Websites from the ISKCON Universe
“Marriage Vows” by HG Mahatma Prabhu - May 28, 2018 (5 min video)
Srila Prabhupäda at a wedding ceremony: “Throughout her whole life. there will be no separation in any condition. In any condition. And we shall jointly execute Kåñëa consciousness.” Jointly. Yes. She will help you, and you will help her. That’s all. Yes, you accept that “I will serve you throughout my life.” Srila Prabhupada January 10, 1969
All India Padayatra at ISKCON Khanapur, Karnataka (Album of photos)
My Lord, O Supreme Personality of Godhead, in Your holy name there is all good fortune for the living entity, and therefore You have many names, such as “Krishna” and “Govinda,” by which You expand Yourself. You have invested all Your potencies in those names, and there are no hard and fast rules for remembering them. (Sri-Caitanya-caritamrta, Antya-lila, 20.16)
Find them here: https://goo.gl/hyNiss
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Answer Podcast
The post In the metaphor of mind as inner screen, how does spiritual sound lead to spiritual realization? appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.
New Vrindaban Days
As New Vrindaban enters its 50th anniversary (1968 to 2018), I wrote this series of articles for the Brijabasi Spirit in an attempt to give the reader not only an “understanding,” but more importantly a “taste,” of what life in early New Vrindaban was like – through the stories of one devotee’s personal journey.
The title of the series, “New Vrindaban Days,” is in tribute to the wonderful book “Vrindaban Days: Memories of an Indian Holy Town” written by Howard Wheeler, Hayagriva Das. He was one of Srila Prabhupada’s first disciples, a co-founder of New Vrindaban, and, a great writer. As with Hayagriva’s book, this series focuses on a period of time in the 1970’s.
I would also like to acknowledge and thank Chaitanya Mangala Das, for spending untold hours assisting me in refining my writing for your reading pleasure.
I have been asked to describe certain aspects of early New Vrindaban Community life such as the nature of the austerities, what it was like for a new person coming here, cooking, anecdotes about particular devotees, etc.
I attempt to tell these stories in some semblance of a chronological order, beginning with my first meeting with devotees in 1968, leading to my arrival in New Vrindaban in late 1973 and carrying through to the official opening of Srila Prabhupada’s Palace in 1979.
Advaitacharya Dasa
Chapter 3: Captured by the Beauty of Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra
Bhakta Emil (pre Advaitacarya Das) & his brother Billy in New Vrindaban, early 1974.
It is the last half of 1973 and I have been chanting Hare Krishna for the better part of 2 years. I visit the Henry Street ISKCON temple in Brooklyn regularly and bring lots of friends. I have personally been in the presence of Srila Prabhupada and the devotees are constantly badgering me to move in. There is one thing holding me back. My entire hippie days I have been harboring the idea of moving to the country with my closest friends to form a farm commune.
During a visit to the temple I meet Yamunacharya Das, a devotee familiar with New Vrindaban, having been assigned by Srila Prabhupada himself as Kirtanananda Swami’s personal servant, after he was awarded sannyasa. Yamunacharya has been telling me stories about New Vrindaban ever since. After meeting him my idea of starting a commune first morphs to starting one near New Vrindaban. After chanting as long as I have, the idea has now morphed to just moving to New Vrindaban.
When I inform the devotees at the New York temple I am considering a move to New Vrindaban they browbeat me with spiritual logic.
“Bhakta Emil, Krishna put you in New York City for a reason. Look at how many people you bring to the temple. You’re obviously meant to preach. That’s what’s best for Krishna. You should surrender.”
I hate to admit it but it makes sense. My desire to go and live on a farm outside the city must be sense gratification. They break me. I meet with the president of the temple and make arrangements to move in the following week.
I shut down the apartment I’m living in and move back with my parents. My girlfriend doesn’t want to move into the temple so it’s likely we are breaking up. The days go by and my moving in date is getting closer. Being from NYC although I am twenty years old I do not drive. Most of my friends do not drive. The fact is I only have one friend that does and he adamantly resists driving us anywhere. Besides, this particular friend is not exactly head over heels about Hare Krishna. I am completely shocked when he approaches me.
“Hey, guess what? There’s a festival in New Vrindaban this weekend. How about we go?”
“To New Vrindaban? I can’t. I’m supposed to move into the Brooklyn temple.” I respond.
“C’mon man, you always said you wanted to check the place out. What difference is a few days going to make?”
“I wasn’t aware of any holy day. What’s the festival for?” I ask.
“It’s a Vedic fire sacrifice. Five couples are going to get married in the ceremony.”
