The International Society for Krishna Consciousness Founder-Acarya His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
|
rsabha uvaca “Lord Rishabhadeva told His sons: My dear boys, of all the living entities who have accepted material bodies in this world, one who has been awarded this human form should not work hard day and night simply for sense gratification, which is available even for dogs and hogs that eat stool. One should engage in penance and austerity to attain the divine position of devotional service. By such activity, one's heart is purified, and when one attains this position, he attains eternal, blissful life, which is transcendental to material happiness and which continues forever.” |
H a r e K r i s h n a ! Welcome to ISKCON Sydney's e-newsletter. His Holiness Devamrita Swami is currently with us in Sydney. He will give a discourse on Friday July 3rd in the temple room after arati and kirtan. Please join us and hear from an advanced devotee and leader of Krishna consciousness. On July 4th-5th there is a special retreat entitled Divine Vision. The weekend retreat is now full, sorry for anyone wishing to go - day visits may be possible contact Sri Goloka Das on 0416 150 401. Maharaja has given classes in the temple in the mornings and a discourse at Govindas Lotus Room which was filled with capacity with Western people eager to hear about Superconsciousness or 'Krishna consciousness'. We look forward seeing those of you on the retreat this weekend - full report next issue... There is a special seminar with His Holiness Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami from July 9th - 18th entitled Vedic Psychology. Maharaja is an expert in various fields of Vedic knowledge so please come and hear from a self realised soul on the practicalities of devotional service in the modern world. Details below of the seminars. *Please note: there is a small change to the schedule in that the July 18th seminar will run 6-7pm and after that Sri Prahlada will perform his kirtan. On Sunday 12th July from 6:00pm there will be the first in a series of PAMHO Live inteviews - this one with special guest His Holiness Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami. This will allow everyone to ask a personal question to Maharaja via the interviewer Antony Brennan. See details below how to contact Antony to get your question across to Maharaja and please attend the event at North Sydney Temple if you are able. His Grace Sri Prahlada Prabhu will be in Sydney for 3 days from 17th-19th July 2009. He will do kirtan sessions on Friday 17th July (after the Vedic Psychology seminar) at approx 8:30-9pm; on Saturday 18th July 7:30-9pm; and on Sunday 19th July 7:30-9pm. He will also give a class on the 19th of July between 6-7pm. Please come and take advantage of his beautiful chanting and knowledge of the Vedic texts. Beginning July 24th is a series of 3 video shows on 'Following Srila Prabhupada' – which are new documentaries made by Yadubara Prabhu in the USA with footage of Prabhupada and commentaries by disciples present at that time. There will be 3 showings on Friday nights July 24, 31st and August 7th from 7.30pm in the temple room leading up to Vyasa-Puja. Please come and see the videos in the association of other devotees and increase your appreciation of the great legacy Srila Prabhupada has left us with in spreading Krishna consciousness globally. Last Saturday was Liverpool Ratha-Yatra, when at 10am everyone got a chance to pull Lord Jagannatha's chariot through the city streets and chant and dance in the kirtan. The parade started at Bigge Park and went right through the centre of the city of Liverpool, whose streets will be closed specifically for this purpose, and so everyone present receive the great benefit of seeing the Lord in this form and hearing the Holy Names. Before the parade speeches were held on the stage in the park by devotees and local goverment dignitaries, and afterwards a stage program was held there and a free prasadam feast served to all. Please read the report below and view some of the photos taken by the Liverpool Leader newspaper. Many thanks to everyone involved in organising the festival this year which has been going for 3 years running. All glories to Lord Jagannatha! As usual the Sunday Program runs each week from 4.30pm with arati and kirtans, prasadam available from 5.30pm and discourse at 6.15pm. Below are listed all our donors for last month. Anyone wishing to contribute money can click the PayPal logo to donate online. Thank you for your support. Hope to see you all soon! |
|
