Planet ISKCON

Ahmedabad’s 5th One-day Padayatra (Album with photos)
December 30, 2016
In honour of ISKCONS 50th anniversary, the devotees of Ahmedabad pledged to do one five-day padayatra and five one-day padayatras this year. The first five-day padayatra was held in January with Lokanath Swami attending. During the course of the year, they also completed the 4 one-day padayatras they had pledged. On December 18th, they successfully held the fifth one-day padayatra thus completing their vow. They are now planning to do these padayatras every year for the pleasure of all the vainavas and Srila Prabhupada.
By Muralimohan Dasa
Receiving blessings
On December 18th we held our last one-day padayatra. We planned the following route: we would start at the ISKCON Ahmedabad temple and travel to Ramdev Nagar, then to Prahalad Nagar, next to Railway Crossing followed by the village of Markarba, then to SG. Highway and lastly to Sarkhej Ujala Chowkdi ending the padayatra at the Bhavani temple in the village of Sarkhej. It was a 10 kilometre walk and we would reach our destination at 1:00 pm that day.

Before leaving we had kirtana in the temple premises from around 8.00 am. Jashomatinandan Dasa, who was in his room at the time, heard the kirtana and came out to meet us. Upon seeing him we garlanded him and asked for his blessings. He smiled happily and with a loud voice said, “Hari bol!” raising his left hand in the air (his right hand was on his chanting beads). We were blessed.

Ecstatic kirtana in Sarkhej Ujala Chowdi

We left the temple at 8.30 am. There were more than 90 devotees joining us with 25 to 30 of those devotees actively distributing books along the way. The rest of us conducted sankirtana while following the bullock cart carrying the deities of Sri Sri Nimai-Nitai and Srila Prabhupada. At 9.30 am we stopped and served breakfast prasadam to all the padayatris before resuming our journey. We would stop walking after every four streets so we could have ecstatic roaring kirtanas, lead by various devotees. We had an especially blissful kirtana when we reached Sarkhej Ujala Chowdi. It went on for half an hour as we delighted in chanting the ‘Hare Krishna’ maha mantra. Sarkhej Ujala Chowdi is a predominantly Muslim area and when they saw us the public began to gather, even shop owners came out of their shops to watch us. When we saw that such a nice crowd was gathering we adjusted the deities to face everyone so they could take darsana. We also distributed many books, which we sold at a discounted price in this particular area.

Maha-padayatra book scores

On this padayatra, we distributed 408 Bhagavad-gitas and 447 small books in just four and a half hours, which made this one-day padayatra seem like a maha-padayatra.By 1.00pm we reached our destination, the Bhavani temple in the village of Sarkhej. Afterwards, all the padayatris had a lunch feast and we also distributed khichadi prasadam to all the villagers. When Naradamuni Dasa reported our successful padayatra to Jashomatinandan Dasa he was very pleased and he bestowed more blessings upon us to do more padayatras.

Prasadam power

When I look back on all of the five one-day padayatras we held, I strongly believe that we were able to maintain the spirits of all the many devotees who joined us, through the sumptuous prasadam cooked. For this, we have all these wonderful, selfless serving, devotees to thank: Madhavmohini Dasi, Harimurari Dasa, Padmaradha Dasi, Sachidhuli Dasi and Bhakta Bhavesh. Other devotees who deserve special recognition for their services on padayatra are:

BhaktaRajesh Shah and his wife Bhaktin Jaishree
Harimurari Dasa and Padmaradha Dasi
Antaratma Dasa
Vamsibihari Dasa and Sadanandi Dasi
BhaktaSunil and his wife Bhaktin Rama
Bhakta Sonu Singh
Bhakta Ramchandra Kannan
Bhakta Bhavesh Joshi
Naradamuni Dasa
Madhavmohini Dasi and Rukamani for the deities sringar
Our team of devotees has also pledged to distribute five to six thousand Bhagavad-gitas for this year’s book marathon.
Find them here: https://goo.gl/bMQOyt

I remember many years ago when devotees appeared on a popular TV chat show in front of a live audience, they started with some sweet bhajan and then 4 or 5 of them were interviewed. During the interview the TV host cottoned on that the devotees were seriously dedicated to their cause. As a result he asked one of the devotees the following; "What about holidays, do you take an annual vacation?" The devotee in question responded both with confidence and humour "When you are having so much fun doing what you are doing, where is the question of needing a holiday as everyday is the perfect holiday" Continue reading "Service Life Balance
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Wonderful Far East language book distribution throughout the UK (Album with photos)
From retired Chinese army officers to brilliant Cambridge University students, from tour operators to politicians to jolly kung-fu teachers, here’s just a few of the many fortunate souls across the UK who’ve recently received Srila Prabhupada’s books in Chinese (Japanese & Korean too)…
(In the photo: Joyful students visiting from Taiwan take the “Perfection of Yoga” and extra “Beyond Birth and Death” copies for friends.)
(Photos by Suan Mui) Find them here: https://goo.gl/Ez0Xf9

