Planet ISKCON

Radhanath Swami speaks at Facebook Headquarters.
On Thursday, June 15, 2017 Radhanath Swami spoke at Facebook Headquarters in Menlo Park, Silicon Valley, in California. Sixty employees attended a talk on the subject “Keys to Inner Fulfillment – Wisdom from Ancient Yoga Texts”.
He began the talk by saying how Facebook is offering the technology to connect billions of people around the world yet still there are so many disconnections. Real satisfaction comes when we connect to our inner roots. He spoke of his visit to Muir Woods where he learned that the strength of the mighty Redwood trees was passed on by how they all connect together on the root level.

Speaking of who we are and the nature of real life, he said that when we connect to our true self, we realize that we all have the potential to love. “When we water the root, it naturally extends to the branches, etc. Similarly connecting to our inner self, naturally extends to all beings. Everything comes from an origin. We all have forgotten that. In giving we receive and in giving we nourish our hearts. Great people in history have lived by this principle.”

He shared the idea that the real key to inner fulfillment is to connect to our real self and that this can be done through three essential principles of sadhana (regular spiritual practice), satsang (good association) and sadachar (good behavior). He explained the practical aspects of these principles. “However small we are, we can make a big difference – through our own way of living, we can be the change we want to see in the world. All the good changes in the world have come from sincere people who wanted to make the change.”
Read more: https://goo.gl/NgndXv

The Boys’ Summer Trip 2017 (Album with photos)
Manorama Dasa: For the next five weeks I have the good fortune to serve the Boys’ Summer Trip, 30 boys ages 12-17 traveling across North America to visit temples, Ratha-yatra festivals, national parks… on a spiritual adventure summer camp on wheels. At the moment we are in Montreal for Ratha-yatra, and the boys are rehearsing a drama with Bhaktimarga Swami.
Find them here: https://goo.gl/RmZo5w

Presentation on The Solar System and the Vedic Scriptures (17 min video) Radha Mohan Das: This presentation shows fascinating similarities betwee...

ISV Harinaam in Mountain view - July 8th 2017 (Album with photos) Srila Prabhupada: One can be free from all sinful reactions after reaching a p...

Upcoming Veda course in the UK.
There is an upcoming men’s residential course coming up called the Veda course.
The next Veda course will start at the beginning of October 2017 and finish in December 2017.
I’ve attached a poster for the course. Please put this information (along with the poster) through to all your channels of communication. Thank you.
Niskincana dasa

By Mayapur Internal Communications Team

Starting in the late 80’s with one small chariot, Ratha-yatra was celebrated just inside the Mayapur campus by the gurukula students. As time went on, Ratha-yatra grew, and the campus grounds could no longer hold the festival. We had to start thinking big. In 1997, the Mayapur management organized the first ever Ratha-yatra festival coming from Rajapur to ISKCON Mayapur with three grand chariots. It was only with their leadership and expertise that this festival continues today. Continue reading "A sweet Recollection of the Mayapur Ratha-yatra celebration
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“I told the doctor I was overtired, anxiety-ridden, compulsively active, constantly depressed, with recurring fits of paranoia. Turns out I’m normal.”

–  Jules Feiffer

 

This paradoxical quote illustrates how abnormal mental conditions have become normal, how mental health problems have become mainstream, how though we have progressed technologically, we seemed to have regressed mentally. Indeed, sociologists sometimes refer to this alarming phenomenon as an anxiety epidemic.

Each person’s mental health issues can have complex specific causes. While addressing these individual causes, we can’t afford to lose sight of underlying generic causes. That universal cause is pointed to by psychologist William Sheldon of Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons: “Deeper and more fundamental than sexuality, deeper than the craving for social power, deeper even than the desire for possessions, there is a still more generalized and universal craving in the human makeup. It is the craving for knowledge of the right direction—for orientation.” We need a deeper meaning and larger purpose for our life. Without this, we feel as if the ground has been pulled from under us.

Such disorientation is an inevitable result of the materialistic worldview that is mainstream today – a worldview that most of us have adopted, consciously or subconsciously. This worldview reduces us to an aggregation of chemicals bungling around in this big blind world, which too is just a bigger aggregation of chemicals. Such a conception of life causes a profound existential angst which if contemplated unflinchingly would make life almost unbearable.

To make such a pointless life bearable, we divert ourselves from reality by a frenetic immersion in matter. We seek our self-worth by piling up degrees in front of our names, figures in our bank accounts and gizmos in our houses. Or we lose ourselves in the myriad forms of entertainment that swamp us from all directions. While such achievement or enjoyment gives us some titillation, it too triggers further anxiety because none of these externals are really in our control. Life’s vicissitudes can take any and all of these away at any moment. The possibility and indeed the inevitability of such dispossession of the things that shore up our self-worth causes us further anxiety. Ironically, the very things we seek for decreasing our anxiety end up subjecting us to greater anxiety. Thus, both these factors – the fundamental spiritual alienation and the subsequent material infatuation – contribute to our increasing anxiety. These two causes are actually one because spiritual alienation leads to material infatuation, though both fuel each other.

This fundamental cause of anxiety is like the seismic disturbance point below the surface of the earth. From that point originate the vibrations that wreak havoc on the earth’s surface. Similarly, from our spiritual alienation originate the many vulnerabilities that lead to our being afflicted by myriad mental health issues.

Unfortunately, our spiritual alienation is only being aggravated by the onward march of progress in today’s world. As our world has progressed from the modern to the post-modern times, the mainstream intellectual ethos has relativized all knowledges and indeed all knowledge-systems. Consequently, spirituality, despite being a much-bandied word, has been reduced to a feel-good laissez-faire. In this spiritual free-for-all, people frantically try out various ways to feel good without knowing any process to realize the good that exists at their spiritual core. Thus, intellectual confusion exacerbates our spiritual alienation, thereby increasing further our anxieties.

And our material infatuation too has worsened with the advent of technology. With the extensive and intensive use of technology for marketing lifestyle products and even addictive indulgences, people find a whole universe of enjoyment alluring them. Hoping desperately to find pleasure somewhere in this techno-fuelled super-bazaar, they get increasingly obsessed with the materialism that indentures them to anxiety.

To address our anxiety by tackling our spiritual alienation and material infatuation, the Bhagavad-gita stands ready with coherent and cogent spiritual knowledge. It helps us understand that we are at our core spiritual beings and are meant for a life of loving  harmony with our source, the whole whose parts we are.

To regain our spiritual wholeness, we can begin by challenging the status quo that has deemed abnormal mental health issues normal. For those intrepid enough to explore the possibility that we are meant for a better life, the Gita’s yogic knowledge shows the way out of the ocean of anxiety to the shore of security and serenity.

The post The Abnormal Normal appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

By Greg Cook

Around noon on Saturday, men wrapped in white robes gathered just off Boston’s Boylston Street in the middle of a festive crowd of women dressed in bright colored saris and men in dhoti kurtas, with gopi dots and lines of color painted on their faces. The robed men lined up before the tall yellow chariot wagon, garlanded with flowers, that resembled a temple on wheels. One man raised a coconut above his head, then smashed it on the pavement for an auspicious beginning to the annual Festival of Chariots — or Ratha Yatra (a Sanskrit phrase that roughly translates as “chariot procession”) — by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness Boston or ISKCON Boston or more generally known as the Hare Krishnas. Continue reading "Hare Krishna ‘Festival Of Chariots’ Parades Through Boston
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Video: youtu.be/o4DeUuOnKLM

See pictures

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Please find below recordings from “A short UK haul“.

Download all (zip file, 1.3 GB)

 

Retreat 

KKS_UK_Wales_Retreat_13May2017_Kirtan_Part1

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Other

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KKS_UK_11May2017_DisciplesMeeting_Kirtan

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KKS_UK_May2017_HouseProgram_Lecture

By TOVP

Operation FullDome is a way to give any visiting guest to Sri Dham Mayapur an opportunity to experience the most unique immersive spiritual experience in a spiritual town. The visitors will relax in comfort and watch high-quality presentations of professionally made FullDome films, using only top grade technology – the same technology that Disney, NASA, and many Fortune 500 companies use. This place will become the pivot point of interactive educational and spiritually riveting audio-visual experience. The proceedings from this project will go towards the TOVP Exhibits. Continue reading "TOVP FullDome Mayapur Project
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Vaisesika dasa: How to trick one to say the name of Krishna?
Just tell them to repeat the word “sneakers”! :-) Try it!
Lecture by HG Vaisesika Dasa Prabhu Recorded on July 9th 2017 at ISKCON Silicon Valley (video)
Narada said, “I will give you a mantra that will make you the richest man in the world, if only you will repeat it constantly, day in and day out.” Narada told Valmiki to repeat the word mara over and over again, and Valmiki agreed. Holy men like Narada could not lie, and Valmiki knew that mara was an evil word, which agreed all too well with his greedy personality. Valmiki sat beneath a tree and began to chant, “Mara mara mara mara…” However, Valmiki did not realize that he had been tricked - as the syllables of “Mara mara mara” began to run together, Valmiki instead found himself chanting “Rama, rama, rama”!
Watch it here: https://goo.gl/dsP5Zf

Since the time of Lord Chaitanya, Navadvip has been a place of scriptural learning. It is evident from Chaitanya-bhagavata (Adi 2.60-61), nana-desa haite loka navadvipe yaya navadvipe padile se ‘vidya-rasa’ paya “Many people came from various provinces to study in Navadvipa because by studying there one achieved a taste for education.” ataeva paduyara nahi samuccaya […]

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[Phone talk to everydaychant.com online sanga]

 
Podcast

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Leaders from all of over Indonesia, including, Java, Sulawesi, Lombok, Sumatra and Bali, came together for the annual general meeting of the National Council. Kavicandra Maharaja and I also attended in our role as GBCs for the area.

