The first one was just too good. How good? Here, in their own words, is what the Vaisnavis experienced during our first outing in Govardhana in 2011: authenticity, dedication, inspiration, open-heartedness, absence of competitiveness, a breath of fresh air, focus on Srila Prabhupada, safety, peacefulness, intimacy, affection and love, examples to look up to, friendship, caring, acceptance, Srila Prabhupada’s presence, “heart surgery,” courage to traverse life in Krishna consciousness, determination to serve Srila Prabhupada’s mission, the bliss of kirtana, service attitude—altogether, an amazing sanga!

So we are doing it again. Same place—Jatipura, Govardhana. Same time of the year — February 27 to March 2.

One might question the need for such a program. The simple fact is that it fills a need. Every devotee needs peer association and intimate relationships on the spiritual platform. Many a times it is difficult for ISKCON female devotees to have such association in their daily lives. Many live far away from the temples or, even if close by, cannot attend the regular sangas due to family obligations. Some live in the temples but their service engagement is too hectic for them to take a break to simply sit and chant with their room mates. And even the few women who do attend the temple programs at times find themselves isolated, bereft of close relationships, and lacking association with senior devotees. Vaisnavi sangas fill an existing gap. As the saying goes, birds of the same feather flock together. They have the same language and proclivities and can thus better understand each other and share their experiences for success in life. There is a unique benefit to be derived from specialized sangas, be they for the women, the old, the young, the sannyasis or brahmacaris, the grhasthas, the children, the philosophically enclined, the managers or whatever group of individuals that share some common interests and needs.

To sustain our entire life in Krsna consciousness is not so easy. We need inspiration, peer support, and role models to envision the path ahead of us and remain enthused. We tread on unknown terrain—that of applied spiritual life in an age when materialism is the standard. Besides spiritual friends, we need spiritual mothers and aunts. Hearing from Srila Prabhupada’s female disciples’ varied experiences, be they of their married life, temple life, social relationships, spiritual quests, personal feelings, or whatever, is very useful for the younger generations of devotees. While we may sometimes feel lost, not knowing how to proceed with the various situations, frustrations, or choices that come our way, these older devotees have already walked the path with success, hanging on to Srila Prabhupada’s dhoti for decades, alive with Krsna consciousness. Together they seem like a bouquet of assorted flowers offered to His Divine Grace. One may like the rose, another the jasmine, but all get something concrete.

The Vaisnavi Retreat celebrates Srila Prabhupada’s mercy on us. He gave us everything to live the life of a true devotee. He initiated us, taught us to serve, and gave us all protection. By coming together we wish to experience and share his benevolent compassion in caring for Vaisnavis.

Hearing and chanting are the main angas of bhakti. Unless and until we learn to associate with devotees on this very basis, we will remain in the association of our mind. We need those times together, when we just remember Krsna and the goal of our lives. Of course, this can be and should be done daily, but again, are we doing it? How many are not doing it? How many have not yet gotten that clue? The Vaisnavi Retreat serves as a forum to develop a taste for active spiritual association.

This time our guest teachers will be Malati Devi, Narayani Devi, Daivi Sakti Devi, and Srimati Devi. They will speak respectively on Srila Prabhupada: Memories and Reflections from his Daughters; the Twenty Four Gurus; Taking Shelter of Srimati Vrnda Devi; and Dealing with Life’s Challenges.

As Svayam Rasesvari remarked at the end of the 2011 retreat: “Sometimes we get so bogged down with the thought of being a woman that our spiritual life suffers. It is so nice that it didn’t happen at this retreat.”

For further information, please visit vihe.org or write to vihe.office@pamho.net.

Read more: news.iskcon.com/node/4187#ixzz1mCyFCzmu

news.iskcon.com/node/4187



In the News:
Lifelong Gita Student Shares Realizations in North American Tour
by Madhava Smullen for ISKCON News
Posted January 12, 2012

Visakha Dasi, a lifelong student of India’s foremost wisdom text the Bhagavad-gita, is sharing her philosophical realizations from the book—as well as her experiences of how it changed her life—in her second annual North American tour this year.

Back in 1971, Visakha was studying photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, when she met her future husband John Greisser (Yadubara Dasa) and took off with him to trek along the snowline in the Himalayas at 10,000 feet. Along the way, she read his copy of Bhagavad-gita As Is by Srila Prabhupada, the leading teacher of the Gita in the Western World. That winter, she was initiated by Srila Prabhupada, and her life was never the same again.

Bhagavad-gita As It Is made such an impact on Visakha’s life that she wrote three books presenting its teachings to different audiences, and has taken them on tour to share the gifts she received with others.

Last year her forty-five-date tour hit locations all over Texas, Arizona, California, Oregon, West Virginia, Washington, and British Columbia. This year, Visakha looks like she might top that, with fifteen dates so far in January alone, covering Southern States such as Texas, Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana.

At each location, she makes different presentations according to her audience’s demands. Her lead presentation on the tour, A Bumpy Journey Toward Harmony with the Bhagavad-gita, is a memoir of her life and spiritual journey accompanied by slides, which also integrates all three of her books based on the Gita.

