” of the 2019 Annual General Meeting,rests with the respective Local Area Councils nominating such candidates. Srila Prabhupada: “Just adhere yourself to the lotus feet of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Then you become spiritual master. That's all. So I hope that all of you, men, women, boys and girls, become spiritual master and follow this principle. Continue reading "GBC 2019 Midterm General Meeting Resolutions
→ Dandavats"

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 7 January 2017, Brisbane, Australia, Srimad Bhagavatam 1.1.4)

It was right there in the centre of the universe where the Srimad Bhagavatam was spoken. In this way, we know that the Srimad Bhagavatam is in the centre of this movement. It is the essential literature which is really the purpose of the movement. The Srimad Bhagavatam is showing us the path which the devotees took. It is showing us the nature of the spiritual world in great detail, which is our ultimate goal. This is why the Srimad Bhagavatam is in the centre of our movement.

We cannot say, “I like reading Prabhupada’s books, but only the little ones like ‘Beyond birth and death’ and ‘Perfection of Yoga’. I like them so much that I just keep reading them again and again”. That is very good that we enjoy reading those books, but now we must read the Srimad Bhagavatam. We must always remember that the Srimad Bhagavatam is the essence of this movement.

The article " Srimad Bhagavatam is the essence " was published on KKSBlog.

[reposted from 2008-10-06]
My dear Hari Nam Prabhu:

By the grace of Shrila Prabhupada
and my shiska gurus who represent
Lord Chaitanya and Nitai,
(who have brought you in Kali-yuga)
I have been introduced to you
in the process of japa and kirtana.

With whatever humility and gratitude
I can embody, I thank you for
remaining with me over the years,
many of which were quite poor spiritually--
yet you somehow enabled me to keep chanting.

read more

[reposted from 2008-10-06]
My dear Hari Nam Prabhu:

By the grace of Shrila Prabhupada
and my shiska gurus who represent
Lord Chaitanya and Nitai,
(who have brought you in Kali-yuga)
I have been introduced to you
in the process of japa and kirtana.

With whatever humility and gratitude
I can embody, I thank you for
remaining with me over the years,
many of which were quite poor spiritually--
yet you somehow enabled me to keep chanting.

read more

Answer Podcast

Download by “right-click and save content”

 

Transcriber: Dr Suresh Gupta

Edited by: Sharan Shetty

Question: When everything is destined how can we have free will?

Answer: It is wrong to assume that everything is destined. Baldeva Vidya Bhushan who is a prominent acharya in the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition mentions in his Govind-bhashya as well as Bhagavad-gita commentary that if everything is destined then there is no meaning to the existence of scriptures because scriptures tell us what to do and what not to do. So if our own actions were also destined then there is no meaning to scriptures because it means that we do not have free will and we are forced to act according to destiny’s will. Therefore, the very fact that Lord Krishna has given us scriptures which provide instructions about what is and what is not to be done to help us understand that we have free will and we have the capacity to choose.
It is true that certain important things in our life are destined but there are also equally not very important things where we have the capacity to choose. In the Mahabharata, Vidura while talking to Dhritarashtra reconciles destiny and free-will by saying that destiny determines the consequence of our actions, not our actions itself. Therefore, we have free will to choose our actions but once we have chosen our actions then we cannot decide what consequences we will get. For example, if a person boards a flight from Mumbai heading to Calcutta, then that person will have to go to Calcutta. Before boarding the flight, the person has more options to choose from but once he boards the flight, his choices are limited or even restricted (one may say he has the choice to jump off from the plane but that choice will lead to his death and so is not feasible).

It is important to understand that we are not entirely free to choose whatever we like. When we have a human body, we cannot fly like a bird which means that destiny may, at different times and to some extent, restrict the choices that we have. Still, within that restriction also we have certain freedom. For example, consider a horse tied to a pole with a rope. In one sense, the horse is restricted from moving anywhere and so cannot walk beyond the length of the rope but at the same time, the horse is free to move anywhere within the circle. Although there is restriction, there is some amount of freedom also. This means that destiny determines the circumference of our freedom, but it does not take away our freedom entirely.

Therefore, we too have free-will and the wonderful thing about free-will is that the more we use it in a right way, the more freedom we will have to choose our free-will. For example, when a person claims to be lazy, it appears to be a restriction to use free-will more freely but more the person tries to act energetically and tries to shed the habit of laziness, the more the person is able to give up laziness. Thus, we can see that there are certain things which are consequential and which can be changed. Our future is determined not so much by what happens to us but more by how we respond to those events. What happens to us is destiny and how we respond to it is our free will and the more we respond appropriately the more freedom we get to respond in a right way and with that understanding we can make the right choices.

