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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 January 2003:

On 14th January, being the day of Vaikunda Ekadasi, Hare Rama was chanted at Bhagavatha Bhavanam Hall of Mathurapuri Ashram, between 10.30 p.m. (Tuesday night) to 3.30 am (Wednesday early morning). There were around 25 participants from the villages of Galattupattu and Pillaipakkam. Sri Kesavan, Ramu, Srikanth, Srinivasakannan, Ramakrishnan, Ramachandran, Ramesh, Umasankar and Vasanth participated from the satsang. Accompaniments on the dholki were provided by Sri Ramakrishnan and 2 others from the village of Galattupattu. The chanting went on with enthusiasm. Dinner was arranged for the participants at the Ashram.

During the month two new villages namely Manimangalam and Settupattu were visited, . Manimangalam is about 7 kms from the Mathurapuri Ashram on the way to Tambaram and Settupattu is about 3 kms from the Ashram on the way to Manimangalam. There is an old temple for Sri Rajagopalan at Manimangalam where devotees from our satsang had chanted Hare Rama on many occassions.

At Settupattu, chanting of Hare Rama was started on 19th of January at the bhajan hall located in the village. The elders of the village participated in the chanting. Sri Kesavan spoke about the about the importance of chanting of Hare Rama to the villagers Then the villagers were taught to chant Hare Rama. Slowly, they began to chant along with the participants from the Satsang. The chanting was done for half an hour by the villagers. At the end, the children were given sugar candy and taught to greet each other by saying "Radhe Krishna".

Chanting of Hare Rama was started on 26th January at Manimangalam. There is a Bhajan Hall on the Main road, where the villagers had made elaborate arrangements for chanting Hare Rama. The whole place was decorated and the people celebrated this occasion as a festival. There were around 30 participants from the village. Hare Rama was chanted for half an hour. After that, the villagers sang some kirtans and the satsang members sang a few of Sri Swamiji's kirtans. At the end, Sri Kesavan of our satsang, spoke to the villagers about Sri Swamiji and also about the importance of chanting of Hare Rama. The villagers were very synergetic and chanted Hare Rama with great vigour. This being a big village, one more area in the village was visited to chant Hare Rama. The participants were given sugar candy at the end. The villagers were very happy and they were looking forward eagerly to chant 'Hare Rama' with the satsang members the following weekend.

The villages of Malaipattu, Mahanyam, Kolathur, Gunduperumbedu, Vellarai, Mettukolathur, Karunagachery, Irumbedu, Nallur, Amarambedu, Venkadu, Navalur, Poonthandalam, Pazhanthandalam Baraniputhur and Pillaipakkan were also visited and Hare Rama was chanted for half an hour in each village.

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