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Please join us in prayers for my dear friend and Godbrother, HH Bhakti Vrajendra Nandan Maharaja, President of ISKCON Malaysia, who just left his body this morning in Sri Jagannatha Mandir, Kuala Lampur. He has been suffering from very ill health for a long time now. Previously, he had been the Temple Commander in Sri Sri Krishna Balaram Mandir, Vrindavan. Maharaja did extensive preaching in Malaysia and will be sorely missed. Continue reading "HH Bhakti Vrajendranandana Swami left his body
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Brajanandana das and family are originally from Malaysia but have been living in Perth for many years.

He is now the Vice President of our temple and organises temple and community programs.

I had the good fortune of being invited to their house for a wonderful “Malaysian” style lunch and was accompanied by co-Presidents Sita Rama Laksman and Yadu-srestha.

As devotees, we talk a lot about getting free from the material energy, free from the influence of maya, free from our attachments to material sense pleasures and their objects. Why do we want to do that? What would be the reason? Sometimes it can be confusing. It may seem like we're taking all this too seriously, when really it's all Krishna's creation and life in this world can have so many pleasures to offer us. Here is an example that perhaps will illustrate the reasons. Suppose you are in a relationship with someone. You think you love them, and they love you. You have all kinds of hopes and dreams about all the things you will do together. They seem to be so wonderful, and they tell you all kinds of things that you will do together, and ways you will be happy and enjoy your love together. Continue reading "Freedom From Bondage Means Having Krishna
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In 1974, George came to visit Srila Prabhupada at Hare Krishna Land, in Juhu. I took him around the construction site, and he expressed his appreciation for the work and encouraged us in our efforts. When at twelve-thirty we heard the conch shell blow for raja-bhoga arati, we proceeded to the small temple shed, where George chose a pair of karatalas and sang with the other devotees. Puri dasa, originally from Scotland, was doing the arati, and when he turned to offer the ghee lamp to the devotees and saw George, his hand trembled so much that, as he told me later, he was afraid the ghee lamp would fall. Continue reading "George Harrison’s Visit to Juhu, Remembering and Giving Thanks
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For some, duty is a dirty word—we want to do what we want to do. Period. To hell with duty. But let’s consider this more seriously: What is duty, and should I be concerned about it? Clearly, duty means different things to different people. And yet it’s not uncommon to wonder: What am I meant to do? Is there a reason I was put on this earth? Duty is a term loosely applied to any action or course of action regarded as morally necessary, apart from personal likes and dislikes. From the theistic viewpoint, the ultimate duty is to God and our fellow man. . Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was among the West's many philosophers who wrote about duty. He called his system of thought "deontology," which literally means "the study of duty." One of the most important implications of deontology is that a person's behavior can be wrong even if it results in a positive outcome, and an act can be virtuous even if it results in a negative outcome. In contrast to consequentialism, a philosophy claiming “the ends justify the means,” deontology insists that how people achieve their goals is generally just as important as what those goals are. Continue reading "Is Duty a Four-letter Word?
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ISKCON Malaysia: URGENT NEED FOR PRAYER
Hare Krishna.
HH Bhakti Vrajendra Nandana Maharaj is in very very critical health condition now. Kindly pray for Maharaj to Lord Narasimha Dev. After consulting all ISKCON Doctors and Maharaja’s instruction to disciples, we are taking Maharaja back to Sri Jagannath Mandir now from Seremban. Medications will be stopped and only oxygen given. Devotees are advised to come to temple and start kirtan please

Updated BBT style guide (December 2016)
Here is the most recent version of the BBT Style Guide.
BBT Style Guide, December 2016 (docx, 433 KB)
BBT Style Guide, December 2016 (pdf, 910 KB)
The Style Guide offers the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust’s latest standards on such matters as spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and word choice.
This is a routine update.
You can always find the latest version of the Style Guide on the permanent page of BBT editorial resources.
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We are very happy to inform you that the holy place of Ganga Sagar is ready to host the upcoming Makar Sankranti & Ganga Sagar Mela (12-16 of January 2017) in Sagar Island at Lord Kapil Muni’s (incarnation of Lord Vishunu) ashram at the confluence of the Bay of Bengal and mother Ganges. In every […]

