When all else fails, chant Harē Kṛṣṇa, and everything else will fail. There's no question about it; any of my plans that don't include chanting Harē Kṛṣṇa will fail. In fact, even the best-laid plans of the most intelligent people in the world always get reversed one way or the other in this world. So, we have to come to the position of submission to the will of the Supreme Lord, and the best way to express that is by chanting Harē Kṛṣṇa sincerely. In fact, just the idea of every day taking time...
May 21, 2025•21 min
I was just in a redwood forest a couple of days ago. Wednesday, I was there, today is Friday. I was in Muir Woods. Looking with a friend of mine, we were looking at the trees, and you have to strain your neck to see upwards; they're so tall! Then we were looking at a seed of one of the redwood trees that is there, and it is minuscule. How does it all start? It starts from a seed. How much information is in that seed, enough to grow a huge tree? And all you have to add is light and water and a li...
May 20, 2025•1 hr 1 min
I'm so deeply grateful to all of you for your one-pointed attention on devotional service. You're using your lives, starting with the most important part—the beginning—and getting established deeply in sādhana that will carry you through your whole life. All auspiciousness comes from chanting strictly every day, and all nonsense subsides from your life. Nonsense leads to great suffering, confusion, and so forth. So dry up the whole sea of nonsense that's there in your mind by the powerful winds ...
May 20, 2025•20 min
This morning, I was reading a eulogy of my dear godbrother, Jayananda Ṭhākura, who is very dear to Śrīla Prabhupāda. And Śrīla Prabhupāda had written him a letter that I very much appreciated, regarding the chanting of the holy name, and it has a very straightforward purport. So I wanted to read it to you. And here's what he wrote: 1967 Prabhupāda wrote the following: 'Your service attitude for Kṛṣṇa and your sincere attempts at being advanced in Kṛṣṇa consciousness will work with you and make y...
May 19, 2025•10 min
When the devotees first went to India, Prabhupāda was there, and he invited devotees to come over because he wanted to show what happened. You know, he went alone to America, and he comes back with all these Americans. In India, at the time, people were looking to Americans and go, like, 'How are we going to catch up to these guys? We want what they have.' And then Prabhupāda plays this trick on them, where he comes to America, he gets all these Westerners, and he comes back with a big airplane ...
May 18, 2025•1 hr 8 min
Last year in Kārtika, one of our devotees, Kṛṣṇa-sakha, was on Govardhana parikramā, and just came around the hill. A boy who was begging started to follow him, and he followed him for several kilometers. And Kṛṣṇa-sakha said no, and the boy kept following, and they got to Rādhā-kuṇḍa. And then he kept following. They'd gone a quarter of the way around Govardhana Hill, and the boy kept following. And someone who saw that offered to give the boy something, but he said, 'No, I don't want anything ...
May 17, 2025•2 hr 9 min
We're not going out to collect money, really. We're going out for our own purification, first and foremost. It's a high sādhana to go out into the great unknown and present the Vedic literatures to people. And it's also something that they really appreciate too, because frankly, life is really boring in the material world. Same things happen all the time, and people are sick and tired of it, and they're waiting for devotees to come door to door. In fact, Prabhupāda wrote in his poem "Vṛndāvane B...
May 17, 2025•48 min
We're eternal servants of Kṛṣṇa , and when we're able to find that seed which is given to us by association of pure devotees, that the only thing that is important to me ultimately is the sincere desire to serve Kṛṣṇa with no motivation, even if we're not able to act in that position yet, when we know and recognize that I have that desire seed within my heart, it will grow, and Kṛṣṇa will reward that. If He rewarded Pūtanā, if He rewarded Pauṇḍraka, and who can even find the desire seed within t...
May 16, 2025•1 hr 3 min
(1) vibhāvarī śeṣa, āloka-praveśa, nidrā chāri' uṭho jīva bolo hari hari, mukunda murāri, rāma kṛṣṇa hayagrīva (2) nṛsiṁha vāmana, śrī-madhusūdana, brajendra-nandana śyāma pūtanā-ghātana, kaiṭabha-śātana, jaya dāśarathi-rāma (3) yaśodā dulāla, govinda-gopāla, vṛndāvana purandara gopī-priya-jana, rādhikā-ramaṇa, bhuvana -sundara-bara (4) rāvāṇāntakara, mākhana-taskara, gopī-jana-vastra-hārī brajera rākhāla, gopa-vṛnda-pāla, citta-hārī baṁśī-dhārī (5) yogīndra-bandana, śrī-nanda-nanda...
May 16, 2025•3 min
(1) (kṛṣṇa) deva! bhavantaḿ vande man-mānasa-madhukaram arpaya nija-pada-pańkaja-makarande (2) yadyapi samādhiṣu vidhir api paśyati na tava nakhāgra-marīcim idam icchāmi niśamya tavācyuta! tad api kṛpādbhuta-vīcim (3) bhaktir udañcati yadyapi mādhava! na tvayi mama tila-mātrī parameśvaratā tad api tavādhika-durghaṭa-ghaṭana-vidhātrī (4) ayam avilolatayādya sanātana! kalitādbhuta-rasa-bhāram nivasatu nityam ihāmṛta-nindini-vindan madhurima-sāram TRANSLATION Refrain: (1) O Lord Sri Krsna!...
