They wear special cloth, prepare foods only eaten on these rare days, and congregate in mass around a few exceptional people that are taking part in a ceremony lasting over 3 hours. All the while they chant two and three word phrases together in cadence, which creates and encourages a collectively desired experience. I remember 4 years ago, when we first began regular harinama's at the football games. A rag/tag group of us led by me, a 2 year old bhakta at the time, were chanting with some reg...

On the auspicious day of Dwadasi, October 25, 2015 in the attractive precincts of Sri Sri Radha-Madanmohan temple, Hyderabad, the inauguration ceremony of the Yatra was conducted. The Yatra team had readied one Sankirtan bus with Sri Sri Jagannath Baldev Subhadra. Since it was Srila Prabhupada’s desire to travel to villages in a vehicle, he is also present in his deity form besides the Lordships. A simple program was conducted at 9 in the morning amidst the enthusing crowd of devotees. HG...

During the month of Kartik, many devotees assemble from various parts of the world to Vrindavan in order to recharge their spiritual battery. Parikrama allows an opportunity for devotees to nourish their bhakti through the medium of visiting various places of pastimes of the Lord, hearing of those pastimes from senior devotees and serving the vaisnavas. With this in mind, HH Subhag Swami Maharaj organised a series of programs in different places across Vraja during this holy month. In preparatio...

It was a little scary to be honest. Hundreds of desperate people surrounded the van. The first task was to get people to make a queue which needed all hands on deck, and our team sprung to action. Soon we were distributing delicious rice, subji, cake, apple pie, apples and oranges. We were going as fast as possible as it was important to keep up the momentum , if we spaced out the volatile situation could kick off. Desperate suffering people were pointing to their muddy feet , broken shoes and sa...

The summit was inaugurated by the honorable Union minister for environment, forests & climate change – Sri Prakash Javadekar. In his voluble keynote address, the minister stressed that it was possible to achieve economic progress while taking practical mindful measures to improve the environmental situation without sacrificing one for the other. He made noteworthy reference to ISKCON s initiative in pioneering a conference in the beautiful...

It is significant that the New Capitol of the recently bifurcated State of Andhra Pradesh is going to be constructed at Amaravati, just 50 kilometers North of Kondaveedu. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new capitol of Andhra Pradesh yesterday. Presently one of the leaders of ISKCON in Andhra Pradesh, Sriman Satyagopinath Das, who is temple president of three temples, at Rajamundry, Anantapur, and Guntur, through his efforts has obtained eighty one acres land from the Andhra ...

The Krishnanagar Jail Preaching program yesterday, upon the invite of the Superintendent, went surprisingly far better than expected. The one hour program commenced with 5 male and 4 female ISKCON devotees chanting on a platform with a powerful Durga Festival sound blasting system under a big shade giving tree in the centre of the huge complex that houses at this time approximately 800 prisoners. Around 500 prisoners gathered around, including some Muslims, and actually participated in the chantin...

The walking monk kept to the narrow shoulder of Route 85 in Rayburn on Tuesday morning. Trucks roared by and curious motorists occasionally slowed to get a closer look at the 63-year-old man dressed in saffron robes. Bhaktimarga Swami, a Canadian native and Hare Krishna monk, was headed toward Butler on a journey that began in Boston on Sept. 20. From Butler he plans to head back east to New York City. “I'm walking for several purposes,” Swami said. “For personal and inner growth — to tak...

Friends, disciples and well-wishers of HH Subhag Swami Maharaj gathered in the holy land of Jaipur to participate in a festival of hearing, chanting and sadhu sanga between the dates of 15th ~ 20th October 2015. This is the 5th annual parikrama Maharaj has been holding in various holy places across India. Jaipur, also known as “Gupta Vrindavan” plays hosts to our Gaudiya Sampradaya’s most cherished deities’: Radha Govindadev and Radha Gopinath. As stated by Maharaj on a number of occasions...

"I think it's easy to see that the moral of my story is that drugs, including tobacco and alcohol, only cause suffering ... Philosophically, I've kept an ongoing relationship with the Bhagavad Gita, the glory I bask in, always finding answers for everything and solace." This is not the first time Ms. Hynde has extolled the virtues and glories of the Gita. In an interview with The Guardian newspaper on September 14, 2014, she commented: "My favourite book is the Bhagavad Gita. It’s a 700-verse H...