|
Links courtesy of New Zealand Hare Krishna Resource Network View the whole calendar month here >
His Holiness Discourse Friday July 3rd 2009 North Sydney Temple 7.30pm Everyone Welcome |
![]() |
Biography Devamrita Swami was born on October 16, 1950 in New York City. At the age of seventeen, he received a scholarship to Yale University and graduated in 1972. Official website: www.devaswami.com |
Vedic Psychology Maharaja has spent the last 30 years living in an ashram in the holy dhama, Sridham Mayapur. During his three decades of study and personal experience of the spiritual culture of India, he has acquired very unique knowledge and learned how to practically apply this ancient wisdom. His specialties are traditional education, arts and astrology, just to name a few. Maharaja will spend 10 days in Sydney giving morning and evening talks. The seminars will commence on July 9th and finish July 18th. Morning Classes: 7:45-8:45am Free Admission ISKCON Sydney has a restaurant open for dinner from 5:30 - 8:30pm. |
![]() |
PAMHO Live 6:00pm Sunday July 12, 2009 at ISKCON Sydney. |
![]() |
His Grace He will do the following kirtan sessions: He will also give a class on the 19th of July between 6-7pm |
![]() |
“Let’s meditate on Srila Prabhupada” Srila Prabhupada’s Video night Dates: Friday, 24th of July / Friday, 31st of July / Friday, 7th of August Start: 7:30pm /
End: 8:30pm |
![]() |
Photos by Dhanesvari devi dasi
|
|
Seva Club – Volunteer Program Fill out the form online to become a volunteer member of ISKCON Sydney. Click here > |
Hall & Home programs Hall Programs 'Krishna Evening' Hall Program, Wentworthville. Hornsby Hall Programs – Willow Park Commuity Centre, 25 Edgeworth David Avenue, Hornsby The website for Hornsby program is www.hornsbykrishnas.org.au BHAKTI YOGA MEDITATION If you are in need for transport please call us, we will arrange for you. Thank you very much. Home Programs Saturday 10th July Saturday 1st August 2009
|
P h o t o G
a l l e r y Anyone with photographs
of Their Lordships from Sydney's past |
Inside Britain's first Hindu state-funded faith school The pupils do yoga, eat vegetarian food and are calm and alert. By Emily Dugan
"I like the tree position best," says five-year-old Sadhana, standing perfectly still on one leg, hands clasped in prayer. She is one of a row of children perched like stalks on miniature yoga mats as calming music tinkles in the background. Half an hour earlier, when a crocodile of 21 four- and five-year-olds filed into the room, this had looked like any other school. But after they had launched into a Hare Krishna prayer, singing, patting a mrdanga drum and touching the floor in a low bow, it was clear that things are different here. Sadhana attends the Krishna-Avanti Primary School in Harrow, Britain's first state-funded Hindu faith school, which opened its doors last September. Last week, The Independent on Sunday became the first newspaper to see the school at work. It is one of the latest in a growing number of non-Christian faith schools. And its opening coincides with unprecedented levels of government funding for faith-based education, despite polls suggesting that public support for state-funded faith education is dwindling. A YouGov poll this month found that more than half of Britons think faith schools damage community cohesion, and 72 per cent want state schools to be forbidden from discriminating on religious grounds. Nevertheless, there are now 6,867 faith schools in England, with 395 in Scotland and 263 in Wales. Until 1959, the state paid for only half the capital costs of religious schools, but over the past half-century the cost borne by the Government has soared, finally rising from 85 to 90 per cent under Tony Blair in 2001. Since Labour came to power, faith schools have broadened from being almost exclusively Christian to include Muslim, Sikh and now Hindu institutions. Increasingly, the 10 per cent of capital costs that religious foundations are supposed to pay is slipping. Schools are claiming "exceptional circumstances" so often that the average contribution made by the foundations behind faith schools is just 7.5 per cent, resulting in additional costs to the taxpayer of more than £18m this year. Critics say the bill to the taxpayer is all the more galling because faith schools are likely to be dominated by privileged and able children. Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, chair of the Accord Coalition, a body opposed to faith schools, says this is unacceptable: "The number of young people from low-income families attending both primary and secondary faith schools is lower than the number attending non-faith schools. As someone who values faith enormously, I find it immoral that they're using taxpayers' money to act in this way. If faith schools have any raison d'etre it should be to support those others ignore, but it seems the opposite happens." Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, says the decision is one of principle: "Most church schools proselytise. It is wrong in principle for the state to fund proselytisation – whatever state or religion." Staff at the Krishna-Avanti stressed that indoctrination is not the school's aim. Naina Parmar, the headmistress, said: "We're certainly not here to proselytise the Hindu faith" – despite morning prayers and yoga being followed by a reading of the Bhagavad Gita. From the children's point of view, however, school is school. After a session on the history of Krishna, one child could barely contain his boredom. "Can't we go out and play now?" he asked, squirming on the floor. The children here have a vegetarian diet with plenty of yoga and outdoor play. The mid-morning snack is a piece of fruit or raw vegetable – in fact, this may well be the healthiest class in Britain. The effect is impressive: all of the children seem calm and alert beyond their years, listening intently to their teacher. The school, which has only one class, is renting a room in Little Stanmore primary school as its £11m purpose-built site opposite is finished. Facilities will include a meditation garden, an amphitheatre for outside teaching and eco-friendly innovations such as a grass roof. Officially, applications are open to all but priority is given to vegetarians and Hindus; there are currently no non-Hindus on the register. It is clearly intended as a resource for the 40,000-strong Hindu community in Harrow. The teacher, Mrs Clark, grew up in an Amish family in Canada and came to Hinduism after living in ashrams. "I'm a very open-minded person and I believe Krishna is the same god as Jehovah, Allah or any other. Our supply teacher is Muslim and I want to keep it that way. We want the children to be open-minded, which is what Hinduism is all about." London Ratha Yatra Emerges Unaffected After Police Negotiations
By Madhava Smullen on 28 Jun 2009 Despite proposed changes and fees, London’s 41st Ratha Yatra (Chariot Festival) will be held this June 28 on the streets of the British capital without any modifications from previous years, after extensive negotiations with government and police. Police have offered their traffic management and security services free to the parade for the past forty years. However, due to the current economic climate new Mayor Boris Johnson decided to make cutbacks in the police department, resulting in police having to charge all protest marches, carnivals and rallies for their services. “Ratha Yatra was registered in 1969 as a protest march, since the Lord Mayor’s procession is the only official procession the city allows,” explains festival co-ordinator Titikshu Dasa. The total charges for hiring police escorts and traffic wardens? £25,000 on top of the already large amount of funds required for the festival. Springing into action, Titikshu formed a Ratha Yatra task force, who arranged a meeting with the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Presenting a strong case that there had been no consultation process or community impact assessment regarding the prospective change, devotees explained that this meant effectively killing an event which was now celebrating its 40th anniversary. “After listening to our case, the police top brass were very understanding and helpful,” Titikshu says. “Almost immediately, they took full responsibility and decided not to charge at all for this year's Ratha Yatra." Ten thousand members of the public and ISKCON devotees from all over the world are expected at the parade, where three 40-foot high colourful chariots carrying Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra will be pulled from Marble Arch to Trafalgar Square. Organizers expect twenty thousand to attend the after-festival at Trafalgar Square, where they will be able to sample music, food, and literature, participate in lively workshops, and try sari-draping and face-painting. The stage show will treat festival-goers to traditional temple dance, drama, and music, and free sumptuous Indian vegetarian cuisine will top off the experience. "Each year, we aim to create a more vibrant and colourful festival for London," Titikshu says. "Now forty years since the first Ratha Yatra in the city, it’s amazing to see yet another generation of Londoners enjoying the Ratha Yatra celebrations here.” Following this year’s parade, Titikshu and other organizers will enter into a dialogue with the police about next year’s arrangements. Judging by recent negotiations, they expect to pay a fee, but one significantly lowered from the originally proposed £25,000. Lord Jagannath set to take gala journey in the city
