Planet ISKCON

Bhagavad-gita verse-by-verse podcast

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Answer Podcast

The post What is the significance of Duryodhana’s use of the past tense in Gita 01.09? appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

[Talk at ISKCON Silicon Valley, San Jose, USA]

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The post When life hurts 1 – when a small mistake causes huge problems – Parikshit M pastime analysis appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

[Seminar at Salesforce, San Francisco, USA]

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The post Finding security in insecurity appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

By Chaitanya Charan Das

Many people think of a villain as a person who enjoys by exploiting and harming others. Though not wrong, this conception of evil is incomplete and naïve as it ignores a fundamental reality: our supremely responsible and loving father, God. Probably most of us never got spiritual education to realize that it is God who selflessly provides us our daily food. It is true that we have to work hard to earn our living, but our effort is secondary; its like the hard work of the birds searching for grains. Without God pre-providing the grains through nature, their search, no matter how painstaking, would be fruitless. Continue reading "Have You Burnt The Ravana Within?
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Today marks Sri Rama-vijaya-dasami (Dasara, or Dussehra), the day on which Lord Ramachandra vanquished the powerful tyrant Ravana. As described in Srimad-Bhagavatam (2.7.25):

vaksah-sthala-sparsa-rugna-mahendra-vaha-
dantair vidambita-kakubjusa udha-hasam
sadyo ’subhih saha vinesyati dara-hartur
visphurjitair dhanusa uccarato ’dhisainye

“When Ravana was engaged in the battle, the trunk of the elephant which carried the king of heaven, Indra, broke in pieces, having collided with the chest of Ravana, and the scattered broken parts illuminated all directions. Ravana therefore felt proud of his prowess and began to loiter in the midst of the fighting soldiers, thinking himself the conqueror of all directions. But his laughter, overtaken by joy, along with his very air of life, suddenly ceased with the tingling sound of the bow of Ramacandra, the Personality of Godhead.”

Srila Prabhupada comments, “However powerful a living being may be, when he is condemned by God no one can save him, and, similarly, however weak one may be, if he is protected by the Lord no one can annihilate him.”

Ravana is the personification of lust and envy, which can disturb the execution of pure devotional service.

May Lord Sri Ramachandra and His devotees protect us all.

Hare Krishna.

Yours in service,
Giriraj Swami

By Radha Rasikraj Das

The youth are the driving force of any movement. So much so that vibrant ISKCON what we see today had it's earliest members as the hippie youth of New York. Since the beginning of creation the youth are being preached to carry forward the words of Lord Krishna far and wide. Narada Muni, acharya in our parampara, is the pioneer of Youth Preaching. With it's purity, enthusiasm, knowledge and dealings ISKCON has been instrumental in attracting youth from all walks of life into the Bhakti movement started by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. But there was always a need of association and getting benefited by mutual sharing of ideas and resources. This was the seed of ISKCON INDIA YOUTH CONVENTION (IIYC). IIYC was started by the efforts of HG RadheShyam Prabhu in the year 2016. The first venue was ISKCON Mayapur. In 2017, last year the venue was ISKCON Kanpur. Last two years IIYC has been able to attract a lot of enthusiastic youth preachers from all over India. The feedback received from both the IIYC participants and the host temples have been amazing. Every year has been an amazing experience with the numbers increasing. Continue reading "ISKCON India Youth Convention (IIYC 2018)
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By Radha Sakhi Dasi

The GBC members meet twice a year, once in Mayapur (spiritual headquarters) and the second time in another place. This year the meet during the latter half of the year, is being hosted by Iskcon Kanpur, while the former was hosted by Iskcon Mayapur. Iskcon Kanpur is a growing centre with over 80% of the members being the youth. The Director and an inspirational leader Devakinandan Das humbly invited the spiritual leaders to Iskcon Kanpur promising them a unique experience, and living up to everyone’s expectations the leaders and the local youth are having an enriching experience together. Along with his team, Devakinandan Das, ushered and welcomed every guest with a warm heart and has ensured their safety and wellbeing. The temple president, Prem Harinama Das along with Radha Ranjan Das and Amritesh Krishna Das and a group of young devotees have been working relentlessly to ensure the success of this Meet. Continue reading "Global-Spiritual Confluence in Iskcon Kanpur
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Шрила Прабхупада, ваша милость – все, из чего я состою…
“Вы не можете выжить без моей милости, и я не выживу без вашей. Это взаимно. Эта взаимозависимость основана на любви – сознании Кришны”.

[ письмо Шрилы Прабхупады ученику, 22 января 1976 ]

____________________

Srila Prabhupada, your mercy is all that I am made of ….

