This past February during ISKCON's annual walking pilgrimage in Navadvipa, West Bengal, a BTG photographer snapped a special encounter. Mahavishnu Swami, the ISKCON devotee in the pictures, tells the story.
ALMOST A THOUSAND devotees were walking together that morning junior and senior, men and women, young and old.
We came to the place known as "Naimisaranya," where it is said that the Srimad-Bhagavatam was first spoken. In previous years we had never visited there and so I was excited. I knew that if we performed sacrifice at that very place, it could curtail the strength of Kali-yuga, the present Age of Quarrel, and its demonic forces, especially in my own heart. I needed some mercy, and this was the chance.
The place was a treeless, deserted, open common land with no nearby houses. I was told that only a few poor refugee homesteaders were trying to subsist here. In the morning sun it was beautiful, with a wide open sky. Whilst the devotees came together and the significance of the place was being told, I began to feel, by Srila Prabhupada's mercy, that it was up to me to distribute at least one book in Bengali, although nobody was there. I knew that the devotees would have a big chanting session and then move on, so I only had a short time.
So I started to search for local people. One or two children stood gawking at the chanters, and a few older village women were collecting grass nearby. They had no money and they couldn't read. I could only speak a few Bengali phrases anyway. I was hoping and praying to Lord Caitanya and Prabhupada, "Please let me find someone in time."
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