May 15, 2025•6 min
The purpose of the creation, ultimately, is to give the living entities an opportunity to come out of this illusion. And Saṅkarṣaṇa, who is not intimately, but somehow indirectly—connected with the creation of the material world, as mentioned in the Fifth Canto of the Bhāgavatam, before He starts His destruction in the material world through the agency of Rudra, He becomes a little annoyed because He's given unlimited chances for the jīvas in the material world to come back to their senses and c...
May 15, 2025•53 min
(1) gaurāńgera duṭi pada, jār dhana sampada, se jāne bhakati-rasa-sār gaurāńgera madhura-līlā, jār karṇe praveśilā, hṛdoya nirmala bhelo tār (2) je gaurāńgera nāma loy, tāra hoy premodoy, tāre mui jāi bolihāri gaurāńga-guṇete jhure, nitya-līlā tāre sphure, se jana bhakati-adhikārī (3) gaurāńgera sańgi-gaṇe, nitya-siddha kori' māne, se jāy brajendra-suta-pāś śrī-gauḍa-maṇḍala-bhūmi, jebā jāne cintāmaṇi, tāra hoy braja-bhūme bās (4) gaura-prema-rasārṇave, śe tarańge jebā ḍube, se rādhā-...
May 15, 2025•9 min
Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu is Kṛṣṇa Himself, and He also comes as the ācārya. He's both devotee and Kṛṣṇa at the same time. So there's a double benefit. He's teaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness as a devotee, but He's also Kṛṣṇa. If one dedicates him or herself to the lotus feet of Lord Caitanya, which means to—in service, what it means to dedicate oneself to the lotus feet, it means to become a servant and think, 'How can I do something to assist the Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu? What is His desire and how ca...
May 15, 2025•22 min
If somebody unjustly takes your property, rendering selfless service doesn't mean, 'Oh, yeah, let everyone violate me, and I'll just sit by passively.' That's not what it means. That's why I say it's not mutually exclusive. One must do one's duty dutifully. If you're in the corporate environment, however, I know for sure that there's a sense even from the top of the big corporations—that's why they invite people like us to come there and speak all the time. I'm going there on Tuesday to give a p...
May 14, 2025•1 hr
One other thought about the ocean comes from the Twelfth Canto of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (SB 12.13.2) When the Supreme Personality of Godhead appeared as Lord Kūrma, a tortoise, His back was scratched by the sharp-edged stones lying on massive, whirling Mount Mandara, and this scratching made the Lord sleepy. May you all be protected by the winds caused by the Lord’s breathing in this sleepy condition. Ever since that time, even up to the present day, the ocean tides have imitated the Lord’s inha...
May 14, 2025•37 min
The Lord's devotees have a special qualification in that, as Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā (6.32): "ātmaupamyena sarvatra samaṁ paśyati yo ’rjuna sukhaṁ vā yadi vā duḥkhaṁ sa yogī paramo mataḥ." They're the parama yogīs because, He says, they have compassion. Atmaupamyena means they feel empathy towards others because they've been through it themselves, and they know what the material world's like. Although Kṛṣṇa oversees the material world and there's a sense of the suffering of the living en...
May 13, 2025•1 hr 10 min
In Japan, where we go frequently, there's this little tranquil river that's barely flowing, but enough so that there's life in it, and it's beautiful. And retired people in Japan like to fish. Some do, and they'll stand by that little stream and they fish. When I go for my walks there, I watch, and I have never seen anybody catch anything, but what they do is they put the lure in the water, and then they pull it back and put it in and pull it back. With fishing, the fish has to see the lure and ...
May 13, 2025•9 min
It's broken down by Viśvanāth Cakravartī Ṭhākur in the Madhurya Kadambinī. He says, when you eliminate certain obstacles, then you're known to be in niṣṭhā. And I mentioned some of them, like sleep, distraction, the awakening of lower desires—suddenly they come out in different ways, indifference; you're not distracted, you're not sleepy, but you just don't care. Meh! All of that evaporates in time by good association, by following the process, and then one has this sense of no obstacle. There's...
May 12, 2025•42 min
When we become frustrated to the point of despair, there's an opening for us. And that opening for Arjuna in the Bhagavad-gītā was that he gave up. There's so much effort I put into trying to organize everything in the world so it'll come out straight, and it always comes out crooked. Prabhupāda mentions in one of his purports, in the Second Canto of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, that observing our own frustration can be enlightening because it means that we're incompatible with the nature of the world...