Each leader represented a temple or preaching centre and gave a report of their preaching activities over the last year. One notable report was that of the Rathayatra committee, which stated that there were 29 Rathayatras celebrated in Indonesia over the last year.

The post Daily Darshan: July 11th, 2017 appeared first on Mayapur.com.

Visit of Indian parliamentarians to the Moscow Iskcon Temple, today, July 10th, 2017 (Album with photos) Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on her...

How to be a diplomat and at the same time not duplicitous? I think this is the art of ambassadorship. It is also the art of negotiating and leadership. A leader especially a Kshatriya type leader is trained to cultivate this art of diplomacy without duplicity. I believe today we have more duplicity than diplomacy. Unfortunately, it is very hard to tell the difference. Henceforth, people in general do not trust their leaders anymore or at the least have a dubious outlook. If we want a leader to be respected and trustworthy, then the leader should establish his or her agenda clearly, follow up on it periodically in a transparent manner with verifiable statements. To me, this type of leadership invokes trust. So when such a leader is behaving diplomatically and may seem duplicitous, still it will not create doubt as we are aware of their leadership style.

I think Srila Prabhupada was like this. He always was clear in his speeches, letters, projects, and his day-to-day dealings with people (big, small, disciples, non-disciples). Such straightforward and consistent dealings puts people at ease and any doubt that may exist will soon dissipate. People may not agree or even understand fully our philosophy but if they see our dealings as simple and straight, then they will certainly value our words. Everyone is a leader, i think, and should take it upon themselves to practice simplicity and straightforwardness (not rude) with everyone.

Hare Krishna

Kirtan in the Park - San Diego, USA (Album with photos) Bliss on the Prado of historic Balboa Park - Every Saturday from 12-4pm. Find them here:...

Harinama in a Baltic Beach city (Album with photos) Indradyumna Swami: Chanting the holy names on the street with mridangas and kartalas is the o...

TOVP: New beautiful panoramic video (3 min video) Ambarisa Das: This is an update to the wonderful video created by the TOVP360 project. Watch i...

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 09 February 2012, Leicester, England, Srimad Bhagavatam 1.2.19)

We cannot trace how long we have been in the material world. Life after life, we are changing bodies – the gross body – but the subtle body; which is made up of the mind, intelligence and false ego; is travelling with us. Therefore, the impressions of so many lifetimes are stored in our consciousness. By the arrangement of the Supreme Lord, we have forgotten these previous lives but memories of so many previous lives are stored within the sub-consciousness and are influencing us.

Therefore a cute little child is not totally innocent because there is a whole history that may not be manifest yet but it will come out later and then you think, “How is it possible that my little darling is doing such a thing?” but your little darling has already done these things in unlimited previous lives.

So in this way we are very much influenced by the three modes of material nature which spread out over many lifetimes.

Srila Prabhupada mentioned that we should associate with the mode of goodness. He does not say that we should be in the mode of goodness, he says that we should associate in the mode of goodness, which I think is an interesting point.

To be in the mode of goodness is so not easy. Just by determination and endeavour we cannot really change our heart but by associating with the mode of goodness then one gradually develops the qualities of goodness. In the Srimad Bhagavatam, the transcendental process of devotional service is described. It is said, “By devotional service, automatically the influence of ignorance and passion disappears. Then eventually one becomes fixed in goodness and even in pure goodness!”

Unalloyed goodness is known as viśuddha-sattva, transcendental goodness. Meanwhile we are in the process of purification and the influences of the lower nature are still within and some bad habits may still be there because we were already afflicted with sinful behaviour from previous lives that the tendency is there but by associating with the mode of goodness then gradually one develops good qualities and rises above.

Website: bucsu.krisnavolgy.hu, Facebook, Registration

GBC College (2 min video)
Tamohara das: “I think this is one of the most important projects we’ve done in recent years”
Watch it here: https://goo.gl/Z4GvXi

Ecstatic July 1st Harinam at Jacksonville Beach, Florida, United States (Album with photos)
Every month many Harinams are held at various football games, parades, events and beaches. Jacksonville Beach is one such location. Devotees blissfully sing and dance with the sincere drunks and distribute books in the scorching summer sun - often coming back ten shades darker.
Afterwards, everyone takes prasadam at Mother Vishnupriya and Godruma’s home. Sankirtan yajna ki jaya!
(photos by Narottama)
Find them here: https://goo.gl/fmwwpr

Rathayatra in Barcellona, Spain, 2017 (Album with photos) Srila Prabhupada: O my Lord! Persons who chant the holy names of your Lordship are far,...

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