Vaishnava blog feeds

Kimmo Ketola: Were his social teachings and moral visions attractive to the members of the counterculture? Or was it rather his extraordinary personality that was so appealing? What exactly took place during those first few years of his stay in the West?

Be here now: Hear, chant and remember - love, serve and surrender! “Forget the past that sleeps; and never the future dream at all. Deal with times that are with you, and progress you shall call.

The time concept of modern archeology, and modern anthropology in general, resembles the general cosmological-historical time concept of Europe’s Judeo-Christian culture. Differing from the cyclical cosmological-historical time concepts of the early Greeks in Europe, and the Indians and others in Asia, the Judeo-Christian cosmological-historical time concept is linear and progressive.

Sundararupa dasa: This compre - hensive examination of the problematic correlation between aesthetic and ethical values progresses from the most general perspectives of philosophy and religion to culminate within the specific context of the Gaudiya Vaisnava religious tradition.

Gauri dasa: Many ISKCON projects around the world have chosen to be identified as part of Hinduism. There are, no doubt, many reasons for doing so, perhaps even necessity. However, this choice in effect has outraged other devotees globally who have now coined a derogatory term, “the Hindufication of ISKCON”.

While maintaining religious family life with one’s wife, sons and daughters born in the form of Krsna’s servants and maidservants, to nourish them is called maintaining the family. In these activities there is a need for piously accumulating wealth.

Most devotees’ lives and views on devotional service change as their ashram changes. When several devotees pass through ashram changes at approximately the same time-or even if one respected devotee within a temple changes his ashram-a temple can become affected.

This essay is taken from the book “The Art of teaching” by Burijana dasa. It is written for gurukula teachers, but is equally applicable to all devotees.

India’s greatest gift to civilization is her highly advanced spiritual culture, based on the eternal truths of the Vedic literatures. Sometimes, however, we hear the strange idea that this culture is not meant to be shared with others. I have heard more than one Western professor of Indian religion say, “The idea of preaching about God in a missionary spirit is not part of India’s religion. That’s something the Christians introduced into India a few hundred years ago.”

Greetings. As always, it’s a pleasure to speak here, at India’s peak of scientific learning and research. Tonight we will discuss a controversial subject: “Technology–Helpful or Hurtful?” The verdict? All depends on our consciousness. The ancient spiritual texts of India tell us that a person’s internal state translates into external action. How someone uses things, for better or worse, is the outer manifestation of a particular inner reality. For example, according to the type of consciousness, a surgeon’s knife in someone’s hand can either heal a man or murder him.

I believe that family life, the grihastha asrama, is a theme of universal interest. Some will get married and some will not, some will have children and some will not. But also those who don’t get married and those who have already surpassed this phase of life will greatly benefit by knowing the basic dynamics, the rapport of weights and measures, the values of family life in the Vedic-Vaisnava civilization.

This article It is a speech given by HG Ravindra Swarup prabhu at the Third Annual Congregational Preaching Night, Sridham Mayapur, March 14, 2002, and describes the emergence of congregational preaching in ISKCON, and it’s relevance not only in remote villages, but in the ‘developed’ world as well.

Satisfaction of Vishnu is the ultimate goal of life. If we also accept this to be the inherent natural proclivity of every living entity we could, with broader vision, acknowledge that there could be many ways to achieve this aim depending on time, place and circumstance. In the first six chapters of Bhagavad-Gita there are several paths delineated, however bhakti-yoga, or the direct path of pure devotion, is declared to be the topmost means of pleasing the transcendent Lord. A nice analogy to illustrate this point is the story of a world traveler who is planning his journey while looking

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Srila Prabhupada writes in the purport to 8.28:

“Study of the Vedas is not meant for the recreation of armchair speculators, but for the formation of character.”

What is character? Good character can be seen as the mature quality of a person who endeavors to act based on the understanding of principles rather than reactively and according to circumstance. This can have both a positive and negative context. In the negative sense a devotee may be presented with an opportunity to enjoy unrestricted sense gratification but due to having an understanding of sastric principles he restrains himself. In the positive instance there

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