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Bhakti Sastri 2009

Introductory session: 13.9.Bhagavad-gita 1-9: Laxmimoni Dasi (14.9.-11.10.)Nectar of Instruction: Mangala Candrika Dasi (12.10.-25.10.)Sri Isopanisad: Yadunandana Swami (26.10.-1.11.)Nectar of Devotion: Sudevi Dasi (2.11-22.11.)Bhagavad-gita 10-18: Ramakesava Dasa and Dina Dayala Dasa (23.11.-20.12.)End of Bhakti Sastri: 22.12. Come and experience this enlivening Vaishnava education in the peaceful setting of Radhadesh, Belgium. Please register by the end of August 2009. Package price: 1.108 EurosCovers the course costs and accomodation and prasadam. For more information and course registration, please contact the College Secretary:Tel: +32 (0)86 32-32-77 / E-mail: college@pamho.netFor accommodation and prasadam, please contact the Radhadesh Guesthouse:Tel: +32 (0)86 38-71-31 / E-mail: radhadesh.guesthouse@pamho.net

India to boost beef production

Article found at meatinternational.com. Indian beef production is predicted to increase by 5% in 2009.  This is reported to be due to strong export demand and rising domestic consumption (ZMP and Brazilian Meat Monitor). According to reports, production of mainly buffalo meat is set to rise to approximately 2.7 million tonnes. ...

SACRED COW

by Robin Winter, Archaeology Online The world over, the term "sacred cow" has come to mean any stubborn loyalty to a long-standing institution which impedes natural progress. The term originates in India, where the cow is said to be literally worshiped, while thousands of humans suffer from undernourishment. The common, ...

Ecuador Extends Rights to Ecosystems

By Kate Wilson, The New York Times A few months after Lloyd reported on the Swiss government's conclusion that plants have rights, the Ecuadorian population went one step further and voted to change their constitution to proclaim that nature has “the right to the maintenance and regeneration of its vital cycles, ...

Krishna, Our Seed-Giving Father

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 1.10.4 TRANSLATION During the reign of Mahārāja Yudhisthira, the clouds showered all the water that people needed, and the earth produced all the necessities of man in profusion. Due to its fatty milk bag and cheerful attitude, the cow used to moisten the grazing ground with milk. PURPORT The basic principle of ...

Tree Huggers

The forests of India are a critical resource for the subsistence of rural peoples throughout the country, but especially in hill and mountain areas, both because of their direct provision of food, fuel and fodder and because of their role in stabilising soil and water resources. As these forests have ...

Acorn Watchers Wonder What Happened to Crop

By Brigid Schulte, Washington Post The idea seemed too crazy to Rod Simmons, a measured, careful field botanist. Naturalists in Arlington County couldn't find any acorns. None. No hickory nuts, either. Then he went out to look for himself. He came up with nothing. Nothing crunched underfoot. Nothing hit him on ...

Working Villages International

Article from the Working Villages International website. There are few places on Earth like the Ruzizi Valley. The average temperature remains around 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 C) year round. There is plentiful water, rich volcanic soil and four growing seasons. Twenty years ago the valley was covered with fertile farms and pastures and ...

On the Banks of the Ganga: When Wastewater Meets a Sacred River

On the Banks of the Ganga: When Wastewater Meets a Sacred River by Kelly D. Alley Introduction: Field Method and Layers of Data "I started this project about nine years ago while studying tourism and public culture in north India.  I remember the day that the original idea for this study emerged ...

Food For Life

Article posted on the Food For Life Global website. Director of Food for Life Global, Priyavrata das (Paul Turner), was interviewed on Healthy Life Radio, touted as the "all positive talk radio" by celebrity vegan Victoria Moran. The 60-minute interview covered such topics as global warming, the economic crisis and the ...

What Makes Milk Organic? New Standard Proposed

by Allison Aubrey, National Public Radio When consumers pay top dollar for organic milk, they know they're getting dairy that's free of synthetic growth hormones, pesticides and antibiotics. Now there's a move to ensure cows are feeding on plenty of fresh grass if producers want to label the milk as organic. The U.S. ...

Artistic Paintings

‘Akalpa refers to the texture of Krsna’s hair, His nicely dressed body anointed with sandalwood pulp and decorated with flower garlands, His tilaka and His chewing pan. Krsna was decorated constantly in this akalpa process. Krsna’s hair was sometimes decorated with flowers placed on the middle of His head, or else it was reaching down to His back. In this way Krsna dressed His hair differently at different times.

