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Dear devotees,

Please accept our humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

The *24 hour kirtan is coming soon!* The kirtan festival will take place on
Saturday, June 20th through Sunday, June 21st. There will be many well
known kirtaniyas coming from all over the world, including Kadamba Kanana
Swami, Chandramauli Swami, Agnideva Prabhu, Amala Kirtan, Acutya Gopi, and
many more.

Please see the article below.

*New Vrindaban’s 24 Hour Kirtan to*

*Transport Participants to Vrindavana Dhama*

By Madhava Smullen

The ninth annual 24 Hour Kirtan festival in New Vrindaban, West Virginia is
set to give North American participants the experience of the 24 Hour
Kirtan that runs 365 days a year in the original Vrindavana Dhama, India
without having to travel thousands of miles.

Around 600 devotees from all over the U.S. and Canada are expected to
converge in the beautiful rural community that founder Srila Prabhupada
called “a new place of pilgrimage for you Western devotees.” During a 1972
visit he also commented, “This Vrindaban, that Vrindavan, no difference.”

The devotee participants will be joined by two groups of students, one from
Cleveland State University and one from Carnegie Mellon University in
Pittsburgh, attending for the first time.

Leading up to the festival, Europe-based spiritual teacher Kadamba Kanana
Swami will give three morning lectures at Sri Sri Radha-Vrindabanchandra’s
temple from Thursday June 18th to Saturday June 20th on the importance of
chanting the Holy Name.

.There will also be an inauguration kirtan with Kadamba Kanana Swami,
Agnideva Das and other senior kirtaniyas on Friday evening from 7 to 10pm
at Srila Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold.

The 24 Hour Kirtan festival proper will then run from 11am on Saturday June
20th to 11am on Sunday June 21st in the temple, which will be decorated
with maha-mantra banners, harinama chaddars and lamps.

Participants will sit in a semi-circle facing the Deities. Each of the long
list of lead chanters will lead for around... one hour, and each will bring
their own flavor to an event packed full of variety.

.Kadamba Kanana Swami is known for his fired up, rocking kirtans. Agnideva
Das – who has been one of the world’s most popular chanters since the 1970s
and is now based in Trinidad – steals devotees’ hearts with his classic,
soulful style. And Brazilian kirtaniya Amala Kirtan Das, now based in
Austin, Texas, brings blissful ragas and astonishing virtuousity on the
harmonium.

.Meanwhile Ananta Govinda and Acyuta Gopi from New York raise goosebumps
with their soul folk kirtan; Mayapuri band member Krishna Kishor injects
youthful energy into proceedings; and Gaura Mani Dasi from the Vrindavana,
India-based band the Vrajadhus dovetails Bollywood songs in Krishna’s
service to create new Hare Krishna tunes that take off like wildfire.

.Local New Vrindaban chanters will also lead kirtan, including Rupanuga
Das, Abhay Das, Bhaktin Autumn, Ananda Vidya Das, and Lilasuka Dasi.

And youth and children will get a chance too – the boys from ISKCON
Alachua’s Summer Trip, aged 12 to 15, will chant for 45 minutes, while a
group of children aged 10 and under will chant for half an hour.

“It’s really important for them to have that opportunity to sing at a
festival,” says Shri-Ram Poddar, 18, who is organizing the schedule for the
festival. “They’ll love it, and it’s just a really good growing experience
for them too.”

Shri-Ram is speaking from experience. He first attended the New Vrindaban
24 Hour Kirtan in 2011 when he was 14 and uninterested in kirtan, staying
up throughout the night as an experiment. He calls it “the first devotee
festival I really enjoyed” and afterwards became passionate about kirtan.
Now he’s helping to organize both New Vrindaban’s summer and fall 24 Hour
Kirtans, and is inspired to manage other Krishna conscious events too.


.While many other kirtan festivals follow the two 12-hour days format, Shri
Ram loves New Vrindaban’s because it remains a straight 24-hour event nine
years in. This features gets participants intensely focused on the Holy
Name, and combined with New Vrindaban’s Brijabasi mood it truly recreates
the original Vrindavana 24-Hour Kirtan.

The Vrindavana mood will be particularly evident during the night time
hours, when devotees like Amala Harinama and Govinda Das, who both spent
time as part of the 24 Hour Kirtan Mandali in Vrindavana under Aindra Das,
will chant.

“Govinda Prabhu has been there since at least the early 2000s, and was with
Aindra Prabhu for at least ten years, as one of his main mridanga players,”
says Shri-Ram. “His kirtan really has Aindra’s mood.”

Most devotees will attend only select parts of the kirtan, taking rest in
between in the comfortable motel-style rooms at New Vrindaban’s Palace
Lodge (now booked up), in local hotels in Wheeling and Moundsville, or in
tents on the ISKCON New Vrindaban grounds.

Every year, however, some brave souls are so inspired that they manage to
make it through the entire 24 hours.

The prasadam helps – breakfast on Saturday and Sunday will include kichari,
granola, yoghurt, chutney, and a drink. For lunch on Saturday there’ll be
fancy rice, dahl, two subjis, macaroni, pakoras, puris, chutney, sweet
rice, and mango lassi.

The primetime evening kirtan slots from 6pm to 10 or 11pm on Saturday will
be the most packed and energetic, as will Agnideva’s grand finale on Sunday
morning, followed by a delicious Sunday Feast at 12:30pm.

Afterwards, participants are usually left hungry for more – more kirtan!
“People always say they feel very enlivened and recharged,” says Vrindavana
Das, who organizes the festival with assistant coordinator Gauranga Prasad
Das. “They always look forward to coming back again.”

And New Vrindaban has what they’re looking for. A fall 24 Hour Kirtan is
coming up on October 31st and November 1st, during the sacred month of
Kartik – which, of course is one of Vrindavana, India’s most famous
festivals.

With a more sweet, mellow mood, devotees will get to offer candles to New
Vrindaban’s beautiful Deities, and once again get the Vrindavana Dhama
experience without having to travel to India.

“Srila Prabhupada said New Vrindaban is non-different from Vrindavana,”
says Vrindavana Das. “So those who are unable to go to Vrindavana in India,
can get the same blessings and mercy of the dhama by visiting New
Vrindaban.”