By Krishna Kripa Das
(Week 2: January 8–14, 2026)
New York City, Orlando, Alachua, Tallahassee
(Sent from Tallahassee, Florida, on January 17, 2026)
Where I Went and What I Did
For the second week of 2026 I lived in ISKCON NYC in Brooklyn for the first three days. I chanted Hare Krishna in public with the NYC Harinam party of Rama Raya Prabhu from Thursday to Saturday for at least three hours each day and sometimes more. On Sunday, I flew to Orlando, where I did harinama with Avinash Prabhu for an hour at Lake Eola. Then I took bus to Gainesville and went with Krishna House devotees to the Alachua Sunday feast. Then Anang Prabhu drove me to Tallahassee, where I chanted on the campus Monday through Wednesday for three hours each day.
Itinerary
January 12–mid April: harinama and college outreach in Tallahassee and Tampa
Chanting Hare Krishna in New York City
Dinesh chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan, and devotees dance (https://youtube.com/shorts/5BfC0Usdl-o):
Mani Manjari Devi Dasi chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtu.be/j3esJM8zm_s):
Laksmi chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/WYfeWK32w3s?feature=share):
Rama Raya Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan, and devotees dance (https://youtube.com/shorts/glMStcXVcLA):
Here I chant Hare Krishna the next day (https://youtube.com/shorts/MUqIIl4eGX0?feature=share):
Dinesh chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan, and kids play shakers (https://youtube.com/shorts/eFNH5D4O1AQ):
Kana Gopal Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/Yy5C1NT1Jxo?feature=share):
Later while Kana Gopal was still singing, many people began to play the shakers and dance (https://youtu.be/Fjeo-s00mWA):
Nanda Kishor Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/MUCoZZ6xWCA?feature=share):
Natabara Gauranga Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/anaIAPPcx3A?feature=share):
Chatamayi Devi Dasi chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/arnxHUygX-I?feature=share):
Chanting Hare Krishna in Florida
On my flight to Orlando, for Bhagavatam class I read the transcript of a Prabhupada lecture as I forgot to charge my headphones. He said, “This Krishna consciousness movement is meant for that purpose, to become abhayam, no more fear. Why one should fear? Krishna assures, kaunteya pratijanihi na me bhaktah pranasyati.” (SB 2.1.1, Vrindavan, 16 March 1974)
Later on harinama in Orlando with Avin Krsna, I saw a woman with a T-shirt saying “FAITH OVER FEAR” – the same message!
Gopal chants Hare Krishna after the Alachua Sunday feast (https://youtu.be/lf8bxndvcqQ):
Abhaya chants Hare Krishna after the Alachua Sunday feast (https://youtu.be/oWLShod9yhQ):
It was a rare treat to have five people at an evening kirtan on a night without a program in Tallahassee (https://youtu.be/eaRFqZ_lZwo):
Thanks to our president, Uddhava Prabhu, leading the kirtan above, for facilitating my stay.
At the FSU campus during the day, a couple of different times when students seemed to respond favorably to the chanting of Hare Krishna, I said, “This is a harmonium, and the song is a mantra.”
Both times students said, “I love it!”
The next day I met a young woman who had gotten some of the books from monk who had gone to UF. She especially liked Science of Self-Realization. Another knew the devotees from growing up in Gainesville. She also had books that she had bought on campus, from someone who sounded like Paramesvara Prabhu from her description. In addition that day I met a guy who was thinking of getting a minor in philosophy. All these students were interested in signing up to hear about my evening Bhagavad-gita classes, and one was interested in the Saturday program. I also met a young Gujarati woman who was interested in the Saturday program.
I met people who were unhappy that we no longer have our Krishna Lunch program. I decided to tell them that I would give them a free lunch one day a week if they tell me the day before. I have to cook lunch for myself anyway, so it is not a problem to make extra for one student each day.
Please give me your blessings that I can interest some students in chanting the Hare Krishna mantra and studying Bhagavad-gita this semester.
