New Hare Krishna World Part 1

In this program, I want to share with you some persons whose lives, like mine, have been transformed by what has become known as the Hare Krishna movement. Although the movement is anything but new, it was unknown in the Western countries until His Divine Grace, A.C. Bhakta Vedanta Swami, Srila Prabhupada, came to the shores of America on a freighter at the advanced age of 70 years old. He carried the message of his spiritual master. and of an entire disciplic succession of spiritual teachers.

The remarkable feature of his presence was his inconceivable potency to plant the seed of devotion to Krishna in the hearts of so many thousands and now millions of people. By his mercy, the transcendental knowledge, familiar only to those initiated into the secret ambrosia of devotional service to Krishna, has become available to the entire world. We dedicate this program to him. O my Lord Sri Krishna, son of Vasudeva, O all-pervading personality of Godhead, I offer my respectful obeisances unto you.

I meditate upon Lord Sri Krishna because he is the absolute truth and the premeable cause of all causes creation, sustenance and destruction of the manifest of universes. It is he who first imparted the Vedic knowledge unto the heart of Brahmājī, the original living being. Only because of him do the material universes temporarily manifested by the reactions of the three modes of nature appear factual. I therefore meditate upon him who is eternally existent in the canton of the world, which is forever free from the illusory representations of material world.

Vaishnava and Vaishnavis here. So please remember it's a big praise. Somebody needs to smile nicely and chant loudly, okay? Since thousands of years, this Vatsyātra festival of prajurit has been celebrated in India. in India.

It began in the holy city of Suri in the eastern coast of India. In this auspicious festival, people from different parts of the country come together to pull the chariots of the Lord. The Lord is one. We may call him Father in Heaven.

We can call him Allah. We can call him Buddha. We can call him Rama or Krishna. One may be a Buddhist, Jain, Christian or Muslim.

They all come together to pull the chariot of the Lord because the Lord is one for everyone so this festival of india is to celebrate this unity of mankind amongst the diversity and the music this is uh fortunately our 15th year participating in the aloha day today it was very ecstatic experience to see all the conditions so eager to get large When everyone develops faith in me, one should worship me in that form. I certainly exist both within all created beings and also separately in my original form, since I am the supreme soul of all. Krishna is actually very much present in his deity form. So I've experienced that over the years.

I've been 18 years here in Vrindavan doing deity worship. Magalarti, making the preparations and setting up the plates and waking the deities up. So actually, for me, it's like a lifestyle. I mean, it's my life and blood.

If I didn't have that, I wouldn't be able to stay in Vrindavan because it's such a very austere and very high-potency place. So by having a contact with the deities on a daily affair, every day I'm there at least 45 to an hour with the deities alone. so that I can actually say that, you know, this is the substance of my life. So although it's a daily function, every day it's different. There's never been a day the same.

So because of this, because the deity worship is so intimate in relationship with the Supreme Lord, I find my whole life has been completely revolutionized. I was an artist before I joined the movement and had some reputation back in the 60s. So I had a taste of what the world is, and I completely rejected it. I felt this was not the answer.

Srila Prabhupada, he told me to stay here in Vrindavan and to work in the arts. We're doing that. We're actually working in bronze and marble and painting. Having had the basis and training as an artist in painting, sculpture, and architecture, it's a natural evolution to use that service for Krishna.

At this time, I'm doing a Mahabharata series, the children for a devotee audience. It'll be basically an illustrated version, each page an illustration and some small text. Not a scholarly version, but something very simple for devotees and devotee children. Without the deity worship, without the substance of a daily exchange with the Lord, it's not possible to carry on.

18 years solid without a break I work 365 days a year and I never experience any fatigue or not me or routine it's always new and fresh It is the duty of every living being to perform welfare activities for the benefit of others with his life, intelligence and words Well, when I first came to Krishna Consciousness I realized that there was something missing in my life even though i had uh you know grown up with virtually everything anyone could want and you know we everyone in our family had everything they wanted more than they more than they needed and yet there was seemed to be a lack of something a lack of happiness lack of direction the lack of spirituality really is what it was when i came to christian consciousness and and came in contact with uh shila prahlad and started reading prahlad's books, I realized that actually that the purpose of having wealth and the purpose of having money and property and assets is actually to serve God. In the beginning, I was mostly helping Srila Prabhupada establish temples in Hawaii and in Detroit.

