Have you ever asked yourself: What keeps holding me back despite my best efforts to advance and break the chain of undesirable habits? The answer, more often than not, is our karma. To be more precise, it’s the part of our karma that must be experienced and cannot be mitigated even through various methods like austerities or sacrifices. Such unavoidable karma is called prarabdha karma.

Srila Prabhupada: In Kali-yuga, you cannot strictly follow, neither I can strictly follow. If I criticize you, if you criticize me, then we go far away from our real life of Krsna consciousness.
Morning Walk – March 10, 1976, Mayapur:
Bhāgavata: About attraction and aversion… There’s…
Prabhupāda: Hm? Attraction?

Shastrakrit Das: I was at a supermarket aisle and this nice young man passes by me, I just said hello. He goes “where have you been man? I have been looking for you!“ I thought he had mistaken me for someone else. He goes “no you, you gave me a Bhagavad Gita last year and I read it twice already, I want to come and chant with you guys” I gave him a card & sure enough he came today for lunch with his wonderful girlfriend, we spoke for a while and they took home a full set of Bhagavatam home. Prasadam + book...

I was distributing books in Melbourne and approached a young man wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt. I was showing him the Science of Self Realization and explaining the contents. He was interested and wanted to take the book, but said he had no money. I mentioned that we use card readers for credit cards.

Lord Krsna said to Arjuna, “In all activities just depend upon Me and work always under My protection. In such devotional service, be fully conscious of Me. If you become conscious of Me, you will pass over all the obstacles of conditioned life by My grace. If, however, you do not work in such consciousness but act through false ego, not hearing Me, you will be lost.

Guest: What is the highest devotion, the highest bhakti, please?
Srila Prabhupada: To love Krishna. If you become expert how to love Krishna… The idea of loving is not unknown to you. You love somebody. You love your wife. You love your children. You love your country. You love your society. There are so many loving aspect. But when you love Krishna, then your life is perfect. That we have to…

ISKCON Vrindavan

When the living entity is encircled by wife, children and home, he acts on the mental plane. Sometimes he is very happy, sometimes he is very much satisfied, sometimes he is not satisfied, and sometimes he is bewildered.

We should specially note in this verse the description of gatiṁ bhāgavatīm. To become merged in the rays of the Parabrahman, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as desired by the brahmavādī impersonalist, is not bhāgavatīm perfection.

Shastrakrit Das (book distributor): You can tell when someone is reading Srila Prabhupada’s books:
So this actress looking middle eastern lady and her young son parked their Porsche, walked past my book table and went inside the grocery store. I actually remembered meeting them in the past and how she was kind of puffed up, so I didn’t expect much.

Materialists answer that the world is a place for our enjoyment. This answer is problematic because distress and death pervade the world.
Some spiritualists, especially impersonalists, answer that the world is a place of illusion – it is just meant to be renounced. This answer too is problematic because it is largely impractical, and it renders meaningless most of the things we value: our talents, aspirations, contributions.

Lecture by HG Radhika Raman Prabhu at ISKCON Chowpatty

INFUSING NAMA JAPA WITH LIFE.
Sacinandana Swami: It is well known that chanting the holy name in good company is easier than doing so alone. This holds true both for japa and kirtan. When we chant in a group of devotees, we co-create a devotional energy and atmosphere that we get to enter into together. It is therefore said that sankirtana (kirtana performed with others) can create such extraordinary delight in the chanter that he or she will find it easy to remain focused on the holy name and experience divine taste in chanting.

Caste system is probably among the most talked and most misunderstood current social controversies; misunderstood because it is based on a false premise- caste determination by birth

A nonmechanistic theory of consciousness.
In Mechanistic and Nonmechanistic Science (1981) (MNMS), Richard L. Thompson presents a nonmechanistic theory of consciousness drawn from the Bhagavad-gita, a summary of Indian’s ancient wisdom.

Welcome to the daily reading from Srimad Bhagavatam by HH Kesava Bharati Das Goswami

Perhaps George Harrison’s greatest influence on popular culture was in the field of spirituality - in particular his promotion of the Hare Krishna movement. Richard Williams introduces an extraordinary conversation between the late musician and one of the movement’s leaders, Mukunda Goswami.

“Don’t take me to the hospital”
Srila Prabhupada did not like to be experimented on by drug giving doctors and in one story it was Gargamuni and Brahmananda that he got to take him out of the hospital, prematurely, in the eyes of the doctors.

Srila Prabhupada: That is the test. How you are advancing in chanting will be tested how far you are free from material anxieties.

Sacinandana Swami: We are discussing the road of sharanagati – taking shelter, which leads us to Lord Krishna.
Our third step is goptritve-varanam or accepting the Lord as one’s sole maintainer.

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In a small town situated close to the banks of the River Yamuna there lived a man called Amrita. Nothing in life caused him more anxiety than his fear of death. One day he had an idea that if he befriended Lord Yamaraj, he would be able to keep death at a distance, and so Amrita practiced austerities and meditated upon the Lord of Death, who was verily pleased and granted him a vision.
Lord Yamaraj said, ‘I know by the aid of my divine powers that you seek to befriend me - your wish has come true. My presence is only available to those upon who...

An Interview by Anuttama Das, ISKCON GBC Strategic Planning Team

HH Sacinandana Swami: A gift that the Lord has given to everyone is the opportunity to choose, and especially to make enlightened choices that bring us out of the dark periods of our lives back to a life of enthusiastic Krsna consciousness. It is never appropriate to say “I am a victim of circumstances.” I have seen in my life: no matter the circumstance we can always take shelter in Krsna. You may not always find relief, but you can always find shelter.

When Dharmaraja Yudhishthira was ruling over Indraprastha, one day a brahmana came to meet him. He met Dharmaraja and then returned home.
As the brahmana was going out of the main gate, Bhimasena saw him. He saw the brahmana while going in also, but he did not talk to the brahmana because it was usual for several people to come and seek from Dharmaraja what they wanted. But this brahmana did not appear to have received anything from his elder brother. So Bhimasena asked him, “Sir, you are returning empty handed. Have you met my brother?