This is the second of three celebrations of the construction of the palace. The first, last September, was a dedication. When the third occurs, on the occasion of a festival named Janmastami over the Labor Day weekend, the finishing work will still be continuing.
Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, reveals Himself in His original form only to those who strive to serve Him with eagerness and devotion.
The process of perception begins when light from an object enters the eye and is focused on the retina. This light stimulates a series of neurochemical reactions that ultimately reach the brain as a systematic pattern of pulses.
The small storefront temple at 26 Second Avenue had begun to thrive. Srila Prabhupada, by his chanting, his strong preaching, his delicious meals of prasadam, but most of all by his transcendental loving personality, had attracted a few sincere followers.
1980-09-03Real craftsmanship is, above all else, a spiritual exercise.” A mass of spinning clay turns between his fingers. The clay gradually grows into a slender urn that curves and tapers beneath his touch.
The material world appears like a cloud covering a small portion of the spiritual sky. The Vedic scriptures explain that although the material world undergoes perpetual creation and annihilation, the spiritual world is eternally manifest.
There were predictions that after his disappearance the movement and teachings he had established would soon fall apart. Now it is three years later, and Srila Prabhupada’s unique contributions are still flourishing.
Hindus all over India celebrate Sri Krsna Jayanti (the anniversary of Lord Krsna’s appearance) as a religious function every year. We have experience that sometimes non-Hindus, out of a deep respect for Lord Sri Krsna, also celebrate the ceremony of Lord Krsna’s Jayanti.
Behind Srila Prabhupada’s appearance on the alien Manhattan streets stand five millennia of planning and effort. The story of it opens one sunrise fifty centuries ago in the Himalayas, where the sage Krsna-Dvaipayana Vyasa sits in trance on the bank of the Sarasvati.
“The Swamiji doesn’t want anyone smoking pot here.” Don denied it: “I have not been smoking. You are not speaking the truth.” The boy then reached into Don’s shirt pocket and pulled out a joint, and Don hit him in the face.
Socrates faces his death calmly and without fear, an attitude he said was but proper for a philosopher who is interested only in the care of his soul and is unaffected by bodily conditions.
The other doctors never call him Samika Rsi dasa. Most of them don’t even know he is an initiated devotee of Lord Krsna. In the hospital—St. Joseph’s Hospital, Carbondale, Pennsylvania—he is Shyam Sundar Mahajan, director of the emergency ward.
The prosecution listed some of the shocking facts about the life of children in Krsna schools: they ate no meat, rose early every morning for temple services. And then came the clincher: “They don’t even watch television.”
He was maestro of the chanting, head of the kitchen, and spiritual father to a band of wild, candid young Americans.
In this age of quarrel and hypocrisy, the only means of deliverance is chanting the holy name of the Lord. There is no other way. There is no other way. There is no other way.
By 1977 Bala Books (in Sanskrit bala means “child”) was fully launched. The first book, Agha the Terrible Demon, had been prepared as carefully as possible to preserve the exact meaning of Srila Prabhupada’s original translation of the story from the Sanskrit.
When Lord Krsna appears in the present age His complexion is golden, He is surrounded by various associates, and His mission is to teach people how to make their lives spiritually sublime through the sankirtana-yajna, or chanting of the holy names Hare Krsna.
“Oh, why shall I hear from him? I can think. I can speculate. I can manufacture something new in my own circle of friends.” This is nonsense. This is not the Vedic process. The Vedic process is hearing.
Today ISKCON in Australia and New Zealand includes four temples and three farms totaling more than 1,200 acres. It has opened four vegetarian restaurants, initiated two drug rehabilitation programs, and established the Ratha-yatra chariot festival.
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.