Everyone

[Excerpted from Wise-Love: Bhakti and the Search for the Soul of Consciousness, by Pranada Comtois. Copyright by the author. Available from amazon.com. This concise handbook introduces bhakti-yoga to spiritual seekers and western yogis. We've retained the book's style for dealing with Sanskrit and other considerations.]

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of Srila Prabhupada's Bhagavad-gita As It Is. Although many articles have been written about the Gita as a philosophical poem, exploring its meaning and theological implications, and although both devotees and nondevotees have written elaborate studies of Srila Prabhupada's translation, few articles deal with the text as a historical phenomenon, something that came to us after a long journey of commentary and explication.

Suta Goswami said: Arjuna, the celebrated friend of Lord Krishna, was grief-stricken because of his strong feeling of separation from Krishna, over and above all Maharaja Yudhishthira's speculative inquiries. – Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.15.1

[Excerpted from Swami in a Strange Land, by Joshua M. Greene (Yogeshvara Dasa). Copyright 2016 Joshua M. Greene. Available from the Krishna.com Store and Amazon.com. This excerpt retains the book's style for dealing with Sanskrit words and other considerations.]

I am victory and adventure.
– Sri Krishna in Bhagavad Gita, 10.36

At first blush, Vaishnavism may seem polytheistic, given the various gods associated with the Vedic pantheon. But if we look slightly beneath the surface, we see there is more to this so-called polytheism than meets the eye.

The concept of monotheism – that there is only one God – tends to be associated with the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), but it is found elsewhere as well. So the first point to be acknowledged is that monotheism is more pervasive than is commonly understood.

It is the grand conceit of the materialistic worldview that “man is the measure of all things.” When we dig a little deeper, we find that this premise is based on a profoundly arrogant presumption, namely, that all reality can ultimately be subordinated to our sense perception and intellect.

[Excerpted from Bombay Is My Office: Memorable Days with Srila Prabhupada in Bombay, a memoir. Copyright 2018 by Padayatra Press. Available from Amazon.in.]

In the May 5, 1956, issue of Back to Godhead, Srila Prabhupada published his article “Lord Buddha: The Emblem of Theism.” The opening paragraph informs us of the transcendental poet Sri Jayadeva Acharya’s worship of Lord Buddha. Srila Prabhupada then quotes the poet’s Sanskrit prayer to the ten incarnations of the Personality of Godhead Keshava (Sri Krishna), and then gives this translation: "O my Lord, the Personality of Godhead Keshava!

When I joined the Hare Krishna movement, something in Srila Prabhupada’s books intrigued me: God’s unlimited nature went beyond merely having innumerable forms; these forms, I was amazed to learn, often have numerous arms as well. India’s wisdom texts, in fact, describe a wonderland of beatific multiarmed beings.

When the 2017 Super Bowl game, the summit of American professional football, was held in Houston, a devotee convinced me and a few others to try to distribute Srila Prabhupada’s books at a huge pregame event downtown. Venturing into the passionate, teeming crowd, we sold a few books, but not so many. This experience reinforced what was already obvious: mundane sport certainly has a powerful allure.