Ekachakra Festival:
Attachment To Prasadam

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
3 February 2015

The festival in Ekachakra this year was very successful, and we are also very happy that we could give some prasadam to the devotees...

Whatever I took in the truck from here, Nabadwip, finished on the dvadasi (paran) day—before the festival even started. I had to go to Rampurhat for marketing and rent a car to bring the bhog.

Even yesterday (the day after the festival), they started serving prasadam after the noon arati and carried on until the evening arati, five-six o'clock. In the evening, I gave them another 400 kg rice. I thought that some may still come later in the evening and told the cooks to make another 100 kg, but not so many people turned up, so in the evening I told them to soak the rice in water and make eight-ten tubs of subji. In the morning, that wet rice was mixed with the subji and distributed—the people finished that too within a few hours.

People took even rotten rice. Raghunath Das Goswami Prabhu took what even cows could not tolerate, and when I fed this to the people, they too took it. The favourite dish of Hadai Pandit, Nityananda Prabhu's father, was muri or wet rice with mashed eggplant (baked in the fire and mashed with mustard oil and chilli). We had no eggplant left, so we served wet rice with subji—a very nice breakfast. About 500 people took it today, happily.

Nityananda Prabhu is very merciful to them: they get prasadam and they have attachment to prasadam. Some people came and begged with a stretched out hand, "Please, give me at least a drop." Yesterday by the evening everything had finished, all pots were empty, but still, at 5-6 o'clock people came asking for a drop of prasadam.

If they follow the proper Krishna consciousness in the line of Rupa Goswami, it would be nice. There is a good opportunity for preaching Krishna consciousness in Birbhum because they do not know what pure Krishna consciousness is. If somebody gives them some pure conception, it would be good.

Our gate is always open—people like and people love that. Also, if we depend upon the Lord, He will make arrangement for everything. You see how everything happened—no one left without prasadam. People came, got some simple things (even madhukori—everything mixed together), and left...

When people serve prasadam affectionately, it is good. When Gurudev could not come to some festival in Nabadwip, he would send his servitor, "Give me the report whether the devotees are getting prasadam or not, whether they are serving properly or not." He would always ask about it, and until the festival has finished, he would be sitting there, waiting for the report. Serving prasadam is very important.

Our cooks' department is also very good. Every day I called them at 3 a.m. so that they could start early—I knew if they did not start at 3, they would not be able to finish in time. So, I called them at 3, they started the fire, heated the pots, and carried on cooking until 5 o'clock in the evening. Do you see how much energy they have? They must be praised. The whole day they fight with the fire and stir 11 kg in those huge pots.

The crowd cannot be checked—the flow of people never finished, they were coming and coming...

Devotee: Did they come from the local village [Ekachakra]?

They came from the local village as well as from far away places. There are no restaurants, no hotels in Ekachakra, so, hungry, they came to our temple to take some prasadam. It is Lord Nityananda Prabhu's mercy...

{ 2001  |   2002  |   2003  |   2005  |   2009  |   2010  |   2011  |   2012 }
{ 2013  |   2014  |   2015  |   2016  |   2017  |   2018  |   2019  |   2020  |   2021 }

• Download (2.8 MB)