20201114 Zoom Dīpāvalī Visit to UK Devotees

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram
Harihi oṁ tat sat

So this festival of Dīpāvalī is celebrated in remembrance of the welcoming of the residence of Ayodhyā, who lit up their city in a night so that Sītā and Rāma coming by their puṣpaka-vimāna would see the city in the night. Now we have electric, but at that there was no electricity, so they lit with lamps – so that that is called Dīpāvalī. So, we celebrate Dīpāvalī to have the Lord enter our heart. And we open our heart so let the Lord in. So He is very merciful and He stays with the devotee. And He is known as bhakta-vatsala, He is very merciful to His devotees. Since the devotee surrenders everything to Kṛṣṇa, He reciprocates and give all protection to the devotees. So we try to take advantage of this opportunity to serve Kṛṣṇa.

Actually, in Malaysia, I used to celebrate the Dīpāvalī by visiting 50 houses in two days. So, every house, they give us cookies. And I had several cars following behind, they were after taking cookies from so many houses, wow they were overwhelmed. In one house gave pasta, it was a relief. Anyway, tonight we try to visit 108 houses (through zoom) in one hour. So may be we can spend half a minute in each house. I hope that you will sit in front of your Deities, have whatever offerings that you want to give; that also kept present.

So, this Dīpāvalī, I was finding that, mainly people don’t come much to the temple. Because they are receiving people in their house. I took Prabhupāda, and went to each house. So in that way we made the Dīpāvalī had a special outreach. People were very happy to receive the devotees. In each house we chanted. So we can’t do all that in this virtual visit. But definitely my best wishes, love is with all of you. Now we are in the worldwide Pandemic, because people are not following the laws of God, therefore, they are getting punished by the nature. We want to get as many as people possible to the sacrifice of the chanting of the holy name. We hope that you will be able to encourage many people to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa or chant some bona fide names of God.