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Warning: cooking, offering and distributing these special pakoras may bring a surge of guests to your home, temple or to wherever you may be.
During Srila Prabhupada’s Vyasa Puja celebration, expert cook Sunanda Prabhu (ACBSP), told us a story about how he had prepared cauliflower pakoras for Srila Prabhupada. He had cooked them at Srila Prabhupada’s request one morning as Srila Prabhupada traveled on the Radha Damodar bus from New York to Gita Nagari, Pennsylvania. Srila Prabhupada had a chest cold and therefore wanted something hot for breakfast. Actually, he had asked for pakoras made from green chilies. But because Sunanda Prabhu couldn’t get green chilies, he made cauliflower pakoras and he used the recipe from The Hare Krsna Cookbook (published1973). Sunanda Prabhu said that he made nearly twenty pakoras and that, amazingly, Srila Prabhupada had eaten all of them!

Several senior devotees and experienced cooks, listening to Sunanda’s story on Monday, unanimously spoke out saying that the pakora recipe from The Hare Krsna Cookbook of 1973 is superb and that it has never been surpassed.

I have included the entire recipe below as it appears in the original cookbook so that you can prepare and offer these legendary pakoras to Krsna and then distribute them as prasadam.

Warning:
Cooking, offering and distributing these special pakoras may bring a surge of guests to your home, temple or to wherever you may be.

Pakora Recipe

Batter:
1 cup chickpea flour
1 t. ground cumin seed
1 t. turmeric
1 ½ t. ground coriander
½ each—allspice & cinnamon
¾ t. salt
½ t. crushed chilies
¾ t. baking powder
A little less than 1 cup water
Ghee for frying

Sift chickpea flour. Add all spices, salt and baking powder. Mix with hands until blended. Add water a little at a time to avoid lumps. Heat ghee for deep frying.

Plain pakora:
Pour a small amount (about 1 T.) into hot ghee. It will puff up into a small ball. Turn over and brown. Tap with a spoon—if it sounds hollow, it’s done. Remove with a skimmer and drain on paper towel. Fry several at a time.

Filled pakora:
Filling: thin-sliced eggplant wedges or strips, small cauliflower flowerets, green pepper strips, asparagus tips, parsley sprigs, thin rounds of zucchini or cucumber, carrot rounds or strips. Pieces should be no bigger that 2” long and they should be thin. Dip vegetables into batter and deep fry in ghee until golden. Remove and drain. The little-fried batter drips can be removed and saved for salad or peas and peanuts.

**

“Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu approved of all the methods employed in cooking and offering food to Krsna. Indeed, He was so pleased that He said, ‘Frankly, I will personally take the lotus feet of anyone who can offer Krsna such nice food and place those lotus feet on My head birth after birth.‘” (Cc Madhya 3.66)
Vaisesika Das

Safe and Easy Space Travel
One of the first books that I read by Srila Prabhupada was Easy Journey to Other Planets. At the time UFO’s were a big thing. Television programs like Star Trek, The Outer Limits and Twilight Zone were all the rage. Everyone was talking about the latest sightings of flying saucers in their part of the country. As a youngster my imagination ran wild. I used to wonder what it would be like to transfer myself to another planet or dimension. It seemed within the realm of possibility.
Over the years humankind has made numerous attempts to reach the far galaxies and try to discover what lies beyond. According to Srila Prabhupada this is quite natural. In his purport to the first verse of Srimad-Bhagavatam he states:

“It is natural that a philosophical mind wants to know about the origin of creation. At night he sees the stars in the sky, and he naturally speculates about their inhabitants. Such inquiries are natural for man because man has a developed consciousness which is higher than that of the animals.”
(Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.1.1, Purport)