“You cannot survive without my mercy and I cannot survive without your mercy. It is reciprocal. This mutual dependence is based on love—Krishna Consciousness.”

[ Srila Prabhupada letter to a disciple, January 22, 1976 ]

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Answer Podcast

The post Amidst problems, how can we avoid giving up the things that give us strength? appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

Bhagavad-gita verse-by-verse podcast

The post Gita 01.16 Yudhishthira doesn’t come first in the list of warriors but is still their undisputed leader appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

The nine steps are as follows;

1. Shraddha - preliminary faith (not strong) 
2. Sadhu Sanga (associating with like minded and advanced devotees) 
3. Bhajana Kriya (performing devotional service based on rules and regulations) 
4. Anartha Nivrti (gradually freeing one's self from unwanted propensities) 
5. Nishta (faith becomes stronger) 
6. Ruci (cultivate a taste as result) 
7. Asakti (cultivate attachment to Krishna and His form, pastimes and Holy Name) 
8. Bhava (spontaneous attachment and preliminary stages of love) 
9.  Prema (unalloyed love for Krishna) 

This is a deep subject that can be justified by senior realized devotees and/or by studying Nectar of Devotion. Below is my 2 cents. Krishna Consciousness is a science albeit a science of non-matter. Normally, science is attributed to matter that which can be tested and verified. So if science equals testing and verification, then these steps exactly show us that anyone regardless of background when they take up to Krishna Bhakti will personally experience the nine symptoms above. That is the test and our verification. The beginning is faith (shraddha) and it is not strong faith. This faith is secondary mostly, dependent on guru, sadhu and shastra. This faith is sentimental and or theoretical. The journey has to begin from here. In the Western Judeo-Christian religions, all they have is Step 1. They believe in God and thats it. But as you can see, our acharyas have given a systematized exposition on this subject clearly stating its predictable symptoms. For the initial faith to go from theory to reality requires practical application which is the rest of the eight steps.

Without sadhus and blessings of sadhus (again this is an esoteric idea since blessings is not testable or sensual however it works) it is difficult almost to nil that our chance to progress in spiritual life. If they bless, we have to accept the blessings. The way we accept their blessings is through seva or bhajana kriya. This submissiveness of accepting the blessings of sadhus and shastra is the beginning of our real spiritual life (punctuated in our life as initiation or diksha). Diksha is not a ritualistic ceremony. To the degree we accept the blessings in the form of service, to that degree we will experience the remaining steps. Sadhus here not only refers to one's spiritual master but also a new devotee walking into the temple. Although we associate with elevated souls but by pleasing devotees of all caliber Krishna is pleased. But if we just focus on pleasing guru and not pleasing other vaishnavas then our understanding of bhakti is incomplete as we fail to see the relationship with Krishna and the new devotee.

As a result of pleasing Krishna, there is a sense of fulfillment (much like a hungry man who had a full meal) and this fulfillment provides us a sense of inner security and peace of mind that Krishna will protect. As a result, the soul will not hover anymore or desire to hover on the mode of passion and ignorance. The soul will voluntarily journey to satva guna or mode of goodness by giving up unwanted material lifestyle (anartha nivrti) and become more benevolent, compassionate and charity minded to all beings. The desire now to be submissive to guru, sadhu and shastra will become more intense and focused (nisha).

The rest of the journey is pretty much like auto-pilot mode because once the soul gets a higher taste (ruchi) and feels relief from the pangs of material miseries, the soul will journey closer and closer to Krishna (asakti). It is like if we are feeling cold, and journey towards heat we will not stop once we feel the initial waves of heat. Similarly, spiritual world and spiritual life is the anti-thesis of materialism which means relief from material miseries. Once we taste spiritual peace and happiness, the soul will not stop. Having said that we should still have determination to stay on the path since we are in this material creation and at any moment calamity can befall. Thinking like this, the soul is not proud of his security and position but rather humble always praying to Krishna for shelter and protection with a desire to seek His association (bhava).

This utter dependence on Krishna and literally crying for His mercy is the real sign that we are on the path and close to the destiny of Krishna prema which is step nine of the bhakti sequence.

Hare Krishna

Today I arrived back in Vrindavan after 8 long months away. I immediately went to Srila Prabhupada’s samadhi and gave him a
first-hand report of my preaching throughout the year in Australia, Russia, Poland and most recently the USA. After taking darshan of Radhe Syama myself and a small group of devotees went to the Radha Raman Temple in downtown Vrindavan. I was fortunate to be asked to lead kirtan for the Lord there! Finally we went to to the nearby samadhi of Srila Gopal Bhatta Goswami where I met my old friend, Jnana-Syama das babjaji, the caretaker of that most sacred place. Many thanks to Ananta Vrindavan dasa for so nicely capturing in photos our first day back home. Jaya Srila Prabhupada!