And specifically, he asked me to help create these diorama exhibitions. And I've tried to do that in various places in Detroit and working somewhat in India now. So there was some specific instructions that he gave me as far as preaching activities, but basically it was just a general order to utilize your wealth to serve Krishna. Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you offer and give away, and whatever austerities you perform, do that, O son of Kunti, as an offering to me.

Australia's longest-serving Hare Krishna, Komadasa, has set about enlightening the world to Hare Krishna cooking. His television cookery program has been shown in 40 countries to an estimated audience of 200 million people. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna But worldly success has not distracted Kormodasa from what he sees as his true calling and his devotion of 25 years. Comparing lives at a reunion of high school classmates who remember him as Philip Gordon.

It's nice to see that one of my fellow students also decided to express his feeling of God in a different way and yet still share it with other people. The early years of the Hare Krishna movement met with a lot of public suspicion. Those days, life was very simple and we didn't have any farms or schools or restaurants or big administration to manage. These days we have all those things.

Kormodasa has come a long way since then. He has taught and demonstrated his cooking in schools, colleges and restaurants from London to Warsaw, Delhi to Beijing. Looking back, and it's taken me a few years to sort of figure it out, but a lot of the passion and frustration that I experienced in youth, which most people would say is just part of growing up, I think it had a lot to do with what I was eating. and looking around at the boys and girls that have grown up as devotees in this movement, I've noticed that they haven't gone through the intense traumas and frustrations, a lot of them, that I went through, and I think it has a lot to do with the diet. Korma's rigorous lifestyle can mean a 20-hour working day.

He's currently rushing to finish a biography of Srila Prabhupada, the movement's founder. Well, that's it for this edition of Cooking with Korma. I do hope you've enjoyed preparing these dishes as much as I've enjoyed sharing them with you. Happy and healthy eating.

The Krishna Consciousness Movement vigorously approves the practice of preparing food, offering it to the deity and distributing it to the general population. This activity should be extended universally. Presently we're serving about one meal every two seconds. So every two seconds, one, two, There's a high-efficiency summer in the world, providing a hot meal to a hungry person.

So we would travel on the trailer and at one point bullets were flying over our head, about 20 feet above our head and we just had to pray that we wouldn't be shot. I'm the one free of pain, we must feed them to this smile, we must feed them to this smile. We are food for life, we are food for life, there's hope inside you shall be satisfied. Here is food for life, here is food for life, come to our side.

Last year we served our half a millionth plate and we're very proud of that. Beautiful. You guys have been real. I appreciate it very much.

My name is Daru Brahmadas and I've been running the program here for about 10 years. It's been going on for 25 years. Last night, Saturday night, five people killed here. But we are trying to distribute pressure in this place.

Everybody love us. Hello again from MNH Care, coming to you this week from Durban. We're here to investigate a new concept. We've all heard about nuclear-free zones and smoke-free zones, but how about a hunger-free zone?

There's much, much more to food for life than filling a belly. The people need to know that somebody cares for them and loves them. And that caring and loving is given in such a simple, person-to-person way that there's no better way to show that caring and love than to help them out with some food when they're having trouble. That is the spirit of Prasad Khanna, of building one another together.

It is also the spirit of today's festival, organized by Hare Krishna Food for Life. Prabhupada always emphasized the importance of prasadam distribution, so we took that to heart. There wasn't anybody at the time making a fresh juice Prada, so we thought this would be a nice way to distribute Prasadam. Taking a first bottle to the offerings of the deities in the temple.

For the people to associate the name Govindu with something that's fresh, pure, very first class. I knew that Prabhupada said you could change the world through Prasadam, so it inspired me in my service. I've been living on my own in Sarasota, and I opened my restaurant in November of last year. Not all the turkeys were dinner today.

