What to do in times of suffering?

Thought For the Day

The Ultimate Self Realization Course

"Godhead is light. Nescience is darkness. Where there is Godhead there is no nescience."

Note: This is not written by artificial intelligence. It is
written by a real person who truly cares about you.

Krishna

What to Do in Times of Suffering?

22 March 2025

Suffering is natural in this material world because this is a world suffering. We are so accustomed to it that we often don't notice it.. But sometimes when it is acute we strongly feel its pinches. In those times the teachings of Lord Sri Krishna are our only solace (BG 2.14):

mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya
śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ
āgamāpāyino 'nityās
tāṁs titikṣasva bhārata

"O son of Kuntī, the nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed."

Thus we should train ourselves to always remember the teachings of our beloved Lord Sri Krishna.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

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Krishna Instructs Arjuna

Bhagavad Gita

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Transcendental Correspondence

Dear Srila Gurudev,
Please accept my humble obeisances at your lotus feet.
All glories to your grace and Srimati Guru Mataji.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

Recently your grace requested your disciples to send our preaching / service reports.
I am inspired to send this humble report so it may please your grace and inspire others.

I have been associated with Bhakti Center Gachibowli, Hyderabad (extension of ISKCON Abids, Hyderabad Temple) since opening of this center on June 11, 2023. We have a congregation of around 200 dedicated devotees mostly working in IT companies. We meet every Sunday for the Love Feast program and on all important festivals. This center is run under guidance of HG Radheshyam Das Prabhuji and HG Lilananda Das Prabhuji. Many sadhus and senior devotees like HH Lokanatha Swami Maharaj, HH Indradyumna Swami Maharaj, HH Bhakti Prem Swami Maharaj, HG Chaitanya Charan Prabhuji, HG Gauranga Darshan Prabhuji etc. have visited us. Request your grace also to plan visiting this place on your next visit to India.

After our center was opened, our center head, HG Lilananda Prabhuji and his good wife HG Anuradha Priya DD Mataji had a desire to start NPS (Nityam Prasada Seva) with inspiration from HDG Srila Prabhupada's quote that "No one within 10 miles of ISKCON Center should go hungry". With this motto we inaugurated NPS (Nityam Prasada Seva) on August 31, 2023 from the hands of HG Radheshyam Das Prabhuji. I was asked to manage this program as a servant leader.
Since then I have been managing this program with the help of about 20 volunteer team members. We together manage and distribute around 250 bowls of hot prasadam everyday evening at 6:30 pm IST outside our Bhakti Center to the general public. We seek funds from sponsors to run this program. We request a donation of Rs. 1600 per day from donors to sponsor one day prasadam. We manage all this efficiently using WhatsApp, Google Forms, UPI / QR Code Payments etc with minimum manual intervention and no overhead costs. This program has been going on successfully without interruption for the past 565 days and approximately 150,000 bowls of prasadam have been served so far.

Recently, HH Bhakti Prem Maharaj and HG Gauranga Darshan Prabhuji have appreciated our efforts and felicitated the NPS team. Attached here are some photos.

Srila Gurudev, all this wouldn't have been possible without your blessings and encouragement. Please continue to bless me so that I may continue to serve selflessly and glorify your grace and Srila Prabhupada.

Your insignificant servant,
Raghunandana Das

Bhakti Center Gachibowli

Center
Bhakti Center

Answer

From: Vrindavan, India

My Dear Raghunandana,

Please accept my blessings.
All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda.

It is very inspiring to see how you all are preaching there. This preaching work is our life and soul.

I hope this meets you in the best of health
and in a cheerful mood.

Your ever well-wisher,

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

My Spiritual Journey in a Nutshell

As an American youth I was taught to believe in the. "American dream": Study hard, get a good education and a good job to get a good wife some good kids in a good house to enjoy a good life. But when I got to college I realized that this was not enough. I wanted to know what is the meaning of life, but no one could tell me. So I took to the path of self-realization and was blessed in 1968 with the Hare Krishna mantra and the worship of Radha and Krishna. (I did not know about ISKCON.) This inspired me to drop out of college and renounce the world to become a holy beggar in India. But on the way to India I realized that to renounce everything I had to ultimately renounce renunciation itself and accept something transcendental Thus I embraced the mission of delivering the world from chaos. For this purpose I adopted the life a singer/songwriter who in 1969 became recognized and very much appreciated. In 1971, seeking spiritual perfection, I followed the example of Lord Jesus Christ and prayed to God how I could become His perfect servant. Then God revealed to me path of pure Krishna bhakti as taught by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami. On the most auspicious day of 12 August 1971 he accepted me as his disciple. Now on his order and under his most expert guidance I have fully devoted my life for awakening pure love of God within my heart and for making the entire world Krishna conscious.

To read about my journey in detail get my memoir:

Love
To get The Divine Love Memoir go to the Amazon store in your country:

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