Iskcon Sydney: Workshop with HG Mahatma Das (Album with photos)
“Building Community together”
Srila Prabhupada: Devotee means very liberal and kind to everyone, always gentleman under all kinds of conditions of life. Letter to Hamsaduta, December 10, 1972.
Find them here: https://goo.gl/hvdEk1

Choosing to be a part of God’s life.
Ananda Devi Dasi: Every year a group of yoga students from America go to the gardens of a flower grower in Vrindavan (India), who produces large amounts of flowers for the garlands and decorations in the many temples there. This year, however, the gardens did not have much to show. Weather and other factors had wiped out the crop and the gardener, already poor by our standards, was even poorer. As they sat with him he was jovial, telling them stories of Krishna and his temple experiences. ‘How can you be so happy after so much loss?” they asked him. “That part of my life is a struggle, and this year will be hard,” he said. “But my relationship with Krishna has nothing to do with that. That’s always joyful.” Here, I thought, is wisdom in action. Rather than making God a part of his life (and struggle) he was choosing to be a part of God’s life. In other words, as we move along in the world, dealing with the ups and downs, we often lean on God, pray for help, find Him in our little universe, and even complain when we don’t think He is doing his part (i.e., fulfilling our desires). There is nothing wrong with this, and it’s better than not acknowledging His existence at all. Krishna is happy to help and be involved, as he was with Arjuna in the Gita’s battlefield. Yet as students of the science of bhakti yoga we learn that the true goal is to get to know Krishna who exists beyond our mundane life. If Krishna is a person, then He has a life, a place, and all kinds of relationships. The gardener gives us a clue. Instead of pulling God into our own little life, why not set that aside for a while, and start looking into God’s life? Talking time everyday to be in a relationship that has nothing to do with the karma of the world, nothing to do with who we are in this body, nothing to do with the present context of our life – that’s what the gardener was doing. Yes, I lost everything this year, he said, but not Krishna. He is always there. And that’s my joy. Let that be our joy too.

ISKCON Auckland New Zealand: Krishna Holi Festival 2016 (Album with photos)
Kalasamvara Das: Today thousands of guests turn up for a wonderful and colourful day at our annual Holi festival.
Find them here: https://goo.gl/TBVA1c

In a world shrunken by digital connections are we still nourishing the right connections in our lives and in society? How can we get better connected spiritually ,with ourselves and with each other? Spiritual leader Radhanath Swami addresses these questions in this insightful talk. Radhanath Swami is a world renowned author, philanthropist and community builder. He has been a Bhakti Yoga practitioner and spiritual teacher for more than 40 years. He is the inspiration behind a free mid-day meal for 1.2 million school kids across India and he has been instrumental in founding the Bhaktivedanta Hospital in Mumbai. He has keynoted at Apple, Starbucks, Google and House of Lords. His work has led to meetings with U.S. President Barack Obama and India Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

February 15. ISKCON 50 – S.Prabhupada Daily Meditations.
Satsvarupa dasa Goswami: Moving Apartments.
February 15, 1966. Srila Prabhupada moved from 501, downstairs two floors to a room all his own.
“I have changed my room to 307, in the same building as mentioned, for better air and light. It is on the roadside junction of two roads, the Columbus Avenue and 72nd Street.”
According to Dr. Mishra, Prabhupada moved in order to have his own place, independent of the Mishra Yoga Society.
To read the entire article click here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=20490&page=5

By Gour Govinda Swami

Today we are observing Advaita Acarya’s appearance day, which is on saptami tithi in the month of Magha.
Advaita Acarya appeared first, then He made Mahaprabhu, Krishna, appear. By Advaita Acarya’s calling Krishna appeared. Therefore it is a very auspicious day so we should speak something on Srila Advaita Acarya and beg for His mercy. If He bestows His mercy on us then we can get Caitanya Nitai, otherwise we cannot.

He Is the Lord and the Incarnation of the Lord’s Devotee

First we should know who Advaita Acarya is. It is mentioned in Caitanya-caritamrta adi-lila,

maha-vishnur jagat-karta
mayaya yah srjaty adah
tasyavatara evayam
advaitacarya isvarah

“Lord Advaita Acarya is the incarnation of Maha-Vishnu, whose main function is to create the cosmic world through the actions of maya.” (Caitanya-caritamrta adi-lila 1.12)

advaitam harinadvaitad
acaryam bhakti-samsanat
bhaktavataram isam tam
advaitacaryam asraye

”Because He is non-different from Hari, the Supreme Lord, He is called Advaita, and because He propagates the cult of devotion, He is called Acarya. He is the Lord and the incarnation of the Lord’s devotee. Therefore I take shelter of Him.” (Caitanya-caritamrta adi-lila 1.13)

Gaura-ganoddesa-dipika states,

bhaktavatara acaryo’dvaito yah sri-sadasivah
(Gaura-ganoddesa-dipika 11)

That means Advaita Acarya is bhakta-avatara.

panca-tattvatmakam krshnam
bhakta-rupa-svarupakam
bhaktavataram bhaktakhyam
namami bhakta-saktikam (Caitanya-caritamrta Adi-lila 7.6)

“I offer my obeisances unto the Supreme Lord, Krishna, who is non-different from His features as a devotee, devotional incarnation, devotional manifestation, pure devotee and devotional energy.”

Advaita-Tattva

The panca-tattva is bhakta-rupa, bhakta-svarupa, bhakta-avatara, bhaktakhya and bhakti-sakti. Bhakta-rupa is Mahaprabhu in the form of a devotee. Bhakta-svarupa is Nityananda. Bhakta-avatara is Advaita Acarya. Bhaktakhya is Srivasa and bhakta-sakti is Gadadhara; panca-tattva. Gaura-ganoddesa-dipika states, bhaktavatara acaryo’dvaito yah sri-sadasivah. Advaita Acarya is bhaktavatara and He is also Sadasiva, Sadasiva Maha-Vishnu avatara. When we say Maha-Vishnu avatara then Sadasiva comes. This is Advaita Acarya. This is advaita-tattva. Advaita Acarya is such a devotee that He made Krishna descend here.

Santipura-Natha

Advaita Acarya’s father’s name was Kuvera Misra and His mother’s name was Srimati Nabhadevi. They were first living in Srihatta. Kuvera Pandita, the father of Advaita Acarya, had no son for a very long period. In his old age he got this son Advaita Acarya. In Srihatta district there was a village named Nava-grama. That is the birthplace of Advaita Acarya. He appeared on this day in the month of Magha saptami, on the seventh day of the bright fortnight, Magha sukla saptami.
After that Kuvera Pandita wanted to go and stay on the bank of the Ganges. He left and shifted his residence from the bank of the Ganges to Santipura. Santipura is now famous as Advaita’s dhama, patha. He is also called Santipura-natha, Lord of Santipura.
When Kuvera Pandita performed the nama-karana, name giving ceremony, of his son, he gave one name Mangala and another name Kamalakna, but why is He called Advaita Acarya we quoted already from Caitanya-caritamrta.

The Two Wives of Advaita Acarya

Advaita Acarya’s father and mother disappeared when he was very young. Feeling very distressed he went on pilgrimage visiting many, many holy places. When He came back, some of His relatives requested Him to marry. Therefore, at the request of the relatives He was willing to marry. At that time one very pious orthodox brahmana was living there whose name was Nrsimha Vaduri. He had two daughters; their names were Sri and Sita. They were both very beautiful and Advaita Acarya married both of them. Thus Advaita Acarya had two wives; Sri and Sita. Sita Thakurani is famous. Advaita Acarya is also famous as Sita-natha or Sita-pati because the name of His wife was Sita Thakurani. Sita Thakurani is an incarnation of Yogamaya, and Sri devi is a manifestation of Yogamaya. Advaita Acarya is a Maha-Vishnu avatara and in Maha-Vishnu there is Sadasiva therefore we call Him Sadasiva avatara.

