Misunderstood Renunciation
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By Kesava Krsna Dasa

Does anyone aspire to become a sannyasi? Simply having this ambition in the first place is not the desire of a truly renounced person. On the other hand, all those who relish genuine taste in Krishna consciousness, will know what proper renunciation is. For this reason, both men and women can live as sannyasis without having that title. To emphasise renunciation before taste indicates a lack of understanding on the path of Bhakti. Devotees often preach about the importance of following the four regulative principles, before or without first getting a taste for chanting the Hare Krishna mantra. Without this taste, then Krishna consciousness just becomes a strict form of adherence, not much different from “dry” renunciation. Continue reading "Misunderstood Renunciation
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Sustainable Cow Protection
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By Kurma Rupa Das

If a family keeps a cow and calf and has a few acres of land, a vegetarian diet is easily sustainable. I know a family in Colorado whose cow gives nine gallons of milk a day and she lactates for four to five years. They have enough land for the cow and her offspring to graze on and even with several months of winter they can easily maintain their cow. (see CFC News July 2010). If you mean to ask will protecting a family cow produce enough income to maintain herself and provide for a family of five people with urban habits, then no, it won’t. In an agrarian setting cows actually give more than they take. However, when one tries to produce milk for commercial purposes and requires expensive farming equipment (tractors, bailers, combines, silos etc.) has to pay outrageous prices for veterinary aid, purchase homogenization and pasteurization equipment, conveyances to transport the milk to urban areas and so on, sustainability becomes a problem. In short, what makes cow protection unsustainable today is urbanization and consumerism. Continue reading "Sustainable Cow Protection
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Beautiful Gopastami Darshan of Sri Sri Radha Govinda at ISKCON…
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Beautiful Gopastami Darshan of Sri Sri Radha Govinda at ISKCON Tirupati.
When Srila Prabhupada was visiting Detroit in 1976, he met with two clergymen. First he asked them if they believed that God is a person. “Yes,” they agreed. Then he asked, “Aren’t we also eternal persons meant to love God?” They agreed again. “And isn’t the only thing separating us from enjoying ecstatic life with God sin?” Once again they agreed. Like a pouncing lion, Srila Prabhupada challenged, “Then why don’t you teach people how to lead a sinless life!” Srila Prabhupada went on to show that meat-eating, illicit sex, intoxicants, and gambling pollute people’s consciousness, and that if the clergymen rose above these things, others would follow their example. Mundane welfare work or political agitation would be simply a waste of time. As they left with flower garlands around their necks, packages of Bengali sweets in their hands, and Bhagavad-gitas under their arms, one of them turned to Srila Prabhupada. “Why, I feel like we’ve become your disciples.” Srila Prabhupada chuckled. After they’d gone he quoted a Sanskrit verse which confirmed that only a gosvami–someone who has gained complete control over his bodily senses–can give real spiritual life to his disciples. And we knew we had a gosvami for our spiritual master.
Badarinarayana Swami, from a 1978 BTG

Gopinath! (5 min video) Indradyumna Swami: The beautiful deity…
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Gopinath! (5 min video)
Indradyumna Swami: The beautiful deity of Gopinath was discovered at Vamsivat in Vrindavan 500 years ago by Madhu Pandit and Paramananda Bhattacarya. Madhu Pandit served Gopinath with great love and devotion for many years. Centuries later Gopinath was moved to Jaipur where He has been worshiped along with Srimati Radharani ever since. The temple is popular with the people of Jaipur, who come together daily to chant Radha Gopinath’s glories. Our parikrama party eagerly visits the temple each Kartika.
Watch it here: https://goo.gl/Ysw70H

In the Bhagavad-gita, what is the significance of the word Bhagavan?
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“Embedding Care In Kc Communities – Devotee Care Course Two
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Hare KrishnaBy ISKCON DevoteeCare

The Devotee Care Committee, has been researching and working on creating awareness about embedding care in our communities, projects and yatras. After years of consultation and the study of the diverse needs of the various sections of the community, the committee had engaged HG Rasamandala prabhu to work on structured courses to systematically educate care givers and leaders. With his great expertise in curriculum writing and help from other committee members, the Committee has developed two courses and is piloting them to further enhance the quality and practical application of the course. It was piloted at GEV, Wada in the last week of October and from 2nd to 5th Nov 2016, at ISKCON Tirupati. We would like to thank ISKCON Tirupati and specially HG Revati Raman Prabhu for hosting the four day Course (DCC 2) for South Indian leaders and managers at Tirupati. Continue reading "“Embedding Care In Kc Communities – Devotee Care Course Two
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Love vs. Lust
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(Kadamba Kanana Swami, August 2010, Croatia, Lecture)

noidaQuestion: Can you define lust?

