Food for Life Hits the Streets!

With big smiles and warm coats, enthusiastic devotees hit the streets to distribute both hot vegetarian meals and the sweet sounds of kirtan to the homeless of the city. The first monthly Food for Life program of 2010 welcomed many new faces. Check out some of the highlights below.

Sunday Feast Recordings - January 31, 2010

The Sunday Feast recording can be viewed by clicking the image below. As a reminder, the recordings from our weekly live web broadcasts are stored on our ISKCON Toronto Video Archive Blog.

Deity Darshan: Sunday Janurary 31, 2010

Food For Life this Sunday, January 31, 2010!

The very first Food for Life of 2010 will be taking place this Sunday, January 31st! Once a month, Toronto's Food for Life team gets together at the Hare Krishna Centre and prepares karma-free vegetarian meals, packs them up, and then head down to a homeless shelter at Queen & Sherbourne in downtown Toronto to distribute the hot meals to the needy.

To add a special flavour of bhakti and kirtan, an area is set up on the sidewalk and the chanting begins! While the chanting is happening, the food is distributed to the hungry and needy. Click here to see a video of Food for Life in action!

Here is the official schedule for this Sunday:
11:30am to 1:30pm - Vegetable Cut-up and Cooking
1:30pm to 2:30pm - Packaging
2:30pm to 4:00pm - Distribution and Kirtan (Queen and Sherbourne)
4:00pm - Back at Temple

For more information, please contact ffltoronto@hotmail.com. We look forward to seeing you this bright and sunny Sunday!

Cleaning Our Hearts.. the Toronto Krishna Way!

How would one cleanse their heart? If a person felt their heart could use a good scrubbing, what would you tell them to do? On Saturday January 23rd, a very special project was launched at the Hare Krishna Centre. The project is named "Ceto Darpana Marjanam" (Project CDM) and entails regular cleaning of the temple as a group.

The first initiative of this project took on the daunting task of thoroughly cleaning the temple kitchen. So cleaning one's heart can be as simple as rendering devotional service!

"Ceto Darpana Marjanam" literally means cleansing the heart of all the years and years' worth of accumulated dust. Our amazing temple kitchen can certainly be described as one of the hearts of the temple as it is the origin of the delicious, karma-free vegetarian feasts that are characteristic of the Hare Krishna Centre. It is always bustling with a fury of activity, so it was the obvious choice for the first Project CDM.

A group of intrepid spiritualists gathered at midday to take on the challenge of ridding the kitchen of every trace of dirt or grease. Hours and hours of hard work were put in and, after the task was accomplished, the day was capped of with kirtan and a pizza party!

Check out some memorable photos of the event!

For more information about this project please contact the Toronto Sankirtan Team.

An Evening Glorifying Lord Nityananda!

It was an intimate gathering of spiritualists that came together on the evening of Thursday, January 28, 2009. Their common interest was to celebrate the advent of Lord Nityananda, over 500 years ago.

Lord Nityananda appeared as Lord Caitanya’s principal associate for spreading the congregational chanting of the holy names of the Lord. He especially spread the holy name of the Lord throughout Bengal. He is considered an incarnation of Lord Balarama, Krishna's older brother.

Festivities began with the 6:00pm arati and led into a riveting class by Rupanuga das. Beginning with collective japa, the class dove deep into the glories and pastimes of Lord Nityananda. The class finished with another collective chanting session.

Taking advantage of the small crowd, everyone in attendance then got a chance to take part in a special "pilgrimage". This "pilgrimage" involved everyone standing together and visiting different areas of the temple which became little "bhajan kutirs" (kirtan corners).

Just like the travelling kirtan parties from 500 years ago, the devotees gathered and, led once again by Rupanuga das, made their way from the temple room to the grand Dining Hall, chanting all the way. On the way, Rupanuga prabhu, our "pilgrimage leader" stopped to tell a story of Lord Nityananda. As devotees walked into the Dining Hall, the sweet sounds of harmonium, mrdanga and karatalas bathed over them. Collectively sitting together, the assembled spiritualists chanted with their hearts!

It was then off to the second location... the balcony! On the way, our "pilgrimage leader", Rupanuga das, stopped to tell another wonderful story. Another sweet bhajan (song) and another chance to go deeper in meditation of Lord Nityananda. Once finished, the "pilgrimage" then made it's way back down to the temple room.

