The definition of a civilized human is said to be one who tries to understand the meaning of life. The third most read book on Earth is Bhagavad Gita, which addresses this question. The essence of this text, sacred to all Hindu’s, has been beautifully expressed by this documentary, Published on 7 Jun 2014 by a young Italian devotee of Krishna, Inci Milano: “Hare Krishna Movement”
Five hundred years ago Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the most recent incarnation of Krishna, taught by His own example that one can live the essence of Bhagavad-gita by chanting Krishna’s holy names: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.
Sri Krishna and Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu both taught Bhakti yoga, the spiritual practice of connecting with God through devotional service to Him. Based on Their teachings, in 1966 A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, referred to as Srila Prabhupada, founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.
Srila Prabhupada and his disciples popularized the chanting of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra in the 1960s and 1970s, and it spread to countries around the globe. Though the International Society for Krishna Consciousness is the legal name for the movement Prabhupada started, most people know it as the Hare Krishna movement.
Modern Day Miracles
Jesus Christ, God, and Prabhupada
are Not Dead!
A friend sent me these – they’re all about God and miracles… thought they might make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
Article by Madhudvisa dasa.
There was an atheist couple who had a child. The couple never told their daughter anything about the Lord. One night when the little girl was 5 years old, the parents fought with each other and the dad shot the Mom, right in front of the child. Then, the dad shot himself. The little girl watched it all. She then was sent to a foster home. The foster mother was a Christian and took the child to church. On the first day of Sunday School, the foster mother told the teacher that the girl had never heard of Jesus, and to have patience with her. The teacher held up a picture of Jesus and said, “Does anyone know who this is?” The little girl said, “I do, that’s the man who was holding me the night my parents died.”
A young man who had been raised as an atheist was training to be an Olympic diver. The only religious influence in his life came from his outspoken Christian friend. The young diver never really paid much attention to his friend’s sermons, but he heard them often. One night the diver went to the indoor pool at the college he attended. The lights were all off, but as the pool had big skylights and the moon was bright, there was plenty of light to practice by. The young man climbed up to the highest diving board and as he turned is back to the pool on the edge of the board and extended his arms out, he saw his shadow on the wall. The shadow of his body, was in the shape of a cross. Seeing that image created such an unusual and strong response that instead of diving, he knelt down and finally asked God to come into his life. As the young man stood, a maintenance man walked in and turned the lights on. The pool had been drained for repairs.
Yes I do Love Jesus. He is my source of existence and Savior. He keeps me functioning each and everyday. Without him, I am nothing but with Him I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me. -Phil 4:13
This is pretty deep….
Funny how simple it is for people to trash God
and then wonder why the world’s going to hell.
Funny how we believe what the newspapers say,
but question what the Bible says.
Funny how everyone wants to go to heaven,
provided they do not have to believe, think, say, or do anything the Bible says.
Or is it scary?
Funny how someone can say “I believe in God” but still follow Satan (who, by the way, also “believes” in God)
Funny how the lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but the public discussion of Jesus is suppressed in the school and workplace.
Funny how when you go to forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it to them.
Funny how I can be more worried about what other people think of me than what God thinks of me.
Jesus Loves You.
And it’s not just Christians who see the modern day miracles… I have personal experience and so do most devotees that Srila Prabhupada is living… We have seen the miracles ourselves so many times…
In 1989 after returning from India and seeing there was no place for me in ISKCON Australia I took two boxes of Srila Prabhupada’s books and purchased a bus ticket to Canberra. At that time there was no ISKCON temple there so I took encouragement from Srila Prabhupada. After buying the bus ticket I only had $1.00 left…
I arrived in Canberra late in the night and ended up in a shelter for the homeless, Ainsley Village. I stayed there for a few weeks distributing books in the city and in the next few months I experienced miracle after miracle… In a few weeks we had a very nice three bedroom house near the city as a temple, we had a Sunday Feast with 100+ guests coming every Sunday, at least half of them students from the Australian National University, we had a Food For Life program on Wednesdays feeding 100+ homeless people. The Salvation Army were giving us money to buy the food, the government gave us a “Food For Life” van and a nice grant to cover the costs of the food program and the running expenses of the van… And I was going out every day distributing Srila Prabhupada’s books. It was perhaps the most blissful experience I have ever had.
