I am delighted to send my best wishes to everyone at Bhaktivedanta Manor in what is a very special year for all those associated with the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).
For fifty years since its foundation by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the men and women behind ISKCON have dedicated their lives to the words of Lord Krishna to achieve peace and unity. ISKCON can be proud that in that time it has grown the world over, setting up over 500 centres and 50 schools.
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Theresa May - UK former PRIME MINISTER
“If it was not for the compassion of His Divine Grace A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, I would have never achieved this supreme treasure of Krishna’s holy names. It was this compassion that drove Srila Prabhupada to attempt so brave and so daring, to deliver the message of Lord Chaitanya and the holy name to all of mankind. We get a glimpse of that Srila Prabhupada felt for all of us.
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Tulsi Gabbard, US Congresswoman
When disappoint stares me in the face and all alone I see not one ray of light, I go back to the Bhagvad Geeta. I find a verse here and a verse there, and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming tragedies.”
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Mahatma Gandhi
The Gita was preached as a preparatory lesson for living worldly life with an eye to Release, Nirvana. My last prayer to everyone, therefore, is that one should not fail to thoroughly understand this ancient science of worldly life as early as possible in one’s life.
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Lokmanya Tilak
The Gita is one of the clearest and most comprehensive summaries of the perennial philosophy ever to have been done. Hence its enduring value, not only for the Indians, but also for all mankind. It is perhaps the most systematic spiritual statement of the perennial philosophy.
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Aldous Huxley
I believe that in all the living languages of the world, there is no book so full of true knowledge, and yet so handy. It teaches self-control, austerity, non-violence, compassion, obedience to the call of duty for the sake of duty, and putting up a fight against unrighteousness (Adharma). To my knowledge, there is no book in the whole range of the world’s literature so high above as the Bhagavad-Gita, which is the treasure-house of Dharma nor only for the Hindus but foe all mankind.
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M. M. Malaviya
As a student of Hindu philosophy, J. Robert Oppenheimer–the American theoretical physicist and the father of the atomic bomb, read the Bhagavad Gita in its original form after learning Sanskrit in 1933. The text has been influential in shaping his ideologies of life. During the first ever nuclear bomb explosion as a part of the “trinity test” in 1945, in New Mexico, Oppenheimer remarked: “Now I have become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
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The father of the atomic bomb–J. Robert Oppenheimer
Former US president Barack Obama has spoken about how India holds a special place in his life. In his book A Promise Land, Obama writes how he spent his childhood years in Indonesia listening to the epic Hindu tales of the Ramayana and Mahabharata. During his maiden visit to the US, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi even gifted a copy of the Gita to Obama during a dinner hosted by The White House in 2014. The US president has also professed his fascination for Mahatma Gandhi and his ideologies on non-violence.
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Former Potus–Barack Obama
During his promotional tour in India for his movie Bright, the actor declared that he has been immensely influenced by Arjuna from the Bhagavad Gita. "I love the history. I am 90 percent through the Bhagavad Gita. To be reading that and to be here... my inner Arjuna is being channelled,” he said in an interview. In a short, viral video clip, the two-time Oscar-nominee and a Grammy award-winning actor shows off his copy of the Hindu scripture, heavily highlighted with a yellow marker.
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The Prince of Bel-Air–Will Smith
The lead guitarist of The Beatles was a devout Hindu and visited India for the first time in 1966 to learn sitar from Pandit Ravishankar. After coming back to India multiple times after that, Harrison turned to Hinduism and cited the Bhagavad Gita and its teaching to influence his life and his works. His 1973 song The Lord Loves The One was inspired by the teachings of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), more commonly known as the Hare Krishna movement. Even his album artwork for Living In The Material World was a reproduction of a painting from a Prabhupada-published edition of the Bhagavad Gita.
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The Beatles member–George Harrison