By bhakta Rob
Big Fire, Small Bucket Food For All Pedalyatra One Year On
Sometime last week, Pedalyatra passed the 2,000-mile mark. The solar anniversary of the beginning of our journey also came and went around the same time, although we are saving the modest celebrations for the tithi that the occasion falls upon ‘Nrisimha Caturdasi.
To be frank, it’s been an arduous and often lonely journey – I’m not with it enough to remember Krishna always! For a few weeks there were two of us, but for the rest of the time it’s just been me and my bike and trailer, and whoever I was lucky enough to bump into along the way. I sleep in bus shelters and doorways, bathing in public washrooms and the occasional river. It’s not everyone’s idea of fun.
Earlier this year, with the support of Parasurama Prabhu, we’ve transformed our “free-flowing” day-at-a-time programme into a concerted nama-hatta maintenance effort, complete with monthly schedule, 25 brand new groups and a 365-mile cycle circuit. It’s been a testing transition, trying to build routine into chaos, but the results have been quick to follow ‘newspaper articles, new devotees and even a live radio interview on BBC Somerset have all encouraged us to plod on, even if sometimes we find ourselves “preaching to the four walls”.
Actually, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the response. When we set out on this new venture, I was expecting that maybe in up to a half of the new group locations, we’d be waiting months before we saw anyone come – most of the towns we work in don’t even have any existing devotees living there’ – but in our first “lap” of the circuit, 67 visitors showed up in 19 locations, with only 6 no-show events. Of these 67 people, only 10 were existing devotees. The other 57 were newcomers. In true Food For All spirit, everyone is welcome, but we find nearly all of our guests are older, serious inquirers who’ve expressed an interest in going deeper.
At our programmes we chant Hare Krishna, read from the Gita, practice japa and take prasadam, so everyone gets a rounded experience, and a complete taste of what we’re about. We carry around a small electric hob that we can plug in at meeting halls to ccok simple one-pot preparations for our little Sri Sri Gaura Nitai Deities, such as halava and kichari (with spinach where possible, of course!). Unfortunately we can’t bring much in the way of musical instruments, but we have the trusty caratalas at hand and still manage to do some kirtan.
I’m no expert preacher. I know some simple points, and even my explanations of those leave a lot to be desired. My own faith in Krishna is still in its infancy and there’s a lot of room for improvement. The other day I was thinking that it’s a bit like facing a very big fire with a very small bucket. There’s a very strong mayavadi element in the region that I work in, and a very vocal sahajiya presence as well. Doing battle with these philosophies with my limited understanding is certainly a huge challenge, but it’s absolute nectar, and although I know I’m still working myself out, and developing my own conviction in the philosophy, I’m certain that this is the way to do it ‘get out there and preach, make mistakes maybe, but learn from them and push forward.
I remember a debate I got into on the Dandavats website about the importance of preaching. It seems that sometimes people think that they’re not good enough to preach, that preaching isn’t really for them, or that it’s up to someone else. Actually preaching is our process. It’s the direct order of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, and whatever our faults or disqualifications, if we try to follow that order, He will surely help us. And in following His order, we will make spiritual advancement.
Based on what we’ve already achieved, if Krishna and Srila Prabhupada bless us with the willpower and the resources to continue, then Pedalyatra can become a very successful programme with a high public profile. With next-to-nothing we have managed to get a great deal done, but properly resourced, and with more people on board, this is an unlimited preaching opportunity that’s very simple to operate and structure. We hope over the next year that we can expand to having a small committed team on the road, with regular financing from both the devotee community and from book distribution to facilitate a much more impressive presentation of our philosophy, with sumptuous feasts, a beautiful travelling altar, brighter, more eye-catching trailers to attract further media attention, and better, more colourful flyers and posters to advertise our events. We run very efficiently – our budget as it stands is just £600 a month to operate 25 nama-hatta groups in a very basic way, but with the support and help of the devotees and the public, we can please Srila Prabhupada by presenting Krishna to the people in general in the most attractive and opulent manner possible – even if we sleep in the gutter ourselves?
You can listen to our recent interview on BBC Radio Somerset from the link below or from here.
http://web.mac.com/pedalyatra/site/Media/bbcradiosomerset-4.mov