ISKCON NewsThe News Agency of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness

In Krishna consciousness, life is a preparation for one moment -- the moment of death. Devotees of Lord Krishna believe that whatever a person thinks about at that crucial moment determines the next destination of the soul. Therefore, they hope to think about Lord Krishna at the moment of death and thereby return to His home in the spiritual world.

Devotees in Punjab, India kicked off the New Year in true spiritual style with the celebration of “Hare Krishna Nite” at the ISKCON temple in Ludhiana.

Devotees from ISKCON Delhi joined the celebration, which ran from 9pm until midnight. Throughout the night, the festivities built to a crescendo with the enthusiastic chanting of God’s names.

Having a beginning (adi) and end (anta) qualifies all pleasures in the material world. For that reason, one who is actually wise (budha) seeks no enjoyment from them.

It is a fact that in this temporal world we hold not title to, we have no actual possession of, anything we enjoy. Our lease here on happiness is fragile and fleeting.

During the 1970s, I would get culture shock whenever I went to India. The crowded cities, the heat, the food, the occasional sickness, and the austerities of local travel would painfully remind me that I was a stranger in a foreign land. But as the years passed, my visits became more frequent and I began to feel at home there, especially in places like Vrindavan and Mayapur, where the Lord once performed His transcendental pastimes.

TIRUPATI: When money talks, `bhakti' takes a backseat. In what could be seen as posing threat to the very existence of a 17th century temple,
unauthorised quarrying works in about 50 acres of the land surrounding the temple are going on at a frenetic pace. The resultant business worth is: a cool Rs 2 crore every year.

In June, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published a controversial survey in which 70 percent of Americans said that they believed religions other than theirs could lead to eternal life.

This threw evangelicals into a tizzy. After all, the Bible makes it clear that heaven is a velvet-roped V.I.P. area reserved for Christians.

New Delhi, Dec 31 (IANS) Hemant, a part-time hawker, lives behind a roadside temple off Janpath in the heart of the capital. The 18-year-old has a new love - the Aap ki Rasoi (your kitchen) van that makes a stop at India Gate lawns every noon and gives him his one hot meal of the day.”I am alive today only because of this food,” Hemant, a migrant from Chhattisgarh, told IANS.

Not long ago, 19-year-old Sreeja Konidela returned home to Hyderabad from Delhi to attend a family funeral—but didn't get the welcome she expected. Konidela, whose father, Chiranjeevi, is a megastar in the Telugu-language film industry, had been disowned for eloping with Shirish Bharadwaj, 23, who was from a different caste. The two had married on live television last October in a bid to keep Sreeja's father from interfering—they were afraid he'd accuse Bharadwaj of kidnapping her, a common tactic in such cases.

Environmentalists chasing a Japanese whaling fleet off Antarctica have thrown "stink" bombs at one of the vessels.

The US-based environmental group Sea Shepherd said the Japanese ship, the Kaiko Maru, was spotted by its vessel the Steve Irwin north of Mawson Peninsula.