I am writing this message to you during a solemn yet joyful time when we recall the disappearance of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the Founder-Acharya of ISKCON. It is solemn because of the very heart-wrenching reality that Srila Prabhupada left our presence forty-five years ago this year, yet joyful because we know he departed back to the lotus feet of Sri Krishna and Caitanya Mahaprabhu after having fulfilled his divine mission in this world.

Read More

The driving force behind Rūpa Gosvāmī’s acts, including his vast literary repertoire, was Caitanya Mahāprabhu, renowned as the initiator of the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava lineage in sixteenth-century India. In the eyes of his followers, Śrī Caitanya descended to earth to enact a specific redemptive mission. Indeed, his bhakti movement changed the hearts and faith of countless people, both in India of his day and worldwide in the modern era, by instilling in them the path of pure love of God

Read More

On Saturday, October 8, 2022, ISKCON Philadelphia and our Philadelphia Vaishnavas C.A.R.E. Team presented our 1st Annual Holistic Health Fair in order to welcome our neighbors to the temple for an afternoon of friendship, educational activities, healthcare assessments, and an introduction to Krsna consciousness.

Read More

Mariupol is one of the biggest сities in East Ukraine. There used to be more than 500,000 people before the war broke out. However, now the сity is mostly destroyed. But those that could not leave remain to survive day by day.

Read More

New Mayapur ISKCON Education Center has provided shelter for devotees who have been displaced in Ukraine.

Watch Now

By Giriraj Swami

A few days before he was to leave us, Srila Prabhupada expressed a desire to travel by bullock cart to different holy places in India. His Holiness Lokanath Swami had been traveling by bullock cart to different places of pilgrimage, and Srila Prabhupada was very enlivened when Lokanath Swami reported to him in Vrndavana. And Prabhupada said that he too would like to go on pilgrimage in a bullock cart. He asked Lokanath Swami to arrange it, and Lokanath Swami was very enthusiastic, having been en...

Read More

By Anantacarya dasa

This document is a report of some of the details that occurred during the last five days of Srila Prabhupada's presence with us in Vrndavan, India. It is a diary which was written everyday in Vrndavan at that time. It herewith is delivered as it was written down 38 years ago in l977, with no additions. 11 November l977. I arrive at the Mandir (from California) at about 9:30 A. M. As soon as possible I enter Srila Prabhupada's room. He is lying on his back in his King-Sized bed, being massaged gently by his close associates. There is a kirtan in progress. Srila Prabhupada is inc...

Read More

By Tamohara dasa

You fortunate persons around the world, Just hear the words of Srila Prabhupada! His vibrations have the power to deliver you from all fears. Just take, just try! Sri Krsna Caitanya desired to moisten the dried-up souls. To achieve it, He not only comes Himself, but Nitai-Balarama empowered Srila Prabhupada, To bountiful conceive it.

...

Read More

By Giriraj Swami

After starting his mission in New York and San Francisco, Srila Prabhupada suffered a stroke, and after all efforts to recover in America had failed, he decided to return to India to recoup his health. Before his departure, he visited the San Francisco temple. No one had expected him, in his condition, to speak, but he asked for the microphone. He spoke about his mission, how under the order of his spiritual master he had brought Lord Caitanya’s movement to America and how Krsna had kindly sent so many sincere souls. He told the devotees, “I have a few children in India from my family day...

Read More

By Sri Nandanandana dasa

When the majority of people in a country are influenced by commercialism and addicted to the four most karmically implicating activities--meat-eating, intoxication, illicit sex, and gambling--there will definitely be reactions to endure in the future. This is the universal law. There is no amount of economic planning, defense buildup, agricultural arrangement, or even weather forecasting that will help us to avoid unexpected karmic reactions. If the ruler of a country receives one-sixth of the aggregate good or bad karma of the citizens, then the citizens themselve...

Read More

By Mathuresha Dasa

While Lord Krishna enjoys the informality of intimate dealings at home with devotees who are in the mood of family and friends, in the office of creator Lord Maha-Vishnu attracts worshipers who prefer a God primarily endowed with grand, omnipotent, awe-inspiring features. Maha-Vishnu’s caliber is inconceivable. To illustrate, the Bhagavad-gita and other texts say that not only are we not alone in the universe, but the universe itself is not alone. Past the enormously distant shell of our own universe are an uncountable number of others....

Read More

By Vamshi Vihari Dasa

God is our supreme father, and one of His energies, nature, is our mother. A mother nourishes her child with the milk from her body, and she also sees to the overall development of her child by imparting proper culture and education. Similarly Mother Nature cares for her innumerable children by providing grains, fruits, flowers, and medicinal herbs, and she showers her motherly affection on us by giving invaluable lessons, guiding us on the journey of life.

...

Read More

By Sacinandana Swami

As Krsna displays His attractive three-fold bending form, His left side stretches up broad and straight, without showing the three lines on His belly. His right heel is raised, and His left foot appears to be kissing the earth. His well-shaped left knee is slightly contracted, and His waist is gently curved. His garland and thin caddar are swinging to the left side. It is very pleasant to see His arm pit as He effortlessly holds His strong left arm aloft. ... The pollen fell on His right cheek and He looked so ...

Read More

By His Divine Grace A.C.B. Swami Prabhupada

The different groups of atheist thinkers have different kinds of plans in the brain and they are exhibited in different patterns of godlessness. One set of atheistic nation thinks on it in a different way and all of them clash at a point of overlapping circles caused by the 'Daiva' way. This is so because none of these thoughts of different groups is beyond the range of direct perception of the material sense without any spiritual knowledge. Therefore the quality of such...