This led right into the 8:00pm arati and hearts were sent skywards! Another neat feature of the evening was that, throughout the evening, devotees were encouraged, whenever they were inspired, to write small offerings to Lord Nityananda, which were then placed on the altar during the 8:00pm arati.

A fabulous feast awaited everyone at the end of the evening and smiles were abound as the atmosphere became soaked with bhakti! All in all, it was a meditative and sublime spiritual birthday bash!

You can view the festival webcast recording by clicking here!

Also, be sure to check out the festival slideshow below, or click here for simple gallery:

Lord Nityananda's Appearance Day - Festival Recordings (January 28, 2010)

Lord Nityananda's Appearance Day Festival recording can be viewed by clicking the image below. As a reminder, the recordings from our weekl y Sunday Feastlive web broadcasts and Festival broadcasts are stored on our ISKCON Toronto Video Archive Blog.

Better Late Than Never... New Year's Eve 2009!

Well, it took us a number of weeks, but we finally have a video report of the wild and crazy New Year's Eve maha-harinama that took place on the night of December 31st, 2009. Led by Bhaktimarga Swami, over 75 kirtan-lovers burst out from the temple, hopped on the subway at Rosedale station and chanted their way to City Hall to join the tens of thousands of revellers. The kirtan was amazing and it was more than just a memorable evening. New blog contributer, Rishi Kumar, put together this wonderful video report! Check out his creation:

Celebrating Lord Nityananda's Appearance Day this Thursday!

The Toronto Hare Krishna temple would like to extend a warm invitation for all to join us as we celebrate Lord Nityananda's Appearance Day (birthday!) on Thursday, January 28th, 2009.

Lord Nityananda is considered identical to Lord Balarama, the elder brother of Lord Krishna. He is regarded as being like the elder brother of Lord Chaitanya. Lord Nityananda is known as the most merciful form of the Lord and is renowned for his role in spreading the glories of the chanting of the holy name. You can learn more about Lord Nityananda here.

In honour of the Appearance of Lord Nityananda, fasting is observed until noon. Festivities will take place in the evening at the Hare Krishna temple and spiritualists are encouraged to wear blue as this colour is associated with Lord Nityananda!

This particular festival continues to be a favourite for the Toronto Hare Krishna community and this year's festival will be marked by some special features. The schedule for the evening's festivities will be as follows:

6:00pm to 6:30pm - Arati

6:30pm to 6:40pm - Welcome & Announcments
6:40pm to 7:15pm - Class - Rupanuga Das

7:15pm to 8:00pm - Interactive Bhajan Experience
8:00pm to 8:30pm - Arati
8:30pm to 9:00pm - Prasadam (Vegetarian Feast)

Please join us as we celebrate this very special festival at the Hare Krishna Centre this Thursday!

Appearance of Varaha Avatar (Boar Incarnation)

This year, January 27th marks the appearance anniversary of Varaha avatar (Lord Krishna's boar incarnation). As described in the Srimad Bhagavatam, Lord Krishna assumed this form of a gigantic boar to lift the drowning planet Earth from the cosmic ocean with his tusks.

A demonic personality had thrown the planet Earth from her orbit into this ocean but the Lord came, as a boar, and saved the Earth. In honour of the appearance of Lord Varahadeva, fasting is observed until noon on Bhaimi Ekadashi (Tuesday, Jan 26th, 2010).

More information about the appearance of Varaha avatar can be found here; below is a summary of the pastime written by Urmila devi dasi:

“In Vedic cosmology, planets are conscious persons. The planet Earth once fell into the universal water when demonic persons disturbed her orbit by drilling for oil and upsetting her balance. Celestial beings, called devas, who control the universe in service to Krishna, wanted Earth to be rescued.

Responding to their desire, the Lord came to save her. He assumed the form of a splendid, gigantic boar (Varaha), dove to the bottom of the universal ocean, picked up Earth, and gently carried her on His tusks to the water’s surface. As He did so, a great demon challenged Him.

Lord Varaha then carefully placed fearful Earth on the water and gave her the ability to float. A fight between the Lord and the demon ensued within the great ocean. After defeating the demon, Lord Varaha returned to the spiritual sky.”

