By Krishna Kripa Das
(Week 51: December 17–23, 2025)
Where I Went and What I Did
The fifty-first week of 2025, I lived ISKCON NYC in Brooklyn. I chanted Hare Krishna in public with the NYC Harinam party of Rama Raya Prabhu from Monday to Saturday. In addition, to contribute to the Prabhupada Marathon, I went out by myself for between one and three hours every morning, except one, to a nearby subway station to chant Hare Krishna and distribute books to people who gave me donations. I distributed at least one book every day and sometimes as many as six. I also did another harinama on Sunday afternoon by myself.
I share a quote each from a Bhagavatam purport and a Bhagavatam lecture by Srila Prabhupada. I share notes on classes by Jayadvaita Swami, and Adi Purusa, Hansarupa, Rama Raya, Sita Rama, and Jai Nitai Prabhus. I share quotes from Vaninatha Vasu Prabhu’s soon-to-be-published book, Four Simple Steps to Re-Establish Varnasrama.
Many thanks to Rama Raya Prabhu for the photos and videos of me on NYC Harinam. Thanks to Gopal Campu Prabhu, who kindly drove me to Stuyvesant Falls, so I could serve my guru and see my friends and relatives at Christmastime.
Itinerary
November 23–January 9, 2026?: NYC Harinam
– January 3: Bhagavad-gita class at 26 Second Avenue
Chanting Hare Krishna in New York City
Jayananda Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/6y017AdhXx0?feature=share):
Gokulendra Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/40RnmX4xBpA):
Sevika Devi Dasi chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtu.be/0nDYYbjjfNg):
Later while Sevika was chanting, a woman danced as did some devotees (https://youtube.com/shorts/6cYW3my06IU):
Natabara Gauranga Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Queens (https://youtube.com/shorts/-UrllgBvF4I):
Caitanya Dasi chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtu.be/UCBtPseELWg).
Later her kirtan became even more lively (https://youtube.com/shorts/CeIMNE0U5n8):
Adi Purusa Prabhu plays guitar and chants “Jaya Radha Madhava” and Hare Krishna at ISKCON NYC (https://youtu.be/X9Rlcczbe6c):
Here I chant Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/As-4BX2GzWg):
Saturday morning, when I did some extra chanting at a local subway station for the Prabhupada Marathon, a Tamil-speaking man I met was pleased to show me some Tamil Krishna poetry on his mobile phone.
Raghav chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/wE8ef69bpaw):
Akshaj chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/V54gFzwzDN0?feature=share):
Kishawn chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/B4k3BGC9aOk):
Akincana Krishna Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/SGtMifX6lVs):
Later Godruma Prabhu, who plays the trumpet, joined in (https://youtube.com/shorts/53nOtpD3ldk?feature=share):
After that Saturday harinama, I went to 26 Second Avenue and caught the end of Jayadvaita Swami’s lecture there. His voice was too weak to sing the second kirtan, so I got to do it. I love chanting Hare Krishna in that sacred place where Srila Prabhupada began his International Society for Krishna Consciousness with a few Lower East Side hippies back in 1966.
Meru, who loves taking selfies more than anyone I know, took a few there.
Gokulendra Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/pdm_iAb8Z7I?feature=share):
Jayananda Prabhu chants in Manhattan, and woman from Humane World for Animals dances (https://youtu.be/0tLGOPzustM):
Seeing this woman from Humane World for Animals dancing as she looked for people to speak to about her cause, I decided to invite her to our programs. She declined, however, saying she was a Muslim. Days later I saw her in another subway station playing her own mundane music to dance to.
Here I chant my favorite Hare Krishna tune in Queens, and devotees dance (https://youtube.com/shorts/xs3HZL-sr1w?feature=share):
Costumed passersby play shakers and dance to Hare Krishna chant in Queens (https://youtube.com/shorts/WZvqnbuIqQA?feature=share):
After the Queen’s harinama, I went to Stuyvesant Falls with Gopal Campu Prabhu.
I had been thinking there was some emptiness in my life because I had not heard Lord Caitanya’s pastimes much recently. When I got into the car, Gopal said, “I usually hear Caitanya-caritamrita while I drive. Is that OK?” I smiled, thinking that Krishna was expertly fulfilling my desire.
Photos
One of the most successful programs for getting new people to take their spiritual life more seriously is the “Be a Monk Challenge.”
