Suppose you are the friend of a millionaire. One day you see your friend's estranged son wandering on the streets, drunk, disheveled, diseased, distressed, and starving. When someone offers him food, he gulps it down and continues his aimless wandering. Then someone else comes and gives him a new set of clothes. He happily wears the clothes, but still remains lost and forsaken. Someone else gives him free medicine, which provides him some relief but no permanent solace. Then you seat him ...

One of the programs that I remember best was a midday program at the home of Ramchand Chhabria. He invited a lot of big people, including Sadajivatlal. Now, Sadajivatlal was, in a nice way, a Hindu chauvinist. And while everyone was mingling, he somehow sat down next to me and began telling me about the glories of India's heritage. He just went on about the superiority of Indian culture, focusing on Indian sweets. He said, "What do you have in America? Only chocolates and ...

For many of us who came of age in the Sixties and Seventies, the counterculture and its promise of an alternative society based on love and peace was an important part of our lives. Art, music, poetry, philosophy, ecology and human rights were just a few of the buzzwords floating around the collective psyche of the Sixties generation. Revolution was in the air. "The establishment" was doomed and soon to be replaced with a kinder, gentler society. Peace would reign supreme and all peoples of the wo...

While in Dwarka, Krishna heard about their love-afflicted plight. In amazement, His mouth fell open, His eyes became large, and His limbs became motionless and withdrew into themselves just as His consciousness withdrew from everything else to focus on His devotees. And Krishna became Jagannatha. The celestial sage Narada blissfully beheld this extraordinary form and begged the Lord to bless everyone with its divine darshana. His desire was fulfilled through a later king, named Indradyumna...

Jagannath Puri is one of the most important holy places of this planet. It was here where this Rath yatra originated and the date of origin goes back to Satya-yuga (beginning of cosmological era) as the temple was inaugurated around that time as per the scripture Skanda Purana. There is also information in other scriptures that mentions about Rath yatra being celebrated in 3rd century BC and credits it to King Pandyavijaya, a devotee of Lord from south India. But with reference to present a...

I came to the United States in September of 2000 to pursue the great American dream. I was twenty-three, had just finished medical school in India, and had secured a residency spot with The Ohio State University Medical Center, one of the top internal medicine residency programs in the country. My apartment was but a few blocks away from the medical center, which I soon discovered was just across the street from an ISKCON temple. During my residency, I started visiting the temple regularly fo...

However, what will ruin our movement is the tendency of introducing new fashions, especially in regards to chanting the holy name. Once we get on deeper levels of chanting we will feel an ever increasing satisfaction. We will no longer feel the need to introduce new fashions - Radhe Radhe Syam Syam, or Hare Ramo, or whatever it may be. The mundane senses always demand a new kind of stimulation and satisfaction. And if this tendency enters our chanting, then it will remain on an external level. W...

A few amazing things happened during the book distribution, things which only happen when one is out of the mental platform, when the mind is not in between you and the person you meet. For example, there were two boys who bought books, they said they were from Dalarna County, and without any thinking I just exclaimed, "From Avesta?" "Yes", they said, completely astonished. There was a living statue standing in Gamla Stan, with outstretched arms with slighly bent fingers in a graspable positi...

Here's my short four-point answer: • The Bhagavad-gita is not pessimistic, but realistic; the reality is that the pleasure-pain balance of the world is tilted heavily toward the pain side. • Even if we still consider the Gita philosophy pessimistic, that pessimism is only initial, not final. In its conclusion, the Gita offers a supremely optimistic message. • Even the best worldly optimism pales and fails in front of the longing of our heart, a longing fulfilled only by the vision...

Sometimes when sitting on the beach blanket in New Jersey, Srila Prabhupada would look out at the waves while chanting japa. He was very beautiful and serene, always absorbed in Krishna, yet also carefully scrutinizing the world around him. On some days there were big waves and surfer boys would be out, swimming and surfing in the waves. Srila Prabhupada watched with great interest as they mounted their boards and slid down the faces of the waves. He asked us: “What is this?” Gaurasundara a...

The name of this all-consuming disaster is the relentless approach of death: A hundred percent of the people reading this article will be wiped out a hundred years from today. Despite this hundred-percent casualty rate, most of us don’t feel that life is like a disaster movie. One reason is that the movie of life unfolds in slow motion, allowing us to forget the direction of its motion if we want to. And we fervently want to. Why? Because the reality of death is inconvenient and unplea...