Deity Darshan: Sunday January 24, 2010

No Broadcast Today :-(!

Due to some technical issues, we will not be broadcasting the Sunday Feast today. We apologize for any inconvieniece this may cause.

Appearance Day of Advaitacharya

Today, Friday, January 22nd, marks the appearance anniversary of Advaitacharya, one of the foremost teachers of bhakti in the Hare Krishna tradition. On this day we fast till noon in his honour.

Advaitacharya appeared some sixty years before Lord Chaitanya’s own advent, over 500 years ago. It was Advaitacarya who asked Lord Chaitanya to descend. Before Lord Chaitanya’s advent, Advaitacharya had already begun chanting Krishna’s names in the streets with devotees and discussing scriptures on devotional service to Krishna. Advaitacharya’s name indicates that He is nondifferent (advaita) from Lord Hari (Krishna), and He is called acharya (spiritual master) because He taught bhakti.

Food for Life Efforts in Haiti

With the tragic events in Haiti caused due to the massive earthquake, we learned that Hare Krishna Devotees have begun relief efforts through the International Food for Life program. The Food for Life project, started in 1974, has now expanded to over 60 countries and over 1,500,000 hot vegan meals are distributed daily.

Check out an excerpt from their website on their efforts in Haiti!

January 21, 2010 --The first wave of International Food for Life Global volunteers are set to arrive in Santo Domingo today to join the local FFL staff in finalizing set up for our vegan food relief base camp. More volunteers from the UK, USA, Brazil, Mexico and Canada are set to arrive soon after. The first order of business is to establish working relationships with other relief agencies and the military to create the most secure and efficient service possible. (Read Full Story)

Why No Onion & Garlic in the Krishna Diet?

Devout bhakti-yogis of the Hare Krishna tradition choose a vegetarian diet that also includes the avoidance of onion and garlic. While many Krishna devotees know the basic reasons behind this, we often struggle to explain this to friends, family or even people that are new to Krishna consciousness.

A link was sent to us recently from Kurma das' website. Kurma das is a senior disciple of Srila Prabhupada, known for his amazing culinary talents. The author of many Krishna cookbooks, he calls Australia home and is reputed for his amazingly tantalizing dishes!

Here is his answer on why we don't eat onion and garlic. He not only touches on the bhakti perspective behind these items, but also the Taoist, scientific and Reiki understandings as well! Enjoy!

Why no Garlic and Onions?

One of the most common questions asked to me is this: "Why don't you eat garlic and onions?"

Here's my short answer: As a devotee of Krishna and a practicing Bhakti-yogi, I don't eat garlic and onions because they cannot be offered to Krishna.

Here's my longer answer:

You may know that onions and garlic are botanical members of the alliaceous family (alliums) - along with leeks, chives and shallots.

According to Ayurveda, India's classic medical science, foods are grouped into three categories - sattvic, rajasic and tamasic - foods in the modes of goodness, passion and ignorance. Onions and garlic, and the other alliaceous plants are classified as rajasic and tamasic, which means that they increase passion and ignorance. (Read Full Story)

2009 Year in Review Video Presentation

Yesterday during our weekly Sunday "Love" Feast, the Toronto Hare Krishna temple showcased a special video presentation that covered all the amazing things that happened during the year 2009. This has been a yearly tradition (check out the 2008 and 2007 videos) and, for our online audience along with anyone who missed it, we present the very same presentation.

The presentation has a running storyline of looking for the heart of Toronto's Hare Krishna community and includes a virtual tour of our beautiful temple. We hope you enjoy this video presentation! (you can also view it on YouTube)

Revisiting How We Ushered in the New Year!

The transition to a new calendar year is traditionally marked by grand festivities. For Toronto's Hare Krishna community it is always something to write home about... even if it takes a few weeks to write about (we apologize for the delayed report).

Festivities began on December 31st with the third annual Bhajan and Prasadam Festival. It all started at midday as a small group of devotees gathered to begin intimate kirtan. Throughout the day the temple reverberated with the blissful sounds of kirtan and the smells of karma-free vegetarian feasts filled the air. As the day continued the crowd grew and the kirtan also picked up momentum, reaching a crescendo as we prepared for the exciting annual maha midnight harinama at City Hall.

