Planet ISKCON

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Radha Kunda in Navadvipa Dham.
Bahulastami or appearance day of Radha-kunda comes in the month of Kartik. In this month of Kartik the presiding deity of the month is Srimati Radhika and in the same month is also the appearance day of the lake which is the embodiment of the Love of Radharani. In Front of Radha Madhava Asta Sakhi altar a Radha kunda and Shyam Kunda was made for the pleasure of the divine couple. Following is the description of Radha Kunda in Navadvipa Dham by Sri Nityananda Prabhu, Bhakti vinoda thakura and Sri Chaitanya Mahabrabhu.

In the island of Rtudvipa, in the village known as Ratupura, Lord Nityananda along with Dvija Vaninatha and many devotees arrived. Lord Nityananda became entranced and called out, “Bring My sringa (horn) immediately! All the calves have gone far away from here. Kanai is still sleeping in the house. He is so childish that He has not come here yet. Where are Subala and Sridama? I, Balarama, am alone here. I cannot go alone to fetch the cows.” The most powerful Lord Nityananda shouted, “Kanai! Kanai!” and started leaping in the air. By seeing Lord Nityananda in this mood, the devotees immediately approached Him and said, “O, Lord Nityananda! Your brother is Gauracandra. Now He is not here. Gaurahari has taken sannyasa and gone to Nilacala, leaving us beggars behind.” When Lord Nityananda heard that Gaurahari was not there, He felt great distress and started crying and rolling on the ground, feeling separation from His Gaura. Lord Nityananda addressed Gauranga as Kanai, “O, My brother Kanai! For what reason have You taken sannyasa and left us behind here to go to Nilacala? I will not maintain this life anymore. I will jump into the water of the River Yamuna!” Having spoken these words, Lord Nityananda fainted. The devotees started harinama- sankirtana realizing that Lord Nityananda had developed mahabhava. Four dandas (one danda equals twenty four minutes) of the day had passed, but Lord Nityananda had not come back to His external senses. Then the devotees started to chant gaura-gita (songs about Gaura). When Lord Nityananda heard the name of Gauranga He immediately got up and said, “This place is Radhakunda. Here Lord Gaurahari along with His devotees would perform Nama Sankirtana every afternoon. Just see the beauty of Syama-kunda, attracting the minds of the whole universe. Just see the kunjas of the different sakhis. Here Gauracandra would come with his sankirtana party and please everyone by distributing love of Godhead.

O My brothers, there is no place equal to this in the three worlds. This is the best spot for devotees to perform bhajana. Whoever resides here will get love of Godhead and his heart will be pacified.” That day all the devotees along with Lord Nityananda stayed there chanting the holy name of Gauranga, immersed in love. The next day they proceeded to Vidyanagara.

Radha Kunda in Ratupura
In the Navadvipa Bhava Taranga Srila Bhakti Vinoda Thakura writes the mood and activities of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as he came to Rtudvipa.

Ritudvipam tato gatva
drishtva sobham vanasya ca
radha-kundadikam smritva
ruroda saci-nandanah

“Arriving at Ritudvipa and seeing the beauty of the forest, Saci-nandana started crying while remembering Radha-kunda and other sacred places.” right Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura (Navadvipa-dhama-mahatmya, Pramana-khanda 4.44)

Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s meditation – When will I wander about the island of Ritu-dvipa, seeing the beauty of the forest and remembering these pastimes of the Lord? Suddenly I will catch a glimpse of the pastimes being performed at Radha Kunda and become completely stunned by such a wonderful vision. Here on the bank of the Manasa Ganga river, Balarama and Krsna along with Their cowherd boyfriends named Dama, Bala, and Mahabala head countless calves to secluded forests. While sporting numerous pastimes and playing tricks, all the boys sing the glories of Krsna.

The cowherd boys then sit down and engage in various types of funny conversations. Meanwhile, the calves keep grazing and grazing until they wander off to distant woods. Losing sight of them, all the boys become alarmed, but at the sound of Krsna’s flute the calves immediately come running back. While I am watching and watching this pastime with full attention, suddenly the scene vanishes and I will fall to the ground unconscious…

Radha Kunda in Chaitanya Math
Chaitanya Math is the house of Chandrashekhar Acharya, the maternal uncle of Mahaprabhu and also the headquarters of Gaudiya Maths established by Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur. In this temple Sri Radha Kunda, Shyama Kunda and Giri Govardhan, Keli Kadamba and Tamal Vriksha are present. Sri Navadvip Dhama is non-different from Vrindavana and called as Gupta Vrindavana or hidden Vrindavana. These Kundas and Govardhana were made by Bhakti Siddhanta Sarawsati Thakur in memory of these holy places in Vrindavan. They are also known as Smriti Radha Kunda and Smriti Shyama Kunda.

