By Prahlad Maharaja dasa, Baddi preacher
Devotees recently held a one-day padayatra in Baddi, a Himachal Pradesh industrial town renown as Asia’s biggest pharmaceuticals hub. In Baddi we have preaching programmes conducted under the guidance of ISKCON’s Chandigarh temple, just 35km away. By the mercy of my spiritual master, Lokanath Maharaja, I was instructed to start preaching here and I am following his orders.
When I met Maharaja in Vrindavan a year ago he ordered me to organize padayatras in Himachal Pradesh. From that time, I kept meditating on how to do this, as I wanted to please my Gurudev and fulfil his order. I discussed this with other devotees in Baddi who then joined enthusiastically in making arrangements for padayatra.
On November 19, the auspicious day of Kartik purnima, more than twenty devotees walked for 6km through Baddi, and as we sang and danced to the Hare Krishna maha mantra several onlookers also repeated the mantra. It was a wonderful experience and we were all uplifted with the joy of fulfilling Srila Gurudev’s desire. At that point I understood why padayatra is so dear to Gurudev: it is the very best preaching method.
I also realized that if you have faith in the words of your spiritual master everything is possible, for we could accomplish this only by Gurudev’s mercy. It was not a great thing, simply an attempt to please our spiritual master. For future walks we will take more time to plan, invite devotees from elsewhere and have Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar on a chariot like a proper padayatra.
Pangum langayte girim.
All glories Srila Prabhupada.
All glories to Srila Gurudev.
