<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
By Hemalann Nambiyar<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s been two weeks since the official launching of the Deepavali Damodara Festival 2009 at Sri Jagannatha Mandir, ISKCON Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (SJMKL), and what an intense two weeks it has been. Devotees from all over the country had geared up their Damodara 2009 Kits, specially designed by the Congregational Development Ministry (CDM) of SJMKL, and set out to spread the mercy of Lord Sri Krishna to the people by the simple act of offering a ghee lamp. <\/p>\n As it is written in the authoritative scriptures, one who offers a ghee lamp to the Lord, during the month of Kartik, gains 1000 time merit and has his past sins burnt in half an eyeblink. How wonderful are the Vaishnava devotees of the Lord, imbibing the mood of Srila Prabhupada\u2019s mercy towards all the conditioned souls, by sincerely allowing others to gain the mercy of Sri Krishna through the Damodara Program.<\/p>\n We hope that others, inspired by this account, would also start the Damodara Program in their respective areas, as there is only a couple of weeks left before the end of Damodara Masa.<\/p>\n A link to the Deepavali Damodara Festival 2009 Kit is available here<\/p>\n http:\/\/rghost.net\/users\/hemalan\/releases\/damodara-deepavali-2009<\/p>\n For more pictures on these events, click:-<\/p>\n http:\/\/picasaweb.google.com\/dr.srivas\/DamodaraBoothPenang2009?feat=directlink (Penang Booth)<\/p>\n http:\/\/shobnashree.shutterfly.com\/863 (KL Booth)<\/p>\n Your servant,<\/p>\n Hemalann Nambiyar,<\/p>\n Sri Jagannatha Mandir,<\/p>\n ISKCON Kuala Lumpur,<\/p>\n Malaysia.<\/p>\n Email: hsnaken@yahoo.com<\/p>\n cetasa sarva karmani, mayi sanyasa mat-parah It\u2019s been two weeks since the official launching of the Deepavali Damodara Festival 2009 at Sri Jagannatha Mandir, ISKCON Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (SJMKL), and what an intense two weeks it has been. <\/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-7810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7810","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=7810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
CDM has recommended two ways of approaching the Damodara Program, which is by performing the Damodara Harinam or organizing a Damodara Home Program. With the mercy of Guru and Gauranga, certain devotees have opted to setup booths, especially dedicated to providing the chance for common people to offer ghee lamps to His Lordship. One such booth is that of a devotee from Market Street, in the northern state of Penang. Having her own lucrative and attractive restaurant business, called Restaurant Kaliamman\u2019s, this mataji decided to setup a Damodara booth right in front of her shop. She even invited a local VIP, Datuk Dr. R. Arunasalam, to inaugurate the booth, and thus publicized it further. Daily, hundreds and hundreds of people who visited her restaurant were ushered to the booth to offer a ghee lamp. The pastimes of Lord Damodara were explained and the true spirit of Deepavali, being the festival of lights, was thus enlivened. <\/p>\n
ISKCON Kuala Lumpur has its two booths setup at two prime locations; shopping districts and commuting areas. The KL Sentral and Desa Mentari booths, both saw slow progress during the first few days, but as Deepavali neared, \u201cbusiness\u201d soon picked up. As the usual presence of a booth, meant that something is for sale, these Damodara booths, were merely \u201cselling\u201d the mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead; for free. Therefore, is was quite common to get the confused and curious looking crowds, looking on as others offered a ghee lamp to the deity picture of Yasoda-Damodara. In total, 40,000 people have offered ghee lamp from the booths setup by devotees across Malaysia.<\/p>\n
\n“In all activities just depend upon Me and work always under My protection..”
\nBhagavad-Gita 18.57<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"Hare](\"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/unticcctled1.jpg\")
By Hemalann Nambiyar<\/strong><\/p>\n