A Swaminarayana Monk Appreciates Srila Prabhupada and his Bhagavad-gita As It Is. Some time ago, we received a call from a monk belonging to Swaminarayana sect in Gujarat. He expressed the desire to learn Bhagavad Gita As It Is. It was quite a surprise for us. On inquiring from him the purpose behind his request, he informed us that their chief-guru had written in their sacred literature called siksha-patri, the manual of good instructions, that every sincere seeker should study Bhagavad-gita very nicely. Since, he had heard from many people that ISKCON’s Bhagavad-gita is the best...

As the latest headlines and news reports from around the world become more disturbing for us all, it's quite natural to wonder just where the joy of life has gone for so many people. The pressing threats of world war, terrorist attacks and a host of other menacing perils hang ominously above our heads as we go about our daily activities, hoping against hope that somehow everything will work out all right. Yet deep in our hearts we know that something might happen at a moment's notice which...

In 1786 Sir William Jones, a Welsh philologist and judge of the supreme court of Bengal, sent shock waves throughout Europe with the following speech he gave in his address to the Asiatic society of Bengal. “The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of...

In the material world, a conditioned soul, due to his false ego, is generally not comfortable to think of oneself as a ‘subordinate’ to anyone including God. But it is in the best interest of a soul to accept subordination to God and His representatives at various levels. Submissiveness to the Supreme Lord, the bona fide spiritual master and their transparent representatives constitute one of the vital aspects of spiritual advancement. Srila Prabhupada writes...

My dear King, those who stay at home as householders must act to earn their livelihood, and instead of trying to enjoy the results of their work themselves, they should offer these results to Krishna, Vasudeva. How to satisfy Vasudeva in this life can be perfectly understood through the association of great devotees of the Lord. A grihastha must associate again and again with saintly persons, and with great respect he must hear the nectar of the activities of the Supreme Lord and His incarnations a...

Our mercilful God has offered us this perfect revelation about our real spiritual identities and our inate enduring loving relation to Him; and He has preserved its integrity within an unbroken disciplic succession "evam parampara praptam" of His empowered servants, the authentic Vedic teachers

There is one more aspect of spirituality that matches taking a flight. There we are on the plane, looking out the window, watching the fluffy white clouds float by. The flight attendants are charming, and give us what we want with a smile. To pass the time we read or nap or chat with our neighbor. Then the attendant announces, “Kindly prepare for landing.” Then we wonder, “Oh, two hours has already passed? I didn’t even notice!” Time is ticking ...

Panihati Chida-dahi Mahotsav, also known as the Chipped Rice Festival, is a yearly celebration of the pastimes of Srila Raghnnatha dasa Gosvami and Lord Nityananda Prabhu. This astonishing pastime took place on the banks of the Ganges at Panihati, which is about 1 hour drive from Kolkata airport. (Ask for ‘Panihati Boat Ghat’, Sodepur.) Lord Caitanya and His associates enjoyed many transcendental pastimes here. Chida-Dahi Mahotsav remembers how Lord mercifully reciprocated with His devotees by arranging, through Nityananda Prabhu and Raghunatha dasa, to provide an ec...

The mystery of Radha, the female energy of God, had both fascinated and eluded me. After all I had experienced, after all I had read, after all the sadhus I had met, nothing had prepared me for the hidden truth of yoga’s greatest mystery: the mystery of bhakti, or devotion. And now I was learning that the keeper of this mystery was Radha. For the first time it began to dawn on me that these saints of Vrindavan had penetrated into the deepest, most confidential aspect of the spiritual journey.

The degree to which you are able to turn to Krsna while chanting reveals the depth of your relationship with Him and how healthy you are spiritually. If you are unhealthy, you simply cannot turn to Krsna. Your mind will dislike the idea of chanting. It will be very rebellious and everything but Krsna will appear in your mind at that time. Every relationship starts with giving attention, and your relationship with Krsna is no exception. Therefore, you must learn how to chant with attention. It is said in the scriptures that inattention to Krsna is the root cause of all other offences an...

One day Charles suffered a great deal and was afraid. Visnupriya gave him a Back to Godhead magazine, and he was pleased to recognize the picture of Nagaraja Dasa, whom he had met. "Oh, I know him!" Charles said, "I think I'll read this magazine." Reading Back to Godhead helped calm him down. Godruma and Visnupriya read to him as much as they could from the Bhagvad-gita and Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Charles listened to the reading intensely. "I d...

