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Websites from the ISKCON Universe
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[Bhagavatam class at ISKCON, Chicago, USA]
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[Talk at Moksha Yoga Studio, Chicago, USA]
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What Is The Importance Of Spiritual Master By HH Bhakti Dhira Damodara Swami (video)
36 religious students visited yesterday the Iskcon Farm in Sweden (Album with photos)
They were invited to lectures, Indian da...
Harinama in Paris (Album with photos)
Srila Prabhupada: This is Vedic civilization, not to waste a single moment of life for useless attempt. That is Vedic civilization. Every moment should be utilized. Especially for the human being, it’s so valuable. And they are finding out sporting, swimming and surfing — simply all programs of wasting time, especially in the Western countries. How much they have invented, I see only and laugh. The elderly men of your age, of course, maybe my age also, they are swimming and surfing. (Srila Prabhupada, Morning Walk, November 11, 1975)
Find them here: https://goo.gl/GQgyP7
Golden Age comes again? (3 min video)
Well, surely at least a beautiful step towards it!
Love & Peace maha-mantra flash-mob is now ON!
This special inspirational 2.5 min video features chants by:
HH Radhanath Swami, Bhakti Chaitania Swami, Indradyumna Swami, BB Govinda Swami, Bhakti Vijnana Goswami and many other Maharajas as well as respected Chaitania Chandra Charan, Yadubar, Jayadev, Malati, Mondakini, Mohanasini Prabhus and Matajis.
All that is just to kindly seek your participation in this amazing, utmost auspicious campaign!
Watch it here: https://goo.gl/1zurSv
“When one is on the bhakti marga everything is personal. Yamuna devi’s abundantly nutritious persona was the direct catalyst making the crucial difference between myself merely looking at the honey inside the jar and my deliberate decision to dive in.
The post Daily Darshan: April 19,2018 appeared first on Mayapur.com.
Siberia, Novosibirsk: Just Like Vaikuntha! (Album of photos)
Indradyumna Swami: As we continue our journey through Russia at winter’s end we meet devotees everywhere. In the city of Novosibirsk, in Siberia, we chanted and danced with blissful devotees for hours on end in an old hall in the city. It was just like Vaikuntha!
Find them here: https://goo.gl/UJt52Z
Giriraj Swami: My beloved spiritual son Kunjabihari dasa left this world today, on the auspicious occasion of Akshaya Tritiya, from a heart attack, in Dallas. Just last night he wrote me, “One thing I admire about you, you have so many wonderful, qualified disciples all over the world. I am not qualified in front of them. But I have true love and attachment for you. I love to talk about you. I love to glorify you to others, and when I do, I really get joy in my heart for you. I feel very much connected to you, heart-to-heart.” And this morning, just two hours before leaving this world, he forwarded me a beautiful photo of Sri Sri Radha-Kalachandji.
I feel separation from Kunjabihari Prabhu, but I take solace in the thought that he will continue his service in a better place, in a better situation, and that in time we will be together again, in service to Srila Prabhupada and Sri Sri Radha-Kalachandji and their devotees.
Please join me in praying for Kunjabihari Prabhu, for his smooth transition to an auspicious destination, where we will all meet again.
Hare Krishna.
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[Bhagavatam class at ISKCON, Chicago, USA]
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[Class on Bhagavad-gita 2.47 at ISKCON, Chicago, USA]
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Veda Course at the Manor, UK
This is a three month course, where participants have a comprehensive experience of living like monks. Doing the full morning program, taking active part in the services going on at the temple, adopting Vaishnava attire, appearance and lifestyle. The chanting process is also emphasised more, with the aim of bringing practitioners up to the standard of 16 rounds.
Video reviews from the screening of HK! movie in Canada (14 video clips)
Hare Krishna! The movie testimonials from Kamloops, B...
Bhakti Chaitanya Swami: We are now deep in Russia, in SIberia. On Monday we passed through Moscow and did a program in the main temp...
Maya forces us to believe that happiness can be attained in this material world. Srila Prabhupada points out, “This place is miserable. But maya’s illusion, we are taking this miserable condition of life as happiness. This is called maya. There is no happiness in this material world. Everything miserable.” Lecture on BG 2.6 -- London, August 6, 1973. Continue reading "“Maya Times” – The fake news agency
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To everyone’s surprise, this became a miraculous visit with less than fifty devotees pledging over $150,000 U.S.! This precedent setting example shows that the hearts of the devotees and not the size of the temple is what really counts. When there is a will, there is a way. Make the commitment and the means will manifest. This was also Srila Prabhupada’s mood. Continue reading "TOVP Euro Tour Days 2 and 3: Koln, Germany – Gauradesh
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Giriraj Swami read and spoke from Srimad-Bhagavatam 2.3.17.
