Every second Saturday of the month, a small office near the City Light cinema in Mumbai comes alive with peals of laughter, excited chatter and lively discussions. Eighteen women drivers, part of an all-women taxi service called ‘Forsche’, are busy exchanging notes and narrating their experiences of the month gone by over a sumptuous meal.

The ISKCON Governing Body Commission (GBC), which is currently meeting for five days at ISKCON's Juhu Beach Temple in Mumbai, was shocked this morning at the news that His Holiness Jayapataka Swami, our dear god-brother and GBC colleague, was rushed to the hospital at approximately 4 AM Mumbai time.

At 6.30 in the morning, six days a week, Parasurama Dasa and his Food For All team start cooking for 800 people. By 11am, the feast of rice, dahl, subji, salad, cake and juice is ready to be transported from Bhaktivedanta Manor to London. There, it’s loaded onto bicycle rickshaws and delivered to 600 students and 200 homeless people around the city. Parasurama then spends the rest of his afternoon picking up vegetables from local supermarkets and cleaning his van.

Anuttama Dasa, Director – ISKCON Communications and member of GBC’s Guru Services Committee facilitated a four-day seminar this weekend on ‘Being a Guru in ISKCON’ at ISKCON Juhu, Mumbai prior to the GBC Strategic Planning Meetings. This seminar was being presented for the second time. The pilot seminar was launched in Ujjain last February.

A large gathering of devotees met in the stunning Brecon Beacons National Park in Wales this mid-October as the “Weekend of Blessings” was held for the seventh year running. The Park’s Buckland Hall, surrounded on three sides by steep hills of heather and pine, proved an attractive location for the annual spiritual retreat.

Anuttama Prabhu, ISKCON’s Director of Communications and a member of the GBC’s Guru Services Committee, and Hanuman Prabhu, a GBC Deputy from Spain and the BBT Director for South America, facilitated a four-day seminar on spiritual leadership in mid-October in Mumbai. Sessions were held six hours a day and were being taught for the second time; last February, the pilot course was launched in Ujjain.

Forty-three devotees left ISKCON Mayapur this October 2nd to tour Ekacakra and Katwa. Both West Bengal holy places are sites of Gaudiya Vaishnava founder Lord Chaitanya and his brother Nityananda’s pastimes. Organized by Mayapur’s “Nagar Sankirtana” department, the tour aimed to educate devotees on Chaitanya’s pastimes through stories, and to share the maha-mantra and Krishna consciousness with people it met along the way.

It’s easy to blow inconveniences out of proportion. In our everyday lives, we often become so reliant on our gadgets and home comforts, that it feels as though they are additional limbs.

While Americans are still reeling from the nearly one trillion dollars which Congress gave to bail out shady bankers and investment firms on Wall Street, and "Joe the plumber" frets about how to afford essentials like home mortgages and food on the table, we are simultaneously throwing our money away for morally questionable, even reprehensible nonessentials to which--according to traditional religious or spiritual values--it shouldn't go.

Birchermuesli is named after its creator, Dr. Bircher Benner, who was ousted from the Swiss medical profession in 1900 for his heretical claims that grains, nuts, fruits and vegetables had more nutritional value than did meats. Wash your mouth out, Doctor!! In formulating the muesli, Benner had in mind his many patients from wealthy families who were suffering the effects of a diet too high in protein. Although it was not originally intended as a breakfast food, it certainly fills that niche deliciously.

Calling today's organized religion a failure, the Nation of Islam's Minister Louis Farrakhan on Sunday urged a "new beginning" during the rededication ceremony for a renovated mosque on Chicago's South Side.