Friday, April 4, 2008

Saint Patrick's Day Parade 100,000 People

100,000 cheer on the Hare Krishna devotees as we Parade down Greenville Ave. Our 3 year participation in Dallas’ annual St. Patrick’s day parade was fantastic. The amount of devotees participating had multiplied each year. This year by the grace of the Lord and many of his dear devotees, such as Chaitanya Chandra Prabhu every one was graced with a beautiful float of Lord Jagannatha.



All the youth headed by GopiKrishna’s crew baked up together about 4000 cookies to be distributed along with Gaura Purnima Flyers.
She also purchased 7000 Krishna.com St. Patrick’s Day magnets for distribution.

Here we see Gopal Prabhu with Mathuranatha carrying one the buckets of prasadam candy to be packaged and passed out.
As you can see Mathuranatha Prabhu is a real “Texas Krishna”


Meanwhile Dharma Prabhu fuels up for afternoon's event,

Dharma Prabhu every year organizes the devotees participation in this annual city parade.
Bhaktine Angela, Radha Kunda, and GopiKrishna along with many other ladies prepare their baskets of prasadam to be passed out.

and Sakshi Gopal warms up on his mridanga
Our party consists of 2 cars, our brand new rental truck which was decorated with an elephant by Bhaktine Heather Simpson.


which is to pull Caitanya Candra cart Followed by another truck and trailer, Ragava Caitanya Prabhu's, full of prasadam candy, Krishna.com magnets, and Gaura Purnima flyers.

But as per the theme of the morning class, Jagannatha is in control and if he likes, he sometimes makes it so that the cart will not budge.

Our new rental truck that has practically no milage on it would not start. This major problem for the parade was already on the move and we may not be even able to participate. Help comes as some other paraders drive over to give us a jump start, but no success. Caitanya Chandra Prabhu immediately organizes the removal of the truck and brings his van, attaches the float, and all are ready to go. Everyone saw that this turn of events only took place at the arrival of our two sanyassi guests, His Holiness Gunagrahi Das Goswami, and His Holiness Giriraja Swami.

Krishna would not allow the float to move without their arrival. We then quickly zoomed across the Sam's parking lot in our float. The crowd is great and early into the parade our elephante headed truck returns on the scene after getting TWO battery changes. We a very impressive party with 3 cars. Rupa with all the gurukulis of Dallas along with the gurukulis of Houston share a wonderful kirtan sung by His Grace Urjasvat and Edhani Prabhus, Then new and upcoming famous bhajaneer from Houston, Anish, lead some amazing bhajans (who by the way just came out a new CD with all the Dallas and Houston Kulis) followed by the standard ecstasy given His Holiness Gunagrahi Das Goswami.




As seen the video, the crowd chanted Hare Krishna along with the devotees, many whom were already familiar with the timeless mantra and while other who chanted "Jesus Christ" were enthusiastically surprised to be accompanied in their chanting with the devotees chanting "Jesus Christ" as well. His Holiness Giriraja Swami walked and danced most the way. At the end of the parade the kirtan did not stop for quite some time. Devotees were immersed in the ecstasy holy name and further enthused by the thousands of flyers, magnets, and cookies that were distributed


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jaga said...
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