By Rasamrta Swami This chapter is entitled, 'Maharaj Prthu's Going Back Home.' There are numerous such examples mentioned in the Srimad-Bhagavatam of such glorious departures. Prthu Maharaja himself, a saktyaves-avatara who was endowed with praja palana-sakti - the power to maintain the praja of the citizens has made his life perfect and is headed back to the spiritual world Read the rest of this entry »
By Saurav SarmahVeda means knowledge. The word Veda is related to the Sanskrit root ‘vid’ meaning ‘to know’. So, it encompasses the entire corpus of knowledge, both phenomenal and numinous. Actually, knowledge is established through three primary epistemological premises, viz., sense perception, logical-mathematical inference and reliable testimony Read the rest of this entry »
By Gautam Saha A man’s work is the centre of his life ( unless he is a gentleman of leisure and does not need to earn a living, for one or more of a variety of reasons ). His interests, leanings, education, hobbies, lifestyle all revolve around and are centred on his work. In time, a man’s work becomes his passion. He is identified by his work, and the more successful he is seen in that work, the more successful is his life supposed to be Read the rest of this entry »
By Piyush GuptaI met Nitai in the summer of 2003 at the Festival of Inspiration in New Vrindavan, that was before I pod or I pad came, it was the time when MP3 players were big and Nitai had recorded lots of classes of HH Radhanath swami and HH Hridyananda das Goswami on MP3's. He was so enthusiastic about sharing them and he wanted every one to have them, I bought almost everyone of them Read the rest of this entry »
By Sita Rani Devi DasiOn the 19th of December 2011, Worldwide Gita Contest 2011 was organized in Bangalore. Over 5000 participants from all over the world came together for this contest. ISKCON was represented by a 25 year old humble devotee, Mathura Bihari Das, disciple of H.H Radha Govind Maharaj. Born in Bihar and currently living in Vrindavan, he had recently completed the Bhakti Shastri Course at VIHE, Vrindavan Read the rest of this entry »
From the summary listed in the link, he does seem to follow our conclusion, I guess you have to read it to fully know:
Contents: Preface; General introduction; Setting the scene; The soul, Dharma and liberation; The path of enlightened action – part I; The supreme person’s descent; The path of enlightened action – part II; The path of classical Yoga; The vision of the supreme – part I; Quitting one’s body, the ephemeral and eternal worlds; The vsion of the supreme – part II; Arjuna’s change of heart and the divine manifestations; The cosmic revelation; Stages of devotion; The vision of the supreme in the heart; The 3 gunas; The journey from bondage to liberation; The divine and the demonic; The manifestation of the 3 gunas in human life; Summary and conclusion: taking refuge in Krishna alone; Glossary; Bibliography; Index.
Dear Prabhu’s
Payonidhi Prabhu’s comment addresses my prominent question. At present the majority of initiated devotees live outside of Temples. A few are employees of ISKCON related businesses. Others do their work and serve ISKCON by ways such as, financial support, Temple service, preaching/harinam, etc. What is the need to categorize them as being in a certain class.
The reason for this question is; such categorization is problematic. I know of one devotee who was an austere Pujari for several decades. He got married moved to a rural devotee community and took a job working in a factory. He continues to be pucka. He is highly intelligent on both the practical and philosophical level. What is the compelling reason to box him into a category of sudra or brhamana? What about the numerous, highly educated, initiated devotees who live outside the Temple and are employed in the IT or medical field? A brahmana is forbidden to work for a wage even in the case of an emergency; so are such people sudra’s ?
Another big problem I see is many devotees think the the mode of a person is determined exclusively by their type of work. However Krishna, says, in the Bhagavada Gita, and more explicitly in the Uddhava Gita, that that regardless of ones caste, anyone(even a sudra) who works without being attached to the fruits of their labor is in the mode of goodness. In contrast, even Vedic Brahmana’s were sometimes passionately attached to fruitive activity.
It is great if we establish self sufficient communities but I do not believe it is an impediment for devotees to continue to perform their function in secular society. And most devotees at present are unwilling to renounce their occupations and live in a rural community. It is impossible to box devotees into a caste and they are likely to resent those attempting to do so. To me VAD means devotees acting according to their conditioned place in material society and serving ISKCON, the best they can within that role. We have life membership- developing other membership forms for giving people a chance to make a commitment to ISKCON may be nice. But I do not think ISKCON needs this to define itself. We are a group of individuals who have added bhakti yoga to our conditional lives. That gives us the chance to make our lives transcendental. Defining beyond that gets really complicated. Therefore the attempt is self defeating!
