I am very happy to hear that devotees are gathering together in Penang to pay their homage to His Holiness Bhakti Vrajendra Swami Maharaj and showing their love, affection, dedication and loving service to the cause of our society, mission of Sri ChaitnyaMahaprabhu and Srila Prabhupada. He is definitely a great soul, Mahatma… I know him from Birmingham from early 70’s. He used to come to the Birmingham centre and whatever he gets, he used to help the centre as the te...

Srila Prabhupada wanted us to show by example how to become freed from dependency on city life and satisfied with the village idea. “ But we are not going to develop a competitive farming enterprise for making money. The basic principle is to become independent of artificial city life ...Gandhi had this idea, the one defect was that there was no Krishna in the center. So the same idea of village organization , but keeping Krishna in the center should be introduced on ...

"My alarm clock rings. It is 5:00 a.m. on a summer morning in Saranagati Village, and it's almost time for mangal arati. After getting ready, I step outside into a crisp and quiet morning. Picking a flower from our garden for Their Lordships, I jog up the hill on the way to my favorite place, Banabehari Mandir. Once at the top, I look down towards the ashram and see dim yellow lights shining through the early morning mist. Coming up to the beautiful stained-glass tilak door, I lightly knock—and almost immediately, my favorite voice answers, 'Haribol! Come in!' Slowly...

The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust has already translated ISKCON founder Srila Prabhupada’s books into 87 languages. But there are more to go. And today, dedicated servants working for the spiritual publisher in far flung corners of the world still continue to translate his works into their native languages, despite busy family lives and professional careers. On August 24th this year, for example, Nandapriya Das finished translating the last of seventeen volumes of the ...

Forgiving yourself is obviously an issue for you. Look at it this way: Krishna wants you to come back to Him, and if you don’t forgive yourself, you’re making that trip back to Him a more difficult – and thus slower – journey. Krishna is waiting for you to come back, so don’t make Him wait longer than necessary. Krishna forgives you, and if He forgives you, certainly you can forgive yourself. (If it’s good enough for Him, it’s good enough for you.) In addition, if you are thinking, “I am so low and so ...

"No Krsna rituals," my cousin the doctor admonished me. Although not her attending physician, being a doctor he had more or less taken charges of things."Your mother was not a Hare Krsna. Let her die as she lived." "But," I argued, "these last weeks I've been chanting to her, reading stories to her from our scriptures, singing devotional songs. She often asked me to , and really loved it.Why should I do something different today?" I was hopeful, yet nervous. For two weeks now I'd been with my mother twelve hours or more a day. The firs...

While being crucified, Jesus cried. But he did not cry for himself, instead he cried for those who were committing the gravest sin. Jesus was continuously praying to God to forgive those who were menacingly torturing and trying to kill him. Jesus, the son of God, had come to this world to spread the message of peace and love and to effect this change he was ready to sacrifice everything

Dear Devotee. Since Christmas is just a few days away, I thought it would be appropriate and enlightening to look at Prabhupada’s views on Christmas and Christ

I remember when it started, quite innocently, after devotees who had attended the Mayapur Festival when they had kirtan contests with Bengali Vaishnavas who chanted ramo... putting an o at the end of words that have an a is just a particular Bengali accent... just like in every country, there are accents from various areas... in the UK, someone from Manchester speaks much differently than someone from London or Scotland... in the US, the southern accent is very different f...

Sant Tukarama (AD 1609-1650) was a saint-poet of towering stature. Tukarama was among the most prominent saints to have come out of the holy land of Maharashtra. He hailed from the village of Dehu, near Pune, and was born in the Warkari community who are devotees of Lord Vitthala (or Panduranga). Srila Prabhupada occasionally referred to this great saint, “The great saint of Maharashtra known as Saint Tukarama was also initiated by the Lord Caitanya. Saint Tukaram...