PRABHUPADA's WORLD SANKIRTANA PARTY
Hamsaduta has really taken Prabhupada's desire for village-to-village preaching seriously, and not just in India. A letter from him arrived today telling Prabhupada that he has managed to purchase four Mercedes buses. Two of them are for use in India. The other two will be used in Germany, despite the current governmental difficulties in preaching there. Hamsaduta expects the buses, which are carrying thirty devotees each, to arrive in Vrindavana by April 1st.
With his letter Hamsaduta enclosed a flier advertising the impending traveling sankirtana program. The flier is intended to persuade devotees to join their party. It has a picture of the four buses across the top and begins with the following heading. PRABHUPADA's WORLD SANKIRTANA PARTY
"Entangled in temple life? Burned out on sankirtana? Then this new program is for you. Simply chanting and dancing and distributing Krishna prasadam." To further entice the devotees, it mentions that Srila Prabhupada has promised to travel with the party.
An attractive description of the recent tour of Gujarat is also given. His intention is to establish a regular overland bus route between Germany and India so that at all times of the year devotees will have the opportunity to participate in village-to-village preaching. The flier also mentions that a separate party under Gargamuni Swami is also now on its way to India with six Mercedes vans and thousands of dollars of preaching equipment.
Prabhupada was very happy to see the eagerness and enthusiasm with which Hamsaduta has applied himself to establish this preaching program. In his reply Prabhupada confirmed his intention to participate. "Yes, with great pleasure I will accompany and we shall go village to village. I have seen the pictures, and the buses look very nice. They appear costly.
"Satadhanya dasa is in Tokyo. He sent a report explaining how he is working along with Trivikrama Swami to rectify the problems that have arisen there due to Gurukripa Maharaja's traveling party. Although the Nama Hatta sankirtana party is enthusiastically collecting funds for the development of Mayapur, their questionable collecting techniques have caused a barrage of bad publicity. Satadhanya expressed his feelings that some professional public relations efforts will be required in order to restore our good standing with the Japanese immigration department.
Satadhanya also mentioned that he and Trivikrama would like to open a temple in the city center. Until now, no real attempt has been made to establish a permanent center and recruit Japanese devotees. At present we have only one Japanese brahmacari; but meanwhile Christian groups report very good results in recruiting local people. Srila Prabhupada wrote back encouraging him to try to rectify our position. He said that Trivikrama Swami is "well expert" in Japanese dealings, and if Gurukripa Swami is not needed there, he may be sent to Bangladesh.
Reference: Transcendental Diary Volume 1 by Hari Sauri Dasa
Recently Added
Trending Today