When we say Krishna we mean God. When we say God it is not a Hindu God or Muslim God or Christian God and so forth or an Indian God or Russian god or Chinese God. God is God. He is the only one. He is the Supreme Personality. Although He is one but He has innumerable names according to His innumerable pastimes and innumerable qualities. Even in English we notice God is addressed as the Almighty or Omnipotent. Almighty and omnipotent are the names of God. As God is all powerful, He is the Almighty or Omnipotent. So, in the same way God is all cognizant that is why he is omniscient. In t...

Like an expert doctor who seeing a patient with metastases know that he will soon die, Srila Prabhupada by seeing how the modern society have created so many slaughterhouses, so many cars and industries spoiling the atmosphere, paper money as an economic base, drugs, abortion... he knew the consequences of these activities, that by laws of nature there will be war, pestilence, famine and many other unwanted calamities. He also knew... that the devotees always have problems to live a rural life, far from the commodities of the cities, the jobs, the supermarkets... we are used to it. But he ...

When articles are mildly contaminated through contact with impure items such as food remnants, they may be purified in the following ways: gold, silver, conch shells, jewels, stones, and spoons are purified by water; yajïa utensils, such as the sruk and sruva (wooden ladles), by rinsing with warm water; other yajïa utensils by scrubbing with kuça grass and water; an äsana, bed, and vehicle by water; and grains, deerskin, cloth,4 thread, linen, fruits, flowers, grass, and leaves by washing them in water if extensively contaminated, or simply by sprinkling if the contaminati...

Prabhupada was at that time alone, so I did not recognize that he is Prabhupada. "Where is A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami?" I asked Prabhupada. So he asked me, "Why you want to meet with him?" I replied, "Because he is my guru. I like him very much." Then he asked: "Why you accept him as your guru?" I said, "Because he is the servant of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu." "Who is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu?" asked. So I said, "He is Krishna Himself." "Why you accept Lord Chaitanya as Krishna?" asked again. "Becaus...

I wanted to express my convictions today, not based upon my position as an "authority", but from a personal and open-hearted viewpoint of someone who has had many years of experience in ISKCON. If you see any validity to these years of experience, then maybe when I open my heart to you, it may influence you, in some small way, to understand why I feel that this counselor system is important. I am not here in the capacity of the GBC for Moscow. I've come to realize that hammering from the GBC doesn't open anyone's heart. Frankly, I'm tire...

Suppose for a moment this stone has life. It still has all the characteristics of a stone, but now it knows it exists. No matter how many trucks choose to run over it, it feels no pain. It is, after all, just a stone. And, just as befits a stone, it doesn’t feel joy when spring is right round the corner. Isn’t that a most coveted state of existence? Granted, there’s no exhilaration in life, but not a bad price to pay for escaping the agony of being crushed under ...

In the revealed scriptures, the ultimate object of knowledge is Sri Krsna, the Personality of Godhead. The purpose of performing sacrifice is to please Him. Yoga is for realizing Him. All fruitive activities are ultimately rewarded by Him only. He is Supreme knowledge and all the severe austerities are performed to know Him. Religion (dharma) is rendering loving service unto Him. He is the supreme goal of life

One time when Srila Prabhupada came to New Dwaraka he was passing out sweet balls instead of the traditional Prabhupada cookies. The temple was so crowded with visiting devotees, sannyasis and GBC I thought there was no way I could go up to get a sweetball. It was packed and everyone was jumping in ecstasy. I, however, had to go to the temple kitchen and perform service, and I was lamenting that I could not get a sweetball from Srila Prabhupada. At one point Sri...

Talk about living a nightmare. There was a report on the news that a Belgian man “though to be in a coma for 23 years was actually conscious the whole time.” Alex Watts of Sky News Online writes, “For the whole time, he was trapped in his own body with no way of letting friends and family know he could hear every word they were saying.” It gets worse. In an interview with the German magazine Der Speigel the man, Rom Houben, says, "I screamed, but there was nothing...

The life of the Krsna conscious society is nourished by these six types of loving exchange among the members. —Upadesamrta Provide pre- and post-marital counseling either done by trained devotees or through recommending specific people or organizations • At a certain level of community size, create a team of mature, successful grhastha trained to give premarital and post-marital counseling as well as giving help in finding spouses for devotees.