Unto that GURU I prostrate!
Whose love changes not even when those who belong to Him sin!

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“Hare Rama! Hare Rama! Rama Rama Hare Hare!
Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna! Krishna Krishna Hare Hare!”

The main objective of Sri Swamiji is to propagate ‘Bhagavan Nãma’ (the Name of the Lord) amongst the masses, particularly the downtrodden. Around 25 young devotees of Sri Swamiji visit the villages surrounding our Mathurapuri Ãshram, on weekends and public holidays and chant “Hare Rama” Maha Mantra.

The sessions are broadly divided into two - morning and evening - and are generally of two-hour duration. Each village is served by a group of three or four of these young men. For the first 15 minutes, they go around the village chanting “Hare Rama” and the local children join them. They then assemble at a common place and help the children with their school lessons for an hour and a half. The session concludes with singing of Sri Swamiji’s kirtans and narration of a short story from our puranas. These stories mainly pertain to bhaktas who come from the lower strata of the society.

The response from the villagers is excellent. They chant the Nãma without any inhibition whatsoever. The deep response from the villagers - children and elders alike - is seen in their greeting the young men with “Radhe Krishna!” Presently the focus is on the colonies.

This work began in November 2000 in two villages - Mãhãnyam and Malaipattu. Gradually, the number of villages have increased and the Nãma chanting is carried out in all of them.

Diary of events:

Activities during May 2002:

The villages surrounding the Ashram, namely Malaipattu, Maahaanyam, Gunduperumbedu, Vellaarai, Kolathur, Venkaadu, Nallur, Amarambedu, Poonthandalam, Galattupattu, Naavalur and Pillaipakkam were visited by Kesavan, Ramanujam, Suresh, Sumanth, Srikanth, Vasanth, Umasankar, Sivaraman, Ramachandran, Srinivasakannan, Seshadri, Venkatesh, Ravi, Smt.Janaka, Smt.Kishori Seshadri, Smt.Padma Srinivasakannan and others on 4th, 5th, 11th and 12th of May 2002. Since the children were in the midst of their summer holidays, there were no study sessions. The duration of the sessions were restricted to one hour. “Hare Rama..” chanting went on for around 30 minutes which was followed by narration of stories from our Puranas. Sri Swamiji's kirtans were also taught to the children. The children chanted “Hare Rama…” with utmost fervour and participated in the sessions with great enthusiasm. A quiz competition was conducted during which the children were questioned on previously narrated stories.

On 19th May, Sri Swamigal had an interaction session with the people from the surrounding villages in our ashram premises. People from Galattupattu, Poonthandalam, Nallur, Amarambedu, Kolathur, Pillaipakkam, Gunduperumbedu, Vellaarai and Maahaanyam participated in the session. The villagers started arriving at the Ashram from 1.30 p.m. onwards. They all assembled at the Bhagavatha Bhavanam hall. They chanted Hare Rama Mahamantra in the hall. The session began with the arrival of Sri Swamiji at around 3.00 pm. Sri Swamiji blessed all the participants with Tulasi maalas. Sri Swamigal encouraged the villagers to put forth questions pertaining to spirituality and naama kirtan. The villagers put forth several questions and Sri Swamiji answered them in crisp and simple language citing suitable examples. The interaction went on for about 2 hours. During the course of the session Sri Swamiji narrated the story of Senaanaayi who was a barber by profession and a great Bhakta of Sri Paanduranga. Sri Swamigal wound up the session by stressing the importance of chanting “Hare Rama…” and asked them to continue the chanting. After the session, the participants were treated to some refreshments.

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