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Festival for the Eyes 2008

Ekendra — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 06:55:54 GMT

Would you like to participate in creating a beautiful experience? This Gaura Purnima ISKCON News is putting together a 'Festival for the Eyes' that you're invited to help us put together.

On Gaura Purnima Day 2008 we're going to unveil a multimedia presentation featuring Gaura-Nitai deities worshiped in devotees' homes around the world.

We've set a goal to compile 108 photos so if you'd like to give our current readership of more than 3,500 weekly visitors a glimpse of the Gaura-Nitai deities who live in your home then dress them gorgeously, get the lighting just right and snap us a digital photo. (Try to avoid using a flash please.)

When you submit your entry you'll need to include the following details:

- What's your name? (Please make sure you spell this exactly how you'd like it to be presented.)

- Where do you live? (Include the name of the city and country.)

Send just one photo as an attachment to: editor AT iskconnews.com

Please try to keep the size of the file under 1 Megabyte. The best image resolution for our purposes is 800px by 600px.

Alternatively you could upload to a photo hosting site such as www.flickr.com and send us a link.

The deadline for entries is Tuesday the 18th of March 2008.

Only the first 108 photos will be presented so send them in today!

For more details please visit here: http://news.iskcon.com/node/931

posted in Bhakti Discussions - 0 replies

Radharani I'm so sorry!

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 02:44:28 GMT

I'm so sorry I neglected Your service even for a moment to be with Krishna. I know You wanted me to or I wouldn't have been able to do it, but Hare Krishna I didn't mean to forget entirely all about You in the process! Next time Radha would you mind helping me out a little bit more by sending someone that I can see who can remind me of my position? Thank You.
Your fallen servant,
_______

posted in Bhakti Discussions - 3 replies

Rudrani dd -- Leaves Her Body!

BhaktiDiscussions — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 16:37:36 GMT

Hare Krsna,

All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

I have just received news from my Godsister, Pajavali dd (Rudrani's biological sister), that Rudrani dd passed away this morning at 2:00 AM.

Pajavali described the moments leading up to her sisters departure... She said that Rudrani was feeling quite comfortable all day yesterday, and everything seemed to be going well. However, this morning at 2:00 AM, Rudrani called over to Shanti (who had been caring for her for many years, and who never left her side) to come over to her. Rudrani told Shanti that she felt an unusual sensation in her heart. They held hands and chanted the Holy Names (the Maha mantra) for some time. Shanti told her to concentrate on the picture of Vrndadevi (in gopi form) that was on the front cover of a very nice hand made get-well card (11"x16") in which the devotees had written their well-wishes.

After a few moments, Rudrani responded, "I see the real Tulasi. I have to go now!", and left her body!

I am sure we were all praying to Vrndadevi to be there for her dear servant Rudrani--to personally take her back to Godhead... It appears she did just that.

All glories to Rudrani and her many years of dedicated and loving service to Srimati Tulasi Maharani!

We will greatly miss you, my dear Godsister!

Hare Krsna,

Bhava dasa

posted in Bhakti Discussions - 2 replies

Is Gaudiya Vaishnava Sampradaya a lineage of gopis?

Sat, 02 Sep 2006 14:18:08 GMT

Daily we pray to srimati tulsi devi to make us her own MAIDservant. The spiritual master is said to be the dearmost girl servant of the gopis. Perhaps this means we ourselves are never going to become gopis, manjaris, sakhis, and the like, but instead we will become trees and grass and parrots and rocks in Vrndavana.
Or we can become servants of the gopis in other ways. Mother Jasoda serves Srimati Radharani in a superior way, sort of, like she serves Krishna, by calling him to lunch for example. She makes sure Radharani cooks for Krishna every day. Krishna's friends like Sridama fight with the gopis I just read here online and the gopis use sticks to keep him away from Radharani. Everyone in Vrndavana ultimately serve Srimati Vrndadevi even Radha and Krishna, and she is serving them.
So my question is, is our's a lineage of gopis, at least as far as spiritual masters are concerned, since we say every morning that prayer that says so, that the spiritual master is also a maidservant of the gopis?

posted in Bhakti Discussions - 7 replies

Why no Garlic ?

BhaktiDiscussions — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 16:50:10 GMT

Forwarded From: Akrura dasa

Subject: Why no Garlic ?
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 22:16:48 -0800
-----------------------------------------------------

Next time someone asks you "Why don't you eat onions and garlic?", the following research information may be a useful reference point in addition to scriptural directions.