I Am Dependent on My Bhakta

When Advaita Acarya grew up, He saw how the people of this Kali-yuga are suffering and He could not tolerate it. He thought, “I must make Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, appear here.” Who can make the Supreme Lord appear? It is stated, bhaktera icchaya krshnera sarva avatara Cc Adi 3.112], and bhaktecchopatta-rupaya, [Bhag. 10.59.25] by the desire of His dear devotee the Lord appears. No one can make the Lord appear. He is not our order carrier. However He has said, aham bhakta-paradhino. One who is His very dear devotee, intimate devotee, prema-bhakti, Krishna said, “I am dependent on him. I have no independence.” Though He is supremely independent.
In Bhagavad-gita Krishna has said, mattah parataram nanyat kincid asti dhananjaya [Bg.7.7], “O Dhananjaya, Arjuna, there is no one superior to Me.” Ekale isvara krshna, ara saba bhrtya, Krishna is the only isvara. All others are His servants, but that Krishna is bhakta-vatsala because He is very dear to His devotees, and a prema-bhakti can bind Him with the rope of love. Therefore it is said in the ninth canto of Srimad Bhagavatam,

aham bhakta-paradhino
hy asvatantra iva dvija
sadhubhir grasta-hrdayo
bhaktair bhakta-jana-priyah

The Supreme Personality of Godhead said to the brahmana: I am completely under the control of My devotees. Indeed, I am not at all independent. Because My devotees are completely devoid of material desires, I sit only within the core of their hearts. What to speak of My devotee, even those who are devotees of My devotee are very dear to Me. (Srimad-Bhagavatam 9.4.63)

He said this to Durvasa Muni, “I have no independence”. He, who is supremely independent, says, “I have no independence. I am bhakta-paradhino, I am dependent on My bhakta. What My bhakta says I do.” So what a dear devotees says Krishna does. If a dear devotee says, “Please come down here”, then He comes down here. Bhaktera bhaktera icchaya krshnera sarva avatara, all incarnations are there by the will of a bhakta [Cc Adi 3.112], and this is also mentioned in the verse bhaktecchopatta-rupaya paramatman namo ‘stu te. [SB 10.59.25] Thus, without the call of His dear devotee Goloka-bihari, Purna-brahma Krishna will never descend here. He never comes here for ordinary reasons.

yada yada hi dharmasya
glanir bhavati bharata
abhyutthanam adharmasya
tadatmanam srjamy aham

paritranaya sadhunam
vinasaya ca dunkrtam
dharma-samsthapanarthaya
sambhavami yuge yuge
(Bhagavad-gita 4.7-8)

In the Bhagavad-gita Krishna has said, “When there is a rise of irreligion and when bhagavata-dharma is declining, miscreants, demons are rising and sadhus, bhaktas are persecuted, at that time I descend to kill the miscreants and protect the sadhus and establish bhagavata-dharma.” For that purpose His incarnation descends.

Advaita Acarya Was Crying in His Heart

At one time all the demigods headed by Brahma, went to the bank of knira-sagara, the milk ocean, and offered prayers to Krishna. By their prayers Krishna appeared. Similarly, by the prayers of Advaita Acarya, Prema Purunottama Gauranga Mahaprabhu appeared in this material world and manifested His lila. Advaita Acarya could not tolerate the suffering of the jivas of Kali-yuga. He was crying in His heart. Therefore He thought, “I must make the Supreme Lord Krishna appear here”.

advaita-acarya gosani saknat isvara
yanhara mahima nahe jivera gocara

“Sri Advaita Acarya is indeed directly the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself. His glory is beyond the conception of ordinary living beings.” (Caitanya-caritamrta Adi-lila 6.6)

advaita-acarya koti-brahmandera karta
ara eka eka murtye brahmandera bharta

“Sri Advaita Acarya is the creator of millions and millions of universes, and by His expansions [as Garbhodakasayi Vishnu] He maintains each and every universe.” (Caitanya-caritamrta Adi-lila 6.21

He is isvara [the controller], He is non-different from Hari therefore He is advaita [oneness, non-dual]. Here it says, [referring to Cc Adi 1.12-13 above] “Advaita Acarya, because He is non-different from Hari, the Supreme Lord, He is called Advaita, and because He propagates the cult of devotion, He is called Acarya”. Therefore he is called Advaita Acarya. Caitanya-caritamrta states the same, advaita-acarya gosani saknat isvara, because He is non-different from Hari, saknat isvara. Yanhara mahima nahe jivera gocara, ordinary jivas cannot understand the glory of Advaita Acarya.

He Made a Wonderful Promise

Maha-Vishnu avatara, He is an incarnation of Maha-Vishnu, and therefore He could feel the pains of the jivas here because all jivas come from Maha-Vishnu. He was a Maha-Vishnu avatara, and He could feel the suffering and pain of the kali-hata jiva. He observed that there was no bhakti in Kali-yuga and therefore He promised, “I must make Krishna appear to propagate bhakti”.

karaimu krshna sarva-nayana-gocara
tabe se ‘advaita’-nama krshnera kinkara!

“I will make Krishna appear before the eyes of all, then this person named “Advaita” will be known as the servant of Krishna. (Caitanya Bhagavata. Adi-khanda 11.64)

Advaita Acarya promised, “I must make Krishna appear here and show Krishna to every one. If I do not, then I will not be known by the name Advaita Acarya, krshnera kinkara, the servant of Krishna.” He made this promise. It is a wonderful promise. Who can make such a promise? Only because He is such a dear devotee He can make Krishna appear. Otherwise no one can make Krishna appear.

“If I cannot make Krishna appear here, if I cannot make Him manifest here, and cannot show Him to all the people of Kali-yuga, My name is not Advaita Acarya. Then I’ll give up this name.” He made such a promise, a very strong promise. This is a very wonderful promise. No one has ever heard of such a promise. No one has made such a promise.

He Worshipped salagrama-sila with Tulasi and Ganga-Jala

So every day He was offering worship to salagrama-sila with tulasi leaf and ganga-jala, and uttering the name of Krishna, crying, crying, and crying.
In Caitanya-caritamrta there is a verse quoted from Gautamiya-tantra vacana,

tulasi-dala-matrena jalasya culukena va
vikrinite svam atmanam bhaktebhyo bhakta-vatsalah

“Sri Krishna, who is very affectionate toward His devotees, sells Himself to a devotee who offers Him merely a tulasi leaf and a palmful of water.” (Caitanya-caritamrta adi-lila 3.104)

Every day He was offering tulasi leaf and a palmful of ganga-jala, Ganges water. So He thought of this and He deliberated on this. He said,

ei slokartha acarya karena vicarana
krshnake tulasi-jala deya yei jana
tara rna sodhite krshna karena cintana —
‘jala-tulasira sama kichu ghare nahi dhana’

“Advaita Acarya considered the meaning of the verse in this way: “Not finding any way to repay the debt He owes to one who offers Him a tulasi leaf and water, Lord Krishna thinks, ‘There is no wealth in My possession that is equal to a tulasi leaf and water.” Caitanya-caritamrta Adi-lila 3.105-106

tabe atma veci’ kare rnera sodhana
eta bhavi’ acarya karena aradhana

“Thus the Lord liquidates the debt by offering Himself to the devotee.” Considering in this way, the Acarya began worshiping the Lord. (Caitanya-caritamrta Adi-lila 3.107)

Every day He was worshipping the Lord in the form of salagrama-sila with tulasi leaf and ganga-jala, Ganges water, crying, crying, crying and uttering the name of Krishna and calling in a roaring voice, “Please come down! Please come down!”