By Anuradha dasiThe ISKCON Leadership Sanga (ILS), in Sridham Mayapur, is scheduled from February 10th to 17th. The ILS will provide an opportunity for GBC members to share with ISKCON's initiating gurus, sannyasis, temple presidents, project leaders, and congregational leaders the process of strategic planning they have undergone and the progress they have achieved. In turn, the GBC hope that those devotees who are attending will provide the GBC body with the invaluable feedback it needs. The hope is that it leads to a better strategic plan - one that everyone is enthusiastic to implement in their areas of responsibility Read the rest of this entry »
By Sri Giridhari Dasa30 January, 2012, Monday: All India Sivaji Fine Arts Club Society and Murumalarchi Arts Academy of Chennai jointly presented an award giving ceremony for outstanding personalities in various walks of life at the prestigious Kamarajar Arangam, Chennai Read the rest of this entry »
By Prasanta DasiThe first one was just too good. How good? Here, in their own words, is what the Vaisnavis experienced during our first outing in Govardhana in 2011: authenticity, dedication, inspiration, open-heartedness, absence of competitiveness, a breath of fresh air, focus on Srila Prabhupada, safety, peacefulness, intimacy, affection and love, examples to look up to, friendship, caring, acceptance, Srila Prabhupada’s presence, “heart surgery,” courage to traverse life in Krsna consciousness, determination to serve Srila Prabhupada’s mission, the bliss of kirtana, service attitude—altogether, an amazing sanga! Read the rest of this entry »
By GBC Executive CommitteeAfter several in-depth conversations with Prabhavisnu Prabhu and others, we would like to report further on Prabhavisnu Prabhu's situation. We apologize for the delay in sending this letter out. It took time to answer the many questions being asked and to gather and digest the information Read the rest of this entry »
Even within a public society kinda ISKCON, one real, foremost duty is to save one’s one soul. I remember a nice passage from MAHABHARATA where Krishna says to save a village one can sacrifice a person, to save a town one is empowered to sacrifice a village, to save a country a town can be sacrificed, and TO SAVE ONE’S SOUL ONE SHOULD SACRIFICE THIS WHOLE WORLD.
What wrong he did? Just abandoned the official part of his being. Cannot his disciples and followers contact him in this amplua? He did not give them up; he just placed himself in an environment, where he can be more human. If they cannot, then that is their fault.
I personally will and can never give up those whom I love.
When some guys say that he has been fallen in this battle, then leaving you best friend helpless, and making him more helpless by chiding for being shot……. This logic is not expected from those who are trusted human lives to and pose as elite in the spiritual sense. Spiritual elite means forgiveness, forgiveness, and forgiveness.
Just imaging if you were to be forgiven, when you expect forgiveness, but you are being slaughtered by your best friend. Is this spirituality? It might be logic for a society, but not a logic universal.
Mother Urmila,
As I already mentioned, membership is a topic addressing us who are still affected by human psychology. So knowledge of human psychology can assist in understanding how we should approach this issue. A tremendous amount of empirical research on church membership has been done and is easily accessible from “Academic Search Complete” and books written on the subject. It would seem to me the leaders of ISKCON would want to familiarize themselves with this literature in order to make a wise decision.
I did a short search and a couple of studies caught my attention. One was regarding some churches choosing a “yearly covenant” over membership. This might have added benefits and at the same time avoid some of the problems involved with a permanent membership. Another thing that came up was a distinction in the purpose of membership. Was it geared toward the goal of increasing the size of the organization or increasing the function of a the organization. Churches defined their function as: “Making life meaningful in ultimate terms.” and “Giving people a sense of belonging”.
