Wednesday, July 23, 2008

The Twelve Month Sandwich


In effort to compete with Sabjimata Mata and Kurma Prabhu's delicious prasadam blogs I hearby submit our twelve month sandwich. There are five main cooks who are always involved. The first one is Gaurachandra and on His right side stands Nitaichand and His left side stands Gadadhara. Nearby cooking is Advaita and Srinivas is holding the spatula. Sweet Mrdanga sauce is mixed in with spicy kartals accompanied with side orders of conch and bells. All the demigods headed by Lord Brahma line up to get an opportunity to relish this sandwich. In fact the flavor of this sandwich conquers the flavor of millions upon millions of curd sabjis. Lord Shiva, Sukadeva Goswami, and Narada Muni are all there and are choked in ecstacy to get but just a taste.

This sandwich is what we have had the pleasure to honor for the past twelve months. The ISKCON sandwich. During Srila Prabhupada's time he established a program of spiritual purification by which one can make steady progress in Krishna Consciousness. It was nicknamed the ISKCON sandwich, a Krishna Conscious Program of bhajan, kirtan, artik and class every morning and every evening. Many devotees eager to rapidly expand Krishna Consciousness asked Srila Prabhupada if it were ok to miss the evening program in the event of late evening book distribution and other such outreach functions. However when such late activities were decreased also the habit of returning back to regular programs in the evening waned. Instead of live chanting during the Gaura Artik more often it would be found that there was simply a tape playing. This one slice sandwich was not enough to fill up the spiritual staved soul therefore the devotees decided to return to the healthy diet of the double slice, Mangal mustard, Gaura Artik greens and a class ever few days for proper nutrition.

We have seen many health benefits to this diet given by Srila Prabhupada. Even our restaurant customers are finding new energy in their spiritual attraction. Before, in the evening, if they ventured into the temple they were greeted only by an electronic kirtan, hardly enough to encourage one to start singing with full lungs. But now we are serving the real organic kirtan, fresh from the hearts of the devotees. And as they say local is more healthy, these local lungs are inspiring to hear for all who enter. So whether you are at home, at the gym, watching TV, or out on book distribution make sure to get some daily doses of the ISKCON sandwich. Thank you
Hare Krishna
Your humble servant,
Nityananda Chandra Das

* for an actual translation of the Gaura Artik song click here.

2 comments:

Devadeva Mirel said...

This is good. For a minute I thought you were going to give the recipe for "Temple Sandwich." But of course not, you guys have a great restaraunt and do not have to revert to sticking an eggplant pakora between 2 slices of bread (or 2 pooris!) with some salad and dressing.

Kiba Jaya!!!

Devadeva Mirel said...

sandwiches..mmm.