When instructing Yudhisthira, Narada said that in any endeavour, one must start with the end in mind. In our case, it is always the same, to please our Founder Acharya Srila Prabhupada. I am sure all parties in any ISKCON conflict share this aim and are convinced that their desired outcome would be most pleasing to him.

My name is Yuliia Mudrak, I am 25 years old, and I am from Ukraine. Before the war, I lived in Kyiv and worked as a certified preschool teacher. Unfortunately, many devotees had to leave their normal life in Ukraine due to the war. But at the same time, we’ve been able to see wonderful examples of devotees in other countries, who show great concern for us Ukrainian devotees.

A monastery is a place where the monks who are dedicated to cultivating spiritual life live as renunciants. Living in the association of like-minded persons who are similarly aspiring and dedicated to spiritual goals empowers a person to pursue this path which is considered challenging and glorious in our scriptures.

Q: What about becoming an organ or blood donor, or receiving blood transfusions? I myself am supposed to get bone grafting from "cadavers" for my teeth. How should we tackle this complicated subject? A: The good news is that you are not that body, and neither is the cadaver! From a broad Vedic perspective, our present conditional form can be considered as a biological machine, and most certainly in comparison to the quality of the individual jiva exhibiting consciousness while inhabiting that particular form. From a devotional Vaishnava perspective, the practitioner aspires to engage all things, understood as Krishna's energies, in a pleasing manner in His service.

Ahimsa means non-violent. Ahimsa dairies do not confine their herd to a building where they never see the sun and they are allowed natural behaviors such as living in a herd and chewing cud in a pasture. Ahimsa dairies do not slaughter the cow at the end of her milking days. When her milking days are past, she can live out her life in a pasture with other retired dairy cows. Milking is mostly done by hand rather than mechanically and dairy cows are not typically artificially inseminated on ahimsa dairy farms. Calves on ahimsa farms are allowed to stay with their mother and drink some of their mother’s milk rather than the milk substitute fed to calves on industrial farms. These calves are often allowed to naturally wean from their mothers.

After a series of minor scandals, Britain’s dauntless Prime Minister Boris Johnson has just survived a vote of confidence among his colleagues in Parliament. While he has hardly emerged unscathed, with around 40% of MP’s declaring their lack of confidence in his leadership, with his integrity still being questioned in many quarters, he will at least remain in the top job for the time being. Of course, he insists he has done nothing wrong beyond the occasional oversight, but the shadow remains, and it does little to improve public cynicism toward our leaders. 

'Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.' This is the worn-out phrase used by politicians who can’t offer solutions to curtail the level of violence in this country. When mass school shootings started, the politicians were probably hoping that it was just a fluke and that the problem would go away by itself. We are witnessing a leadership that is unable, or unwilling, to do anything about this crisis, and the steadfast refusal of many to seriously discuss the issue.

Are animals persons? And what does it mean to define an animal as a person? Personhood is a legal concept expanding far beyond biological humans. It is broad enough to not only pertain to humans, it also includes natural monuments and corporations. Under the law, animals are considered things, and property, and are provided little to no legal protection from being used by many as a means to an end. For ethical and legal reasons everything is categorized as a person or a thing. Legally a person is subject to duties and appanages, whereas a thing is considered property. Morally a person is valued for their own sake, and a thing is valued for what can be derived from it. So, what about sentient beings who are considered property? These beings are cognizant and feel both fear and joy.

“It is by the goodness of God that we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them,” wrote Mark Twain. Wise words from the esteemed author, although some of us may well doubt their wisdom, among them Mr. Elon Musk, who just purchased Twitter for a spectacular sum, vowing to make it a platform for “free speech”.