His Call Entered the Spiritual Sky

One of Advaita Acarya’s names is Nada. One day Mahaprabhu said “Nadair-hunkara.” Hunkara means “roaring voice”. “With a roaring voice Nada, Advaita Acarya, called Me. My seat shook in My eternal abode so I couldn’t stay there; I had to come down here. He made Me come down.”
Krishna also had the desire to come down again to teach bhakti. Yoga-maya manifests all lilas. So antaranga-sakti, Yoga-maya, was waiting for Advaita Acarya’s call, “Let Advaita Acarya call.” Advaita Acarya was calling Him every day with a roaring voice, while offering worship to salagrama-sila. His call penetrated the seven layers of this material universe, entered into the spiritual sky and went to Goloka Vrndavana. Upon hearing this lila-sutra-dhari, Yoga-maya thought, “Advaita Acarya is calling. Now I must make Krishna appear as Gaura.” Therefore Prema Purunottama Gauranga Mahaprabhu appeared. This is one of the reasons of Gaura’s appearance.

Sitanatha Made Krishna Appear

Bhaktera icchaya krshnera sarva avatara [Cc Adi 3.112]; bhaktecchopatta-rupaya [Bhag. 10.59.25], by the will of His devotee Krishna appears. Who can make Krishna appear? A dear devotee can make Krishna appear. Who is bhakta-vatsala? Who is very dear? Advaita Acarya is so dear. He is bhakti-avatara. He is a very intimate devotee. Therefore He, Sitanatha, made Krishna appear.
Mahaprabhu appeared with His dhama, with His associates in this material world. When Mahaprabhu appeared in Nadia as the son of Jagashnatha Misra and Saci-mata, while staying at Santipura, Advaita Acarya could understand, “Yes, Mahaprabhu has appeared.” He first sent his wife Sita Thakurani to Navadvipa, Mayapur, to Jagashnath Misra’s house. After that He Himself came and saw the child. In Caitanya-caritamrta it is mentioned,

bhaknya, bhojya, upahara, sange la-ila bahu bhara,
saci-grhe haila upanita
dekhiya balaka-thama, saknat gokula-kana,
varna-matra dekhi viparita

“When Sita Thakurani came to the house of Sacidevi, bringing with her many kinds of eatables, dresses and other gifts, she was astonished to see the newborn child, for she appreciated that except for a difference in colour, the child was directly Krishna of Gokula Himself.” (Caitanya-caritamrta Adi-lila 13.115)

He is saknat gokula-krshna, Krishna directly from Gokula except for a difference in His complexion; instead of black He is gaura. That it stated. So this saknat gokula-hari, Gokulanatha Hari, only has a different complexion; He is gaura-varna. When Advaita Acarya Prabhu saw Him He became very, very happy. “Yes, My desire is fulfilled. I made Krishna appear.”
In Caitanya-bhagavata also it is mentioned,

ye pujara samaye ye deva dhyana kare
taha dekhe cari-dige caranera tale

Those demigods that are meditated on at the time of worship were all seen surrounding the lotus feet of the Lord. (Caitanya-bhagavata, Madhya-khanda 6.86)

My Birth and Activities Are Crowned with Success

When Advaita Acarya looked at the child He saw the same child that He had been meditating upon, while He was daily offering worship to salagrama-sila with ganga-jala and tulasi leaf. “Yes, Krishna has appeared.” He also saw in His meditation all the demigods who were offering prayers to that Supreme Lord. Seeing this, Advaita Acarya became very much ecstatic, blissful and said,

“aji se saphala mora dina parakasa
aji se saphala haila yata abhilana

aji mora janma-karma sakala saphala
saknate dekhilun tora carana-yugala

ghone matra cari vede, yare nahi dekhe
hena tumi mora lagi’ haila parateke
Caitanya-bhagavata Madhya-kandha 6.100-102

”Today My life has become successful.” Advaita Acarya said, “Because I saw My beloved Lord. Today all My desires were fulfilled.” aji mora janma-karma sakala saphala, “Today My birth and My activities are all crowned with success.” saknate dekhilun tora carana-yugala, “I have directly seen Your lotus feet, O My beloved Lord.” Ghone matra cari vede, yare nahi dekhe, hena tumi mora lagi’ haila parateke, “In the four Vedas His glories are described, but no one sees Him. Yet today I have seen Him. He has appeared O, My dear Lord, for Me.”

Advaita Acarya Worships Sriman Mahaprabhu

Mahaprabhu asked Acarya, “O, Acarya You offer worship to Me.” Then Advaita Acarya offered worship at the lotus feet of Sriman Mahaprabhu. This is mentioned in Caitanya-bhagavata,

prathame carana dhui’ suvasita jale
sene gandhe paripurna pada-padme dhale

“He first washed the lotus feet of the Lord with fragrant water and then smeared them with sandalwood paste.” Caitanya-bhagavata Madhya-kandha 6.106

candane dubai’ divya tulasi-manjari
arghyera sahita dila carana-upari

“He dipped tulasi-manjaris in the sandalwood paste and placed them and the ingredients of arghya on the Lord’s lotus feet.” (Caitanya-bhagavata Madhya-kandha 6.107)

gandha, punpa, dhupa, dipa, panca upacare
puja kare prema-jale vahe asru-dhare

“He worshipped the Lord with five ingredients like sandalwood paste, flowers, incense, and ghee. As He worshipped the Lord, tears of love flowed from His eyes.”

panca-sikha jvali’ punah karena vandana
sene ‘jaya-jaya’-dhvani karaye ghonana

“He offered a lamp with five ghee wicks and again offered prayers. Finally He loudly chanted, ‘Jaya! Jaya!’. ”

While shedding tears of love, prema-asru, He offered puja, lit panca-pradipa and offered arati. In this way He worshiped baby Gaura Hari. Advaita Acarya Prabhu offered worship to the lotus feet of Sri Gaura Hari according to scriptural evidences and scriptural methods.

Advaita Acarya’s Prayers to Mahaprabhu

At last He offered these prayers to Mahaprabhu, which are all mentioned in Caitanya-bhagavata:

jaya jaya sarva-prana-natha visvambhara
jaya jaya gauracandra karuna-sagara

jaya jaya bhakata-vacana-satyakari
jaya jaya mahaprabhu maha-avatari

jaya jaya sindhu-suta-rupa-manorama
jaya jaya srivatsa-kaustubha-vibhunana

jaya jaya ‘hare-krshna’-mantrera prakasa
jaya jaya nija-bhakti-grahana-vilasa

jaya jaya mahaprabhu ananta-sayana
jaya jaya jaya sarva-jivera sarana
(Caitanya-bhagavata Madhya-kandha 6.114-118)

He offered this prayer unto Mahaprabhu. Jaya jaya sarva-prana-natha visvambhara His name is Visvambhara. All glories to Visvambhara, who is the life and soul of all jivas. Jaya jaya gauracandra karuna-sagara, all glories to Gauracandra, who is an ocean of mercy.
Jaya jaya bhakata-vacana-satyakari, all glories to He who makes the words of His devotees come true. That is Krishna’s thought, “When My devotee has promised to make Me appear, I must appear. If I won’t appear, then the words of My devotees will be false. Then no one will be My devotee.” Therefore He makes His dear devotee’s words come true. Jaya jaya mahaprabhu maha-avatari, “You are the source of all avataras.” Because He is Krishna and Krishna is the source of all avataras.
Jaya jaya sindhu-suta-rupa-manorama. Sindhu-suta means Laknmidevi. He is as beautiful as Laknmidevi; very beautiful. Jaya jaya srivatsa-kaustubha-vibhunana, “On His chest is srivatsa-kaustubha.”
Jaya jaya ‘hare-krshna’-mantrera prakasa, “Who spoke the hare-krshna maha-mantra. That Mahaprabhu, let Him be glorified.” Jaya jaya nija-bhakti-grahana-vilasa, “Who came to teach His own bhakti-yoga, let Him be glorified.”
Jaya jaya mahaprabhu ananta-sayana, “Who lies on the bed of Ananta-naga. That is Mahaprabhu, jaya jaya.” Jaya jaya jaya sarva-jivera sarana, “At whose lotus feet all jivas take shelter, let that Mahaprabhu be glorified.”
So these are His jaya-gana [songs of glorification]. In this way Advaita Acarya Prabhupada offered many prayers at the lotus feet of Sri Gaurasundara.

