May/June 2010

In the Founder’s Lecture starting this issue, Srila Prabhupada lays out the high qualification required to attain bhakti, pure love for God: One must give up all desire for material enjoyment. For most of us, that sounds like a tall order. In “Maya’s Friend Norm,” Padma Devi Dasi explains that we react that way because Lord Krishna’s material energy, Maya, covers our spiritual vision, deluding us spiritual beings into thinking we belong in the material world. The quest for material enjoyment becomes our goal in life.

To overcome this delusion, we require Lord Krishna’s help. In “Conviction,” Ravindra Svarupa Dasa contends that the soul’s connection with the Supersoul, a form of Krishna within everyone’s heart, is what inspires faith in the reality of God and spiritual existence.

Spiritual conviction is also nurtured by contact with God’s pure devotees and their instructions. In the Vaishnava tradition, to which the Hare Krishna movement belongs, a person serious about spiritual progress receives initiation (diksha) from a guru, accepts the guru’s discipline, and learns spiritual truth from him.

“In the Lap of Mother Nature” shows how a grand-disciple of Srila Prabhupada looked at nature in the light of Prabhupada’s instructions and gained increased conviction about the truth of Krishna consciousness.

Hare Krishna.—Nagaraja Dasa, Editor

Departments

Vaishnava Family Resources

Debt Relief

In Your Own Words

Letters

In Memoriam

Surrendering to Krishna is Real Intelligence

Vedic Thoughts