22 Jun 2009, 2328 hrs IST, TNN VADODARA: Lord Jagannath along with Lord Balram and Devi Subhadra are set to make their gala The rath yatra will start from railway station at 2.30 pm when city mayor Balkrishna Shukla will emulate the ancient ritual enacted ever year by Gajapati Maharaja of Puri, in which he will symbolically sweep the road in front of Lord Jagannath's cart to inaugurate this august event. From railway station, the procession will move throughout the main roads of city, first passing through Sayajigunj, then to Salatwada Naka, Kothi, Jubilee Baug, Sursagar, Dandia Bazaar, Khanderao market, Lal Court, Madan Jhampa, R V Desai Road, Kevda Baug and will end at around 8 pm in front of Baroda High School, opposite Polo Ground. "City police, too, have made elaborate security arrangements to ensure that the Bhagwan Jagannath Rath Yatra Mahotsav' continues its record as the festival of joy and peace," said president of ISKCON, Vadodara, Basu Ghosh Das. The Lord's chariot will pass through the bylanes of city amid divine chants of Jay Jagannath' and Hare Rama, Hare Krishna'. "There will be bands, children in traditional dress, bhajan mandalis, both on bullock carts, chariots, horses, camels, youth in costumes portraying various scenes from mythological literatures and ISKCON devotees from around the world engaging in continuous harinam sankirtan' in the procession that will move in front of the rath," said senior disciple Jasomati Nandan Das. He along with other senior disciples Deenabandhu Das from Vrundavan and Bhakti Vinod Das, who looks after ISKCON in Chandigarh and Kanpur, is looking after the preparations. Trucks carrying more than 10 tonnes of sheera' as prasad will be distributed to lakhs of devotes who will join the rath yatra. ISKCON Baroda's Ratha Yatra a Grand Success
By Basu Ghosh Das on 28 Jun 2009
On Wednesday, June 24, 2009, ISKCON Baroda's 28th annual Jagannath Rathayatra Mahotsav, aka “Festival of the Chariots”, was observed in the usual grand manner. Baroda Mayor and recently elected Member of Parliament, Sri Balkrishna Shukla, inaugurated the procession by sweeping the road in front of the Lord's Rath (Chariot) with a golden handled broom, following the age old tradition of the Maharajah of Puri, at the Baroda Railway Station at 2:30 PM, on Wednesday, June 24, 2009, which corresponds to the auspicious day of “Aashadh shukla dvitiyaa” (the second day of the fortnight of the waxing moon in the month of “Aashadh” on the Hindu calendar). District Collector Vijay Nehera also participated in the inauguration of the the Rathayatra. A huge crowd, including many political and social leaders of Baroda, were present at the Baroda Railway station for the inaugural function. Due to rain on the previous day, the summer temperatures had reduced. The procession followed the traditional route from the Baroda Railway Station throughout the main streets of the town. Some of the places that came on the route: Sayaji Bagh (garden), Kala Ghoda (statue of the black horse), Salatwada naka, Kothi, Raopura Main Road, Jubilee Bagh (garden), Sur Sagar (lake), Dandia Bazar, Khanderao Market, Nyaya Mandir, Madan Zampa, R.V. Desai Cross Road, Kevda Bagh (garden), and the procession end point, opposite the Polo Ground. A number of senior ISKCON devotees attended Baroda Rathayatra including H.H. Bhakti Vikas Swami, Deena Bandhu Prabhu, Haripada Prabhu, Phalini Mataji, Isvara Prabhu and Govinda Kund Das from Estonia. Also ISKCON temple presidents Bhaktivinod Prabhu of Chandigarh /Kanpur, Murli Mohan Prabhu of Vijayawada, Sachidananda Prabhu of Vallabh Vidyanagar (Anand), and Surapati Prabhu of Lucknow. ISKCON New Delhi Vice President and ISKCON IRGB all India Communications Director Vrajendranandan Prabhu, was also present along with ISKCON New Delhi “pracharak” Sachisuta Prabhu. Radha Ranjan Prabhu from Lucknow, Raghuveer Prabhu from ISKCON Allahabad, Nityananda Prabhu (Lativa) from Bhagavat Vidyapith, Govardhan also were present. Prema Bhakti Dasa came all the way from Chicago, USA, to attend the Baroda Rathayatra. A number of “kirtaneers” from Chandigarh and Vrindavan attended the Rathayatra as well. ISKCON Baroda IYF devotees, headed by Nartaka Gauranga Prabhu and Dr. Damodar Chaitanya Das distributed books throughout the procession. One of the features of Rathayatra was the distribution of ten tons of halava prasad, cooked in “deshi ghee” (pure ghee) to the crowds lining the roads. At various places along the route, devoted citizens of Baroda offered fruits, flowers, incense, donations, and “deep arati” to Lord Jagannath! At two places, members of the Muslim community organized receptions with these very same offerings to Lord Jagannath as well. Almost four hundred pictures of the procession can be seen here. As Steaks Mount, Hare Krishnas Beef Up Appeals to Save Cows
