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In 700 concise verses, the Bhagavad-gītā distills India’s yoga philosophy and presents universal truths as relevant today as when the Gītā was first spoken over five thousand years ago.
The Bhagavad-gītā is a conversation between God in the form of Kṛṣṇa, and His warrior friend Arjuna, as Arjuna decides whether he will fight his cousins to regain a kingdom – thereby sufferinng the loss of many loved ones due to the war. Kṛṣṇa uses Arjuna’s dilemma to help Him walk the yoga path from material perplexity to spiritual enlightenment.
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami’s straightforward approach and loyalty to the intended meaning of Kṛṣṇa’s words has made Bhagavad-gītā As It Is the most widely read edition of the Bhagavad-gītā in the world, with 28 million copies in print in over sixty languages.
In 700 concise verses, the Bhagavad-gītā distills India’s yoga philosophy and presents universal truths as relevant today as when the Gītā was first spoken over five thousand years ago.
The Bhagavad-gītā is a conversation between God in the form of Kṛṣṇa and His warrior friend Arjuna as Arjuna decides whether he will fight his cousins to regain a kingdom – and suffer the loss of many loved ones during the war. Kṛṣṇa uses Arjuna’s dilemma to help Him walk the yoga path from material perplexity to spiritual enlightenment.
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami’s straightforward approach and loyalty to the intended meaning of Kṛṣṇa’s words has made Bhagavad-gītā As It Is the most widely read edition of the Bhagavad-gītā in the world, with sixteen million copies in print in sixty languages.
Kṛṣṇa consciousness, or bhakti-yoga, is the “matchless gift” of all the forms of yoga, because simply by performing it’s joyful practices, we find our way back to our original consciousness. Our original consciousness is clear consciousness – consciousness of ourselves in relation with God, Kṛṣṇa. Just as the clear water falling from the sky as rain becomes muddy when it touches the earth, so our pure consciousness is muddied when it mixes with the material energy. The matchless gift of Kṛṣṇa consciousness frees us permanently from material suffering.
If you want the gift that spiritual freedom promises, this small book lays out the steps to achieving it.
Although there are many types of yoga practice, the Vedic literature explains that no matter which practice you choose, success is only achieved when bhakti is part of your meditation.
What is bhakti-yoga and how can you add it to your life or your current yoga practice? Because bhakti is a pivotal element in any yogic or religious practice, it is known as the topmost yoga. In the Bhagavad-gītā, Krishna explains bhakti-yoga to his dear friend Arjuna, and here Śrīla Prabhupāda expands on these concepts in this introductory text.
Kṛṣṇa is a retelling of the tenth and most important book of the popular Indian epic, the Bhagavata Purana. Devoted to Kṛṣṇa, whom millions revere as the Supreme, we hear in these sacred tales about Kṛṣṇa’s descent into this world and of his childhood and adolescence spent in the forests of Vrindavan, where he played with his friends, dallied with the cowherd maidens, stole butter to feed the monkeys, and protected the village people from the demons who were sent by his evil uncle to kill him. Kṛṣṇa performs ever more heroic deeds among sages and kings, demigods and demons, and emerges from each of these adventures as an ideal of beauty, wisdom, and grace.
The tales in Kṛṣṇa, with their seamless mix of storytelling and philosophy, have inspired generations of artists, musicians, poets, sculptors, and dramatists. They are sure to captivate you with their magic and beauty.
Written in India in the 1950s more than a decade before the author established the Hare Krishna movement in the West, Message of Godhead addresses the universal human endeavor to find happiness, peace, prosperity, and security. But if we seek these things only through material pursuits and scientific advancement, the author argues, we’ll gain nothing of substance for ourselves or the world.
Based on the yoga teachings of the Bhagavad-gītā, Message of Godhead suggests that joy and prosperity are found in the awareness that each and every soul has a potent, confidential, eternal relationship with the Supreme Person. Message of Godhead teaches us how to reclaim that relationship and to reach our full human potential.
Prabhupāda: Your Ever Well-Wisher tells the inspiring story of a remarkable man and his remarkable achievement. A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda – philosopher, scholar, religious leader, author – founded the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement in 1966, effectively transplanting India’s spiritual culture of bhakti-yoga from India to America. In his seventies and with almost superhuman drive, Prabhupāda took his Hare Kṛṣṇa movement and its iconic chant around the world and then back to India, establishing centers and ashrams wherever he went and writing over sixty books.
Drawing on Prabhupāda’s own words and on numerous interviews with those who knew him both in India and the West, Prabhupāda emerges as a vital and earnest ambassador of spiritual India whose teachings continue to influence spiritual culture today.
