{"id":12197,"date":"2013-12-24T18:45:19","date_gmt":"2013-12-24T17:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=12197"},"modified":"2013-12-24T18:50:07","modified_gmt":"2013-12-24T17:50:07","slug":"detroit-gita-jayanti-festival-%e2%80%93-500-bhagavad-gitas-distributed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=12197","title":{"rendered":"Detroit Gita Jayanti Festival \u2013 500+ Bhagavad Gitas Distributed"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Nitya Krishna Das<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Not to worry for the faithfully strong, Lord Krishna\u2019s Bhagavad Gita is much too attractive to let a little (actually a lot) snow and dangerous roads get in the way of Detroit ISKCON\u2019s grand plans for a Gita Jayanti celebration. For the first time, Detroit ISKCON organized a full Sanskrit recitation and fire sacrifice for the public with a major emphasis on distribution of Bhagavad Gitas. Heavy snow, cold temperatures and icy roads were no obstacle for the over 250 participants who braved the conditions to relish in this wonderful celebration. One attendee noted, \u201cthis is nothing compared to the obstacles of the Pandavas, but thankfully Arjuna showed up to the battlefield for all of our benefit.\u201d <\/p>\n

HG Jagad Guru Prabhu performed a wonderful fire sacrifice, largest in recent memory, for the pleasure of Sri Sri Radha Kunjabihari, Srila Prabhupada and all the devotees. At 4 p.m., the recitation began and over the next two hours over 30 devotees led the attendees through the wonderfully poetic verses of the Bhagavad Gita. A vocal chorus of all the attendees followed along with the aide of large video screen showing verse by verse, creating an amazing and powerful atmosphere in the temple room. The highlight of the recitation was undoubtedly the Sunday School kids who so enthusiastically sang the 9th chapter in perfect chorus and meter. Ramu Prabhu did an amazing job getting them ready on very short notice. All guests attending the yajna portion of the evening were equipped with plenty of rice to offer into the fire after each of the 700 verses was sung. Many of the attendees were so absorbed in the recitation that they had no idea two hours had elapsed. <\/p>\n

But the real excitement truly began at the conclusion of the recitation. One of the main goals of the Gita Jayanti celebration was to widely distribute Bhagavad Gitas. Recognizing that many of the attendees already had Bhagavad Gitas for themselves, the emphasis was on distributing sets of 3 books and full cases (16 books) to encourage distribution to others during book marathon month for the pleasure of Srila Prabhupada. In addition, Sri Badarayani Prabhu announced the commencement of a local motel book distribution project for which people could donate books towards the project. <\/p>\n

Organizers had decorated all three altars with hundreds of Bhagavad Gitas, hoping to attract everyone to take some home for distribution. Never in their grandest dreams did they expect what followed. Hoping to distribute 108 Bhagavad Gitas particularly given the bad weather, they had clearly underestimated the power of Srila Prabhupada\u2019s mercy and love for the devotees of Detroit. During the next two hours, over 505 Bhagavad Gitas were distributed, an unofficial record in Detroit for single day distribution!! Devotees lost count of the single books distributed due to the unexpected rush. It was an amazing experience to see so many devotees walking out with cases of books on their shoulders enthusiastic to share with the world outside this most glorious set of instructions for all us.<\/p>\n

This Gita Jayanti Celebration marks a year of many firsts for Detroit ISKCON and we hope to continue this momentum for the rest of Book Marathon month and into 2014. <\/p>\n


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\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nitya Krishna Das<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Not to worry for the faithfully strong, Lord Krishna\u2019s Bhagavad Gita is much too attractive to let a little (actually a lot) snow and dangerous roads get in the way of Detroit ISKCON\u2019s grand plans for a Gita Jayanti celebration <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}