Of course, unless someone has been living in a cave, they are aware of conventional knowledge that since the 1960’s “Liberal churches have been steadily declining while membership in “conservative” churches continues to grow. Of course this became common knowledge as a result of Kelly’s 1972 book “Why Conservative Churches are Still growing”. As this book has been in print for 40 years, and had a major impact, there are many critiques of it which lead to empirical studies attempting to either discredit or support particular assertions. In fact I just bought a 2011 book by Chaves, “American Religion:Contemporary Trends” which argues against the commonly accepted reasons for WHY conservative churches grow and liberal ones decline. However I have, as of yet, seen no attempt to argue against the accepted view regarding growth and decline of different churches- per se. It seems that is basically undeniable. Anyway one scheme for researching this topic is to study Kelly’s book and the reaction to it over the last forty years. There is no reason for the leaders of ISKCON to guess about how membership effects religious organizations!
Who is a real member of ISKCON in the words of Srila Prabhupada:
“My advice is always chant l6 rounds minimum and follow the fou rregulative principles. All of my disciples must agree on this point, otherwise they are not my disciples. Let one live anywhere,but stick to the principles. Disagreements will continue in this material world. So one may live in a suitable place, but one must follow these five principles. My disciples must follow these five principles living either in heaven or hell.” (Raja-Laksmi-dasi, 2/17/76)
By Bhakti V. V. Narasimha Swami So this is one of the two verses which are used in the beginning of Caitanya-caritamrta by Krsnadasa Kaviraja Gosvami to introduce us to Advaita Acarya. The chapter then goes on to explain how Advaita Acarya is the second branch of the tree of Caitanya Mahaprabhu - the first branch of course being Lord Nityananda and the main trunk being Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu Himself. Read the rest of this entry »
Part Two:
If it came to this, then all citizens would be denizens of Prabhupada-Varsa for example. Yet, if Varnasrama-dharma takes hold, a sizeable number of people will fall outside the human standards beginning from Sudra upwards. It is doubtful they will be members of Iskcon, though they’ll live here. Here we’ll have a clear separation of membership roles versus citizen roles.
Within all the villages, towns and cities there would have to be elected mayors and government representatives who are devotees and so on. Our present GBC structures will have to change and expand to fit the village, town, city and country needs. As mentioned previously, Iskcon will be unrecognisable by todays standards.
This world scenario would be macrocosm of what we are used to today on a micro level. If we are unable to determine definite membership criterion of Iskcon on this micro level today, then we’ll certainly struggle as we expand even more.
I have thought for some time now – and I am open to correction – that Iskcon membership should be a multi-layered one. All members within each layer are Iskcon members, but according to different levels of commitment, input, personal standards, financial benefits and the rest, each member will belong to one of these layers.
The temples and asramas should embody the highest layer as would be expected of brahminical aptitudes. Then, we have brahminical devotees living independently of the temples and asramas. Both these should belong to the first layer. They can be identifies by meaningful involvements through deity worship, valuable years of experience, purity and so on. The other layers would naturally accommodate ksatriya, vaisya and sudra inclinations.
One of the main reasons we have difficulty implementing VAD today is because it would be a form of social coercion to designate vaisnavas in one of four VAD orders. However, each member can be recognised by external commitment to Iskcon. But this can be misleading too because we cannot properly gauge or balance internal spiritual development with external output.
Ys Kesava Krsna Dasa.
Part One:
It seems quite clear that Iskcon can mean different things to different types of mentalities as evinced by Srila Prabhupada quotes from 1 to 5 in the main article. How all these can be accommodated within a changing and expanding Iskcon, in terms of membership, has yet to be defined.
One certainty is, if we do go the route of being all-accommodating and having to spread Iskcon’s cultural base out into various social levels of society, into villages, towns, cities and mega-cities, counties, states, regions and countries, Iskcon will be unrecognisable even by todays standard - after having already changed from post Prabhupada-vani times.
Within all of this, coupled with the propensity to project fantastic future scenarios, it would be prudent to say that unless VAD is functional we will have difficulty in determining Iskcon membership. Even then, this membership will vary according to different levels of commitment of members.
The allusion of the GBC being world leaders could take effect if say, the United Nations were to hand over world sovereignty to Iskcon, if after having established the ‘one world government’ scenario as touted by the ‘new world order’ schemers, and what Srila Prabhupada indicated in his introduction to Srimad Bhagavatam. If this were to happen then a King would have to head up matters, and the GBC becomes his advisors.