Beyond the material sky, further than we can see with our eyes and beyond the universe, there is an unlimited span of spiritual sky generally known as the brahmajyoti. Within this effulgence there are innumerable spiritual planets, and they are known as the Vaikuntha planets. Each and every Vaikuntha planet is many, many times bigger than the biggest universe within the material world, and in each of them there are innumerable inhabitants who look exactly like Lord Vishnu. These inhabitants a...

The wise know well that this world is itself a disaster area. We fools of time are loath to hear this. We are “in denial.” As the Bhagavatam says of us, pashyann api na pashyati,” although we have seen, we still don’t see. Our blindness is willful. We make ourselves stupid in order to be happy: Yet ah! why should they know their fate? Since sorrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies. Thought would destroy their paradise. No more;—where ignorance is bliss, ‘Tis...

One objection to Food for Life frequently encountered from devotees and non-devotees alike, is that the programme is simply an attempt to win public favour. We are not really interested in helping people but are trying to manipulate public opinion by performing a high profile charitable service. For devotees, this objection is also rooted in the doubt that, as a spiritual organisation, ISKCON should not be concerned with mundane welfare work and, of course, we should certainly not be trying t...

Manu priya continued to produce the Balaram mrdanga's until March 1, 1992. On that day he finished making eight large and four small mrdangas. I was cooking the Sunday feast for the LA temple that day, I still do. After cooking I would usually bring some prasadam over to Manu's apartment and take with a couple devotee friends and my wife Isanah dd. This time Manu was not there, I asked our friend and neighbor Jiva Carana dasa if he knew where Manu was, he said that Manu asked him to go to the ...

In distributing love of Godhead, Caitanya Mahaprabhu and His associates did not consider who was a fit candidate and who was not, nor where such distribution should or should not take place. They made no conditions. CC. Adi-lila 7.23 1. In essence, duality means that we forget that we are part and parcel of Krsna. We want to enjoy separately from Him, we want to play the controller. This controlling tendency culminates in sex desire. 2. Man/woman concept is synonymous with material consciousne...

An examination of scholarly work by non-devotees on the Hare Krsna Movement reveals a tendency to engage in sociological and historical analysis rather than a discussion of the philosophy and theology of Krsna Consciousness (for example, Brooks, Bromley and Shinn, Shinn, Rochford, Knott). One explanation for this might be that devotees themselves, particularly the founder, Bhaktivedanta Swami, have provided their own theological accounts. In addition, non-devotee scholars, such as A. L. Basham, John...

Many of the waterpots were broken when people collided with one another, and hundreds of men had to bring new waterpots to fill. Some people were filling the pots, and others were washing the rooms, but everyone was engaged in chanting the holy name of Krishna and Hari. One person begged for a waterpot by chanting the holy names “Krishna, Krishna,” and another delivered a pot while chanting “Krishna, Krishna.” Whenever anyone had to speak, he did so by uttering the holy name of Krishna. Co...

The following verse is composed in the style known as citra-kavya, which literally means, "picture-poem". In this gender of Sanskrit poetry, which goes back at least 2,000 years, the verses are designed to be read in the form of a picture. When the reader lays out the syllables or sometimes words, in the shape of the given picture, hidden meanings are found. Those who have some expertise in Sanskrit may find some surprises in the below contemporary verse, not all of which are to be found in the ...

I told my reporter to go and pretend to be part of them, get as much information as he can. Part of it could be in the favour and if there is anything negative, please bring that because that`s how the news is made! So he went and brought back a lot of literature to read and he also brought back two video tapes; that is, Your Ever Well-Wisher and World of Hare Krsna. The same night I saw both the video tapes; the film Your Ever Well-Wisher especially influenced me a lot. I saw it ...

The Answers Issue might make you feel guilty if you drive over 13,400 miles a year (the average), since it claims that car emission is the biggest factor to our individual carbon footprints. Eating meat comes in second. Something to consider for those who want to make an impact on their carbon footprint but can’t bring themselves to give up driving. Other lessor categories are our use of air conditioning, air travel and beer drinking, etc. The interesting thing is that the mag is silent on th...