An illuminating examination of the theology of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the Hare Krishna movement.

A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhup?da (1896-1977), founder of the Hare Krishna Movement, traced his lineage to the fifteenth-century Indian saint Sri Chaitanya. He authored more than fifty volumes of English translation and commentaries on Sanskrit and Bengali texts, serving as a medium between these distant authorities and his modern Western readership and using his writings as blueprints for spiritual change and a revolution in consciousness. He had to speak the language of a people vastly disparate from the original recipients of his tradition's scriptures without compromising fidelity to the tradition. Tamal Krishna Goswami claims that the social scientific, philosophical, and 'insider' forms of investigation previously applied have failed to explain the presence of a powerful interpretative device-a mahavakya or 'great utterance'-that governs and pervades Prabhupada's 'living theology' of devotion on bhakti. For Prabhupada, the wide range of 'vedic' subject matter is governed by the axiomatic truth: Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Goswami's academic training at the University of Cambridge, his thirty years' experience as a practitioner and teacher, and his extensive interactions with Prabhupada as both personal secretary and managerial representative, afforded him a unique opportunity to understand and illuminate the theological contribution of Prabhupada. In this work, Goswami proves that the voice of the scholar-practitioner can be intimately connected with his tradition while sustaining a mature critical stance relative to his subject. A Living Theology of Krishna Bhakti includes a critical introduction and conclusion by Graham M. Schweig.

"What does the popular Sanskrit term bhakti mean? Is it a self-evident concept? With an acknowledgment of complexity and variety this book helps to grasp the essential meaning and various dimensions of a God-experience and its implication for a transformed and transforming life. Taking the famous figures Jesus and Krsna, as presented by two popular texts (St. John's Gospel and the Rasalila section), two distinctive bhakti frameworks are analysed and compared. Any bhakti experience does not happen in a vacuum and Jesus and Krsna were not only multifaceted figures but also they went through a long process of ascendency to divine supremacy. For those who want to understand bhakti this book might prove to be an engaging guide."--Publisher's website.

What is religion? In the pure sense of the word, religion means to reconnect to God. Yet, in today’s world it is so rarely seen as that. Religion is seen as divisive, dogmatic, sometimes even primitive. But what is the cause of this? We see that humans and their ideas are most often the cause of unnecessary conflict, unnecessary division and unnecessary tension. At the core of both Christianity and Hinduism lie God’s words, recorded in their respective scriptures. Yet so often we struggle to truly understand them. Volume 1 of the Krishna & Christ set highlights and dives deep into the thematic of who God is, the Creation of the Universe, who are we and how to come closer to (or to attain) God. By using the quotes from the Bhagavad Gita, the Bhagavatam and the Bible, this book gives you the opportunity to rediscover the timeless purity and essence of Christianity and consequently drawing a comparative analysis to the world’s oldest religion, Hinduism. The reader is invited to look deeper and ‘out of the box’ of doctrines. In the depths of everyone is the same Truth, the same Love, the same Essence.

Scholars of comparative religion, theology, philosophy, History, sociology, and psychology and members of the Hare Krishna movement discuss the history, theology, and organization of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness and public reaction to the movement in America.

What is life for? What may give it meaning? Does it have any meaning at all? A sage in ancient Israel brooded over these questions. In ancient India, too, such questions drove a despairing warrior to seek answers from his divine friend Krishna. The thoughts of the sage became the wisdom book Ecclesiastes; those of Krishna, the Bhagavad-gītā. Their wisdom speaks to our deepest concerns. In Vanity Karma, wisdom meets wisdom as these two perennial classics come together, both offering us profound understanding. And a deep and authentic spiritual understanding, we may find, can infuse our lives with meaning and with joy. Vanity Karma brings you on a journey through the full text of Ecclesiastes, a journey illuminated by traditional biblical scholarship, insights from the Bhagavad-gītā, a dash of autobiography, and a steady spiritual focus.

What we call love in the material world is all too temporary, but in the kingdom of God the profound loving exchanges Lord Krishna enjoys with His dearest devotees are eternal. Bhakti-yoga teaches us how to enter into that realm of eternal love.