Traveling Sankirtan

Under the divine guidance of our sweet Gurudeva Srila Bhakti Sundar Govinda Maharaja and the blessings of our dear Sevaite Acharya Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaja we have started our 2010 summer tour of USA. The morning of June 5th was spent getting ready for our trip and waiting in Sripad Janardan Maharaja’s house as we tried to contact Srila Acaryadev in India. As a typical call to India went, we had to call numerous different numbers and talk to different devotees until we finally got through. Very mercifully Srila Acaryadev gave his blessings when my father, Hasyapriya Prabhu told him that Kamal Krishna Prabhu, Ramachandra Prabhu, Ratan Krishna Prabhu and myself would be traveling around the country meeting with devotees and trying collect at different music festivals. He was very happy to hear this, then Kamal said that we were also trying to collect devotees to come back for His September trip to Soquel. It was very enlivening and gave us all the motivation we needed to get started on this big six week trip.

Our first stop was Las Vegas. So many times our dear friends there have come to Soquel to take initiation and celebrate different festivals. So I was very happy to find any reason to come out and see Madan Gopal Prabhu and his beautiful family and friends. We arrived around 7pm and they had delicious prasadam ready for us. After we ate we all went onto the Las Vegas Strip for some chanting and preaching.

The first place we went was the famous   "Welcome to Las Vegas"  sign. This sign is in a lot of movies and it is where the strip starts. Many tourists come there to take their picture. We got in line and started singing while we were waiting our turn. Finally the guide who works there told us to stop. So we paused and when it was our turn to get under the sign started up again.

We had a big group Madan Gopal Prabhu and Jaya Devi with their kids Ishwarananda and Madhu Krishna, Damodar Dayal, Narrotam Prabhu and our group of four.

Next we went to the Belagio Hotel and Casino. This is the casino that is featured in Oceans 11. We sang on the sidewalk and handed out flyers to different people. Even though it was 11 p.m. the strip was filled with throngs of people.

We headed down to Caesars Palace where there is a deity of Lord Bhrama. We didn’t get to chant there because it was on the casino property, but while standing there Kamal Krishna started preaching to a few nice young men that came up. He actually had the whole conversation filmed by Narrotam, so hopefully we can upload that soon.

The next morning Kamal Krishna gave Chaitanya Bhagavat class at Madan Gopal’s house and Lalita Sundari and her boyfriend Ivan came for that.

Later for lunch Ramachandra called Sanatani’s brother Mark joined with the devotees at Sunset Park, where we chanted and had some nice Prasadam that Ramachandra and Ratan Krishna prepared.

The devotees in Las Vegas are very sweet and we look forward to seeing them again.

It was a very good trip, we were very inspired being around them and they voiced their own inspiration being around us. A win-win for everyone.