West Virginia Sanctuary Faces Lean Times; Feed 'Rama' for $51 a Month, Get a Photo, Too By SUDEEP REDDY NEW VRINDABAN, W.Va. -- Saving cows, the Hare Krishnas in this village have learned, is a lot easier in India. Created four decades ago, New Vrindaban was the first cattle sanctuary in the U.S. At its peak, it had 434 bovine refugees. Today, the cattle population is down to 80 because there's not enough money to support more. So the Hare Krishna community is borrowing a tactic more commonly used by charities that try to save people. In New Vrindaban, Hare Krishnas have built a sanctuary for cows, which they consider sacred. The 80 beloved bovines here are treated by their Hindu caretakers like members of the family. For $51, you can feed a cow for a month, while $108 would "provide special care for retired cows who can no longer breed or give milk," the group says in one appeal. "In one selfless stroke, you are sending a valuable message to our children and to a troubled world which sees today's gentle cow as tomorrow's dinner." The adopt-a-cow effort promises bovine photographs and updates for donors, along with an open invitation to visit the cows in this village, near Moundsville, W.Va. The village is modeled after the childhood home of the Hindu deity Krishna, who taught his followers to revere cows. Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America, a Hindu group that grew out of a movement to ban the slaughtering of cows, has joined the Hare Krishna effort with its own appeals to help raise the roughly $1,000 needed to support each cow for a year. "It is needless to mention that by taking special care of Lord Krishna's cows you and your family will definitely receive His special blessings," reads another appeal, targeting the estimated 1.5 million Hindus in the U.S., recently posted on the group's Web site. Other Hare Krishna groups in the U.S. also offer adoption programs, including one just up the road, called the International Society for Cow Protection. It posts names and profiles of cattle available for adoption on its Web site, calling one a "party animal and break-out artist" and another "Mister Handsome Heartbreaker."
The dairy cows at New Vrindaban eat grain while they're milked twice a day. Cows are sacred to Hindus, a status allowing them to roam the streets of India untouched. Most Indian states prohibit their slaughter, although an illegal beef trade thrives. Krishna is believed to have encouraged the people of Vrindaban, India, to worship the land and animals that support them, preaching the power of cows to provide everything from milk for children to manure for farming. The cows at New Vrindaban -- from the oldest of the herd to the youngest calf, 6-month-old Rama - are doted on, often getting hugs and kisses. Devotees offer the cows' milk to Krishna in religious ceremonies and use it to make butter, yogurt and sweets. "We look at them like our own mothers," says Ranaka Das, 54 years old, a cow caretaker. Once known as Doug Fintel, he worked at a Coors brewery in Colorado before joining the Hare Krishna movement and moving to New Vrindaban in 1977. "You take care of them like your own family," he said. "In a regular dairy operation, cows are like any piece of machinery." Milind Bharambe, a Pittsburgh software analyst who immigrated from India nine years ago, initially sought a reward of sorts for helping to save the animals. "Cows are very dear to Krishna," he says. "If I help someone very dear to Krishna, maybe I might benefit," he thought. But today, Mr. Bharambe -- who donates about $800 a year to New Vrindaban, half earmarked for the cows -- says his motivation is more spiritual. "I'm supporting someone very dear to Krishna. That thought itself gives so many things. You feel happiness. You feel better." Many of New Vrindaban's cows were born on site. Devotees occasionally rescue doomed cows from slaughterhouses and bring them to the sanctuary. "Slaughtering