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Written by Sesa Das 

I arrived in South Africa on Monday, 26 September, taking a break from the Bhaktivedanta Manor where I am a resident, and will travel with Kadamba Kanana Swami until the end of October. Here is an account of our travels…

On Tuesday evening (27^th September), Maharaj had another session with the Caitanya Caritamrta Book Club in Durban. Maharaj began a mellow kirtan in Srila Prabhupada’s room as the devotees began to come in. As the clock struck 7pm, we saw Maharaj was serious about being on time and having no interruptions as we pulled a key out and signalled for the door not to be just closed but locked! Phew, I just made it on time! And I would have really regretted not being there as it was enlivening class with Maharaj speaking about the levels of intimacy in Mahaprabhu’s pastimes between individuals.

Maharaj told us that we see Garuda offers his pranams to Lord Narayana from a distance, which we still see in many temples having the Garuda stambha. However, in Mahaprabhu’s movement it’s not like that and rather it is a movement which includes and uplifts all to an equal platform. The mercy of Mahaprabhu can empower even a dog (not the best of swimmer) to easily cross over an ocean! We see the disciples of Madhavendra Puri extremely fixed and focused on how to serve their spiritual master’s lotus feet and this is a very important lesson for all of us. Towards the end, Maharaj began speaking on the importance of preaching and for this to be effective we have to develop real compassion, otherwise it’s not possible. Vasudeva-datta being the embodiment of compassion, desired Lord Caitanya to liberate every soul in the universe being overwhelmed thinking of their state of suffering. And so preaching is like becoming a doctor who to deal with someone’s suffering and one must get personally involved to truly make great things happen; we need great compassion. We must preach and never give up – continuously rising to the challenge, never lowering the ideal and always striving to aim for it! In this way more and more we realize and feel the whole sampradaya is behind us in force and then we begin seeing the small steps others take in spiritual life and develop faith and appreciation in them.

A few days later, disciples gathered at a house program. Maharaj began with a rocking kirtan and then began reading from chapter 17 of Madhya Kandhara, Caitanya Bhagavata.

Maharaj elaborated on our inability to really understand the relationships between high individual like Lord Caitanya & Advaita Acharya, for example. So we don’t always see the spiritual links. The spiritual reality is that material enjoyment doesn’t satisfy the soul and is therefore temporary. But eternal life also includes this life, not that only after life is the eternal life, but we look at how to make this one auspicious too by serving Krsna. So we often think how can be enjoy now? We see Advaita Acharya felt a little like that whilst absorbed in love of Lord Caitanya and so Mahaprabhu punished him by disappearing so then Advaita Acharya became depressed and saw he was proud and now realized his dependency on Mahaprabhu. 

So we see the depth needed for real surrender in our Krsna Consciousness. Then the whole sangha took a turn as we felt an extra boost coming out of Maharaj as he began speaking about and glorifying the Mahajanas and went onto to explain…

When we depend on Krsna, we depend on purity. Otherwise we can look pure but much else in actually going on inside. We see that yes Bali Maharaja gave everything to Krsna but maybe due to a moment of sentiment, out of ksatriya dharma and so we see that the Lord tested to see if he is really sincere & therefore the snake was wrapped around Bali and he didn’t care and was still cent percent surrendered and that is why he became a Mahajana & we likewise have many different snakes in our lives to deal with, things which squeeze us but how to we react? We know Bhisma had been shot so many but he didn’t care he was always thinking of Krsna. Vaiyasaki, the son of Vyasa is Sukadeva Goswami was always just concerned with being absorbed in Krsna Consciousness. So these Mahajanas remind us that Krsna can do anything and how to properly react. So yes we think we are impure, but must continue trying for purity & constantly striving for improvements. What an ecstatic class it was. Everyone going away deeply inspired and contemplating the glories of the Mahajanas & their faith.

 Friday, 30 September was the last day that Maharaj would be in Durban for a while. On Friday evening, Maharaj addressed the youth of Durban at their monthly kirtan gathering at the Sri Sri Radha Radhanath temple. 

Maharaj began with a few simple words about how the youth have automatically inherited the world with all its perks and the mess up from previous generations. So now it is really up to the youth to make something of it and deliver a brighter tomorrow.

