News from Slovenia
Here in Ljubljana many wonderful things had happened last year. We had wonderful Padayatra and after that Slo Yatra – camp in the mountains on which we had great mercy and we all felt very inspired. There were a few olders devotees who were away for some time but after atending Yatra they are all coming back. Lomancita Prabhu still has a few loans to pay back but after he is very determant to again join full time in the mission of lord Caitanya.
On Padayatra we were for the first time doing sankirtan in dhotis and it was supprisingly good. Than we decided to continue in this way. We also lowered the prices of the books to double BBT only and results were over all expectations. We started to distribute 3 or 4 times more than before.
Then all devotees in the Slovenian Yatra became enlivened so they also wanted to join in the nectar of book distribution. Many devotees ocasionaly started to go out with Srila Prabhupada's books. The atmosphere was growing so we decided that we will have four weeks Marathon in december! Although we were only three full time sankirtan devotees still everyone wanted to join. Although all of us have not many experiances still we went through some quick sankirtan courses and then completely dependent on our merciful Panca Tattva went out. It was like distributing musical instruments to a group of people and then decide – now we will have a concert. Amaizingly we all played nicely together. All devotees went over their abilities. Specially those who are not distributing books full time. It was not just for fun here and there but for four weeks, six days a week from morning till evening. Hard work, big purification, a lot of struggle, a lot of mercy and supreme bliss – all in one. All devotees became like intoxicated, speaking only about book distribution. And Ananta Prabhu was interweving devotees dayly and sending on internet conferences so all devotees in Slovenia and abroad were breathing the sankirtan. We had TSKP group of four devotees. Jyotirmaya Prabhu blessed us with his association and joined us for four weeks in Maribor(second biggest city) and from the temple around 10 devotees went out regularly. Lalit Govinda Prabhu was leading the temple troops out and Ananta Prabhu was doing everything from serving prasadam, countig laxmi, coordinating other services… so that all devotees could go freely out. It was really Vaikuntha atmosphere. Every day there was transcendental competition bettween Maribor and Ljubljana group. And then last week of the Marathon many congregational devotees also joined so that all together 34 devotees participated in Srila Prabhupada Marathon 2004 and many more participated in Sastra Dana Program. Last week all congregational devotees encouraged each other to chant an extra round of the maha-mantra with the meditation on book distributors, praying to Krishna to engage them in distribution of mercy. Practically all country was meditating on book distribution. A few oldery matajis who could not go out were making small packets of cookies for distribution. So every distributor would have along with books also cookies. So when they would take a book, we would give one packet of prasadam along. And even if they would not take the book we would give them prasadam and wish them all good. This was melting people's hearts. Many started to appologoze, went inside and brought some chocolate, fruits, laxmi… some even change their minds and took the book. And we were all in Vaisnava dress so sankirtan became very sweet.
Last day was Christmass Saturday. Morning time we still went out and in the evening there was a Sankirtan Festival. We had one special guest from Italy – Guru Caran Prabhu, TP of Prabhupadades, who also just came from the marathon. There was maha-kirtan, devotees' realizations, sankirtan lilas, score reading for the pleasure of Srila Prabhupada and Sri Sri Panca Tattva, special gifts for all participants and of course maha-prasadam feast. We distributed 413 SB and Bg and 3099 other big hard books plus 137 from Sastra Dana, together 3649 books. These are first five:
1 Vasudeva Datta das 573
2 Jyotirmaya das 500
3 Bh.Joze 431
4 Lalit Govinda das 227
5 Bh. Andrej 212
Maybe in some other country this amount of books one single devotee could distribute. But still we did our best. In the TSKP we were every morning listening to your lectures during the prasadam and then went out till late evening. Sometimes durring the day if we would have a hard time we would remember some inspiring words and we would "Keep on Going".
We also attended sankirtan festival in Germany on which around 250 sankirtan devotees came from all over Europe. There were also many guests like Sacinandana Swami, Bhaktivaibhava Swami, Ravindra Svarup Prabhu, Krsna-ksetra Prabhu, Manidar Prabhu, Mahadyuti Prabhu. They were all happy that sankirtan in Europe is going on. And with other devotees we also had a lot of fun, sharing realizations and wild kirtans. Chech devotees are also thinking to start sankirtan in dhotis, at least door to door. We all got encoragement from Italian Maha-ratha Anaka-dundhubi Prabhu, who is for many years the top distributor in the world and he is doing in dhoti.