If we serve our own senses, then it is called lust but if we serve the senses of Krsna, then it is called love. So love is about giving and satisfying others and lust is about satisfying ourselves.

So, when we are the centre in every situation… we are the centre of the universe… we are the main person here and everybody must be pleasing to us and if somebody is not pleasing to us causes a disturbance – that is all lust.

But if we are trying to be pleasing to others – if others are more important and we are trying to act in such a way that they will become pleased and happy, then we are free from lust. As soon as we think that others are there to please us then we are LUSTY. And from one level of lust comes intense lust and then we want to enjoy on the bodily platform. Therefore, we have to serve the senses of Krsna and his devotees. Everyone is a devotee of Krsna, only some know it and others do not.

I was entering a big office building when I was suddenly stopped by a security guard…
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In Forlì, Italy, as I was entering a big office building, I was suddenly stopped by a security guard who inquired boldly:
“Who are you? Where are you going?”
She was a young lady, and she seemed quite severe and determined to not let me enter. When I presented myself and explained in a few words about our mission she changed positively and asked:
“Don’t you need a security guard for your community? I’m tired of working for these people.”
I replied, “There is an ancient proverb, rakhe krsna mare khe mare krsna rakhe khe.” “If Lord Krishna protects a person, who can kill him? And if Krishna desires to kill someone, who can protect him?”
After that she smiled and became even more enlightened. Then, when I asked permission to go to the director, she became serious again and said, “You cannot go if you don’t show me those books you are carrying.”

On self-mastery: Fight the archer, not the arrow
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jaḍās tapobhiḥ śamayanti dehaṁ           budhā manaś cāpi vikāra-hetum

śvā muktam astraṁ daśatīti kopāt         kṣeptāram uddiśya hinasti siṁhaḥ

jaḍāḥ — fools; tapobhiḥ — through austerities; śamayanti — try to pacify; deham — the body and senses; budhāḥ — the intelligent; manaḥ — the mind; ca — and; api — also; vikāra-hetum — the original cause; śvā — dog; muktam — thrown; astram — arrow; daśati — bites; iti — thus; kopāt — out of anger; kṣeptāram — hunter; uddiśya — tracing out; hinasti — kills; siṁhaḥ — lion;

“Fools try to pacify the senses by subjecting the body to austerity, but the wise focus on dealing with the mind, which is the source of desire and distress. Dogs angrily bite the arrow that has been hurled at them, but lions search out the arrow’s source, the hunter, and finish him off.” (Subhāṣita-ratna-bhāṇḍāgāra, Vicāraḥ, Verse 238)

This Subhashita illustrates the futility of seeking self-mastery solely through sense mastery. It uses artistic license to represent someone foolish through a dog and someone intelligent through a lion. A foolish animal may bite the arrow that has pierced it, imagining that it is thus getting back at whatever is hurting it. But a wiser animal searches for and deals with the source of the arrow, the hunter.

Our lower desires are like arrows that pierce our consciousness. By inducing within us a tormenting sense of deprivation, they goad us towards indulgence. Frequently, we give in to those desires, not so much to get pleasure as to get relief from torment.

If we become wiser, we recognize that indulgence doesn’t mitigate the torment but aggravates it. Indulgence reinforces the desire, which then goads us with greater intensity. By our indulgence, we unwittingly sharpen the arrow that is then used to torment us further.

