Report from Vrndavana in the month of September

[Guest guest]

Dear Maharajas and Prabhus:

 

Please accept our humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

 

Few festivals were observed and celebrated in great pomp with the blessings

of Srila Prabhupada in the last month at Sri Krsna Balaram Mandir in Sri

Vrndavana dham.

 

Sri Balarama Jayanti:

Firstly, Sri Balaram Jayanti was celbrated on 30th August. Deena Bandhu

Prabhu started the festival by leading the auspicious mangal aratika kirtan.

The English Srimad Bhagavatam class was conducted by Gopi Paranadhan Prabhu

and Deena Bandhu Prabhu while the Hindi Srimad Bhagavatam class was given by

HH Radha Govinda Swami. All the temple decorations and Their Lordships' new

outfit were sponsored by our leading congregation members. Grand abhishek

was performed for the pleasure of Sri Sri Krsna Balaram in the main altar by

our Pujaris and leading Srila Prabhupada's disciples. It was the first time

that during the abhisheka all the devotees had darshan of the Lord peacefuly

as the devotees were requested to sit down while Aindra Prabhu with his 24

hour kirtan crew chanted the holy name ecstaticaly. Maha feast prasadam was

served for more than seven hundred devotees.

 

Sri Krsna Janmashtami:

There was a maha nagar sankirtan participated by many devotees from

different parts of the world. They went to the major Goswamis' temple in

Vrndavana the day before Janmashtami. Then on Janmashtami day the whole

temple room and Srila Prabhupada's samadhi mandir were fully decorated with

flowers sponsored by Veda Vyasa dasa and family from Delhi. Three outfits

were offered to Their Lordships for the occasion including a flower outfit

in the afternoon darshan. Five major Indian TV channels telecast the whole

day affair, live. Without having them invited by the temple, they came on

their own and were so happy to have the whole day and night festival

recorded, to be viewed by millions of people mostly in Asia and in some

parts of the world. HH Gopal Krsna Goswami was interviewed early in the

morning and most of our senior devotees were also interviewed in the later

part of the day. The midnight abhishek was telecast live and was seen by

millions of people. Over 1,000 devotees honored a maha ekadashi feast

prasadam after the midnight aratika at our Krsna Balarama land near the MVT

project.

 

Srila Prabhupada's Vyasa Puja:

Srila Prabhupada's 108 Vyasa puja celebration was obeserved by hundreds of

devotees including over 35 senior Srila Prabhupada's initiated disciples.

Both the samadhi aratika kirtan and the mangal aratika kirtan were lead by

His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada. Gopiparanadhan Prabhu was the master of

ceremony. The abhisheka for Srila Prabhupada was performed by HH Mukunda

Goswami, Bhurijana Prabhu, Gopiparanadhana Prabhu and Aindra Prabhu. Manu

Prabhu from England sponsored the maha feast. A cultural presentation was

performed by the Bhaktivendanta Gurukula Students later in the evening.

 

 

Radhastami:

Also, Radhastami festival was a grand success inspite the absence of many of

our temple leaders. The whole Radhastami festival expenses was mostly borne

by one of our major donor from Doha, Sriman T.K. Choudry. We had a feast for

over 1,500 devotees. The festival's finale was the ecstatic darshan at 10:00

pm of Their Lordships Sri Sri Gaura Nitai, Sri Sri Krsna Balarama, Sri Sri

Radha Shyamasundar, Lalita Sakhi, Vishaka Sakhi and especialy Srimati

Radharani's lotus feet .

 

Other achivements during the last month:

With the help of Sriman Mangatram Agarwal, sweet water from our goshala land

was found after boring 250 feet under ground. Now we are using sweet water

throughout the Krsna Balaram compound. He also donated a generous amount

along with Sriman T.K. Choudry for constructing new cows' sheds at our Krsna

Balaram goshala.

 

Prasadam for all the visiting Vaishnavas is being sponsored at the moment by

devotees from Doha, Qatar.

 

May this meet you all well.

 

In service of Sri Sri Krsna Balaram,

Janardana dasa

General Manager

 

ps. We tried to make the report as short as possible. We definitely missed

a lot of the details.