Gender

Male

Location

Christchurch, Canterbury

Birthday:

January 1

Name / Initiated name

Bhaktavatsala Das

Daily number of rounds of Hare Krishna mahamantra.

http://vrajatts.great-site.net/ - Chanting 24/7 365 days per year, continually (never enough), with Srila Prabhupada and computer's TTS voices...

When, where and how did you come into contact with the Hare Krishna Movement?

I heard from a friend of my mother's once upon a time that a friend of hers claimed that his cancer went in to remission gue to his having had Hare Krishna food, that it was spiritually powerful, so from then on I kept insisting to my mother that we go the Hare Krishna Sunday feast and have some of that food, so we did and we kept going until my mother was eventually locked up due to having been (wrongly) diagnosed and I was ostracized from the temple and ended up also being locked up in the local psychiatric hospital having been (also wrongly) diagnosed with schizophrenia! My mother was never able to go to the local ISKCON temple again after having been locked up and passed away (uncomfortably) in a local retirement village (without the association of devotees, unfortunately). I was eventually released from incarceration and eventually ended up in the city council owned flat I currently live in after having been repeatedly evicted from various places I (temporarily) lived in. I currently go to the local ISKCON temple for festivals as well as the Sunday feast, as per the arrangement made with the temple management after my complaining about being banned from the temple (unjustly I felt).

Name the nearest or most frequently Visited ISKCON temple/ centre and name few of the devotees whom you know.

ISKCON Christchurch @ 83 Bealey Avenue, Christchurch NZ - Ramanuja Das (temple president) - Yasodadulal Das (brahman initiate) - Jananivas Das (godbrother) - Ramai Swami (GBC)

Please describe yourself so that other like minded devotees can find you.

I have studied the Bhakti Sastri as well as the Making of a Highly Effective Preacher courses at the VIHE in Vrindavan in 1992 and more recently did one year of computer science, sociology and anthropology at Canterbury University. I did not pass all exams but did take in a LOT of information from all of them, and continue to endeavour to apply what I have gleaned from all of those courses.

What are your expectations from this community?

I would like to share the enormous task of editing the Bhaktivedanta Vedabase phonetically for reading by computers using (free) American English text-to-speech software. To this end I have created a group on Facebook titled "Vedabase Phonetic Editing". All (incl. devotees friends and family) are welcome to join and contribute. And yes, it is a (steep) learning curve. NB: Have since found that ChatGPT A.I. can assist greatly with phonetic editing of Vedabase texts for reading/chanting by English TTS software.

Describe any specific service you would love to offer to Lord Krishna & His devotees?

Am already doing it on my personal website(s).