Then Maharaj began leading an intoxicating kirtan and the Holy name was vibrating through the whole temple room and within no time everyone forgot where they were and many jumped up to begin dancing whilst others played instruments and sang with all their enthusiasm. After around an hour of leading kirtans there was a Q&A session, everyone was handed slips of paper and were able to ask any questions they wanted anonymously. The stack of questions looked small to start off with, however within a short period of time the whole harmonium in front of Maharaj was packed out and overflowing with slips containing multiple questions at a time! The Q&A went on for another hour with Maharaj giving tips on how to practically apply or relate to the principles of Krsna Consciousness whilst being realistic as students and young professionals. A very practical Q&A for all.

One person asked Maharaj, “What is your secret to getting everyone so entranced in kirtan?” and Maharaj replied, “Well, I don’t know, it’s Krsna’s mercy, but one thing I can say is that, I’m not playing the harmonium, I’m not singing for the sake of singing, for the echo of my voice. What I’m trying to do is playing the people. I’m looking at people and I’m trying to drive them mad!” 

The next morning, we set off for Cape Town…

​Bhagavatam class at Bhaktivedanta Manor, London, UK

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My first striking encounter with Srinathji Prabhu highlighted his extraordinary attention to specifics. About a decade ago, when I was a fledgling author, I would feel encouraged whenever anyone appreciated my writings. Once after a Pune yatra, while everyone was taking prasadam and preparing to depart, I happened to meet Srinathji Prabhu. And he spontaneously started appreciating my writings; he mentioned several articles by their titles and went into specific details of an article that had described how I came to Krishna consciousness. I was doubly astounded firstly because I was a little-known brahmachari and secondly because that story had appeared in BTG at least two years ago. And yet here he was, immediately remembering its specifics in just a chance encounter with me.

Over the years and my several encounters with Srinathji Prabhu, one image of him that has crystalized within me is that of an intellectual patron of intellectuals. He supported several of our movement’s authors, enabling them to focus on research and writing without having to worry about pecuniary considerations.

But he was not just a patron of intellectuals – he was an intellectual himself; he read widely and took intellectual responsibility for the tradition he had chosen to practice. He noticed that the version of the Hare Krishna mahamantra we chanted was different from its version chanted in the broader Hindu culture, which began with Hare Rama, not Hare Krishna. So, he embarked on an extensive research into manuscripts to support our tradition’s rendition of the mahamantra. After much searching, he finally found in a remote, little-known library the manuscript of the Kali-Santarana Upanishad that contained the mahamantra starting with Hare Krishna – and he published a book with that manuscript. His meticulous attention to detail during this manuscript research paralleled, if not superseded, that of a careful scholar.

He was a patron for not just intellectuals but also for many of our movement’s most important projects. And yet he wasn’t patronizing towards anyone – he maintained a humility that was inspiring and disarming.

His significance extends far beyond his lifetime. Over the last decade, I have been studying and contemplating ISKCON history. And I feel that Srinathji Prabhu represented the rich flowering of the bhakti tradition in modern India and particularly in ISKCON India.

He embodied the dream success chart for most Indians. He achieved extraordinary academic success, earning degrees from both England – which was the cherished educational destination for pre-Independence Indians – and from the USA, which is the cherished educational destination for post-Independence Indians. And he went on to achieve remarkable success not just as a white collar executive but also as a business magnate, pioneering several technological innovations in India in his companies.

Through all this dazzling success, he maintained his piety and bhakti, which he had acquired from his parents, both of whom were Vaishnavas – his mother from the Vallabha sampradaya and father from the Ramanuja sampradaya.

Even after having this combination of material prosperity and religious piety, it’s telling that he found spiritual fulfillment in the teachings of bhakti as expounded by Srila Prabhupada.

When Srila Prabhupada was present in his manifest form with us,, a remarkable number of wealthy and influential Indians were attracted by his purity and potency. And several of them became important supporters of our movement. But somehow after Srila Prabhupada’s departure, many of them couldn’t take the step forward from being patrons to becoming practitioners.

Srinathji Prabhu was prominent among the very few who took that step forward – and he could do so primarily because he was able to see Srila Prabhupada’s enduring presence in his dedicated disciples. He treasured the personal association of Srila Prabhupada that he had got. But he also saw that Srila Prabhupada lived on through his followers; and he committed himself to serving His Divine Grace through them and with them.