There were so many miracles, it came to the point that I was not even surprised when they happened. One Sunday I was cooking the feast in the temple. I was still incredibly poor. Krishna was sending the money to pay the bills, but no more than that. So I had no money at that time, not even a cent. Half-way through cooking the feast the gas ran out… I just looked at Srila Prabhupada and said: “OK. How are you going to get me out of this one?” And, right then, there was a knock at the back door. There was a young man there who introduced himself as “John.” He said he was my new neighbor from over the back fence. He said he had heard me chanting Hare Krishna and wondered if I had any of those “Srimad-Bhagavatams”? A devotee had sold him one some years before and he had lost it…
It just so happened that on the previous Friday an ISKCON devotee, Ananta Sesa Prabhu, had visited and, as was the custom, he left whatever books he had in his car with me so I had something to distribute… He left a partial set of Srimad Bhagavatam‘s so I could happily say to John, “Yes, I’ve got some of those Srimad-Bhagavatams…” I showed them to him and he picked out two volumes and handed me $50. So not having much time to get the cooking finished I thanked him very much and rushed off to buy the LPG gas…
In these crazy times when we have the biggest leaders in ISKCON claiming “Prabhupada has been dead since 1977,” this email sent to me by a Christian made me think what would they say if the leader of their church said: “Jesus Christ has been dead for 2000 years…” It’s unthinkable. But we let the ISKCON leaders say this about Srila Prabhupada quite openly. And it has been going on since 1977. This is very offensive to Srila Prabhupada? Yet we do not hear any protest from those loud-mouth devotees who have set themselves up as the “Prabhupada experts” and have declared the Gurukulis and their lawyer to be the biggest offenders of Srila Prabhupada? Can they not see the real cause of the problem? Are they blind? Can they not see the GBC has been preaching “Prabhupada is dead.” ever since 1977…
“So he wanted this, and he is not… It is not that he is dead and gone. That is not spiritual understanding. Even ordinary living being, he does not die. Na hanyate hanyamane sarire. And what to speak of such exalted, authorized personality like Bhaktisiddhanta. He is seeing. I never feel that I am alone. Of course, when I came to your country without any friend, without any means… Practically, just like a vagabond I came. But I had full faith that “My Guru Maharaja is with me.” I never lost this faith, and that is fact. There are two words, vani and vapuh. Vani means words, and vapuh means this physical body. So vani is more important than the vapuh. Vapuh will be finished. This is material body. It will be finished. That is the nature. But if we keep to the vani, to the words of spiritual master, then we remain very fixed up. It doesn’t matter. Just like Bhagavad-gita. It was spoken five thousand years ago. But if you keep to the words of Krsna, then it is always fresh and guiding. Not that because Arjuna personally listened to Krsna about the instruction of Bhagavad-gita, therefore he knew it. That is not the fact. If you acceptBhagavad-gita as it is, then you should know that Krsna is present before you in His words in theBhagavad-gita. This is called spiritual realization. It is not mundane historical incidences. If we keep…
evam parampara-praptam
imam rajarsayo viduh
sa kaleneha (mahata)
yogo nastah parantapa
If you don’t keep in touch with the original link, then it will be lost. And if you keep touch with the original link, then you are directly hearing Krsna. Similarly, Krsna and Krsna’s representative, spiritual master, if you keep always intact, in link with the words and instruction of the superior authorities, then you are always fresh. This is spiritual understanding. Na jayate na mriyate va kadacit nityah sasvato ‘yam purano. Puranah means very old. Just like Krsna, the Supreme Being. He must be very old because He is the original person. But the Brahma-samhita says, advaita acyuta anadi ananta-rupam adyam purana-purusa nava-yauvanam ca. Purana-purusa, the oldest person, but you will find Him nava-yauvanam ca, always a fresh youth. That is God. God is not a material, that it gets old. The body gets old.
