015<\/font><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/font><\/p>\n
<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/font><\/p>\n
Today (18<\/font>th<\/font><\/sup> July 2015) the 5th annual Ratha Yatra
\nwas held with great pomp and full of enthusiasm. It was an interesting coincidence
\nthat this year\u2019s Ratha Yarta coincided with the Muslim festival Eid where they
\ncelebrate the end of their one month fast, Ramzan. The government was very supportive
\nbeing secular in nature and encouraged our devotees by providing necessary
\narrangements for the festival to take place in a wonderful way. The Mayor, Sri
\nPrasanta Kumar Ray and District Commissioner, Sri Tarun Kanti Sikdar and SP Sri
\nJaydev Chowdhury fully supported the festival and all of them spoke on one
\ncommon theme: Unity in Diversity. They applauded the devotees\u2019 efforts in organizing
\na festival which brought people of different faiths together. Mr. Arif Khan
\nJoy, Deputy Minister Youth and Sports, the Chief Guest for our event, along
\nwith the other invited guests offered aratik to Jagannath. <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/font><\/p>\n
Srila Prabhupada always pushed this particular festival as
\nhe wrote in this letter, \u201cTo implement this transcendental bliss to the people
\nof your country there is immense work to be done ahead and this Ratha-yatra
\nfestival is only a bit of sample. If we get opportunity we shall be able to
\noverflood your country with the waves of transcendental bliss, by the grace of
\nKrsna (SPL to Aniruddha, 7th July, 1968).<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/font><\/p>\n
<\/span>HH Subhag Swami Maharaja
\nreached ISKCON, Sri Sri Jagannatha Ballabha Temple of Netrakona three days
\nbefore the Ratha Yatra day along with a group of devotees from India and
\nabroad. <\/span>Devotees here were very
\nfortunate to hear from him about the nectarine pastimes of Lord Jagannatha and
\nsignificance of the celebration of Ratha Yatra.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/font><\/p>\n
In the morning Hari-katha was delivered by HH Subhag Swami
\nMaharaj and was followed by performance of four fire sacrifices (yajna) under
\nthe expert guidance of HG Shyamasundarananda das (Mayapur) to invoke
\nauspiciousness. Other three fire sacrifices were performed by HG Madhavendu das
\n(Vrindavan), Ramanuja das (Manipur) and Jayrama das (Netrakona). Thousands of
\nlocal people were mesmerized to hear melodious Vedic mantras uttered by the
\nexpert brahmanas. <\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/font><\/p>\n
After the conclusion of the yajna there was prasad distribution.
\nThousands of locals assembled in flocks to relish the remnants of the Lord.
\nMaharaj personally distributed Prasad and gave a hand in cooking to encourage
\nthe devotees and all were blissful upon seeing this. <\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/font><\/p>\n
At around 4pm<\/span><\/span> the Lord officially mounted his chariot and
\nthe festival was on its way. Decorated with an abundance of flowers and its
\neffulgent golden yellow dome shining brightly all devotees were in great
\necstasy upon seeing the Lord. Vedic hymns were chanted, conchshells blown, camphor
\nlamps on coconuts were offered and were smashed on the ground, all these just
\nto create an auspicious atmosphere. Maharaj also in great enthusiasm climbed up
\nonto the chariot to overlook the festivities. Two kirtan parties sang for the
\npleasure of the Lord constantly for the entire four hours. Locals belonging to other
\nfaiths looked upon the Lord with great awe and reverence and were delighted
\nwhen the Lords mercy in the form of sweet Bangladeshi bananas was distributed
\nto them. Very joyfully they were asking for more and more, unknowingly
\npurifying their hearts. Roughly around 12,000 locals took darshan of Their
\nLordships throughout the duration of the festival. <\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/font><\/p>\n
Following this Ratha yatra festival there are to be stage
\nprograms for the next seven days including pravachans, dramas, bhajans,
\ncultural programs, dances and PowerPoint presentations.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/font><\/p>\n
We thank all the devotees of Netrakona for holding such a
\ngreat festival for the Lords pleasure. Especially we would like to thank HG Jayrama
\ndas, Tulsi das and Anantadeva das, the leaders of ISKCON Netrakona, who worked
\ntirelessly day and night for the festival to the place. Our heartfelt gratitude
\nto HH Subhag Swami Maharaj for personally coming on a short notice to attend
\nthis festival and inspiring all the devotees. Last but not the least, we would
\nlike to thank all other devotees who came from different places to make the
\nfestival complete.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/font><\/p>\n
Jay Jagannatha, Jay Baladeva, Jaya Subhadra.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/font><\/p>\n
Jaya Srila Prabhupada.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/font><\/p>\n
(written by Bhakta Nikhil )<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"Hare](\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/-CRpnUXa5MJU\/VazUXrtBxBI\/AAAAAAAARQ8\/qKc-s8KD3yU\/s0\/2015-07-20_12-58-39.jpg\")
By Bhakta Nikhil<\/strong><\/p>\nAt around 4pm the Lord officially mounted his chariot and the festival was on its way. Decorated with an abundance of flowers and its effulgent golden yellow dome shining brightly all devotees were in great ecstasy upon seeing the Lord. Vedic hymns were chanted, conchshells blown, camphor lamps on coconuts were offered and were smashed on the ground, all these just to create an auspicious atmosphere. Maharaj also in great enthusiasm climbed up onto the chariot to overlook the festivities. Two kirtan parties sang for the pleasure of the Lord constantly for the entire four hours. Locals belonging to other faiths looked upon the Lord with great awe and reverence and were delighted when the Lords mercy in the form of sweet Bangladeshi bananas was distributed to them. <\/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-18539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18539","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=18539"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18541,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18539\/revisions\/18541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n