ISKCON Australia’s First Community Services Conference
Presenters at the conference were devotees who are developing Vaishnava community welfare services including mentoring, counseling, mental health support, youth support, widows support, palliative care and caring for the sick, women’s support, social justice and more. The conference was attended by just under 100 devotees.
As ISKCON UK anniversaries come thick and fast, Govinda’s Pure Vegetarian Restaurant in London is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, snapping up a steady flow of awards and celebrity endorsements and changing more than a few lives along the way.
Lil’ Krishna Kidz is a spiritual enrichment program that offers Krishna Conscious teaching and activities to kids in a fun-filled atmosphere.
Day Two of the European Communications Conference began with a very relevant and hard-hitting talk by Willy Fautre of Human Rights Without Frontiers. Next was an enlivening discussion where ISKCON leaders from across Europe and the US shared their experiences of using advocacy, engaging with politicians and examples of when this has been successful.
A lifetime dream is finally being fulfilled as Prabhupada disciple Mahendranath Das captains his Sailing Temple, “The Jai Nimai Nitai,” 16,000 nautical miles from Mississippi, USA to Mayapur, India.
Food For Life London, which has been feeding hot vegetarian meals to the homeless since 1994, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year with its first ever “Walk Against Hunger.”
Around sixty devotees from across Europe and the US have gathered in New Vrajamandala in Spain, to participate in the European Communications Conference running from 27th - 30th May.
Two to three thousand devotees are expected to pack out the Art of Living Retreat Center in Boone, North Carolina this weekend for Sadhu Sanga, ISKCON North America’s biggest kirtan retreat.
Despite the great efforts of and protests by hundreds of thousands of activists, and despite the countless promises by present and previous Indian governments, so far, there has not been any improvement in the Yamuna’s condition.
"The opening of the Radha-Krishna Temple was a historic occasion for the bhakti-yoga tradition – a long-standing order of the previous spiritual teachers had been fulfilled.”
Chanting japa is one of the activities most central to Krishna consciousness. So every year for the past seven years, devotees from Kemerovo in Siberia, Russia, have put on a special Japa Retreat for both local Vaishnavas and those from surrounding areas.
This year over 4,000 people attended the event, also dubbed Festival of Colors, on Saturday May 4th. So many turned up, in fact, that offsite parking had to be arranged with buses to shuttle them back and forth.
The sacred city of Jagannath Puri was one of the worst hit, with 25 deaths. According to ISKCON devotee Madhavananda Das, who runs Gopal Jiu Publications from Puri, no ISKCON devotees were killed or seriously injured.
Twelve hundred devotees from all over India and the rest of the world, as well as thousands of locals, gathered to celebrate the opening of a gorgeous new ISKCON temple in Rajkot, Gujarat. The festival was centered around Rama Navami and ran from April 12thto 14th.
A group of forty devotees have completed the first one-year GBC College Course in Latin America, which included online classes and two residential courses, preparing them to become ISKCON’s future leaders.
At each meeting over the past decade, volunteers from each tradition have presented a paper on a chosen topic, one sharing the Vaishnava perspective, and the other the Muslim perspective; followed by an open discussion.
Krishna Days, a new Facebook page launched this Gaura Purnima (March 2019), keeps followers up-to-date and informed on all Vaishnava sacred days.
On Saturday May 4th, a unique Rathayatra festival will take place in Texarkana, a city that sits on the state line between Arkansas and Texas
Around 150 devotees are expected to travel in from all over the USA as well as from Europe and other locations for the retreat, which will run Mother’s Day Weekend from May 10th to 12th.
As well as the kirtan procession, some fifteen boats filled with devotees glided across the Yamuna to Sringar Vat as the sun began to set.
Chatigram (Chattogram), Bangladesh, was blessed by the divine appearances of some of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabu's important eternal associates such as Sri Pundarika Vidyanidhi Thakur, Sri Basudev Dutta Thakur, Sri Mukunda Dutta Thakur, Sri Dhananjaya Pandit, and so many other great souls.
On Saturday March 23, 2019, ISKCON of Richmond received an inspiring visit from National Convenor for National Ganga Mission, Dr. Snehal Donde, who gave a talk entitled “The Agony of Rivers”.
Since 2016, the ISKCON Ministry for Cow Protection and Agriculture has been organizing farm conferences all over the world, to share best practices, create networks, and inspire new projects. Now the fruits are starting to show, with more exciting plans on the way.
The unique feature of this convention will be multiple panelists and presenters with experience in homeschooling.
Today there is a proliferation of different kirtan festivals all over the ISKCON world. But Germany’s Kirtan Simha is unique: a mystical experience centered around the Lord’s half-man, half-lion avatar Narasimhadeva.