I give in and my brother Billy, my girlfriend, the driver, and two other friends make the long journey. It is December and we fight bad weather the entire way. When we hit Moundsville we are so exhausted we search out hotel rooms and crash for a day. Eventually climbing out of bed, we complete the last leg of the trip to McCreary’s Ridge and pull up to Bahulaban in the darkness of evening.
The New Vrindaban Welcome Sign at Bahulaban – circa 1973.
Exiting the car I peer up the hill and find no sign of life. Only three light bulbs cast rays into the darkness but the effect is spectacular. The storm of the day before has covered everything in a thick blanket of ice. The golden rays reflect off the surrounding trees making them sparkle as if they were covered in diamonds. My New York City bred nostrils are enticed by the foreign fragrance of wood burning fires. I begin walking up the hill but find myself stopping halfway up the driveway leading to the compound above. There are no longer any questions. No more trips to be taken. Nothing else left to look for. I know I am home.
The Bahulaban Farmhouse, early 1970s.
We finish the walk up the drive and are met by a devotee exiting the ramshackle farmhouse we will later discover to be the temple. He identifies himself as Parambrahma Das and invites us inside. “Would you like some prasadam?”
He has sounded the perfect chord. We are starving. He calls to Bhakta Mark (Madhava Ghosh Das) and Bhakta Haynes (Hari Dhama Das), asking them to serve us prasadam while excusing himself to the cow barn.
Since I’d first seen the devotees those many years before, with their bed sheets and mismatched socks, the NYC devotees have over the years stepped up their wardrobe. They’re now sporting Indian kurtas and cotton or silk dhotis. The two bhaktas Parambrahma hands us off to are throwbacks donned in hole-ridden long john tops and dhotis made of what appears to be rough cuts of badly dyed polyester. I was not too concerned as my mind was now filled with thoughts of prasadam.
I envision the white flour puris covered in powdered sugar and preparations like sweet rice and halavah, which I am accustomed to at the New York Temple’s Sunday feast. I am lusting. Indeed, even salivating. In a few minutes Bhakta Mark comes out from another room carrying a tray on which sit stark stainless steel bowls with red numbers painted on them. In the bowls is a hot murky liquid which smells faintly of cinnamon. Perhaps a prasadam appetizer or broth I was not yet familiar with, I thought. But as we had never been disappointed by prasadam, we all greedily lift the bowls to our mouths and begin sipping. In a word: Awful. In two words awful and horrible. I will stop there.
Curds & Whey
“It’s whey drink made from the cow’s milk.” Bhakta Mark says.
I am familiar with curd and how it is made but have never done anything with whey but pour it down the drain. The taste of this preparation convinces me that I have been doing the right thing.
Seeing the look on my face Bhakta Mark chimes back in, “There’s nothing in it but cinnamon. Not even sugar.”
A thought runs through my head. Is this actually an ISKCON temple? One time I had curiously stumbled into a Hindu temple in New York and what they offered me as prasadam was nowhere near what I had experienced at the hands of the ISKCON devotees. I also thought the “Hypno-wheel” they had on the altar was a bit out of the ordinary. It was certainly not the Sunday Feast of Sri Sri Radha Govinda. Perhaps I have curiously stumbled again.
After the lackluster meal of “whey drink,” they try to figure out where we will be sleeping. It turns out that the Bahulaban farm we have arrived at is the Brahmachari ashram and there is really no place for my girlfriend and I to sleep. After some discussion it is determined that the two of us will sleep on the floor of a small cinder block building that serves as the incense warehouse for the community’s business selling Spiritual Sky products. There is only a narrow walkway between shelves full with scented oils and incense packages. It smells good but it is not very comfortable.
Before we go to sleep we notice a cork board hung on the wall. On it is an article cut from a local newspaper. The article explains how just a few months before the community members were attacked by a “biker gang” and a few of the devotees had actually been shot. The strong smells and the biker story makes for a night of more than a little anxiety and a host of strange dreams.
The next day the weekend feasting is scheduled to begin. The problem is all of the cooking is done on wood and there is no wood in the wood shed. Because of the ice, the horses have not been able to go up the hill and into the forest where the trees have been cut. The shod horses cannot walk on the ice, what to speak of pull a load of wood.
It is decided that about 30 men will walk the quarter mile up the frozen hillside and then down another half mile into the woods where the “Shyama Kunda” reservoir, of New Vrindaban is located. From there ice covered pieces of wood will be dragged by hand ¾ of a mile up and down frozen hills to the wood shed where it will be cut and split into pieces to be used in the cooking fires.