At around 11:00pm, 75 kirtan enthusiasts bundled up and headed for Rosedale subway station to make their way to City Hall. The kirtan began in the packed subway car and exploded in jubilation as we arrived at our usual spot just outside Old City Hall. Led by Bhaktimarga Swami, the ecstatic group of chanters drew a remarkable crowd as the chanting drew people in. At the stroke of midnight fireworks filled the sky and tens of thousands of people then poured onto the streets from Nathan Phillips Square and passed right by the harinama troupe! Soon, the devotees were surrounded by hundreds upon hundreds of new years eve revellers who happily joined the chanting and dancing! Around 2:00am when the group returned to the temple, the kirtan once again reached a pinnacle as we poured into the temple entrance!

The festivities continued on January 1st with the annual Srila Prabhupada Festival. Many spiritualists choose to invoke the new year in an auspicious way and so it is no surprise that the festivities annually draw a packed house. The festivities featured a presentation about Srila Prabhupada as well as an enlivening class by Bhaktimarga Swami. This was followed by a light-hearted skit about book distribution in honour of the recent December Book Marathon where over 3,000 books were distributed.

Following the drama, the crowd assembled around Srila Prabhupada as Guru-Puja (traditional worship of the spiritual master) was performed. The evening was capped of with an ecstatic 8:00pm arati and a sumptuous vegetarian feast!

Check out the slideshow below for highlights from the evening, or click here for the simple gallery.

Prayers for Mahavishnu Goswami

Mahavishnu Goswami, one of the senior monks of the Hare Krishna Movement is critcally ill. Due to his advanced age of 90 years, he has been ill for some time and is currently under treatment at the Bhaktivedanta Hospital, Mumbai India.

Mahavishnu Goswami connected with the Hare Krishna movement in 1973 and since then has travelled around the world to share his realizations about Bhakti Yoga.

We request everyone to sincerely pray for his speedy recovery.

Bhaktimarga Swami at the Annual Temple Presidents Meeting - Dallas, TX

Members of our Toronto Temple Council, along with Bhaktimarga Swami, who is the GBC for ISKCON Centres across Canada, gathered in Dallas, Texas this past weekend for the Annual Temple Presidents Meeting. Our fellow YouTube lover, Rupa prabhu (from Dallas), posted some videos of Maharaj including his Bhagavatam Class (be sure to catch Maharaj's classic "charades game" while reading the purport) and Guru Puja kirtan. Enjoy!

Sunday Feast Photos - January 17, 2010

Here's a look at this week's Sunday Feast through the eyes of a camera lens!

Loving Youth Devotees help with cooking and distribution of the food (prasadam) for today's Sunday Feast!

To go with the tradition of Youth Sunday Feast, Recha leads her first 8:00 Kirtan!

The night is then finished off by our very own gifted kirtaner Ajamil Das!

Deity Darshan: Sunday January 17, 2010

Sunday Feast Recordings - January 17, 2010

The Sunday Feast recording can be viewed by clicking the image below. As a reminder, the recordings from our weekly live web broadcasts are stored on our ISKCON Toronto Video Archive Blog.

This Sunday - "A Journey Through 2009"

The Hare Krishna Temple has always been known for its vibrant community and the bustling activities! The year 2009 was no different! With a lot of exciting and new projects that began last year, it was a memorable year!

This Sunday, in place of our regular Sunday Feast Class, we would like to showcase all the amazing activities that took place at our temple during 2009 through a multimedia presentation!

Presented as "A Journey Through 2009", this will give a nice recap of 2009 and will certainly be a presentation not to be missed!

The Sunday Feast begins at 6:00pm sharp! See you then!

Youth Sunday on January 17!

Pandava Sena, the Hare Krishna Temple's enthusiastic youth group will be holding their first Youth Sunday of 2010 on January 17th! They will be running the Sunday Feast Program which includes cooking, singing, serving and lots of other things for the ENTIRE congregation.

In order to make this event successful, they are calling out to all youth to help them with the cooking for the Sunday Feast! They also need volunteers for serving and for being a huge part of the rocking 8pm kirtan!

If you have any questions or would like to RSVP, please contact Pandava Sena and they will be more than happy to help!

A Fun, Spontaneous Kirtan - Durban, SA!

