By Ekeshwar Dasa and Sri Krsna Dev Dasa<\/p>\n
On Nov 16th 2017, the ISKCON Pandharpur \u00a0Padayatra began from Sri Sri Radha Pandharinath Temple. This padayatra will go on for 40 days in the villages around Pandharpur dhama.<\/p>\n
The objective is multiple: \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n -To spread the glories of the holy names and the Lord\u2019s pastimes.<\/p>\n – To make people chant the Lord\u2019s holy names<\/p>\n – To distribute Srila Prabhupada books.<\/p>\n – To give darsana of Sri Sri Gaura Nitai to everybody wherever we go<\/p>\n – To distribute prasadam<\/p>\n We have many padayatras going on in India and also outside India. Padayatras\u00a0have proved to be an excellent tool to unite, reunite, inspire, and rejuvenate devotees. All the elements for rapid spiritual advancement are magically concentrated around the\u00a0padayatra\u00a0traveling temple: constantly chanting the holy names, associating with sincere and advanced devotees, hearing and talking about Gaura Nitai and Radha-Krishna, living intimately with the deities, distributing books and serving in many other ways, sharing Krishna consciousness with the public, experiencing exciting adventures, taking part in many cultural festivals, subsisting on healthy and abundant\u00a0prasadam,<\/em>\u00a0and \u2013 most importantly \u2013 receiving the blessings of Srila Prabhupada and Sri Sri Gaura Nitai.<\/p>\n So early morning, on November 16th<\/sup>, \u00a0a group of around 20 devotees assembled near the cart carrying Sri Sri\u00a0 Gaura Nitai \u00a0and Srila Prabhupada. Sri Krsna Dev Prabhu, a padayatri from All India Padayatra, is also walking with us for the entire duration of the padayata. \u00a0He will be assisting the party and sharing his experiences from his time on the All India Padayatra. After the inauguration ceremony the devotees started chanting and dancing very enthusiastically, which they did all the way to the village of Gopalpur, located 2.5 km south of Pandharpur. \u00a0The Gopalpur temple is on a hill called Gopalpur Hill, considered non-different from the sacred Govardhan Hill in Vrindavana. Once Lord Krishna came to visit Pandharpur along with His cows, a pastime which is still commemorated at the Vishnupad \u00a0temple in Gopalpur. In this temple you can see Lord Krishna\u2019s footprints embedded on a stone slab along with the hoof prints of His cows. Local devotees say that this place is Lord Krishna\u2019s eternal place of lunch pastime and that this lila is taking place even today. \u00a0There is also a small temple of Narada Muni which is a testimony of the great sage\u2019 daily visit to witness Krishna taking lunch. In \u00a0Gopalpur the Bhima River meets the Pushpavati River, which is\u00a0non-different \u00a0from the river Yamuna.<\/p>\n Then we walked to the village of Ekalaspur, 12 kms ahead. We reached there by afternoon, rested for some time and then had prasadam. In the evening we did sankirtan in the village, sang the Gaura arati prayers in the main square, followed\u00a0 by more kirtana and dancing. Afterwards we showed a video of \u00a0Srila Prabhupada to the assembled villagers and Balarupa Rupa Prabhu spoke about the glories of the Holy Names and Srila Prabhupada. We then distributed khichari prasadam to all the villagers and invited them to come for mangal arati, which they call kakada arati in Marathi. On that first day we distributed 25 Bhagavad- Gitas. It was a very nice experience being totally absorbed in chanting and preaching. Throughout the day all padayatris remembered our Gurudev, Lokanath Swami Maharaja, as he is the only source of our inspiration.<\/p>\n Sri Sri Gaura Nitai ki\u2026\u2026.jai<\/p>\n Srila Pabhupada ki\u2026\u2026..Jai<\/p>\n Srila Gurudev\u00a0 ki \u2026\u2026\u00a0 .jai<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n\t