My New York crew is included in the 30. That day I become friendly with many of the brahmacharies of the community. They explain to me that the Shyama Kunda in Vrindavan, India is one of the planet’s most sacred places. It is the place where Krishna and his cowherd boyfriends spend time swimming. This frozen pond deep in the woods of New Vrindaban, they explain, is a manifestation of that same Shyama Kunda in India, magically transported to West Virginia, by the will of the pure devotee, Srila Prabhupada.
The austerities required for the weekend of feasting are mind boggling. It is cold everywhere you go and there is no hot or running water. Just to wash pots requires a visit to a hand drawn well, using a rope and a rubber bucket. There is no soap. The pots used for cooking are badly burnt from the raging wood fires and are scrubbed using rocks and wood ash. There is no refrigeration. When it is time to bring in the sweet rice for the feast, the cook, Amburish Das, asks my brother Billy and I to accompany him to a snow bank. From deep underneath the snow we dig out a 40 gallon pot and drag it to the temple. Everything about the place is impossible.
On the other hand, the kirtans are joyfully explosive. The quaint farmhouse temple room is transformed as community president Kuladri Das sits pouring ladles of ghee and adding pieces of wood to a small fire in the center of the room. Before him are five couples with brides including Tarkik Dasi and Sukhada Dasi donned in fancy saris, far more beautiful than the cotton ones usually worn. Their faces decorated with gopi dots and their hair with flowers. The sweet rice and all of the other preparations served at the feasts are unbelievable. Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra are more than beautiful. The experience is overwhelming.
Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra on Their altar at Bahulaban, early 1970s.
On the second or third day of our visit, as I exit the temple room after the morning program when I see Kirtiraja Das, who is one of the managers of the Brooklyn temple walking with Kirtanananda Swami. Knowing I am supposed to have moved into the New York temple by now he turns as I come out of the temple room archway, looks directly at me and blurts, “What are you doing here? You were supposed to move into the New York temple!”
The Swami looks at me and smiling turns back to Kirtiraja saying, “I think this boy has been captured by the beauty of Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra.”
No truer words have ever been spoken.
Later that day I inform the Swami that I would like to go back to NYC to get my stuff and then come back with my girlfriend and brother Billy. I ask if there would be a place for us to live in New Vrindaban. I get the okay.
A rousing Kirtan before Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra at the Bahulaban Temple.
On the drive back to NYC I can still see Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra in my mind’s eye. I can hear the bell hanging from the archway in front of Their altar, with the Swami standing under it pulling its rope. I feel the power of the kirtans and I can still taste some of the various dishes – bharats in yogurt, ice cold sweet rice – served at the feast.
I have been captured.
Their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra, Whose beauty captures the hearts and minds of many.
Did you miss the previous chapters? Click the links below to catch up:
Chapter 1: Every Journey Begins With a Single Step
Chapter 2: Srila Prabhupada – Jaya Radha Madhava
Stay tuned for Chapter 4: Fired Up – We Depend on Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra.
The next monthly installment will be posted July 2018!
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 20 December 2012, Durban, South Africa, Srimad Bhagavatam 12.6.40)
I was listening to a lecture of Srila Prabhupada and Prabhupada said, “Love is for Krsna.” We think we love so many things but all that love is not going to last. The only love that can last is love for Krsna; no other love can last no matter how deep it may be experienced now.
Just like between parents and children, such a deep love but then how long are the souls together. Bhagavatam looks at it from the bigger picture; from the bigger perspective of time and is pointing out to us that life-after-life, the living being is going through so many births in the material world and for a moment, like two straws floating together on the river of time, just for a moment these two straws are floating together until the waves of time will separate them. So our material love, even for those who are so dear to us, time will separate us!
But that does not mean that once we have assimilated this philosophy that now we must become cold, and that in this world there is no meaning to human relationships and affection and so on… No, we can remain affectionate but we must understand that those feelings of love only become meaningful if we connect them to the Supreme Lord because then the eternal element comes into the relationship. Then, in that relationship of affection, there is eternal spiritual advancement.
If we are not giving Krsna consciousness to our loved ones then there is no love at all! Then it is just illusion. For a moment, “I love you so much!” then it all disappears again. There is no such thing as eternal love in the material world.
The article " Forevermore " was published on KKSBlog.
The post Daily Darshan: June 1st, 2018 appeared first on Mayapur.com.