Insights
Srila Prabhupada:
From Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.13.4, purport:
“It is therefore the duty of the transcendental students to hear descriptions of pure devotees from similar devotees of the Lord, because one cannot describe the Lord or His devotee unless one happens to be a pure devotee himself.”
From Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.13.13, purport:
“Brahma knows how to satisfy the Lord, and similarly persons engaged in the line of Brahma’s plan of activities also know how to satisfy the Lord. The Lord is satisfied by the process of devotional service, consisting of the ninefold process of hearing, chanting, etc. It is in one’s own sell-interest to execute prescribed devotional service, and anyone who neglects this process neglects his own self-interest. Everyone wants to satisfy his senses, but above the senses is the mind, above the mind is the intelligence, above the intelligence is the individual self, and above the individual self is the Superself. Above even the Superself is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, vishnu-tattva. The primeval Lord and the cause of all causes is Sri Krishna. The complete process of perfectional service is to render service for the satisfaction of the transcendental senses of Lord Krishna, who is known as Janardana.”
From Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.13.17, purport:
“The devotees of the Lord, who are all confidential servitors, are sometimes perplexed in the discharge of their respective duties, but they are never discouraged. They have full faith in the Lord, and He paves the way for the smooth progress of the devotee’s duty.”
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Adi 1.49, purport:
“The Lord declares that by enlightenment in theistic knowledge He awards attachment for Him to those who constantly engage in His transcendental loving service. This awakening of divine consciousness enthralls a devotee, who thus relishes his eternal transcendental mellow. Such an awakening is awarded only to those convinced by devotional service about the transcendental nature of the Personality of Godhead. They know that the Supreme Truth, the all-spiritual and all-powerful person, is one without a second and has fully transcendental senses. He is the fountainhead of all emanations. Such pure devotees, always merged in knowledge of Krishna and absorbed in Krishna consciousness, exchange thoughts and realizations as great scientists exchange their views and discuss the results of their research in scientific academies. Such exchanges of thoughts in regard to Krishna give pleasure to the Lord, who therefore favors such devotees with all enlightenment.”
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Adi 1.50, purport:
“Refraining from sensual enjoyment, one should voluntarily accept all sorts of difficulties for spiritual realization. This is called tapasya. An enjoyer of the senses can never realize God, godliness or the science of theistic knowledge.”
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Adi 1.52, purport:
“We cannot discover the mysteries of the Lord by our mundane endeavors; they are only revealed, by His grace, to the proper devotees. These mysteries are gradually disclosed to the various grades of devotees in proportion to the gradual development of their service attitude.”
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Adi 1.55, purport:
“The Personality of Godhead in His all-pervading feature of Paramatma enters every entity, from the biggest to the most minute. His existence can be realized by one who has the single qualification of submissiveness and who thereby becomes a surrendered soul. The development of submissiveness is the cause of proportionate spiritual realization, by which one can ultimately meet the Supreme Lord in person, as a man meets another man face to face.”
“Because of his development of transcendental attachment for the Supreme Lord, a surrendered soul feels the presence of his beloved everywhere, and all his senses are engaged in the loving service of the Lord. His eyes are engaged in seeing the beautiful couple Sri Radha and Krishna sitting on a decorated throne beneath a desire tree in the transcendental land of Vrindavan. His nose is engaged in smelling the spiritual aroma of the lotus feet of the Lord. Similarly, his ears are engaged in hearing messages from Vaikuntha, and his hands embrace the lotus feet of the Lord and His associates. Thus the Lord is manifested to a pure devotee from within and without. This is one of the mysteries of the devotional relationship in which a devotee and the Lord are bound by a tie of spontaneous love. To achieve this love should be the goal of life for every living being.”
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Adi 1.56, purport:
“When one develops pure love for the Lord, he derives an ocean of transcendental happiness from the association of the Personality of Godhead. To qualify oneself to reach this stage of life is the highest perfection.”
