Fresh Inspiration in Book Distribution
"After Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu left this world, Gaudiya Vaisnavism diminished. The Vaisavas either went back to Godhead or went on different preaching engagements throughout the universe. Only a few were left. The world filled up with dull souls engaging in fruitive activities. Over a century ago, Jagannatha dasa Babajl Maharaja, the leader of the Vaisnavas in Mayapur, declared to Srila Bhakti-vinoda Thakura that he should spread Krsna consciousness in an organized fashion. On that order, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura personally reconstructed the basis of Gaudiya Vaisnavism. He reestablished the places of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu's appearance and pastimes in Mayapur and wrote hundreds of books and articles. But this reconstruction was a hard task, so he begged the Lord to send "a ray of Visnu" to help him. Krsna was merciful and sent an assistant, Srila Bhakti-siddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada, whose preaching was so powerful that all over India, Mayavadl philosophy and caste gosvamism were smashed.
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada started a society of Vaisnavas known as the Gaudiya Matha. He had thousands of disciples, and some of his representatives went as far as England and Germany. His mission was a great one. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta established the method needed to cut the hard knot of material attachment in the heart, hrdaya granthi. The way to cut this hrdaya granthi is with grantha-the books of Krsna consciousness, or sdstra. Sdstra means not only "book" but also "weapon." This relationship is significant, because the books are our weapons. Prior to Srila Bhaktisiddhanta's time, books were distributed to scholars, but not in a systematic way to people in general. Lord Caitanya recommended chanting and prasadam for the masses and philosophy for the scholars. But as Kaliyuga progressed, people became so fallen that they were unable to accept the chanting and prasadam, and they re quired understanding to go forward.
Therefore Srila Bhaktisiddhanta put so much emphasis on publishing books. He called book publication the brhad, or big, mrdanga. The little mrdanga may be heard for one block, but the big mrdanga can be heard around the world. In the marble temple Srila Bhaktisiddhanta had built in Bagh Bazaar, Calcutta, he installed the Deity on one side and the printing press directly opposite, across the courtyard. To him the printing of books was so important that he considered the beat of the press to be kirtana and wanted it to sound in the temple all day.
Listening to that kirtana and having darsana of the printing press, the Deities were very happy."
The International Pure Bhakti Yoga Society's Gaudiya Vedanta Publishing is happy to offer you the new gvpbookdistribution.com website. It is being launched today, and we can send you news and updates every couple of weeks, just subscribe here. We pray that it will give you great inspiration in sharing Krsna consciousness with all.
John Belushi is alive and well!
John BelushiJohn Belushi is alive and well living as a Guru (Bhagavat Saptaha) in India as this pictures shows
Semi-wildlife in Vrindavan UP India
One of the locals
This kid with his cobra keeps asking for rupees and is very persistant, today he said "take picture for internet" so i did.
Pigs are everywhere, these were caught taking an afternoon nap.
A side part of the Yamuna.
Camels are put to work pulling carts
donkey work too
Radhe Radhe
Graffiti in Vrindavan
Radhe Radhe is the most often heard phase here whether meaning hello or get out of the way rickshaw coming through the name of Radhe reverberates through the town
Ratha Yatra Festival in Karol Bagh Delhi India
Delhi, India: October 3, 2008
A magnanimous Ratha-yatra program was organized by the Karol Bagh (Delhi) sanga on October 3, 2008. Srila Bhaktivedanta Narayana Gosvami Maharaja came to Akhbal Park in Karol Bagh, where a large pandal had been set up for the program, and about 2,500 devotees and honored guests were in attendance.
After honoring the guests from Congress, Srila Bhaktivedanta Narayana Gosvami Maharaja spoke about the glories of Lord Jagannatha.
Two wheels are better than four
In India two wheels are king I would that there are as manytwo wheelers asfour (cars)
Scooter and Hondas are the favorites of these. Between economy and easy parking andnarrow streets they seem the best way to get around
People drive them until they can't anymore as shown by this rusted out scooter.
This sign reads:
NO PARKING
OTHER WISE TYRES WILL
BE FLATTERED 
Architecture of Noida
I have been working 16 hour days to complete two websites for the sanga, not much time for fun or sightseeing... Occaisionaly I have to step away from the computer. I have been walking around Noida, taking pictures of the wildlife and buildings...
a lizard
Flight and Arrival in New Delhi India
New Delhi is very interesting. There are so many people and cows and
dogs. My sleep schedule is wacked, I fell asleep at 8pm and i am up now
at 2:30 am, There is some guy walking around with a whistle and a
wooden dowel banging it on the street, i don't know why.