For most of us, second-generation devotees in ISKCON, who have never had the personal association of Srila Prabhupada, our ability to appreciate him depends largely on our ability to see him in his dedicated followers. In this, Srinathji Prabhu set an example for all of us.

Through him, the bhakti culture flourished within its Indian motherland. And through remembering him, I pray that bhakti may flourish in my heart too.

The post Remembering Srinathji Prabhu – an intellectual, non-patronizing patron of intellectuals appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

Chapati means hot!
Sravanananda das: While in Madras we had a nice facility for Srila Prabhupada to stay at in a life members home at night. But during the day he would come to the temple. One day I was asked if I would cook for him. I said that I had never cooked for Prabhupada before, so Harikesh said, Ill cook. We made a little sitting area for Srila Prabhupada and when I brought him his plate, he touched the chapati and said, Chapati means hot. I ran back to Harikesh and told him what Prabhupada said. He said, Okay, Ill cook the chapati and you run it into his room. The floors were made of marble so I was literally sliding to give it to Srila Prabhupada. Prabhupada again tapped the chapati, and again he said, Chapati means hot. Again I ran back to Harikesh and said, Prabhupada is not eating the chapatis! He said, Chapati means hot! So he puffed up a chapati the next time like a puri. I ran and slid to Prabhupada, putting it on his plate. He poked the chapati that was puffed up and this time steam came out. Prabhupada said, Ahhh, that is chapati. Ive always remembered that cooking instruction.

Condolences: Sriman Yugatita Dasa ACBSP.
Kurma dasa: Our Australian Godbrother and disciple of Srila Prabhupada Sriman Yugatita...

Over 175 selected analogies from Srimad Bhagavatam (Cantos 1‑4 & 9‑11), Bhagavad‑Gita As It Is, Teachings of Queen Kunti, Teachings of Lord Kapila, Life Comes from Life, and Path of Perfection. Activities (material and spiritual) & milk preparations 1 Atheists and criminals 1 Authorities and lawyers 1 Bodies and firewood 2 Body and fortress 1 Body in Krsna consciousness and iron in fire 2 Body's occupant and apartment's tenant 2 Conditioned soul and diseased man 3 Cosmic dissolution and sleep 3 Coverings of lust and smoke, fire and embryo 3 Creation and goat's neck-bags 2 Creation and dreams 2 Creation and seasons 2 Creation and marriage 3 Death and sleep 6 Demigod worship and travel ticket 7 Demigods and sun 7 Demigods and prison trustees 7 Demigods and tax collectors 7 Detachment and avoiding water 9 Devotee and magnate's son 4 Devotee of the Lord and father's child 4 Devotee and married man 5 Devotee and calf Continue reading "Analogies for Preaching
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Govardhan Parikram (Album with photos)
Srila Prabhupada: Chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra is the easiest process of meditat...

Hare Krishna Festivals UK: Carmarthen Festival - 20th October 2016 (Album with photos)
Srila Prabhupada: By chanting the Hare ...

A Month of Love: Devotional service can be performed at any time, in any place, yet devotees know well that devotional service performed during Karttika is especially pleasing to the Lord. Therefore they perform additional austerities and devotional practices during this month. Although the vedic scriptures describe in detail material benefits one may derive by performing devotional service during Karttika, pure devotees of Lord Krishna have no interest in these. rather, they are interested only in pleasing the Lord. every year, ISKCON devotees eagerly await the arrival of Karttika, when they daily sing the Damodarastakam prayers and offer heartfelt love and devotion as they circle ghee lamps before the Lord. Throughout the month they are so immersed in the childhood pastimes of Krishna as damodara that you can hear them constantly sing about them. Continue reading "Karttika: Lord Krishna’s Favorite Month
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One of the important legends associated with Diwali is Damodara lila, a pastime in which mother Yashoda tried to tie Krishna with a rope. The rope turned out to be two fingers short. So she tied more rope, but, no matter how many ropes she tied together, the combined rope remained two fingers short. This pastime signifies that no matter how much we try, we will always fall short in our attempts to understand God with our intelligence. Modern science is finding the same about the universe too, which, the Vedic literatures state, is a product of God's superintelligence. Centuries of cosmological research has increased scientific information, but not scientific understanding, because of "two" unexpected trends: 1. The more scientists know, the more they realize how little they know – Science "conquered" space – and realized how little it knew about space. To the uninformed, space missions proved human greatness. To the well informed, they showed human smallness. Space research reveals that there are more stars in the universe than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of earth, and our sun is just one of these cosmic grains. Continue reading "“TWO” SHORT TO ROPE THE UNIVERSE
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Typing for the Swami 

At UDELAS, a university in Panama, I was asked to speak on Proactive Leadership. The audience included nurses, counselors and various other caregivers. The department head who had organized the program said that she wanted all her students to have a positive attitude despite seeing much distress in their respective fields.

