By Rasikgaura dasa (ISKCON Shirasgaon centre leader)
On January 29 the ISKCON Shirasgaon centre congregation devotees held a one-day padayatra. Located in central-western Maharashtra, the centre has been operating for only six months.
Our spiritual master, Lokanath Maharaja, is the pioneer of padayatras. Maharaja, who conducted padayatras during Srila Prabhupada’s centennial year, says that padayatra is the best means of preaching. He inspires all devotees to organize padayatras, which is an essential part of Prabhupada’s preaching strategy to bring the whole world together with the holy name, festivals and prasadam in every town and village. Padayatra is also a great opportunity to have friendly exchanges with devotees and to invite or visit devotees who have served in ISKCON.
Padayatra started from Shirasgaon’s Vitthal temple with 250 devotees assembling at 8.30am. We brought deities of Sri Sri Gaura-Nitai with us and installed Them on the cart which had been beautifully decorated by the devotees. Everyone attended padayatra with enthusiasm, including many elderly devotees, and during the walk we distributed three Bhagavad-gitas and prasadam. Padayatra ended at the Jagannath temple in Bhokar village where the devotees had arranged lunch prasadam for the padayatris. Fifty-six bhogas were offered to Their Lordships.
The devotees were very happy with the successful completion of padayatra and were inquiring when the next one would be held. The consensus was to organize a padayatra every month. It’s all the mercy of our spiritual master and Their Lordships Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar.
A realization we had during padayatra came as we were installing the deities of Sri Sri Gaura-Nitai. We were thinking it would be more beneficial if we had bigger deities so that everyone could have darshan easily. This thought kept haunting me throughout the day, and by the Lord’s mercy I later got a call from a devotee who told me that one Kiran mataji, from America, wants to give us large deities of Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar. As I shared the news with our congregation, all of them were surprised and said a big haribol. We realized it’s the mercy of the most merciful Gaura-Nitai that we had just organized a one-day padayatra and now Their Lordships are coming to our centre. We witness the Lord’s reciprocation with us and our faith increases more and more. I discussed this with our guide Sadhukripa dasa. I was thinking: Are we capable of serving Them – how would we manage as we have only a small centre? But Sadhukripa said, “Don’t worry, the Lord will get all done. He is coming mercifully to accept services from us, so all will be good.”
Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar, ki jai.
Acknowledgments
Bullock cart and oxen: Vaishali mataji; Arrangement/decoration of padayatra horse: Bhakta Ganesh; Bathing/cleaning oxen: Bhagyavanta mataji, Bhakta Sachin; Bullock cart decoration: Bhakta Dyaneshwar; Garlands: Matajis’ team and little Vaishnavas; Flags: Bhakta Rama and Ravindra; Sankirtan team: Sadhu Kripa prabhu; Prasadam: Manik prabhu; Lemon juice: Caitanya Caran prabhu and team; Book distribution: Madhav prabhu and Ahmadnagar team.
