Click to download this issue of Back to Godhead as PDF file.History was made last August in Washington, D .C. Not by the senators and congressmen this time, nor by the president, the usual prime mover in that city. No, this time it was the real prime mover- Jagannatha, Lord of the Universe-who brought together His devotees and well-wishers for Ratha-yatra, a gala chariot procession and devotional festival celebrated in India for thousands of years. By the time the chanting, dancing, feasting, and glorifying had ended on the evening of the 22nd , what had once been a tourist mecca had become, at least for one splendid weekend , a true place of pilgrimageHis Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder-Acarya of the international Society for Krishna Consciousness, came to America in 1965. at age sixty-nine, to fulfill his spiritual master’s request that he teach the science of Krsna consciousness throughout the English -speaking world. In a dozen years he published some seventy volumes of translation and commentary on India’s Vedic literature, and these are now standard in universities worldwide. Meanwhile, traveling almost nonstop, Srila Prabhupada molded his international society into a worldwide confederation of asramas, schools, temples, and farm communities. He passed away in 1977 in India’s Vrndavana, the place most sacred to Lord Krsna. His disciples are carrying forward the movement he started.
BACK TO GODHEAD is the monthly journal of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. When Srila Prabhupada began the Society (in New York City, in 1966), he put into writing the purposes he wanted it to achieve. They are as follows:
1. To systematically propagate spiritual knowledge to society at large and to educate all peoples in the techniques of spiritual life in order to check the imbalance of values in life and to achieve real unity and peace in the world.
2. To propagate a consciousness of Krsna, as it is revealed in Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam.
3. To bring the members of the Society together with each other and nearer to Krsna, the prime entity, thus developing the idea within the members, and humanity at large, that each soul is part and parcel of the quality of Godhead (Krsna).
4. To teach and encourage the sankirtana movement, congregational chanting of the holy names of God, as revealed in the teachings of Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.
5. To erect for the members and for society at large a holy place of transcendental pastimes dedicated to the personality of Krsna.
6. To bring the members closer together for the purpose of teaching a simpler, more natural way of life.
7. With a view toward achieving the aforementioned purposes, to publish and distribute periodicals, books, and other writings.
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