Local patrons of an organic restaurant substitute tofu, turkey, for the real thing, and that spared his life. Replace all these meat products with natural things that don't harm your body and keep your finer intelligence and so forth. I could experience people expanding their consciousness, just changing the way they were, simply by eating for saddam. We have been doing this program for many years, and people appreciate our service.

In a sense, the bakery is like a temple. By making offerings to the spiritual master, we feel unified with all the devotees here and everywhere. So open restaurants in any part of any city and make nice delicacies. everyone be satisfied the renunciation of work and work in devotion are both good for liberation but of the two work and devotional service is better than renunciation of work you're listening to 1480 khqn in spanish fork utah this is your headquarters for culture and consciousness that remind one and all that tomorrow is our annual festival of india last year's event through 5,000 participants, and most of those will be back, I think, tomorrow with their friends. Scout leaders are sending their troops over here.

Parents are bringing their kids. Teachers are referring their students. And I think the reason for this is that we don't threaten anyone. Our culture, since time immemorial, has not attempted to gain converts by criticizing or putting down another religion.

We basically respect and accept all religions, but feel we have something to add. This is the 17th year, and we know Srila Prabhupada is very pleased when he sees people having their lives transformed. Many people come, and as a result of going to a festival like this, they become vegetarian. If they're a Christian, Hindu, or Mormon, they become better at whatever they are by adopting some of the practices of Krishna consciousness in the sense of their life, we're very happy to see people's lives transformed.

Therefore, the doubts which have arisen in your heart out of ignorance should be slashed with the weapon of knowledge. It was Prabhupāda's idea from the very beginning that the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement belonged among the leadership of this world, that it had to be most respectable. We can become a member of this graduate theological union. Then they can get a degree recognized by the state of California so they can teach in universities all over the whole country.

That's what I want. Do it. The Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley is perhaps the most important graduate religious studies school in the western United States. Certainly it has the largest theological library in the western United States.

They have many levels and kinds of joint programs with the University of California at Berkeley, which is one of the top universities in America, if not the world. Prabhupada always used to say that there are many great universities all over the world, but there's no department, there's no program to understand the soul. The faculty the IBS will be bringing to the G2 as adjunct faculty in the coming year will include those who will be teaching introductory course in Sanskrit, a course in the Bhagavad-gītā. There will be a department to understand the soul.

There will be a department to understand Kṛṣṇa. Thus, established in the mode of unalloyed goodness, the man whose mind has been enlivened by contact with devotional service to the Lord gains positive scientific knowledge of the Personality of Godhead in the stage of liberation from all material association. In 1984, I was given an assignment by the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust to work with Sada Puttaprabhu, Richard Thompson, on a magazine that would present the basic Vedic perspective on different issues in modern science to a popular audience. For eight years, I did considerable research into the entire history of archaeology.

The book Forbidden Archaeology was my first venture into very heavy scientific research and writing. In their book, Forbidden Archaeology, Michael Cremo and Dr. Richard Thompson uncovered numerous cases which suggest that modern man could be millions of years older than history tells us. According to most standard accounts, human beings like ourselves have only been around 100,000 years or so.

But the evidence that we catalog in forbidden archaeology takes human history back tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of years. From the very beginning, we wanted the work that we did in forbidden archaeology to reach not only the scientific world, but also the general public. Therefore, we made an abridged edition of the book called The Hidden History of the Human Race. The Hidden History of the Human Race is something that is in direct opposition, I guess. the darwinian theory of evolution there was a lot of planning that went into that to make it happen but that was all inspired by the desire of a shooter powerpoint who wanted that to happen and that is very satisfying to me a person who is constantly engaged in reading literature enunciating the cultivation of vaishnava devotional service is always glorious in human and certainly Lord Kṛṣṇa becomes pleased with him.

I was quite skeptical about my ability of doing devotional service because I was the first Chinese devotee. I was by myself and seemingly nobody was supporting what I was doing. It was a cultural shock but somehow I kept going. Thay gave me the direction that I should translate his books into Chinese and I gradually learned and at the same time introduced Bhakti Yoga into the Chinese speaking people.

