"There should be somewhere on earth, a place which no nation could claim as its own, where all human beings of good will who have a sincere aspiration, could live freely as citizens of the world and obey one single authority, that of the supreme truth; a place of peace, concord and harmony" "An Aurovilian should lose the sense of personal possession. For our passage in the material world, what is indispensable to our life and to our action is put at our disposal according to the place we must occupy.

I got a phone call from the Mayor’s office a couple of weeks ago expressing how eager she was to partake of some more prasadam and how even more eager she was to introduce her fellow 51 councillors to that prasadam experience! It was also mentioned that this would be an historic event, as never in the history of Dublin City Council has the cuisine been totally vegetarian, a Council that dates back to 1840, 80 odd years before independence from the UK

We are now in serious danger of ruining our long practiced and much cherished reputation of our 21st century sannyasi! What are we talking about? Well a couple of weeks ago a certain member of the sannyasa order all but snuck into the emerald isle unnoticed. Usually a visiting sannyasi’s arrival is known well in advance and there is at least a modest welcoming party to greet him. However not this time, rather it was a very humble entrance at a regional port and from there, almost immediately into a walking tour of the country.

A little over 2 years ago the European GBC body at their annual meeting, held that year in New Vrajamandala Spain, decided to make a concerted effort to assist the French Yatra. As a result of that meeting a group of devotees was formed under the name 'Renouveau du Yatra Francais'. The members of that committee were/are Sivarama Swami, Hrdaya Caitanya das, Siksastakam das, Gopaswami das, Nitaigaurasundara das, Madhvacarya das, Nitai Saci Suta das, Madhusevita das, Prabhupada vani das, Bhavasindhu das and Praghosa das.

As ISKCON celebrates it's 40th birthday we have much to reflect on. From it's humble beginnings when Srila Prabhupada was more or less alone in a foreign land, to it's early days when devotees began to join, to it's explosion in the 70's and 80's. Later in the 80's and on up to the present day ISKCON's record is more mixed, actually many would say that ISKCON's record has always been mixed. If that is true then we can probably agree that the difference now is that ISKCON's mixed fortunes are more highlighted, as opposed to the halcyon days w...

One of the purposes of the Dandavats website was to provide a medium where devotees could express their Krsna conscious realisations, so please don't be shy in sending them to us. An automatic benefit of sending your realisations, given the nature of the medium, is that they will reach the eyes of many many souls. As websites are available for everyone to read, who knows who might read and be inspired by your words?

So giving names, having names and using names are all essential for increasing the personal touch.. Of course as devotees we receive even more mercy when we are given names related to Krsna and His devotees at the time of initiation. These names not only serve as a way of identifying us but they also remind us of the supreme Lord and His devotees and can award us unlimited spiritual benefit, as in the case of Ajamila.

While reading this passage of the Bhagavatam it struck me that the propensity to defend is just as strong, if not stronger, than the propensity to eat, sleep and mate. For whatever reason I had subconsciously concluded that eating and sleeping were top of the list (things that could more or less only be 'overcome' by death) and then the attraction for sex life (mating) was naturally more difficult to overcome than the need to defend oneself. Studying this passage tended to change my perspective, as I could never imagine myself responding in such ...

When we arrived in Dublin the first alarm bell was that our luggage didn't arrive with us even, though it was checked in three hours beforehand. We were then told it would arrive on the next flight later in the afternoon. Eventually when our luggage did arrive both bags were there but my laptop and mobile phone were not inside. Initially my mind went into a tailspin and was registering, at a rate of knots, all the inconveniences that now awaited me.

The main aim of Dandavats is to be a resource for krsna katha so that all readers can receive some spiritual benefit every time they visit the site. As we know the mind is difficult to control and needs no assistance to be attracted to those subject matters that do not benefit us spiritually. Dandavats wants to humbly try to help all those who are desirous to achieve ‘krsne matir astu’

Dandavats is in the process of evaluating whether to continue with this discussion, in the meantime many devotees are working hard to try to find a solution to this issue, that is in accordance with our vaisnava culture and thus acceptable to the overwhelming body of devotees.