Largest Group Yet Passes Bhakti Sastri Online Amid COVID-19 Lockdowns
For many years, Bhakti Sastri has been offered in person by organizations such as the Mayapur Institute for Higher Eductation (MIHE). Amid COVID-19 lockdowns around the world, however, a team led by GBC and ISKCON guru Bhakti Chaitanya Swami taught the course online, resulting in the largest number of graduates from one cycle of Bhakti Sastri yet.
Many devotees who are very dear to me have physically departed from this world due to the Covid-19 virus. This breaks my heart.
In Gujrat, India ISKCON Vadodara aka Baroda has hosted the first ISKCON organized COVID-19 vaccine clinic on April 6th, 2021. The clinic was hosted at the temple’s basement hall, with the first dose of vaccination completed for 160 people during the clinic’s 11am-5 pm hours.
I was neutral, ambivalent and uncommitted about getting a vaccination for COVID-19. On one hand, the available vaccines have been well tested and shown highly effective. On the other hand, they have not had the benefit of long-term testing, the kind that goes on for years. We do not know how long their effectiveness will last, how effective they may be against variants, and what side effects might show up in the long term.
The GBC has encouraged devotees for many months to take all precautions necessary to protect their health. This includes wearing masks, social distancing, limiting visitors to temples, providing hand sanitizers, and following government guidelines and mandates.
Is COVID-19 real? How do the vaccines work? Are the vaccines safe and effective? Are there sinister motives behind the vaccination? As devotees, are they to depend on medical science, or Krishna? Devotee medical professionals answer these questions on the GBC's Strategic Planning Team's live Facebook event on February 12th.
Krishna CARES delivered sixty meals to the Ronald McDonald House charity in Gainesville, Florida this past Christmas Day. The special Christmas meals consisted of creamy Gauranga potatoes, quinoa, butternut squash soup, and salad with dressing.
Although 2020 has been a tough year for us all, some have discovered silver linings amidst the challenges. When ISKCON New Vrindaban, West Virginia went into a two-week lockdown on Thanksgiving Day to keep the community safe, two women from opposite sides of the world found themselves in an unexpected quarantine.
H.H. Jayapataka Swami has tested positive for Covid-19 this evening. At the moment he does not have any symptoms but the doctors and the Seva-Committee are having an emergency meeting to decide on a plan of action for treatment and if it is necessary to move Guru Maharaja to a hospital.
About two weeks ago, Brahmananda Puri, one of the seniormost Russian-speaking Vaishnavas, was hospitalized with pneumonia as a result of COVID-19.
The devotees quickly adapted to the new normal, and are now connected and bonded like never before.
The coronavirus pandemic, which has now claimed over 276,000 lives in the United States, and 1.5 million around the world, continues to be a major health threat. And ISKCON temples have not been immune to the challenge.
In these tough times, devotee-run charity Food For All is distributing 5,000 packaged prasadam meals a day in London, and about 200 daily each from fourteen other small centers around the country.
In this unprecedented period in the world’s history where health has been come a constant source of concern, a pure devotee can give us some secrets of health.
The lives of our devotees are too precious, and we must not adapt to any relaxed approaches to this serious health risk.
“The doctors had warned us that there was a high probability of Maharaja being paralyzed in the event of a surgery, even if successful,” says Rishi Kumara Das on behalf of Bhakti Madhurya Govinda Goswami’s Health Care Team.
On Saturday the 24th of October, 2020 at approximately 5 pm Indian Standard Time, His Grace Jasomatinandana Prabhu left this planet. He had been hospitalized with Covid-19 for nearly two weeks and was in the city of Ahmedabad, India; he passed away today due to cardiac arrest.
Senior Russian ISKCON sannyasi Nitai Chaitanya Goswami Maharaja was hospitalized on September 25th with COVID-19, and passed away around noon on October 14th in the city of Kursk, Russia. He was 70 years old.
With a second wave expected in the fall and winter, Nila Madhava Das (Dr. Neeraj Verma), a practicing anesthesiologist who was part of the COVID-19 team at Sinai Hospital and Northwest Hospital in Maryland, USA, has also weighed in on how the coronavirus works.
Temple President Yadunandana Swami writes, “Considering that several devotees have tested positive for COVID-19, the Board of Directors and the Council of Department Leaders have decided to close Nueva Vrajamandala to the public most probably until the end of October."
