There was a rich merchant who had four wives. He loved the fourth wife the most and adorned her with rich robes and treated her to delicacies. He took great care of her and gave her nothing but the best. He also loved the third wife very much. He was very proud of her and … Read more
One time the late Kartikeya Prabhu who was Prabhupada’s servant at the time personally told me the following story.
Prabhupada was staying in Hawaii at the time. One day, Govinda Dasi brought some wheat germ from the market. I thought that the next time Srila Prabhupada asks for halava, I’ll make it from wheat germ and he’ll be so pleased.
One day it was a rainy day. Sometimes when it rained or was cold, Prabhupada asked for halava since the grains and ghee heated up the body. So this particular day he called me and asked me to make halava. I was very excited and went to the kitchen and got the wheat germ and started to make halava.
The whole time I was cooking, I was thinking how pleased Srila Prabhupada would be with this wheat germ halava. This was my whole meditation, how Srila Prabhupada would be so pleased.
Then I offered it and brought it to Srila Prabhupada in his room. I was waiting to see how he would like it. He looked up with a very sour look on his face and said, “Halava means suji (cream of wheat).” With his left hand he motioned saying, “Take this away.” When someone rejects something with his left hand, it is very heavy. So broken heartedly, I took the bowl of halava out of the room.
I was very upset and didn’t know what to do. So I went into the temple and sat in front of the altar before the pictures of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta. Crying, I began to pray to Srila Bhaktisiddhanta, “I was just trying to please your spiritual son, but somehow he is upset with me. I don’t know what to do. I really only wanted to please him.”
Another incident that comes to mind was in 1968 or 69. We had a very well attended temple on La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles. The devotees went to Griffith Park in Los Angeles and chanted and distributed prasadam. Visnujan had little puppets and we would have puppet shows there and bring people from Griffith Park to the temple. We also went to the meditation room in “The Mystic Arts Book Store” in Laguna Beach. They let us have kirtan there and we would bring van loads of people from Laguna Beach to Los Angeles for the feast. In this way the feast was very well attended.
On this particular day Srila Prabhupada was going to preside over an initiation and a fire yajna ceremony. The temple was very full with people. At that time an Italian film making crew was filming at the temple. If somebody could get that film, it would be a historical piece of footage. A lady named Syama Devi, who was the guru of many Hindus, came into the temple and sat in the back. (Syama Devi now has an ashram right next to the Krishna Balaram temple in Vrindavan.) Her disciples, older Hindu ladies and gentlemen, rolled out a carpet, she sat down on it, and they sat around her while Srila Prabhupada performed the yajna. After Srila Prabhupada finished he sat on the stage. Prabhupada’s Vyasasana was on the stage at the same level as the altar.
Imagine going to bed at 12 am, and while sleeping your body begins to dissolve. At 3 am, your body has become nothing more than a chemical soup. Everything, the brain, liver, kidneys, eyes, ect, everything has dissolved into a soup. From 3 am onwards this chemical soup begins to transform into another organism. At twelve am you are an earth bound catterpillar, at 3 am you are a chemical soup, and at 6 am when you wake up, you are a beautiful butterfly capable of flying some fifty miles in one day. This is explained in a very beautiful way in this 4 minute video on YouTube.
Of course this supernatural event will be explained away, as most things are, by the neo-evolutionists. However the butterfly is only one example of how nature is not an evolutionary, mechanistic process, but a supernatural one.
The woodpecker is an amazing bird. Its chizel like bill hammers the wood at an amazing 16 times per second, or 1000 pecks per minute, a rate of fire faster than a machine gun. Normally, banging your head against a tree all day at twice the speed of a bullet, would induce a cosmic sized headache, followed by brain damage. However, there is a special cartilidge between the beak and the skull which acts as a shock absorber. Woodpeckers close their eyes when pecking as the velocity would pop its eyes out, and so they only open them between pecks.
