After teaching a university seminar, I was asked questions I had myself raised when I first encountered the philosophy of Krishna consciousness: “Why is the Vedic philosophy so pessimistic? When the world offers both pleasures and pains, why does the Bhagavad-gita call the world a place of misery?” Over my decade and a half of practicing and sharing Krishna consciousness, I have been preparing and refining the answer to these questions. Here's my short fou...

“And when the spiritual master sees the devotees are taking bhagavat prasadam, he is satisfied” - Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakur. If there is any other instruction which the devotees of New Vrindaban have taken up more seriously than the one above, I have yet to run across it. In their undaunted endeavors to obtain bhagavat prasadam, devotees have crossed over the difficult ocean of contraptions, locks, chains and booby traps grouped together under the heading of ma...

“The funeral ceremony of a sage who has died in the forest, a fight between two goats, a thunder clap in the morning, a quarrel between husband and wife, all begin in grand style but the outcome is insignificant.” [ Canakya Pandit, Niti Sastra ] A devotee’s life is characterized by unshakable faith in the Lord, the spiritual master and the devotees. Because in marriage a husband sees his wife as Krsna’s devotee and a wife sees her husband as Krsna’s property, their faith in each other is strong and no adverse material circumstances can break their relationship...

The opulent outfits offered to the Deities are all designed, stitched, and embroidered by a team of 28 local devotees who work year-round to create the Lord’s beautiful clothing. Resident devotees also hand make most of the jewelry worn by the Mayapur Deities. Approximately 35 devotees are engaged in caring for the Deities’ paraphernalia rooms and paraphernalia. These devotees clean, polish, organize, and in other ways ensure that the Lord’s belongings are mai...

Over the next weeks and months, Sruti Dharma will undergo both radiotherapy and chemotherapy supported by a host of holistic treatments. He has a superb team of health care professionals who are evaluating further treatments available outside of the UK. During this time of treatment he requires to rest and recuperate. He is at home with family and still very much keeping up with temple matters and the construction plans for the Shree Krishna Haveli community facility. The f...

You see, the horrible truth to the matter is that every devotee is a potential maha thief. It is hard to trust anyone, save and except the self-realized souls, to be alone in the same room with maha prasadam. That is why the maha cabinet is necessary. Without it, none of the maha prasadam would ever live to see the sun rise. I believe that the situation is much more acute at New Vrindaban than in other temples around the world. I remember that in the first temple I stayed, ...

As the Greek oracle proclaimed, ‘know thyself’, and this is the first instruction in the Gita. It tells us we are parts of the Supreme Spirit and therefore we have the same nature—not only of eternality, but also pure knowledge and bliss. There is evidence for this as well in that we can see how we are always aspiring to attain those three states. Take the first, eternality. We constantly strive to secure our ongoing existence, seeking good health, longevity ...

The Boat Festival has its roots in Goloka Vrindavan, the spiritual eternal realm. One of the boat pastimes is described in detail in Gopal Champu by Srila Jiva Goswami. One day the gopis, loaded with pots full of yogurt and butter, came to the banks of Manasi Ganaga, wishing to cross the river. They met a boatman who gladly agreed to help. When the boat was already far away from the bank the boatman stopped rowing, saying that He was too hungry. The gopis gave Him...

Srila Prabhupada has stated that, “The first sense you will realize Krishna with is your tongue”. The meaning is clear. All of our advancement in spiritual life comes from chanting Hare Krishna. Therefore, by this process of chanting Krishna’s names, one will eventually learn to see Krishna everywhere. But for the prasadam addict, the statement has another meaning. He thinks, “The more I eat, the closer I come to God”. Or again, there is the statement that one sho...

Sometimes the car becomes blocked. But some fellow pushes it. We have got this experience. What is that called? Chocked up? Then you get down and push the car and – brut-brut-brut-brut-brut – it goes. Similarly the bhakti-rasa [feeling of devotion] is there in everyone's heart. Nitya-siddha krishna-bhakti. Because we are part and parcel of Krishna. . . . So the fact is that we have got devotion for Krishna. That is a fact. But some way or other we are separated...

