Devotees on Festival of Fiji Tour Find Local Hospitality “Mind-blowing”
Kalasamvara Das, temple president of ISKCON Auckland, has always been one of those devotees who is having so much fun in Krishna consciousness that it’s infectious. But even by his standards, he’s positively buzzing when we chat to him at the airport on his way back from the Festival of Fiji.
Sri Damodara-janani is the latest book from Sivarama Swami and the fourth volume of the Krishna in Vrndavana series, a unique retelling of the damodara-lila that weaves a captivating tale of the glories of Mother Yasoda. No other person has ever received the unique mercy that Krishna showed His own mother, teaching devotees for all time that the binding force of love for Him is more powerful than even His own supreme will.
Reconnection, a multi-award winning film by ISKCON filmmakers Maxim Varfolomeev (Shyam Gopal Das) and Olga Avramenko (Vijay Radhika Dasi) has premiered online on Tuesday, September 26th. Reconnection is a coming of age story of a Western young man, Sean, who ends up in the sacred town of Vrindavan and goes through a transformative experience.
A multi-talented musician, Havi Das – a Srila Prabhupada disciple – is a highly successful pop and traditional artist in his native Venezuela as well as throughout South America. He grew up listening to Venezuelan folk, Afro-Caribbean dance, British progressive rock, and American R&B, all of which influence his own music.
Coming to the U.S. for the first time, Indradyumna Swami’s ‘Discover India’ tour began with a resounding success, performing to a receptive audience of over 500 people at the Newburgh Armory Unity Center in New York on September 10th. The epic show of dance, theater, martial arts and live music has been touring Poland for 28 years under the name Festival of India, putting on forty events every summer and drawing audiences of three to five thousand people each night.
Regal Cinemas will show the documentary film Hare Krishna!, about the life and teachings of ISKCON Founder Srila Prabhupada, as a one-off event screening in over eighty cities across the United States. The screening will be held at 7pm in all time zones on Sept 21st, the International Day of Peace. It’s apt timing, considering Srila Prabhupada’s message: “When we understand that we are not these bodies but are spirit souls, then there will be peace.”
Renowned comic book artist Dheeraj Verma, who has worked with Dark Horse Comics and Marvel Comics in the US on titles such as Night of the Living Dead, Transformers, Dracula and Iron Man is now set to release a graphic novel about the Mahabharat hero Abhimanyu.
Inner Voice Productions has announced a Moscow screening of the film "Hare Krishna!" next week, on August 16th, Srila Prabhupada's Appearance Day, and again on August 20th.
“The Life and Teachings of Sri Chaitanya: The Golden Avatara of Divine Love,” by Satyaraja Das, is out this October. It will be published by Lexington Books, a prestigious worldwide academic publisher, which will position it to reach tens of thousands that might otherwise not read a book about Lord Chaitanya.
On July 8th 2017, ISKCON Nairobi’s premises were a hive of activity. Over 800 new people were exposed to Krishna-consciousness via an art exhibition featuring the work of over 360 students from various primary and secondary schools of Nairobi.
Hare Krishna! The Mantra, the Movement, and the Swami Who Started It All had its world premiere in June, at the Illuminate film festival in Sedona, in the USA. At the time of writing, the well-known movie review site Rottentamatoes.com, was reporting that 92% of their visitors who rated the movie liked it. The professional critics are not so sure, giving it only 14% on the Tomatometer.
The App is currently available for iPad and iPhone, with an Android version being planned. It contains the full text of Srila Prabhupada’s Bhagavad-gita as it is. You can make notes. You can adjust the font type and size, search the text to find what you need and choose between scrolling or swiping pages.
For decades, Bada Hari has been singing kirtan, teaching others, and mentoring young devotees. And for the past five years, he has been touring non-stop with Indradyumna Swami, averaging 13 countries a year and trying to serve people by connecting them with the Holy Name. Listeners say all this experience, service attitude and austerity can be felt in what some are calling “his finest work to date.”
A 2-minute short film entitled “Transit Point” featuring Hungarian ISKCON devotees taking care of refugees arriving from war-torn Syria is among the best ten in the video contest run by Faith Counts, an American multi-faith organization with mission is to promote the value of faith.