Read More

By Giriraj Swami

Srila Prabhupada said it is a mark of a good man that he takes the good side, not the bad side, of others. He gave the example of his guru maharaja, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta had a disciple named Kunjabihari dasa—people used to call him Kunja Babu—who, Srila Prabhupada said, came to do business with their guru maharaja, to profit personally from his relationship with him and from his service in the Gaudiya Math. But Srila Prabhupada said their guru maharaja didn’t take Kunja’s dark side, that he was coming to make business, but took the bright side...

Read More

By Giriraj Swami

In the western coast of India, in the island of Salmali, lived Dronachala, the king of the mountains. Once a sage by the name of Pulastya Muni, came to him to take his son Giriraja with him to Kashi (Varanasi). After offering some initial resistance, Giriraja, somehow agreed to go with him only on condition that he should not put him down on the earth in between. If he does so, he would stay there forever. When they were flying over the Vraja bhumi, Giriraja increased his weight to the extent that...

Read More

By Vamsi Vihari Dasa

A Month of Love: Devotional service can be performed at any time, in any place, yet devotees know well that devotional service performed during Karttika is especially pleasing to the Lord. Therefore they perform additional austerities and devotional practices during this month. Although the vedic scriptures describe in detail material benefits one may derive by performing devotional service during Karttika, pure devotees of Lord Krishna have no interest in these. rather, they are interested on...

Read More

By Bhaktisiddhanta Swami

The meanings of Dipavali, its symbols and rituals, and the reasons for celebration are innumerable. Dipavali celebrates Lord Rama's glorious and long-awaited return to His Kingdom of Ayodhya after his fourteen long years of exile in the forests. It commemorates Lord Krsna's victory over the demon Narakasura who had kidnapped and terrorized the gopis of Vrndavana. Before the evil Naraka was finally killed by Bhagavan Krsna in the presence of Satyabhama, he begged pitifully for mercy; thus, upon his entreaties, it was declared that thi...

Read More

By Giriraj Swami

On the auspicious occasion of Diwali, I share with you a description by Smriti “Baby” Warrier (later initiated as Sravana dasi), whose family were tenants at Hare Krishna Land in Juhu, of how when she was a child she and her brothers wanted to set off fireworks, and how Srila Prabhupada responded: One Diwali, in the evening, Mother Kanta was in the women’s ashram above our flat and we were outside setting off fireworks. It was around 9:00, and I guess she wanted to take rest, but we weren't...

Read More

By His Divine Grace A.C.B. Swami Prabhupada

(Letter from Srila Prabhupada to Hamsadutta dasa written from Seattle). Diwali ceremony can be observed in the temple by illuminating 100s of candles, indifferent parts of the temple, and offering a special Prasad to the Deity. This ceremony was observed by the inhabitants of Ayodhya, the Kingdom of Lord Ramachandra, while Lord Ramachandra was out of His Kingdom due to His 14 years banishment by the order of His father. His younger step-brother Bharat, took charge of the ...

Read More

By Giriraj Swami

We wish you all a happy Diwali. Diwali, or Dipavali, marks the end of the year, and by the year's end we want to pay our debts, rectify our relationships--and then try to do better the next year

...

Read More

Prabhupada Disappearance day Program 2022 (Part 4)

 Watch Now

By Bhakti Caru Swami

That night, Srila Prabhupada called me. I was attending Srila Prabhupada – actually one of us used to always be with Srila Prabhupada for two hours. My shift was 12am-2am. So it must have been around 1am. Srila Prabhupada called me, and told me: “The time has come for me to leave this planet, therefore you should make arrangement to take me to Vrindavan immediately.” He wanted to leave his body in Vrindavan. I was completely shocked and immediately ran downstairs to wake up Tamal Krishna Maharaj.

...

 Watch Now

ISKCON, Chowpatty, in academic collaboration with the Bhaktivedanta Institute for Higher Studies in Gainesville, Florida (BIHS) and the Bhaktivedanta Research Center in Mumbai (BRC), will be hosting an international hybrid cosmology conference at the Govardhan EcoVillage (GEV) just north of Mumbai, November 4–6, 2022, titled “Puranic and Siddhantic Cosmology: Within an Experiential Mathematical Framework.”

 Read More

This video produced by Mayapur Divine Threads, the makers of all the ISKCON Mayapur Deity outfits, shows the sewing of the dresses offered to Sri Sri Radha Madhava and Asta Sakhis on the auspicious occasion on the first day of Kartik month, Sharad Purnima 2022. The journey of making of this mesmerizing outfit, narrated by Ananda Lila Devi Dasi, showcases the major milestones involved in the process to the viewers.

Sponsor outfits for ALL the Mayapur Deities at the TOVP Grand Opening: 31 Dresses Campaign

 Read More

Dr. Richard L. Thompson (Sadaputa Dasa)

Empirical Observation or Higher Knowledge?
Srimad Bhagavatam 10.13.34

Here Sadaputa Dasa (Dr. Richard L. Thompson) examines the philosophical contribution of the Caitanya School: acintya-bhedabheda-tattva, or “simultaneous, inconceivable, oneness and difference”. This contrasts sharply with contemporary empiricism, which tends to define reality as bits of matter understood through the "limited apparatus" of our natural senses.

 Watch Now