Excitement Builds for First Ever Men’s Retreat
Excitement is ramping up for “MAN-tra,” ISKCON’s first ever Men’s Retreat, to be held in New Vrindaban and headlined by Bhaktimarga Swami, Gaura Vani, and comedian Yadunath Das. The event is subtitled “Being a KC Guy in the 21st Century,” and is gathering hype as the place to be this fall.
A new temple dedicated to Ganga Devi has recently been constructed by ISKCON Mayapur's Ganga Mata Seva Committee, where a Deity of Ganga Devi is worshipped along with Deities of Sri Sri Gaura-Nitai. This temple is only the beginning, for the committee has plans to construct a larger and more opulent temple for the worship of Mother Ganga.
Over the past few years, the ISKCON Ministry for Cow Protection and Agriculture (IMCPA) has been bringing ISKCON farms together for biannual continental conferences. Now, the Ministry is beginning strategic planning meetings every other year, to foster team building.
Founded by Srila Prabhupada in 1974, Gita Nagari is an optimal setting to practice his vision of simple living, high thinking. It has 350 lush green acres, a vegetable garden, 80 protected cows, and its own dairy, all centered around the temple of Sri-Sri Radha Damodar.
The managers of the spiritual city of Mayapur are doing their best to keep the ISKCON premises clean from garbage waste.
SanctuaryAlachua is owned and managed by people from the Krishna community, however the house, services and classes are open to everyone in the Alachua community.
The art projects were distinct from most others. Students at Bhaktivedanta Academy of Alachua, FL, USA, had to use pieces of trash to create artwork weighing less than 50 pounds.
Run by Brazilian ISKCON Youth Secretary Vaikuntha Murti Das, and his wife Subhadra Dasi of ISKCON Education, the camp is now in its fourth year and has just reached a new milestone. This year, it opened its doors for youth outside of Brazil, with participants from Chile and Canada attending.
The tongue-in-cheek poster shows the host dressed in a suit and assuming an overly serious pose. And a fake testimonial calls it “Borderline Prajalpa.” But there’s a lot more depth to what might be ISKCON’s first video podcast show, and its host Namarasa Das, than at first may be evident.
For the past thirty-five years, the Bhaktivedanta Manor School in England has given children a loving Krishna conscious education, earning its moniker “The Small School With a Big Heart.” A year ago, the school moved into its own dedicated building. And now, with committed longtime head teacher Guru Charana Padma Dasi set to retire, it’s looking for a new principal to oversee its exciting next phase.
The Sri Surabhi App will serve mainly as a “friend raiser” involving devotees in various activities related to the OM Sri Surabhi Campaign as well as a “fund raiser” (to support local village/rural projects and campaign initiatives.
Lovers of spiritual inspiration may want to set a weekend aside this summer for the Heart of Yoga retreat, to be offered in New York for the sixth time from June 1st to 3rd. The event grew out of the Bhagavad-gita classes senior Prabhupada disciple Yogesvara Das taught at Jivamukti for ten years.
The 22-acre property, originally called Inis Rath, is ISKCON’s only temple on its own island. Located on the waters of Upper Lough Erne, Northern Ireland, resplendent with emerald green foliage in the summer and often shrouded in mists during the winter, it’s perfect for spiritual reflection and growth.
It seemed like Jason La Shard was living the dream. Born in Quebec, Canada to Kashubian parents (a Slavic ethnic region in Northern Poland), his incredible physical stature – 7 foot 1 with size 20 shoes – set up his destiny early on.
The Mayapur Goshala is a very peaceful and serene place, allowing anyone who comes to have a wonderful experience of offering service and worship.
Brazil's BHaktivedanta Institute became a pioneer for being possibly the first course of bhakti-yoga to use elements of “gamification”, application of game-design elements in its curriculum.
India’s tribal people are currently undergoing a crucial phase of identity crisis. ISKCON Mayapur's Tribal Care Initiative reaches out to the tribal communities of India, which comprise around 9% of India’s population – over 104 million people.
It’s not every day that you can say you went to hear a vegan Hare Krishna bodybuilder speak, but that’s exactly what students at the University of Southern California got to experience on November 13th.
Monks live on the outskirts of civilisation in isolation - completely dissociated from modern society, and instead engaged with spirituality and tranquility.
In the non devotional world, where sex is the norm, the divorce rate, in many nations, is around 50%. So from that angle, the answer is no, sex does not assure one a successful marriage. And within ISKCON, where sex is discouraged, some estimate divorce rates are even higher. So, that begs a much larger question.
New Orleans is known for its seafood and meat dishes, but the Good Karma Café – only the city’s second vegan eatery – is giving people a taste for prasadam, and could change hearts in the process.
A new bhakta director and youth preacher at ISKCON Juhu, Mumbai has been taking new devotees and their parents on spiritual retreats together. The results? Deeper relationships, and unfavorable parents becoming favorable to Krishna consciousness and in some cases taking up the path themselves.
Sri Radha Kunda manifested on the eighth day of the waning phase of the moon in the month of Kartik. This day is observed by bathing in the holy waters at midnight, which is said to be the time Radha Kunda manifested. At this time, thousands of devotees gather at the banks of Radha Kunda in Vrndavan.
The event showed how far ISKCON farms have come in networking and working together particularly over the last decade, with conferences now regularly organized in four continents by the GBC Ministry of Agriculture and Cow Protection. Because the ISKCON Farm Conference began in Europe in 2008, however, the 10th anniversary event focused on European farms.
Temple president Lalitanatha Das, who does most of the work in the garden himself by hand, grew up on a farm; later, he and his wife grew all their own fruits and veg for a decade while living in the countryside. Now serving in the city, he pays under $300 a year – less than 1 euro a day -- to rent a government-allotted plot of land five minutes’ walk from the temple.
