namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

by Shyamagopika dd

Now we are approaching that time of the year where we need to prepare for the Damodara vrata month. Once I asked Srila Prabhupada whether we needed to do something special in this month; and he was saying that the month is specially to attract the new devotees, non-devotees. How?

Because the regular devotees, they are doing all the devotional services in all the months, therefore they get all the benefit.

I have been thinking about this and for the past many years we have been trying to give this opportunity to the non-devotees, to the new devotees, to take advantage of the month of Damodara. In this way we can also reap many different blessings ourselves.

The launch of the 2009 Deepavali Damodara Festival in Malaysia was highly anticipated by the devotees of Sri Jagannatha Mandir, ISKCON Kuala Lumpur (SJMKL) for two reasons. One was that the venue of the launch was to be at the temple premises itself, unlike previous years when it was held in the Kuala Lumpur City Centre. The other major reason for the excitement and joy was that this year's launch was to be graced by the presence of His Holiness Jayapataka Maharaja. His Holiness is very dear to the devotees of the Malaysian yatra, most being his disciples.

by Jeyanthy Pillai

After a steady progress since the the launch of the Damodara Program,the momentum from the devotees took a dive when news about the health toll that had fallen on HH Jayapataka Swami swept across the world. Devotees were crying, feeling down and could hardly carry on with their regular chores. As days went by, they all realized the one thing they could do for HH Jayapataka that he would definitely be proud of was to carry on preaching and saving every soul on earth.