Russian Vedic Society

During September and October, the Russian Vedic Society (RVS) had a number of online programmes with senior Russian-speaking devotees giving classes:

• Devakinandana dasa and Omkara Gita devi dasi spoke on ‘Where Does Grihasta Ashram begin?’ • Sri Djishnu dasa spoke on ‘The 54 Signs of Pride’ • Yogapati dasa gave an interesting class on ‘Why do we need to know the Bhagavad-Gita very well?’ • Valmiki dasa spoke on ‘Japa training’ • Vatsala dasa spoke on ‘Friendship in Krishna Consciousness’.

The RVS also had a special online Namahatta programme to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Dmitry and Renata’s Gaura Nitai Deities. Nama Sankirtan dasa spoke at the Namahatta programme enlivening the devotees about Lord Chaitanya’s beautiful pastimes. The RVS team also organised a group visit to ISKCONLondon for darshan during the Darshan Sundays.

SANKIRTAN

The Sankirtan Calling Party continued on most Saturdays from 10.30am to 12.30pm. Devotees are welcome to join in on Zoom. Syama Kisora dasa was regularly going out with other brahmacaris to distribute books on the book table outside the temple or visiting shops. Vasudeva dasa was also out distributing books every day to those he met. Srila Prabhupada disciple, Tribhangananda dasa, delivered 3,000 books to different establishments contacted by the Gita Project team! The Gita Project Team is coordinated by Radha dasi, a service she has carried out diligently for a number of years.

The UK Yatra took part in the worldwide ‘Live to Give’ marathon, which aimed to distribute two million Bhagavad-Gita’s before 25th December 2020. ISKCON-London had set itself a target of 5,500 Bhagavad-Gita’s to be distributed. The UK Sankirtan Leaders decided that this year, the scores for the marathon would be counted for the three months of October, November and December.

‘LIVE TO GIVE’ MARATHON

During the month of December, the Sankirtan team had many parties putting book tables in Bond Street, Camden, Oxford Circus, and Portobello. The team beat their target of 5,500 Bhagavad-Gita’s and distributed over 7,000! Antoine Bour was daily hosting the Calling Party from 10.30am to 1.00pm on Zoom, making everyone able to come and get the mercy of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu over the phone. It was a great success, even though they had a small team. Rsi Raya Gauranga dasa, Sarada devi dasi, Vamsi Dhari dasa and Vasudeva dasa were distributing books in the streets either every day or some days of the week. The Sankirtan Team would like to thank everyone who participated, especially Manjari Gopika devi dasi for her regular and constant endeavour for the Calling Party and also Jai Nitai dasa for his constant support. Below is the list of the devotees who participated in the ‘Live to Give’ campaign to sponsor or distribute Bhagavad-Gitas:

A H Mandania Aartee Hardas Dhawan Ajaya Samantaray Amit Sharma Amrut Vekariya Anna Mulica Atul Mistry Balanuja dasa Bhavani Devarshetti Brenda Thambirajah Chandrika Kanabar Chetan Limbachia Christopher Amadou Daria Pishchugina Deesha Majithia Dev Bahl Dinta Dattani Dipesh Patel Fiona Tailor Gokula Taruni devi dasi Harsarani devi dasi Hasmita Bhatt Hemanga Gauranga Dasa Hetal Nagi Himanshu Gupta Hitesh Kiri Hitesh Vaishnav Jagannath Sharan dasa Jahm Persaud Jai Jagannath Limited Jason Brayshaw Jaya Ramoutar Jayadeva dasa Jayendra Lakhani Jayshree Raval Jimpi Choudhury Justinas Simutis Kalpesh Shah Kamen Roy Kancana-beli devi dasi Kanta Pindoria Keli Vrndavan devi dasi Kiran Patel Krishna Kamala devi dasi (ACBSP) Ksama Rupa devi dasi Lata Patel Lucy Andrews Madan Srinivasan Madhvi devi dasi Mahatma dasa and Satyabhama devi dasi Mahesh Kumar Reddy Gollapalle Mahindra Makhija Mairis Usackis Manisha Mody-Chande Manjula Ganga devi dasi Marnie Nash Maya Dhingra Meera Khurana Nagaraju Garipelli Nanda Vallbhi devi dasi Nandini Rasika devi dasi Narendra Patel Naresh Ghedia Neranjene Sakthikumar Nicola Fotheringham Nimesh and Ashika Patel Nishi Kanta Krsna dasa Oleh Dufenyuk Paramananda dasa Pinal Chandracumar Pitambara dasa Prabhupada Priya Padayachee Prema Narasimha dasa Promode Gupta Radha Govinda dasa Rajan Marwaha Ram Kanal Ravin Ganatra

Renate Zascerinska Rinesh Gir Roshni Sachdev Ross Burroughs Russian Vedic Society Sabita Biswas Sachiko Kadota Sai Laxmi Kathi Sarju Popat Sayo Kadota Senthil Krishnaswamy SG NS Patel Sham Deb Shantanu Kumar Shivani Ghedia Shyamanand Gaurang dasa Sita Thakurani devi dasi Sripada Deb Suvarna Radhika devi dasi Tota Gopinath dasa Toyoyuki Nakamura Tulasi Sundari devi dasi Tusta dasa Ved Prakash Arora Vigneshwaran Cumareshan Yukiko Ishihara

ISKCON-LONDON POST-MARATHON SANKIRTAN FESTIVAL

On Saturday 26th December, the Post-Marathon Sankirtan Festival took place in the Temple Room. It was a small festival in comparison to previous years due to the Temple being closed. It was attended by Temple residents and broadcast online for community members. Scores were read out for the marathon and sankirtana stories shared. Final Marathon Scores: ● Over 13,000 Books Distributed ● 7 Sets Distributed ● 14,000 Book Points ● 50,000 Laxmi Points

In the afternoon, Jhulan Lila devi dasi, organised kirtans in the Temple Room by the ashram residents which was also broadcast online. To get involved with distributing books, please contact Antoine, Sankirtan Co-Leader, on antoine@iskcon.london