Although certain things in our life maybe destined, it is important to know that not everything is pre-destined in our lives. Srila Prabhupada would explain that destiny determines the kind of body we get which is like a person getting a car to drive from Calcutta to Mayapur. The car maybe a fast car or a slow car, an old car or a new car but whatever car a person gets, he has the freedom to move along because the destination is not determined by the car, it is determined by the person himself. Similarly, destiny will decide the body we get and along with the body – certain events, accidents, its longevity etc but what the soul decide to do with the body depends on the person himself.

To summarize, we do have free-will and by using our free-will, we can bring auspiciousness for ourselves even within the limitation imposed upon us by our past destiny.

End of transcription.

The post When everything is destined how can we have free will? appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

By Dravida dasa

Dear follower of Srila Prabhupada, Please accept our humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada! Kindly submit your homage to Srila Prabhupada for his Vyasa-puja book by April 1. In addition, if you're a direct disciple of Srila Prabhupada, please check out www.sptributes.com to learn about a Vyasa-puja book open to all his disciples. The deadline for submission to this book is April 15. Continue reading "Call for Homages for Srila Prabhupada’s 2019 Vyasa Puja Book
→ Dandavats"

Beautiful murti of Srila Prabhupada at The Temple of Understanding today, the 5th Jan, 2020.

Krishna Balaram Mandir Darshan in Vrindavan (4 Jan, 2020) (Album of photos)
Please take darshan of the Deities of Sri Sri Krishna Balaram Mandir and the foggy winter morning in Sri Vrindavan Dham.

TOVP Pujari Floor Grand Opening - H.H. Gopal Krishna Maharaja Speaks Out (2 min. video)
In a little over one month, ISKCON will be celebrating another milestone event at the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium in preparation for the opening in 2022: The Grand Opening of the fully completed Pujari Floor. On February 13, 2020, in observance of the 146th anniversary of the appearance of His Divine Grace Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati and in preparation for the relocation of our beloved world Deities into Their new home, the Pujari Floor will be inaugurated with great pomp and celebration.

A recent seminar by HG Suresvara Prabhu presented in Iskcon Melbourne.

Read More...

Harinama in Russia (Album of photos)
Some shots from the New Year Harinam and book distribution night.
At the end of the Harinam just one book left and we met Father Frost who was super exciting to see Prabhupad’s book and get prasadam! When we asked:
-What’s your name? He replied:
-Anirudha Krishna Das.
It was unexpectable at all!:)
Find them here: http://bit.ly/2MVxI94

New Year Kirtan Program in Kolkata (2020) (Album of photos)
Devotees in Kolkata were very fortunate to have the blessed association of HH Bhakti Charu Swami Maharaj and they organized an amazing kirtan program at Seal Mansion on the first day of the new year 2020. The owner of the place comes from the same lineage of Srila Prabhupad and they had a very old and aristocrat mansion. Themed as “Srivas Angan”, the decoration of the place was marvelous and depicted traditional Bengali art. Many devotees led Kirtan and everyone was enthused by Maharaja’s katha, bhajan and kirtan.

Photos from London New Year’s Eve 2019.
“For us, every day is New Year’s. Krishna is always new, always fresh, and we are always celebrating Him. Just see how these people in maya are celebrating, drinking poison to forget everything! Because they are frustrated, they want to forget. But for a devotee, it is just the opposite. The devotee wants to remember Krishna at all times.” - Srila Prabhupada. December 31, 1966, New York.

Exciting news for the San Diego Hare Krishna Temple.
To our dear Hare Krishna community family:
We have very exciting news. This year our Temple Property Mortgage Fundraiser exceeded all expectations, and by Krishna’s grace we raised the full amount to pay off the $138,000.00 that remained on this loan! We started this fundraiser back in 2015, when we owed $300,000.00, and each year since, many of you have come forward to help our temple with donations to reduce the principal on this loan. And to complete this effort, by the end of 2019 we had collected enough donations to pay off the full balance. Thus we are starting the New Year on a very positive note, with no debt burden on our temple.

