Srila Prabhupada’s beloved disciple Yamuna-devi dasi passed away on Saphala-ekadasi. There is so much to be said about Srimati Yamuna-devi dasi. In October of 1970 I was one of a group of Srila Prabhupada’s disciples from America going to join him in India. On the way, we stopped in Brussels, and it was there, in an apartment, that I first met Yamuna—and Malati and Syamasundara (I had met Gurudas before that, in Boston). Upon entering, I could immediately feel their intense, extraor...

The Lord advised Arjuna to regulate the senses from the very beginning so that he could curb the greatest sinful enemy, lust, which destroys the urge for self-realization and specific knowledge of the self. Jnana refers to knowledge of self as distinguished from non-self, or in other words, knowledge that the spirit soul is not the body. Vijnana refers to specific knowledge of the spirit soul’s constitutional position and his relationship to the Supreme Soul.

Sometimes devotees they find themselves in some situation, which they think is hopeless. They are struggling, struggling, struggling and they seem to make no progress and then they start to think: “Oh, what is the use.” And then they wonder they just give everything up, give up Krishna consciousness, go back home to mama, what’s the use. Once there were two frogs who by accident fell into a pot of milk. So after struggling to keep afloat for some time one frog gave up hope: “Oh, it’s useless.” And just drowned down and was dead. But the other frog was more dete...

My dear King, Bali Maharaj donated all his possessions to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Vämanadeva, but one should certainly not conclude that he achieved his great worldly opulence in bila-svarga as a result of his charitable disposition. The Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is the source of life for all living entities, lives within everyone as the friendly Supersoul, and under His direction a living entity enjoys or suffers in the material world. Greatly appreciating the transcendental...

Today, many intellectual Indians are leading the Hare Krishna preaching movement in India and around the world. Thus, Maharaj’s achievement as the leader of Srila Prabhupada’s scientific mission cannot be quantified. The prestige he brought to ISKCON and his influence in inspiring the scholarly community to embrace the movement is unparalleled. His significant contribution lies in planting the seeds that motivated India’s intellectual/scholarly community to respect the Hare Krishna movement as scientific—a feat that defies numerical measurement.

Sri Prahlada Maharaja, a five-year-old child, spoke eloquent philosophy, but he was a simple boy who had simple conclusions. He looked around at the whole world, and he looked at his father, Hiranyakasipu, who was a really complicated person [laughter]. His father was a brahmana and the son of a rsi, and yet he was really confused. Prahlada said that when we lose reference to the focus of the goal of life, then every time we try to solve a problem, our solution becomes a bigger problem than the original problem. And isn't that what is happening in the world? We want more convenienc...

Srila Prabhupada had a godbrother named Akinchana Krishnadasa Babaji, whom Prabhupada said was a paramahamsa, a liberated soul. Babaji Maharaja approached another godbrother of Prabhupada’s, who had been sent by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura to England to preach but who didn’t really have much effect and then came back to India, and said to him, “You went to the West, and Swami Maharaja [Srila Prabhupada] went to the West. You presented the teachings of Lord Chaitanya, and Swami Maharaja presented the teachings of Lord Chaitanya. You introduced the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, ...