Advaita Acarya’s Boon

In this way He was offering worship and prayers to baby Gaura. Much talking was going on between Advaita Acarya and Gaurasundara. When the baby was talking, no one else would say anything. Gaurasundara laughed and said, “O Acarya, I am very much pleased with Your prayers. You may ask for a boon.” It is also mentioned in Caitanya-bhagavata that Advaita Acarya asked for this boon:

advaita balaye, — yadi bhakti bilai
bastri-sudra-adi yata murkhere se diba
(Caitanya-bhagavata Madhya-lila 6.167)

Advaita Acarya said, “All right. Please grant Me this boon: You should give bhakti to one and all; stri, women, sudras, to those who are most ignorant fools and to those who are most degraded. Please give bhakti to one and all. Please give Me this boon. Let it be granted.” When Advaita Acarya asked for this boon Mahaprabhu granted it. When He accepted Advaita Acarya’s prayer and granted it, His very intimate devotees could understand that this boon was granted. At that time, simultaneously they said, “Haribol! Haribol! Haribol!”

Gaurahari is karuna-sagara, an ocean of mercy, karuna-maya, merciful. He makes true what His bhakta has said, bhakta-vacana-satyakari. To those who are dina hina papi panandi, He offered that prema. Brahmara durlabha prema saba kare yache patita pamara nahi bache, it is not an easy thing even on the part of Brahma to obtain it. Mahaprabhu offered that prema, krshna-prema, which is such a rare attainment, indiscriminately to all patitas (fallen), pamaras (the most degraded souls), papis (sinful men), panandis (atheists), dina (distressed) and hina (inferior). Thus it is by the calling of Santipura-natha, Santipura-pati Advaita Acarya, that Mahaprabhu appeared.
Therefore His appearance day is a very, very auspicious day.

Jaya karuna-maya Santipura-pati Advaita Acarya Prabhu ki jaya!
Jaya karuna-maya Santipura-pati Advaita Acarya Prabhu ki jaya!
Jaya karuna-maya Santipura-pati Advaita Acarya Prabhu ki jaya!

Please shower Your mercy on us most degraded jivas. O Advaita Acarya Prabhu, if You shower Your mercy on us then we can get Gaura and Nitai. Otherwise what is the value of our life?
So on this day we must offer prayers at the lotus feet of karuna-maya, the most merciful Lord of Santipura, Sri Sri Advaita Acarya.

This is only a brief summary about Advaita Acarya Prabhu’s life. At last we offer some prayers unto Him. So we will sing a song by Locana dasa Thakura glorifying Advaita Acarya. If you do not sing it, you cannot relish it. Therefore you should all sing it.

(1)
jaya jaya advaita acarya dayamaya
yara huhunkare gaura avatara haya

Hunkara means roaring call. With thunderous voice He was calling, “Please, please come down, please!” Yara huhunkare gaura avatara haya, by whose roaring call Gaura appeared.

(2)

prema-data sita-natha karuna-sagara
yara prema-rase a-ila gauranga nagara

The bestower of prema Sitanatha, the husband of Sita Thakurani, is an ocean of mercy, by whose loving mellow the all-merciful Gauranga Mahaprabhu came down.

(3)

yahare karuna kari krpa dithe caya
prema-rase se-jana caitanya-guna gaya

Sriman Mahaprabhu came down here and bestowed His mercy on Advaita Acarya Prabhu. If one is fortunate to get the mercy of Advaita Acarya then he will be able to glorify Caitanya Mahaprabhu.

(4)

tahara padete yeba la-ila sarana
se-jana pa-ila gaura-prema-maha-dhana

One who takes shelter at the lotus feet of Advaita Acarya is very fortunate and will definitely get gaura-prema, which is an invaluable asset.

(5)

emana dayara nidhi kene na bhajilum
locana bale nija mathe bajara padilum

Emana dayara nidhi, Advaita Acarya Prabhu is such an ocean of mercy. I am such a rascal. I am not doing the bhajana of Advaita Acarya. One who does not do the bhajana of Advaita Acarya, who is the ocean of mercy, Locana dasa Thakura says, bale nija mathe bajara padilum, “He puts a thunderbolt on his own head.”

This is a song written by Locana dasa Thakura glorifying Advaita Acarya Thakura.

Jaya karuna-maya Santipura-pati Sri Sri Advaita Acarya Prabhu ki jaya!
Jaya karuna-maya Santipura-pati Sri Sri Advaita Acarya Prabhu ki jaya!
Jaya karuna-maya Santipura-pati Sri Sri Advaita Acarya Prabhu ki jaya!
Advaita Acarya Prabhu ki subha avirbhava-tithi ki jaya!
Advaita Acarya Prabhu ki subha avirbhava-tithi ki jaya!
Samaveta bhakta vrnda ki jaya!
Gaura-premanande hari hari bol!

Ecstatic Ratha Yatra Festival in St.Kilda Beach-Melbourne (Album with photos)
Srila Prabhupada: If one hears a person say even once the word “Krishna” that person should be accepted as the best man out of the common group. (Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, Madhya-lila, 15, 106)
Find them here: https://goo.gl/OIdf2F

Ekachakra deity installation maha Abhishek 2016 during the inauguration Festival of the new historical Iskcon temple of Lord Nityananda Prabhu at Ekachakra Dham on 14th Feb. 2016 (Album with photos)
“EKACHAKRA”: “EKA” means one and “CHAKRA” means wheel; this place is named “Ekachakra” because this is the place where the chariot-wheel fell, the one which Lord Sri Krishna took to kill Bhismadeva on the Battle of Kurukshetra. Ekachakra is the birthplace of Lord Nityananda (Nitai).
Ekachakra is located 165km north-west of Mayapur and is easily assessable by car or bus. Ekachakra village extends north and south for an area of about eight miles. Other villages, namely Viracandra-pura and Virabhadra-pura, are situated within the area of the village of Ekachakra.
Arjuna Das: I was there for the opening of the new temple at Ekachakra. The temple is very beautiful.
Find them here: https://goo.gl/YgSiSV

Take up a Mission - Inspirational Video - Akhandadi Prabhu.
Pandava Sena Alumni Monthly’s present Akhandadi das, a previous Temple President of Bhaktivedanta Manor who lead the Manor through the campaign. With decades of experience in service to God, he speaks to inspire the youth and corporates of PSena to Take up a mission!
Watch it here: https://goo.gl/p7DGrv

Jayapataka Swami's Health Update 15/02/16 (14:00 Mayapur time)
Jayapataka Swami is currently hospitalized in Durgapur, West Bengal after becoming unwell and requiring further medical support. At this moment we request devotees to pray intensively for his wellbeing.
Jayapataka Swami arrived in Ekachakra on the 13th of February to install the deities and inaugurate the new temple. This is a fabulous temple and is presided with gorgeous deities. Around 10,000 people attended. On the14th Feb morning he developed a mild fever, which eventually subsided but spiked again overnight, thus the need for hospitalization since this morning.
As you know, Jayapataka Swami’s overall health is generally fragile, so these situations do carry a high risk for him. The team of assistants is ensuring that he receives the best possible medical support available.
We promise to maintain the devotees informed according to how things progress. Meantime let’s unite efforts and request Lord Nrisimhadeva and Srila Prabhupada to kindly protect Jayapataka Swami.
Your servants, Jayapataka Swami’s Health Team

Canberra Rathayatra (Album with photos)
Ramai Swami: The Canberra devotees were asked to participate in the capital’s multicultural festival that lasted three days and had hundreds of stalls set up in Civic Square.
On the first day, there was a parade and the devotees were able to bring the Rathayatra cart from the Gold Coast and had the temple deities, Jagannatha, Baladeva and Subhadra Devi ride majestically through the city streets.
Find them here: http://goo.gl/IuoTGm

My name is Loka-guru Das from Bulgaria, a disciple of HH Prahladananda Swami. I’m writing concerning a health and preaching project we are developing with my elder brother Sudama Das and other devotees in Bulgaria and we would like to share it more among devotees.

