Books (by Author)

When law of karma acts on every individual and makes everyone responsible for the actions performed during one’s life, it also mysteriously determines ones destiny at the crucial moment called death. Near death experiences may have gained a lot of interest in the past few decades, but their intricate details and mysteries have been well documented in the ancient Vedic scriptures thousands of years ago. This amazing narrative by H.D.G. A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada is based on ancient Vedic scriptures like Srimad Bhagavatam and Bhagavad Gita. The book will guide you to have a second chance, by employing techniques of Bhakti yoga to overcome the material obstacles of life, meet the challenges of death, and peacefully attain spiritual enlightenment.

Near-death experiences (NDEs) are not new phenomena; the Srimad-Bhagavatam, written thousands of years ago, recounts this NDE occurring in the much deeper past.

Ajamila, a young, religious student, is drawn astray to a life of debauchery and crime. At the appointed hour of his death, he witnesses an extremely unusual conversation between the agents of death and the agents of the Supreme Person, Vishnu. Ajamila receives a second chance to live, and his life is transformed forever.

During the winter of 1970-71, Srila Prabhupada was traveling in India with some of his Western disciples. They had heard him speak about Ajamila several times, and at their request he gave a systematic series of lectures on Ajamila’s history. This book includes the original Bhagavatam verses outlining Ajamila’s NDE, selections from Srila Prabhupada’s published commentary, and excerpts from transcriptions of his lectures during the ’70-71 India tour.

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re alive and conscious. Meanwhile, your body is gradually, imperceptibly changing. Still reading? Then you’re still alive and your body is still changing. How about now? You’re still living, still conscious, and your body has changed yet again. Notice a pattern?

Beyond Birth and Death addresses this pattern, and challenges the reader to rethink what “life” means. We tend to think “life” is a brief event occurring between birth and death. We celebrate a birth as “a coming into life” and mourn for the “dead.” But really, life is our permanent condition, and what we call “birth and death” are merely bodily changes.

This is Krishna’s beginning instruction in the Bhagavad-gita; the self is never born and never dies. We all exist forever, but we’re now heavily involved in a temporary existence in a temporary world. What to do? If we can begin to understand the difference between our self and our material covering, the joy and relief we experience can be life-changing.

Beyond Birth and Death was prepared from transcripts of lectures Srila Prabhupada gave in 1966 on the second and eighth chapters of the Bhagavad-gita, which discuss in detail the important differences between us (the immortal, spiritual self) and our temporary material outer coverings (bodies).

Civilizations have come and gone. From the Roman & Babylonian to the current modern age, civilizations have all progressed and evolved. If one asks how humans have progressed over these civilizations the answers would be largely around the feats achieved in technology and science. They may also boast the knowledge of avenues of luxuries it has brought along with it. In enjoying all these luxuries if even one human genuinely introspects how does these artificial luxuries satisfy the soul?s inherent desire for happiness and eternal life? One will come to a conclusion that it never does.
His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in this pocket edition of Civilization and Transcendence implores us to not to lose focus over the true hankerings and needs of the soul. He imparts his teachings with sound Vedic knowledge in a lucid language and explains how technology and science are essential but cannot be of any assistance in our true pursuit: to transcend this material world and awaken our spiritual consciousness.
In June of 1976, Bhavan’s Journal, a Bombay cultural and religious magazine, sent various religious and spiritual leaders a questionnaire, seeking enlightened answers to some of the perplexing questions of the day, such as the place of religion in modern society.

One recipient of their questionnaire was Srila Prabhupada, who took the opportunity to make a thorough presentation of the ideal Vedic civilization, show the faults of modern society from the viewpoint of transcendence, and offer practical solutions based on Krishna conscious teachings.

His answers to Bhavan’s Journal were later compiled and published as Civilization and Transcendence, a compact and lively book of questions and answers like this:

Srila Prabhupada: We are sometimes labeled “escapists.” What is the charge?
Disciple: They say we are escaping from reality.
Srila Prabhupada: Yes, escaping your fruitless endeavor.

On the Way to Krsna is based on lectures Srila Prabhupada gave, mostly on the 7th chapter of the Bhagavad-gita, in New York in the fall of 1966. These were still his early days in the United States, and he addresses a quintessential part of what we think of as the American dream: the right to pursue happiness. Of course, the desire for happiness is not an American phenomenon but intrinsic to the human condition.

Without knowing what real happiness is, Srila Prabhupada says, happiness is impossible to achieve. In this small book, Srila Prabhupada discusses how happiness is found beyond the temporary, and illumines Lord Krishna’s definition of happiness as it is presented in the pages of the Bhagavad-gita.

Every one of us is searching after happiness, but we do not know what the real happiness is. We see so many advertisements about happiness, but practically speaking only few people are happy. This is because only few people know that the platform of real happiness is beyond temporary things. And that real happiness is described in this book, “On the way back to Krishna”. This is a great book that has verses that will foster the growth towards reaching Supreme personality of Godhead Krishna, who is the goal of life.

The word “yoga” has varied connotations; to some it may evoke images of grim ascetics in far-off mountain caves, pushing the limits of human tolerance of austerity. To others, yoga is a household word, a label for some of the many forms of holistic exercise available on the market. Some are familiar with the practice of yoga but are only dimly aware of the philosophy behind its practice. Still more people have no idea what it means at all.

Until the late twentieth century, yoga was hardly discussed or practiced outside India, where—according to traditional wisdom—human beings have been practicing some form of yoga or another since before recorded history; before there were supposed to have been human beings at all.

When His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada began teaching the Bhagavad-gita to New York audiences in 1966, he saw the need to relieve his listeners of some popular misconceptions of yoga circulating at the time (which nevertheless continue to circulate). The point of yoga, he explained, is not to get a good body, increase longevity, or even to “become one” with the formless totality of all energy; there’s a lot more to it than that.

In the Bhagavad-gita—the central and foundational text of all Vedic wisdom—Krishna concisely explains the actual essence of yoga. There are varieties of yoga practice—intellectual, physical, devotional—but the ultimate goal of all yoga is one (an extremely lofty one); “union with God.” Krishna, speaking with the voice of authority as the Absolute Truth in person, gives His final opinion on the matter (Bg. 6.47): “And of all yogis, he who meditates on Me within himself and worships Me with devotion and faith is the highest of all.”

The Perfection of Yoga is an edited compilation of some of Srila Prabhupada’s earliest recorded talks on the Bhagavad-gita in New York City in 1966. Drawing upon his knowledge of not only the Gita but the whole Vedic tradition, he reminds us of some essential truths about ourselves that the human race has forgotten for a very, very long time. Such truths, when brought to bear in our daily lives, can invest our human experience with a degree of peace and purpose that is rarely even imagined. The Bhagavad-gita is the main source-book on yoga and a concise summary of India’s Vedic wisdom. Yet remarkably, the setting for this classic of spiritual literature is an ancient Indian battlefield. At the last moment, the great warrior Arjuna begins to wonder about the real meaning of his life. In the Bhagavadgita, Lord Krsna brings His disciple from perplexity to spiritual enlightenment. Bhagavad-gita As It Is is the largest-selling, most widely used edition of the Gita in the world.