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By Champakalata dasi<\/strong><\/p>\n Devotees in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, literally swam in an ocean of nectar during the past two weeks. After resoundingly successful Janmastami programmes, devotees had a 3 day break to catch their breaths before they dived into an ocean of bliss with H.H. Lokanath Swami.<\/p>\n H.H. Lokanath Swami Maharaja arrived in Durban on Friday, 29th August at 2.10pm and attended a reception banquet in his honour that evening. The reception was hosted jointly by ISKCON and the SAHMS (South African Hindu Maha Sabha). Over 200 guests comprising of Hindu leaders and patrons attended. The Deputy Mayor of eThekwini Municipality – Durban, Mr Logie Naidoo paid tribute to Srila Prabhupada. He described his incarceration during the apartheid era and how for 6 months he was in solitary confinement not being allowed any visitors nor contact with the outside world; he excercised his right to have a religious book for reading purposes and received a copy of “Bhagavad-gita As It Is.” He gained strength from reading the Bhagavad-gita and it became his constant companion for the entire duration of his imprisonment. He further commented how this scritural text helped keep his sanity in solitary prison.<\/p>\n That weekend the New Jagannath Puri Temple situated in Phoenix 50 km northwest of Durban was the venue for Maharaja’s Bhagavat Katha. The topics discussed here were most appropriately, Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s pastimes in Jagannath Puri. Over a 1000 devotees attended on each of the days and remained absorbed in the katha for hours on end. Maharaja also captivated the audience with his melodious bhajans. His entourage of musicians included, Ekalavya dasa (USA), Maha Bhagavat dasa (India), Venunatha dasa and Vedanatha dasa (both from Mauritius).<\/p>\n On the Tuesday Maharaja inspired 200 devotees at a nama hatta in Ladysmith, 230km from Durban. These devotees have enthusiastically embraced Krishna consciousness and rarely get the association of senior devotees. They truly relished the experience of hearing Maharaja speak.<\/p>\n Then from Wednesday evening until Saturday evening Maharaja presented Bhagavat Katha at the Sri Sri Radha Radhanath Temple of Understanding, Chatsworth. A 3000 seater marquee was filled to capacity each night as devotees and visitors thronged to hear Lord Krishna’s Vrndavan pastimes which included the Brahma Vimohan lila, Subduing Kaliya serpent, Lifting of Govardhan Hill and Rasa Lila. A drama on each of these pastimes were also performed by the children of ISKCON. Guests were received with traditional Vaisnava hospitality, offered caranamrta, chandan, sumptuous prasadam and sweets an hour before the katha commenced. At the end of the katha they were given the opportunity to meet Maharaja and finally received a take-away container of kheer. On the final night of Bhagavat Katha, the Consul General of India for KwaZulu-Natal, His Excellency, Mr Harsh Vardhan Shringla attend the programme. He also addressed the audience, expressing his appreciation to ISKCON for their efforts in maintaining and promoting Vedic culture throughout the world. He had previously visited several ISKCON centres and made special mention of the centres in Brooklyn, Mumbai and Mayapur. He was very impressed with Food For Life and Maharaja’s exposure on the harmful influence of “modernisation” on rural life and what awaits one in the hustle and bustle of city life. He was presented with a copy of Srimad Bhagavatam as a gift.<\/p>\n The festivities reached their grand finale on Sunday when Sri Radhastami was celebrated. Amongst other activities, there was an initiation ceremony wherein H.H. Lokanatha Swami and H.H. Bhakti Caitanya Swami initiated disciples, linking them to the parampara. Their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Radhanath and Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu had four changes of outfits for the day! H.H. Lokanath Swami commented that it was wonderful to see the temple filled with devotees from 4.30am to 10pm that night. He said in modern times usually temples were empty whilst the theatres had “House Full” signs but today was different \u2013 the temple was “House Full!”. Talks were also presented by H.H. Bhakti Caitanya Swami and H.H. Partha Sarathi dasa Goswami and everyone left very satisfied \u2013 in a deep mood of Krishna prema and with a hearty meal of over 12 types of preparations! <\/p>\n Whilst the festivities ended with Radhastami, devotees are still reeling from the Bhagavat Katha experience and are already hankering for Lokanath Swami to return next year and continue his sublime narration of such Lord Krishna’s divine pastimes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Devotees in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, literally swam in an ocean of nectar during the past two weeks. After resoundingly successful Janmastami programmes, devotees had a 3 day break to catch their breaths before they dived into an ocean of bliss with H.H. Lokanath Swami. <\/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-6409","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\/6409","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=6409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6409\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Hare](\"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/untitssled.jpg\")
By Champakalata dasi<\/strong><\/p>\n