We stumbled upon a really neat video of our very own Bhaktimarga Swami leading a boppin' kirtan in Durban, South Africa during their annual Ratha-Yatra festival from a few years back! Try not to tap your foot while watching. We guarantee you can't do it. ;-)

Sunday Feast Recording - January 10, 2010

The recording for this week's Sunday Feast can be viewed by clicking the image below. As a reminder, the recordings from our weekly live web broadcasts are stored on our ISKCON Toronto Video Archive Blog.

Deity Darshan: Sunday January 10, 2010

Sharing Krishna Consciousness - The Toronto Sankirtan Story!

"Sankirtan" is the art of sharing one's bhakti (Krishna consciousness) by hitting the streets and being a friendly ambassador of goodwill. With books of spiritual wisdom, sometimes the most incredible and inspiring encounters can occur that can deliver a wonderful spiritual message to people you just meet on the street.

Toronto's Hare Krishna community has always had steadfast "sankirtan devotees", but a spiritual explosion of sharing took place in 2009 after a visit by Vaisesika das, a spirited devotee who's larger-than-life personality captured the imaginations of Toronto devotees.

More and more devotees became inspired to head out on "sankirtan". When time came for the annual December marathon, wherein Hare Krishna centres around the world focus even more on sharing books, a goal of distributing 2,010 books was set (over three times the amount distributed over the previous years' marathons).

Inspiration was abound and incredible things happened! This video tells the Toronto Sankirtan Story!

Highlights from Bhakti Brhat Bhagavata Swami's Sannyasa Initiation

As our regular temple-goers know, it was with great pomp and grandeur that a dear spiritual guide and friend of ours accepted a special monastic order. Bhakti Brhat Bhagavata Swami (formerly known as Brhat Mrdanga das) has been a spiritual guide, friend and teacher for devotees at ISKCON Toronto for well over a decade. He recently accepted the order of sannyasa initiation, or initiation into the renounced order of life.

This is considered a pretty big deal as most spiritualists who dedicate themselves to the Krishna faith take first initiation (sacred vows by fire) and even second initiation (when they are given the Gayatri mantra by the spiritual master) but only a few qualified devotees take sannyasa initiation.

So it was on December 24th, in Durban, South Africa that Brhat Mrdanga das was given sannyasa initiation and given the new name Bhakti Brhat Bhagavata Swami! The ceremony was broadcast live online (and simulcasted right here on our blog) and we have been watching out for any recordings. Well, we've come across some audio recordings and wanted to make them available to our blog followers.

Talk by HH Bhakti Brhat Bhagavata Swami

(before name-giving ceremony)

26 mins, 54 seconds

Talk by HH Giriraja Swami

(name-giving ceremony at approx 35 mins and 20 seconds)

41 mins, 01 second

More audio recordings available at Giriraja Swami's blog.

How the Public Saw Our Outdoor Kirtan!

So we have finally fully recovered from the year-end-madness that is New Year's Eve and New Year's Day! While for most Torontonians, the long recovery would be due to the excessive booze and what not, for the Hare Krishnas, it's more about coming down from the spiritual high of non-stop kirtan and celebrations.

One of the highlights from the seemingly-non-stop festivities was the outdoor kirtan at City Hall on New Year's Eve. While we're busy trying to catch up with blogging about the event, we thought we would post a few YouTube videos that we came across of our wild harinama! Please note, these are videos from random members of the public.

This first video that we found was captured in the subway as we arrived at Queen Station and Bhaktimarga Swami spontaneously began singing "Happy New Year" to a popular Hare Krishna tune!

This second video is someone's account of their New Year's Eve. We come in at around the 2:55 mark!

This last one really gives a sense of the kind of crowd that had gathered around us!

Deity Darshan: Sunday January 3, 2010

Sunday Feast Recording - January 3rd, 2010

The recording for this week's Sunday Feast can be viewed by clicking the image below. As a reminder, the recordings from our weekly live web broadcasts are stored on our ISKCON Toronto Video Archive Blog.

Prabhupada Festival Recording - January 1st, 2010

The recording for the Prabhupada Festival can be viewed by clicking the image below. Unfortunately, due to some technical difficulties, there is no audio for the class. As a reminder, the recordings from our weekly Sunday Feast and Festival live web broadcasts are stored on our ISKCON Toronto Video Archive Blog.

First Darshan of 2010!