Where do we get royal blood? Would we have to invoke some secret mantra to bring someone like Srila Vyasadeva to impregnate some fortunate designated woman? Perhaps a devotee is able to genetically prove personal family lineage going back to genuine royalty or a sage.
These scenarios sound fantastic, but should such a time arrive then these things will be debated. On this world scale, how would we name the different countries of the world? I’m not sure if we will want to label each corner of the world according to zones…
On a world scale like this, would Iskcon still retain the same name? Would a new name for planet earth be devised? Prabhupada-Varsa…? Iskcon-loka…?
Ys Kesava Krsna Dasa.
By Gopijana vallabha dasVasanta Pancami marks the beginning of spring and is celebrated in a great splendor. Many types of bright yellow flowers were offered to the Sri Sri Radha-Madhava. Following in the footsteps of the Vrajvasis, Krsna’s lotusform was painted with special designs and a special arati was performed for the Lorsdships. Srimati Radharani & Astasakhis appeared as blossoming flowers wearing glowing yellow garments and bright yellow flowers Read the rest of this entry »
Furthering the comparison in between ISKCON and the Catholic Church (taken as an example), the brahmanas in ISKCON are equivalent to the priests in the Catholic Church (with the difference that the brahmanas can marry) and constitute the clergy.
The sannyasis are more less like monks (as both make a vow of chastity), with the difference that sannyasis generally travel, contrarily to Catholics monks who are mostly sedentary.
Remains for us to establish the Varnashrama which means that we have to accept the fact that one can be a Vaishnava and not be a brahmana…!
Kiba vipra kiba nyasi sudra kene naya, yei Krishna tattva veta sei guru hoya… Whether one is a brahmana, a sannyasi or a sudra, if one knows Krishna tattva, then he is guru !
Therefore, inundating society with Krishna consciousness means big ISKCON. Limiting ISKCON to the clergy, i.e. to a few brahmanas living in temples, means small ISKCON!
This means that we have to both understand and accept the fact that devotees can occupy different positions in society, according to their guna karma…
Some brahmanas may choose to live within society, or even be forced to, if they marry and do not find the appropriate facilities within ISKCON communities to make a living and look after their family.
On the other hand, we have to give a chance both to aspiring brahmanas, as well as to members of other varnas, i.e. kshatriyas, vaisyas and sudras to develop their Krishna consciousness and become gradually purified.
Besides, a large number of followers may not be up to the level of following the four regulative principles strictly and chant 16 rounds a day, what to speak of restricting their sex life to begetting children…
Considering the fact that we have some significant casualty within our ranks, given the number of initiated devotees who do not follow strictly the precepts of brahminical life anymore, we have to allow and enable each individual person to find its proper place within varnashrama and within ISKCON’s broader organization, i.e. as a congregation too, as an assembly of believers having developed some sraddha, simultaneously in the process and the teachings and thereby in the ISKCON Movement, composed of the organizational structure and of the assembly of people sharing the same faith, and therefore belonging to the same Church.
Thereafer, one may act as a pujari, a teacher, a policeman, a doctor, a farmer, a merchant or a craftsman, be a vaishnava and be dear to Krishna…
When I copied and pasted the URL for our preaching program into comment 3 above, something went wrong.
Here is the correct webpage URL: meetup.com/Kirtan-and-Discourses-on-Bhagavad-Gita/
Hare Krishna.
Your servant,
Atmanivedana das
By Vrndavanlila Devi DasiAs the new year approaches, the newspapers and different magazines get flooded with columns on the forecast for the coming year for people born under different star influences or star signs. Everybody seems to be reading it with great interest. The mysticism of the unknown and desire to explore it is very fascinating indeed Read the rest of this entry »
Dear Madhavanandana Prabhu,
Your comment on BV Swami’s artincle shows your soft and big heart. But I wish BV Swami would not express any slight displeasure with Prabhavishnu’s last step, for
1. As the North American Indians say: Just walk a mile in my mocassins and you will give up chiding me formy acts.
2. We humans say only good or nothing about the departed.
3. After all, they were very close friends and shared meal, bread and room.
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At the recent 2012 North American Governing Body and Temple President meetings in Dallas, Texas on January 13th, Book Distribution Minister Vaisesika Dasa had some exciting news for the more than sixty leaders from across the US and Canada in attendance. |