By Dayal Mora Dasa, Padayatra organiser
Padayatra is such an excellent way to reach the public and show that the Hare Krishnas really practice what they preach. As a mobile temple, Padayatra simultaneously preaches harinama sankirtana, book distribution, prasadam distribution, deity worship, cow protection and the lifestyle of ‘simple living and high thinking’ in harmony with nature and the supreme will of Krishna. The use of the bullocks will attract so many people, especially children, maximizing our impact on the innocent public.
I became inspired about putting on this Padayatra for the 50th year of ISKCON after learning about how Parashuram Prabhu performs Padayatra every year in Vraja during kartik. I was fortunate enough to travel with Para Prabhu last year and worked alongside him for the month of kartik whereby we circumambulated the whole of Vraja with oxcart, distributing tons of prasadam and thousands of books. I became very inspired by the positive impact of this style of preaching and realised how important it is to perform a Padayatra for the pleasure of Srila Prabhupada in this landmark year. It’s a fact that Srila Prabhupada called for millions of oxcarts to perform padayatra all over the world (letter to Nityananda das, 6th March 1976) and it was our Founder-Acharya’s last wish also to do parikrama around Govardhana Hill on an oxcart.
In light of these instructions, Lokanatha Swami has called for 50 padayatra’s worldwide this year for the 50th anniversary, and so this event would contribute as one of those 50. Its a great opportunity to gain the blessings and recognition of the international ISKCON community for the UK’s progressive preaching spirit. As you are no doubt aware, Parashuram Prabhu has been dealing with bulls and bullocks with oxcart in India and elsewhere for 35 years and is surely one of the most experienced devotees in ISKCON when it comes to dealing with bullock cart. In his own language, in all those years he has a ‘clean record’ with no accidents, not with bulls and not with people.
We have named this Padayatra, for the sake of publicity to the mass of people ‘A Pilgrimage for Peace’. We will be emphasising the theme of cow protection, self-sufficiency, a simple way of life in tune with nature and the will of the Lord, and love for all living entities. We will no doubt attract the attention of the local media and in this way reach out to countless people through this event,
Myself and Ragunatha Bhatta Prabhu have twice travelled together to the south coast to map out the proposed route. I am working with him because he also has many years of experience with padayatra as he was part of the original team that performed padyatra around Ireland, the UK and Europe with Parasuram. Over three days we drove the route, surveyed the lay out of the land as it were, calculated the distances, arranged places to stay for us and the bulls at night, looked for places where we can break for lunch, interacted with local devotees who will support us with logistics, prasadam
and so on.
So in summary the planned route is from Hastings to Brighton via Eastbourne which is a sum total of under 40 miles which will be walked by us over a period of 5 days, which averages out at 8 miles a day, with a maximum of 10 miles in any one day. We will begin the walk on Monday the 30th May and finish in Brighton on Friday the 3rd June. The weather at this time of year is usually very mild, Brighton having a decent climate by UK standards. The walking will be from the morning at 10am after the morning rush and we will be going at a pace suitable for everyone, including the bullocks. There is no hurry as the proposed daily distance is easily covered at a leisurely pace. Even if we walk at only 3 miles an hour with an hour break for lunch the distance will be covered by the afternoon without any difficulty. The land across the coast is mostly flat between Hastings Eastbourne and the winding and gently sloping hills which we will encounter between Eastbourne and Brighton will not present any problem for the bullocks.
We will have a core team of 8-10 devotees full time with us, all with experience in this kind of outdoor lifestyle, and three, most notably Para, with specific expertise in oxcart Padayatra. Everyone is welcome to come and walk with us during the days and join in the harinama.
Hare Krishna!
Contact : Dayal Mora Dasa « dayalmoradas#gmail.com (please replace # with @) » Tel : 0207-437-3662
