Where I Went and What I Did
The last ‘week’ (actually eight days) of 2025 began with Christmas Eve Day and ended with New Year’s Eve. On Christmas Eve Day I stayed at Viraha Bhavan, the ashram of Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami, my Guru Maharaja, in Stuyvesant Falls, New York, till early afternoon. There I cooked breakfast and lunch for my guru and offered arati to his deities. Then in the late afternoon I attended a Christmas program at the Albany Friends Meeting, which my mother used to attend and which I brought prasadam to. I spent the evening and following morning with my sister, Karen, and her partner, Victor, and then I returned to New York City in time for the afternoon harinama.
There I lived in 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 Ekadasi, 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 four. Here are my totals for the marathon, during which I did more hours than ever and more books than the last two years:
I also did another harinama on Sunday afternoon by myself. On New Year’s Eve, in addition to my two usual harinamas, I did two more, one with NYC Harinam in Manhattan and one with ISKCON NYC residents and congregational members in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, where there are fireworks at midnight.
I share quotes from Srila Prabhupada’s Srimad-Bhagavatam and Sri Caitanya-caritamrita. I share notes from classes by Hansarupa, Rama Raya, and Natabara Gauranga Prabhus and a conversation with Maithuna Prabhu.
Many, many thanks to Baladeva Vidyabhusana Prabhu, the leader of the devotees taking care of Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami, for his generous donation, for making 48 cookies for my friends and relatives, and for the use of the ashram car to drive to Albany and back. Thanks to Madhu Sri Prabhu for his kind donation. Thanks to Rama Raya Prabhu for the pictures and videos of me on harinama in New York City.
Itinerary
November 23–January 10, 2026: NYC Harinam
– January 3: Bhagavad-gita class at 26 Second Avenue
January 11: Orlando harinama and Alachua Sunday feast
January 12–mid April: harinama and college outreach in Tallahassee and Tampa
Distributing Prasadam in Upstate New York
I was planning to distribute prasadam to my relatives and to the members of my mother’s Quaker meeting at Christmastime, but I ended up also visiting my guru, Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami, and cooking breakfast and lunch for him on Christmas Eve Day. The reason is that I got a ride upstate with Gopal Campu Prabhu who was going to Stuyvesant Falls, where his wife had been assisting with cooking and pujari work there. Thus I offered to make breakfast for my guru, which is the service I would do when I helped out there in the past. I mentioned to my guru’s caretakers that I planned to make some khichri to bring to my mother’s Quaker meeting, and I could make it for lunch for their ashram as well and just take what was left to the meeting. Thus I ended up making lunch too. Baladeva Vidyabhusana Prabhu was so kind as to make 48 chocolate chip cookies and donate them to my prasadam distribution program, and both the Quakers and my relatives loved them.
At the Quaker meeting on Christmas Eve they do a drama of the appearance of Lord Jesus Christ at Bethlehem. After the service I talked to different people, some I had known since I was a teenager, and others I had just met. The ones who knew me for many years thanked me for coming to the program, although my mother had passed away and my sister was not inclined to come. One woman mentioned she enjoyed studying Bhagavad-gita at Himalayan Institute, and I asked her if she wanted a copy. She did, so I gave her one of three I had with me, and later she sent me a donation of twenty dollars.
Sometime during the many years I lived outside New York State and didn’t come home for Christmas my family started going to Indian restaurants on Christmas Eve. So after the Quaker program I met my sister, Karen, and her partner, Victor, at an Indian restaurant. I always get a mango lassi. Coming out of the restaurant my sister surprised me by saying, “It is good to have a Hare Krishna with you when you go to an Indian restaurant because you get better service.”
Later at Karen’s place I shared with them the doughnuts I brought from the Doughnut Plant, along with Baladeva’s amazing cookies. I also offered to Krishna the food they gave me, including a nice apple crisp that Victor made. The next morning, after a waffle breakfast, I returned to New York City in time for harinama.
It was a nice way to spend Christmas, and I think I will try to do it again next year, if Krishna is willing.