Google sez dot info, .com, and .tv all valued equally
View profile
We generally treat all top level domains the same except for
geographic
targeting of ccTLDs. "Misusing" some of those country-code
TLDs could result
in a website ranking slightly better in that country
(which might not be the
desired outcome :-)). Domains using generic
TLDs can use the geographic
targeting feature in Webmaster Tools, if
desired. We don't view any gTLDs
better than others - a site
using .info can and generally will rank just as
well as a site
using .com provided all other factors are the same.
Google Clarification on meta descriptions and snippets
I hope you got some useful information from our recent blog post,
"Improve snippets with a meta description makeover"!
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/09/improve-snippets-with-meta-description.html
In the comments, several people have asked what the word- or character-
limit is on a meta description, so I'm here to clarify.
There's no fixed number of words/characters that you're "allowed." Try
querying [roller derby] on Google, for example, and check out the
snippets: the snippet for the #5 result ( http://www.txrd.com/ ) comes from
that page's meta description, which is > 260 characters long, and we
show the first ~150 of those characters in the snippet. The #10 result
( http://www.waynesderbyworld.blogspot.com/ ) has a 74 character meta
description, and we use all of it as the snippet. The first one is
more than 3 times as long as the second... but who cares? They both
got used as the snippet for their respective page.
Both of these are pretty good meta descriptions because they're human-
readable (not just a string of keywords) and they give you a good idea
of what you'll find on that page. Conclusion: the content and quality
of a meta description is much more important than its length! And your
time is much better spent thinking about what sort of description
would be useful and appealing to a user, rather than counting
characters.
Feel free to let us know if you have other questions about meta
descriptions and/or snippets!
Power of Prayer
Excerpt from Introduction to Nectar of Devotion © Bhaktivedanta Book Trust
devotional service is a sort of cultivation. It is not simply inaction for people who like to be inactive or devote their time to silent meditation. There are many different methods for people who want this, but cultivation of Krishna consciousness is different. The particular word used by Srila Rupa Gosvami in this connection is anusilana or cultivation by following the predecessor teachers (acaryas). As soon as we say "cultivation," we must refer to activity. Without activity, consciousness alone cannot help us. All activities may be divided into two classes: one class may be for achieving a certain goal, and the other may be for avoiding some unfavorable circumstance. In Sanskrit, these activities are called pravriti and nirvriti-positive and negative action. There are many examples of negative action. For instance, a diseased person has to be cautious and take medicine in order to avoid some unfavorable illness.
Those who are cultivating spiritual life and executing devotional service are always engaged in activity. Such activity can be performed with the body or with the mind. Thinking, feeling and willing are all activities of the mind, and when we will to do something, the activity comes to be manifest by the gross bodily senses. Thus, in our mental activities we should always try to think of Krishna and try to plan how to please Him, following in the footsteps of the great acaryas and the personal spiritual master. There are activities of the body, activities of the mind and activities of speech. A Krishna conscious person engages his words in preaching the glories of the Lord. This is called kirtana. And by his mind a Krishna conscious person always thinks of the activities of the Lord-as He is speaking on the Battlefield of Kuruksetra or engaging in His various pastimes in Vrindavana with His devotees. In this way one can always think of the activities and pastimes of the Lord. This is the mental culture of Krishna consciousness.
Similarly, we can offer many services with our bodily activities. But all such activities must be in relationship with Krishna. This relationship is established by connecting oneself with the bona fide spiritual master, who is the direct representative of Krishna in disciplic succession. Therefore, the execution of Krishna conscious activities with the body should be directed by the spiritual master and then performed with faith. The connection with the spiritual master is called initiation. From the date of initiation by the spiritual master, the connection between Krishna and a person cultivating Krishna consciousness is established. Without initiation by a bona fide spiritual master, the actual connection with Krishna consciousness is never performed.
(More)Initiation Into Spiritual Life by by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura
Initiation into Spritual Life
The ceremony of diksha or initiation is that by which the spiritual Preceptor admits one to the status of a neophyte on the path of spiritual endeavour. The ceremony tends to confer spiritual enlightenment by abrogating sinfulness. Its actual effect depends on the degree of willing co-operation on the part of the disciple and is, therefore, not the same in all cases. It does not preclude the possibility of reversion on the novice to the non-spiritual state, if he slackens in his effort or misbehaves. Initiation puts a person on the true track and also imparts an initial impulse to go ahead. It cannot, however, keep one going for good unless one chooses to put forth his own voluntary effort. The nature of the initial impulse also varies in accordance with the condition of the recipient. But although the mercy of the good preceptor enables us to have a glimpse of the Absolute and of the path of His attainment, the seed that is thus sown requires very careful tending under the direction of the preceptor, if it is to germinate and grow into the fruit-and-shade-giving tree. Unless our soul of his own accord chooses to serve Krishna after obtaining a working idea of his real nature, he cannot long retain the Spiritual Vision. The soul is never compelled by Krishna to serve Him.But initiation is never altogether futile. It changes the outlook of the disciple on life. If he sins after initiation, he may fall into greater depths of degradation than the uninitiated. But although even after initiation temporary set-backs may occur, they do not ordinarily prevent the final deliverance. The faintest glimmering of the real knowledge of the Absolute has sufficient power to change radically and for good the whole of our mental and physical constitution and this glimmering is incapable of being totally extinguished except in extraordinarily unfortunate cases.