“One should try to purchase a ticket to go back home, back to Godhead. The price of such a ticket is one’s intense desire for it, which is not easily awakened, even if one continuously performs pious activities for thousands of lives. All mundane relationships are sure to be broken in the course of time, but once one establishes a relationship with the Personality of Godhead in a particular rasa, it is never to be broken, even after the annihilation of the material world.
“In the spiritual world there are five kinds of relationships with the Supreme Lord — santa, dasya, sakhya, vatsalya and madhurya. The perverted reflections of these rasas are found in the material world. Land, home, furniture and other inert material objects are related in santa, or the neutral and silent sense, whereas servants work in the dasya relationship. The reciprocation between friends is called sakhya, the affection of a parent for a child is known as vatsalya, and the affairs of conjugal love constitute madhurya. These five relationships in the material world are distorted reflections of the original, pure sentiments, which should be understood and perfected in relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead under the guidance of a bona fide spiritual master. In the material world the perverted rasas bring frustration. If these rasas are reestablished with Lord Krishna, the result is eternal, blissful life.”
From a class on Srimad-Bhagavatam 2.1.1 in Vrindavan on March 16, 1974:
“Pariksit Maharaja had only seven days’ time, so he might have listened to the Bhagavata lesson for seven days. But for us, it is not that we observe a Bhagavata-saptaha and finish our business. No. Our business is nityam bhagavata-sevaya.”
“So we must be very serious to understand Bhagavatam. If we can understand even one line, one verse, our life becomes sublime. It is so nice. There is no comparison of this literature, Srimad-Bhagavatam.”
“This child who was dancing before me, he’s not ordinary child. Otherwise, how he could dance symmetrically? He had his practice in his previous life, and he has got the chance to get Vaishnava father and mother, and from the very beginning of his life, he is chanting, dancing. So Pariksit Maharaja was like that.”
“But here Pariksit Maharaja, now he knows that ‘Taking part of the body is now finished; I have to take care of the soul.’”
“A devotee, he always thinks of Krishna. That is devotee. So we have to practice: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. This is the chance. This is the chance for remembering Krishna.”
“This Krishna consciousness movement is meant for that purpose, to become abhayam, no more fear. Why one should fear? Krishna assures, kaunteya pratijanihi na me bhaktaḥ pranasyati.”
Romapada Swami:
From a Sunday feast lecture in Alachua:
A good definition include what something is and what something isn’t.
Jiva Goswami’s scholarship is unworldly.
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura said, “Never has there been an acarya like Jiva Goswami. Never will there be an acarya like Jiva Goswami.”
Jiva Goswami’s Bhakti-sandarbha tells what promotes and what destroys bhakti.
Simplicity and a mode of goodness brahminical lifestyle help bhakti increase.
Bhakti can be done unconsciously. Vishnu-dharma tells of a mouse whose body burned up while drinking ghee from the deity’s ghee lamp. In its next life, it became a queen who offered lamps to the deity in devotion and was liberated at the end of that life.
The name Kutila, belonging to the sister of Abhimanyu, means crooked.
Crooked people cannot attain bhakti.
Sin cannot destroy bhakti, but bhakti can destroy the reactions of sin.
The different things that destroy bhakti have one thing in common, pride.
If you can chant Hare Krishna without offense and be friendly to everyone, you will relish a taste for chanting and become free from all material desires.
Krishna says, “If one thinks that the glories of My holy name are exaggerated, I throw him into the great sufferings of material world.”
King Nrga was a devotee who gave more importance to charity than bhakti.
Usually people do not fall from the stage of bhava, but due to an offense from a previous life, that happened to Bharata Maharaja.
Slackening in bhakti is cause of falling from bhakti.
Raghunath Goswami did not write with super scholarship, but he wrote from the heart. His Manah-siksa is valuable. He starts by saying, “Giving up all pride . . .”
The material conception is I am this body, and “mine” is what comes from me, my works and the fruits of my work.
What destroys bhakti:
Crookedness
Lack of faith in scripture.
