By Dayal Mora das
After last years success in contributing towards 50 padyatra’s worldwide as part of the ISKCON50 campaign, ISKCON London agreed to help in continuing this program as an addition to the already vibrant festival season in the UK.
This year’s vision was that by organising a Padyatra event and walking between two of our satellite centres we could bring together the devotees from this region for an offering to Guru and Gauranga in an alternative yet highly traditional presentation of Krishna Consciousness, not only for the public but also for the devotees, and in this way draw the attention of the mass of people to our work in the South East of England. The main emphasis this year was intended to explain to the general public the definitive link between the mass slaughter of cows and the violence in modern society, especially in light of recent terror attacks.
The ‘Pilgrimage for Peace’ began on Monday 17th July outside the main gate of the the revered Canterbury Cathedral, itself a great place of pilgrimage for searching souls from all over the globe. We were nicely greeted by the Dean of the Cathedral who kindly wished us well on our journey and who was very much captivated by our pair of beautiful draft oxen from the Bhaktivedanta Goshala, namely, Balaram and Govardhan.
We were featured on the ITV Meridian evening news that evening on the first day of our pilgrimage with interviews from the Dean and from our local representative Mantra Chaitanya who is making devotees in Canterbury. After this report we became quite well known in the area.
From this location we began our 5 day walk towards Folkestone, via Sandwich, Deal and Dover, all in all a distance of about 40 miles.
A core team of 25 devotees consisting for the most part of ashram devotees from both Soho st and the Manor were a sight to behold, colourfully dressed with bright faces and chanting with great enthusiasm, especially to the blissful kirtan of HH Mahavishnu Swami, as we left Canterbury and made our way towards the first campsite of the trek. By some small miracle Radha Raman Prabhu who was hospitalised only a week before and had almost died was able to join with us and ecstatically walked the entire first leg! How much more we can become inspired when we work together as an inspired team with a single divine purpose!
Padyatra is a sublime way of bringing the devotees together being a transcendental temple on wheels by which we involve onlookers in devotional service. I haven’t seen any better formula where devotees serve together in a single group from morning til night for an extended period. Anyone who has been on Padyatra and experienced this atmosphere will be able to tell of some magical pastimes whereby the devotees have touched the hearts of people they meet and left a deep impression.
In general it’s reasonable to say that the mass of people are bored, the dreary and bleak day to day existence of the secular citizen of the western world is a desperate situation as they try frantically to squeeze a little happiness out of their otherwise, sorry to say, meaningless lives.
Performed in the right spirit, Padyatra can very easily attract the minds of the people, and this is witnessed every day as we walk. John and his wife who are the owners of Hatchets Farm House Campsite were so enchanted with what we were doing that they allowed the whole group including two huge bulls to stay free of charge, and also contributed by providing hay and vegetables for our animals and some organic products for us humans also.
Jill who is the owner of Sandwich Leisure Holiday Park which was our campsite on the Tuesday evening was so happy to have us stay. Even despite some late night Schumacher style driving from Tribhangananda Prabhu around the campsite and other disturbances familiar to the presence of the Hare Krishna’s, she still didn’t charge us a penny and was beautifully smiling ear to ear as we departed on the Wednesday morning.
We strolled through Sandwich town, arguably the oldest town in the country, and yes its the very town after which that famous and popular lunchtime snack received its name. As we headed through the countryside towards the east coast of England we caught glimpses of the North Sea glistening in the sunbeams.
Indeed the weather was exceedingly pleasing most of the time with glorious sunshine tempered with a cooling sea breeze and a little splash of rain sometimes in the nightime when we were safely tucked up in our respective tents. We were surprised to hear of weather warnings and localised flooding in nearby areas because by some arrangement we were completely unaffected.
As soon as we reached the Deal promenade the idea of a midday swim came to mind and when the opportunity came the devotees took advantage to cool down after a long walk in the waves of the ocean. We had been fighting the waves of material existence with our preaching endeavour so now we engage the waves of material nature in service to the mission to refresh us before we finish the last leg of the day.
On Wednesday night we stayed at Kingsdown International Campsite where in the evening we were witness to a very special Vedic wedding ceremony uniting together our Mantra Chaitanya and Hema Mukhi. Conducted beneath the trees with many invited guests the atmosphere was intimate yet light hearted and very sweet. The group had quickly developed such a nice comaradary to the extent that the presence of several saffron clad devotees didn’t seem at all out of place!
The fourth day was a charming walk through the beautiful Kentish countryside – curious cows and nimble horses peer at us over their fences and the kirtan is a strong as ever! Devotees are so happy and content with the knowledge of just how many living entities are benefiting from hearing these Holy Names. As we near the end of the Padyatra devotees mention how it would be nice to keep going, one devotee expresses his desire to go for a full year in this style. Everyone is in a blissful mood as we settle down at our final Campsite on this year’s event atop of the famed White Cliffs of Dover.
Friday morning sees one more push to complete the Maha Yajna on our final days walk from Dover to Folkestone. We meet a Vegan on Dover high street when we stop to perform Sankirtan and open his mind to the possibility of there being an alternative to the modern style of procuring milk. What better propaganda is there for the protection of cows than this Padyatra? We distribute our literatures, prasadam and information profusely until everything is gone!
As we make the descent into Folkestone I’m contemplating: what’s next?! Parasuram will be at Oxford tomorrow for Rathyatra, the brahmachari’s are on book distribution in Folkestone capitalising upon the attention we have attracted and as for myself I will be making my way to Czech to participate in their longstanding and admired Padyatra to receive inspiration on how to improve the UK contribution in future years.
Lord Chaitanya took the Sankirtan movement out of the houses and the temples and into the streets in order to distribute the inexhaustible storehouse of love of God for the benefit of all. In this age of addiction to social media, where the population prefer to take shelter of an impersonal fake version of reality within the illusion already provided for them, the need for a fearless public presentation of our sublime culture has never been stronger. Following in His lotus footsteps let us come outside away from those screens to continue this Padyatra and similar sacrifices thus bringing Prabhupada’s ISKCON to the attention of all people all over the world and give them a chance to become conscious of Krishna.
All glories to the Sankirtan Movement!
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