It is undoubtedly practicable for the initiated, if only he is willing, to follow the directions of the preceptor that lead by slow degrees to the Absolute. The good preceptor is verily the savior of fallen souls. It is, however, very rarely that a person with modern culture feels inclined to submit to the guidance of another specially in spiritual matters. But the very person submits readily enough to the direction of a physician for being cured of his bodily ailments. Because these latter cannot be ignored without consequences that are patent to everybody. The evil that results from our neglect of the ailments of the soul is of a nature that paralyses and deludes our understanding and prevents the recognitions of itself. Its gravity is not recognized as it does not apparently stand in the way of our worldly activities with the same directness as the other. The average cultured man is, therefore, at liberty to ask questions without realizing any pressing necessity of submitting to the treatment of spiritual maladies at the hands of a really competent physician.
The Attitude of a Servant by Sri Srimad Bhakti Prajnana Kesava Gosvami Maharaja
The Attitude of a Servant
tanoh phalam tvadrisa-gatra-sangah
jihva-phalam tvadrisa-kirtanam hi
sudurlabha bhagavata hi loke
Devotees of Bhagavan are extremely rare in this world. Therefore the perfection of the eyes is to see them, the perfection of the body is to touch them and the perfection of the tongue is to glorify them. Upon seeing the title of this essay and reading this verse, many people will object to this essay even before reading it. Offering our brothers, the readers, prostrated obeisances (sashtanga-pranamas) and keeping a straw between our teeth, we earnestly beseech them to hear us. By submissively approaching the lotus feet of an acarya who is the personified conclusion and the manifested embodiment of sastra, we can understand that our consideration of sastra is based on external perception and is nothing but the whim of our minds. Whatever sastra refutes or rejects we, according to our desire, accept as the subject and essence of sastra.
Gaudiya Vaishnava Theology- Srila Bhakti Saranga Gosvami Maharaj
Gaudiya Vaishnava Theology
by Srila Bhakti Saranga Gosvami Maharaj
The Hindu Scriptures teach us, according to Sri Krishna Chaitanya, nine principle doctrines:1) Hari (the Almighty) is One without a second.
2) He is full of infinite power.
3) He is the ocean of Rasa (beauty and sweetness).
4) The individual souls, the living beings, are His separated parts.
5) Certain souls are engrossed in Maya, the illusory energy of the Lord.
6) Certain other souls are released from the bondage of Maya.
7) All spiritual and material phenomena are connected to the Lord but distinct from Him.
8) Bhakti, or devotion to God, is the only means of attaining the final and highest objective of life, the attainment of spiritual existence.
9) Prema, or holy love for Krishna, is alone the final and highest objective of life.
This Theistic vision is not attainable by the theories of mundane science. It is, however, not opposed to a truly rational conclusion or understanding. It satisfies, fully, the needs of our real moral sense. It floods our life with peace, joy and hope, freeing us from all evils and solving the mystery of pain, vice and death.
Fulfillment Is In Love
Fulfillment Is In Love
There are different forms also. Mahaprabhu said to Ramananda "age kaho ara - go further." Dasya, sakhya, vatsalya, madhurya, svakijya, parakiya - there is gradation. But the plane is all together, jnana-sunya, self-forgetfulness, the plane of self-forgetfulness, not just sacrifice. The Christian missionaries also say that: "e;Sacrifice is seen in the life of Socrates, but Christ's recommendation, the plane of self-forgetfulness is higher than that." Self-forgetfulness is higher than self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice is the beginning, and then in a higher stage, self-forgetfulness. But that does not mean no sentient activity. In that plane also, fully conscious of their interest; different parties, competition, everything is there, but the background is such. And it is difficult to understand that background. Whatever we find here is there; but it is of the opposite type, and the original is the ideal type.
Keen competition is also there in that plane, but the foundation is self-forgetfulness. The peculiar thing is that Centre consciousness, and here selfishness of the plurality is the difference.
