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Perfect Questions Perfect Answers In 1972, Bob Cohen, A Science Teacher In The Peace Corps, Began A Search For Spiritual Enlightenment That Took Him The Length And Breadth Of India. Here Is The Transcript Of His Life-Transforming Meetings With Srila Prabhupada In The Holy Village Of Mayapur, India, The Birthplace Of Sri Krishna Chaitanya, A True Account. A Series Of Meetings With Srila Prabhupada Transforms The Life Of Bob Cohen The Peace Corps Worker In India. There In A Small Bamboo House In The Holy Land Of Mayapur, He Finds Himself At The Feet Of One Of India’s Greatest Saintly Teachers, A Teacher Who Seems To Tell Him Everything He Ever Wanted To Know.
True accounts of people seeking real happiness, spiritual realization, & liberation. Like, Bob Cohen, a young American Peace Corps worker halfway around the world, searches for meaning enters an ancient village in the midst of West Bengal, where in a small bamboo hut, he finds a teacher who tells him everything he longed for. Cohen says “God, spiritual life–those were such vague terms to me before I met Srila Prabhupada. I have always been interested in religion, but before I met the Krsna conscious devotees, somehow I did not have the proper perspective needed to inquire fruitfully about spiritual life. The existence of a Creator is only common sense–but who is God? Who am I? My Hebrew School and the Oriental philosophy could never get satisfying answers to my questions. I first heard the Hare Krsna mantra in Greenwich Village, New York, in late 1968. Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare”.

Here Srila Prabhupada discusses the step-by-step process of reviving our original peaceful and happy condition, Krsna consciousness. He writes, “If we want to participate in the unlimited happiness, knowledge and eternal life which constitute our actual heritage in the spiritual world, we should not waste this life by working hard for sense gratification. We should accept a life devoted to the cultivation of Krsna consciousness, and then we will get unlimited happiness and unlimited pleasure. This is the sum and substance of the Krsna consciousness movement.”

Here Srila Prabhupada discusses the step-by-step process of reviving our original peaceful and happy condition, Krsna consciousness. He writes, “If we want to participate in the unlimited happiness, knowledge and eternal life which constitute our actual heritage in the spiritual world, we should not waste this life by working hard for sense gratification. We should accept a life devoted to the cultivation of Krsna consciousness, and then we will get unlimited happiness and unlimited pleasure. This is the sum and substance of the Krsna consciousness movement.”

For thousands of years, people on a spiritual quest have consulted the intensely philosophical Upanishads. As the name implies (upa-near; ni-down; shad-to sit), one is advised to sit near a spiritual teacher to learn. Upanishad means “the supreme controller. the knowledge that brings one nearer to the Supreme Person, Krsna” This translation and commentary are guided by scholarship, and devotion in spirituality, in the ligne of the greatest Gaudiya Vaishnavas such as Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Maharaja, the spiritual master of the author, which is directly descending from Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. The translation and commentary of Srila Prabhupada strictly adheres to the book’s intention, assuring you of a legitimate understanding of the depths of Upanishadic knowledge.
Sri Isopanishad is one of the first books Srila Prabhupada published in the course of establishing the Hare Krishna movement in the Western world. Its eighteen mantras—Vedic hymns—are meant to focus the mind in meditation on the Supreme Person, Krishna. The 108 Upanishads are considered the essence of all the Vedas, and Ishopanishad is foremost among them. Discover the distilled essence of all knowledge in these eighteen enlightening verses.For thousands of years, people on a spiritual quest have consulted the mystical, intensely philosophical Upanishads. As the name implies (upa—near; ni—down; shad—to sit), one is advised to sit near a spiritual teacher to learn. To learn what? This Upanishad’s name gives the clue: Isha means “the supreme controller.” Let us sit near the spiritual guide to learn about the supreme controller: God. The process is simple, provided one learns from an authentic guide. The translation and commentary of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada strictly adheres to the book’s intention, assuring you of a legitimate understanding of the depths of Upanishadic knowledge.

Sri Isopanishad’s mantras direct our attention toward how the Supreme Person is the complete whole of existence, and that all manifestations emanating from Him—including our bodies and the world we inhabit—are also complete in and of themselves. The Isa—”supreme controller”—for whom Isopanishad is named, is poetically described as being simultaneously far away and near, walking and not walking, within and outside of everything.

In the book’s Introduction—adapted from a lecture Srila Prabhupada gave in London in 1968—he explains how the Vedas’ teachings are perfect; Vedic sound is not of this world, not created by man, and thus not subject to human frailty and imperfection. Isopanishad is one of the principal Upanishads in Vedic literature that present the ultimate philosophical conclusions of all scripture.

Srila Prabhupada composed Sri Isopanishad with the same scholarly standards as his Bhagavad-gita As It Is and Srimad-Bhagavatam, providing the original Sanskrit verse, its English transliteration, word-for-word Sanskrit-English equivalents, translations and purports. In his words, “This makes the book very authentic and scholarly and makes the meaning self-evident.”