By Mayapurvasi dasa and Asim Gaura dasa
Annually for the past thirty-five years the Vraja-mandala Parikrama in Kartika masa has been organized by our spiritual master, Lokanath Maharaja. Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 pandemic the government did not permit the event in 2020, but by Radharani’s mercy the 2021 parikrama went ahead.
The All-India padayatris always travel to Vrindavan for the parikrama and our utsava deities of Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar are parikrama’s principal deities, making it seem the participants are performing parikrama with Lord Chaitanya and Lord Nityananda. Meanwhile our chariot with the bigger Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar is usually kept at the ISKCON temple nearest to padayatra’s location for the duration of parikrama.
Last year was special for ISKCON because it was the 125th anniversary of Srila Prabhupada’s appearance. When the AIP reached Vrindavan just before parikrama began we parked the chariot in the courtyard of the Sri Sri Krishna-Balaram temple. As people entered the temple gate our most merciful Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar were there to welcome them and steal the hearts of those taking Their darshan. People were automatically pulled towards Them and many would ask us, “Who are these Lords? We are seeing Them for the first time.” During Kartika so many devotees come to Vrindavan dhama. It’s like a big get-together for them. They would come to us and say, “Oh! you have come to our village. It’s so nice to see you and Their Lordships again.” People would take selfies with Their Lordships and the temple would be flooded with devotees, many of whom attended mangala arati and evening arati with us sitting and chanting in front of Their Lordships.
Mayapurvasi dasa
I’m very thankful to the All-India Padayatra, as well as Lokanath Maharaja and padayatra leader Acarya dasa because they gave me the seva of pujari in padayatra. By the blessings of Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar, I became the pujari of Krishna-Balaram Vrindavan. All our programmes were running according to the temple schedule, from mangala arati to sandhya arati. By the blessings of Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar, I also served in the Krishna-Balaram temple deity kitchen. There used to be six plates of bhoga for the temple and the seventh used to be ours. The temple pujaris gave me many seva and I was given the opportunity to arrange the bhoga nicely, and with that I was considering myself very fortunate. The pujaris also did a lot of seva for our Nitai-Gaurasundar, making various dishes and offering them. The head of flower decoration, Srila Prabhupada disciple Govinda mataji, also used to make beautiful garlands for the Lord. In Kartik month devotees used to come, take darshan and many photos. People would appreciate padayatra and Prabhupada and looking at them it seemed that they wanted to speak about Prabhupada. I use to tell them, “If you speak, then he will talk to you also.” After saying this, I then told them about Prabhupada. In the evening during arati, many devotees would come and dance and there was a lot of pleasure.
Asim Gaura dasa
“If you want to experience the real nectar, then go on padayatra.” I heard this in 2017 when the All-India Padayatra was in Vrindavan after completing its sixth round of India.
Here are a few realizations after spending the month of Kartik in Vrindavan’s Krishna-Balaram temple along with our chariot. About 60 per cent of devotees and non-devotees I met were so excited and blissful having had darshan of Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar in Their chariot, because padayatra had visited their state, city, village (and even their home) where an ISKCON temple doesn’t exist.
One devotee family has an intimate relationship with padayatra. When padayatra was visiting their village near Rameshwar, suddenly the householder received news that his father had passed away due to old age. I gave him the deity prasad and garland and that day he took a flight to offer the garland for his father. So here we can understand that nehabhikrama-nasho ’sti pratyavayo na vidyate svalpam apyasya dharmasya trayate mahato bhayat – even if a little service is done for the Lord, the Lord takes care of that person. Because padayatra had visited his village and they did harinama sankirtan and other devotional activity, so Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar blessed him with Their offered garland at the time of death. All glories to our merciful Lord.
A devotee from Andhra Pradesh had come near our chariot along with his family. This man was crying in front of Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar. I approached him and asked the reason. He said, “Once this padayatra came to my home. At that time my financial condition was so bad that I could not feed my family but still I collected 1 lakh rupees and a kitchen trolley was made with that money. Padayatra leader Acarya dasa had seen my condition and he forced me to take 10,000 rupees and start a small business to maintain my livelihood. But I denied. Finally, Acarya said, ‘You can return it to padayatra later.’ Then I accepted. Now I have established my business and I have also engaged my family in devotional life. It’s all the mercy of Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar and Acarya that my family and I are having our daily meal.”
All-India padayatra, ki jai
We also distributed books in Vrindavan. We explained the significance of padayatra to the new people who came to us with enquiries, many saying they had never seen these Lordships. We would then explain to them the reason behind the advent of Gaura-Nitai.
We had a wonderful experience at Kartika and were blessed to be in the shelter of Sri Sri Krishna-Balaram. We got the association of many senior devotees and darshan of many sanyasis.
Vrindavan dhama, ki jai.
