The Yoga Dictionary
The Sanskrit language is rich in words to communicate ideas about spiritual life, yoga, and God realization. This dictionary, appearing by installments in BACK TO GODHEAD, focuses upon the most important of these words.
Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?
The law of karma is as strict, relentless, and impartial as the grosser natural laws of motion and gravity. For example, if I eat the flesh of animals even though I can live as well without it, my bad karma will force me to be born as an animal and to be slaughtered myself.
Healthy Vegetarian Food
The typical Vedic lunch consists of capatis (unleavened whole-wheat breads) rice, dal (bean soup), cooked vegetables, and salad. “The best health insurance of all seems to be a well-chosen vegetarian diet from varied sources and a life free of junk foods,”
The Supreme Artist
The Vedas describe how great an artist Krsna is. Nobody can be found who is greater than the Supreme Personality of Godhead or equal to Him, and although He is the greatest artist, He doesn’t have to do anything personally.
Living and Dying Absurd — On Madness
We should not be anxious to increase our material happiness. Always in civilization those who have no spiritual happiness are hankering after these sense enjoyments. So Prahlad Maharaj says, our duty is to dovetail ourselves in Krishna Consciousness.
Can You Dream Hare Krishna?
If you practice in dream that you are chanting Hare Krishna you are dancing in the temple you are seeing Lord Jagganath you are seeing Krishna you are talking with Swamiji or your friends, it is simply practice.
Service – Knowledge – Liberation
The neophyte devotee has no capacity to approach the Absolute Personality of Godhead. By submissively serving the bona fide spiritual master who is a bridge between the Lord and the neophyte, he is automatically fixed up into the transcendental service of the Lord.
Perfection in Yoga
In the Bhagavad Gita (6.2) Krishna defines Yoga as “linking oneself with the Supreme.” Yoga means to get into touch with the Supreme Lord. That Supreme Lord is Bhagavan Sri Krishna.
Food for the Soul
Krishna eats the food and then we take the remnants. The good taste of the food is thus enhanced, and the body and mind become healthy while the soul remains engaged in service to the Lord.
To Rupamanjari, Who Knows the Heart of Lord Chaitanya
O Dear Gopis! O purest of the Pure So dear to Krishna, Who can help you look for Him, When suddenly He leaves The Sacred Rasa Dance, Black Cloud adorned with lightning, Disappearing in the dark Tangled wood.
Swamiji Returns to New York — 1968
Just hearing that Swamiji was coming back to New York, the devotees, having felt separation from their Spiritual Master, were filled now with so much bliss. Their joyful shouts of “Haribol!” filled the temple at Kirtan.
The Butter Thief
This Lord Krishna Blackish, plump Standing on the shoulders of His pals, His two hands around the covered bowl of butter hanging on ropes from the ceiling, has stolen my understanding.
Krishna’s Dishes
Have I ever smelled the air so pure as on this night? So clear, so soft, so fragrant… Ah, but I must wash some dishes for Krishna… In that small task all the wonders of this night are revealed to me. I am so fortunate to be washing Krishna’s dishes…
Poem on My Spiritual Master
I offer my respects unto the Lotus Feet of my Spiritual Master, Who is Always thinking of what He can Do in service of His Dearmost Friend Krishna and never wanting Anything in return.
Srila Prabhupada in San Francisco
With Krsna consciousness flourishing on New York’s Lower East Side, Srila Prabhupada felt he could entrust the New York center to his followers and expand the movement west.
The Yoga Dictionary
The Sanskrit language is rich in words to communicate ideas about spiritual life, yoga, and God realization. This dictionary, appearing by installments in BACK TO GODHEAD, focuses upon the most important of these words.
Letters — on Parthenogenetic Reproduction
Fertilization also activates the egg, initiating its development. However, a variety of artificial stimuli, including the prick of a needle—none of which contributes new material or new information to the egg cell—have been shown to activate eggs.
Brahma, Visnu, Siva — Misconceptions About “the Hindu trinity”
In the beginning there is myself [Brahma], and the Prajapatis, the great sages who generate; then there are Lord Visnu, the demigods with controlling powers, and the kings of different planets. But at the end there is irreligion, and then Lord Siva and the atheists full of anger.
The Biography of Srila Prabhupada
Absolute is sentient, Thou hast proved, Impersonal calamity Thou hast removed. This gives us a life Anew and fresh. Worship Thy feet, Your Divine Grace.
The Karma Free Diet
The Sanskrit word karma means “action” or, more specifically, any material action that gives us a material reaction and thus binds us to the material world. So a karma-free diet is one that produces no material reaction; it’s a sinless diet.