Absorption in things other than Bhagavan.
Slacking of bhakti.
Pride.
Leadership means giving credit where credit is due.
To advance bhakti, cultivate:
Simplicity
Straightforwardness
Buddhism is an attempt to remove anarthas without bhakti.
If your understanding of why you are performing is bhakti clear, you will not be discouraged by bhakti which sometimes slackens because you will know that by trying to do bhakti you are pleasing Krishna which is the reason to perform it.
Arcita Prabhu:
In one purport Srila Prabhupada defined intelligence as knowing matter, spirit, and the controller of both.
Srila Prabhupada advised never to be idle. If you have nothing to do, chant Hare Krishna.
People confuse detachment from family life with neglecting family responsibilities.
In the Vedic culture, only women without children were permitted to remarry.
Srila Prabhupada advised, “Sacrifice this one life to Krishna, and you will not be the loser.”
It is said that money cannot buy happiness. The rich people know it is true because they are rich and they are not happy. Poor people hope it is true.
A sannyasi disciple asked Srila Prabhupada, “Why do pure devotees get married?”
Srila Prabhupada replied, “Because it is natural.”
The disciple was confused by the reply and asked again. Srila Prabhupada replied in the same way. When the disciple persisted, Srila Prabhupada said, “You are asking because you want to get married.”
Passing on what you have learned to the juniors is the main duty of the vanaprastha.
Persons who cannot stick to the path tend to blame others for their problems.
We have to come to the point of realizing that what is holding us back is our lack of commitment to or understanding of the process and not blame others.
Locana Dasa Thakura tells pastimes in his Caitanya-mangala not mentioned by Vrindavana Dasa Thakura or Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami.
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura printed the Caitanya-mangala.
Antardvip Prabhu of Pune:
King Anga tried to reform his evil son, Vena, but Dhrtarastra encouraged evil son, Duryodana.
It is the duty of the parents to try to educate their children, although the children may choose to reject it.
It was not irresponsible of King Anga to leave home because of his evil son because he had tried his best to reform him.
Having a good son can be suffering, having no son can be suffering, and having a bad son can be suffering. Prahlada was a good son, but his father was so evil, Prahlada was trouble for him.
Dhrtarastra and Duryodhana were both given good advice, but neither could benefit by it.
Srila Prabhupada purified his hippie followers so much so that he sent them to London, and they were able to purify the people there, whereas his godbrothers had to return home without success.
The puppet does whatever the puppeteer wants, and if we become instruments in the hands of the guru, we can do whatever he wants.
Faith in the guru’s order and the enthusiasm to carry it out are the causes of success.
We have to act in such a way that we maintain our guru’s good reputation.
Rukmini Mataji was telling that once a rowdy guy punched a devotee, the devotee punched him back, and a fight ensued. The case went to court. The rowdy guy claimed that the devotee struck him first, but the devotee exuded such a saintly character that the judge could not believe that he punched the rowdy guy first.
Bhaktivinoda Thakura said that personalities like Jayadeva Goswami who appeared before Lord Caitanya were actually imbued with the mood of Lord Caitanya.
Jayadeva and his wife, Padmavati, served their Radha-Madhava deities so nicely that they joined together and appeared in a golden form as Lord Caitanya and He praised them for their service. He told them they were in His eternal abode of Navadvipa, but that He wanted them to go to Jagannatha Puri.
Comment by me: As you were saying it is the duty of the father to try to educate the son, whether he appreciates it or not, it is also the duty of the preacher to try to continue to enlighten people although most people do not appreciate his attempts. As many of us are preachers, that is relevant.
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How we speak affects our spiritual consciousness. Krishna advises:
anudvega-karam vakyam
satyam priya-hitam ca yat
svadhyayabhyasanam caiva
van-mayam tapa ucyate
“Austerity of speech consists in speaking words that are truthful, pleasing, beneficial, and not agitating to others, and also in regularly reciting Vedic literature.” (Bhagavad-gita 17.15)