So you are hearing this philosophy daily. Try to understand more and more. We have got so many books. And this is the mission of Caitanya Mahaprabhu and, by disciplic succession, Bhaktivinoda Thakura, then my spiritual master. Then we are trying our level best. Similarly, you will also try your level best on the same principle. Then it will go on. Same principle. It doesn’t matter whether one is born in India or outside India. No. When Caitanya Mahaprabhu said, prthivite ache yata nagaradi-grama, “As many towns and cities and villages are there,” He did not say it to make a farce. He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. So sometimes I am very much criticized that I am making foreigners abrahmana. The caste brahmanas in India, they are very much against me. But this is not fact. When Caitanya Mahaprabhu said that all over the world His message will be broadcast, does it mean that it will be simply a cinema show? No. He wanted that everyone should become perfect Vaisnava. That is His purpose. It is not to make a farce, some lecturing and…, or some mutual praising society. No. It is Krishna Society. Everyone who will join this Krishna Society movement, he is more than a brahmana. Brahmana, what is brahmana? Brahmana is also material. A devotee is more than brahmana. The brahminical culture is included already. Brahma janatiti brahmanah: “Brahmana means one who knows the Absolute Truth, Brahman.” He is brahmana. But that is not very fixed up. Brahmeti paramatmeti bhagavan iti sabdyate. Brahman is impersonal effulgence, and then further progress, realization of the localized aspect, Paramatma, Antaryami, and finally, understanding the Supreme Person, Krsna, Supreme Person, that is the final understanding.
So people cannot understand that how the Supreme, the origin of everything, can be a person. That is their difficulty. Because they are thinking, “A person, God? How it is possible. God is great, and He is the creator of everything. How a person can do that?” Yes. That is the Vedic version.
isvarah paramah krsnah
sac-cid-ananda-vigrahah
anadir adir govindah
sarva-karana-karanam
He is the cause of Brahman. He is the cause of Supersoul. So ordinary man cannot understand.Avajananti mam mudha manusim tanum asritam. It requires Krsna’s grace to understand Him.
So try to receive Krsna’s grace through the disciplic succession, Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Then you will understand everything. Yasya deve para bhaktir yatha deve tatha gurau. This is the process, Vedic process. One should have unflinching faith in God and spiritual master. Don’t jump over God, crossing the spiritual master. Then it will be failure. You must go through. We are observing Vyasa-puja ceremony, the birth anniversary of our Guru Maharaja. Why? We cannot understand Krsna without spiritual master. That is bogus. If anyone wants to understand Krsna, jumping over the spiritual master, then immediately he becomes a bogus. Therefore Caitanya Mahaprabhu says, guru- krsna-krpaya paya bhakti-lata-bija. That is Vedic injunction. Tad viddhi pranipatena pariprasnena sevaya. Nobody can understand Krsna without going through His most confidential servant. This is the meaning of this Vyasa-puja. You cannot surpass. If you think that you have become very learned and very advanced, now you can avoid the spiritual master and you understand Krsna, that is the bogus. That is the meaning of this Vyasa-puja ceremony. We should always pray, yasya prasadad bhagavat-prasadah. Yasya prasadad, only by the grace of spiritual master we can achieve the grace or mercy of Krsna. This is the meaning of this Vyasa- puja, offering obeisances by parampara system.
So you have taken a very nice line of activities, spiritual activities. Of course, as far as possible, we have tried to give you instruction, books. But remain always faithful to the spiritual master and try to understand Krsna. And if you simply understand Krsna, then your life is successful. Janma karma ca divyam me yo janati tattvatah. The human life is meant for understanding Krsna. That is the perfection of life. Any other so-called understanding, that is simply waste of time because we are under the grip of the material nature. You may be very learned scholar. You may be a fool. It doesn’t matter. You are under the laws of material nature. So before finishing this small span of life… We have got this human form of life. It will be finished, as the cats’ and dogs’ life also finished. But if we try through the guru and Vaisnava, then, we can achieve in this life the full success, not failure like cats’ and dogs’ life. That is the opportunity. So as far as possible, we are trying to lead you in this line, and you kindly follow. Then your life will be successful. That is the mission of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. He wanted to deliver these fallen souls, the conditioned souls rotting in this material world. So Krsna Himself… Krsna comes Himself, Krsna sends His devotees, Krsna comes as devotee–just to execute this mission to reclaim the fallen souls from the clutches of illusory energy, material world.
Thank you very much. [Srila Prabhupada]
Russell Brand Interviews
Quantum Physicist
Dr. John Hagelin
In this video actor/comedian Russell Brand interviews renowned quantum physicist Dr. John Hagelin at the David Lynch Foundation’s 3rd annual Change Begins Within gala in Los Angeles. They discuss the science behind the Transcendental Meditation technique, the Unified Field, and the importance of having a quantum physicist as a butler.
Copyright © 2014 Steve M. Doyle (Soolaba)