In short, our father is a dietitian – health nutritionist, a disciple of a famous Bulgarian natural healer – Lidiya Kovacheva. He is into nutritional therapy and natural healing for more than 30 years and has helped thousands of people with different health problems and diseases. The last 4 years we are fully engaged, manage and develop the health center Vita Rama project.
The bases of our system is the healing nutrition, as well as physical exercises (yoga, walks, training and others), which work on the physical level, but also relaxation and meditation practices for the mind and consciousness (different mind games, interactive games and 2 times per week – kirtan meditation). We have everyday lectures on healthy eating (food choice, combination, right preparations and 1 culinary demonstration), physical exercises and yoga, as well as 1 lecture on bhakti yoga. We are doing our health programs in Bulgaria, on the Black Sea coast – in a remote from city place – sea and mountain – surrounded only by nature. You can check more about the center, the health programs, the team and the place on: www.vitarama.eu
On the website we also have different articles and recipes and in the next 2 weeks we will update the English website with all the latest recipes and articles published by Vita Rama in Bulgarian.

Until now we worked mainly with outside people, who have great results with weight loss, detox, but most of them with different kind of diseases as diabetes, cardiovascular, digestive and many other serious problems, even cancer and multiple sclerosis. We are devotees from 6 years and we complete the holistic approach of the health system by adding bhakti yoga in a outreach/loft preaching way, so we attract who is interested from our patients (and surprisingly many of them are great fans of Hare Krishna mantra and some even follow the process).
Some devotees have visited us before 3-4 years, but more and more do it in the last 2 years and we have very good results with them as well. We observe that many devotees are not living very healthy lifestyle (on physical level) and as a result they suffer many diseases, which is a great obstacle for the our devotional life and service. So we would like to share more what we are doing and our health programs for those who are interested. We are writing many articles and recipes and we can provide interesting and helpful information about nutrition and health.

Your servant,
Loka-guru Das

2016-02-12 Vrndavana parikrama and Javat and Ter-kadamba on Vasant-pancami 166 HR photos
Srila Prabhupada: It is not that one must chant at a certain time. No. At any time one may chant. Furthermore, Krishna’s name is identical with Krishna Himself. Therefore the holy name of Krishna is Krishna. (Teachings of Queen Kunti, 8, Purport).
Find them here: https://goo.gl/SfrFIV

By Bhagavan Das

The Radha Krishna campers in front of ISKCON Nova Gokula temple

Venice Maha Harinam 2016 (Album with photos)
The last 6th of February the devotees of the Prabhupada Desh’s community together with devotees from Milan and Florence held an ecstatic Harinama in the streets of Venice. Every year during this time thousands and thousands of people come to Venice to celebrate the famous Venice Carnival. And when the people in mask, who are there in a festive mood, meet the Harinama party begin to dance and chant happily with the devotees, thousands of prasadam cookies was distributed too.
The Venice Harinamas are always especially ecstatic. Next Venice Carnival’s Harinama will be February 25th, 2017, most welcome, who would like to participate please contact Prabhupada Desh’s site or facebook page. Jay Harinama Sankirtana Yajna Ki!!! Jay!!
Find them here: https://goo.gl/wxtBl8

By Prof. Keith Ward

Can a scholar be a true believer? Can a believer be a good scholar? Two parts of a problem that has exercised many in the West since at least the Enlightenment. Prof. Keith Ward, Regius Professor Emeritus of Divinity at the University of Oxford, takes a fresh look at the conundrum by examining some of the main problems and outlining a few principles that may help modern-day devotee-scholars.

Religion calls for total commitment and faith. Scholarship calls for critical reasoning and a questioning of all presuppositions. How then can religious devotion and academic scholarship live together, even in the same person?

It may seem impossible. There are those who say that simple faith is enough, and scholarship is a distraction from a life of devotion. There are others who say that the study of religions requires a lack of commitment, so that you can be dispassionate and detached about whatever findings you come up with. Are devotees who become scholars thus doomed to religious schizophrenia, with two halves of their minds, the committed and the sceptical, condemned never to meet?

Must critical reasoning lead to scepticism?

I have taught philosophy in British and American universities for forty years, and I have been a Christian devotee for thirty of them, and I have to say that it has sometimes felt that way. It is easy to be sceptical about other people’s faiths, but it is quite hard to be sceptical about your own. Anyway, why should you be sceptical? Can you not have a form of education that is purely affirming, and supports your faith?

In tackling questions like this, it must first be asked whether the use of critical reason is bound to lead to scepticism. It does not do so in physics, and that might be a good place to start thinking about the problem.

Learning the fundamentals

In physics, it would be totally false to say that everyone is encouraged from the start to criticise everything they hear. No, Newton’s laws are just true, and if any first year student tried to criticise them they would be thrown out of the class. The laws have been confirmed by thousands of observations and experiments and never disconfirmed (at least at speeds much less than the speed of light, and at magnitudes much greater than that of atoms). They are the basis of modern science, and students just have to learn them.

That is perhaps the first important point to make. Before you can criticise anything, you must have a great deal of correct information. If you are looking at physics, you need to learn the laws and equations of the great physicists, to know how to apply them and what they do and do not say. So, if you are looking at religion, you need to know what devotees believe, what significance those beliefs have for their lives, and what they do and do not imply about the world.

At this stage there is no threat to religious belief. Unfortunately, teachers of religion are sometimes so ill-informed that misleading information is given, and a great deal of prejudice can be conveyed. It is possible but quite difficult for someone who does not believe in rebirth to give a sensitive account of that doctrine. All too often over-simple accounts are given, and the teacher does not have the information or experience to know when the doctrine is much more sophisticated than the simple versions that are often found.

‘Skilful means’

This suggests a second point, that the information given must be suited to the intelligence or insight of the student, it must be at an appropriate level of sophistication, and the teacher must be able to identify the points at which it is being simplified to suit its audience, and at which more subtle doctrines exist that cannot as yet be meaningfully conveyed.

Again there is a parallel in physics, where quantum theory would never be taught to schoolchildren, yet teachers should be able to convey that it does exist, so that things are not as simple as the way they are forced to put them in primary school. Buddhists often apply the principle of ‘skilful means’, which says that you teach in a way that is best calculated to give an appropriate level of insight to the pupils. It is not that something is being concealed. It is just that some things can be beyond the understanding of pupils, and it is important to know just where simplifications are being made, even though what is being said is appropriate at a certain level of knowledge. As a matter of fact, when I just remarked that Newton’s laws were true, I was doing just that!

One of the main problems with religious education is that this principle of skilful means is not properly conveyed, so people with very simple understandings of religious doctrines wrongly think that what they believe is the absolute truth. This is where one problem between scholars and devotees can arise. Many devotees have no inclination or ability to engage in abstract thought about religious doctrines. They want to be wholly devoted to their Lord, without understanding abstruse points about rebirth or the nature of the self.

Of course they are absolutely right in saying that there is no IQ test for the attainment of liberation. For most faiths, liberation is by faith and moral commitment, not by the ability to pass an examination in theology. Yet it would be quite wrong to say that there are no intellectual truths in religion, or that it does not matter if nobody understands them.

All devotees depend on the insight of the primary gurus and teachers of their paths. They do not discover all spiritual truths for themselves, or ever attain to complete wisdom and understanding. Gurus have not obtained their qualifications by passing examinations in theology. But then they do not need to. They have immediate insight and transcendent wisdom, and know things by personal apprehension that devotees can only learn from them and dimly understand.