There’s Our Most Dear Friend, a version of the sacred text for children aged four and up with simple text and colorful photographic montages, released in 1996.

Then for young adults, there’s Bhagavad-gita: A Photographic Essay, published for Gita Jayanti 2010 and featuring poetic, inventive photography from Visakha to illustrate the Gita’s many analogies. The book was the recipient of a bronze medal in the inspirational/spiritual category at the 2011 Independent Publisher Book Awards.

And finally, for adults, there’s last year’s Harmony and the Bhagavad-gita, which tells the story of how Visakha and her family moved from the concrete jungle of Los Angeles to the off-the-grid spiritual community of Saranagati in the forests of British Columbia, Canada. Through a series of personal introspective stories, it conveys the message of the Gita and shows how the sacred book guides Visakha and the other members of Saranagati.

Visakha also has a second presentation, in which she speaks about the importance of understanding Srila Prabhupada, and becoming familiar with his teachings and personality. Along with this, she shows segments from the newly released The Master Collection: A Following Srila Prabhupada Series, produced by herself and her husband Yadubara with their company ISKCON Cinema Productions.

“It’s thirty-one hours and contains all the known footage of Srila Prabhupada,” Visakha says. “There’s also an audio commentary track featuring remembrances from over 300 devotees who were there with Prabhupada at the time.”

Visakha also discusses and shows clips from ISKCON Cinema Classics, a series of eight documentary films about ISKCON, Srila Prabhupada, and Lord Krishna’ birthplace Vrindavana that she and her husband made over a period of twelve years. There’s also Simple Living, High Thinking, a half-hour film of Srila Prabhupada speaking about farm communities and the importance of an Agrarian lifestyle.

Finally, Visakha does presentations on The Demon of Doubt, and on Yamuna Devi, the renowned vegetarian cook and ISKCON pioneer who passed away on December 20th last year. Each presentation concludes with questions and answers. “The response so far on this year’s tour has been great,” Visakha says. “Devotees appreciate that my presentation of the Bhagavad-gita is a fresh new approach to presenting Krishna consciousness. The general public finds my personal story, intertwined with the philosophy of the Gita, interesting. And the Indian community is very happy to see Westerners taking up their culture and seriously trying to follow its teachings.” The Indian community particularly showed its support at the ISKCON temple in Houston, Texas, where five hundred attended Visakha’s presentation on the Bhagavad-gita on January 1st because they wanted to start the new year in an auspicious way.

“The response in Houston has been extraordinary,” Visakha says. “Many devotees have invited me to speak at their homes. And Guru Bhakti Dasi, whose guru the late Tamal Krishna Goswami asked her to reach out to Caucasian Americans, has lined up engagements for me at the local Emory Weiner High School, the HCC Anthropology Club, two Theosophical Societies, and ISKCON Houston’s morning radio show Waves of Devotion.”

Visakha will also be speaking at “Our Spiritual Journey,” a cultural event promoted in local alternative magazines and held at ISKCON’s Gauranga Hall, alongside a classical Indian dance depicting the Bhagavad-gita.

Visakha is traveling to each location on her tour in a nineteen-foot converted van, and paying her own travel costs by selling her books and DVDs along the way.

“Spending so much time on the road was definitely a culture shock for me,” she says. “But now I find I really appreciate it. Everything I need is there: a shower, a toilet, a table to write or eat on, a bed, and a storage space for my books and DVDs. And it’s all so compact I can practically reach everything without even getting up from the dining room table!”

As well as promoting her current books, Visakha sees her tour as a good way to meet and get to know her audience for her next book, a memoir called Bhagavad-gita and One Life Transformed. She hopes to spend the next year after her tour working on the volume, which will tell the story of how she met and surrendered to Srila Prabhupada, and how his teachings changed her life.

“Bhagavad-gita transformed my life for the better,” she says. “It gave me direction, a purpose in life. It was so transformative for me, and that’s why I’m trying to bring its message to so many other people. Because I think that if they take it in and apply it in their lives, they will also benefit tremendously.”

For a full list of tour dates and some photos and thoughts from the road, please visit bhagavadgitasdotcom.wordpress.com. For more information on all Visakha’s books, please visit our-spiritual-journey.com. And to order ISKCON Cinema releases, visit www.iskconcinema.com.

Read more:news.iskcon.com/node/4124#ixzz1ijASLQ00



In the News:
Persecution of Prabhupada’s Book
by http://ibnlive.in.com
Posted December 28, 2011

“Moscow: Bhagavad Gita, one of the holiest Hindu scriptures, is facing a legal ban and the prospect of being branded as "an extremist" literature across Russia. A court in Siberia's Tomsk city is set to deliver its final verdict on Monday in a case filed by state prosecutors...The case, which has been going on in Tomsk court since June, seeks ban on a Russian translation of "Bhagavad Gita As It Is" written by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).”