Painting Deities with Srila Prabhupada
“One day Srila Prabhupada asked me to paint a set of Radha-Krishna Deities that he was sending to Hamburg to have installed. When I informed him I was not an artist and didn’t feel I could do it, he said that he would show me what to do. So he told me to find a special black, white and red paint, and that evening we sat Them on his small desk and Srila Prabhupada personally painted the Deities and instructed me at the same time. I sat in front of him, and as time seemed to disappear, the lovely forms of the Lords slowly became manifest through the painting. After we were finished, I immediately went to my room and wrote what he had explained. He said that the painting of Radha and Krishna Deities is called Anga-Raga. Anga means ‘body’ and Raga means 'painting of.’ So Radharani holds her fingers in a mudra. Mudras can also be used by the Spiritual Master when he is preaching, and different mudras have special meanings. And Srila Prabhupada held up his fingers just as Srimati Radharani’s were—with forefinger and thumb together. Srila Prabhupada often used that 'mudra’ when he made a specific point.”
- Excerpted from “Yamuna Devi: A Life of Unalloyed Devotion”
Srimad Bhagavatam Class by HH Badrinarayana Dasa Goswami in Los Angeles, 29 May 2018 (video)
A visit to the Iskcon Farm in Postupice, Czech Republic (Album with photos)
Srila Prabhupada: By performing congregational cha...
Japa retreat in Russia (Album with photos)
Bhakti Chaitanya Swami: We just had a very nice japa retreat outside St Petersburg ...
Niskincana: Just to let you know, we have the next sabbatical course coming up this year. The Sabbatical course will start near the end September 2018 and finish in May 2018.
Lord Jagannath reaches Rajpura, Punjab, India (Album of photos)
Srila Prabhupada: The chanting of the holy name of Krishna ex...
How Kirtan elevates the consciousness with Ter Kadamba Das (6 min video)
Srila Prabhupada: By performing congregational chanti...
Varnasram series.
By Ajita Dasa New Mayapur has been tested by the usual lack of resources and succession. Incidentally, New Mayapur, situated in central France, 350km south of Paris, is the last place where Srila Prabhupada’s quarters are kept intact in the European continent. Being somewhat similar to New Govardhana in its history, in 2013 the France GBC requested that I help with the New Mayapur project. I started travelling there two or three times a year, for three to four weeks at a time. The New Mayapur management team secured a stall at a five-day festival in Bourges, 140km west of the project. This was the first testing ground for the famous Australian kofta arriving in the ‘land of fries’. The menu remained exactly the same as the catering menu Australians here love so much – the French dove into the nectar rather than turning up their noses! Continue reading "New Mayapur – France and the mighty kofta
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By Urmila Devi Dasi One day in an Armenian mountain village, a typically atheistic engineer, a man well respected in his community, sat outside for a smoke. When a truck came to deliver a package, he and his friend the truck driver talked about news from the city. As the driver carried the package to the engineer’s house, the engineer saw an unusual book in the truck: a Russian translation of Sri Ishopanishad. Curious, he picked it up. He looked at the photo of Srila Prabhupada on the back and thought, “How amazing that there is someone like this living on this planet!” Then he spontaneously fell on the ground to offer obeisance to the photo. Continue reading "Two Seeds that Grew in Iron
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A sacred journey to India hidden in Western Australia's Swan Valley! Here's a fantastic report by Kimberley McGivern, who is in her final year studying journalism at Edith Cowan University 
By Mukunda Bhakti Das Dark life in the locked cell of prison is really a hellish experience. Prisoners remain repentant on the misdeeds of their past lives and fully frustrated thinking on dark future. But Bhagavad Gita can bring a horizon of light and hope in their life as it describes that this material world is also a jail with continuous miseries headed by Birth-Death-Oldage-Disease and by worshipping and satisfying Lord Krishna, the President of whole creation, we can get a nice lifestyle free of sinful activities and break free of this prison of Material world. That is why on 25th May, 2018 Friday, Srimad Bhagavad Gita and Krishna Prasad were distributed among prisoners of Cox's Bazar Central Jail under the supervision of the Chittagong Divisional Committee of International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in collaboration with Sri Sri Radha Damodar Mandir , Cox's Bazar. Divisional Secretary of ISKCONChittagong H.G. Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari was present as the chief guest at the Gita Distribution Ceremony. Continue reading "Bhagavad Gita Distribution at Cox’s Bazar District Prison in Bangladesh: Dark Life to Light Horizon
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Every day during the auspicious Purusottama month, I read the fifteenth chapter of the Bhagavad-gita, “Purusottama-yoga”—“The Yoga of the Supreme Person,” in which the seventh verse is one of the most significant.
mamaivamso jiva-loke
jiva bhutah sanatanah
manah sasthanindriyani
prakrti-sthani karsati
“The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind.”
