I was brought up a Catholic. I went to church every Sunday. As a young woman my only understanding of God was fear. I was told I had to do things, but nobody ever explained why. Even when I went away from the church, I suffered from fear.
I had been present at the passing of my beloved spiritual master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, and my mind was now exhausted from the mixture of appalling sadness and transcendental exultation surrounding that event.
Prabhupada retired through the rear door, back up to his apartment, his guests would disappear through the front door, back into the city. Don and Raphael would turn out the lights, lock the front door, and go to sleep on the floor in their blankets.
A person is said to be established in self-realization and is called a yogi when he is fully satisfied by virtue of acquired knowledge and realization. Such a person is situated in transcendence and is self-controlled. He sees everything—whether it be pebbles, stones, or gold—as the same.
It is a little difficult to understand this movement, because it is a spiritual movement. Unfortunately, people have practically no information about what spirit is and what a spiritual movement is.
His lecture is very basic and yet (for restless youth) heavily philosophical. Some can’t take it, and they rise to leave. Some, upon hearing his first words, have already risen rudely, put on their shoes at the front door, and returned to the street.
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta therefore taught that devotees should be eager to use everything possible for one central purpose: to broadcast the glories of Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
When Lord Krsna speaks in the Bhagavad-gita, He clarifies the ultimate purpose of vegetarianism: “If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit, or water, I will accept it.”
In the early summer of 1966, Srila Prabhupada was sharing a Bowery loft with a young American friend. But when the boy went crazy on drugs and drove him out, suddenly Prabhupada found himself in the street, homeless and alone.
The pure consciousness, the soul, does not need to have a material body. For instance, when you are dreaming, you forget your present body, but still you remain conscious.
The other day, while here in Boston, I turned forty years old. I remembered when I was twenty-five years old and went out to chant Hare Krsna with my fellow devotees on the Boston Commons. Once a heckler shouted at us: “You kids better quit this while you can!”
Recently the oldest member of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Raghava Caitanya dasa, passed away at age ninety-three.
Thousands of young people were walking the streets, not simply intoxicated or crazy (though they often were), but searching for life’s ultimate answers.
Whoever you are, your body is changing. You once had the body of a child. Now you have the body of a young person or old person. The change is gradual, yet continuous.
Before I came to Krishna consciousness my life was completely impure. I was confused and indecisive about spiritual life and couldn’t help myself. But after I read that book, I lost my taste for materialistic activities. And now I understand that I was being cheated by maya, illusion.
Last night you had some dream, but now it has no value. It is gone. And again, tonight when you sleep, you’ll forget all these things and dream. You won’t remember, when you are dreaming tonight, “I’ve got my house; I’ve got my wife.” You’ll forget it all. So all of this is a dream.
So the first thing is that one should be searching after a spiritual master, just as when you search after some school, you must have at least some preliminary knowledge of what a school is.
A conversation between A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and Mr. Paul Valliere, an Instructor of Religion at Columbia University in New York City.
Sudama Brahmana is gloriously received by the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Sri Krsna, and His eternal consort Srimati Rukmini.
Last year the printing total surpassed the previous year’s total by thirty percent, and BBT books appeared for the first time in Danish, Greek, and Kannada (a South Indian dialect).