May 11, 2025•1 hr 2 min
CC Antya 16.52 namas te nara-siṁhāya prahlādāhlāda-dāyine hiraṇyakaśipor vakṣaḥ- śilā-ṭaṅka-nakhālaye https://vedabase.io/en/library/cc/antya/16/52 CC Antya 16.53 ito nṛsiṁhaḥ parato nṛsiṁho yato yato yāmi tato nṛsiṁhaḥ bahir nṛsiṁho hṛdaye nṛsiṁho nṛsiṁham ādiṁ śaraṇaṁ prapadye https://vedabase.io/en/library/cc/antya/16/53/ SB 5.18.8 oṁ namo bhagavate narasiṁhāya namas tejas-tejase āvir-āvirbhava vajra-nakha vajra-daṁṣṭra karmāśayān randhaya randhaya tamo grasa grasa om svāhā; abhayam abhayam ā...
May 11, 2025•4 min
So, this is one of the very important lessons that Prahlād Mahārāj teaches us, is to become trained in the spiritual science. Don't neglect the Bhagavad-gītā. Or should I say it in the positive? It's better, isn't it, because that might go and you may think, 'Neglect the Bhagavad-gītā.' No. Read Bhagavad-gītā every day. How's that for a challenge? If one reads Bhagavad-gītā every day, then you won't have to make excuses for why you make mistakes, or why you made mistakes, or why you feel morose,...
May 10, 2025•55 min
The third theme, besides sincerity and wanting to help others, that's so prominent in Prahlāda's prayers is that he said, "My Lord," when he's right in front of Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, he says, "I just want to serve my spiritual master." Kṛṣṇa has appeared for him. He's right in front of him, and he doesn't say, "I'll serve You, my Lord." He said, "I'll serve my spiritual master to serve You." And that mood of being the servant of the servant, servant of the servant, he said, "Nārada Muni saved me. My...
May 10, 2025•14 min
In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Seventh Canto, ninth chapter, we get a kind of fruit because we hear the prayers that are coming from Prahlāda's heart, and from those we can learn many, many lessons. The fact that the Lord came to save Prahlāda and to answer his prayers, and hearing the prayers that Prahlāda offered, is an important exercise for the devotees because Prahlāda represents the foundational position from which one can actually enter into devotional service—that is, selfless service. As he ...
May 09, 2025•1 hr 2 min
Of all the practices, japa is the most essential. It's the one that we do ourselves. We depend on our own sincerity to fuel the process. In the beginning, we also do it as a medicinal process, as when a doctor gives a prescription and says, "Take this many for the next two weeks, and then don't miss a dose. If you do, then make it up." And when the medicine acts, then we can see for ourselves its efficiency. In the beginning, we have to trust the doctor, and we have to trust the medicine. Śrīla ...
May 09, 2025•2 min
Prahlāda Mahārāja is the subject of the Seventh Canto. If you measure which topics are there in the entire lengthy seven cantos of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva makes a very short appearance. He just comes in, tears apart Hiraṇyakaśipu, and that's it. But Prahlāda is featured throughout as a tender child, offering instructions to his classmates and also praying to Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva. These are memorable prayers which have been repeated over millennia, people remembering what is the basic...
May 08, 2025•1 hr 6 min
We have a special treat, which is a bhajan written by Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, five prayers to Nṛsiṁhadeva in Navadvīpa. In a very revealing way. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura mentions that by his worship of Nṛsiṁhadeva, ostensibly in Nṛsiṁha Palli, and by rolling in the courtyard in ecstasy there at NṛsiṁhaPalli, the place where Nṛsiṁhadeva himself gives 24-hour darśana (the temple is never closed, because even if you go there and the door is closed, there's still a grid; you can look in and see Nṛsiṁhadev...
May 08, 2025•14 min
We've noticed here at ISKCON of Silicon Valley, which is a small little laboratory somewhere tucked away in California where we experiment. We experiment and see how far can we push the goals and how far will Krishna meet us? And every single time we make a new goal, we're not sure how we're going to make it. In fact, it seems like last time it worked, but this time, everything's different. So how will we possibly do it this time? I propose that that's where real life is. It's in that gap where ...
May 07, 2025•1 hr 6 min
Unauthorized or improperly parked vehicles will be towed away at the owner's expense." Means that if—if you leave your mind unattended and not engaged in Kṛṣṇa's service, it's like you just parked it somewhere in the wrong place, it'll get towed away. And when you get your mind towed away, if you've ever had your car towed away, you've got to go down to the impound and pay some exorbitant amount of money to get it back. It's not easy, and so don't park your mind in an improper place and just lea...
May 07, 2025•2 min
In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna says, "There is a right, there is a wrong. Wrong means you're going towards the darkness. Right means you're going towards the light, which is Krsna. And when you go towards darkness, then there's a repercussion. Your consciousness becomes dark, and there are dark ways in which you relate to other people, heartless ways. And what about animals? How could one even think of harming an animal when when one would think that there's a divine soul within and God's there n...
May 06, 2025•46 min
Every worthy goal has a discipline. Some people work for becoming a surgeon—four years of college, seven years of medical school, residency, waiting for this and that, maybe to cure cancer. Is there a cure for cancer? No, but they still keep doing it. And there's this practice of reaching our original position with Kṛṣṇa in the spiritual world. What's that worth? Four years of college, seven years of special training? It's worth lifetimes, and every session of chanting japa is a testament to our...
May 06, 2025•14 min
