Once during a meditation session a teacher decided to do an experiment. As soon as all his pupils assembled and sat in an erect posture with closed eyes waiting for his instruction, the teacher said, “I have a special instruction for you all today. For next one hour during the meditation session no one should think about the red monkey.” And suddenly from nowhere the red monkeys came, attacked and conquered everyone’s mind. For the next one hour all the participants whose eyes were still closed were utterly miserable because while meditating today they were se...

Some will get married and some will not, some will have children and some will not. But also those who don’t get married and those who have already surpassed this phase of life will greatly benefit by knowing the basic dynamics, the rapport of weights and measures, the values of family life in the Vedic-Vaisnava civilization. In the past so much damage has been done by people—who had no positive experience in this area—who tried, disastrously, to handle the life of others. Therefore those directly involved in family life—as well as those who have to come in touch...

With Christmas upon us, we take a look at what our Founder, Srila Prabhupada said about Jesus. The title is from a letter Prabhupada wrote in 1965 to a Mrs. Sally Agarwal. Prabhupada stayed with Sally and her husband Gopal in Butler, Pennsylvania when he first arrived in America. Sally told the background story of the name: "One time something happened with our little girl, Kamala, who was only three years old. I used to take her to Sunday school, and she learned about Jesus in Sunday school. Then when she would see Swamiji with his robes on and everyt...

But now, scientists say that meditators may be benefiting from changes in their brains. The researchers report that those who meditated for about 30 minutes a day for eight weeks had measurable changes in gray-matter density in parts of the brain associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. M.R.I. brain scans taken before and after the participants’ meditation regimen found increased gray matter in the hippocampus, an area important for learning and memory. The images also showed a reduction of gray matter in the amygdala, a region connected to anxiety and str...

Modern Paper Currency Flawed: Within the system of varnasrama, three-fourth of the population does not earn money, namely the brahmacaris, those in the vanaprastha and those in the sannyasa asrama. Grhasthas, in particular the ksatriya householders and the vaisya householders, assisted by the sudra householders, are meant to support the rest of society. The brahmanas and sudra class do not earn money, only the ksatriya class through taxation and the vaisya class, but only one portion of the vaisya class, those engaged in trade, vanijyam. Those engaged in both krishi, agriculture and g...

It struck me the other day the astonishing similarity between the words Christmas and Krishna- Prabhupada once pointed out the similarity between the words Christ and Krishna, but when “mas” is added, and the “i” is shortened, the similarity becomes much stronger- one could even say to someone “krsnas tu bhagavan swayam” and they might respond “What was that about Christmas?” We all know the magic and enchantment that the word “Christmas” had over us when we were young, as we knew that from this word, everything of our hearts’ desire would be manifest, and as we c...

RABBI: In the Torah, Moses describes to the people some of the requirements of a king. One of the requirements is, "When [the king] is established on his royal throne, he must write a copy of the Torah as a scroll edited by the Levitical priests. [This scroll] must always be with him, and he shall read from it all the days of his life. He will then learn to be in awe of God his Lord, and carefully keep every word of the Torah and these rules. He will then [also] not begin to feel superior to his brethren, and he will not stray from the mandate to the right or the left. He and his ...

Srila Prabhupada is the soul of ISKCON and ISKCON is his body. Because ISKCON is a spiritual organization, both body and soul are non-different. Srila Prabhupada continues to act effectively in this world so long as ISKCON remains the instrument of his will. He holds a unique position in ISKCON as its Founder-Acharya: “Just like if I am taken as the origin of this Krishna consciousness movement, that means I know everything directly and indirectly of all this movement. If I do not know directly or indirectly everything of this movement, then I cannot be called the Found...