It was the Taj Mahal of Appalachia, “Heaven on Earth” in “Almost Heaven West Virginia,” a sprawling, opulent affair with lush gardens, a beautiful temple, a palace of gold, accommodations for hundreds of devotees, statues of Radha and Krishna, and even, at one point, an elephant. New Vrindaban — named after a … Read more
From the mundane view, I was flying home. I was born and raised in San fransisco before joining the Hare Krsna movement in 1970. But there is nothing left for me there now. Both my parents have passed away and my brothers and sisters are scattered throughout the country. Nevertheless, as i looked out of my plane window, memories of my childhood came to mind, bringing with them sentiments not worthy of my attention. I quickly caught myself and came back to reality remembering the words of my spiritual master – reflections on his own family members with the passing of time.
A king I was, feeling proud. Subjects and land, So much to reign. Taking that gold, that night with stealth. Killing my mother, thus grew my wealth. Oh my Lord, I promise, I’ll never do it again. A sailor I was, strong and wild. Full fourteen years, No longer a child. Lashings and whippings, my … Read more
According to the Bible the original diet in the Garden of Eden was a vegetarian one. Adam and Eve lived happily, healthily and abundantly on a diet rich in fresh vegetarian fare. However, with the coming of the flood and the ensuing ecological destruction, a concession was made ensuring mankind’s survival, and for the first time there was a departure from the original diet intended by God.
Today of course this departure, this concession, has been transformed into the world’s biggest industry, the wholesale slaughtering of billions and billions of defenceless animals. Super efficient factory farms raise Gods creatures as meat, and high tech slaughterhouses deliver the final product. In one slaughterhouse in America they slaughter over 30,000 animals aday. That’s 210,000 a week, 1 million a month, 12 million a year, all between four walls in just one slaughterhouse. The rivers of blood spoken of in the Bible take place every day, as thousands of such slaughterhouses churn out their products, and planet earth becomes a mass production line of death.
I had wanted a Tulasi for a long time because she is so auspicious. I received my first one from a devotee from India. I gave a donation for the temple and took her home. She left two days later. I was shocked and disappointed. A couple of weeks later I obtained two more, and in a few days they left. I was devastated. About a month later I heard they had only one baby Tulasi left so I went to get her. I thought this would be my last chance. I would never get another one again. I had no idea what to do. I did what they had said. Put her near a window and water her a little everyday. I got down in front of this Tulasi and prayed to her. I told her that I wanted her very much. I did not know what I should do. I asked her to please not leave me and please guide me in the correct way of taking care of her. I remember the next day, without thinking, I moved her to another window (in Michigan we cannot keep her outside all year). I watered her differently. She started growing. She had definitely guided me. And she had responded to my prayer. She grew to be very beautiful and I grew many, many more.
The very best time I had at the Temple in Detroit is when Giri Govardhana dasa, who takes care of the Tulasis there, let me help him. He showed me how to mix and change the soil, fertilize, bathe them and pick the manjaris. I also transplanted most of them, along with about 200 babies.
Dear Sivarama Swami,
Hare Krishna. Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. I hope you don’t mind my writing to you. I have never written to a spiritual master before. You don’t know me. My name is Bhaktin Dora and I live in Pecs (Hungary). I’m 14 years old, and I live at home with my mother and older sister.
In 1992 I went to the Hare Krishna Festival with a friend. I was not very interested, but I enjoyed the chanting and dancing at the end. After it was over I bought a book, The Science of Self-Realization. I don’t know why; generally I never read. I think it was because of the chanting.
I took the book home and cannot remember what happened to it. One day my mother found it and was very angry with me. She thought that I was reading this kind of thing. You see, our family members are very strict Catholics. They thought Krishna consciousness was some kind of “brainwashing”. Actually I wasn’t reading the book; I had forgotten all about it. Somehow it just “appeared.” Anyway, my mother was going to throw it away.
