Recent Posts

Instruments of Kirtan: Harmonium, Mridanga, & Kartals — and Where to Learn

Enhance your Kirtan Experience Along with being one of the main forms of Hare Krishna worship, Kirtan can be great fun — dancing and singing with friends and others. Playing an instrument in kirtan can enhance the experience for you, and everyone present. The traditional instruments for kirtan in India are the harmonium (like a pump organ), the mridanga (2-headed clay drum), and the kartals (small hand-cymbals). Harmonium The Harmonium is a pump-powered reed organ. In India and other parts of South Asia, ...Read More

Raising Krishna Conscious Kids

Raising Krishna Conscious Kids What a challenge, huh? Raising Krishna Conscious children has tested many. From observation of many devotee parents raising kids, I have come to see that being too extreme does not work if you want to raise balanced, Krishna Conscious children. There is a famous saying, about tuning a musical instrument. It goes something like this: “If the string is not tight enough, it will not play. If you tighten it too much, it will snap.” This can be analogous ...Read More

Vegetarian Cooking – The Art of Indian Sweets

Delicious Treats of Indian Cuisine Have you ever tasted some well-cooked Halava? A Laddhu, or Sandesh? Have you ever popped a whole Gulab-jamun into your mouth and had the sweet syrup burst out of the cake-ball into your mouth in a delightful explosion of sugary goodness? If so, then you probably know how wonderful Indian sweets can be. If not, then it may be time to experience. Preparing Indian Sweets Preparing Indian Sweets can be a challenge. Getting them just right requires the ...Read More

Meditational Yoga — The Prerequisites

To practice yoga, one should go to a secluded place and should lay kusa-grass on the ground and then cover it with a deerskin and a soft cloth. The seat should neither be too high nor too low and should be situated in a sacred place. The yogi should then sit on it very firmly and should practice yoga by controlling the mind and the senses, purifying the heart and fixing the mind on one point. (Bhagavad Gita Chapter 6, ...Read More

Krishna: Monism or Duealism?

I was debating something for quite some time and I was wondering if you could help me out. Does Krishna preach monism(the universe is one big manifestation of God and the idea of a personal God is replaced by this universe) or dualism (the idea that this universe is pervaded by the Lord but also seperate from Him.) I would greatly greatly appereciate an answer back. This has been on my mind for a long time and I am suffering ...Read More

Safety in a Dangerous World

Since the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the world is now faced with unprecedented danger and uncertainty. Recent headlines reveal that the threat of terrorism in the U.S. and abroad has reached critical proportions. Once again we are forced to contemplate our fragility and mortality in this material world. Anything can happen now — and we know it. For those of us old enough to remember, these recent events may conjure up memories of the Great Northeast Blackout in ...Read More

Women In Krishna Consciousness–Questions & Answers

The first step in spiritual understanding is to transcend the bodily concept of life. To think I am a man or I am a woman is to be in illusion. The body is a material dress for the soul, a dress that’s changing from moment to moment, as the body develops, and will change entirely at death. But the constant within the body is the soul, which is not subject to any of these changes. Q. Why should women be interested in ...Read More

Vegetarian Cooking – How to Cook Delicious Vegetarian Meals

Making Vegetarianism Work for You If one is new to the vegetarian way, and they are used to cooking with a lot of meat, it may be a little bit challenging to make nice, satisfying, wholesome meals, suitable for a vegetarian diet. One way to make it work is to understand how to make wholesome meals which can meet all of your nutritional needs. There are many delicious varieties of combinations of foods to do this. Some of my personal favorites are Rice ...Read More

Indian Sari’s – Traditional Ladies’ Attire for Temple, Party, or Street

What is a Sari? Saris, or Sarees, are traditional women’s clothing in India. They have been such for thousands of years. Saris are very beautiful, elegant and fashionable. In modern times, they have become used by people internationally, not just Indians. They have become a very recognized part of Indian culture, and even celebrities in the Western world have made appearances wearing Saris. A sari is pretty much a strip of cloth, wrapped around the waist, and donned in a particular way ...Read More

Living Alone in a Secluded Place?

