Ramabhadra dasa, ISKCON Gurugram temple president
By the blessings and inspiration of Lokanath Maharaja, ISKCON’s pioneer of padayatra preaching, on December 24, 2021, eight devotees from Gurugram, a New Delhi satellite city in the state of Haryana, held a one-day padayatra including sankirtan (the congregational chanting of the Lord’s holy names) and book distribution from a bullock cart. The colourfully decorated cart had an altar with Sri Sri Radha-Krishna giving darshan for the benefit of mankind.
Traditionally, monks and sannyasis would walk, often with bullock carts, for the purpose of preaching and helping people transform their lives through the wisdom of scriptures. Villages around Gurugram have recently become economically prosperous but have also experienced a steep rise in alcoholism, stress and suicide due to increasing distance from long-practised God-conscious culture. The distressed and unsatisfied need the helping hand of spirituality and our padayatra was an attempt to give darshan of Sri Sri Radha-Damodhar and Srila Prabhupada’s books that would bring about a revolution in their lives. The Gurugram devotees thus stepped forward to encourage all people to practise and revive this integral culture of God consciousness.
On padayatra morning we all assembled at the Gurugram temple and I offered arati to Their Lordships and a garland to the ox carrying Them. Sometimes devotees don’t get the time to walk in padayatra but this ox was fortunate enough to carry Their Lordships on its shoulders, making its life successful. The team walked through many villages and we reached our destination, Damdama village about 15km from the temple, in the evening.
Along the way the padayatris engaged hundreds of villagers in sankirtan and distributed Back to Godhead magazines, the Bhagavad-gita and several other books by Srila Prabhupada, bringing the book score to 247. In this modern age bullock carts are lost and have been replaced by automobiles, so people were amazed to see monks on a cart singing and dancing on the holy name. It was a wonderful experience and I thank all the devotes who helped make the event possible. Compared with the All-India Padayatra our efforts were minimal, but we learned many lessons.
We met one boy who said, “I have all books, the Ramayana, the Mahabharat, my house is full of spiritual books. I can’t take. Please give it to someone else.” The padayatris said, “Oh you are the right person. You must take the Bhagavad-gita,” and he happily agreed.
Srila Prabhupada book distribution, ki jai.
Then we met a man who said, “I am very sinful. I can’t take a Bhagavad-gita. I have chicken biryani and alcohol in my bag. I can’t take.” The padayatris said, “Sir, please take for free. Everyone is sinful in this world. If you can’t take one for free, give twenty rupees. If someone was giving you alcohol you would immediately give him money,” and he smiled as he took the book.
Srila Prabhupada book distribution, ki jai.
At one point we became hungry and attempted to do madhukari. When we went to a house a dog barked at us and we ran away but at the next house an elderly mataji gave us paratha with curd and pickle. This made us realize how our acharyas lived an austere life totally depending on the Lord’s mercy. If we depend on Krishna the Lord will definitely help us, as He says in the Bhagavad-gita:
ananyas cintayanto mam
ye janah paryupasate
tesam nityabhiyuktanam
yoga-ksemam vahamy aham
“But those who worship Me with devotion, meditating on My transcendental form – to them I carry what they lack and preserve what they have.”
The mataji also provided a roti for our ox but the ox was tired and not in a service mood, so we rested for an hour before walking again. Later one of the cart’s wheels slipped into a ditch, but by the Lord’s mercy there was no harm to the ox.
Our acharyas Narottam dasa Thakur, Shyamananda Pandit and Srinivasa Acharya also went in a bullock cart loaded with scriptures and distributed books, so to develop gratitude for our acharyas we should do such events.
Video link : https://youtu.be/st0NrT8yrO8
