Hilo Hawaii Rathayatra
By Jagaddhatri devi dasi

Hare Krsna! With so much 'bad' news, devotees will be happy to hear that little Hilo Hawaii celebrated its 3rd Annual Rathyatra last Friday (August 4th). Every year the town of Hilo hosts "the Festival of the Pacific,” which includes a parade. We just hook right into it.

This year we carried a banner proclaiming Vaisanava India; directly behind we had a beautiful hand sewn in Orissa 3'x3' picture of Lord Jagannatha (we have no large Lord Jagannatha Deities here on the Big Island).

Perhaps because Hilo is heavily populated with 2nd and 3rd generation Japanese and Chinese, the people are very receptive to the 'unusual ' form of Lord Jagannatha, and smiled and waved at us as we chanted the holy name.

(In fact it is not unusual to see Deity forms of Ganesh and Lord Brahma on little altars in the smaller shops here).

Perhaps what makes our Rathyatra so unique is the 'make-up' of the devotees participating. We had disciples of Srila(s) Prabhupada, Govinda, Narayana, Puri, Siddhaswarupa, ISKCON gurus, etc. I am sure that Lord Chaitanya was pleased to see the glorification of Lord Jagannatha going on, with no 'politics' intruding!

We distributed peanuts and raisins along with an invitation to a "Bhakti Yoga" discourse and vegetarian Feast after the parade. Ten people came, and heard kirtan lead by Rebitanandan, and a talk by Pancali devi dasi who came from Kauai. The feast was cooked by Stritama devi dasi and Khandita devi dasi and was one of those 'old ISKCON" types with incredible subji's, puris, pakoras, simply wonderfuls etc.

The devotees were happy to have the opportunity to participate in this bit of Harinam, and we invite any Prabhuji's who would like to attend next year to get in touch with us here. (We are shooting for a real cart next year-hopefully Lord Jagannatha will manifest one!)

Aloha and Hare Krsna!

Your servant, Jagaddhatri devi dasi

© CHAKRA 12-August-2000

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