In physics, truths are discovered by observation and experiment. The physicist learns to observe closely and with discrimination, and to set up experiments that will disclose aspects of nature that are not always apparent in everyday life. In religion, truths are discovered by experience and practical experiments in living. Spiritual teachers have the ability to experience spiritual reality and to discriminate between reality and illusion. They live in ways that explore deep and intense relationships to the Spirit, ways of meditation and prayer, and in that way they apprehend aspects of spiritual life that are not apparent in everyday life.

Pointing to the real purpose of religion

There are similarities between ways of discovering truths in physics and in religion, but there is one major difference. Physicists are not inwardly changed by their discoveries, and they deal with objects in a publicly observable world. Religious teachers, however, are transformed by their experiences of Spirit, and they are raised to higher levels of existence by their relation to a reality that is most real but difficult to find.

Scholarship will not raise anyone to such levels of wisdom and sanctity. But what it can do is to raise our understanding of spiritual truths, which will always be inadequate, slightly higher. So a third principle of religious scholarship, in addition to receiving correct information about religious beliefs, and realising the points at which such information is inadequate to full understanding, is that it should point to the source of such information in the authoritative teaching of the founders of the tradition, and be concerned to understand that teaching as a source of personal insight and development. There should, in other words, be sensitivity to the real purpose of religion, which is the transformation of individual life by growth in knowledge of the Supreme Lord, or of that which is of ultimate reality and value. Any religious education that lacks that element is like a course in music that fails to get anyone to appreciate the beauty of music. Perhaps some courses in the study of religion are like that. But there is no reason why scholarship should lead to indifference. Scholars of music should love and appreciate music even more than other people, and if they do not, something has gone wrong.

So religious scholarship should teach us more about our religious beliefs; it should teach us humility as we see the inadequacy of our intellects before the mysteries of the spiritual realm, and it should increase our love and appreciation for the teachings we embrace and for the teacher from whom they come. Religious scholarship is only for those who have the inclination and ability to pursue it. But for them it can be a religious duty.

Three challenges

It sounds as if the problem of being a scholar and a devotee has faded away. But things are not that easy! The sixteenth century in Europe saw the birth of three major cultural forces that raised the problem in a very pointed way. First, the rise of the natural sciences introduced new standards of precision in the observation of the natural world, and aimed to bring all phenomena under absolute and apparently inflexible laws of nature. Second, the rise of critical history introduced a stress on careful scrutiny of the evidence for all assertions about the past, and scepticism about the accuracy of ancient historical records. Third, an insistence that all traditional moral rules should stand before the bar of reason, and justify themselves in terms of human flourishing, threw doubt on many traditional moral attitudes that were often associated with religious traditions.

I will consider each of these in turn, and examine the problems they raise for religious believers. In each case, those problems threaten any easy relationship between critical scholarship and religious commitment, and it is not easy to find a way of enabling scholarship and devotion to live together.

The whole truth?

Over the past three hundred years or so, scientific knowledge has transformed our world. Modern medicine, computers, aircraft and electricity have all changed the world to an immense extent. Science works. It has given rise to a view of the universe that is often presented something like this: the universe originated with a Big Bang about fourteen thousand million years ago. By a long process of cosmic evolution, organic life, in the form of bacteria, formed on earth about four thousand million years ago, and human beings evolved from them a few million years ago. In about five thousand million years the sun will expand as it dies, and the earth will be swallowed up in fire. Eventually the whole physical universe will die, as the second law of thermodynamics inexorably takes effect. Between the birth and death of the universe, all things proceed in accordance with a few simple and elegant laws of nature, and human beings are complex physical organisms that are, like everything else, products of these laws, and not separate spiritual souls. All that we are and love—beauty, morality, thought, and friendship—is part of a long impersonal and purposeless interplay of blind unconscious atoms, and will eventually subside into the chaos from which it originated, leaving no physical trace.

This view clearly conflicts with most religious beliefs and their account of the history of the universe and the place of humans within it. Particular points of conflict lie in the question of whether human life has developed by random mutation from purely physical causes, whether human souls are more than physical entities, whether miracles or spiritual causes for physical events exist, and whether human life in the universe has any significance.

There is one basic conflict underlying all of these questions, and that is whether science allows any reality other than the physical to exist and to play a causal role in the way things happen. As a matter of fact the natural sciences do not have much, if anything, to say on this issue. It is important to distinguish what is established in the sciences by observation and experiment from philosophical views that may be suggested by the sciences, but are not themselves scientific—like the one just presented.

Some religious views deny that the evolution of life on earth happened at all. That is a major conflict, and such believers will have to hold that many of the conclusions of modern science are mistaken. This, however, is not such a major problem as it may at first seem. All scientific theories are provisional. They are based on the best evidence available, but they do not claim absolute finality. Newton’s laws came to be supplemented by Einstein’s theory of relativity, and modern quantum theory may yet be replaced by some theory that manages to unite relativity and quantum theories more coherently. The theory of evolution is accepted by the vast majority of scientists as the best available explanation of the diversity of life on earth, and as a very satisfactory way of accounting for all sorts of observed data (like the existence of fossils). But it could be wrong. What those who disagree with it can do is just what Isaac Newton did, and say ‘I frame no hypotheses’. In his case, he discovered the inverse square law of gravity, but could not accept what gravity seemed to imply, that there was action at a distance. His law worked, but he just had no theory about how it worked. So a biologist could accept all testable predictions and repeatable observations in biology, but simply frame no hypotheses about how organisms developed long before any observations could be made and tested. Such a biologist could simply remain agnostic about that, preferring to wait for further evidence to come in, and proceed quite happily with observable and testable facts in biology.

Despite this fact, most religious believers, like people in general, feel that though the theory of evolution is provisional, there is enough cumulative evidence for it to be accepted as a well established scientific theory. In that case, some amendments will have to be made to some traditional religious views. In the Christian case, the Biblical account of creation in six days will have to be interpreted as metaphorical and poetic, not as literally true. And some Christian doctrines will need to be reformulated in this new scientific context. Indian religious traditions can do much the same thing. This is not too big a step, for everyone agrees that there is a great deal of poetry and metaphor in ancient religious traditions anyway. All that is needed is to distinguish accounts of the origin and nature of the physical world, which now becomes the province of natural science, from accounts of spiritual truth, which is the real business of religion. It is sometimes quite difficult to say exactly where this line should be drawn. But many religious believers (the Roman Catholic Church, for example) agree that religion has to accept the best findings of science on matters of physical fact.

At the same time, religion has the right to insist on the reality of the spiritual and its influence on the physical world. So believers should reject any claims that there is no purpose in the universe, that everything happens by blind chance, or that physical laws of nature explain absolutely everything that happens. These claims do not properly belong to science. They are forms of a highly dubious philosophy, the philosophy of materialism.

Since science deals only with the material, it is not surprising that it does not mention any spiritual factors—they lie outside the province of science. But it does not follow that the spiritual does not exist, and it may seem very improbable that only science can give the truth about the universe. If there are spiritual truths about the universe, they will not be discovered by science, but by spiritual insight. So there is much room for debate about just what the relation between the spiritual and the physical is. Science cannot dogmatically discount the spiritual, but there are many problems about how science and the spiritual relate to one another. Where is the spirit at work in evolution? And how does the spiritual influence the physical?

These problems, like the problem of how exactly the physical brain relates to human consciousness, may not be solvable with our present knowledge. They may not be solvable by humans at all. So, while the devotee who studies science will come across many materialist viewpoints, those viewpoints can be readily distinguished from the actual experimental findings of science. There is no necessity for the believer to be able to resolve all the puzzles of spirit-matter relationships in order to continue believing. But it is a good thing to admit that they are puzzles. Believers do not have all the answers, any more than scientists do. Both religious believers and scientists need to cultivate humility, try to see the limits of their expertise, and accept that many intellectual problems have no solution in the present state of knowledge.