RS

Garlic-the Horror

Source: From a lecture by Dr Robert [Bob] C. Beck, DSc., given at the
Whole Life Expo, Seattle, WA, USA, in March 1996

The reason garlic is so toxic, the sulphone hydroxyl ion penetrates
the blood brain barrier, just like DMSO, and is a specific poison for
higher life forms and brain cells.

We discovered this much to our horror, when I was the world's largest
manufacturer of ethical EEG biofeedback equipment. We'd have people
come back from lunch that looked clinically dead on the encephalograph,
which we used to calibrate their progress. "Well, what happened?"
"Well, I went to an Italian restaurant and there was some garlic in my
salad dressing!" So we had 'em sign things that they won't touch garlic
before classes or we were wasting their time, and money and my time. I
guess those of you who are pilots or have been in flight tests... I
was in flight test engineering in Doc Hallan's group in the 1950's.

The flight surgeon would come around every month and remind all of us:
"Don't you dare touch any garlic 72 hours before you fly one of our
airplanes, because it'll double or triple your reaction time. You're
three times slower than you would be if you'd [not] had a few drops of
garlic." Well, we didn't know why for 20 years later, until I owned
the Alpha-Metrics Corporation. We were building biofeedback equipment
and found out that garlic totally desynchronizes your brain waves.

So I funded a study at Stanford and, sure enough, they found that it's
a poison. You can rub a clove of garlic on your foot - on the sole of
your foot - and you can smell it shortly later on your wrists. So it
penetrates the body. This is why DMSO smells a lot like garlic: that
sulphone hydroxyl ion penetrates all the barriers including the corpus
callosum in the brain.

Any of you who are organic gardeners know that if you don't want to
use DDT garlic will kill anything in the way of insects.

Now, most people have heard most of their lives that garlic is good
for you, and we put those people in the same class of ignorance as the
mothers who at the turn of the century would buy morphine sulphate in
the drugstore and give it to their babies to put 'em to sleep.

If you have any patients who have low-grade headaches or attention
deficit [disorder], they can't quite focus on the computer in the
afternoon, just do an experiment - you owe it to yourselves.

Take those people off garlic and see how much better they get,
very,very shortly. And then let them eat a little garlic after about
three weeks. They'll say: "My God, I had no idea that this was the
cause of our problems." And this includes the de-skunked garlic's,
Kyolic, some of the other products. Very unpopular, but I've got to
tell you the truth.

Bob Beck also found in his research on human brain function in the
1980's that garlic has a detrimental effect on the brain and
researching this further he learned that many yoga groups and
philosophical teachings caution against the use of garlic and onions
as they are known to interfere with meditation practices. Some aware
individuals have actually described themselves as experiencing brain
fog after having garlic.

posted in Bhakti Discussions - 0 replies

Devotees not living near a temple

Kamalasundri — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 22:02:58 GMT

Hari Bol!

I have a question. If someone is not living near a temple how does one become iniated if they need a temple president's seal of approval. I live in Baton Rouge and the nearest temple is New Orleans and that was destroyed. I am a disciple of Tamal Krishna Goswami.

posted in Bhakti Discussions - 3 replies

Our perfect teachers within the Gaudiya Vaisnava Sampradaya

BhaktiDiscussions — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 00:51:25 GMT

"Our perfect teachers within the Gaudiya Vaisnava Sampradaya have all enlightened us with their glorious realizations on the real process of making our polluted minds our allies on the path back to Godhead. Having all wrongly desired to be God's competitors as enjoyers of His varigated energies, we have sorely paid the price by our addiction to the fleeting pleasures of this Mayic world. This universal spiritual disease cannot be artificially cured by our own means. Only when we willingly surrender to the truth of our subdservient relation to our Source, Lord Sri Krishna, can we hope to be lifted out of our self-created troubles (like birth,disease and death). As conscious entities, emanating from the Supreme Person Sri Krishna, we partake of His perfect sentient nature of eternal knowledge and bliss. Only by connecting again with our divine Source can we be brought back to our original purity and blissful nature as His loving servants. Lord Krishna is described as Manohara and Manorama, He Who captures the mind and gives full pleasure to our mind. That is possible only pure devotion as exemplified to perfection by His great devotees in our Sampradaya. They have taught the world the truth of yukta-vairagya: how everything belongs to God and should all be offered back to Him, starting with our mind and senses. When we lovingly serve Hrishikesa, Lord Krishna the Master of the senses, then our senses and mind become at last purified and truly satisfied. No other artificial impersonal vairagya can acheive this natural state of communion with the Supreme Personality of Godhead." - Gokulananda dasa

posted in Bhakti Discussions - 1 reply