Usually the Monthly Sankirtana Festival is just a single day, but for the Prabhupada Marathon, devotees in New York City had a three-day festival instead.
Devotees hope to distribute 2,700 Bhagavad-gitas for the month of December, so we had extra Gitas on our table on harinama.
When I did the noon arati, I stashed some of the maha-prasadam for lunch. One item was palak paneer, a favorite of my mother, who passed away last year.
I decided before eating lunch to offer some palak paneer to her picture for her eternal spiritual benefit.
Insights
Srila Prabhupada:
From Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.13.7, purport:
“The bhakti-yoga system is the topmost yoga system, and in this system the chanting of the holy name of the Lord is the foremost performance of devotional service. By chanting the holy name one can attain the perfection of nirvana, or liberation from material existence, and so increase one’s blissful life of spiritual existence as described by Lord Caitanya (anandambudhi-vardhanam). When one is situated in that position, he no longer has any interest in material opulence or even a royal throne and sovereignty over the whole planet. This situation is called viraktir anyatra syat. It is the result of devotional service.”
From a class on Srimad-Bhagavatam 7.9.2 in Mayapur on February 11, 1977:
“Here we are thinking, ‘Laksmi may not go away,’ but there [in the spiritual world], Sri [Laksmi] is thinking, ‘Krishna may not go away.’ That is the difference. Here we are afraid that Laksmi may go away at any moment, and they [the Laksmis] are afraid Krishna may go away. This is the difference.”
Jayadvaita Swami:
From a class on Bhagavad-gita 8.26 at 26 Second Avenue:
There is a near-death experience where the body of a patient was super-cooled in order for an operation to be performed. The operation was successful, and the woman recovered, with a memory of details of the surgery when her brain was not functioning. This shows that consciousness is coming from another source.
Astanga-yoga is a more or less mechanical and thus you have to get it just right, but the devotee depends on Krishna, who is not mechanical, to make arrangements for his attainment of the spiritual world.
From a class at ISKCON NYC on Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.13.10 on December 22, 2025:
Those who are advanced have the determination not to become entangled in this material world.
Some people talk about keeping their bhajana hidden, but Srila Prabhupada did not keep his bhajana hidden. He was chanting in Tompkins Square Park. However, there may be confidential aspects of our bhajana, we keep hidden.
We have to judge the status of different people to properly deal with them, but we have to be careful because we have the tendency to make mistakes.
Q: How to keep from being entangled in the material world?
A: Chant Hare Krishna. Lord Caitanya has taught this simple process.
Q: How to not misjudge a person based on externals?
A: Know the symptoms of an advanced devotee and depend on Krishna.
Q: It is said that we should chant constantly, but to do that, we have to be humble and tolerant, so how do we chant constantly if we are not so humble or tolerant.
A: Chant as much as you can, and by doing so, you will become more humble and more tolerant, and then you can chant more.
From a class on Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.13.21 in New York City on December 25, 2025:
It is an opulence to just walk away. It is a powerful position. A materialist can’t do it.
One who does that for Krishna conquers Him.
After fifty years of age, what is this nonsense of trying to make your family life work? It is time to move on.
No more chewing the chewed. It is time to taste the juice, pibata bhagavatam rasam.
The fee for the license for sense gratification in family life is to give in charity.
Adi Purusa Prabhu:
As a new devotee in New Vrindaban I saw a devotee marriage. The priest asked the couple, “Do you love each other?”
“Yes.”
The priest asked, “Do you want that love to increase?”
“Yes.”
Then he said, “If you encourage each other in chanting Hare Krishna, serving your guru, reading the scriptures, etc., then your love will increase. If you just rub your bodies against each other, you will lose respect for yourself, and your marriage will break up.”
We should not reject something given to us for Krishna’s service. If we go to deposit money in the bank, and the teller out of humility declines to accept it, what is that?
When I am approaching people, one line I use is, “Don’t worry. We are the good guys.”
Hansarupa Prabhu:
At a certain point, we all came to the realization that this is the absolute truth.
We see practically that when we reread Srila Prabhupada’s books, we find more each time we read.
One can express doubt to a devotee, but one must be willing to accept his response and not filter it through one’s faulty intelligence.
Every human being is eligible for this knowledge.
Many people can be brought to understand the difference between knowledge and illusion.