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By the Admin

Please note that the site will not be updated for a few days due to regular maintenance. You can still browse and read all the already published articles as also submit comments. New articles, announcements, reports etc sent in will be considered and published after the maintenance work is finished. Sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience. In this post you will find some appreciative comments the site has received. Continue reading "A notice to our readers
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Bhagavad-gita verse-by-verse podcast

The post Gita 01.15 The devoted see God before they see the world, the undevoted see only the world appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

Answer Podcast

The post Is the mind a covering on consciousness or does the mind contain the covering? appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

[Talk to Oregon State University students, Corvallis, USA]

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The post How our mind creates our reality – and how to change it appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

By Bhakta Hardik Kathuria

ISKCON Youth Forum, the youth wing of ISKCON Delhi (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) organized the biggest ever youth festival by ISKCON in Delhi-NCR titled "UDGAAR - An Expression of Goodness and Joy" on 14th October at Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium, Delhi. The festival marked the initiation of their "Value Awareness Campaign" all across Delhi-NCR. It gained the audience of 6000+ youths from Universities across the nation. India's Union Human Resource Development(HRD) Minister Mr. Prakash Javadekar was the Chief Guest at the event. Member of Parliament Mr. Bhupedra Yadav and MD-NBCC( National Buildings Construction Corporation) Mr. Anup Mittal were also present on the dais, alongwith VCs(Vice Chancellors) of YMCA and Sharda University. The event was also attended by heads of prestigious educational institutions such as Ramjas College, Jaipuria School of Business and others. Continue reading "UDGAAR – An Expression of Goodness and Joy – The Mega Festival in New Delhi
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All of you work cooperatively. Cooperative spirit. Work cooperatively for spreading this movement. Working cooperatively (Letters). You should all work cooperatively to push on this movement

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Srila Prabhupada wanted ISKCON’s temples to be centers of intensive devotional service, especially in the form of the five main practices essential to bhakti-yoga: chanting the holy name, hearing Srimad-Bhagavatam, worshiping the Deity, serving the Vaishnavas, and living in a holy place. He also wanted the temples to serve as hubs for outreach, where the spiritual lives of our guests could blossom. While some of our temples are meeting these objectives, many are struggling. This initiative examines Srila Prabhupada’s instructions about temples and applies a “best practices” and mentorship approach to helping all ISKCON’s temples better fulfill their purpose.

H.H. Niranjana Swami talks about devotee care, relationships, and cooperation at Iskcon Boston - 1/21/2017 (video)
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Male - Female Relationship Seminar by HG Devaki dd

London College of Vedic Studies was honored to have HG Devaki devi dasi (Founder, Institute for Spiritual Culture) deliver an instructive and relevant seminar entitled ‘Being in Harmony with the Opposite Gender’, on Saturday 22nd September 2018. The College serves as the educational wing of ISKCON-London, offering a wide range of educational, spiritual and practical courses, seminars and workshops aimed at nurturing character, personal fulfillment and spiritual progression.

GBC meetings in Kanpur, India (Album of photos)
Bhakti Chaitanya Swami: The GBC meetings officially began today, with discussions about the organizational development of Srila Prabhupada’s movement. Prabhupada, shortly before his departure, said that the movement would spread through “sincerity and intelligence”.
Find them here: https://goo.gl/Fb8N4y

By Jaya Gopal das

Who or what is God? In our modern world, when we observe the amount of energy consumed by all of the other topics that fill our lives, this question is given almost no consideration or thought whatsoever. As such, we are burdened with so many frivolous misconceptions of God, the Supreme. For the most part, this lack of attention to the true nature of God is due to the misconception that we cannot know God. Although there is certainly truth in thinking that total knowledge of the Infinite is not possible for one who is finite, this idea of permanent inconceivability causes people to give up on any further inquiry. They simply IGNORE the whole topic, and, as such, remain covered by ignore-ance (ignorance). Some religions lock this permanent inconceivability into their dogma and say that it is blasphemy to portray the Supreme with any sort of features. If we read the Holy Koran, we find that Mohammed (like Moses before him) railed against any sort of artificially manufactured forms of God, or idols. This should not be taken to mean, however, that the real and transcendental God does not have His own unique and personal form and qualities. Continue reading "A genuine alternative to modern misconceptions of God
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Srimad Bhagavatam Class by HG Praghosa Prabhu at Iskcon Kanpur, India (video)

Bhagavad-gita verse-by-verse podcast

The post Gita 01.14 The Gita’s audio-visual camera starts with the character of the questioner’s interest, but shifts now to the central characters appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

Answer Podcast

The post How do we understand Prabhupada’s statement – vegetarianism and nonviolence are not qualifications for devotion? appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

I had the opportunity to attend a GBC meeting at our Kanpur temple.

