It was Gargamuni’s idea [to do the prasadam program]. He felt that the best way to attract students was to have a program every day. It was some chanting and then a brief lecture and then prasadam. [Gargamuni] learned how to cook from Prabhupada and he taught all of us how to cook... When he would chaunce the dahl the aroma would go through the entire neighborhood and I remember coming back from class and I’d just see people running, coming out of their houses just running to the Krishna House. People were packed into the living roo...

Yajigrama is a tiny village 4km from Katwa, viz. 1 hour from Navadvipa town or 2 hours’ drive from Mayapur via road trip. Katwa is where Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu took sannyasa from Kesava Bharati. Yajigrama is important place connected with many most wonderful pastimes of three Vaishnava stalwarts - Srila Narottama Das Thakura, Srila Shrinivasa Acharya and Srila Ramchandra Kaviraj. After the disappearance of the manifest pastimes of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, Nityananda Prabhu and their associates, Srila Narottama Das Thakura, Shrinivasa Acharya and Sri Shyamananda Prabhu, under the instr...

“A person is not considered a great sage unless he disagrees with another sage”. This adage suitably describes the career of La Mettrie, whose contentious writings during the eighteenth century were almost universally reviled by his contemporaries during the age of the Enlightenment. Even Frederick the Great, who afforded him protection and patronage following his banishment from France and Holland, declared that one could attain peace of mind by not reading La Mettrie’s works. Notwithstanding the general distaste with which they were met, the ideas he espoused have proved long ...

Our greatest problem is that we have turned away from Krishna. This one action has turned into our existential dilemma. We are lost servants. But strangely we think, at least unconsciously, that it is Krishna who has abandoned us. Only when we become eager to meet Krishna again, and serve Him with body, mind and heart – as eager as a drowning man is eager to breathe again – can we attain our spiritual success. Real love, however, will only flow when we move out...

This phenomenal world or material world in which we are placed is complete in itself because the twenty-four elements of which this material universe is a temporary manifestation, according to Sankhya philosophy, are completely adjusted to produce complete resources which are necessary for the maintenance and subsistence of this universe. There is nothing extraneous, nor is there anything needed. (A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada) An understanding of God’...

Loving Krishna means loving everyone because Krsna is in their heart. Conversely, applying that logic backwards, if you don't love everyone, it means that you are not loving Krsna. Using the root and leaves example, if the leaves are looking healthy, it is to be understood that the root is receiving nourishment. In SB, eleventh canto, it is explained that only the kanishta or neophyte sees Krsna in the temple, but not in the hearts of all, and fails to respect and develop loving relationships with them. In my experience, the leaves and root example has been used in our preaching to di...