By Haricharan das
This month, all members, centres and temples of ISKCON all around the world celebrate World Holy Name Week; including the devotees in Bali. World Holy Name Week is a festival dedicated to the chanting of the holy names and includes various festivals like the anniversary of Srila Prabhupada’s arrival in the USA and especially this year, it is dedicated to the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium.
Sri Sri Jagannath Gauranga Ashram Harinam team from the ISKCON Temple in Denpasar (Bali’s provincial capital), regularly conduct harinams for this occasion. Beginning from the 17th to 26th of September, all the devotees went out to distribute the Holy Name, Mantra cards, Prasadam cookies and books to the general public in and around the city. Many people from Indonesia or from overseas come to Denpasar for work or leisure. Bali’s biggest traditional market; Pasar Badung, the public parks, the main streets and the Sanur resort area are the main places our harinam team covers. We also go to the Legian beach, the famous beach next to Kuta and Seminyak on the Western coast of the island.
The response from the public was very positive, as they joined in and chanted and danced and clapped and filled their stomach up with our cakes and pastries, freely distributed as Food For Life. Many took pictures of us or with us. One person said “please come again to this area. We are very thankful you came here. You have purified the town!”
For Sri Sri Jagannath Gauranga Ashram Harinam team, it is not World Holy Name Week anymore. It will be Holy Name Years as almost for the last three years, we have been doing harinam everyday! And more centres in Bali also do the same thing as this week, the harinam team from Nitai Gauranga Asrama, outside of Denpasar, also went out everyday doing harinam in market and village near their temple. Sri Sri Radha-Rasesvara Ashram also do harinam every weekend with many book distributors. They are very good in doing this. Sri Sri Radha-Madhava Ashram and Sri Sri Radha Kunjavihari Ashram also have the same program to go out chant and dance in the street in their area.
One devotee said, “ I just met my friend and she said she saw the harinam in the market and another day at the beach and also another day at a different place.” The devotees are everywhere now! Bali is being purified by the congregational chanting of the names of Lord Hari!
Sankirtan yajna Ki Jaya!
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