The latest word is that the decision whether to ban the Gita has been postponed until December 28. From Hindustan Times :

“A Russian court on Monday suspended its verdict till December 28 on the demand for banning Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita, which a group linked to the Christian Orthodox Church has described as 'extremist'. "The ruling has been postponed till December 28, as the lawyer of the local chapter of ISKCON requested the court to seek opinion of Russian ombudsman and experts from Moscow and St. Petersburg - the main centres of Indology in Russia", Sadhu Priya Das of ISKCON told PTI after the court in the Siberian city of Tomsk suspended its verdict.”

There has been diplomatic activity by India to prevent the ban. Russian ombudsman Vladimir Lukin also opposes the ban. On December 199 at least 100 ISKCON devotees demonstrated in front of the Russian consulate in Kolkata to protest in defense of Bhagavad Gita As It Is.

In order to support Bhagavad-Gita As It Is, please sign the petition at www.petitions24.com/gita

--Krsna-nama dasa (SDG)

A driver and his two passengers (all Hare Krishna devotees) died late Tuesday night (January 31) in a crash with a semi at the intersection of Florida Rte. 228 (Normandy Blvd.) and U.S. Highway 301 in Maxville (outside of Jacksonville, Florida).

The driver of a Toyota Corolla, 31-year-old Elisha K. Drury (Nitai das) of Moundsville, W.Va., was stopped at Highway 301 about 10 p.m. before pulling out in front of the truck, according to Lt. Bill Leeper and the Florida Highway Patrol report. The semi hit the driver’s side of the vehicle and dragged it about 75 yards before it came to rest, with the car nearly completely underneath it.

Drury was killed along with passengers Timothy F. Carter (Gopinath das), 30, and Jose L. Caicedo (Yadupati das), 47, both of Alachua County. Leeper said the friends were returning from a Jimmy Buffett concert in Jacksonville. The two in the front seat were wearing seat belts, but the rear seat passenger was not. The driver of the semi was Johnny Williams, 53, of Hemingway, S.C., the Highway Patrol said.

The wreck happened just a few yards away from a truck stop where Greg Hayden was sleeping in his rig during his break. He had just fallen asleep when he was woken by the sound of the impact, Hayden said. Then he heard a horn that did not stop blowing. “I came out of my truck and noticed there was a car in front of a semi, and it was bad stuff,” he said. “I went to the car and noticed there were two people who weren’t moving, so I immediately called 911 and started flagging traffic to keep someone else from getting killed.”

Reposted from Florida Times-Union

Editor's note, courtesy of Rasikananda das: A "Remembering Nitai das" Facebook page has been started at Click Here. Devotees are invited to please share their memories and stories. Nitai prabhu's main service project was Krishna Kitchen, which he poured his heart and soul into and worked tirelessly to develop. Engaging many devotees in all walks of life, from gurukulis to bhaktas to old-school preachers, he always knew just how to inspire participation to share the Sankirtana mission of Lord Caitanya. He dedicated his life in service to his guru, H.H. Radhanath Swami, and will be dearly missed. His last rites will be performed in Mayapura by Mandali devi dasi, his wife, Radhanath Swami, Malati devi prabhu and Nityodita das prabhu, his uncle.



In the News:
First Hindu Chaplain in Us Military is 'Groundbreaking'
by Malati Devi Dasi
Posted January 4, 2012

Returning service members from Iraq and Afghanistan often struggle with readjusting to civilian life, health issues, and guilt.

Until recently, the 1,000 or so Hindus serving in the US military - and their families - lacked a military confidant who understood their religion and culture.

But now Captain Pratima Dharm has been appointed as the US military's first Hindu chaplain.

She says her position is significant not just to her military congregation, but also to the religion's one billion global followers.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16099481



In the News:
'Mukti' the Turkey Gets Real Liberation at Tucson Govinda's
by Sandamini devi
Posted December 15, 2011

Picture #1 Mukti meeting and greeting at Govinda's

Channel 4 News in Tucson, Arizona reported, "The main course at most Thanksgiving dinners, was the guest of honor at Govinda's restaurant, and was strolling the outdoor patio today. This local establishment has been serving 'Tofu Turkey' to patrons since 1992." The regular guest-of-honor turkey at our restaurant was getting older and a bit scruffy, so we needed to find another turkey for the annual Thanksgiving Dinner. Congregation member Nama Priya was in charge of securing another one, as she has been doing for the last 10 years. There was a pair of full-grown black and brown male turkeys at a house where she does hospice work, and she decided to ask the owners about taking the turkeys to Govinda's for the holiday dinner event. The family replied that only one bird remained as one had just been slaughtered that very morning. Nama Priya gratefully took the remaining male and was happy she was able to save this one, at least for some time.

Picture #2 Muktis new home to live out his life naturally

The turkey, who we called Fortunoso ("Fortunate" in Spanish) was a great crowd-pleaser and all the 300-plus guests who came to eat the blessed ahimsa meal took pictures, and marveled at the turkey's beauty and poise. Toward the end of the afternoon we all felt we did not want to return Fortunoso to his ominous fate and we decided to ask the crowd if anyone wanted to 'adopt' the turkey as a pet, and save him from certain slaughter. A caring family who had a small farm outside of Tucson stepped forward and agreed to pay for the turkey and take him home. They asked us for a Sanskrit name and we gave him the appropriate name 'Mukti'.