We need to have good communication skills to be able to have conversations about tough topics and to maintain openness and trust in the relationship. Part of this means knowing when to stop talking.
Krsnanandini Devi Dasi was a Srila Prabhupada disciple, Certified Family Life Educator, a member of the ISKCON Grihastha Vision Team, and the co-director of the Dasi-Ziyad Family Institute with her husband Tariq.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been tough for parents and kids, as they try to find engagement while staying at home. Here are eleven tried-and-true Krishna conscious activities, as shared by devotee parents themselves!
On 1st March, Bhakti Learning offered their new online Krishna-conscious program for children to Srila Prabhupada at his puspa-samadhi in Sridhama Mayapur.
Lacking atma-tattva, or spiritual knowledge, we forget that the "soldiers" who are supposed to protect us - the government, our family, and the society - are fallible, and we rely on them excessively.
A new bhakta director and youth preacher at ISKCON Juhu, Mumbai has been taking new devotees and their parents on spiritual retreats together. The results? Deeper relationships, and unfavorable parents becoming favorable to Krishna consciousness and in some cases taking up the path themselves.
The Grihastha Vision Team surveyed couples and individuals in ISKCON to ascertain some of the greatest challenges in their marriages. Two top challenges emerged: 1. Lack of emotional and/or physical intimacy;
The Grihasta Vision Team (GVT) has done many things: provided counseling services; written a book, Heart and Soul Connection; offered seminars at many ISKCON festivals; and established a website, vaisnavafamilyresources.org, that offers many helpful articles. All these support their motto: “Healthy Marriages. Happy Families. Strong ISKCON.” One of their most exciting efforts is their annual Couples’ Retreat, held at the Gita Nagari farm in Pennsylvania.
In April and May 2015, Grihastha Vision Team (GVT) members, Uttama dasi and Partha das spent 5 weeks in Brazil, offering seminars, workshops, retreats, individual couple education and mentor training in various cities across Brazil. The Brazilian centers are developing a devotee care initiative, and one of the many aspects is to try to assist members to have better marital relationships.
Many women have perceived ideals of a perfect male romantic match. Having experienced them through the movies, fairy tales, such males often handsome and romantic, rescuing the "damsel in distress" from all her woes.
Exactly echoing a message found in the Bhagavad-gita, a UK senior judge recently declared that “almost all of society’s social ills can be traced directly to the collapse of the family life.”
Outstanding success is achieved through remarkable results and it is rarely, if ever, achieved by the individual alone. It happens through support, guidance, advice, willingness, corporation and commitment of others, beside the individual’s own contribution.
Healthy marriages, happy families, strong ISKCON. “The larger society is a microcosm of the family unit,” says Grihatha Vision Team member Krishnanandini Dasi. “So if our family units are healthy, vibrant, dynamic and enthusiastic, our ISKCON society will be too.” The GVT are doing their bit towards this aim with their second annual Couple’s Retreat from September 12th to 14th this year.
Too often, devotee couples face marital challenges without knowing where to go for help, or without feeling confident about letting others know the reality of the problems they face.
ISKCON’s Family Vision Team explores practical tips for loving relationships in a new book. The authors have a total of approximately 200 years of marriage experience and 100 years of providing marriage, family and relationship education.
ISKCON's Grihastha Vision Team is offering "Strengthening the Bonds That Free Us" in Mayapur, India on Feb 13-15th, 2014. This is an interactive skill building seminar for grihastha couples and those wishing to enter grhastha ashram.
It’s a painful reality for Mormon parents (and all religious parents) that sometimes, their children leave the faith.
Married people tend to be healthier than single people. But what happens when a marriage ends? New research shows that when married people become single again, whether by divorce or a spouse’s death, they experience much more than an emotional loss. Often they suffer a decline in physical health from which they never fully recover, even if they remarry.
Announcing The First Ever Vaisnava Marriage and Family Fest! At the Festival of Inspiration 2009 May 8, 9, 10th , New Vrindavan Hosted by the Grihastha Vision Team We cordially invite all Vaisnavas, families & friends to attend the first Vaisnava Marriage & Family Fest.
This Valentine’s Day seems a good time to consider booking a spot at ISKCON’s first “Vaishnava Marriage and Family Fest,” hosted at the Festival of Inspiration in New Vrindaban, West Virginia this May 8 – 10 by the Grihastha Vision Team (GVT), a group of professional marriage and family educators and therapists.
Deerfield, Illinois - "Mom, you just don't trust me. Everyone I know has a laptop in their room," said my son as he sat at the dining-room table and logged on to the Internet. "I don't trust any 14-year-old boy alone with a computer," I replied, trying to make a space of my own among the science and math textbooks scattered about.
Every year, scores of women from all over the U.S., Canada and other parts of the globe travel to the hills of West Virginia to attend the annual Vaisnavi Retreat in New Vrndavan. The ladies come, young and old, to participate in an exciting weekend of activities beseeching the mercy of Srimati Radharani, the feminine counterpart of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
In Vancouver, Canada, a twenty-three year old man has been sentenced to four years in jail for shooting dead his mother at the age of fourteen. The man is known only by his initials J.A.P. in Supreme Court documents. He and his family were previously Krishna devotees, but at the time of the killing they had since stopped practicing and became disaffiliated with ISKCON.
Wouldn’t it be grand if married couples everywhere could have enduring, satisfying relationships, based on spiritual principles? Wouldn’t it be marvelous if all children could grow up in a healthy two-parent home? Such was the goal of most of the attendees of the 12th Annual SmartMarriages conference from July 2-6, 2008 in San Francisco, California.