By Parasuram das
I entered a nationwide cookery competition run by Britain’s number one tv station. The winner would get £20,000 and their prep would end up on the supermarket shelves. I went through all the cook books before I realised that nothing compares to a good kitchari. I entered with “Poor Man’s Feast Fit For a King”.
They loved it. I showed them pictures of us doing our famous “Feed the 5000” projects with Boris Johnson, London’s Mayor, and the Bishop of London helping to serve the food to the masses.
They came to film four times, all day, filmed a whole morning programme, Harinam, cooking our usual prasadam for 900 people daily, how we secure all our opulent bhoga and even interviewed the homeless people about what they thought about the “Poor Man’s Feast”. One old stereo-type tramp, complete with broken shoes and crusty clothes was interviewed – I had never talked to him before and the first thing he said was “It is essential that people eat karma free food that has been offered to Lord Krishna”. Wow, you never know who you are serving.
Yesterday we were invited to Knebworth House for the judging. There were 50 contestants and a celebrity judge, Lloyd Grossman (of course I had no idea who he was as I live under a stone). Did we win? No but he loved the prasad and we spent the interview discussing spiritual life. He spoke about when he was young he would eat our food at the festivals. We performed kirtan for the show and then took a tour of the grounds which included a dinosaur park.
BRAVO! Great Preaching!
Prasadam distribution is a royal way in making Krishna, as well as His devotees, loved by all.
It is a clever way, as well, to use the media and existing programs to make friend with people and popularize what we’re doing…
Congratulations once again
Yours in service
Puskaraksa das
Lovely article. I’m sorry you didn’t win the competition, but it is almost better this way. To read an article about how your kitcheree unexpectedly took first prize would be nice, but would be less interesting somehow. This way, it shows how your real victory was to perform your service nicely without consideration of winning or not winning the prize. You made nice contacts and good impressions.
Not everybody is going to surrender to Krishna overnight. Not everyone will shave up and move into a temple the first time the see a Harinama party. We cannot be discouraged but have to keep on with our own practice and our own example and people will come to respect Krishna consciousness and what it has to offer. They will see that there are devotees steadily going on chanting and worshiping and lecturing and discussing the books, and eventually they will come to appreciate what makes the other devotees so attracted to performing this sankirtan yajna.