Hare Krishna Labor of Love Festival

April 20, 2004

Starting May 1st 2004, the three day Labor of Love Festival will commence. Saturday May 1st, at 7am devotees will be gathering to clean and decorate the Berkeley Temple (2334 Stuart St.) and preparing for Kirtan in the Streets at 1pm. May 1st will also mark the disappearance day of Jayananda Prabhu, who was known for his selfless service to Krishna and who single handedly orchestrated many festivals in the San Francisco Bay Area. We will be honoring him by performing what he did best, rendering selfless devotional service to Krishna and singing the Hare Krishna Maha-Mantra loud and clear throughout the city. He was a prime example of how a devotee should act, always thinking of Krishna and rendering selfless unconditional devotional service.

On May, 2nd, 2004 there will be held a festival at Civic Center Park in downtown Berkeley. We request everyone to please come and join! We will be preparing for this festival from now until the festival day. Krishna is very attracted when a devotee renders devotional service to Him. Krishna says in the Bhagavad-Gita,

mayy eva mana adhatsva

mayi buddhim nivesaya

nivasisyasi mayy eva

ata urdhvam na samsayah

Just fix your mind upon Me, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and engage all your intelligence in Me. Thus you will live in Me always, without a doubt.

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada says, “One who is engaged in Lord Krsna's devotional service lives in a direct relationship with the Supreme Lord, so there is no doubt that his position is transcendental from the very beginning. A devotee does not live on the material plane--he lives in Krsna. The holy name of the Lord and the Lord are nondifferent; therefore when a devotee chants Hare Krsna, Krsna and His internal potency are dancing on the tongue of the devotee. When he offers Krsna food, Krsna directly accepts these eatables, and the devotee becomes Krsna-ized by eating the remnants. One who does not engage in such service cannot understand how this is so, although this is a process recommended in the Gita and in other Vedic literatures.”

The last day of this festival will be Narashingadeva’s Appearance Day, Monday May 3rd. At ISKCON Berkeley devotees will be gathering for preparing food, Kirtan, , and a Drama illustrating the appearance day of Lord Narasingadeva will be held in the evening.

The prime purpose of the Labor of Love Festival is to engage everyone in devotional service for Krishna. Man labors everyday for money because money is the exchange for any material thing. You can buy virtually anything material that you want with money, from a beautiful house, a luxury car, you can buy your way to become the president of a country, you can even buy sex or even a woman or man as an escort. There is something that you can not buy and that is real Love. Love is a spiritual commodity, not something that you can see or hear or touch. Love is a feeling. The best and most exacting feeling is to be loved and to give love. All these material things that you can buy with money are useless. They will disintegrate with time. Krishna says in the Bhagavad-Gita (Ch. 11, text 32) that He is time and that time is the destroyer of all things. There is something that cannot be destroyed and that is the spirit. We can see that our body is changing all the time. We were once a small baby, then a small boy, then a young man, and we know that we will eventually be old and pass away. A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada says in a lecture in London, “And in the Bhagavad-Gita in the very beginning of instruction Krishna says that those who are sober and intelligent are not bewildered when a living entity changes his body. Change of body is going on at every moment, at every second, imperceptibly. Medical science also accepts that at every second our bodies are changing. That is a fact. Our bodies are changing every moment, and the final stage is called death. But actually there is no death, you simply accept another body.” So it is the spirit that lives eternally. The body is simply a material thing that will disintegrate, but we (the sprit soul) are eternal. The nature of the spirit soul is to feel happy and to love. Prabhupda says, “And the Vedas say, ‘aham Brahamasmi’ ‘I am Brahman. I am not this body. I am sprit soul.’ And when one understands that he is sprit soul, he at once becomes joyful. That is the sign of Brahama-Bhuta. As soon as someone realizes that he has nothing to do with this material world, then all anxieties immediately leave, finished.” It says in the Vedanta-sutra that the nature of the spirit soul and the Supreme Soul (Krishna) are both ananda, blissful and always wanting to enjoy. So if we learn what our true identity is, if we can learn to love and accept love from the source of all love, Krishna, then we will achieve our true nature, our true bliss, our true ananda. It is together with Krishna’s devotees that we can learn to give and receive love of God. So please come and celebrate the Labor of Love Festival in Berkeley and serve Krishna. Chant and Be Happy!

May 1, 2004

Hare Krishna. All glories to Srila Prabhupada! i offer my respectful obeisances unto Him.

this is wonderful; i wish i could attend the festival, but unfortunately i won't be able to. anyways, thank you for spreading the Love of Krishna, and best wishes,

KrishnaBhakta