Taking the role of His own devotee, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa appeared as Lord Caitanya about five centuries ago in Bengal, India, and began a revolution in spiritual consciousness that has profoundly affected the lives of millions worldwide. His conversations with the great scholars, kings, and mystics of the day form the basis of Teachings of Lord Caitanya, which is a summary study of the dialogues recorded in His biography, Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta. The extensive references in Teachings of Lord Caitanya make it an invaluable compendium of devotional Indian philosophy.
While the European Renaissance was gaining momentum in Europe, a spiritual revolution was sweeping India, breaking open the highly ritualized religion of the Sanskrit Vedas and delivering its heart through the power of sacred song (kīrtana) to anyone who would take it. This revolution was led by the ecstatic mystic Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya, whose renowned disciple, Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, wrote the fifteenth-century masterpiece, the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu
The Nectar of Devotion is A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda's summary study of that great work.
We cannot be happy without satisfying our fundamental desire to love – a hankering rooted in the soul's natural love for the reservoir of all love, the Supreme. Come and explore the intricacies of that deepest love in this devotional classic.
Eleven Lessons in the Ancient Science of Bhakti-yoga
Across five centuries and half the globe comes this compact guidebook of essential spiritual teachings. How to choose a guru, how to practice yoga, even where to live – you’ll find it all in this invaluable work originally written in Sanskrit by Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, the greatest spiritual genius of medieval India.
Now translated and illuminated by Rūpa Gosvāmī’s modern successor, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, The Nectar of Instruction is the key to enlightenment for all seekers on the path of spiritual perfection.
The Path of Perfection provides a welcome introduction into the philosophy and practice of humankind's oldest system of spiritual development – yoga. Yoga is so much more than what’s being practiced in the myriad yoga studios around the world, which are filled with people trying to improve their health, lose weight, or increase their agility. Rather, yoga is an ancient philosophy and meditational system aimed at achieving self-realization.
The Path of Perfection consists of a historic series of talks – elaborations on a previously published commentary – by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda (1896-1977) on India's greatest spiritual classic, the Bhagavad-gītā. In these absorbing talks, Śrīla Prabhupāda explores the philosophy of yoga as it's explained in the Gītā's sixth and eighth chapters, making these timeless teachings both accessible and applicable.
Learn about the nature of consciousness, karma, death, and reincarnation, and especially, how to meditate and find spiritual ecstasy.
A world-renowned yoga master cuts through the commercialism that now clouds the real meaning of yoga.
Beyond the postures and exercises, he explains, the ancient teachings of yoga aim at lasting, loving union with the Supreme.
The author, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, has written more than 60 volumes of authoritative translations, commentaries and sundry studies of the philosophical and religious classics of India. Highly respected in academic circles for their authority, depth and clarity, they are used as standard textbooks in numerous colleges and universities around the world.
Stories of Kṛṣṇa, by Pārvatī Devī Dāsī, introduces children to their Supreme Friend. Adapted from Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the pastimes recounted in this book give children a glimpse into the fascinating life of Śrī Kṛṣṇa and His associates in Vṛndāvana. Hear about Kṛṣṇa’s boyish butter-stealing games, his cowherding adventures with His many friends, and how He protected the residents of Vṛndāvana from the various demons sent by Kaṁsa. Volume 1 begins with Kṛṣṇa’s appearance in the world, in chapter 1, up through the gopīs’ expressing their feelings of separation from Him, in chapter 20.
This is the first of four volumes.
Stories of Kṛṣṇa, by Pārvatī Devī Dāsī, introduces children to their Supreme Friend. Adapted from Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the pastimes recounted in this book give children a glimpse into the fascinating life of Śrī Kṛṣṇa and His associates in Vṛndāvana. Volume 2 of this series opens with Kṛṣṇa’s killing of Ariṣṭāsura and ends with the kidnapping of Princess Rukmiṇī.
This is the second of four volumes.
Stories of Krishna, by Parvati Devi Dasi, introduces children to their Supreme Friend. Adapted from Srila Prabhupada’s Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the pastimes recounted in this book give children a glimpse into the fascinating life of Sri Krishna and His associates in Vrindavana.
In this third of four volumes, we hear about the birth and kidnapping of Krishna and Rukmini’s son Pradyumna, the Syamantaka jewel, the killing of Bhaumasura and Dvivida, and Lord Balarama’s visit to Vrindavana. This volume takes us up to Samba’s marriage and Narada’s visit to Dvaraka.
Stories of Kṛṣṇa, by Pārvatī Devī Dāsī, introduces children to their Supreme Friend. Adapted from Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the pastimes recounted in this book give children a glimpse into the fascinating life of Śrī Kṛṣṇa and His associates in Vṛndāvana.