an animal is not natural for human beings," said Rishi Shinde, a Dallas businessman who donates about $360 a year to sponsor one cow. "It affects one's consciousness, makes one violent and makes one lose contact with the emotional self." New Vrindaban's cow farm, or goshala, includes a giant barn for the cattle - as many as 200 - which spend most of their day grazing on the pasture. Only half a dozen of the 80 cows still produce milk, about 50 pounds of it a day. The rest of the cattle are left to carry out their natural lives - as long as 20 years - far longer than the life span for many U.S. cattle raised for slaughter. At the top of a winding West Virginia road, New Vrindaban was established in a small farmhouse in 1968 with 100 acres by two American disciples of Swami Prabhupada, an Indian who moved to New York City to spread his love for Krishna. As the Hare Krishna movement expanded with hippies-turned-devotees in the 1970s, hundreds of Americans -- 700 at one point, the group says -- moved to New Vrindaban, took up robes and Sanskrit names and assumed a mission of protecting cows, growing their own food and building temples. They raised money selling wares at street corners and airports nationwide, pouring their funds into materials to build, by hand, an ornate temple for Prabhupada on the site of a former trash dump. Completed in 1979, two years after his death, Prabhupada's Palace of Gold became a shrine. Tourists came by the busload, drawing more publicity, devotees and money -- millions of dollars a year. New Vrindaban grew to 3,000 acres. A 1986 murder of a former devotee sent the community into turmoil. Authorities raided the community, sparking years of investigations into allegations of murder, racketeering and child abuse. The New Vrindaban founder who was alleged to have ordered the murder eventually went to prison for racketeering. He received a 20-year prison sentence, which was then reduced to 12 years due to poor health. He served eight years.
New Vrindaban's cow sanctuary sits alongside communities that raise cattle for other purposes. Today, the New Vrindaban area has fewer than 200 resident devotees, about a quarter of them of Indian descent. The site still draws about 25,000 visitors a year, the group says. A donation of $6 is sought from those who visit the Palace of Gold. Visitors of Indian descent take special interest in the cows, often bringing their children to pet the animals. That doesn't produce the $100,000 a year needed to pay for hay, the barn, workers and property taxes. Hence the adopt-a-cow fund raising. The leaders of the community say only a few of the cows are sponsored in full for life by the donations, which are tax-deductible. But they are clear about one thing: None of these cows ever leave for the slaughterhouse. "We've kept that promise to Pradhupada and the cows since we first came here," says Nityodita Das, one of the community's current leaders. The Hare Krishnas' cow-protection campaign doesn't seem to be getting much traction with some neighbors. "There's not much of a push around here to save cattle," says Allen Hendershot, Moundsville city manager. "Cattle are raised for a reason." Indeed, drivers exiting Interstate 470 in Bethlehem, W.Va., to reach New Vrindaban recently were greeted by a giant sign in the median featuring a bovine cartoon, promoting a nearby event. It read: "Bethlehem Steak Fry." Write to Sudeep Reddy at sudeep.reddy@wsj.com ISKCON Inaugurates Vegetarian Restaurant in West Africa
By Varaha Dasa on 28 Jun 2009
On May 22 this year, devotees in the West African city of Lome, Togo, inaugurated their new vegetarian restaurant with a celebration and feast. The restaurant’s origins go back five years ago when devotees, encouraged by their late guru Bhakti-Tirtha Swami’s directions on simple living and high thinking, established an active Food For Life program in Lome and surrounding areas. It became a curious yet common sight to see people rushing to form a long line for Hare Krishna food aid on Lome street corners and road-sides. Food For Life became so popular that Lome University soon requested the program to extend its charity to their students, who often had to abandon their schooling due to hunger. As awareness of Food for Life and its delicious meals continued to rise, members of the public who preferred a vegetarian diet but found it difficult due to the lack of appropriate eateries began to come out of the woodwork. The demand grew for Food For Life-style vegetarian meals that could be bought at any time of the day. So in 2007, Lome devotees began