“The appeal of our eternal life with Krishna is like the carrot. We see that and we accelerate our spiritual endeavors. But, we also get little whips from the stick of old age and disease. Srila Prabhupada says that the old age and disease of a devotee are actually an impetus to his progressing in Krishna consciousness and achieving his eternal life with Krishna. In any case we are going to be subjected to old age and disease—janma-mrtyu-jara-vyadhi duhkha-dosanudarsanam (Bg 13.9), but for a devotee they are not impediments but are impetuses to progress further in Krishna consciousness. In fact whatever a devotee experiences should be an impetus to progress further in spiritual values.”
Srimad-Bhagavatam 2.3.17 (Right-click to download)
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ajñaḥ sukham ārādhyaḥ
sukhataram ārādhyate viśeṣajñaḥ
jñāna-lava-durvidagdhaṁ
brahmāpi taṁ naraṁ na rañjayati
ajñaḥ — the ignorant; sukham — is easily; ārādhyaḥ — convincible; sukhataram — even easier; ārādhyate — is to convince; viśeṣajñaḥ — the expert; brahmāpi — but even Lord Brahma; na rañjayati — cannot convince; tam — that; naram — person who is; jñāna-lava-durvidagdham — puffed up in the pride of a mere fraction of knowledge.
“The ignorant can be easily convinced [by explaining the truth]. The intelligent can be even more easily convinced [for they have the capacity to recognize the truth]. However, even Lord Brahma cannot convince half-baked people puffed up with their little knowledge.” (Nīti-śatakam of Bhartṛhari, Verse 3)
We sometimes need to confront people who hold views different from ours. If their view is incorrect, we may need to correct them. Sometimes however, they stay stuck to their opinions.
To have a better chance of changing their opinions, we need to understand how opinions are normally formed and reformed. Good opinions are usually formed based on information and reason. If we have the right information and follow the right reasoning, we have a high chance of coming to the right understanding.
Suppose we have formed an opinion in this way. If we encounter someone who has more information or better reasoning or both, then discussing with them may prompt us to change our understanding. Though we may initially feel bad that we were wrong, that feeling will soon be superseded by the joy of having gained a better understanding.
Conversely, if we hardly know anything about an issue, then we may either have no view or some casual view that we aren’t much attached to. If someone gives us a better understanding, we will happily accept it.
Some people, however, don’t form opinions based on proper information or proper reasoning – they have some partial information, do some half-baked reasoning and arrive at a stand that they then hold on to. In fact, they don’t hold opinions; their opinions hold them. Changing their understanding is well-neigh impossible. The Bhagavad-gita (18.22) indicates that such knowledge is knowledge in the mode of ignorance; it is fragmented knowledge that keeps one in ignorance, or even aggravates one’s ignorance. The philosopher-saint Srila Jiva Goswami, in his Bhakti-Sandarbha, uses the same word as in this Subhashita to refer to such people: jnava-lava durvidagdhah. It literally means those whose opinions are baked badly with a fraction of knowledge – their knowledge is minute; their obstinacy, mountainous.
Such opinionatedness doesn’t infect only some frustrating fanatics out there; it infects us too. We all have an ego that wants to prove that it is always right. Thankfully, we also have an intelligence. If we use our intelligence discerningly, we can detect when our ego is making us irrationally attached to our opinions.
Spiritual wisdom can sharpen our intelligence by changing our source of security. We are often attached to our opinions because our ego gets security in being right. But it is pseudo-security, coming as it does from the false notion that we are right when we aren’t. We can become free from the need for this pseudo-security when we get real security: security coming from love, especially spiritual love. The Gita explains that we are souls who are eternal parts of the whole, Krishna (15.07). He always loves us – his love won’t be lost to us even if we turn out to be wrong. When we are situated in the security of divine love, losing an argument no longer seems an unbearable loss.
Spiritual wisdom can do more than protect us from being irrationally attached to our own views; it can also equip us to better respond to people who are irrationally attached to theirs. Rather than futilely trying to make them see reason, we can turn prayerfully towards Krishna: “O Lord, what are you trying to teach me through this? How can I serve you now?” Such submissiveness makes us more receptive to his inner presence and voice. Connecting with him raises our intelligence above our ego – instead of trying to prove ourselves right, we try to seek the right way ahead. Our service attitude towards Krishna infuses humility into our interaction with them, thereby increasing the probability of their being more receptive. Amidst a confrontation, words coming from ego usually reach till the ego. In contrast, words coming from the heart frequently touch the heart.
What if we still don’t succeed in changing their opinion? We can let them be and move on with our life. Even through such an impasse, we can grow deeper in the most important right understanding that we are servants of Krishna, subordinate to his will. And growth in that understanding takes us closer to the only success that really matters – victory over the ignorance that keeps us bound in distressful material existence. When we appreciate that we are progressing towards that ultimate success, a stalemate in a confrontation in this temporary world pales into insignificance.
[I thank my friend and scholar, Hari Parshad Prabhu, for providing me with this verse]
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[Bhagavatam class at ISKCON, Chicago, USA]
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[Class at ISKCON, Naperville, USA]
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