FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
When: Saturday 7th September 2019
Where: Humberstone Gate, Leicester City Centre
Time: 11.00am to 4.30pm
This Saturday, the Hare Krishnas will share the popular Hare Krishna mantra and distribute hundreds of cakes to shoppers and visitors to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in the UK.
A special exhibition on 50 years of ISKCON Hare Krishna will be on display on Humberstone Gate, including iconic pictures of the six pioneering Hare Krishnas arriving at Leicester Train Station (see attached).
As the story goes, the three couples and a baby left San Francisco in 1968 to establish the first Hare Krishna Temple in the UK – and their personal goal of meeting the biggest band in the world, The Beatles.
Just a year later in 1969, the first ISKCON Temple opened in London, and the Hare Krishnas were performing on BBC’s Top of the Pops with Beatle George Harrison.
George Harrison popularised the chanting of Hare Krishna after making a record which hit the charts and made it to the Top 10. His famous song My Sweet Lord made the Hare Krishna mantra a household phrase. ISKCON soon expanded to cities around the country, in particular Leicester and the rest of Europe.
“For the last 50 years, the Hare Krishna community have been distributing the teachings of ancient India’s spiritual wisdom,” says Temple President Pradyumna Das. “The essence of this teaching taught in the Bhagavad-gita, is that every living being is an eternal servant of God, full of love yet temporarily caught in the illusion of this material world with its temporary labels of man, woman, black, white, Hindu, Christian. Beyond these labels, every person is yearning for love which is found in our eternal relationship with God.”
This Saturday marks the start of the 50th anniversary celebrations. Other events include Heritage Open Days on 14th-15th Sept, inviting people to visit the iconic Hare Krishna temple, the former HSBC bank on Granby Street, and Kirtan Fest, a weekend of Mantra Music Meditation on 21-22 Sept.
For media enquiries, images and interviews, contact:
Nima Suchak
Mobile: 07974 677 170
E-mail: nima.suchak@gmail.com