“A transcendentalist should always try to concentrate his mind on the Supreme Self; he should live alone in a secluded place and should always carefully control his mind. He should be free from desires and the feelings of possessiveness.” (Bhagavad-gita 6.10) Krishna continues to instruct His friend Arjuna on the prerequisites for meditational yoga. He has already established to perform yoga one must control the mind. Now He adds to controlling the mind the necessity of always concentrating the mind on ...Read More

SWEETWATERS 82 (Hare Krishna’s at a Rock Festival)

For three days the kids kept coming and staying late into the night. They had tasted the ecstasy! One girl said, I don’t want to go anywhere else. This is the only thing happening at the festival. While the Northern Hemisphere froze last January, seventy thousand young people were basking in perfect weather at the annual Sweetwaters Rock Festival-New Zealand’s Woodstock. Overnight, several square miles of idyllic pastureland next to the Waikato River were transformed into a bustling tent-and-caravan metropolis. Hastily ...Read More

What is the Age of Kali? (wonderful website and zene)

“In the Age of Kali, the Earth thus becomes crowded with a corrupt population, whoever among any of the social classes shows himself to be the strongest will gain political power.” This zine isn’t for people who feel modern life couldn’t be better. Such people like to be controlled more or less by the media’s projection of the goal of life and attempts made by corporations to promote bodily consciousness. This is a zine for people who, not only want something more ...Read More

Srila Prabhupada And the Treatment Of Children in Gurukul

I recently came across something which may help illuminates a dark issue that has been widely discussed and still receives coverage in the media. It is the issue of child abuse within Iskcon. It’s a very disturbing subject. Even more disturbing, some have insinuated that Srila Prabhupada himself was indifferent to the suffering of the Gurukuli children. It is to this charge that I ask you to look at the following. “Spirit” is a magazine produced by Manu dasa ...Read More

Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu

While other forms of the Lord descended with various paraphernalia to deal with the demoniac and irreligious influences of the time, Lord Sri Caitanya was equipped with the most powerful weapon against irreligion, the Maha Mantra. The chanting of the holy name of Lord Sri Krishna is the sublime and recommended process in this age for the deliverance of all souls from the clutches of maya (illusion) and irreligion INTRODUCTION Lord Krishna says in Bhagavad Gita 4:7 “Whenever and ...Read More

It Has Always Been Clear to Me that Prabhuapda’s Books Should Never be Changed…

It has always been clear for me that Prabhupada’s books should never be changed, specially once they were edited and accepted by their author, who used them himself to lecture while present. That is why I am keeping the original version of Bhagavad Gita (1975 MacMillan) and not reading from other editions. The message is so clear when you read Srila Prabhupada’s original but when I try to read from the most recent version in some cases the verses, although ...Read More

How to Control the Mind?

From the many responses to the previous article about controlling the mind I can see this is a topic many are interested in. Controlling the mind is a challenge we all face and it’s something that intimately affects every one of us. Krishna continues speaking to Arjuna in the Bhagavad-gita (6.6) on the same subject of controlling the mind: “For him who has conqured the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do ...Read More

The Mind Can Be Our Friend or Our Enemy

Spiritual life begins when we can control our minds. Ordinarily the mind of a conditioned soul in the material world is completely out of control. For most people, rather than their mind being controlled their minds become servants of their senses. For example if one is walking down a street and sees or smells some very nice food then the tongue is sending messages to the mind telling it that it wants that food to satisfy the sense of taste. ...Read More

No One–Not Even Darwin–Can Be Independent [Prabhupada Speaks Out]

This whole Darwinian theory is false. But people are giving it so much stress. First of all, no one–not even Darwin–can be independent. For instance, Darwin died. So he was under the control of something higher. No man wants to die, but he is forced to die. Is it not? Then where is his independence? Here we continue an exchange that occurred in Perth, Australia, on May 9, 1975, between His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and Carol Cameron, then ...Read More

The Moon and the Sun…

Srila Prabhupada has the strength to have complete faith in Krishna, in his spiritual master and in the Vedas. That is his unique qualification. Unfortunately most so-called devotees of Krishna today prefer to put their faith in the theories of modern science, rejecting the Vedic version. Such devotees have no faith and will never be able to understand the real imports of the Vedic knowledge as this requires absolute faith in the Lord and the bona fide spiritual master. ...Read More

The Genes and the Soul

After the scientific survey on the human genome, the media’s attention turned to the news about cloning. Because of the plenty of invested money the scientists studying cloning have achieved considerable results. For a layman it may seem that the biologists have almost become omnipotent, and they can create animals or even human beings according to their choice, thus fully dethroning the Creator… What is science actually able and not able to do? What did it create and did it take ...Read More

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