Knowledge is the solution. And for knowledge we have to go to the right person, the one who has actually seen or experienced the Absolute Truth. Unless we find such a person there is very little chance for our making spiritual advancement.
Something of a minor marvel is taking shape in the hills of Marshall County, where members of the Hare Krishna religious community have sacrificed over the past four years to complete a “labor of love”—a temple in honor of their spiritual master.
Devotees outside the St. Louis center of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. 1976.
For thousands of years devotees in India have known that we can personally see and serve the Lord in His Deity form. Now, to the Western mind this idea may seem unfamiliar, but it’s easy to understand.
Find out more about Krishna consciousness in this issue of BACK TO GODHEAD magazine.
After instructing the sculptor on the few changes I wanted made, I saw two rough chunks of marble—one white and the other black—that were to become the Deities of Balarama and Krishna. I was spellbound.
I first learned of Srila Prabhupada’s plan for a “heaven on earth” in Vrindavan, India in May of 1970. He asked me to investigate a report that the king of Bharatpur wanted to give us one of his many Vrindavan palaces.
We want to attract people from all over the world to visit the holy land of Lord Krishna’s birth—and to provide nice facilities for them when they come. Vrindavan is a land of great spiritual potency. Anyone who visits will automatically chant the holy names of the Lord.
Many people think God is formless or void. But by using a little logic we can easily understand that if God is our eternal father, He must have form.
It was at Sridhama Mayapura, almost five hundred years ago, that the Supreme Lord descended to this world as the great teacher Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu to propagate the chanting of
People chant Hare Krishna for lots of reasons. Some people are just curious. Some want material benefits, or relief from anxiety. But the best reason to chant Hare Krishna is to get to know Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Some hesitate to join the Ratha-yatra parade, remembering God commands, “Thou shalt not worship a graven image.” What about this? Are the Hare Krishna people really idol worshipers?
Many of the spiritual seekers who come to Denver don’t really know what they’re looking for. They may sense that material happiness isn’t enough for them, and they may be looking for spiritual life, but they have only a vague idea of what that spiritual life might be.
Over the past nine years Prabhupada has established ISKCON centers in over seventy major cities. His message is clear: Chant Hare Krishna, and your life will be sublime.
A few blocks from the house of Mexico’s president lies the Mexico City Hare Krishna Temple, one of the many centers of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness that have appeared in Latin America in recent years.
The human body is an opportunity to become free from repeated birth and death. The soul is eternal and by nature full of bliss and knowledge but the material body gives rise to distress.
The Hare Krishna temple in Paris in the elegant 16th district maintains sixty full-time devotees who teach a weekly course in Vedic Wisdom at Nanterre University, run a press and and hold a weekly festival that attracts some four hundred guests.
In New York the airlines advertise, “Enjoy peaceful Puerto Rico.” And in Puerto Rico they say, “Find satisfaction in New York.” But, really, going from one place to another in this material world won’t help us find the peace we want.
Some day the tiny soul will want to get out of material entanglement. This may happen because of frustration with painful experiences, because of a desire to achieve financial stability, because of curiosity, or because of wisdom.
We also invite you to visit one of the Krishna consciousness centers–anywhere in the world–and thus come closer to Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.