Buddhists see presently insoluble problems of a theoretical sort as ‘unprofitable questions’. It does not matter to your spiritual life whether the universe began or did not begin, whether human life evolved or did not evolve. Profitable questions are questions that have consequences for the attainment of the spiritual goal—a goal of inner peace, equanimity, non-attachment, freedom from hatred, greed and delusion, and devotion to a supreme Lord or a supreme good. If you thought that science showed there was no supreme Lord (because everything is physical), or that you could never achieve liberation from illusion (because there are no spiritual states), then there would be a major conflict between science and spiritual life. But these are just the things science cannot show. Therefore the very real problems of mind-matter interaction and of purpose in evolution are ‘unprofitable’ from a spiritual point of view.

That does not mean you should not try to tackle them. If you have the inclination and ability, you should try to tackle them. The attempt to do so may bring new insights and help others who are troubled by these sorts of problems. But it does mean that not everybody need concern themselves with such problems, that we should not be discouraged if we cannot solve them, and that it is reasonable to have faith that there is a solution, even if it is not known to us.

The reason why at least some devotees should study science is that it increases human understanding of the world. Truth is indivisible, and any study that leads to a greater understanding of truth is a proper spiritual pursuit for those whose vocation it is. There is no conflict between the findings of natural science and spiritual truth, as long as you approach both with a certain humility, and bear in mind the proper subject matter of science—understanding the nature of the physical world and its laws—and of spirituality—seeking a transforming relationship with a supreme spiritual reality. Devotees who are scientific scholars will have a keener eye than most for what is really established by scientific evidence, for the point at which supposedly neutral theories are sometimes affected by assumptions, religious or anti-religious, that are not strictly scientific, and for the limitations of human rationality and knowledge. They will also see the scientific exploration of the universe as part of seeing more clearly the glory and wisdom of the Supreme Source of all reality. The believer will often need patience, humility, and faith—patience to put up with unsolved, yet spiritually unprofitable, puzzles; humility to accept the provisionality of human knowledge; and faith to trust, on non-scientific grounds, in the supreme spiritual ground of all being.

History or mythology?

The problems involved in being a devotee and a scientist do not seem too severe after all. Things get more difficult, however, when devotees get involved in the critical study of history. This is the area where sacred texts are viewed with the same critical questions about authorship, accuracy, and reliability as any other historical document. And it is where the wide range of human beliefs throughout history and throughout the whole planet becomes vividly apparent. If your own sacred texts are treated by a historian just like any one else’s sacred texts, you are liable to find much of them regarded as myth or legend, as exaggeration or fabrication. And if your present beliefs are shown to be just a small part of a whole range of the constantly changing religious beliefs of humanity, most of which make the same claims to revealed status as yours, you may have difficulty in maintaining the unique and absolute truth of your beliefs. This is the area in which Christians have encountered most difficulties in the last one hundred and fifty years or so. Those difficulties exist for all religious traditions, but it just happens that, since many Europeans were Christians, that is where the problems were most sharply focussed.

One place to begin confronting this difficulty is to remember that no one speaks from a position of religious neutrality. Everybody begins by thinking that some claims about spiritual reality are true and some are false. So the devotee is in just the same position as, say, the atheist. They both begin from assumptions about the truth or falsity of many religious beliefs.

Devotees affirm as part of their experience an apprehension of a supreme spiritual reality that has real and beneficial effects on their lives and on the lives of those around them. This is not a historical assertion. It is an assertion about present experience, about the way you see the world, and about the supreme reality and value of the spiritual. Atheists will not share this view, and that means that their interpretation of the past, like their interpretation of the present, will exclude the spiritual from consideration. All allegedly spiritual presences in the past will be re-interpreted by atheists as illusions, having purely social or psychological causes. In other words, devotees are right to be suspicious of atheistic interpretations of the past.

There is no such thing as neutral history, since history consists in finding the most probable explanations of past events, and what you think is probable depends on your initial beliefs. So any accounts of miraculous events—events that are spiritually caused, that transcend the normal regularities of physical events, and that carry a spiritual meaning—are bound to be interpreted by atheists as legends. If, on the other hand, there is a spiritual reality, it is rather likely that some miracles will occur. Devotees are right to trust their sacred texts, if there is reason to think they have been given by a person with unique knowledge of spiritual reality. There is still much to learn from atheistic historians, for they may point out aspects of events that have been overlooked, and they may help you to distinguish interpretations of your tradition that are less spiritually profitable than others. But there is no reason to think that what they say is the one correct version of events.

It is important to realise, however, that there is not just one obvious version of historical events. Muslims and Christians, for example, differ about whether Jesus was crucified. Jews and Christians differ about whether Jesus ascended into heaven. Hindus and Christians differ about whether Jesus was the only divine incarnation, or sometimes about whether he was a divine incarnation at all. This seems sufficient to show that there is not just one account of religious history that every person of good will would, if rational and pious, accept.

It is not quite enough to say that I will just stick to my tradition and ignore all the others. I need to know why others do not accept my tradition, and why there are so many different traditions. The hard thing for a devotee is to remain committed to your tradition—to be loyal to the personal experience you have received, and the relationship to the Supreme that you enjoy—yet also to be open to learn from very different perspectives on human experience. We would all agree that, when we begin our spiritual journey, there is little that we understand about spiritual things. Can we increase our understanding by confining our knowledge to just the one tradition in which we began? Well, yes, of course we can increase it. But if we do that, and only do that, there is an immense amount of knowledge about the world we will never have. How do we know that we are not missing something of enormous value? It seems arrogant to think that only our tradition has the truth, that there is no truth anywhere else, and that we cannot benefit from other viewpoints. How could we even know that without knowing something about other traditions? Since there is no neutral view, it is right to start from where we stand, in our tradition. But it is reasonable to seek to extend our understanding as widely as possible, and that should help us to see what is importantly true in our tradition, and what may turn out to be due to historical accident or even prejudice, and might need amending.

This can give rise to tensions in personal life, if we really face up to the very different understandings of others, which can often challenge our own. But there is a huge difference between the deep and unchanging truth of a tradition and the cultural forms and conventional interpretations that we may have accepted unthinkingly. The distinctive truth of our tradition may not change, but often our understanding of it should change, and many things that we had thought a central part of our tradition may turn out to be temporary forms, suited to earlier understandings, but now in need of restatement.

Critical scholarship can thus serve devotion, by helping us to distinguish central truths from culturally conditioned forms, and by enabling us to see our tradition in a wider historical context. But for that to happen, if you are a devotee you must follow three principles. You must not be emotionally attached to every particular form and statement that has come to you in your tradition. You must identify with care the central experiences and beliefs to which you are fundamentally committed, and distinguish them from culturally influenced interpretations and practices. And you must be committed to extending your understanding of truth as widely as you can, whatever the consequences. Openness to the truth requires a preparedness to revise views that come to seem false, however attached to them we are. But this does not mean there are no absolute commitments. Devotion to truth is itself a sort of spiritual commitment, since what the devotee worships is the truth, usually in personal form. And if it is the truth, no honest examination can undermine it. We must remember the weakness of our intellects, however, and this means that we should not give up our spiritual commitment just because of some intellectual puzzle or perplexity.

This requires a degree of spiritual maturity, a resolution often to live with uncertainty and even doubt, but with a passionate commitment to the highest spiritual truth we have discerned, and a determination not to let complex and difficult theories undermine the most important spiritual experiences that shape our lives. In this way the devotee can embrace historical scholarship, however critical, as an aid to the discovery of truth, though not as the ultimate arbiter of spiritual truth.

Authority, morality

The third main cultural force that derives from the European Enlightenment is the stress on moral autonomy, the principle that you should make your own moral decisions, and not accept them on authority. I suppose many of us would now say that the Enlightenment writers who espoused this principle, like Immanuel Kant, were much too optimistic about human nature. They thought that everyone would decide on the same set of moral principles. Experience has shown, however, that humans will make very different decisions about how to live. They may even decide that they do not care what other people think, but will maximise their own pleasure.