In the final volume of this four-volume set, Kṛṣṇa travels from Dvārakā to Hastināpura, where He tells Bhīma how to defeat Jarāsandha, delivers Śiśupāla during the Rāja-sūya sacrifice, battles Śālva with the Yadus, and helps His friend Arjuna to elope with Subhadrā. Later, when He meets His mother Devakī, He returns to her her six dead sons. Then, with Arjuna, he penetrates the brilliance of the brahma-jyoti to help a brāhmaṇa recover his children from Mahā-Viṣṇu's abode.
The 108 Upaniṣads are considered the essence of all the Vedas, and Śrī Īśopaniṣad is foremost among them.
For thousands of years, people on spiritual quests have consulted the mystical, intensely philosophical Upaniṣads . Discover the distilled essence of all knowledge in these eighteen enlightening verses.
As the name implies (upa – “near”; ni – “down”; ṣad – “to sit”), seekers are advised to sit near the spiritual teacher to learn.
But to learn what? The name of this Upaniṣad gives a hint: īśa means “the supreme controller.” So we are to sit at the feet of the spiritual guide and learn about the supreme controller, God. Wisdom is gained easily, provided we learn from an authentic guide.
The translation and commentary of Śrīla Prabhupāda strictly adheres to the book's intention, assuring you of a legitimate understanding of the depths of Upaniṣadic knowledge.
Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta tells the story of a remarkable individual and a remarkable achievement. The individual is A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda: philosopher, scholar, religious leader, saint. The achievement is the revolutionary transplantation of a timeless spiritual culture from ancient India to twentieth-century America and the world.
A Lifetime in Preparation, the first volume of this multivolume biography, tells the story of the first sixty-nine years of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s life, a period of patient and transcendent determination as he prepared for a mission that would later be crowned with astounding success.
A Lifetime in Preparation begins in Calcutta in 1896 with the birth of Abhay Charan De (Śrīla Prabhupāda) and brings us a close view of the pet child, the student, the political activist and supporter of Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent noncooperation movement for Indian independence. The high point of Abhay Charan's early life, however, is his meeting with Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Goswami, a Bengali scholar and holy man organizing a dynamic Vaiṣṇava religious movement throughout India. They meet, a vigorous debate ensues, and Abhay Charan agrees to give up his political activism for a life of spiritual activism – a life which blossoms years later when, renouncing family and business, he takes up the life of a sādhu, a renounced holy man. From that point on, he fully focuses his attention on the mission entrusted to him by Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī: the respiritualization of human society.
The research team assembled by the author traveled throughout the world to gather thousands of hours of interviews with hundreds of people who knew Śrīla Prabhupāda; diaries and memoirs from his students; and more than seven thousand of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s letters. Then the author and his team distilled this voluminous firsthand source material into a rich composite view of Śrīla Prabhupāda, a dazzling and colorful picture of one of the most remarkable lives of our times.
Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta tells the story of a remarkable individual and a remarkable achievement. The individual is A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda: philosopher, scholar, religious leader, saint. The achievement is the revolutionary transplantation of a timeless spiritual culture from ancient India to twentieth-century America and the world.
Planting the Seed, the second volume of this multivolume biography, tells the story of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s first year in America, a year of struggle against enormous odds. We encounter Śrīla Prabhupāda as he travels alone from Calcutta to New York City aboard a steamship, carrying with him only the Indian equivalent of eight dollars, having no institutional backing, no moral support, but a bold determination to do the impossible. It is also the story of an explosive era in the modern history of the Western world – an era of sweeping revolt, largely by the younger generation, against a society losing its soul to the ideology of materialism and mass consumerism. Into this turmoil of mid-sixties America suddenly came an elderly, golden-skinned, saffron-robed holy man from India, bringing with him a vision of a new kind of society – a bold vision calling for the radical transformation of human consciousness and human civilization from materialism to the loftiest spiritual and ethical idealism. The seed he planted took immediate root in the fertile countercultural soil of New York's Lower East Side. From there the seed sprouted and blossomed into an international spiritual movement that has had a profound influence on the contemporary world.
The research team assembled by the author traveled throughout the world to gather thousands of hours of interviews with hundreds of people who knew Śrīla Prabhupāda; diaries and memoirs from his students; and more than seven thousand of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s letters. Then the author and his team distilled this voluminous firsthand source material into a rich composite view of Śrīla Prabhupāda, a dazzling and colorful picture of one of the most remarkable lives of our times.
Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta tells the story of a remarkable individual and a remarkable achievement. The individual is A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda: philosopher, scholar, religious leader, saint. The achievement is the revolutionary transplantation of a timeless spiritual culture from ancient India to twentieth-century America and the world.
In this third volume, Only He Could Lead Them, we encounter one of the most important periods in Śrīla Prabhupāda’s life, as he courageously establishes and develops his movement in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, the counterculture capital of the West Coast. There, in 1967, hundreds of thousands of hippies had gathered for a “Summer of Love,” and in that unique environment of radical exploration and experimentation, the Swami and the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa were warmly welcomed and celebrated.
