In Los Angeles, California, a community of three hundred Hare Krishna devotees live in a suburban neighborhood sometimes called the Hare Krishna quarter, which includes a dozen offices, four apartment buildings, a book warehouse, a stately temple and a large factory.
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.
VRNDAVANA is the transcendental dwelling place of Krishna. Being a manifestation of His intrinsic energy, it is a part of Himself. It consists like Him of the attributes of existence, intelligence and bliss and is different from the phenomenal world, which is a manifestation of His extrinsic energy.
This radical change in archaeological theory should serve as a lesson that the pronouncements of material science, based on knowledge gained through imperfect senses by imperfect minds, are subject to error; they should not be considered absolute.
As long as we are not making puffed-up ego-centered claims, we are already liberated. There is actually no need to seek liberation. But as long as one thinks, “I am this body,” he is not liberated. Liberation means knowing perfectly well that one’s self is separate from the body.
Devotees chanting Hare Krishna in front of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.
This issue of Back to Godhead magazine features the devotees of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness at the Society’s temple in Los Angeles, California.