By Jayabhadra Devi Dasi
This year, 2024, is very special. It’s the year we celebrated our Srila Gurudev, Lokanath Maharaja’s seventy-fifth birth anniversary, and this year’s theme for us has been to engage in various projects to offer at his lotus feet.
Gurudev always says that padayatra is his heart,“Padayatra mera prana hai,” so we all decided that as his daughters we would arrange for seventy-five Vaishnavi padayatra’s to be held throughout this year for the pleasure of Guru and Gauranga.
We requested all Vaishnavis and leaders through online meetings to organize one-day Vaishnavi padayatras. We made known what the requirements were and that not much laxmi would be needed. At first some matajis were thinking how we independently could do such a project but our team encouraged them saying, “Mataji it is easy, do not worry.” We faced some obstacles like not getting permissions but by your mercy, Gurudev, all turned out well.
Many said that women don’t go on padayatra, there was nothing like a women’s padayatra, but we were all surcharged with the spirit of serving and going on padayatras was one hundred percent.
Our aim of doing padayatra was to instil padayatra culture in all the matajis. They can’t go on padayatras for days leaving their families, so organizing one-day events were a way to put the spirit of padayatra into Vaishnavis. All our ladies can be a part of padayatra by giving the information of our existing padayatras and telling the glories of Srila Gurudev and padayatra, how Gurudev took Srila Prabhupada’s instructions about padayatra to heart.
Many matajis have shared their realizations as we felt proud being a part of the Vaishnavi padayatra, and much more.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said prthivite ache yata nagaradi-grama, sarvatra pracara haibe mora nama –”In every town and village throughout the world the chanting of My holy name will be heard.”
We Vaishnavis can’t cover a huge area but we can at least cover some parts of the cities and villages, like the squirrel who served as per limits in making the Ramsetu.
Puranandi Radha Devi Dasi, Greater Noida, and her team did twenty-eight Vaishnavi padayatras, the major part of the seventy-five-padayatra total.
Amravati’s ISKCON Girls’ Forum and senior Vaishnavis contributed twenty-six Vaishnavi padayatras (centres under Amravati).
Bhavatarini Devi Dasi, Alibag, and her team did eight Vaishnavi padayatras.
ISKCON Bangalore did three Vaishnavi padayatras, Vraja premi mataji (two) and Manju lali mataji (one), and other ISKCON Bangalore Vaishnavis also contributed.
Seventy-five Vaishnavi padayatras
| Greater Noida | Amravati and near by centres | Other places | |
| 1.Greater Noida
2.Khairana Mahendragjarh 3.Banaras 4.BuundKalan(Hariyana) 5.Rudrapur (Uttarakhand) 6.Dhankaur(G.N.) 7.YamunaViharDelhi 8.MerutUP 9.Sakipur(G.N.) 10.Jaitpur 11.Gaziabad 12.Maicha 13.Murlipur Hariyana 14.Bulabdshahar 15.GhodiBacheda 16.Sammadudinpur 17.Omicron 3 sector 18.Omicron 1 supertech 19.MigsunTwinzEta-2 20.Omicron 1 Gaur Atulyam 21.Omicron 1A sector 22.Mu -1st sector 23.Narmada Enclave Eta -2 24.Hapud 25.Delta-1 26.Senior Citizen 27.Tugalpur 28.Gulmohar Society
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1.Tapovan=1
2.Rajura=1 3.RadhaNagar=2 4.Walgaon=1 5.With Maharashtra Padayatra=2 6.Amt Kala maruti+satidham=2 7.Changapur=1 8.Akola=1 9.Paratwada=2 10.Nandgaon Peth=1 11.Wadad=1 12.Pundalik nagar=1 13.Waigaon village=1 14.Rukmini nagar(amt)=1 15.Sri Ramnagar(amt)=1 16.Camp area and Fezarpura= 1 17.Rathi Nagar= 1 18.Dhamangaon = 1 19.Radha Nagar= 1 20.Navathe= 1 21.Farshi Stop = 1 22.Blind School Amravati
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1. Alibag= 8
2.Pandharpur=1 3.Gondia=1 4.Banglore=3 5.Bhopal=1 6.Noida (SitaThakurani mataji)= 1 7.Surat 8.Nagpur 9.Bodwad = 1 10.Chandrapur 11.Jalgaon 12.Shirsol
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| 28 | 26 | 21 |
We thank everyone who supported us and all those Vaishnavis who joined our padayatras, as well as the respective teams who helped us with prasadam and the chariots – especially in Greater Noida where they made a small cart -like structure for their padayatras – and the temple authorities and our seniors.
This is a little offering to Srila Gurudev from his daughters. Initially we all wondered how we could do so many padayatras (we all felt like we were ants in front of the Himalayas) but by your mercy, inspiration and motivation we were able to do something to offer at your lotus feet.
Vaishnavis’ team Amravati.
