In Calcutta in 1896, the teachings of Lord Caitanya began their journey to the West. In Bengali-speaking Calcutta on August 20th of that year, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura published a small English treatise entitled Lord Caitanya—His Life and Precepts.
With this issue, we mark the beginning of the tenth year that BACK TO GODHEAD is being published in the West. It is unique because it is devoted to Krishna.
After the disappearance of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, his son, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Gosvami Maharaja, a great scholar and pure devotee, continued to expand the mission of Lord Caitanya.
Everywhere we hold Krishna conscious festivals. People become inspired to join us. Soon we hope to see hundreds of buses bringing these blissful festivals to every town and village.
Many of us feel that this divorcing of the personal or devotional from learning, from wisdom, is a bad thing. And so I think we have a great deal to learn about the religions of India from people who have taken a direct, more involved and, I think, more complete and total approach to the things we read about in books.
Devotees chanting Hare Krishna in front of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.
This is the great chanting for peace. It means: “O my Lord, O energy of the Lord, please engage me in Your service.” This is the one true universal and eternal religion: service to the Lord, who is known as Krishna, Rama, Jehovah, Allah, and many other names.
All the press operations, including shooting with a copy camera, designing, spotting, stripping, printing, cutting and binding, are carried out by the disciples, with the intention of pleasing the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His pure devotee, Srila Prabhupada.
ISKCON is working to fulfill Lord Caitanya’s prophecy that in this Age of Kali the holy name of Krishna will be heard in every city, village and town. Srila Prabhupada left India, at the age of seventy to found the Krishna consciousness movement to execute this mission.
In Britain, like everywhere in the West, the most immediate and serious interest in the Krishna consciousness movement is found in the younger generation–particularly among some sections of the student and “hip” communities. There are several reasons for this, one being that young people are generally less set in their ways and therefore more liberal in examining new horizons.
The Hare Krishna mantra is for everyone, regardless of one’s religious faith, nationality, race, creed or occupation. This sound vibration is transcendental to all boundaries because it cannot be affected by material conditions; therefore anyone can chant it freely, at any time, in any place or under any circumstances.
Most forms of meditation are virtually impossible to perform in the modern world, and therefore one should learn to meditate by the simple method of chanting and hearing the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.
Distributing Back to Godhead, I could see many people around me in the position I used to be in–depressed, despite having made all arrangements for pleasure through music and drugs–and this made me more eager to give everyone the transcendental knowledge of my spiritual master’s magazine.
Five hundred years ago, Sanatana Gosvami was a central figure in the government of Bengal, but by leaving his governmental responsibilities to surrender to Lord Caitanya, he fulfilled a far more important responsibility to both himself and humanity in the service of the Supreme Lord.
Whatever your interest, it can be satisfied here because the subject of Back to Godhead is Krishna. Krishna, which literally means “the All-attractive,” is a name of the original form of God.
What thoughts cross your mind when you are asked what you think or know about a Hare Krishna devotee? What is his background? Why is he a devotee? What are his cherished goals? How does he live his private life? What is a typical day for a devotee? Most people do not know the answers to these questions. In order to clear up these questions for a large number of people, we would like to present a typical devotee.
Who am I? Where did I come from before birth, and after death where am I going? What is this universe? Is it chaotic madness, or does it follow a plan? Why must I die? Grow old? Feel pain? Is there real happiness here? Or is it somewhere else?
Back to Godhead magazine is for intelligent people only. To be intelligent, one need not have a university degree or engage in intellectual word jugglery because the higher intelligence required for understanding Back to Godhead is not a matter of mundane academic research. The really intelligent person is one who will accept information about God from higher authorities and regard the science of Krishna consciousness as valuable and important.
I’d been distributing my spiritual master’s books to San Antonio servicemen since nine o’clock that morning. Now I had to catch the bus from the base back into the city to join the other members of my group.
Whats a Hare Krishna doing dressed up like Santa? Nowadays we usually think of Santa as some kind of wintertime Daddy Warbucks who”ll satisfy our craving for more and more material things. But ‘Santa’ really means ‘saint.’ The original Santa taught people all about God and how to love God.