ISKCON NewsThe News Agency of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness

Bhakti-lata Dasi is typing away busily at her laptop, absorbed in composing one of the 15 to 40 letters she writes to inmates at prisons across the US every month. But she looks up, smiling, happy to talk to ISKCON News about the service she’s been dedicating the bulk of her time to in the past two years.

Over one hundred people attended the reception for a new art exhibit by ISKCON artists Ramadasa Abhirama Dasa and his wife Dhriti Dasi, at the Exeter Courthouse Gallery and Museum in Central California this January 9th.

The Hare Krishna Mahamantra was one of the questions on the famous Jeopardy game show on a national television network in Canada. The question aksed by host Alex Trebek was: "In the main Hare Krishna Mantra what is the word that`s not Hare or Krishna?"

Thousands of bundled-up abortion opponents rallied Monday on the Mall, encouraged by recent federal and state GOP wins and hopeful about proposed measures that would further tighten bans on federal funding for abortions.

Earlier this month, a former Pennsylvania high school teacher filed an action pro se challenging the teacing of evolution by the Blue Mountain, Pennsylvania school district. The complaint alleges teaching that the only explanation for life is evolution amounts to the promoting of Atheism, which in turn amounts to teaching of a religion.

For people wanting to turn a bad day around in just two minutes, now there's an app for that. Call on Faith, just launched by Odyssey Networks, is the first all-video digital source of content that literally puts dynamic inspiration in the palm of the viewers` hand wherever they are, whenever they need it.

Modern society seems convinced that social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter keep them connected and thriving socially with their friends and peers. But a new book called Alone Together by professor Sherry Turkle says otherwise, purporting that social networks are more like mutual isolation networks that detach people from meaningful interactions with one another and make them less human.

Springtime is approaching soon, and for Vaishnavas that means the world famous annual Vrindavana and Mayapur festivals, in the sacred birthplaces of Lord Krishna and Gaudiya Vaishnavism founder Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu respectively. It also means one of the biggest festivals on the Vaishnava calendar—Gaura Purnima, the appearance day of Sri Chaitanya.

On January 29th, 2011, millions of people saw Srila Prabhupada and read his name and a blurb about the Mantra-rock dance. A poster advertising the event was pictured on Wikipedia’s homepage on that day, the forty-fourth anniversary of the dance.

It can sometimes be tough being an intellectual in ISKCON. The tendency to keep one foot in the empirical camp and the other in the devotional arena can cause incompatibilities of faith, especially when continuing to grapple with “oddities” like elephant sized mangoes, airborne mountains, talking hyenas and bodily exuded cosmic bubbles.

As Gandhi said, there is enough for our needs but not for our greed. Are we really taking only what we need? That depends. Those advanced on the spiritual path happily survive with minimal resources. We may not be quite ready for that level of frugality, but we can work towards it by steady spiritual practice.

On Friday 21st of January, ladies from Bhaktivedanta Manor’s ashram organised a magnificent festival at the Keir Hardie Hall in Norwich, UK.

The recent Australian Kulimela was a great success. Attended by up to 300 devotees and well wishers from around Australia and across the world, many are still swooning over their memories of the association, the kirtan and the prasadam.
 

The legendary West Indian cricket champion Brian Lara was presented with a copy of the Bhagavad Gita As It Is at a recently held function in the city of New Delhi.

The organization of society into four social orders for work and four religious orders for spiritual practice advocated by Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad-gita , known as varnasrama dharma, provides both hope and frustration for those searching for alternatives to the failing social orders of modern societies.