Chanting Hare Krishna in New York City
I was happy to celebrate Christmas by chanting Hare Krishna in Manhattan with the NYC Harinam party (https://youtube.com/shorts/DRvS6zbRlpY):
Here Chatamayi Devi Dasi chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan on Christmas, and a Chinese devotee woman dances (https://youtube.com/shorts/VOqzfyaCnLI?feature=share):
While Jayananda Prabhu chanted Hare Krishna on Christmas, many danced (https://youtu.be/M4wONkP2Qcs):
Here Jayananda Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan the next day (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mIfvd_CbwVs):
Cecilia of Uruguay, who leads kirtan in her country, very enthusiastically chanted the response to mine, and then she chanted Hare Krishna herself (https://youtu.be/fTvtqNPWP4Q):
On one of my extra harinamas for the Prabhupada Marathon, as I chanted between the A/C and F platforms at Jay Street, a breeze from an oncoming train blew a dollar from my bowl toward the opposite track. A passerby stopped it before it blew off the platform and returned it to me. The guy who had given that dollar did not want a book, so I gave a book to the guy who saved my dollar from blowing away.
Raghav chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/lDIY2Xl7o_Q?feature=share):
Natabara Gauranga Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtu.be/_kLBMqCQXOM):
Gaurachandra Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtu.be/xtyxaQRUfK0):
Acarya-nistha Prabhu chants Hare Krishna after ISKCON NYC Guru Puja (https://youtu.be/kJllahz7wIg):
Nityananda Chandra Prabhu chants Hare Krishna at ISKCON NYC Sunday Feast (https://youtu.be/lmJNJlE8rvE):
Natabara Gauranga Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/KJq-T-1YBe8?feature=share):
Natabara Gauranga Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan, and Sevika Devi Dasi dances (https://youtube.com/shorts/UjtYQQ1IovE?feature=share):
Raghav chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan, and many dance (https://youtu.be/ygFmi5kLYqo):
Braja Sakhi Devi Dasi chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/WwsqEzfAKVY?feature=share):
Here is a landscape version of her kirtan (https://youtu.be/-jTOvPf5ApI):
Here I chant Hare Krishna in Manhattan on New Year’s Eve Day (https://youtube.com/shorts/Qsw9x6beG0Y):
Nityananda Chandra Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan on New Year’s Eve Day (https://youtube.com/shorts/1CaPwSqRTgc?feature=share):
Hrith chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan on New Year’s Eve Day (https://youtube.com/shorts/LgdnxhuCCyc?feature=share):
Harshal chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan on New Year’s Eve Day (https://youtube.com/shorts/sRFmC9oQ-ms?feature=share):
Natabara Gauranga Prabhu chants Hare Krishna on 42nd Street on New Year’s Eve (https://youtu.be/x88xG_jOHUs):
While Natabara Gauranga Prabhu was chanting, the devotees began to dance and others joined (https://youtu.be/-Rqv1FvYKVg):
Radha chants Hare Krishna along 42nd Street near Bryant Park on New Year’s Eve (https://youtu.be/Q8ZxA3p03S0):
Devotees chant Hare Krishna at Bryant Park, on New Year’s Eve, and passersby sing and dance (https://youtube.com/shorts/cRMa-qYBx24?feature=share):
Piu chants Hare Krishna across 42nd Street from Bryant Park, and passersby chant the Hare Krishna mantra and dance (https://youtube.com/shorts/jb76ae60jS8?feature=share):
Krishna Rai chants Hare Krishna along 42nd Street on New Year’s Eve, and passersby dance (https://youtube.com/shorts/XhELODeo-LA?feature=share):
Krishna Rai chants Hare Krishna in Grand Central Subway Station on New Year’s Eve, and devotees dance (https://youtu.be/BdNKtAF2D9A):
Later as we proceeded from Grand Army Plaza to Prospect Park, the guy who got the mantra card on the train walked ahead of us and chanted the mantra.
Chatamayi continued chanting Hare Krishna during the midnight fireworks display, and it was very ecstatic (https://youtube.com/shorts/ewGkucUvy38):
I chanted as we returned to the Grand Army Plaza subway station, trying to beat the crowd so we did not have to wait for a later train. The hundreds of people converging on the subway station got to start off the year by hearing the divine names!
Insights
Srila Prabhupada:
From Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.10.26, purport:
“The human being is more passionate than the animals, and thus the sex life of the human being is more irregular. The animals have their due time for sexual intercourse, but the human being has no regular time for such activities. The human being is endowed with a higher, advanced stage of consciousness for getting relief from the existence of material miseries, but due to his ignorance he thinks that his higher consciousness is meant for advancing in the material comforts of life. Thus his intelligence is misused in the animal propensities—eating, sleeping, defending and mating—instead of spiritual realization. By advancing in material comforts the human being puts himself into a more miserable condition, but, illusioned by the material energy, he always thinks himself happy, even while in the midst of misery. Such misery of human life is distinct from the natural comfortable life enjoyed even by the animals.”
From Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.11.3:
“Time is the potency of the almighty Personality of Godhead, Hari, who controls all physical movement although He is not visible in the physical world.”
From Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.11.13:
“Influential stars, planets, luminaries and atoms all over the universe are rotating in their respective orbits under the direction of the Supreme, represented by eternal kala [time].
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Introduction:
“By bodily contact we are attempting to derive pleasure from material sense objects. But we should not entertain the nonsensical idea that Krishna, who is always spiritual, also tries to seek pleasure on this material plane. In the Bhagavad-gita Krishna describes the material universe as a nonpermanent place full of miseries. Why, then, would He seek pleasure in matter? He is the Supersoul, the supreme spirit, and His pleasure is beyond the material conception.”
“When Krishna desired to enjoy His pleasure potency, He manifested Himself in the separate form of Radharani, and when He wanted to understand Himself through the agency of Radha, He united with Radharani, and that unification is called Lord Caitanya.”
“One may ask that if Caitanya Mahaprabhu is Krishna Himself, then why did He need a spiritual master? Of course, He did not need a spiritual master, but because He was playing the role of acarya (one who teaches by example), He accepted a spiritual master. Even Krishna Himself accepted a spiritual master, for that is the system. In this way the Lord sets the example for men. We should not think, however, that the Lord takes a spiritual master because He is in want of knowledge. He is simply stressing the importance of accepting the disciplic succession. The knowledge taught in that disciplic succession actually comes from the Lord Himself, and if the knowledge descends unbroken, it is perfect.”
“There are two processes by which one may receive knowledge: One depends directly upon the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is situated as the Supersoul within the heart of all living entities, and the other depends upon the guru, or spiritual master, who is an expansion of Krishna. Thus Krishna transmits information both from within and from without. We simply have to receive it. If knowledge is received in this way, it doesn’t matter whether it is inconceivable or not.”
“Vrindavan is actually experienced as it is by persons who have stopped trying to derive pleasure from material enjoyment. ‘When will my mind become cleansed of all hankering for material enjoyment so I will be able to see Vrindavan?’ one great devotee asks. The more Krishna conscious we become and the more we advance, the more everything is revealed as spiritual.”
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Preface:
“Without knowing the actual process by which the mind and senses can be controlled, less intelligent men may try to stop the mind and senses by force, but ultimately they give in to them and are carried away by the waves of sense gratification.”
“The intelligent man situated in Krishna consciousness does not try to forcibly stop his senses from acting. Rather, he engages his senses in the service of Krishna. No one can stop a child from playing by leaving him inactive; rather, the child can be stopped from engaging in nonsense by being engaged in superior activities. Similarly, the forceful restraint of sense activities by the eight principles of yoga is recommended for inferior men; superior men, being engaged in the superior activities of Krishna consciousness, naturally retire from the inferior activities of material existence.”
“Lord Caitanya is the ideal teacher of life’s prime necessities. He is the most munificent bestower of love of Krishna. He is the complete reservoir of all mercies and good fortune.”
“Everyone can join in His sankirtana movement. No previous qualification is necessary. Just by following His teachings, anyone can become a perfect human being. If a person is fortunate enough to be attracted by Lord Caitanya, he is sure to be successful in his life’s mission. In other words, those who are interested in attaining spiritual existence can easily be released from the clutches of maya by the grace of Lord Caitanya. The teachings presented in this book are nondifferent from the Lord.”
Sadaputa Prabhu:
From “On the Relationship Between Consciousness and Matter,” a lecture presented at a meeting of science faculty at Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, Netherlands on August 8, 1985:
“When Newtonian physics first came on this theme, the old idea of divine providence, according to which God is in control of the motion of every blade of grass and so on, seemed to become now inconsistent with physics, because it seemed that the laws of classical physics are completely deterministic. So then if God had any role in actually determining what happens, that role had to be exercised at the beginning. God could set everything in motion, and then according to the laws of physics, it could all work out.
“So, according to this way of looking at quantum theory, it is possible to have the laws of physics as observed by physicists and so forth, but it is also possible to have God in control of everything. So that is more or less the main idea of this.”
