Srila Prabhupada Lilamrta Volume 1

Srila Prabhupada-lilamrta tells the story of a remarkable individual and a remarkable achievement. The individual is A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada: philosopher, scholar, religious leader, saint. The achievement is the revolutionary transplantation of a timeless spiritual culture from ancient India to twentieth-century America. This first of two volumes begins with the story of the events leading up to Srila Prabhupada's meeting his guru, an encounter that ignited in Srila Prabhupada a slowburning flame of desire to take Krishna consciousness to the Western world. His early life was a period of patient and transcendent determination as he prepared for a mission that would later be crowned with astounding success. In August and September of 1965 Srila Prabhupada traveled alone aboard a steamship from India to New York City, with no more than the equivalent of eight dollars in his pocket and no institutional backing, but with unshakable faith in Lord Krishna and the instructions of his spiritual master. It is the 1960s, an era in which the children of those who fought World War II were leading a sweeping revolt against a society losing its soul to godless mass consumerism. Into this milieu Srila Prabhupada brought a vision for a new kind of society, a society born of a radical transformation of human consciousness from materialism to the loftiest spiritual and ethical idealism. By 1967 he had arrived in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, America's counter-culture capital, where he continued his work of calling America's youth to live up to their higher spiritual ideals and distributing the holy name of Krishna indiscriminately. By the end of the volume, we have seen Srila Prabhupada in England (meeting the Beatles), Holland, Japan, Africa, and finally back in India, where he triumphantly returned with his "dancing white elephants" – a group of his mostly Caucasian Western followers. The research team assembled by the author traveled throughout the world to gather thousands of hours of interviews with hundreds of people who knew Srila Prabhupada; diaries and memoirs from his students; and more than seven thousand of Srila Prabhupada's letters. Then the author and his team distilled this voluminous firsthand source material into a rich composite view of Srila Prabhupada, a dazzling and colorful picture of one of the most remarkable lives of our times.

"...I pray that You will stay by me and protect me and save me. " The best way for me to assure myself of Your company and protection is to chant Your names. I ask You to please remind me to regularly chant and to do so in a humble state of mind, keeping myself lower than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree, and ready to offer all respect to others without expection any honor for myself. "--Page 4 of cover.

This book examines issues of leadership and succession in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) which was founded in by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in 1966. After the founder’s death in 1977, the movement was led by a group of gurus in a "zonal system" until their authority was challenged and reformed in the mid-1980s. At the heart of the book is an exploration of the developments, conflicts, and defining characteristics of leadership in ISKCON in this decade. Themes of hierarchy, status, power and authority, and the routinisation of charisma are shown to be keys to understanding the events of the time. With careful analysis of interviews and documentary evidence, the research offers a unique insight into ISKCON as an organisation and the broader religious community in which ISKCON is located. The book will be of particular interest to scholars of new religious movements and those concerned with religious leadership.

The first draft of The Hare Krishna Explosion was written in July 1969 just after Srila Prabhupada’s first visit to New Vrindavan. At that time Hayagriva realized that the details of the beginnings of the Krishna Consciousness Movement had best be recorded when the events were still fresh. Working from notebooks, diaries and memories he compiled the first edition in a month. Then the manuscript remained packed away until Srila Prabhupada left the mortal world in 1977.

Get Up With Determination And Fight – Just like metals and minerals lying deep inside the Earth, there are vast resources lying untapped within each of us. In man’s struggles at achieving any desired object, there is in reality no necessity for him to go in quest of external forces to aid him. He has within himself vast resources and powers lying untapped, or else only partially utilized. If he applies his faculties properly and intelligently, he can easily attain his desired goal. One of the most precious of these resources is determination. That’s the unmined gold waiting to be tapped. Great personalities who perform uncommon feats, tap into these latent resources. The purpose of this book is to help you do that and light up your soul.