constructing a restaurant as an offering to the memory of Bhakti Tirtha Swami. With the help of generous donors from the local Indian Community, the dream was realized, and the restaurant began operating in June 2008. The official inauguration was delayed until May 22 this year, when the restaurant held a feast in honor of the father-in-law of Mr. Sunny, a prominent donor to the project. All donors were invited, and expressed their satisfaction after enjoying the delicious subji, curry soup, puri, vegetarian kebabs, samosa, lassi drinks, and a host of other dishes. Devotees now have the option to buy the town lots on which the restaurant and nearby temple are situated for $200,000 US dollars. Local donors have already raised $40,000, and have promised to finalize the deal once the temple has raised an equal amount. For more information or to offer assistance, contact Varaha Dasa at Varaha108@hotmail.com Kenyan Prime Minister Receives Bhagavad-gita As It Is
By ISKCON News Weekly Staff on 28 Jun 2009 Govinda-Prema Dasa, an ISKCON devotee from Nairobi, gifted Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga with a copy of Srila Prabhupada’s Bhagavad-gita this May. The opportunity arose when devotees attended the same Sikh community college opening that the Prime Minister had been invited to speak at. After Odinga’s speech promoting higher education as the way to a peaceful and happy country, Govinda-Prema approached him. “Most honourable Prime Minister, I am from the Hare Krishna temple,” he explained simply. “I would like to present to you this holy book that teaches how to make the world peaceful.” Odinga took the Bhagavad-gita and looked at it respectfully. When Govinda-Prema told him that ISKCON was feeding three thousand people daily in Nairobi, he was impressed and shook the devotee’s hand, saying, “Thank you very much for all your good work.” Never Too Late to Pray
Diary of a Traveling Preacher - Volume 10, Chapter 8 - June 4 - 6, 2009
One thing I appreciate about traveling in Russia is the constant reminders that this world is an unhappy place. I am reminded again and again to become serious and to focus on my devotional service. Russia is a G-8 country, but life is hard there, owing in part to the political situation, the economy, and the weather. For more news in the world of ISKCON, please visit: ISKCON News, PlanetISKCON.com, Dandavats.com & Sastra Dana.com |
t r a n s c e n d e n t a l MEDIA
M E D I A S I T E Blog, Photo Gallery, Lectures & KirtansWe have just started a site which will be a library for transcendental media. Please take advantage of this site, we hope to bring you more material as time goes on. |
MUSIC
now playing
Gaura Vani & As Kindred Spirits – Moods of Kirtan (Siksastakam)
(Requires Quicktime Player to hear - download here)
Coming soon the to Temple Shop. Click here to visit the official website.
New Zealand Spiritual Resource Network Newsletter
ISKCON Melbourne site ISKCON Brisbane site ISKCON Canberra site
PlanetISKCON.com Hare Krishna News
Hare Krishna Media Library Book Distribution: www.bdsnews.net Picture galleries: www.bharatavarsa.net
|
Sydney Temple Shop |
ISKCON SYDNEY WEB A D V E R T I S I N G For Sale – Full set of Srimad-Bhagavatam (Bhagavat Purana)
As new, $300 for the full set (large edition) Contact Bhuvana on (02) 9873 6475 or 0421 282 767 for details
|
Want to help? |
||
Alternatively, contact us on (02) 9959 4558, email us, or send a cheques made payable to 'ISKCON Inc' to: PO Box 459, Cammeray NSW 2062, Australia. Many thanks to the donors for the month of May and June 2009.
Wanted: Produce donors of produce for the Food for Life program |
Please join the Community Forum
Click here >

Please sign the GUESTBOOK
Any queries, comments
or suggestions,
please contact us at iskcon_sydney@yahoo.com.au
or
call
(02) 9959 4558
We look
forward to seeing you here soon.
Your servant,
Vijaya Gauranga das.

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare
Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare
Disclaimer: We try to send most emails by Bcc (blind carbon-copy) to respect the privacy of recipients email addresses. However, due to restrictions on sending emails this way, we may have to send as a list of addresses. We trust our subscribers not to abuse any addresses for their own use, and reports of abuse will result in said persons being removed from the database. ISKCON Sydney accepts no responsibility for email abuse. We hope you continue to enjoy our email newsletter service. Anyone wishing to be removed from this mailing list, please email iskcon_sydney@yahoo.com.au |