{"id":2070,"date":"2006-11-09T16:24:40","date_gmt":"2006-11-09T15:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=2070"},"modified":"2006-11-09T16:25:50","modified_gmt":"2006-11-09T15:25:50","slug":"harinama-near-the-river-thames","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=2070","title":{"rendered":"Harinama Near the River Thames"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"By Radha Londonisvara dasa<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Sunday 17 September there was a public festival by the river Thames in London.<\/p>\n

This was apparently the last festival of the summer to be put on by London Borough Council, who have organized a series of events by the Thames.<\/p>\n

The festival included a procession with many decorative floats and lots of people ready to receive the holy name.<\/p>\n

Bhaktin Erzebet from ISKCON Soho organized the harinama party to attend the event. Some of the devotees on the harinama were Krsna Viddhi dasa, Bhakta Simon on mrdanga, Bhakta Nayan who was distributing books, some very enthusiastic devotees who had attended the Sunday Programme and myself with the new addition of the harinama harmonium. Altogether about
\n10 of us.<\/p>\n

We left Soho Street at 8.30 pm and made our way chanting and dancing to the south bank. We were very well received and many people joined in. I was planning to go for just a little while and then get back so I would feel fresh the next morning. It was already close to 9.30 pm, but then Bhaktin Erzebet asked one of the festival managers if we could use their stage. He agreed, so we went over and performed kirtan on the stage.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately when we got there another manager turned up and didn’t approve. So we just carried on in front of the stage, which was okay with them. Then everything just took off! People came over to dance some people were singing the mantra some were taking turns to lead the chanting and Lord Caitanya’s movement was in full swing by the banks of the Thames. Bhaktin Erzebet led some very bright and happy looking ladies in dancing.<\/p>\n

After about half-an-hour of an absorbing kirtan we went on. Bhaktin Erzebet wanted to go further into the crowds but I said no, it’s too late and we have to get up for Mangala Arati tomorrow. So we started to head back. Unfortunately we ran into a dense human traffic jam and got squashed into the middle of a big crowd, they were about to let of the fireworks. We carried on chanting but it was not the best situation. Finally the fireworks finished and after a short while we got free from the crowd and made our way away from the south bank.<\/p>\n

Then the most amazing thing happened! We made our way through some out door tables of a caf\u00e9 just nearby and found this big empty fully lit mini pandal tent! When I say mini it means about 10X10 ft.<\/p>\n

We lead the harinama into the tent and continued the chanting. A lady in the tent saw us coming and started jumping excitedly. She knew the mantra! She started to sing and dance. Then more people came over. Bhakta Simon was solid as a rock on the mrdanga beating out a thumping rhythm (which he actually had never played before). I also started to sing a tune that I didn’t know where it came from. People were dancing round grooving to the sound of the kirtan somehow spontaneously. The ladies and man seperated into two parties.<\/p>\n

People were chanting, One of our girls took one of the girls from the crowd and swung round with her so energetically that both their feet left the ground.<\/p>\n

The kirtan went on and on we didn’t want it to stop. The mrdanga was pulsating and the harmonium was emanating mind absorbing music. The holy name was dancing on people’s tongues, people were dancing in circles, clapping. This was a Krsna conscious RAVE!<\/p>\n

Finally we stopped, everyone cheered and we got everyone to say the mantra and made a short speech asking everyone to CHANT AND BE HAPPY! Then we started to leave but the crowd broke into cheers and applause and started chanting more, more, more, more. But now it was really late so we decided to leave on a high note and did harinama all the way back to the temple. We got back to the temple at half-past midnight. We had a four-hour harinama. We were ecstatic. Thanks to Bhaktin Erzebet we stayed longer. That was the best kirtan I’ve ever been in. Ever!<\/p>\n

Your servant, Radha Londonisvara dasa, ISKCON London Soho<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"HareBy Radha Londonisvara dasa<\/strong><\/p>\n

The kirtan went on and on we didn’t want it to stop. The mrdanga was pulsating and the harmonium was emanating mind absorbing music. The holy name was dancing on people’s tongues, people were dancing in circles, clapping. This was a Krsna conscious RAVE!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iskcon-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070","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=2070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}