I found Srila Prabhupada’s purport to be both thorough and profound—a spiritual masterpiece and work of genius—and wished that other devotees could similarly contemplate its liberating depth and beauty.
Hare Krishna.
Yours in service,
Giriraj Swami
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[Bhagavatam class at ISKCON, Chowpatty, Mumbai, India]
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Highly successful 7th Annual Sadhu Sanga Retreat (Album with photos)
7th Annual Sadhu Sanga Retreat was by far the most crowde...
Harinama and book distribution in Moscow, Russia (Album with photos)
Srila Prabhupada: Simply by chanting the holy name of Lor...
“Gossip! It will Destroy this Movement”
Melbourne Temple, 14 Burnett Street, St. Kilda, Thursday, 6 April 1972
‘Behind Srila Prabhupada’s room was a tiny, two-metre square kitchenette. There, each day, Citralekha would prepare rasagullas for Prabhupada, who ate the sweets daily with his breakfast. Around mid-morning, Upendra would start to prepare Prabhupada’s lunch.
Children break their Piggy Banks to donate for the Under construction “Sri Krishna Arjuna Temple”. (Album of photos)
During the ongoing 3 days Gita Gyan Yagya at Moradabad. H.G Sakshi Gopal Prabhu requested everyone to contribute towards the ongoing construction of the Grand Temple. Prabhu Ji also narrated the importance of donating during the Purushottam month.
The next day, to everyone’s Surprise, many little kids came with their Piggy Banks, Money Boxes and Yearly Pocket savings
They all rushed towards Prabhu Ji & with great enthusiasm and excitement they all handed over their Pocket money!
Some of them said they were saving to buy toys, new dresses, gifts & video games, some were saving for picnics and trips.
But Happily, they Donated it ALL towards the Temple construction & asked Prabhu Ji to Break their Piggy Banks!
The children said, now we will collect from our friends, teachers, parents, relatives, neighborhood & from wherever we can!
One boy said, he had been saving to buy a bicycle for 2 years. Then he said “but i can walk to school, the Temple is more important than my bicycle.
H.G Sakshi Gopal Prabhu was moved to tears upon seeing this Heartfelt gesture by these little children.
Prabhuji glorified their sacrifices & acknowledged them with various Gifts, Blessings and Maha Prashad.
Prabhu Ji said, “It is this enthusiasm to serve Krishna which will please the Lord!
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Srimad Bhagavatam Class by HH Giriraja Swami at Los Angeles during the Prabhupada Festival (video)
Were you a prince in your last life?
Kadamba Kanana Swami: Krsna knows the past, present and the future. He knows us better than we know ourselves because we actually have no idea who we were. We could go to India and visit the Bhrigu readers of Rajasthan or Punjab who have these scrolls with all kinds of astrological information on them. If you are lucky, these readers will find your scroll and tell you who you were in your last life. Usually, everyone was either a prince or a princess, or someone occasionally gets a sanyasi.
February 7 1976 – Mayapur February 7th, 1976
Today is Sri Advaita-acarya’s appearance day, a half-day fast, and the day chosen for the launch of the boat.
In the early morning Prabhupada was driven in a jeep to Hoola Ghat on the Jalangi River, where he inspected the “Nitai Pada Kamala.” Its renovations are complete, and the Deities have been installed below deck. The small wooden forms of Sri Sri Gaura-Nitai will be taken on procession through villages whenever the boat lands.
It is a good facility, a 12 ton “Jali” class boat, about forty feet long and fifteen feet wide. It has a shallow draft and was previously used to transport hay, although the maritime authorities have licensed it to carry up to 56 passengers. The devotees have added a cabin above deck along most of its length. Brightly painted in green, yellow, and red, the boat was gaily decorated for today’s occasion with strings of orange marigolds. The high mast is painted in yellow and red strips like a barber’s pole. Inside the cabin the main support beams are bright-yellow and red with lotus-flower motifs.
Tamal Krishna Maharaja helped Srila Prabhupada on board over the rickety bamboo ramp. Prabhupada carefully inspected every corner of the boat. Then he sat for a few minutes on a straw mat, while the devotees held kirtana. Prabhupada likes the idea of preaching on the boat, and he encouraged Sudama Maharaja to make it a success.
Later in the morning Sudama Maharaja sailed away down the Ganga with seventeen men, including four of the older boys from the gurukula, on their maiden voyage. It was a magnificent sight. Many local villagers lined the shore, eager to witness their departure.
>>> Ref. VedaBase => TD 1-9: Sri Dhama Mayapur
Read more: https://goo.gl/SRjTQC
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Adult Education At The Temple