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Dance / Bhajan - Diana's Yoga Studio - Surata and Shyamali - Yasomati Nandana

Rupa Madhurya Das's blog - Dallas, TX - Wed, 07/01/2009 - 21:47

Dance performed by Surata and Shyamali.  Hari das is singing the bhajan Yasomati Nandana.  Performed at Diana's Yoga Studio.

Dallas, TX
2009-05-02

Categories: Personal Blogs

Daily Class - Gangesvara Prabhu

ISKCON Melbourne Australia News - Wed, 07/01/2009 - 19:05
Srimad Bhagavatam 11.10.11 - Understanding the spirit soul.

Success In Japa

Japa Group - Wed, 07/01/2009 - 17:06

Hare Krsna my dear devotees. I hope your chanting has been peaceful and with nice realisations coming from the relationship with the Lord. This week I received a very nice Japa Reform booklet from the last Japa Retreat of H.H. Sacinandana Swami given at Bhaktivedanta College in Belgium. This material gave me great lessons about how I can improve my chanting and what to do to achieve the desired results in japa. For sure many of them I have already been learning from my Japa Room sessions, but they are spoken in a different way that gives me the strong desire to study it more. This is something our minds does to us, it is always telling us we need new things to offer and they never get satisfied - they don't like routine and the same thing all the time so we get disturbed because we think we need but it's not that, it's because we try other ways to get to the same goal....just using another direction.A very nice topic of this booklet is "observation" - saying that we need to observe our chanting and check what our habits are, if we are concentrated, if we are doing other things at the same time while chanting - if we chant without interuption, this is regarding quality. He also talks about quantity and how we can increase our japa weekly, for the ones who want to achieve 16 rounds and still chanting less. Then he gives some forms and you are supposed to fill in and check your japa daily- by the end of the week you take 30 minutes and evaluate your whole week of chanting and see what you need to work on for the next week. He said that if we do that for a month, our minds will be trained and will be more peaceful while we chant.
I liked very much his guidelines and I think we can follow that as an example for our daily japa. Our aim is love of God....offenseless chanting and one day achieve pure love of God through chanting but to achieve this stage, we must focus on the sound vibration of the mantra because the Lord is there in the sound. When we understand that Krsna and His holy names are the same, we perceive that maybe we could give more attention to our japa time and make this time our personal moment with Krsna. The mood of prayer is also mentioned and the reasons why is so important....to have this child calling mood towards Krsna when we chant His holy names. Eagerness to achieve our spiritual goals is the key to success and when we give more attention to that, put efforts on this subject of improving the Lord Himself, gives you everything you need to get there. We just need to trust the Lord is with us all the time, living in our hearts and helping us to understand how we can develop a deeper relationship with Him through chanting....the main thing is to give a head start.

May our hearts be opened to new ways of learning how to improve our chanting so we can achieve pure love of God.

your servant,

Aruna devi
Categories: Personal Blogs

The Best of Kurma Blog #3 - Cabbages and Isothiocyanates

Kurma Dasa - Live and Travel with Kurma - Wed, 07/01/2009 - 16:04
Cabbages 'cut lung cancer risks'

"Eating vegetables from the cabbage family can reduce the risk of lung cancer for people with a certain genetic make-up, scientists say. Vegetables such as cabbage, broccoli and sprouts are rich in chemicals called isothiocyanates, which strongly protect against lung cancer." more...

Categories: Personal Blogs

Chant & Be Happy Part Two

ISKCON Spanish Fork, Utah - News - Wed, 07/01/2009 - 13:57
In the beginning, according to Indian philosophers, was sound. Sound is, according to writings dating back thousands of years, the original primordial, creative force. According to Lewis Rowell, "musical sound[s]…are identified with the creative vital force by which the entire universe is animated."

Humans evolved in Asia?

Gauranga Kishore Dasa's Blog - Wed, 07/01/2009 - 13:06

Fossil Suggests Human, Ape Ancestor Hails From Asia Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News
June 30, 2009
-- A new Myanmar fossil primate, Ganlea megacanina, suggests the common ancestor of humans, monkeys and apes evolved from large-toothed primates in Asia and not Africa, according to new research published in the latest Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

If Myanmar, formerly called Burma, is confirmed as being the ancestral homeland of higher primates, or close to it, the discovery points to a circuitous migration route for some early primates, which must have gone to Africa and then come back to Asia. . . . Beard still believes modern humans descended from an African population that lived around 200,000 years ago. "But," he said, "some extinct species of humans, such as the 'hobbit' Homo floresiensis, almost certainly evolved in Asia." (Read the article thing here.)