The research team assembled by the author traveled throughout the world to gather thousands of hours of interviews with hundreds of people who knew Śrīla Prabhupāda; diaries and memoirs from his students; and more than seven thousand of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s letters. Then the author and his team distilled this voluminous firsthand source material into a rich composite view of Śrīla Prabhupāda, a dazzling and colorful picture of one of the most remarkable lives of our times.
Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta tells the story of a remarkable individual and a remarkable achievement. The individual is A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda: philosopher, scholar, religious leader, saint. The achievement is the revolutionary transplantation of a timeless spiritual culture from ancient India to twentieth-century America and the world.
In this fourth volume, In Every Town and Village, we follow Śrīla Prabhupāda through the years of his greatest active participation in ISKCON, as its sole leader. During this period (March 1969 to June 1971), besides traveling throughout North America, establishing, solidifying, and inspiring communities of disciples, Śrīla Prabhupāda turned ISKCON into a truly international phenomenon. In Britain, with the active assistance of Beatles George Harrison and John Lennon, a recording of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra became a smash hit, and the movement took off. Śrīla Prabhupāda also introduced Kṛṣṇa consciousness to Australia, Malaysia, France, Africa, and the Soviet Union during these years.
Perhaps the most significant development during this period was the movement’s return to its spiritual motherland. In the fall of 1970, Śrīla Prabhupāda embarked on a dramatic tour of India with a select group of American disciples, whose rejection of Western materialism and zealous embrace of India’s ancient spiritual culture caused nothing less than a sensation among the Westernizing Indians, planting seeds for an authentic religious revival there.
Through all these travels and events, certain themes remain constant: Śrīla Prabhupāda’s towering and heroic spirituality, the powerfully transforming effect his presence had on those who chose to follow him, and the disciples’ ever-deepening realization and experience of the profound sublimity of a relationship with a genuine guru and saint.
Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta tells the story of a remarkable individual and a remarkable achievement. The individual is A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda: philosopher, scholar, religious leader, saint. The achievement is the revolutionary transplantation of a timeless spiritual culture from ancient India to twentieth-century America and the world.
Let There Be a Temple opens in 1971 in India. Śrīla Prabhupāda has already firmly established the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement in the West, and his leading disciples are now expanding it while he is traveling the globe. This fifth volume of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s biography chronicles Śrīla Prabhupāda's triumphant return to India, where with a small band of American and European disciples he launches an ambitious campaign to revive his countrymen’s spiritual concerns in an atmosphere of encroaching materialism.
Śrīla Prabhupāda plans to construct Kṛṣṇa temples in three crucial locations: Bombay, the sacred village of Vṛndāvana; and Māyāpur, the birthsite of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, inaugurator of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement some five hundred years earlier.
In Bombay Śrīla Prabhupāda wages an agonizing battle to claim a rightfully purchased plot of land from a deceitful landowner. In Vṛndāvana he appeals to suspicious residents to support his disciples as they struggle to erect the Krishna-Balaram Mandir. And in Māyāpur he secures land near the war-torn border of Bangladesh and begins his most expansive project: a Vedic city centered on the three-hundred-foot-high Mayapur Chandrodaya Mandir.
So vast is Śrīla Prabhupāda’s vision that even some of his intimate followers become skeptical. Yet Śrīla Prabhupāda's down-to-earth determination and resourcefulness bring about magnificent results for his beloved Lord Kṛṣṇa.
After compiling the Vedas, Śrīla Vyāsadeva was inspired to present their profound essence in the form of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. As “the ripened fruit of the tree of Vedic literature,” the first verse of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam makes clear that because the book is intended for people serious about spiritual progress, it will not deal with sectarian religious ideas, philosophical conjecture, or worldly concerns. The second text promises that anyone who reads the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam systematically will achieve the spiritual success meant to be attained by all human beings.
Canto One, “Creation,” introduces Śaunaka Ṛṣi and the sages at Naimiṣāraṇya, who have gathered to hear Sūta Gosvāmī speak on devotional service to Kṛṣṇa and to describe Kṛṣṇa’s ten incarnations. Also told is the story of Parīkṣit Mahārāja’s life, including how he came to be cursed to die within seven days. In Canto One, Parīkṣit Mahārāja has retired to the bank of the Ganges, where he meets Śukadeva Gosvāmī and asks him what a man facing death should do. The remainder of the Bhāgavatam is Śukadeva’s response.
This edition of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the only complete English translation with an elaborate and scholarly commentary, and it is the first edition widely available to the English-reading public. This work is the product of the scholarly and devotional effort of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, the world’s most distinguished teacher of Indian religious and philosophical thought. His Sanskrit scholarship and intimate familiarity with Vedic culture combine to reveal to the West a magnificent exposition of this important classic.