This is not at all what Kant had in mind. What he was really concerned about was that moral rules should be justifiable rationally. That is, they should be seen to be conducive to human well-being, as opposed to being just absolute commands that cannot be seen to have any rational point. Religious devotees, however (and Kant was not a devotee), see ultimate human well-being as lying in a relation of devotion, submission or loving obedience to a Supreme Lord. The rules of religion spell out the way in which that is best pursued in human life. Such rules may not be rational to an atheist, but they are supremely important to a believer.

It is true that such rules should not be repressive, and that they should not infringe the freedom of humans to choose their own course of action, as long as it does not harm others. So believers must ask themselves if the moral rules they subscribe to are harming others in subtle ways, or if they are sometimes relics of ancient cultural conventions that cannot be justified either on grounds of widening human freedom and responsibility or of pointing the way towards the ultimate religious goal.

So in matters of conduct and morality the devotee should not fear the most ruthless critical examination. Religion is concerned with the ultimate good for humans, and with the nature of that good. It therefore has an interest in examining as carefully as possible the principles that make for such good. It particularly needs to ask why its rules and practices are so often destructive, intolerant, and oppressive of others. Such investigation may sometimes be uncomfortable, since devotees tend to be rather conservative in their moral views. What needs to be discovered is how far such conservatism is rooted merely in traditionalism for its own sake, and how far it can be justified in the light of the real goal of human good that a religious tradition enjoins. Again, the devotee needs to balance a practical commitment to a spiritual journey with an intellectual openness that may challenge accepted practices and interpretations. But that is just what all great religious teachers have embodied—an unflinching commitment to the supreme good, with a very critical attitude to many current social norms and conventions. In the end the devotee will not completely agree with the slogan, ‘Decide for yourself what moral principles to follow’. Most humans do not have the wisdom and insight for that. But the devotee will agree that all moral principles accepted on authority continually need to be tested against their efficacy in promoting human well-being and the ultimate good for all sentient beings. For that is, after all, what enlightened religious teachers have always taught.

Concluding thoughts

Is it, after all, difficult to be a scholar and a devotee? It may seem so, if reason is seen as the enemy of faith, and if reason is seen as purely critical and destructive of belief. But reason also has a constructive role to play in showing the coherence and plausibility of beliefs. Its criticisms are necessary to distinguish superstition and mere convention from wisdom and truth.

It can feel difficult to face the criticisms of others, especially when we cannot think of arguments to defend our own position. We can be almost overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information the modern world offers, and that can shake our confidence.

But the spiritual approach is to let the arguments flow where they will, and to absorb as much information as we can, but to continue our spiritual practice with resolution. It is rather as if someone who is deeply in love is also a psychologist investigating the nature of love. That person will gather as much information as possible and will listen to as many views and arguments as possible. None of that will affect the fact of being in love, though some of it may affect the ways in which that love is expressed.

So it is with religious faith. It is part of spiritual practice that we should be non-attached to the arguments that flow around and through us, but should view them like the thoughts and feelings that pass in meditation. We should maintain a calm confidence that truth will never contradict that supreme Real who is Truth, even if we are not very good at getting access to the truth. Our task is to try to discover more of the truth, without attachment to our success or depression at our failure. Seek the truth but do not believe you have ever finally found it, exactly as it really is. Embrace all criticisms, but never despair if you cannot respond to them adequately. Always seek what is good and spiritually useful in all the knowledge you acquire. And always sustain your practical commitment to the highest good that you know—which, for any devotee, will be the Supreme Good and the Ultimately Real. If we can sustain such attitudes, scholarship will, for many of us, be part of devotion, and there will be no schizophrenia—though there will be many personal failures of coherence and rationality—between the scholar and the devotee.

Hiring - Elementary School Teachers.
Goswami Academy, a spiritually-centered elementary school, located in Houston, Texas, is seeking applicants for teaching positions in both the early childhood and elementary level.
We are seeking qualified candidates who possess enthusiasm for working with children in a highly collaborative teaching environment. If you are a self-starter who wants to be part of a mission-driven school that provides an opportunity to grow personally and professionally, we encourage you to apply.
Goswami Academy follows a 175 day school year with time off during summer and holidays. This position will begin in August 2016. The successful candidate is required to attend professional development training in July.
Qualifications:
Good standing with relevant experience
Able to pass local, state, and federal criminal background screenings.
Able to pass CPS Background screening.
Able to speak, read, and write English fluently.
US citizen or possess documentation of right to work in the US.
Ability to deliver engaging curriculum
Connect learning with spiritual base.
Current first aid and CPR certification preferred.
Able to teach in a multi-level setting.
Interested applicants should email current resume to the principal at subhra@goswamiacademy.com Send all correspondence to the attention of Subhra Lind (Principal).
Deadline - February 29, 2016. --------------- Attaced files of job description: http://dandavats.com/wp-content/uploads5/PST-JD.docx http://dandavats.com/wp-content/uploads5/PT-JD.docx

February 16. ISKCON 50 – S.Prabhupada Daily Meditations.
Satsvarupa dasa Goswami: Focus on Prabhupada the Individual.
We sometimes spend so much time going on with our regular duties that we forget about Prabhupada. We don’t think of him enough to actually stop and focus on Prabhupada as a person. The person who was here is beneficial. We have to become still enough, quiet enough, to be able to remember him.
We tend to be almost arrogant about the fact that we are living now, as if that gives us a superior vision of Prabhupada, as if he is among the dead and we are among the living. Actually, we have a feeble hold on this life. In this tiny amount of space and time, we will each disappear.
The consciousness we command and the space we live in – why do we think this is more important than where Prabhupada is? Is it because we think our world is manifest and Prabhupada’s world is unmanifest? Prabhupada’s world is not unmanifest. Prabhupada is with Krishna in Goloka. That world is the only really manifest world. We may not see him in the material world, but that is because we are so insignificant in relation to Krishna. Prabhupada is in the real world, and we are in the kingdom of death.
Our attitude should be that “Prabhupada has gone to participate in his intimate relationship with Krishna and I have been left behind.” He came here and developed a relationship with us, gave us adequate instructions and we vowed to follow him, but ultimately he left us stumbling behind. We are trying to figure out the meaning of his books, how to act, how to get along with one another. Sometimes we make serious mistakes. But we are also calling to him, running after him, “Prabhupada! Prabhupada!” This is our actual position. Therefore, don’t be complacent. Visit his room and try to taste a little of our own deaths, then feel the need to catch up to him, the need to perfect ourselves.
To read the entire article click here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=20490&page=5

How one devotee was saved.
Ramesvara dasa ACBSP: I had just turned 19 and was a student at Reed College. Sriman Locana Prabhu was the temple president of the Portland Yatra and would lead the devotees everyday on Harer Nama Sankirtan chanting all over the City. Krsna led me to him by the sound of those Kartals and I started joining his Kirtan party 3-4 days per week. His preaching and the transcendental knowledge he imparted in answering my questions culminated in my falling in prostrated obeisances on the City street, crying while holding his lotus feet, sobbingly murmuring “You’ve save me, you’ve saved me”! I moved into the temple after quitting college that very evening. As loud as I can boardcast - LOCANA PRABHU SAVED ME and made me a devotee - I am his eternal loving friend and adoring servant, Ramesvara dasa. (In the photo Locana Prabhu with Srila Prabhupada)

First University Hostel Program In East Africa (Album with photos)
By Srila Prabhupada’s Mercy, the Hare Krishna Training centre was opened in Nairobi and in 10 months has made 30 devotees. The centre serves as a residential facility for students studying various courses. Our twice weekly program holds 150 students from the local community.
Find them here: https://goo.gl/D0XxYz