This is an interview with Padayatra veteran Tapta kancana Prabhu from Slovenia.
He have so far taken part in Padayatra for 6 years.

 

Was has been the best experience on your padayatras?

It is such a nice experience to go from village to village, many people inSlovenia knows about Hare Krishna and they like to meet us and to hear us chant Hare Krishna. They invite us to come back next year and are very eager to see the bulls and the deities. People are very open to the devotees.

Can you describe the Padayatra experience?

Slovenia has 2 million people and is about 500 km long.
We organize Padayatra in different parts of the country from year to year so that we can meet everyone, but we try to come back to the places we visited previous years at least for a short time.

Padayatra in Slovenia is for 14 days.

Sunshine and Blue sky, it is very hot. We start walking around 10-11 o’clock so we are on the road when it is most hot. We are sometimes the only people on the street because it is to hot. Everyone else is inside.

Padayatra is a great chance for devotees who live outside the temple to come and enjoy association of other devotees and live a simple life. They can engage in preaching services and chant more than they normally have time for.

We walk around 15 km a day, so it is not so difficult.

We sleep in a school or something like that. In the morning we chant have Aratik and lecture and after this we take morning Prasadam. We then start walking and then again in the afternoon after we finished the daily walk around 3-4 pm our advanced party have the lunch Prasadam ready at the place were we will spend the night.

Is Padayatra good for the health?

Padayatra is very healthy. You can leave the computer and the mobilephone behind and just walk and be outside. It is very healthy. Simple and healthy.

One of our devotees work in an office for the whole year and he came to Padayatra and after only two days he was completely red from sunburn so we had to wrap him up in dhotis to protect him from burning completely. So a lot of sunshine and exercise.

We bring our Gaura Nitai padayatra deities from one of our grihastas house and once when we brought Them back to the house mataji who was taking care of them reported that they could no longer fit Their clothes. They had become to fat.

What are the spiritual experiences on Padayatra?

Padayatra is good for developing our relationship with Krishna because sometimes it rains or there is some other challenge and you have to continue anyway so you must remember Krishna a lot because so many special experiences are there.
It is also nice because we walk together; we develope very good relationships with each other because we are always together.

We are also giving Prasadam to new people that we meet. We have a big Wok and the advance party has the Prasadam ready when we arrive at the destination. So those who have joined us on the road or met us at our destination get a lot of nice free Prasadam.

What is the most beautiful experience that you had on Padayatra?

The free and simple life. My service is normally to organize public Hare Krishna program all year, so when I go to Padayatra then I can just absorb my mind in Krishna without having to do management.

Is there something that you will like to say to the readers?

I will like to invite you all to our Padayatra in Slovenia and which starts in the end of June.
Many devotees are coming from all around the world to walk with us. A few days, one week or all two weeks.
Padayatra is a good program so it is good for all countries to organize padayatra it is not so difficult. It is not that we have to maintain Padayatra all year but just go for a few weeks a year.

Hare Krishna to you all.