From that time onwards we expanded our temple. We have regular deity worship, we have programs for the Chinese communities, we have lectures, We teach yoga, and we also have a restaurant. Godhead is light. Nescience is darkness.

Where there is Godhead, there is no nescience. I got involved in 1968 when I first joined at Second Avenue. My first engagement was stapling booklets, collating back to Godhead. And I gradually moved up to Taiping.

And somehow or other, after some time, they made me the editor. Here's a magazine dealing with the quintessence of spiritual life. Back to Godhead. When people come in touch with Back to Godhead, then they come in touch with Krishna, they come in touch with the devotees of Krishna, they come in touch with the literature of Krishna consciousness, the culture of Krishna consciousness, the arts of Krishna consciousness.

Krishna and everything connected with Krishna, people come in touch with through Back to Godhead. It's meant for the service of the readers, service, not material service, but service to the Self within the body, the service to the eternal person in the Self. I wish that all of our Kṛṣṇa conscious literatures may be available to men of all languages throughout the world, so whatever assistance you can give in this connection is always appreciated. Our main goal is to see all of Srila Prabhupada's books translated and printed as quickly as possible for all the languages of Northern Europe, Central Europe, and the former Soviet Union.

Right now we can do about 70 to 100 titles a year, and this, our translation work, resulted in printing approximately 27 million books in the past three years. Everybody who gets in contact with Philip Albert's books benefits so much. I benefited, everybody who translates here benefited, everybody who takes a book and reads benefits. That gives us a lot of inspiration to go on in this lifelong marathon of translating and producing his literature.

If you just go and try to ask everybody, you don't like on material platform choose people but sometimes if you stop even all the people you got amazed how they give you big donation and they get they get a book i feel very grateful to being allowed to take part in this wonderful mission because i understand that it is not by my qualities or by my way of speaking or smiling to that person that this man now took these books but I can see that something from within told him that this is good for you and you should actually accept it and you should take it being a book distributor is a great challenge because you don't really know what is going to happen the next day although you know this that every you are going to have the same experience. It seems to be really new.

I used to wonder why I was very sad and my two sons were very happy. And so I started reading Prabhupāda's books and my two sons began preaching to me and convinced me to become a devotee of Kṛṣṇa. So I am very glad to have two sons who are devotees of Kṛṣṇa. I was parked in a gas station in Peru. and was putting gas in my car when a lady came up to me dressed like an Indian.

She was very happy and enthusiastic. She said, this is a book by my spiritual master, please read this book. I brought the book home and read it. Immediately after reading the book, I told Lolita, this is knowledge.

This is the knowledge we were looking for. I was very young then, only four years old, but my parents got convinced by that book. It changed their hearts and that moved me. The next day, we went looking for more books.

We went to the same gas station. The same lady was there distributing books. We ran up to her and asked her, do you have any other books? What other books do you have?

When we approached the financial director again, he refused to meet us. We went back to the general director to talk to him about the situation. All of a sudden, this very peaceful, gentle person stood up from his chair in a very determined way and said, let's go. This leader was exceptionally special.

He told us that he is convinced that the production of the enterprise is directly connected with people reading these books, and that's why he was so persistent in helping us. Now I have grandsons and granddaughters. I will give them all these books as gifts. Let them read them.

Thanks a lot to these young people who come here and so kindly give us this knowledge. There is so little kindness in this world. You are planting this kindness in people's hearts. After being in contact with knowledge like this, I become more soft-hearted.

I am planning to read these books. Then we will see. Maybe they will convince me to believe in God. These books have eternal values, which are important for everyone to know, whether they are Hare Krishnas, Christians, Muslims, or any other type of transcendentalist.

My ambition is to spread these books far and wide all over the world so that everyone shall read at least one of our books, and that will change his life. Bhakti Marg Swami began his Cross Canada tour last April in Vancouver. He averages about 50 kilometers a day. His message is simple.

