{"id":77616,"date":"2019-08-19T09:59:21","date_gmt":"2019-08-19T07:59:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=77616"},"modified":"2019-08-19T09:59:21","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T07:59:21","slug":"from-tragedy-to-triumph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=77616","title":{"rendered":"From Tragedy to Triumph"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Parasuram das: On the 19th August 1987 in Hungerford, England, Michael Ryan fatally shot sixteen people and another fifteen people were shot but survived. It is considered the worst tragedy in recent UK history. Terrible suffering and the general public sought answers to such an horrific event.<\/p>\n

In 1991 the Padayatra entered Reading, then Newbury, then Hungerford (outskirts of Newbury) it rained big time but on arriving in Hungerford for some reason the sun came out and people actually lined up to buy Srila Prabhupada’s books, we had never experienced that before. There was only a handful of us on this Padayatra and the concept that in the near future there would be Rathayatra Festivals in these towns was hard to imagine.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the Nama Hatta preaching of Vishal Gauranga and Amala Manjari Prabhus that dream has been fulfilled. The RY festival on the 10th August was almost cancelled by the local council when storms and heavy rain was predicted, we managed to continue by not erecting the tents and by not using the canopy on Lord Jagannath’s Rathayatra Cart.<\/p>\n

The Mayor of Newbury attended and a blissful festival ensued. At the end of the festival as the Deities returned to the van to go home, as Jagannath lay down on His bed, the heavens opened and the predicted rain and thunder storm was a real downpour, putting a full stop to the glorious festival.<\/p>\n

Jai Jagannath!<\/p>\n

Jai Srila Prabhupada!<\/p>\n

A segment of a Srila Prabhupada pastime as told by Giriraja Maharaja:<\/p>\n

It was the beginning of 1977. Prabhupada was in Bombay temple. He was very sick. He had stopped all food intake – he was taking 1\/4 a cup of orange juice per day. His body had only bones left – there was no flesh. And yet, he was insisting that he wanted to go to London. The doctors had given up responsibility. But as always, he was adamant.<\/p>\n

At this time, one Pancaratrika Pandit from Bangalore named Sampat Kumar Bhattacarya came to know about Srila Prabhupada’s situation. So, he took a flight from Bangalore to Bombay – which in those days was a huge thing for a Brahmin priest – and met Prabhupada, and asked for a private meeting. Generally, nobody was allowed a private meeting, but when he said that he specially came by flight from Bangalore to meet Srila Prabhupada, he was allowed a private meeting. So, everybody was asked to go out, and they talked.<\/p>\n

Bhattacarya: ‘Swamiji, I want to tell you something. In Vrindavan temple, they are having your deity on the altar. And all kinds of people are coming and praying to it, and offering flowers to it, and you are still living. According to Pancaratra, when the Acarya is living, if he puts his deity on the altar, then all the sufferings people are having come to his body through the deity. So you please tell your disciples to worship your deity only after you leave your body.’<\/p>\n

He was speaking as if he was giving some information to Prabhupada, which Prabhupada did not note.<\/p>\n

*Prabhupada: ‘I know. I came here to take their suffering.’*<\/p>\n

Bhattacarya was shocked. He was not giving any new information. This was well known to Prabhupada; and he was determined to suffer for others.<\/p>\n

Prabhupada: ‘Do you have anything else to say?’<\/p>\n

Bhattacarya: ‘Swamiji, if that is your wish, what can I say? I am only a priest.’<\/p>\n

*Prabhupada: ‘Even when I leave, I will keep continuing taking their suffering, and make them free so they can keep chanting Hare Krishna*.’<\/p>\n

“So for 10,000 years, Prabhupada’s deity is going to be sitting in temples around the world, and taking all our sufferings, and making us free so we can chant Hare Krishna. He is not fiberglass; he is really there, accepting our prayers, obeisances, and suffering.<\/p>\n

Where else in the recent history can we come across a personality who had such compassion for the most fallen souls. And via his books Srila Prabhupada continues in his effort to guide every one of us to the top region of the spiritual world.. Goloka Vrindavan. He is the `Jagat Guru’ in this age of Kali for next 10,000 years.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\"Parasuram das: On the 19th August 1987 in Hungerford, England, Michael Ryan fatally shot sixteen people and another fifteen people were shot but survived. It is considered the worst tragedy in recent UK history. Terrible suffering and the general public sought answers to such an horrific event<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recent-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77616","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=77616"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77618,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77616\/revisions\/77618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}