The gist of my class centered on an example of power loss. When power suddenly goes off, we don’t just curse the darkness – we soon turn on whatever flashlights we have. When the darkness of problems in our life and in the world at large starts overwhelming us, we too can do much better than rant and rail at the state of things. We can all become agents of change – and our spirituality can empower each one of us to become significant agents of change.

After the talk, which was followed by several good question-answers, one participant who was a Colombian de-addiction counselor of Chinese descent said that she felt that the example of the mind as a corrupted software was like a light going off in her head – it helped her make so much sense of the cases she observed and would help her help those thus afflicted.
The talk audio is here: http://www.thespiritualscientist.com/…/proactive-leadershi…/

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Houston’s religious diversity reflects community.
Worshippers of faiths from all corners of the world now call Houston home. A Hare Krishna temple - ISKCON Houston was built in 1969, and by the 1970s, the city's Hindu community had begun expanding dramatically. At first, devotees met in each other's homes; now, mandirs are sprinkled throughout suburban Houston, most notably in Pearland, Stafford and Sugar Land. The community has now swelled to more than 120,000 people, according to Vijay Pallod, a spokesman for Hindus in Houston, who immigrated here in 1980.

Uniting energies for spreading the Holy Name.
On the evening of 17th October, world renowned Bollywood playback singer, Alka Ya...

The post Kartik Deepdan 2016 appeared first on Mayapur.com.

On devotees making racist or sectarian comments.

The post Prabhupada: If you hit a skunk your hand will smell appeared first on SivaramaSwami.com.

Historic Madan Mohan Temple (6 min video)
Indradyumna Swami: The Madan Mohan Temple, established by Sanatan Goswami, was the fi...

Just as there is no yuga equal to Satya-yuga, no scripture equal to the Vedas, and no place of pilgrimage equal to the Ganges, so there is no month equal to Kartika. Even unserious persons who execute devotional service according to the regulative principles during the month of Karttika, and within the jurisdiction of Mathura (or Vrindavana) in India, are very easily awarded the Lord’s personal service". During the Kartika month millions of devotees worship Damodara Krishna with ghee lamps and devotional bhajans, glorifying His playful childhood pastime of stealing yogurt.

In early ’77, when Prabhupada came to Juhu for the last time, I was at the back of the crowd thinking, “Oh, Srila Prabhupada, you have so many disciples. I’m also your disciple, but do you know me?” Srila Prabhupada got out of his car and instead of sweeping into the building as we expected, he stopped, looked over the crowd, and saw me. He looked deep into my eyes, into the soul, gave me a smile as if a million suns had come out at once, and nodded his head. I clearly heard him say, “Of course, I know you. We have an eternal relationship.” Since then I’ve always felt Prabhupada is with me and knows me, for we have an eternal relationship. Continue reading "Bonds of Love: Racitambara Devi Dasi
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GBC meetings in Mumbai.
The GBC Body today is meeting with the Indian ISKCON Bureau at Juhu in Mumbai.

National Institute of Education (NIE) - Sri Lanka celebrated the annual Navaratri festival during the first week of October. Participants were the Minister of Education Mr. Radhakrishnan and all leading educational officers from different districts of the country. On this occasion, ISKCON devotees were invited as guests along with Buddhist head-monks and Christian priest. As ISKCON’s representative, Vasudeva Datta Prabhu spoke in length on the importance of adding the study of Bhagavad Gita As It Is in the religious school curriculum in Sri Lanka. He stressed that the students are the future of the country, so it is great responsibility on the teachers, professors and government officers to give proper spiritual guidance to their pupils. Not only this, they should first teach by their good example - yad yad acarati sresthas tat tad evetaro janah. He explained the word “acharya" and cautioned the esteemed audience not to be like his European teacher who would with a cigarette in his hand say to the students - “It is not good to smoke”. Continue reading "Minister of Education-Sri Lanka received the Bhagavad Gita As It Is
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Distributing Stacks of Srila Prabhupada’s books (Album with photos)
Jaya Chaitanya Das, from Los Angeles, continues to revolutionize the Sankirtan Mission!
Srila Prabhupada: Lord Chaitanya, although Krishna Himself, appealed to His friends and helpers to help Him in His mission and what to speak of me; I am just an ordinary human being. So I need your help. Letter to Yogesvara, June 12, 1971.
Find them here: https://goo.gl/K4YxQh

The Harinama party in South America Tour, Peru (Album with photos)
For the next one month our crew will travel across Peru, Bol...

