Year 5 Special Editions

Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Vāmana Gosvāmī Mahārāja

Therefore I am telling you clearly: although you are trying to discover that I have some deep crack in the reservoir of my affection for you, in fact, I have always been and will always be beyond such a possibility. For me, my affection for you in the present is as it was before, and thus it will always remain in the future...

by Sri Srimad Bhaktivedanta Svami Maharaja

[Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu] is certainly more intelligent than each and every one of us, and He knows how to make the fallen souls of Kali-yuga best understand His high-level teachings. Indeed, His teachings are comprehensible by all. Still, our misfortune prevails. First, we do not accept His teachings. Second, to impress others with our prowess we mix something of our own with them...

by Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda

A person such as this, who is free from envy and false pride in his caste, education and so on, despite being blessed with all virtue, never craves recognition or adoration from others. Thus he is amani, one who does not expect honour from anyone. That person, being free from envy, always feels happiness in the happiness of others, and pain in their sorrow. And so, he treats all living beings with due honour (manada)...

by Sri Srimad Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura Prabhupada

In my life I never heard him prescribe any activity other than hari-bhajana. His one and only instruction was this: “the living entity has no other obligation than continuous hari-bhajana, nor will he ever have any other duty. The knowledge, or conception, that an obligation exists other than hari-bhajana is indeed illusion.”....

by Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda

Who could be more unfortunate than I am?! I am a fool, for I gave up real wealth [Vaiṣṇava association] and, with great regard for the whimsical disorderliness of the living entities of this material world, who are suffering from the three-fold miseries, I became extremely inclined to earn their recognition...

by Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda

There is one person whose name is never mentioned in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. And yet Bhāgavatam’s steadfast readers constantly nurture the ardent hope of becoming that person’s devout, one-pointed servant. May that person, who means everything to Śrī Bhagavān, kindly destroy our false ego in all its various forms and bestow upon us the shelter of Her lotus feet. Today is the day of Her advent....

The spirit of this editorial is taken from the harikathā of
Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja

Throughout his departure pastime, his sole desire and plan was to bestow mercy upon all who somehow or other took shelter of him. His departure was timed according to his will and plan, just like that of Grandsire Bhisma, and this plan was fully approved and accepted by his guru-varga....

by Sri Srimad Bhakti Raksaka Sridhara Gosvami Maharaja

You yourself stand in the witness box. You are the criminal. You are the culprit. Why should you look at the rubbish when so many beautiful flowers are there? You see injustices but you do not see justice? Why not merge to the positive portion? If one hand is working and the other is paralyzed, shall I only attend to the diseased part, giving no attention to the working hand?...

by Sri Srimad Bhakti Prajnana Kesava Gosvami Maharaja

If we contemplate the cause for this, we find that as they served him, they failed to maintain the attitude, “Srila Gurudeva will be pleased by accepting my service and pleasing him gives me life.” Since they served him with many other motives and not exclusively with the hope of pleasing him, they were cheated out of obtaining the principal fruit of serving a sadhu and have instead attained whatever they secretly desired....

by Sri Srimad Bhaktivedanta Trivikrama Gosvami Maharaja

To formally accept initiation from the spiritual master and to take initiation from him in the true sense are quite different. The disciple receives the diksa-mantras from sri guru, and when he becomes qualified, he too can become a spiritual master. There is no fault in his doing so. But if the disciple himself accepts disciples before he is qualified, he is not acting in accordance with his level of realization...