I especially loved chanting and dancing in public when I lived in the Hare Krishna Temple in New York City. The practice of congregational chanting is just suited to this current age.

At this link, you can get a taste of what it is like to go out in the material world, chant the Hare Krishna mantra, and discover the great attractive power of the Holy Name. Krishna very kindly blesses anyone who comes in contact with the His Name.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA40nHG13lQ

-- Beth

We had an arranged marriage.

The Srimad Bhagavatam is an ancient Vedic text consisting of 12 cantos. Srila Prabhupada translated the first 10 cantos from Sanskrit to English before his passing from this planet in 1977.

The most confidential part of the Bhagavatam is the 10th canto, and this has been summarized in the book, Krsna. This link (http://krsnabook.com/index.html) allows you to read the entire Krsna book.

I had taken many comparative religion and philosophy classes in college, but I had never heard of the Bhagavatam. When I first read Krsna Book, I couldn't understand if it was fiction or nonfiction. Krsna Book contains an introduction by George Harrison, who paid for the first printing of the book.

Happy reading!

--Beth

Now that we have reached this human form of life, it is time to inquire about God.
http://introduction.krishna.org/Articles/2000/10/00165.html

Animals cannot understand what is God. It is the business of human beings. So if you want to know God sincerely, seriously, then God is within yourself. He'll give you intelligence how you can know Him.

But if you want to forget God, challenge God, "There is no God. God is dead," then He'll give you such intelligence that you'll always think that there is no God, that God is dead, like that. He'll give some arguments. There are so many atheists, they are also putting their arguments. So wherefrom the argument comes? It comes from God, that "You take this argument and forget God forever."

Mattah smrtir jnanam apohanam ca. Vedais ca sarvair aham eva vedyam. Vedic knowledge means to understand God. That's all. One who has understood God, he has studied all Vedas. Finished. And one who has not understood God, simply studying this literature, that literature, that scripture, then he's simply wasting his time. That's all. Because (the) ultimate knowledge is God.

If one cannot understand what is God after so much education, then Bhagavata says, srama eva hi kevalam: "It is simply labor, labor, waste of time." Simply waste of time. There is no education. Education, knowledge, means ultimately to understand, to know what is God. Actually; not fictitiously, vaguely.

So there are many classes of men who have no understanding of God. Some of them are saying, "God is dead," or "God is impersonal," "There is no God," "Zero," "I am God," "You are God," so many things. All these people do not know what is God; therefore there are different theories.

Therefore, somehow or other, if you can understand God, then your life is successful. Somehow or other. Because this human life is especially meant for understanding God. Athato brahma-jijnasa.

-- His Divine Grace, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada