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Krishna Janma Ashtami

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hare_krishna

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Srila Prabhupada taught us to break the fast after the midnight arati with a little ekadashi prasadam. The feast we offered was an ekadashi feast, since a newborn can't ordinarily easily digest samosas, kachoris, and halava, and we would break that fast with a break-fast drink and a small meal with no grains. Then we would begin the next fast, until noon. That may no longer be widely followed in ISKCON. My experience is that, whereas most of us would have a good helping of fruit salad and a little mahaprasadam in the old days (1970 for me), nowadays, at least in San Diego, where I lived between 1987-2001, the temple would sell fancy mahaprasadam all day long and serve a huge, blowout feast at night, with all kinds of wonderful preparations. This was done, I suppose to accommodate (and exploit) the large Indian population in San Diego. The crowd at Janmastami is enormous every year. The problem is that many of the initiated devotees end up neglecting the process Srila Prabhupada gave us early on.

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Janmastami is the appearance day of Lord Krishna. The day after is the appearance day of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

 

Don't feel stupid asking questions - we do not have any problems answering them for you at all. We try to keep our minds and thoughts centered on Lord Krsna and you help us by asking questions and by our answering your nice inquiries.

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in 2000 janmastami, i was in vienna at the chaitanya mission (bhaktivaibhava puri maharaja) temple

 

gurudeva had in the afternoon a preaching program at the Hindu Mandhir in a central zone of vienna

 

i, and other italians, were, as usual, late (no jokes please!!:-)), we arrived at 6 o clock, the program was ended, gurudeva and godbrothers were gone.. everyone was happily taking a very good looking prasadam, very "indian" and spicy

 

"why are you taking prasadam now at six o' clock, the usual is after midnight!!"

 

"prabhu, now, in mathura, is midnight!!!!!!!!"

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my wife had to pull me with the force and promised to beat me with a big stick if i only imagined to take prasadam at six with indian people....

 

the poor yasoda nandana, slave of his senses, was saved by the devotees of the lord

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"the poor yasoda nandana, slave of his senses, was saved by the devotees of the lord"

 

i guess you are referring to your wife in this case as a devotee from saving you from breaking your fast. do you mean to say that those taking prashadam were not devotees?

 

 

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no , i did'nt want to be so harsh... i am open to hear of any authentic solution to go back to godhead even if it is slightly different from the one i am trying to follow

 

the vienna indians have their programs, their priests, brahmanas, gurus and customs..... i deeply appreciate and i am ever so happy to find people who are doing from generations what i do (with not too much results) from 20 years

 

in my case i have a spiritual master who say that krsna appears at the midnight of the place where we are celebrating janmastami... so i was (jokingly) saved from not respecting an instruction..

 

 

every one has his own duty, the sum and conclusion of these duties is sanatana dharma

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My parents have a special swing which they place on the altor on the Janmastami then they read all those mantras.. but the puja is usually conducted in the evening.

 

Then they bring us in and make us read "Krishnam Vande Jagad Gurum" it is about 20 or 30 lines more ... all the kids read it with the parents.

 

Then, every one sings a song or two about Venkateshwara/Narayana/krishna ... then we have prasadam and thirtam and people also give mangalaharathi to Krishna.

 

After that, we have a huge dinner which was offered to God...

 

The whole thing is very ceremonial.

 

In India, my Grandmother used to paint little foot prints coming from all the way outside into the house. The foot prints were supposed to be baby krishna's foot prints.

 

It is a big ceremony and there would be alot of items prepared for it.

 

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I have little metal "plates" that have the shapes of Lord Krsna's Lotus feet punched into them with little holes. I place rice flour in the plates and lightly tap them over the sidewalk, steps and my deck going into my house.

 

These plates were a gift from a friend in Chennai who told me about this tradition which I find so sweet. The little footprints stay for several days and I love seeing Them as I leave my house and then when I return.

 

It is such a sweet reminder!!

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Hare Krishna

 

We always recieve some prasdam from the Bhaktivedanta Manor in London, last year they sent us a baby Krishna on a little swing! This might sound funny but sometimes, when I come downstairs (from upstairs) I give Baby Krishna a little swing, and then go about my business, I think maybe Baby Krishna likes being waken-up! /images/graemlins/grin.gif

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