European Sankirtan Newsletter

Dear prabhus,

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

As we all know January is the month after the big Srila Prabhupada marathon. Devotees are still recuperating and many have gone to India for the Gaura Purnima festival to recharge their spiritual batteries as Srila Prabhupada wanted. But the UK didn’t slow down, led by London with 13,403 book points and 252 CC sets to lead the Be a Gardener campaign. There were also many other outstanding performances by the other temples there.

A new program will start this year in the UK spreading their successes in Europe through a Sankirtan mentor program called GPS. Next month, as the program starts in the UK, we will explain it in detail and launch it in the rest of Europe. Remember that the Be a Gardener campaign is in full swing and all the countries that have the Caitanya Caritamrta set are encouraged to spread the mercy of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu to anyone and everyone. There is no limit, just see 252 CC sets in one month in January on the streets of London.

It all happens by our desire.

In Europe the devotees remained steady, but a big surprise came from Lithuania. They did way more than the second-place country, Italy. How is that possible in such a small country? I discovered that they put most of their scores from December in January. Still their scores even for December were very good considering the size of the country and their usual scores. All the rest of the countries maintained their usual positions with Italy in second followed by France then Germany, Spain, Hungary, Czech Republic and Switzerland that did very well.

I would like to quote from The Krsna Book. This is from the Prayers to the Personified Vedas” This prayer of the Vedas personified illustrates that the Vedas are for helping the conditioned souls to understand Krsna. All the Srutis, or personified Veda, offered glories to the Lord, again and again, singing Jaya! Jaya! This indicates that the Lord is most glorious. Of all His glories, the most important is His causeless mercy upon the conditioned souls in reclaiming them from the clutches of maya.”So these books of Srila Prabhupada are for helping the conditioned souls become free from all suffering and go back to home back to Godhead therefore it is the greatest welfare work to distribute these books. Then this is from SB 10-1-14 purport “In this verse the words krsna-caritam kali-kalmassa -ghnam indicate that the activities of Lord Krsna are certainly the greatest panacea for all miseries, especially in this age of Kali. It is said that in Kali-yuga people have only short lives, and they have no culture of spiritual consciousness. If anyone is at all interested in spiritual culture, he is misled by many bogus swamis and yogis who do not refer to Krsna-katha. Therefore, most people are unfortunate and disturbed by many calamities. Srila Vyasadeva prepared Srimad Bhagawatam at the request of Narada muni in order to give relief to the suffering people of this age (kali kalmasa ghnam). The Krsna consciousness movement is seriously engaged in enlightening people through the pleasing topics of Srimad Bhagawatam. All over the world, the message of Srimad Bhagawatam and Bhagavad Gita is being accepted in all spheres of life, especially in advanced, educated circles.” This is the mission for all the members of ISKCON to distribute Srila Prabhupada’s books to give relief to the suffering conditioned souls. As Prabhupada said SB 10.2.37 purport “In our Krsna consciousness movement, all our activities are concentrated upon distributing Krsna literature. This is very important. “So, our mission for helping this world is very clear and we just have to stay focused on that, and everything will come out successfully.

For this month's online Sankirtan meeting we will have the good fortune to have with us His grace Madhusevita Prabhu GBC and BBT trustee to inspire us about the importance of book distribution. That will be on February the 27^th at 19:00 CET and 18:00 UK time.

FLASH Just in at the last moment the scores from both Moldova and Ukraine as always very inspiring considering the conditions in Ukraine. We are also very happy to have Moldavia in the Newsletter and to see them distributing so many of Srila Prabhupada’s books.

Your servant,

Trai Das