Canadians should think more about the spiritual side of life. I'd like to see Canada become a little more stable, cohesive. On the roads of Canada, Bhakti Marg says people have given him food and offered him rides. Bhakti Marg hopes to reach St.

John's, Newfoundland before Christmas. And although his trek ends there, he says his spiritual journey will continue. When you're on foot and you're going long distances, you're forced to meet people and to talk to people. And that's what I think I've gained from this walk, is the opportunity to make a lot of friends and allow people to come that much closer to Krishna.

The continuation of Mahaprabhu's walk 500 years ago, at that time he walked within India but now he's going beyond the boundaries. When Prabhupāda found out how we were doing nicely in the villages, especially how we were depending on Kṛṣṇa, inviting people, chanting and speaking to them, and make them sit down and feed Prasāda, Prabhupāda was so pleased. but the chief said yes and off went the temple with happy harry krishna disciples and the bullocks sandwiched between a lorry and a pantechnicon someone asked why they couldn't walk on water or maybe that would have been asking too much this sankirtan movement is the prime benediction for humanity it enables us to fully taste the nectar for which we are always anxious. Sankirtan is the most important part of the people here in Manipur. In general, anybody, in any family in Manipuri, they have to perform the sankirtan for any function, for any of their life duties.

Gaudiya Vaisnava came during the king's time by Girachandra Maharaj. Radhakrishna Rathlila is the most important. All the Vaisnavas, they think this is the prime instructions they should follow 90% of the population in Bali they are following the Hindu religion the chanting of the holy name was doesn't known by the people here until the coming of the devotees so we sharing many many books especially here in Bali and also in other islands the devotees are increasing suppose the Dancing goes back many, many thousands of years, and it is a very nice type of dance because it is a dramatical dance. It's a dance which displays the pastimes of Lord Rama and Lord Kṛṣṇa, and therefore one becomes Kṛṣṇa conscious by watching these beautiful dances.

Although Kali-yuga is an ocean of faults, there is still one good quality about this age. Simply by chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa Mahā-mantra, one can become free from material bondage and be promoted to an incidental kingdom. Peter Paul once said that the paintings in our books are like windows to the spiritual world. So I feel that by seeing the Harinam Party, they're looking through that window and they're actually seeing the spiritual world in action.

I've tried to develop that aspect where I'm preaching in the world, particularly in Poland and Russia. Wherever I go, I try to emphasize that aspect of chanting. and dancing and developing it. We try to encourage the people to join us. It's not just a show out there, but we're trying to bring people into the spiritual world.

So we'll invite them to dance with us. There's a way that people can actually see the dynamic and blissful nature of the spiritual world. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Dance the holy name in every dance.

No time for all your dreams. Now the who you are, It's time to wake up, been dreaming on a... Martin Luther King had a dream, and of course, we believe in that dream because we would also like to see everyone come under one banner, under one guise, under the banner of God, Krishna. So we want to get out there and propagate that understanding.

There's no time for playing games... By chanting Hare Krishna and following the process of Krishna consciousness, people all over the world can live harmoniously in happiness. By the mercy of Lord Chaitanya, people are getting this nectar, and it's immediate, it's not a slow process. In a capsule, what is the movement?

Movement is to awaken God consciousness of the human being. The human being is distinguished from the animals, that the animals cannot understand what is God. And Hare Kṛṣṇa means what? Hare Kṛṣṇa means addressing the energy of God.

Hare means the energy of God, and Kṛṣṇa means God. Do you feel that in getting truths from various places like the Bible and the Koran and so forth, don't you run into conflicts at all or contradictions in those particular philosophies? No, I don't find any conflict Because the ultimate goal is God. So you have to understand God and try to love Him.

If everyone in the United States believed in Kṛṣṇa and to the extent that you do, what would happen to this country? How would it be transformed? A very, very happy and peaceful thing. People want to know the value of this movement through science, philosophy, We have got enough ingredients to supply you.

Otherwise, it is simple, very simple. Simply chant this mantra, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare, Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Rāma. And everything will be manifest to you.