ISKCON Kanpur’s Sri Sri Radha Madhava temple is located in Mainavati Marg, 4 km away from Kanpur. It is constructed on a fifteen acre plot on Bithoor road and is near the River Ganges. The temple has courtyards, a big ashram, Govindas Restaurant and seminar halls.

In 2005, under the direction of His Grace Devakinandana Prabhu, a house was rented to serve as our ISKCON Centre. That same year 5 acres of land was donated and in March 2007 the utsava murtis of Sri Sri Radha Madhava and five devotees moved onto the land.

The devotees worked hard and gradually more land was purchased. In 2009 the installation ceremony of big Radha Madhava was performed.

Srila Prabhupada wrote more than 17 letters expressing his desire to start a centre in Kanpur.

 

Grimsby, Ontario

Toronto, Ontario

[Sunday feast class at ISKCON, Portand, USA]

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The post We need to forgive ourselves to give ourselves to Krishna appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

[Congregation program at ISKCON, Portand, USA]

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The post Krishna has faith in our potential – let’s have faith in his potency appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 27 June 2015, New York, USA, Bhagavad-gita 9.33)

Question: You mentioned the shooting incident. I am curious to know how this specific experience affected you in a personal way, if it is not too personal to share?

I will keep it simple. I do not want to speak about the material side of it, you know, the conspiracy, who pulled the trigger and all that. That is for the tabloid newspaper so we leave that out. I could see that the ultimate cause of all this was Krsna, so I did not get into the mood of who did it! It was Krsna who sent this to me.

It was not just a freak incident. There were people who were trying to get rid of me and that was really what was going on. And I sort of thought, ‘What is wrong with me that people want to get rid of me? Why is that? What did I do?’ I started thinking about that. Of course, whoever resorted to means of shooting someone in the back is not a person of good character. That is quite obvious. I might possibly call him a bit crazy; someone who goes to such an extent. But still, what did I do to agitate this crazy man to that point!? I had to ask that question, ‘What is it in me that caused this?’

For a long time, I had been the leader of our temple in Vrindavan; I was in charge for a long time. Everyone who needed to buy something had to come through me and I had got used to it; I had all the strings and I had gotten used to it. I tried to be reasonable. I thought that was how I should be. I thought that I should be reasonable with people. So I tried to be kind of what I thought is reasonable, to be what is commonly accepted to be reasonable. But, you know, what is your criteria for what is reasonable!? It is not so easy to determine.

So I attempted to be reasonable with everyone because I was controlling so many facilities. People would come all day and ask, “Can I use this, can I have that or can I do this?” And I had to decide. So I tried to be reasonable but it was by my criteria and maybe it was not always reasonable to others and people were left dissatisfied and I could see that I needed to change. I had to stop the impersonal attitude and become more personal and more sensitive to people. You cannot just leave some one completely dissatisfied to the point where it just begins to fester and like ferment inside. I could see that I had to change and become more sensitive and try to satisfy everyone.

So I changed, something changed. I am more conscious of it and trying to be more conscious of it. So even when someone wants something crazy, I try to deal with it in a personal way whereas before, I would have just said no. At the same time, it forced me to be humble for a while. I got reduced by the whole experience – I lost my power, lost all power and I could barely lift my arm for two years before I could function. So I was reduced, thrown back on myself and it also gave me some time to sort of look more at what was inside.

Was life so much about all the external achievements!? You know, your identity becomes so mixed with your achievements – I had done all these things therefore I had control of all this and that. Then I had nothing left – no money, no car, no energy and just reduced. I have always been someone with lots of energy so in whatever I do, I just throw all my energy at it. So if you take everything away, no problem, just with my energy I will be back, I am that kind of a person, you know, a high energy person. But at that time, even my high energy was gone. I had nothing except what was inside, that was all.

So I was forced to have a real good look at what was inside; the love I had inside, and I realised that it was not that much. It was less than I thought I had; I did not have that much. So it forced me to deeply reflect, which was beneficial. I would not be here and I would not be doing what I am doing now if that incident did not happen. Now I try to live a life not for myself but for other people, and give as much as I can, and I do not think I would have been able to do that in the same spirit as I am doing it now, without having gone through that experience. Anyway a very serious aspect; a very serious topic…

The article " Lessons in life " was published on KKSBlog.

This video sums up 7 weeks of presenting Krsna-consciousness to the people of America through the performing arts by Indradyumna Swami and the Viva Kultura festival group. Such cultural presentations are both entertaining and spiritually uplifting as they are centered around Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His transcendental pastimes.