From “Free Will and the Laws of Physics”:
“All the way back within the machine, everything is very rigid and inflexible, until you reach the specific phenomena, such as white noise, that generate the randomness. Now in the case of electronic white noise, there would be very tiny molecular Brownian motion type things, which are ultimately very quantum mechanical. So that is where the flexibility is.
“What you would expect to happen then, given this model, is that there would be changes, microchanges, in the randomness there, which would give rise to effects corresponding to the will of the operator.
“The basic point I want to make here, is that on first seeing the results reported by Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne, it may seem that this is really weird. How could such a thing be? How could there actually be evidence strong enough, along these lines, to make us overthrow, or over turn, all our ordinary conceptions so that we can accept such evidence as valid? Isn’t it better just to think that there has got to be something wrong, and forget about it?
“What I would propose is that actually, if you look at it in the context of this model, which was actually devised on the basis of the study of the free will problem, you can see that it is not such an unusual thing for these kinds of phenomena to occur. They are not necessarily so anomalous.
“My main point in introducing that idea, is to actually try to encourage research into these kinds of phenomena and research into the idea that there may actually be such a thing as actual interaction between the conscious self and physical reality. The ideas are not so bizarre. They do not require such a radical change in what we are accustomed to thinking of, that these ideas are scientifically unconscionable.”
Hansarupa Prabhu:
On the basis of knowledge we understand that this path will lead us to the ultimate goal.
Any impediment is not because we do not have the road map, but because of our stopping along the way.
Prabhupada told his grhasthas, “You can get married, but you have to do more service.”
Srila Prabhupada was proud of the success of his grhasthas in the UK. He said, “My guru made sannyasis, and I made grhasthas.”
Because of his faith in his guru’s instructions, Srila Prabhupada was not constrained by the things that kept his godbrothers from being successful
A marriage has to be compatible on multiple levels.
If we take the detour of married life, we have to make sure we take vanaprastha while our body is still in shape to perform the duties.
We need friends to help us keep going.
Srila Prabhupada said to Acyutananda that kirtan is the safest platform.
Chanting together produces an effect that cannot be replicated by any other devotional service.
Whoever remembers the austerities of devotional service back in the 1970s can relish that bliss even today.
We have been given everything to attain spiritual perfection on a silver platter.
Just as you have to be faithful to Krishna, you have to be faithful to your friends.
Don’t look for the higher taste in the wrong place.
Don’t let maya get a foothold. Do not let her in.
Regarding Haridasa Thakura’s delivering the prostitute and not being tempted by maya, Srila Prabhupada said, “You cannot do that. I cannot do that.”
Every day we should pray, “From this day forward I am Yours.”
If we have a party and we invite someone and the person doesn’t come, there are only so many times we will continue to invite that person. It is the same way with Krishna, if we do not take advantage of the opportunities He gives us.
From a conversation:
Prabhupada said what children learn up to age ten will stick with them the rest of their lives.
I was married at the Brooklyn temple at the first fire sacrifice and first Sunday feast after the temple was opened in 1982.
Rama Raya Prabhu:
Srila Prabhupada indicated that if we just avoid the four sinful activities of illicit sex, meat eating, intoxication, and gambling, then ultimately we will be able to chant Hare Krishna without the ten offenses if we keep chanting.
Maithuna Prabhu:
From a conversation:
If we are not responsible for our coming to this material world, then we must blame Krishna for our coming here, and that does not make sense because it makes Krishna a sadist.
Natabara Gauranga Prabhu:
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura said that to the extent that a person does not think that sankirtana [the congregational chanting of the holy name of the Lord] will fulfill his desires, he is an atheist.
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Often analogies are used to convey spiritual ideas. This verse from Srimad-Bhagavatam is special because it contains two analogies. Srila Prabhupada liked to quote it, and here I use the translation he gives for it in the purport to Bhagavad-gita 9.3. Sometimes people doubt that engaging in devotional service to the Supreme Lord will satisfy themselves and everyone else, but this verse can remove that doubt.
yatha taror mula-nisecanena
pranopaharac ca yathendriyanam
tathaiva sarvarhanam acyutejya
“By giving water to the root of a tree one satisfies its branches, twigs and leaves, and by supplying food to the stomach one satisfies all the senses of the body. Similarly, by engaging in the transcendental service of the Supreme Lord one automatically satisfies all the demigods and all other living entities.” (Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.31.14)