We see in the Srimad-Bhagavatam great souls like Prahlada Maharaja and Dhruva Maharaja do not discuss or meditate upon their eternal rasa with Krishna. How can we who are very neophyte compared to them presume to do so?
Radhanath Swami says the renaissance of ISKCON will begin in New York City.
During Srila Prabhupada’s time, the question came up, should Hansarupa stay in New York or come to Vrindaban? Srila Prabhupada said, “Hansarupa should stay in New York.”
As a brahmana, you have to convince others. First of all, you have to convince yourself. You have to be so unshakeable that you cannot be moved.
Srila Prabhupada said, “Vrindavan is sentiment only. Our real field work is all over the world.”
In Henry Street, we had the whole temple cleaned before we went on sankirtana. It was a daily duty.
After the day on sankirtana, the devotees would take showers and go to the evening arati, and that was most ecstatic arati of the day. There are some tapes that capture the mood of it.
Vaninatha Vasu Prabhu:
From his soon-to-be-published book, Four Simple Steps to Re-Establish Varnasrama:
“Though Krishna famously declares that His mission is to ‘deliver the pious, annihilate the miscreants, and reestablish the principles of religion,’ He performed this mission in the role of a ksatriya. And He expects trained ksatriyas to follow in His footsteps.”
“The real challenge we now face is not about birth, or even about nature—it is about vision and willingness. Are we ready to become trainable again? Can we submit to a higher order of training and development so that society can function again? If we can say yes to that, then we are already on the path. Varnasrama won’t remain a concept. It will begin to take shape, one trained individual at a time.”
“The genius of Krishna’s social system is that it organizes and harmonizes people’s differences—not by suppressing them, but by educating and elevating them. The solution is not to erase the distinctions, nor to rigidly enforce them by birth, but to train people to embody God-given roles.”
“Why are these two roles so critical? Because one teaches, and the other enforces. One guides, and the other protects. Without brahmanas, there is no clarity. Without ksatriyas, there is no courage.”
“We’ve made progress where the systems were easiest to implement or most aligned with existing skills. But where there was no precedent—no template—the initiative has faltered. Brahminical training was easier to imagine. Ksatriya training? Harder. And so, it was never seriously pursued.
“The result? A movement with devotion but no defenders, with truth but little enforcement, with potential leaders who never get trained to lead.
“This is not cause for guilt—but for action.”
“People crave order, protection, justice, and moral strength. But we rarely train individuals who are meant to provide that relief [the ksatriyas]. We leave the role empty. Then we wonder why chaos spreads.”
“ISKCON also needs ksatriyas. Devotional practice does not exempt us from the need for social justice. And the truth is plain: justice in ISKCON is often soft, inconsistent, or missing altogether.
“Why? Because we have brahmanas trying to enforce dharma — when enforcement is the duty of ksatriyas. Brahmanas are meant to teach, to guide, to forgive. Ksatriyas are meant to protect, to enforce, to punish. Without that balance, justice collapses.”
Rama Raya Prabhu:
Sannyasa does not mean giving up the family but extending the family to include all living beings.
Krishna arranges our lives so that things that are unthinkable at an earlier phase seem quite natural later on.
Sita Rama Prabhu:
So much cursing goes on in the Bhagavatam, but generally there is ultimately a good result. Thus the curses of the sages are benedictions.
The business of the devotees is to give benedictions.
If we emulate the teaching, we can propagate the teaching.
When a devotee sees Krishna’s hand in his life, he puts his life more in Krishna’s hands.
We need ten Rama Rayas in New York City.
Jai Nitai Prabhu:
Lord Caitanya is Krishna experiencing Radharani’s separation from Krishna, and Jagannatha is Krishna experiencing separation from Radharani.
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When I saw the daughter of Bhurijana Prabhu recently, I recalled that he taught me this verse about 40 years ago in Philadelphia. I was having difficulty blowing the conch shell for guru-puja. He advised me to pray to Lord Caitanya, because by remembering Him even difficult things become easy.
kathañcana smrte yasmin
vismrte viparitam syat
sri-caitanyam namami tam
“Things that are very difficult to do become easy to execute if one somehow or other simply remembers Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu. But if one does not remember Him, even easy things become very difficult. To this Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu I offer my respectful obeisances.” (Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Adi 14.1)