Artists at all levels who want to connect with their creative and devotional sides, and experience bhakti through art, are welcome to attend the upcoming Transcendental Art Seminar at Bhaktivedanta College, Radhadesh. Running from August 21st to September 2nd, the seminar will be taught by classically trained husband and wife team Dhriti Dasi and Ram Das Abhirama Das.
Most editions of the epic devotional classic the Ramayana that you pick up will give a major focus only on the male characters, such as Rama, Lakshman and Hanuman. Author Vrinda Sheth, whose book Queen of the Elements – the second in her Sita’s Fire trilogy – is out on August 8th, wanted to give readers a female perspective too.
The Museum of Sacred Art (MOSA) in Radhadesh, Belgium, is exhibiting the works of famous Indian mandala painter Om Prakash Sharma, whose meeting with Srila Prabhupada left an impact on him. Now 85 years old, Om Prakash has had a long and productive career including serving as Dean at the Delhi College of Art for over a decade. He met Srila Prabhupada at Dr. Mishra’s yoga studio in New York in 1965.
This book by Bhurijana Das contains the essence of his years of teaching experience and his study of Srila Prabhupada’s instructions on education. Included are such topics as the importance of the mode of goodness in teachers and students, how to become self-disciplined, principles of organization and management, ideas for setting and achieving objectives, how to lead discussions, ask effective questions, listen, and counsel.
Documentary film Hare Krishna!, about the life and achievements of ISKCON Founder Srila Prabhupada, has won the coveted Jury Prize for Best Picture at Illuminate, the world’s premier conscious film festival. The festival ran from May 31st to June 4th in Sedona, Arizona.
A new book is being released this summer featuring the individual voices of 108 women in the Bhakti tradition. Over the last three years, Krishna Kanta Dasi—founder of the Vaishnavi Voices Poetry Project—has been collecting the poetry of vaishnavis, or female practitioners of bhakti, from all over the world to produce Bhakti Blossoms: A Collection of Contemporary Vaishnavi Poetry.
At the 2017 Religion Communicators Council (RCC) annual DeRose-Hinkhouse Memorial Awards ceremony in Chicago, Illinois on March 30th, ISKCON Communications won several awards for excellence in religion communications, including a Best of Class award for “The Joy of Devotion” film. “The Hare Krishnas: Celebrating 50 Years” magazine also won an award for excellence in overall design and a merit award for single-issue periodicals.
The 7thannual VIHE International Vaishnavi Retreat at Govardhana (India) concluded on March 26. The 6-day program, dedicated to celebrating Srila Prabhupada’s mercy upon womankind, had as its special theme “Windows to the Spiritual World”. The Bal Krsna Bhawan hall in the village of Jatipura, home of the original Gopala Temple of Srila Madhavendra Puri, was duly transformed to host an exhibition of over 60 reproductions of paintings and drawings by various vaishnavi artists from the world over, ranging from well-known BBT artists to young devotees from the St. Petersburg Art University.
Shri Radhe, the opening track of charity kirtan album “Bhakti Without Borders,” has been listed by Yoga Journal as one of the “10 Best Yoga Tunes of the Year.” The uplifting track, by second gen devotees Madi Das and Chaytanya, appears in the major magazine’s Spotify Playlist along with Tina Malia, Simrit, Deva Premal and others.
Jai Uttal, one of today’s best-loved and most popular kirtan artists, has released his latest album Roots Rock Rama! with Mantralogy, an ISKCON devotee-run record company that has also worked with The Mayapuris, Jahnavi Harrison, Gaura Vani and more.
Nineteen-year-old Kathak dancer Shyam Dattani, a devotee who attends Bhaktivedanta Manor, has won the South Asian category in the BBC Younger Dancer competition on BBC Four. Born and bred in London but of Gujarati origin, Shyam started learning Kathak at the astonishingly young age of two when he followed his older sister into class. “I’ve never stopped since,” he says. “I literally grew up with the art form, and use it as a language to express myself.”