For the pleasure of Srila Prabhupada this report contains the following North American results of book distribution for the month of September 2016. North American Totals, Monthly Temples, Monthly Weekend Warriors. Monthly Top 100 Individuals, Monthly Top 5, Cumulative Countries, Cumulative Temples, Cumulative Top 100 Individuals, Cumulative Top 5 Continue reading "NASN September 2016 – North American Sankirtan Newsletter
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Parikrama to Madhuvan and Talavan on 19.10.2016 (Album with photos)
Srila Prabhupada: First birth is from your parents, but rea...

Badrinath In Vrindavan (Album with photos)
Indradyumna Swami: It is said that all holy places in India exist in their original forms in Sri Vrindavan Dhama! Yesterday, we visited Badrinath (Badrikasrama) a two-hour drive from Vrindavan town through the countryside. As we approached Badrinath we were surprised to see a small mountain range. Upon arriving we discussed a number of Krsna’s pastimes that took place there, as well as the glories of Gangotri, Yamunortri, Kedarnath and other sacred places that can be found in Vrindavan’s Badrinath. The beauty of the surrounding area was stunning. The local people were simply amazing. Please visit the original Badrinath next time you are in Vrindavan!
Find them here: https://goo.gl/tJBWKB

Another Sunday with Swamiji

The mid-term GBC meeting usually comprises strategic planning sessions with the leaders discussing a range of topics on how to develop and spread Krsna Consciousness all over the world.

The local devotees, headed by TP Brajahari das, provided all the necessary facilities, such as, accommodation, conference halls, office needs and and wonderful prasadam.

The post Daily Darshan: October 22nd, 2016 appeared first on Mayapur.com.

On this day in October 1966 I was ten years old and living in a small village in Cornwall. I’d gone out for a walk in the afternoon and wherever I went, people were talking to each other about a terrible thing that had happened that morning in a Welsh village.

I don’t remember hearing about disasters very much when I was young, so this made a deep impression on me. It was as if the whole village felt it. News travelled a little slower back then, but the grainy images on a neighbours black and white television set was showing hundreds of people trying to rescue children from a school that had been covered in an avalanche of mining waste. Thousands of tons of slag, made unstable due to the rain, had slid down a hill and covered houses and an entire primary school. Many children my age had died, I heard.

One neighbour shooed me away, saying to her husband: “He’s too young to listen to this; these are kids his age. He’ll get affected by it.”

Affected I was. For days afterwards we were told harrowing stories of the little children who had been at their lessons when the hill simply slid down on top of their school. The black slag came in through the windows of their classrooms, covering them and everything else. We had bad dreams about it, and wrote letters to ‘The children of Aberfan’ to show our support and solidarity. A collection was taken up, and I brought a threepenny bit from home.

News wasn’t just ‘the news’ then, where you could choose to distant yourself from all the bad things in the world. This was real children who had died, 116 of them within a few minutes, in a small village just like ours, and in a primary school just like ours. We were connected.

Aberfan, 21st October 1966

Devotees from other centers such as Buffalo, Columbus, New Vrindaban, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. were also coming to Boston to see Srila Prabhupada. On the day he was due to arrive a school bus was rented to transport everyone to the airport from the temple at 38 N. Beacon Street to greet him. The wonderful reception scene was documented in a series of photographs in which can be seen a banner saying “ISKCON New York Welcomes Prabhupada.” I’m holding one end and Rohini Kumar the other. Notice in the photo that “Prabhupada” was spelled wrong. We were still getting used to calling him Prabhupada rather than Swamiji. Continue reading "History of ISKCON Press
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VIHE NEWSLETTER Second Issue (October-November)
We gladly present to all of you the first issue of our bi-monthly
Vrindavan Institute for Higher Education’s Newsletter.
You will find herein news, interviews, articles, interesting passages from Srila Prabhupada’s teachings and commentaries of the acharyas, class transcripts, announcements, links to recordings, photos and videos and a place for you to share your own thoughts and updates.
We hope this edition will be useful and interesting to you in many ways.
You can download it from here: https://goo.gl/e3T9m0