A regular occurrence around here is that each year the local newspaper carries an article commending us for our hard work and decency but condemning us for not being Christians. We always answer the criticism, and the paper prints our reply.
Religion is something you participate in; it’s not a spectator sport. Because it is based on faith, there’s no question of understanding it from the outside. Of course, it is not blind faith. It is reasonable faith.
What Is the Best Spiritual Process? After giving a lecture in Bombay in April 1979 Srila Hrdayananda dasa Goswami Acaryadeva answered a probing question from the audience: ‘All over the world, Christians are living and dying for their Christian faith. How is it that you young people-their progeny—have embraced another faith?” Srila Acaryadeva: Actually, you’ve […]
Strange that these Baptists should discover, looking back at them under a shaven head marked with the twin clay lines of tilaka—the signs of a servant of Visnu—such a disconcertingly familiar American Protestant face.
He considered how a religion, as a whole, measures up to narrow expectations drawn from Christianity. Thus he complained, “India has no ‘expiator’ [referring specifically to Jesus], no Golgotha [the hill upon which Jesus was crucified], and no Cross.”
Devotees of Krsna were surprised, therefore, when they recently found a B’nai B’rith pamphlet rife with stereotypes of Krsna devotees as cultists and brainwashed robots. Such caricatures, the devotees thought, had been discredited long ago.
Delicious, traditional Vedic cuisine was part of the legacy Krsna consciousness brought to Western shores. Eating, like everything else for Krsna devotees, is a part of the complete spiritual experience of life.
Gurukula, “the school of the guru,” has no equivalent in Western education. It is all at once a place of spiritual formation, character development, academics, and vocational training.
His Holiness Pope John Paul II received a copy of Bhagavad-gita AS IT IS, the scripture that sets forth the basic philosophy of the Krsna consciousness movement.
I had watched as one Catholic priest after another abandoned their vows to take up secular life. Some got married; others simply hit the streets.
The aim of any scripture of any country—not only the Bhagavad-gita, but any scripture—is simply to get us back to Godhead. That is the purpose.
My friend came back for a second visit to our monastery more recently. I was very favorably impressed by the spiritual growth that I witnessed in him. It was quite evident that his serious commitment to the monastic life was bearing fruit.
Indians in the West can succeed materially. But the challenge remains: will they be able—and willing—to retain their cultural origins?
Jesus Christ is our guru. Christ is preaching consciousness of God. So he is our guru, our spiritual master. That’s a fact. Don’t take him otherwise. He’s our guru.
It is all cheating. You have left God out. That is the height of cheating. So naturally the rest of your so-called schooling must also be cheating.
My first impression of the Hare Krsna temple was, “Here is something that is very beautiful and lovely.” As far as the worship was concerned, it was the happiness of it, the joy of it, that I noticed.
In America and India and so many countries all over the world, they have a “secular state.” The government leaders say they don’t want to favor any particular religion, but actually they are favoring irreligion.
It will be settled at death. That’s all. A rascal may think foolishly that life is absurd—but death will not be absurd. Lord Krsna says, “Everyone must finally accept Me—as death”
In recent years thousands of religious figures have taken up faith healing. They use all kinds of approaches, but basically they claim that through their charismatic prayer and laying on of hands, God acts: He cures everything from cavities to brain tumors, releases sexual inhibitions, and even increases earning capacity.