Śrīla Prabhupāda describes in his purport to Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 4.11.1: “Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu has also given us a nice weapon for this age, as stated in the Bhāgavatam: sāṅgopāṅgāstra—in this age, the nārāyaṇāstra, or weapon to drive away māyā, is the chanting of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra in pursuance of the associates of Lord Caitanya, such as Advaita Prabhu, Nityānanda, Gadādhara and Śrīvāsa.” This weapon of the holy name was ut...

I had watched the destruction done in less than two minutes with astonishment and disbelief and I simply had no idea what to do next. I felt like a complete failure and was so traumatized with what had just occurred, I started telling all those who were asking me what to do: “Tell everyone to go home. There isn’t going to be a parade!” I began to work my way through the crowd and eventually got back into the temple and headed straight back to the roof, which was t...

The Laddu Sadhu. Who is there who can sufficiently describe the wondrous attributes of this illustrious sweet ball? This must surely be Madhumangala, who is mentioned in many Vaisnava books and songs as a great lover of laddus. Being a brahmana boy, he used to promise to give Krishna benedictions in exchange for laddus. So if a laddu is so potent as to be able to distract the attention of one of Krishna’s most intimate friends, who can calculate its effect upon an ordinar...

WE SHOULD KNOW the cause for the appearance of Gauranga Mahaprabhu, Lord Caitanya. There are two causes: external and internal. The external cause is to teach Kali-yuga dharma, the religion for Kali-yuga, the Age of Quarrel. That religion ishari-sankirtana, the chanting of the holy name. Lord Caitanya comes in Kali-yuga, especially the present Kali-yuga, with His abode and all His associates and paraphernalia. He offers and distributes the chief result of hari-nama-sankirtana Krsna-prema, love of God freely, indiscriminately. Even Brahm...

The best time and place is Mayapur on Lord Caitanya's Appearance Day. That is not only the best for me but for everyone. Mayapur is meant for that. If possible all devotees from all our centers should go for 8 days at that time.” – Srila Prabhupada, Letter to Tamal Krishna, Bhaktivedanta Manor 20 July, 1973

In a few short years, it has all taken on the quality of a legend. Nobody really believes the stories of what we used to eat, how much we used to eat, the austerities of cooking outdoors. It all seems like a myth. Sometimes new devotees still come up to me and say, “I hear you used to eat ninety chapatis a day”. I just kind of shrug my shoulders and smile and mumble that everybody used to eat a lot more then. (The truth of the matter is that one time I kept count up to s...

Krishna arranged for devotees to be there at the time of his death. This was December 8th 1980. The New York temple was on West 55th Street in Manhattan and two devotees lived at that temple. Bakula and Surottama, and they had their daughter Shringara born that morning. She was born in the temple so by the afternoon she had developed kind of a cough so they thought well we better take this baby to the hospital because you never know. So they asked another devot...

This is the real purpose of our society, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness: to become Krishna conscious—to chant and hear about Krishna and fix our minds on Krishna, mainly through the process of chanting and hearing in the association of devotees

What is Transhumanism? Transhumanism is the belief that through the use of technology, man will “transcend” the limits of his conditioning-his mortal coil-and will become something “post-human”-a god essentially

I share many quotes from Srila Prabhupada’s books and lectures. I also share notes on talks by Varsana Swami, Rtadhvaja Swami, Adikarta Prabhu, Akhandadhi Prabhu, Madana Mohan Prabhu, Nagaraja Prabhu, Garuda Prabhu of Tallahassee, Murali Gopal Prabhu, and Hanan Prabhu. I share quotes by Prishni Devi Dasi and Nama Kirtan from conversations and by Jagannatha Misra Prabhu from his latest book, The Book III.