When we understand the folly of indulgence, we strive for resistance, for saying no to desire. However, if we are not discerning, we presume the senses to be the source of desire and try to starve them through rigid self-abnegation. Some world-rejecting paths take this presumption to extreme degrees. Seekers on those paths sometimes become masochists – they whiplash their bodies, hoping to thereby kill the desires of the flesh. Such self-torment may weaken desire temporarily, but can’t eliminate it permanently. Why? Because the body is not the source of desire; it is merely the channel for desire. Srimad-Bhagavatam (6.1.13-14) compares such self-abnegation to the burning of weeds – as the roots remain underground and unharmed, the weeds re-appear in due course of time. Similarly, the desire that seems to have disappeared during self-abnegation re-appears, sooner or later. As masochistic self-abnegation entails self-inflicted misery, it can be compared to a dog’s biting the arrow that has pierced it.

Wiser people seek to know the source of the arrow of desire. Significantly, this Subhashita indicates that the shooter of the arrow is the mind, not the sense object we desire. Consider alcoholics, for example. The desire for alcohol doesn’t come from the alcohol bottle; after all, seeing it doesn’t induce desire in non-alcoholics. Alcoholics feel desirous on seeing it because the desire is already present in their own mind – the bottle merely triggers that desire. The bottle is not the source of the desire; the mind is.

That the senses are not the source of desire doesn’t mean that controlling them is unimportant. Just as alcoholics need to stay away as much as possible from stimuli that trigger their desire for alcohol, we too need to avoid as much as possible those sensory stimuli that trigger desire within us. Sense control is important, essential even. The mistake is to consider sense control as the sole solution, and tormenting the body as the way to sense control is a blunder.

Just as a lion focuses on getting rid of the hunter who is shooting the arrow, we need to focus on getting rid of the mind, or more specifically, the lower desires present in the mind. The best way to get rid of those desires is to crowd them out by filling our consciousness with something higher, something much more meaningful, something far more fulfilling. The highest, most meaningful and most fulfilling object is the supreme spiritual reality, God, Krishna, who is the reservoir of unlimited happiness.

Bhakti-yoga enables us to connect with Krishna not just through contemplation, but also through practical engagements of the senses such as chanting, honoring sanctified food and taking darshan of the Deities.

When we diligently practice bhakti-yoga, focusing on saying yes to Krishna through service and remembrance, we gradually get a profound inner fulfillment that enables us to say no to sensuality automatically, firmly and permanently.

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Kartik Navadvip Mandal Parikrama 2016 (Album with photos)…
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Kartik Navadvip Mandal Parikrama 2016 (Album with photos)
Srila Prabhupada: Vedic civilization is very strict. Because the whole aim was how to go back to home, back to Godhead, not sense gratification, eat, drink, be merry, enjoy. That is not the aim of human life. So everything was planned with that aim. >>> Ref. VedaBase => Bhagavad-gita 2.3 – London, August 4, 1973
Find them here: https://goo.gl/MPdjrW

How do we differentiate between which desire to accept and which to reject?
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What makes Vedic knowledge infallible and human knowledge fallible?
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Does existence alone go from one life to another without carrying any karma from the past?
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Which is superior: fate or one’s own exertion and effort?
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Hare KrishnaBy Bhayahari Dasa

Satyavrata Muni is raising the perennial philosophical conundrum of predestination versus free will. In reply, Lord Matsya explains that three elements—fate, effort, and time—conjointly affect the course of one’s life. He gives the example of a farmer, whose crop depends on three factors: planting, rain, and time. Planting represents effort, and rain represents fate. If the farmer plants but there’s no rain, he’ll have no crop. And if it rains but he hasn’t planted, he’ll have no crop. Both fate and effort are required, as is time. If we act properly and perform pious activities, we are awarded good fortune, and if we act sinfully, we have to suffer. Over time, good fate manifests as situations favorable to our endeavor and bad fate as unfavorable situations. Destiny may even give us enjoyment or suffering without much endeavor. Winning a lottery, being born in a rich family, or diseased body are examples of this. Continue reading "Which is superior: fate or one’s own exertion and effort?
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ISKCON Moscow Lights Up Devotees’ Hearts at Diwali (Album with…
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ISKCON Moscow Lights Up Devotees’ Hearts at Diwali (Album with photos)
One thousand Russian devotees, friends of Krishna and Indian community members gathered to celebrate Diwali in spectacular style in Moscow on Saturday, October 29th. The crowd packed out a rented auditorium in ISKCON Moscow’s Kuusinena Street building, just ten minutes’ drive from the Kremlin.