Another incident related by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati was that when he was giving diksha initiation to a married man, the man’s wife came along and forcibly dragged him away from the fire ceremony. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta is said to have wept.

In the tenth chapter of Bhagavad-gita, Krishna establishes that light originates in Him. “O son of Kunti, I AM the taste of water, THE LIGHT OF THE SUN AND THE MOON, the syllable om in the Vedic mantras; I am the sound in ether and ability in man”. (emphasis mine, from Bhagavad-gita As It Is, 7.8)

But there is an effulgence that doesn’t depend on the sun, and that is Krishna Himself. Call it a halo or whatever, it is Krishna’s light. In Bhagavad-gita As It Is, He says that His “supreme abode is not illumined by the sun or moon, nor by fire or electricity.”

Sometimes people say their lives changed because of a book. But it must be remembered that a book has an author, that those people are generated from other people, and that ultimately Krishna generates all the manifested jivas. Also books are made from paper: paper is made from trees, and trees are living entities that grow from the earth, and the the earth is produced by Visnu.

Of the many exalted Vaisnavas who have shuffled off this mortal coil, Bhakti-tirtha Swami was, and still is, known and greatly appreciated for emphasizing the importance of deepening relationships between devotees.

Scientists are proud that many so-called laws and measurements of science have been named after their “discoverers,” like Boyle’s law of gases, Newton’s laws of gravitation, Gause’s law, Roentgens, the Doppler effect (named after C.J. Doppler, Austrian physicist), the Mendeleyev periodic chart of the elements, and many, many others.

The tenth chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita contains a treatise on how to see Krsna everywhere. The Gita Mahatmya Study Guide says: “All wondrous phenomena showing power, beauty, grandeur or sublimity, either in the material world or in the spiritual, are but partial manifestations of Krsna’s divine energies and opulence. As the supreme cause of all causes and the support and essence of everything, Krsna is the supreme object of worship for all beings.”

Srila Prabhupada said the Ksatriya spirit was still alive during the 17th century in India. In this regard, he related the following incident: “This spirit of ksatriya was prevalent even, say, three hundred years ago in India. There was a king, Yasomanta Sena. He was the commander-in-chief of Emperor Aurangzeb. So in one fight, he was defeated and came back to his home. So his wife heard that My husband has been defeated. He's coming back home.' So she asked the caretaker to close the door of the palace. So when Yasomanta Sena came there, he saw that his palace door is closed. Then he sent message to the queen thatWhy you have closed the door? I have come home.’ So messenger came and informed that The king has come. So he is asking to open the door.' The queen replied,Who is king? Yasomanta Sena. No, no. Yasomanta Sena cannot come being defeated. Yasomanta Sena either he conquers the battle or he lays down his body there dead. So the man who has come, he must be somebody pretender. He is not King Yasomanta Sena.’ So she refused to open the door. This is the spirit of ksatriya spirit.” (From a lecture on BGAII, London, September 3rd, 1973.)

Compassion has a way of becoming fashionable, and the media in the West are presently into it, big time. But it’s selective as the Western media dominate. Animal deaths and sudden deaths of people in “developing” countries like India or Zimbabwe are not nearly as compassion-worthy as lives in the West. Witness the recent London terrorist attacks or bombs on the Red Sea. Jesus Christ exhibited compassion even while being crucified, as he begged God to forgive his tormenters. But Vasudeva Datta, one might say, went a step further by asking God to transfer the sins of ALL living entities to himself. (CC, Madhya, 15.163 and purport)

Although the phrase “body bag” has lately come to mean a plastic bag to encase a recently killed human, Srila Prabhupada often referred to the human body as a bag, containing the energies known as kappa, pita and vayu.