Author: DailySpiritual

I always find humorous when Srila Prabhupada became so blunt to explain the basics: Prabhupāda: You are all individuals. Every one of us is individual. So how you conceive of merging? Suppose, just like we are here—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. How we can merge? You just study philosophy. We are here, eight persons. How we can merge into one? Have you got any idea how we can merge? These eight persons, how we can merge into one? Impersonalist: To realize ourselves. Prabhupāda: Well, if suppose you have realized, now, how to merge? Impersonalist: In realization there is that. In realization there is merging. Prabhupāda: This realization… Now, there are five fingers—one, two, three, four,…

Hare Krishna devotees are people from all walks of life, of all nations, of any ages, gender, and color of skin. Hare Krishna devotees are regular folks — like you and me, who at some point in their life had a need to add spirituality into their lives. For various reasons, (and everybody has a story on their own), the philosophy and theology of the classic scriptures of India like Bhagavad Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam greatly appealed to them. The others, yet, gave in to the colorful dresses and equally colorful and incredibly tasty vegetarian foods cooked in the Hare Krishna temples. At first the Hare Krishna movement was brought from India to America. Naturally, for the first…

Recently I found this article by H.H. Bhakti Prajnana Kesava Maharaja, a good-brother of Srila Prabhupada (see below). It perfectly came as a conclusion of the thoughts I had while traveling through India. Majority of the Indian (ISKCON) devotees came from a Hindu background and as such they naturally carry with them lots of small rituals, beliefs and other cultural details that may be foreign to the devotees grown up in the West. The Westerners, who already adopted the absolutely foreign religion and with it manners corresponding to the directions given by Srila Prabhupada, changed their ways of eating, dressing and even conversing. This is no small task. However, regardless of these tectonic modifications, the majority kept many…

Devotee-towards-death came by customizing the name invented by a German philosopher Martin Heidegger. The name he used is Being-towards-death. The concept of Being-towards-death characterizes an individual who perfectly understands his own mortality and employs full energy in living a meaningful life. Simultaneously he stays away from the inferior activities that tie him to the world of banalities.  In the spiritual communities of Krishna devotees, members focus fully on services to Krishna knowing well their life may end at any moment. The nature of this world is such that there is no certainty when one will die. Both Heidegger and the process of devotional service, or bhakti, point out that the transition from being preoccupied with oneself to getting…