ISKCON Halifax

Writ­ten by Bhak­tin Heidi

Once again last minute travel plans were tossed into place so I could have the asso­ci­a­tion of devo­tees from far and wide at the 2011 Fes­ti­val of India on Toronto’s beau­ti­ful Cen­tre Island.This fes­ti­val his­tor­i­cally cel­e­brates the jour­ney that Lord Jagan­nath, Lord Balarama and Lady Sub­hadra take together to their aunt’s tem­ple. This is the only time of the year that the deities are taken out of the tem­ple and paraded on lav­ishly dec­o­rated char­i­ots down city streets. Rath Yatra is cer­tainly a great time to strengthen and deepen one’s ser­vice and devo­tion and to aid one in their quest for spir­i­tual advance­ment. There are so many great things I could say about this past week­end but if I was to focus on the high­lights it would be the fol­low­ing: I was very pleased that I was able to see and be of ser­vice to my future spir­i­tual mas­ter His Holi­ness Bhak­ti­marga Swami and it was also an honor forme to meet Her Grace Malati Devi Dasi. I deeply admire Malati for her ser­vice, espe­cially where female devo­tees are con­cerned. She was worked tire­lessly for spir­i­tual equal­ity and has given so much sup­port to women who are serv­ing in ISKCON. Meet­ing Malati could not have come at a bet­ter time as dur­ing the fes­ti­val I dis­cov­ered the impor­tance of sis­ter­hood within the female ashram. I had the oppor­tu­nity to recon­nect with some female devo­tees that I had met pre­vi­ously and had the chance to deepen my rela­tion­ship with them. I also got to meet some new faces and future god­sis­ters whose kind­ness, strength and humil­ity left an ever­last­ing impres­sion on me. By hav­ing the asso­ci­a­tion of these won­der­ful devo­tees, I can see that there is an impor­tant place for women in ser­vice and by work­ing con­struc­tively with the greater com­mu­nity we can all equally please Krishna with our devo­tional activities.

- Bhak­tin Heidi July 23, 2011

Tags: affection, appreciation, bhagavad-gita, bhaktimarga swami, consciousness, Devotion, freedom, gratitude, halifax meditation, happy family, hare krishna, india, iskcon halifax, kirtan, personal, ratha yatra, self realization, Srila Prabhupada, theatre, vegetarian, warmth, yoga

This year our event­ful sum­mer cal­en­dar will be tak­ing all the res­i­dents of our ashram on a tour through­out Canada and across to India. There­fore, our reg­u­lar pro­grams will be post­poned from July, 2010 until our return in April, 2011.

That means that we have only two Sun­day gath­er­ings left: June 20th and June 27th. The last Sun­day of the month (June 27th), we will again have Bhak­ti­marga Swami as our spe­cial guest. For this event we will return to 5663 Corn­wal­lis Street so that we can have more space for chant­ing, danc­ing and veg­e­tar­ian feast­ing. There will also be a the­atre per­for­mance by the vis­it­ing Swami and his troup.

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