[PADA: Some of our Prabhupadanuga troopers attended this festival. A devotee said to PADA:
"It is amazing that some of these things are going on at all, all considered. We do not have the numbers, but we do have the absolute truth. Notice that there are more people chanting 'Jaya Prabhupada' these days, and not hardly ever -- the names of these bogus gurus, either at festivals or in the temples. We are winning."
True dat!
ys pd] angel108b@yahoo.com
GKD: They have this kind of staged Ratha Yatra also in European cities. It is not done by local devotees because there are none. They organize busses with imported devotees mainly from Eastern Europe / Asia and drive with them to a couple of important cities. It looks like Ratha Yatra but it is like a paid roadshow. So for the GBC it is very important to create that illusion of making the mass of people believe that there are strong Vaishnava congregations in every city and that the Hare Krishna movement is flourishing. So there is no point in actually organizing intelligent projects where people are joining and becoming devotees. They want people to stay where they are and simply donate like Prabhupada mentions the business of showing the deity. Prabhupada says that Lord Caitanya's movement is not like that. Rather it is to actually preach and bring people above the bodily platform and experience bhakti-rasa, ruci, anartha-nvritti, Krishna-sakti. Somehow the GBC doesn't want that. They are satisfied when people donate some money.
ReplyDelete[PADA: Yep, if the ritviks do not show up at San Francisco rathayatra, there are not enough people to pull the carts. hee hee. ys pd]