Every year during Karttik, the month of mercy, I get an opportunity to share some the wisdom and culture of Krishna Consciousness with many students. "When it rains, It pours" does not only describe the weather in Dallas during this time of year, but is also a good description the large groups of students that come during this time of year. Every year during this time, without fail, hundreds upon hundreds of students visit the temple. Some are from colleges, some are from high schools, some are from churches, and elementary students as well.
Two weeks ago I taught a total of about 200 high school students of Rockwall High about Krishna Counsciousness. Starting from first class at 8:30am to the last class ending at 4pm. Then this week I taught 30 students from another public high school, Brewers High.
[Here is a student proudly showing her copy of the Science of Self Realization that picked up from Bhaktin Angela at the Warped Tour back in July. She was very happy to see the devotees.]
[CHECK OUT # 5!]
[Students getting books]
[Students visiting the temple from Brewers High School. ]
Hare Krishna
Your humble servant,
Nityananda Chandra Das
No I am not talking about Thanksgiving, Christmas, or even Hanukkah. Every year during the months of October and November, particularly the Karttik Season our temple is inundated with guests who come for their college, high school, and church youth group projects. For example in a 2 week period during that time I had spoken with over 200 students about the philosophy of Krishna Consciousness. We find that this phenomena happens during the same time every year. Hundreds upon hundreds of students come in droves to learn about Krishna, it is quite exciting. Throughout the many years, the teachers of such students have developed very nice relationships with the devotees and have also developed appreciation of the temple as a whole. Some teachers have been bringing their students in every year to this temple for projects from as late as 1969. This undoubted goes a credit for Srila Prabhupada and many of his sincere disciples, such as His Holiness Tamal Krishna Goswami, who developed this temple. The temple is replete with gorgeous Rajasthani style paintings of Krishna's pastimes painted by the famous artist BG Sharma. The serene restaurant with its beautiful courtyard, granite top tables, and amazing international buffet attracts visitors from all across the land. I have been asked before how is it that we have such nice programs for guests at out temple Why are so many guests coming on a regular basis. My answer was that I have nothing to do with it. All the blood, sweat, and tears have been spent long before I ever came here. My only duty is to teach the guests about Krishna, the manificent facility that attracts many to learn about Krishna is a result of Srila Prabhupada fervent devotion and the devotion of his dear disciples. This photo we are with Professor David Brantley. He teaches a religion class for students of a presigious Episcopalian High School. He brings students from Canterbury High School every year for our major festivals such as Govardhana Puja, and Rama Navami. Lat year I taught a Bhagavad Gita class to two classes of students, these students had come to the temple prior to our trip to their school so they were very excited. One teacher even had to stop her class because her students had an intense desire to also attend the Bhagavad Gita Class. As a result of the class apparently one the students became vegetarian.
with Prasadam smiles
Prior our class he asked us to harinam in the hallways. Before the harinam every was fed delicious prasadam from Kalachandji's restaurant as well. So this year as well all the the students were anxious. Some had the opportunity a week earily to attend with their teacher our Govardhana Puja festival, which sported the 8ft long carob cake of Govardhana Hill. The festival this year was attended by more than 50 students. There were students from SMU, TCU, Moutain View CC, Canterbury High and more. The festival was absolutely amazing and therefore when we came to their school all the students were totally elated. Hare Krishna Your humble servant, Nityananda Chandra Das
ps. to read about a wonderful elementary school Krishna Conscious program we did last year click here
On March 29, Mother Jayanti and the other teachers at the TKG Academy organized a spring cleaning. TKG Academy is the local gurukula for the Dallas Hare Krishna community.
Many of the parents and former students came out to help.
Mother Jayanti and Gopi Gita organizing the storage shed.
Rupanuga Prabhu, and gurukulis digging a ditch
Madan Gopal clearing dirt from under the bridge
Moving the dirt. Vraja Kishor and Pradyumna
More digging
Gopi Gita and Fatima spreading the mulch
Pritha was saving the worms that were uncovered while digging. Vraja Kishor and Nitai Pran helped out too.
Having fun. Saksi in the left picture. Kaliya in the right.
Nadia got into the action as well.
Thanks to everyone that came out to help! There were more people than just those in these pictures.
400 Sari and Kurta clad youth all chanting the holy names of Krishna. With arms upraised with surcharged shouts of 'Haribol!!!', these youth beaconed the decent of Hari Nam Prabhu. Who are they? Reincarnations of great yogis, mystics, and bhaktas? Who is to say? But one thing we do know is that for these youth it was their first time doing this at least in this lifetime.
Professor Hill principle of Stonewall Elementary School had called me a week ago. He asked me if I could arrange a Vedic music performance and dance performance at his elementary school on Friday. He also asked if this could be done for free. I replied that I would be glad to help him out. I also mentioned that I may have some difficulty finding some Bharatnatyam dancers for most the ones I know charge some money. He mentioned that his concern was that they had also a good number of deaf students, so my reply was that we would make it interactive and fun. This call and his second call took place while I was in the hospital tending to my wife who just gave birth and was recovering. Little overwhelmed with lack of sleep and lots of duties I did not notice that his email never made it to my inbox. I had several other letters from teachers, but none from his school. This was a problem for I could not remember his name, the name of his school, or where it was even. Krishna, being the source of memory(BG15.15 & 7.8) had mercy and therefore, not luckily but mercifully, my memory did not totally fail me. He received my contact info from a devotee who teaches sitar lessons. The devotee was also requested by him to perform and in response the devotee told him that he does not do live performances, he simply teaches. That devotee kindly gave the professor my number and in my time of trouble he also kindly looked through his caller ID to find the number that the principle called from.
The next challenge was our kirtan party was only two devotees, Bhakta Richie
and myself, due to this last minute arrangement. In a great search we became Harinam Hunters, strapped on our ecstasy detecting goggles, looking for the prospective devotees . Finally when we had given up and began driving towards the freeway we passed by Megharupa's house who is usually accompanied by Kumari Devi dasi. Kartals in hand they both enthusiastically agreed and hoped in car on the way Stonewall Elementary. When we arrived we were pleasurably surprised to see all the kids wonderful dressed in Indian attire. Replete with elegant saris, punjabi suits, kurtas, and yogi pants. All the teachers we as well dressed in eternal fashion. We started with a bhajan with harmonium, introducing ourselves and the instruments. We asked the students to guess how long mrdangas have been in use, some said 60 years, some said 200, one soul said 1000. They were surprised when we told them that the mrdanga has been in use for at least 5000 years. We then asked them how many name are there for God in the Indian culture and again with great surprise we told them that the number was no less than 10,000. We then moved on to standing kirtan. We then asked if there were any brave souls in crowd who would like to participate in the dancing. About 40 kids ran up on stage to become the sankirtan party, including the deaf kids, which left a remaining 160 watching in the crowd.
We started with a dance lesson in Swami step and then call and response chanting. This can be seen in the video below. We then moved on to the Swami jump which they thoroughly enjoyed. After two sessions which make up a total of 400 participants we were then given a tour of their school. We were amazed with the decorations. They have been studying India for a week and had lined not just the hallways but the entire school with decorations of India heritage and culture. We thoroughly enjoyed this event hope that you also enjoy this post as well. Your humble servants, Nityananda Chandra Das Bhakta Richie Megharupa DD Kumari DD