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura met with opposition when he had taken his disciples for braj mandal parikrama because many temple priests of Vrindavan were of the opinion that he should not have given brahminical threads to those who were not born in a brahmana family. But Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura gave reference of various scriptures and proved that one should be considered a brahmana not by birth but by qualities. He quoted verse from Srimad Bhagavatam wherein sage Narada tells Yudhisthir that even if one is born in the family of a sudra b...

Forgiving yourself is obviously an issue for you. Look at it this way: Krishna wants you to come back to Him, and if you don’t forgive yourself, you’re making that trip back to Him a more difficult – and thus slower – journey. Krishna is waiting for you to come back, so don’t make Him wait longer than necessary. Krishna forgives you, and if He forgives you, certainly you can forgive yourself. (If it’s good enough for Him, it’s good enough for you.) In addition, if you are thinking, “I am so low and so ...

Increase the quality of your chanting. Increase the quantity of your chanting. Read more Srimad Bhagavatam. Read Caitanya Caritamrita. Read prayers. Acaryas have written so many prayers. Read prayers of acaryas. Pray to Krishna. Krishna will hear you, when you read the prayers of acaryas - He hears you. When you speak in your own words: “Krishna, help. Krishna, save me”, Krishna will hear you.

Once upon a time there was a rich King who had four wives. He loved the 4th wife the most and adorned her with rich robes and treated her to the finest of delicacies. He gave her nothing but the best. He also loved the 3rd wife very much and was always showing her off to neighboring kingdoms. However, he feared that one day she would leave him for another. He also loved his 2nd wife. She was his confidant and was always kind, considerate and patient with him. W...

The word "Acarya" in Founder-Acarya means that Srila Prabhupada is the ultimate teacher by his own example in ISKCON. Being a perfect teacher by example, therefore, everything he does is instructive because, as followers, we are meant to aspire to strictly follow his example. Prabhupada would oftentimes speak about the difference between following in the footsteps and imitating. He would say that following in the footsteps of the previous acaryas means that we follo...

Many people treat devotion as a calling to which some are called and some (they) aren’t. Thus, they rationalize delaying their practice of devotion till some uncertain future when they will feel the call. It’s true that many great saints had life-defining moments of calling – moments that folk narratives about them glamorize. But such narratives often neglect the reality that those saints’ devotion was not just a calling but also a choice, a choice they resolutely exercised lifelong...

It was at a tent program in the center of Mumbai during a warm March evening in 1971 that I first encountered actual knowledge. Srila Prabhupada was speaking, and although I missed much of what he said because of his accent, I sensed that I was hearing something worlds apart from all that I’d ever heard before. The experience was scary but exhilarating, and something in me that had been sleeping began to stir. Because Prabhupada was noble, learned, and gentlemanly, despite myself (I was an ...

On different occasions Srila Prabhupada spoke about sleep. When I first became his servant, he called me into his room after he had taken a short nap following lunch. This was at the Dallas temple when Srila Prabhupada visited the gurukula facility. He asked me if I had taken rest after eating my lunch. I said no. This was not something that was done at that time. "I am an old man," he said. "I cannot sleep very long at one time, so I take a nap after lunch." I had been with Srila Prabhupada o...

Srila Prabhupada encouraged repetition of the sastra as a principle of disciplic succession and at the same time he condemned it as artificial and unscientific. Let’s examine the two positions with quotes from him.

I am a devotee of Krishna and have been one for the past several years. I am also of Indian origin, and my story is a typical one. I have been living in North America since I was nine years old. My parents came here to complete their higher education, and upon completion of their doctorates, they decided to settle down in this, their adopted country. As the family grew, came careers, households, mortgages, etc. Along with this material, success came several perplexing questions: How to relate to a materialistic western society without losing Indian values; how to bring up children here a...

Over the years modern science has speculated and researched to find out the number of species on earth, the method that main stream science has adopted is experimental which is commonly known as "seeing is believing", but without going much in detail regarding the imperfectness of this method, which is based on imperfect senses of the human being and imperfectness of the instruments developed by the human beings by these imperfect senses, it is extremely difficult to understand or gauge the vast variety of spec...

Sometimes I hear devotees say that they have been chanting Hare Krishna for thirty or forty years or more, and are still waiting to feel the taste for it, or the ecstasy from chanting, or from doing devotional service. I even heard where some devotee workshops were saying that it is not uncommon that devotees do not feel this bliss even after years of chanting, and that sometimes people leave the movement because they don’t feel the higher taste. They did not get what they expected. But the cure for that is clearly explained.