Preparations are in full swing for this year’s Polish Woodstock festival — renamed the Pol’and’Rock festival. Two and half million young people are expected. Our devotees are busy setting up our famous “Krsna’s Village Of Peace.” Devotees are arriving from Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Croatia, Macedonia, France, Germany and a number of other countries. It’s the 25th year of the Pol’and’Rock festival and the whole area is buzzing with activity. Many people are arriving early and all of them are asking when we’ll start our food ( prasadam ) distribution. We’re almost ready — most of the 48 tons of foodstuffs we’ll use to distribute approximately 160,000 plates of prasadam has arrived. And our kirtan tent is ready to resound with the holy names day and night. A massive maha yajna is about to begin. I have no doubt the demigods are also arriving in their flower airplanes!
A few days ago our parikrtama party visited Radha Kunda, the most sacred place in the universe. We approached Srimati Radharanis kunda with all the humility we could muster and bathed in the sacred waters. We also listened to a discourse on Radha Kundas glories and relished kirtan and prasadam afterwards.
The Village of Champakalata and the Samadhi of Vrajranabh
A few days ago we visited Kharala, the village of Champakalata, one of Srimati Radharani’s 8 special girlfriends. Full of cows, buffalo’s, peacocks and other animals, it very much resembled the Vrindavan many of us first came to in the early 1970’s. We all relished hearing of Champakalata’s unique transcendental qualities and her service to Vrindavan’s queen. Afterwards we visited the samadhi of Vrajranabh, the great grandson of Krsna, who installed a number of Deities of Krsna around Vrindavan, soon after the Lord’s departure for Goloka, 5,000 years ago.
The other day as part of our Kartika parikrama 2019 we visited Chir Ghat, where the playful pastime of Krsna stealing the clothes of the gopis took place. The nearby village was enchanting and the spiritual atmosphere of Chir Ghat was overwhelming. We discussed the pastimes that took place there and chanted in bliss with Bada Haridas prabhu. I would say that Chir Ghat is a must see for all Gaudiya Vaisnavas who want to go deeper into understanding the science of Bhakti — loving devotion for the Supreme Lord.
During Kartika our parikrama party visited Jaipur, deep in the desert of Rajasthan, where we took darshan of Radha Govinda, the worshipable deities of Srila Rupa Goswami. Each morning thousands of citizens run to the temple for arotika and sing praises of the deities for hours. Many return to the temple in the evening as well. Radha Govinda are literally the center of people’s lives in Jaipur. The devotion of the citizens towards the deities is contagious! We also visited the historic deities of Radha Gopinath, Radha Damodar and Radha Vinode. On our final day, we went to Amer Fort on the outskirts of the city. There we had an enthusiastic kirtan for all to see! We look forward to one day again visiting the famous, City Of Victory!