Surprisingly, after forty-plus years of existence, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness is still not clear on what it means to be one of its "members."

During Kartik, 2009, fifteen ISKCON diksa and siksa gurus gathered at ISKCON Ujjain for a first ever "Guru Retreat". The pilot four-day event, organized by the GBC's Guru Services Committee to help support the spiritual health of gurus and disciples in ISKCON, stimulated valuable ideas in a surcharged atmosphere of sanga and memorable kirtans, classes and realizations.

This November, ISKCON devotees will celebrate their 40th anniversary in London with a week of festivities from the 16th through the 22nd of the month.

The Grihastha Vision Team (GVT)—a group of professional marriage and family educators and therapists deeply dedicated to the health of devotees in relationships—will be offering a first to the devotee community of North America this November 19th.

ISKCON guru and leader Sivarama Swami received the Gold Cross of the Hungarian Republic, the second highest award in the state, during a Diwali celebration this October 20th.

Tattoos have been inked permanently into modern culture. Walk down any busy city street and you'll spot a vast number of tattooees, ranging all the way from the young female professional with a butterfly on her shoulder blade to the wild punk rocker with hardly any space left for his white skin to shine. For some reason, having an unremovable image of a two-headed dragon eating its own face sprawled across their chest until their dying breath is an idea that appeals to a lot of people. National Geographic News reported in April 2000 that fifteen per cent of Americans were tattooed. That's around forty million people.

Now, surely a Hare Krsna devotee would be the last person you'd expect to see among those forty million, right?

Ekta Choudary—Miss India 2009, and the Indian finalist in this year’s Miss Universe beauty competition—turned up at ISKCON New Delhi’s Sri Sri Radha Parthasarathi Mandir for a visit on November 3rd.

There is more water on the moon in more locations than originally thought, a discovery that may bolster NASA's long-held goal of setting up an outpost there, a researcher said Thursday.

Vrindavana, India - On October 17, five representatives of Governing Body Commission of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), founder-acarya His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, forming an official delegation, met with Srila B.V. Narayana Maharaja, founder-acarya of the BHAKTI Trust Mission, near the pilgrimage site of Govardhana Hill, just a few miles from Vrindavana, India. The meeting, which had been planned for several months, was held at Narayana Maharaja's Sri Sri Gauranga Radha Giridhari temple at Giridhari Gaudiya Math.

When Hitler began using the swastika as the symbol for his Nazi party in the 1920s, he brought about the death not only of millions of innocent people, but also of an innocent symbol. His use of the beloved Hindu religious sign instilled so much hate for it in the Western world that I wonder if its true meaning will ever be reclaimed.

Bhakta Mike, a Vaishnavist monk, came to Central Michigan University to meditate and teach others about Vaishnavism, also known as the Hare Krishna movement.

Pistachio burfi is a delightful example of a traditional Indian milk sweet, where the milk is reduced gradually until it thickens to a fudge-like paste. Note that, as all burfis, pistachio burfi will firm up as it sits. If you keep it well covered, you can store it for up to 10 days in the refrigerator.

TIRUPATI: In a major initiative to resurrect devastated lives, the Tirupati unit of International Society of Krsna Consciousness (ISKCON) has announced to meet the basic needs of 1,000 families in the flood-ravaged Kurnool district, India.

The ultra liberal Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles J. Jon Bruno offered a formal apology to Hindus for centuries-old acts of religious discrimination including attempts by Christians to convert them.

He then authorized a joint Hindu-Anglican service at St John's Cathedral in Los Angeles permitting Hindu devotees to receive the consecrated elements.

I’m confused. For the past 35 years I have been traveling on commercial airlines to India and have become most familiar with the advertising hooks used to lure tourists by the millions annually to that country.

I was studying religion in graduate school. I was into the counterculture; I owned a real pea coat; my hair was, well, longish; my friends were, by and large, hippies. Most of the religion department took me for a real hippie. But my friends didn’t mistake me for one of them: I was, after all, in graduate school.

It was one of my “hippie” buddies who took me to a Hare Krishna temple, and that led, to my everlasting surprise, to my next fashion change. I joined the Hare Krishnas: I wrapped myself in a dhotī; shaved my head, leaving the tuft of hair called a śikhā on the back, and showed up one day like that at the Department of Religion.