This is interesting on a couple of levels, the first is that it shows the idea of evolution as a scientific theory is almost a joke. The whole thing can be turned on its head. At the very least it still evolving. The admittance that Homo floresiensis "almost certainly evolved in Asia" has huge implications. One of the big holes in the Vedic narative was India being the center of everything, when genetic evidence seemed to indicate that people migrated out of Africa. But it looks like the same evidence could also be used to show that people migrated to Africa from Asia. This is important for anyone who accepts the Vedic paradigm, whether we except the Vedas literally or whether we accept some type of guided theistic evolution.

Categories: Personal Blogs

Prabhupada Festival LA

Gaura Vani das & As Kindred Spirits - Wed, 07/01/2009 - 09:00

 Madi, Janaki Priya, Acyuta Gopi and Ananta Govinda Acyuta Gopi plays Mrdanga while Ananta Govinda leads kirtan with Ray Ippolito on Guitar. The crowd starts to gather. Acyuta Gopi and Madi

We had an invitation to perform and chant at the two day Prabhupada Festival, which happens at the Los Angeles Krishna temple on Venice Boulevard (New Dwaraka). It was an opportunity to honor the spiritual teacher, or guru, of the Hare Krishna Movement, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who founded the movement in the 60s. He also my mother’s teacher, so we were especially excited to come and honor him.

 Janaki Priya, Ananta Govinda and Acyuta Gopi Chant!

Ray Ippolito on electric guitar takes a solo. Dravida Prabhu front and center rockin' to the kirtan.

The Sibbling Duo Ananta Govinda and Gaura Vani (who just came from a wedding)

It turned out that my cousin, who lives in Los Angeles, was getting married at the same time as the festival, and I thought that I would be able to juggle going to both events. In the end, the rest of our group performed without me while I went my cousin’s wedding, which was a beautiful ceremony in downtown Los Angeles. Despite how beautiful it was, I was a bit distracted thinking about the band having a party without me.  At ten o’clock, when it was over, I came rushing back in my suit and tie and jumped on stage to chant with the rest of the group, who had been chanting since seven o’clock in the evening. Unfortunately, in my exuburance to join in, I hit the microphone stand that had the recorder hanging on it and it fell and caused the recordings to be corrupted. So all you’re left with, unfortunately, are the recordings from after I got there. Sorry AKS!

Dance! Gaura Vani (the wedding singer) and As Kindred Spirits

Dance! Gaura Vani, Ananta Govinda and Shiva on drum.

But it was beautiful night, culminated in a couple of kids going wild and jumping into the pool in front of the stage, which was full of floating lillies. Some of these guys just went nuts in their ecstatic kirtan bliss and dove into the pool, sending water in all directions.

Gaura Vani

Madi Gaura Vani leads the final kirtan of the night.

Kirtan for all ages. Kirtan at the Prabhupada Festival 2009 in Los Angeles

Listen to the entire Kirtan!

To listen, click on the links below then press play. To download, Right Click on the word “Download” and select “Save As…” from the menu. Having trouble downloading? Read our Help Section.

Categories: Personal Blogs

Lecture - Bhakti Caksur Sundar Goswami - Sunday Feast - BG 2.66

Rupa Madhurya Das's blog - Dallas, TX - Wed, 07/01/2009 - 07:07

Sunday feast lecture given by Bhakti Caksur Sundar Goswami on Bhagavad Gita 2.66.

Dallas, TX
2009-05-17

TRANSLATION

One who is not connected with the Supreme [in Krishna consciousness] can have neither transcendental intelligence nor a steady mind, without which there is no possibility of peace. And how can there be any happiness without peace?

PURPORT

Unless one is in Krishna consciousness, there is no possibility of peace. So it is confirmed in the Fifth Chapter (5.29) that when one understands that Krishna is the only enjoyer of all the good results of sacrifice and penance, that He is the proprietor of all universal manifestations, and that He is the real friend of all living entities, then only can one have real peace. Therefore, if one is not in Krishna consciousness, there cannot be a final goal for the mind. Disturbance is due to want of an ultimate goal, and when one is certain that Krishna is the enjoyer, proprietor and friend of everyone and everything, then one can, with a steady mind, bring about peace. Therefore, one who is engaged without a relationship with Krishna is certainly always in distress and is without peace, however much he may make a show of peace and spiritual advancement in life. Krishna consciousness is a self-manifested peaceful condition which can be achieved only in relationship with Krishna.


Download: 2009-05-17 - Bhakti Caksur Sundar Goswami - Sunday Feast Lecture - BG 2.66.mp3
Categories: Personal Blogs
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