A discussion on a controversial point.

by Jayadvaita Swami

“Life is amply long for him who orders it properly.”
     —Seneca (8 BC–AD 65)

by Jayadvaita Swami

While I was editor of Back to Godhead, we published a series of articles called “The Glories of the Demigods.” The articles praised the demigods as great servants of Lord Krishna.

Not everyone was pleased.

Remarks at a rite of passage for my nephew, Liam Golightley, on Liam’s thirteenth birthday.

I congratulate you,  Liam, on this rite of passage. And I invite you, Liam, just for a moment—I invite all of us, just for a moment—to think about who it is that’s passing.

by Jayadvaita Swami

An invocation for a conference on relationships among Hare Krishna devotees

     Alachua, Florida, August 14, 1993

An invocation is “a calling for,” traditionally a calling for God, or these days more often a summoning forth of desired qualities within ourselves.

I wouldn’t suppose that you expect me to summon forth something valuable on my own. Rather, since this is a gathering of devotees—devotees of the sankirtana movement—I’d suppose my role should be to help us get started in doing that work of invocation together.

To that end, I’d like first to suggest that we call forth our remembrance of Srila Prabhupada, of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and of Radha and Krishna—because it’s only through them that we all have relationships with one another.

Our present relationships as friends, partners, and family members will last for some time—but they’ll all soon be cut and reshuffled. Only the ties we have through Krishna, as spiritual living beings, will permanently endure.

by Jayadvaita Swami

When people see a picture like the one you see here, they often ask, “Who is that girl with Krishna?” The answer is that She is Srimati Radharani, Krishna’s pleasure potency. The devotees of the Krishna consciousness movement humbly try to glorify Srimati Radharani because by Her mercy one can advance wonderfully in Krishna consciousness.

by Jayadvaita Swami

from Back to Godhead, November-December 1993

Recently I attended a conference held to honor an Indian missionary who’d come to America a century ago bearing India’s message of Vedanta. Though in America his name is now all but forgotten (if ever it was known), back home in India his fame lives on, his impact on the West still an item of national pride.

The Vedic teaching on the cycle of birth, death, and birth again

by Jayadvaita Swami

“Thanks to inflation,” says a recent release from the Associated Press, “you are now worth 5½ times more than you were just a few years ago.

“The calcium, magnesium, iron and other chemicals in an adult’s body were worth 98 cents in the early part of this decade; now they’re worth $5.60, according to Dr. Harry Monsen, a professor of anatomy at Illinois College of Medicine. ‘And the price will keep going up, just like it’s doing with cadavers and skeletons,’ he said. ‘We are caught in the inflation spiral.’ ”

The case history of a little girl from West Bengal suggests she remembered a life she had lived before

by Jayadvaita Swami

Here’s a page full of reasons. I’ll spare you the footnotes, but each reason is fully upheld by evidence from Vedic writings like Bhagavad-gita, the Upanisads, and the Puranas.

by Jayadvaita Swami

When we hear that we live in this material world because we are “fallen souls,” it’s natural for us to ask, “Where have we fallen from?”

by Jayadvaita Swami

In the pages of Back to Godhead you may often come across the term “disciplic succession.” It’s an English rendering of the Sanskrit word parampara. The meaning of the word is simple yet important.