oldchakra.com

Gaura Purnima Festival Begins
From Tusti Mohan Krsna das

Dear Devotees

Please accept my most humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

March 12th (tonight) was the inauguration of the activities of Sri Gaurapurnima festival (516th anniversary of the appearance day of Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu and the 30th ISKCON Mayapur Festival).

The ceremony of lighting lamps was ecstatic and full of bliss, since very senior devotees were talking about their experiences and what Srila Prabhupada wanted with this festival and what are the expectations for the festival and the rest of the festivals.

Present at the opening ceremony were HH Jayapataka Swami, HH Lokanath Swami, HH Gopal Krsna Goswami, HH Giridhari Swami, HH Navayogendra Swami, HG Jananivas Prabhu, and HH Bhakti Purusottama Swami (festival coordinator).

All of them were talking about the importance of the festival and how Srila Prabhupada was pleased with this festival and wanted many VIP and world leaders to come to Mayapur and wanted that this festival would be the greatest, including the Mayapur and Vrindavan festivals. HH Lokanath Swami and HH Gopal Krsna Goswami spoke about the importance of improving and coordinating the Mayapur and Vrindavan festivals and how visiting devotees should assist to both holy cities in groups.

Lokanath Maharaja mentioned that HH Jayapataka Swami has never missed one festival for 30 years and thanked him for this great effort and the team of devotees from Mayapur. HH Giridhari Swami, as new GBC chairman, participated in lighting the lamps with other devotees and gave a speech encouraging devotees to participate more and more and make it always better.

Many stories were told, which we can post after few days,

HH Lokanath Swami did the arati to the Deities of Sri Sri Gaurnitai and Srila Prabhupada, A group of Sankirtan devotees leaded by Saci Kumar das performed the Kirtan.

Today morning (12-03-02) was the ceremony for presenting reports to their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Madhava by GBC members. The atmosphere was amazing since the everyone was addressing the Deities in a personal and humble way. I felt that Lord Madhava would talk and say, "Okay, thank you very much" or something similar. I will be sending pictures for the websites tomorrow.

Tomorrow another ceremony will be held with more senior devotees talking about the 30th anniversary of this festival and their experiences with Srila Prabhupada.

At 8:00 am (13-3-02) will be the Dwaja Arohana (raising the auspicious flag).

We are posting this news and pics on www.mayapur.info and www.oldchakra.com, so please visit these websites for more information.

Thanks to the great efforts of the devotees and webmasters (www.mayapur.info and www.oldchakra.com and Pamho.net) for making this festival well promoted and informing all the devotees about this festival, which has been very succesful till now, and we hope it will be better in the coming days, full of bliss and Krsna prema.

Your servant,

Tusti Mohan Krsna das