By Srimati Dasi

Yes this is Srila Prabhupada’s world — it’s a world of MERCY MAGIC! The visionary mercy of a compassionate Gaudiya Vaisnava’s heart, and the magic of bhakti in action. On this very cold day we have had the good fortune to see so many compassionate devotees in action — all of them uniquely individual, all absorbed in their own heart-chosen field of service. But there’s a palpable synergy among them. All their hearts have the same heart beat and they dance to the same tune — and what’s that? It is the irrepressible, indefatigable — and irresistible! — compassion of Srila Prabhupada! Continue reading "Serving Srila Prabhupada’s Mood
→ Dandavats"

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 28 May 2019, Ljubljana, Slovenia, Srimad Bhagavatam 6.11.25)

We have to bring some goodness in our life and we have to invest in the mornings. Rise early and have a strong morning program. Chant good japa. Read more in the Srimad Bhagavatam. Get absorbed and that will drive out this mode of passion and mode of ignorance, which are still sometimes weighing us down and making it hard for us to follow the rules and regulations of Krsna consciousness. This is confirmed in the Srimad Bhagavatam: tada rajas-tamo-bhavah kama-lobhadayas ca ye ceta etair anaviddham sthitam sattve prasidati (Srimad Bhagavatam 1.2.19). In this way, as loving devotional service is fixed in the heart, the influences of the modes of passion and ignorance will disappear and we will be able to follow Krsna consciousness.

But this is also a matter of decision. We can make this decision right now. We can decide that we will follow the four regulative principles now and not allow ourselves to go outside of them anymore. This is our choice. The time is now! Surrender now! Right now! Not tomorrow, “I will be a pure devotee from tomorrow”. No, try to be a pure devotee right now! If we try now to be a pure devotee, we will be pure. And we will become more pure day by day. So surrender now, that is all!

The article " A resolution to surrender now! " was published on KKSBlog.

Answer Podcast:

Download by “right-click and save content”

 

Transcriber: Dr Suresh Gupta

Edited by: Sharan Shetty

Question: How can we know that the Deity accepts the bhoga when it remains as it is?

Answer: It is a valid question. To understand, we must know that Krishna is bhaava-graahi (one who accepts the devotional emotion in the service). When we offer bhoga (food in a platter), he takes the bhaava in the bhoga. But if we make the mistake of sticking to material vision, then not just offering bhoga, the entire idea of deity worship can be rejected as sentimentalism.

It is important to understand the principle of Krishna manifesting in a deity is an opportunity for us to get sensory access to transcendence. With this understanding, the principle of offering bhoga should be perceived. Suppose a person visits his friend or a relative carrying a box full of sweets and after entering the house he gifts the box to that person. Ideally, in any culture, when someone gives a box full of sweets, the other person would not return it empty and would instead add some sweets in the box and then give it back. This principle is also highlighted by Srila Rupa Goswami in The Nectar of Instruction Text 4 – dadati pratigṛhṇati (offering and accepting gifts). When the meeting ends, the person will leave the friend’s home and return back carrying the box. If somebody watching from outside assumes that the box which went inside is the same box which came outside and so there was no exchange of sweets then he would be mistaken. Similarly, when we offer bhoga to Krishna, what Krishna is interested in, is the bhaava. Thus, metaphorically the bhoga that we offer is like the box and our devotional emotion and love with which we prepare the bhoga is like the sweets in the box. Just like, after gifting the box full of sweets to his friend, the person received the same box with different sweets, similarly, the bhoga after being offered to Krishna is received as it is but is filled with His kripa (His mercy).

Thus, seeing with our external vision, the food may remain the same but by spiritual vision, there has been a reciprocation of bhakti (devotional service) and kripa (divine mercy) and how do we know the difference? At intellectual level, if we understand the philosophy, we can note it whereas at an experiential level, when we take prasad (sanctified food which is offered to Lord) we may find that our heart has become purified. Our heart will become purified because we experience a higher taste and the anarthas (offences) in our heart –lust, anger, greed etc start to decrease. This intellectual and experiential understanding can be understood more clearly by the example of a child who is told by his mother to throw away all the pieces of paper lying in the house. Co-incidentally, the child finds a 100 rupee note lying on the floor and proceeds to throw it in the dustbin due to no knowledge of a currency note. The mother notices him and stops him from throwing the currency in the dustbin. She explains that this is not an ordinary piece of paper (gives intellectual understanding). Seeing the child perplexed she takes him to a shop and buys him chocolates with that money. After receiving the chocolates, the child tries to buy more of them using the wrappers of the chocolates, but the shopkeeper throws them away. This helps the child understand the difference in an ordinary piece of paper and a hundred rupee note (experiential understanding). Similarly, when we serve Krishna like a deity as per the philosophy, it is with intellectual understanding but with practise of bhakti we will experience the differences through realizations.

