{"id":14031,"date":"2014-11-06T10:07:56","date_gmt":"2014-11-06T10:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=14031"},"modified":"2017-12-11T08:02:26","modified_gmt":"2017-12-11T07:02:26","slug":"damodara-programme-in-bangalore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=14031","title":{"rendered":"Damodara programme in Bangalore"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nClick above to see the complete gallery<\/em><\/p>\n

By Lakshmi Ramani<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kartik month, the month that all devotees look forward to with great enthusiasm, is the holiest month in the Hindu lunar calendar. It is the month of Lord Damodara and the best among months for performing austerities. Devotees commemorate the pastime of naughty Lord Krsna’s being bound with ropes by mother Yashoda. <\/p>\n

Lord Sri Krishna says, \u201cOf all plants, the sacred Tulasi is most dear to Me; of all months, Kartik is most dear, of all places of pilgrimage, My beloved Dwarka is most dear, and of all days, Ekadashi is most dear.\u201d (Padma Purana, Uttara Khand 112.3)
\nKartik or the festival of offering lamps to Lord Krishna, glorifies Lord Krishna\u2019s pastime of being bound with ropes by Mother Yashoda. Observing vrata in the month of Kartik is glorified in the Puranas.<\/p>\n

If even for a short time somebody burns a lamp in the temple of Lord Sri Hari, then whatever sins he has acquired for millions of kalpas (one kalpa equals 1000 yugas) are all destroyed (Skanda Purana).<\/p>\n

In the month of Kartik, devotees usually invite other devotees, neighbours, friends and relatives home to offer a ghee lamp to Lord Damodara. This year, devotees from the Sri Narasimha Giridhari Mandir in Hennur, Bangalore, decided to enhance the flavour of this month by conducting a massive Kartik marathon to perform 15,000 house visits and getting people from these 15,000 houses to offer a ghee lamp to Lord Damodara in their houses. Each day, many teams of devotees braved several challenges, be they Aadibhautika, Aadhyatmika or Aadidaivika and got into the streets enthusiastically doing these house to house campaigns on the instruction of His Holiness Jayapataka Swami Maharaj. So far,devotees have been able to reach out to around 15,622 houses and have facilitated more than 39,451 souls to offer ghee lamp to Lord Damodara. <\/p>\n

This initiative being the first of its kind here in Bengaluru, has been a great success! Devotees have had a lot of realizations during the course of these house to house programmes. Though initially shy and worried about how people might react to the initiative, many later on shed their inhibitions and knocked enthusiastically on known and unknown doors, inviting the residents to joyously offer a ghee lamp to Lord Sri Krishna and utilize this chance to purify
\nthemselves. They also gifted a beautiful photo of Lord Damodara so that the people could offer a ghee lamp in their houses for the rest of the Kartik month. The response was very inspiring too. People from other faiths, such as Islam and Christianity, cheerfully offered ghee lamps. Some eagerly listened to the Lord’s pastimes and donated in cash and kind (ghee, lamps, flowers, etc). This reinforces the fact that Lord Krishna is indeed the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His worship is universal. <\/p>\n

People who lived in very humble dwellings and survived on meagre income were thrilled to welcome the Lord and His devotees into their homes. They not only offered the ghee lamp, but also promised to do it every day in the Kartik month and offered what little they could to the temple. Some people broke into ecstatic tears, happy that the merciful Lord had decided to grace their homes and wished the devotees all success in this glorious mission.<\/p>\n

In all, this endeavour not only brought out the devotees in many people but also helped devotees and Bhakti Vriksha members bond closer, facilitating better devotee relationships. In fact, even after having crossed the estimated target, devotees still enthusiastically continue these campaigns on a daily basis. <\/p>\n

All glories to the ever merciful Lord Damodara!
\nAll glories to Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu & Srila Prabhupada !
\nAll glories to our spiritual master!
\nAll glories to all the wonderful devotees involved in this auspicious mission!<\/p>\n

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

\"HareBy Lakshmi Ramani<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kartik month, the month that all devotees look forward to with great enthusiasm, is the holiest month in the Hindu lunar calendar. It is the month of Lord Damodara and the best among months for performing austerities. Devotees commemorate the pastime of naughty Lord Krsna’s being bound with ropes by mother Yashoda. Devotees from the Iskcon Sri Narasimha Giridhari Mandir, Bangalore, have conducted a massive Damodara programme marathon this year by visiting over 15,000 houses and inviting the residents to offer a ghee lamp to Lord Damodara. This marathon has been a huge success with more than 39000 souls joyously offering a ghee lamp to the Lord. If even for a short time somebody burns a lamp in the temple of Lord Sri Hari, then whatever sins he has acquired for millions of kalpas (one kalpa equals 1000 yugas) are all destroyed (Skanda Purana). <\/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-14031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14031","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=14031"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54063,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14031\/revisions\/54063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}