And it was hard. Really hard. And none of us were really aware of how bad it was going to be. What went wrong? Just the weather. It was a nice hot 40 C in Melbourne ! And we reckon that the temperature within the tent reached 45 C atleast. Maybe 48 ! Second, it was Ekadashi and third, we had to provide food to thousands of starving teens, almost non-stop from 9:30am – 9:30pm. The event pulled in 52,000 youngsters and 1400 spectators were treated for heat related illness.
They could have said, "Hari bol !!!!" **
But we gave everything we got. We cooked and served with a smile ! Why do we give all our energy on a tough Sunday like this when most prefer to stay at home? Because Prabhupad said so !
Go and chant Hare Krsna and give them food. They are hungry. Then it will be successful. Chant Hare Krsna, let them come and dance with you, and give them prasadam. They are hungry. It will be success. It is not difficult at all. That was Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s preaching to the mass of people. — Bhagavad-gita 7.3 -Nairobi, October 29, 1975:
“We are after God, that’s all, we are servants of God. So preach like this, very simply, and hold sankirtana widely all over the city, and distribute prasadam profusely, especially to the young people and the students, and everything will be increasingly successful more and more.” — letter to Danavir, 2 August 1972
“The rich man should distribute prasadam through Krsna consciousness to the poor man, and the poor man should not be envious of the rich man. Then there will be happiness and prosperity. Not that to form the political party and to become envious.” — Lecture on Bhagavad-gita 4.22 – Bombay, April 11, 1974
“Just like feeding the poor. It is also yajna. But the same thing, if it is dovetailed in consciousness, that becomes perfect. People are very much inclined to feed the poor with sumptuous food, but it can be done in a little different way, that the foodstuff offered to Visnu, prasada, that distribution foodstuff is better than ordinary distribution of foodstuff. Ordinarily, that is punya, pious activities, but when it is connection with Krsna, this is called yajna. Dravya-yajna. To distribute food and cloth, that is called dravya-yajna, but yajna can be said when it is done, dovetailing the activities with Krsna consciousness. That is yajna.” — Lecture Bhagavad-gita 4.28 – Bombay, April 17, 1974
**Inserted Photo from the online version of the newspaper THE AGE. This image and more images can be seen at this link at theage.com.au
9 Days, 8 Nights 