End of transcription.

The post How can we know that the Deity accepts the bhoga when it remains as it is? appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

Lecture – Bhagavad Gita 5.21 La Familia de Krishna O la Familia de Apple 2019-12-02 #Spanish #Dallas

The exhilarating experience has been a tradition for ISKCON Ireland for over three decades, and is well known to the Dublin public. 

A video made in honour of Sri Sri Radha-Londonisvara’s 50th Anniversary with interviews with devotees, past and present, who have had the blessed opportunity to serve Their Lordships, the Deities who were personally installed by Srila Prabhupada in 1969 and are the first large Radha Krishna Deities in ISKCON. As the video shows, They hold a very special place in devotees’ hearts.

A truly memorable event, London has never seen the Hare Krishna movement like this before. Running for nine days from Sunday 24th November to Monday 2nd December, the festival showcased exceptional displays of performance arts and visual arts, poetry readings and kirtans, historical accounts of Radha-Londonisvara.

Seventeen children and youth, aged two to eighteen, took three months to complete the movie and worked on every part of the production from set building, special effects, and lighting, to voices, puppeteering, filming and editing. The film premiered in Saranagati on Christmas Day to rave reviews.

Produces by the students of Govardhana Avademy, Sharanagati Farm, Canada.

Shastrakrit Das: Sweet Kiwi family, they were looking for presents to give family for New Years’. Where ever we go in the world, everyone is doing the same old things. Until they come across one of Srila Prabhupada’s books!

Ladies’ Ashrama Update
The women’s ashrama at New Govardhana, Australia, has been full of activity of late, with new devotees Bhadra Yamuna (from the US), Bhaktine Cameron (from UK) and Bhaktine Jin Lou (from Hong Kong) arriving, inspired to serve Shri Shri Radha Govardhanadhari.

Melbourne Namahatta preaching (Album of photos)
Ramai Swami: Most devotees who visit Melbourne temple know about the program near the temple at an apartment complex just where the tram goes around the corner.

A Spiritual Trek to The Heart of The Himalayas
One of New Govardhana’s main pujaris Dhanistha devi dasi recently embarked on a spiritual pilgrimage to the Himalayas. Along with friends, Bhuvana Mohini devi dasi and Madhu, Dhanistha braved dangerous slopes and high altitudes to eventually arrive at Gangotri, the origin of Mother Ganga.

Answer Podcast:

Download by “right-click and save content”

 

Transcriber: Dr Suresh Gupta

Edited by: Sharan Shetty

Question: Is Deity visarjan required – why?

Answer: More than the requirement the important principle to understand and know, is that Krishna or even the devatas (demigods) are offering people opportunity for periodic worship when the regular nitya pooja (uninterrupted worship) is not possible. Certain people who are religiously very committed can invite a deity at their home and serve the deity throughout their life. But some people may not be able to serve the deity everyday throughout their life and so, in order to trigger them to at least perform religious activity at some level, it is recommended that they do pooja (deity worship) for a particular period.

Also, the deities are not just ordinary statues made of stone, wood etc. There is a religious practise of aarohan (invoking the deity by offering prayers and paraphernalia as per customs mentioned in the Vedic scriptures) and after the period of worship is over, there is the process of visarjan (immersing the idol in a river). Just like an ordinary cylindrical box called post box being authorized by the government is used to send letters similarly although the deities may externally look like an ordinary statue but because they have been invoked by bonafide and authorized instructions of Vedic scriptures, they have the potency to receive services and offer blessings.

Ideally the deity is prepared or sculpted in a prayerful mood where the Lord is invited to manifest in the deity. Once installed, the deity is worshiped for a particular period and at the end before immersion, the Lord is offered gratefulness, thanked and requested to leave the deity. After this, the visarjan process takes place. It is not mandatory that there should be visarjan of the deity but for those who cannot do nitya vigrah pooja (uninterrupted and daily deity worship) for them nainitik pooja (on special occasions like Ganpati) is allowed so that they can at least perform some bhakti. For that purpose, the deity is worshipped for a particular period and at the end, visarjan is done.

End of transcription.

The post Is Deity visarjan required – why? appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

Most devotees who visit Melbourne temple know about the program near the temple at an apartment complex just where the tram goes around the corner.

It’s been going on for decades and headed up by Nityananda Priya. Those who attend are mainly students and predominantly from India. When I’m in town I always go over on a Saturday evening.