In every sphere of activity in the material world there is deterioration; everything in the material world declines. A new house, for example, is very nice, but it gradually deteriorates, and eventually, when too old, it has to be rebuilt. In the same way, our performance of spiritual duties deteriorates, whether we are individuals, families, communities, or a society. And so the Lord comes repeatedly to reestablish religious practice. He appears in order to establish religious principles (dharma), but over time religious practice declines, and so He manifests Himself again and again. We all ...

Kirtan is an uncomplicated and effective way of communing with God. The Padma Purana tells us, “Because the holy name and the ‘holy named’ are nondifferent, the name is fully complete, pure, and eternally liberated. Indeed, it is Krishna Himself.” Philosophically, this idea can be summarized as follows: matter and spirit are opposites. Thus, since in the material world, all things are relative, and part of that relativity manifests in a thing and its name being different, in the spiritual realm, the opposite must be true: a thing and its name are one. This is the na...

“The Bhagavad-gita teaches a pantheistic view of God,” he said, his confidence and years of learning clear from his authoritative tone. “The massive vishvarupa—Krishna’s universal form, which encompasses all material phenomena, including time—tells us much about God in the Gita.” His friend, another scholar of some renown, seemed to disagree. “The Gita goes beyond pantheism. It shows us how to perceive God in all things. The Tenth Chapter, especially, shows us how Krishna is the superlative exemplar in seventy categories, how He exists in the perceivable...