Are we the only living beings in the universe? This is a nagging question that never seems to go away. As of yet we haven’t reached a definitive conclusion, but we keep on trying to find out. Perhaps we’ll never know for certain in this lifetime (or for many generations) if we rely solely on the efforts of imperfect human beings. But in the Vedic tradition there is another way of receiving knowledge – not through sense perception, but through the process of hearing from spiritual authority.
“There is a spiritual sky. There is another nature, which is beyond manifestation and nonmanifestation. But how will you know that there is a sky where the planets and inhabitants are eternal? All this knowledge is there, but how will you make experiments? It is not possible. Therefore you have to take the assistance of the Vedas. This is called Vedic knowledge.”
(Sri Isopanisad, Introduction)
Our material senses are imperfect and so anything created by our senses – including spacecraft – are also imperfect. Everything within the material atmosphere is conditional or dependent on other material arrangements. If one piece or element should fail then the entire whole is prone to collapse. Nothing here is indestructible. In the Bhagavad-gita Krishna describes this world as duhkhalayam (a place of miseries), asasvatam (temporary) and as a world of death (martyaloka).
Fuelled in part by the realization that life here is fleeting and miserable, many young people during the ‘60s and '70s were seeking a permanent solution to life’s problems. The search for the fountain of youth was raging in full force. Eastern religions and philosophy were in vogue due to their promise of a life after death. So I distinctly recall the joy in my heart when I first laid eyes on Prabhupada’s small book, Easy Journey to Other Planets. There on the front cover was a mystic yogi immersed in trance, floating in a cornucopia of stars and planets. On the first page of the Preface, Srila Prabhupada wrote the following:
“The latest desire man has developed is the desire to travel to other planets. This is also quite natural, because he has the constitutional right to go to any part of the material or spiritual skies. Such travel is very tempting and exciting because these skies are full of unlimited globes of varying qualities, and they are occupied by all types of living entities. The desire to travel there can be fulfilled by the process of yoga, which serves as a means by which one can transfer himself to whatever planet he likes – possibly to planets where life is not only eternal and blissful, but where there are multiple varieties of enjoyable energies. Anyone who can attain the freedom of the spiritual planets need never return to this miserable land of birth, old age, disease and death.”
(Easy Journey to Other Planets, Preface)
When I read these words I knew that I had found what I was looking for. Srila Prabhupada spoke with the gravity, surety and authority which I had been seeking for so long. Star Trek was fun, but it was only guesswork and imaginative. Science fiction abounded, but it was only that – fiction. On the contrary, Srila Prabhupada represents a chain of spiritual masters which dates back thousands and even millions of years. Lord Krishna declares in the Bhagavad-gita: “I instructed this imperishable science of yoga to the sun-god, Vivasvan, and Vivasvan instructed it to Manu, the father of mankind, and Manu in turn instructed it to Iksvaku.” (BG 4.1) Now who can rival that? Yet surprisingly the Vedic system of interplanetary space travel doesn’t require a flight on a dangerous man-made spaceship. Neither does one have to join an exclusive club or pay a large membership fee. Srila Prabhupada explains:
“One can attain this stage of perfection very easily by his individual effort. He can simply follow, in his own home, the prescribed method of bhakti-yoga. This method, under proper guidance, is simple and enjoyable. An attempt is made herein to give information to the people in general, and to philosophers and religionists in particular, as to how one can transfer oneself to other planets by this process of bhakti-yoga – the highest of all yogic processes.”
(Easy Journey to Other Planets, Preface)
It’s interesting to note that people are still seeking answers through space travel and science fiction. Star Trek continues in one incarnation or another, and so do manned space flights regardless of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster of 2003. Man’s thirst for information about other planets and life forms is unceasing. It’s only when we discover the true source of knowledge that our imaginations will be fully satisfied. The Vedic literatures are replete with information and descriptions of other planets, both material and spiritual. Therefore it behooves us all to take advantage of such timeless wisdom and make a permanent solution to the problems of the material world. Srila Prabhupada spent his life trying to disseminate this ancient Vedic knowledge for the benefit of humankind. As a bona fide representative of Srila Vyasadeva (the original author of the Vedas), Prabhupada’s message is unadulterated and pure. His books are therefore a treasury of spiritual knowledge through which we can safely and easily satisfy our innermost longings for intergalactic space travel and timelessness.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Padmapani Das

ISKCON Nepal organized Seminar at Galaxy Public School, Gyaneswar, Kathmandu for around 600 Students of Grade 7, 8, 9 and 10 (Album ...

The students of Govardhan Academy of ISKCON Saranagati, Canada, spent three months learning about Srila Prabhupada, particularly how much he was dedicated to serving the instructions of his spiritual master. They dedicated this video to Srila Bhaktisiddhanta, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of his disappearance day. Read ISKCON News article about it: http://iskconnews.org/elementary-students-produce-inspirational-iskcon-50-puppet-show,6010/

Elementary and some secondary school students at the Govardhan Academy in Saranagati, B.C., Canada have produced an inspirational and heartfelt puppet show film of how Srila Prabhupada founded ISKCON for ISKCON’s 50^th anniversary. The forty-minute film premiered at Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati’s disappearance day at the Saranagati temple on December 17^th, and was very well received. It is now available to view for free on Youtube, and the children’s stunning dedication, hard work and love for Prabhupada is evident in every frame.

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