Aindra Prabhu´s Instructions

By Muniraja dasa

It was somewhere in the end of March 2007 when we were fortunate enough to first time visit Aindra prabhu´s room in Krishna-Balarama mandir in Vrndavana and discuss personally with him. Aindra´s very extatic evening kirtan had just finished, and together with our Sundara Thakura were were purchasing some cd´s from him. With his friendly, yet intense manner Aindra started to preach about the importance of distribution of the holy name: (these words are from my memory, maybe not word to word correct, but the main points are there)
” Here in Vrndavana so many people come to the temple for darshan and we can do kirtan here. But in the west you don´t get that many people to the temple, you have to go out to do kirtan. How often do you go out?”
“Except winter, we go around once a week.”

” Once a week is not quite enough, why not to go out every day? It´s very powerful preaching when people regularly see devotees happily chanting the holy names. By seeing you chanting there again and again they gradually start to understand that you are happy, you are convinced, they see that kirtan gives superior happiness.”

So far we could not yet follow the daily program, but after these words from Aidra prabhu we have increased the number of our Harinamas. We used to have one larger Harinama procession on Saturday afternoon in Helsinki downtown, where many congregation members participate, but since 2007 we have started to go out during week days also, even if it´s only a few of us. One for harmonium, one for mrdanga, one for karatalas, what more you need? H.H.Kavicandra Swami actually told once, that you can out to chant even if you´re alone. If there are other services, it doesn´t have to be very long, after book distribution or management, you can chant for 45minutes or a hour and a half, what´s the difficulty? It´s always bit of a surrender to take the time for Harinama, but once you get out there you know that it was the right decicion. It´s especially nice if you have distributed books for some hours, it´s nice end for the day. People often come to interact, they ask where the temple is, they give some donations, etc.

Of course, our minds may make up various reasons why not to go out, we have listed some of them here:

1. ” It´s not my service prabhu.”
2. ” It´s too cold out there.”
3. ” It´s too hot out there.”
4. ” It´s too windy out there.”
5. ” We don´t have expert mrdanga player.”
6. ” We don´t have expert harmonium player.”
7. ” We don´t have skilled singer.”
8. ” We lost our karatalas”
9. ” We are too busy to chant.”
10. ” I have to finish my japa.”
11. ” I have to finish my reading quota.”
12. ” I was cooking today, I cannot go on Harinama.”
13. ” We´re brahmacaries, there are too many young ladies there in downtown.”
14. ” People are too wild today.”
15. ” Street musicians have taken our favourite place.”
16. ” I have lot of puja seva to do.”
17. ” I too tired to go out.”
18. ” I didn´t take prasadam yet.”
19. ” If I go out, I may get sick.”
20 ” I don´t have proper vaisnava clothes.”
21. ” I don´t feel like a wearing a dhoti.”
22. ” I took too much mahaprasadam.”

etc.

So let´s us all take into our hearts this simple but sublime formula for uplifting ourselves and the rest of the world, what Aindra prabhu told: ” Do more Harinama sankirtana.” There may be different ways to follow this, if your temple has hunreds of visitors daily, it´s important to keep kirtan going on there also. If you have only handful of visitors, go out and chant there where the people are. If you´re invited to yoga club, do kirtan there, if your seva is to do home programs, do kirtan in the homes. If you live in a muslim country, maybe you have to do kirtan indoors.

In our humble opinion this is the best way to remember, glorify and serve our dear kirtan acarya Sriman Aindra prabhu, by increasing our dedication for chanting, especially by distributing the holy name in a form of nagar sankirtan.

Jaya Sriman Aindra Prabhu!!!

Your servant Muniraja dasa