By Ananda Gaurangi Dasi
The Lithuanian padayatra kept to its usual route this year, travelling through the five cities of Kaunas, Vilnius, Siauliai, Klaipeda and ending in Palanga. We were also joined by special guests Bhakti Caitanya Swami, Bhakti Saran Santa Goswami and Bhakti Svarupa Caitanya Swami. We were also fortunate to have the association of Vaiyasaki Dasa who enlivened our Rathayatra procession with his enthusiastic kirtanas .
Our aim for this padayatra was inspired by the ISKCON 50th anniversary mission, which, is to create public appreciation for our Krishna Consciousness movement, to unite our society and for devotees to contribute both individually, collectively, locally and globally to the success of ISKCON. We decided to focus mainly on increasing public appreciation for our movement. Set out below are the goals which we set for ourselves on this padayatra:
- To increase prasadam distribution as well as to make the packaging more attractive. We distribute mostly sweets, so we decided to make the sweet packets look like little gifts.
- To increase book distribution
- To distribute flyers
- To attract people by hosting cultural events and by offering free henna tattoos
- To inspire devotees to preach in a way that attracts the public, that is, by behaving properly, dressing nicely, smiling and setting a good example for others.
Padayatra’s achievements
Prasadam distribution
The distribution of prasadam was by far our padayatra’s main achievement this year –with approximately 15000 nicely packaged sweets being given to the public, we tripled the amount of prasadam we have distributed in past years.
Book distribution
We distributed 292 maha big books, 162 big books, 8 medium sized books and 485 small books. In total, we distributed 947 books. This was more or less the same number of books we have distributed in previous years but for a small country like Lithuania, it is still a good number.
Flyers
The distribution of flyers was a special feature of this year’s padayatra. The flyers explained why we sing on the streets (harinam) and it also invited people to visit our main centers in Lithuania. We designed the flyers in honour of ISKON’s 50th anniversary but we are planning on using flyers more frequently in the future since they are not only very informative but also attractive.
Room for improvement
Henna Tattoos
The least successful programmes during the padayatra were the henna tattoos and cultural events. We assumed that the henna tattoos would be a huge attraction and so we didn’t think to advertise it, this resulted in only a few people approaching us to try it. It must be said, though, that the few people who tried the henna tattoos were very happy and even amazed. We are planning on doing henna tattoos again but will work on advertising it well and featuring it in a more attractive way.
Cultural Programmes
We had big plans for the cultural programmes, we even wanted to get a stage and have everything directed professionally. Unfortunately, due to a lack of financial resources and man power, this was not possible. We did try our best to have a few cultural events where we had kirtanas and bhajans but we couldn’t do more than that and so, we mostly focused on harinam instead.
Devotee care & cultivating a mood of service
Another goal we hoped to achieve was for devotees to nicely represent our movement. In order to do that, we had to inspire devotees. So first, we tried to arrange good accommodation and prasadam for all the padayatris –thinking of our own personal experiences, we knew that when the basic needs of devotees are fulfilled that both enthusiasm and inspiration can be easily maintained. During our padayatra programme we also made sure to include a full day of seminars. On seminar days there were no harinams or rathayatras, it was a day set aside where our special guests would give seminars to the padayatris and there would be kirtanas in the evening. The seminars emphasized ‘the meaning of rathayatras’ and ‘the importance of making good impressions on the public”
For the past couple of years, we have been trying to focus on maintaining a good service attitude during our padayatras. The idea is that everyone is invited to join the padayatra and is encouraged to render even a simple service. In this way we can all cooperate to please Srila Prabhupada and make our padayatra a joyful and inspiring event –where we have opportunities to serve the people, to serve each other and to serve Guru parampara and Lord Jagannath.
Pandava Nirjala Ekadasi
During the padayatra, we observed the ‘Pandava Nirjala Ekadasi’. It was an interesting experience that, such a special day occurred while we were conducting intensive preaching programmes and travelling long distances. We travelled very far that day by bus, stopping at one rest house then travelling to another which was literally on the other side of the country. We spent the day chanting the holy names and many devotees also dry fasted; by the end of it, the padayatris were all tried yet blissful.
The last day
On the last morning of padayatra we traditionally do the acknowledgements and disclose the book distribution results. This year we also gave all the devotees a calendar featuring a photo of Jagannath, Baladev, and Subhadra and with the dates of the next padayatra Lithuania highlighted (June 13th to June 18th, 2017). We then encouraged the padayatris to write down three things they like about the padayatra and three things that could be improved on so we could develop the next festival to be even better than the last.
