By Zayani Bhatt
Hundreds of devotees from far and wide congregated at Bhativedanta Manor for a recitation of the Bhagavat Gita by the temple’s Managing Director HG Gauri Das and insightful commentary by His Holiness Sivarama Swami on Sunday 20th December.
The devotional and ardent recitation of the Holy Scripture and a Gita yagna was to celebrate Gita Jayanti; the day Lord Shri Krishna spoke the Bhagavat Gita 5154 years ago.
His holiness Sivarama Swami summarised each chapter in a beautiful, clear and succinct manner, communicating the core knowledge withheld in each, after which Gauri Das, along with the audience, read the Sanskrit shlokas of the chapter. As the temple president, Srutidharma Das explained; “Sivarama Swami’s presence today is auspicious because he started the first Gita Jayanti at the Manor in 1996 when there were just over 100 devotees present and today there are over 700 people in the temple with another 400 watching online on Mayapur TV.”
Indeed the atmosphere was reverential and excited as Sivarama Swami encouraged listeners to bring the teachings of the Gita into their lives. He explained that “Higher than reading the Gita, is understanding the Gita. Higher than understanding the Gita is living the Gita and higher than living the Gita is giving the Gita.” Endeavouring to do so, the temple set a target of distributing 100,000 books as a part of Srila Prabhupada’s book distribution month. All the assembled devotees were thrilled to hear Srutidharma Prabhu announce that they had already reached 75,000 books.
The Gita is now the second most distributed book in the world.