{"id":11838,"date":"2013-08-18T15:33:56","date_gmt":"2013-08-18T14:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=11838"},"modified":"2013-08-18T15:35:32","modified_gmt":"2013-08-18T14:35:32","slug":"rhythm-tree-pioneering-preaching-on-the-isle-of-wight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=11838","title":{"rendered":"Rhythm Tree – Pioneering preaching on the Isle of Wight"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nBy Harinama Upadesa dasa<\/strong><\/p>\n

In July the UK Hare Krishna Festival traveling team traversed new shores, and crossed over from the main land of England onto the Isle of Wight, a small island on the South Coast of England famous for its hills, beaches and wealthy residents. They headed out to the Isle of Wight to teach the inhabitants of the Island about Krishna-Consciousness and to give them a chance to hear the Holy Names, read Srila Prabhupada\u2019s books, take Darshan of Gaura Nitai and to taste delicious Prasadam, vegetarian food blessed by Krishna.<\/p>\n

It all started at the large Glastonbury Festival in June where we met the organisers of the Rhythm Tree Festival there. They were very encouraging us to attend the festival and bring our Hare Krishna Tent there too, we were interested, but we were so busy as after Glastonbury we went on the Scandinavian Ratha Yatra tour for two weeks straight after that.<\/p>\n

But during those two weeks dialogue started between us and the organisers and emails were exchanged, and the next thing we knew, we were zooming down the highway on the way to the Isle of Wight with a van filled up with a crew of devotees, and a big trailer on the back with sound equipment, stages, tents, and lots of bhoga. We had been offered a free spot to put our big tent! And we had even been given a free ticket for the ferry crossing onto the island, which was evidently all Krishna’s direct arrangement!<\/p>\n

The people on the Isle of Wight were very receptive especially after the second day when people got to see our tent. We set up the tent in the old school Prabhupada-taught fashion with big pictures of Krishna and Gaura Nitai, and a big Maha Mantra banner, and we presented Hare Krishna pretty much as it is to the guests. A large amount of the guests took books, most took larger books, such as Science of Self Realisation, Veda, Bhagavad Gita and quite a few left with multiple books. Many gave big donations without us even trying such as giving 20 pounds for a small book. Since we weren’t on a Laxmi collecting mission, we gave the guy two more books and a Tribhuvanatha Kirtan CD to keep him inspired.<\/p>\n

We cooked a big feast every day of kicchari, halava, chutney, poppadoms amongst other preparations. We chanted throughout most of the day and many people joined in. Quite a lot of the crowd probably 65% of the crowd said this was their first experience of the Hare Krishnas and they were very impressed and often engaged our team in long dialogue asking many questions about Hare Krishna, trying to find out more. We were blessed with the association of HH Mahavishnu Swami who gave strong lectures on the philosophy of Krishna Consciousness and it sparked up a lengthy questions and answers session.<\/p>\n