Honesty and truthfulness, then, are two essential elements of humility. They manifest as one's ability to honestly assess oneself, to recognize and admit one's own faults and defects as a conditioned jiva, and to admit the truth of one’s compromised situation. Sadly, many of us try to create a false image of ourselves, both to posture, to convince ourselves of our own greatness, and to manipulate others into believing that we are great, too. Only through internal honesty can we begin to make real progress in spiritual life. Thus, to clean out the conditioning that has a...

The seventeenth-century mathematician/philosopher Blaise Pascal formulated a pragmatic argument for justifying belief in God. Which is worth the risk of error, Pascal questioned, belief or non-belief? It is wise, he said, to “wager” on the existence of God, for the alternative, to put one’s faith in faithlessness, is an inferior bet. And, more, if one believes in God but is eventually proven wrong, one loses nothing. But if one believes and is proven right, one ...

The main course arrived: pizza. The devotees were thrilled, since this is a much loved treat in these parts – but only when offered to Krishna, natch! “Hey,” one devotee quipped, “What about pizza? How does this relate to Krishna consciousness?” Luckily, I had been writing about just such a subject in a recent project for a major academic press. I am writing a high school reference book on Hinduism, and in my research I came upon an interesting reference to pizza.

Prabhupada often compared it to being cured of amnesia. In the conventional treatment of the disease, one is given a daily regimen of gradual exposure to his or her former life. Hopefully, through a sustained effort, the patient gradually remembers and becomes cured. This is called anamnesis -- the reversal of amnesia. Similarly, through a daily regimen, known as sadhana, one becomes relieved of their spiritual forgetfulness and gradually remembers their life in the spiritual world with Krishna....

According to Srila Prabhupada, one can gauge a person's spiritual status by how they react to finding money on the street: Do they keep it for themselves? Do they leave it lying there? Or do they look for the original owner? What would you do? In Sanskrit, there are three terms that cover the gamut of possible reactions to finding money in the street: bhoga, (enjoyment); tyaga (renunciation); and seva (a service attitude). In Prabhupada's "money analogy," a bhogi is one who finds money in the st...

What do yoga, spiritual music, and Hare Krishna have to do with Barack Obama? At first blush, not a whole lot. Sure, Obama carried around a Hanuman trinket for some time, as indicated by Time Magazine.

On my way over here, I noticed that your Student Union will be airing the Woody Allen film, Deconstructing Harry. The film's title is intriguing, because, in a sense, it directly relates to the subject you want me to discuss tonight: "Is Krishna the God of creation?"

It must be reiterated here that devotees of Krishna are more concerned with the soul than with the body, and while embracing Ayurvedic principles for bodily care, they look to the Bhagavad-gita and the Srimad Bhagavatam – and to the teachings of Rupa Goswami -- for spiritual advancement and guidance in life.

"Wow," she said. "God in the Vaisnava tradition is certainly a complex and multi-faceted individual." She then added, continuing in the humorous mood, "I guess David is only "partially" aggressive, too. He's actually a great kid." We laughed and looked at each other knowingly, recognizing that there are truths that go beyond a child's passing tantrums, and that even these tantrums have a basis in a reality that is simply more important.

Once, when a young hippie had attended a few Sunday feasts in the early days of the Krsna consciousness movement, he noticed that, when devotees became angry, they would say to each other, "Just chant 'Hare Krsna.'" On one particular occasion, Srila Prabhupada was in attendance, and he had become angry about something. Seeing this, the young hippie naturally turned to Prabhupada and said, "Just chant 'Hare Krsna.'"

In the end, the "religion leads to violence" argument falters; you might just as easily say that education leads to violence since there is so much violence in schools. One might counter the argument by borrowing a slogan from the National Rifle Association: Religion doesn't kill, people do.