New York Ratha Yatra Trip!

The first thing I did when I got back almost immediately was grab my bead bag, take off my shoes and walk barefoot on the cool grass in front of the temple while I chanted.
It is so nice tonight, the air is cool and a bit of a chill in the air which is just perfect.
You have no idea how much I love walking on the grass here In NV, West virginia....It's so amazing to walk on the soft cool grass here without stepping on any stickers, ant piles or rocks.

While I was chanting I walked feeling the earth underneath my feet and with the cool air I breathed in the smell of the Jasmine flowers as well mixed into the air with the smell of other fragrant flowers.
I took a moment to listen to the birds again and as it started getting dark fireflies started glowing across the temple grounds , and the crickets started chirping in.
I saw a beautiful male peacock walking around as well, finding things to eat (ate some flowers) and during my chanting paused to help a devotee find her knife she dropped.
It was very nice chanting today and so peaceful, I think chanting in the evening is one of my favorite times to chant. I'm awake enough and I love seeing the process happen of everything retiring from the long day into night. Just beautiful, I need to read more so I can come up with more descriptive words to describe these things I come to experience.

While I was walking in the cool grass and chanting I had such nice thoughts of Krishna walking in Vrindaban and how the texts mentioned how tender his feet was when he walked and how with a slight touch it changed color. And when I saw the peacock I remembered one of the pastimes of Lord Chaitanya I had heard over the course of the past week about how he went into ecstatic bliss over seeing a peacock feather because it reminded him of Krishna.

So all in all very nice to be back from New York city. Really did miss the beautiful nature here and sounds and smell of New Vrindaban. I could not see myself ever really living in New York, maybe visit for a few weeks but not more than that. To much hussle and bussle for me and smog.
Give me fresh air any day,and fresh clean grass to walk in. Even San Antonio I prefer over New York.

The New York Ratha Yatra was indeed ecstatic. The largest Ratha Yatra I have ever been too thus far, and still more to come! And one of the biggest that Malati told me today we'll be going too is in Canada! So what a treat haha I feel so fortunate and blessed.
I took lots of video and pictures from NY adventures I'll post on FB.

Ok so we left Friday @ 8 pm and made our way to NY city. Malati didn't go because she wasn't feeling well so we had to pay our own gas which luckily because we put in 5 people in the car it was only 40 per person to pay for gas (plus tolls) to and from NY.
It was a looong long trip to NY, took 12 hrs total (w/o stopping is only supposed to take 8 hr) because we decided to stop by Hersey chocolate factory on the way.
Which I was shocked by considering we are all devotee's I thought chocolate was not reccomended by devotee's etc...but all the girls eat it plus some of the maha from the NY ratha yatra cart was a chocolate cookie bar.... it was chocolate and not substitute.
So yea....I'm just going to eat chocolate personally.
Doesn't seem to be outlawed per say and as long as you don't go overboard with it I think it should be fine.

Herseys was like bathing in Maya lol
we all split a package of 30 bars lol...which i still have.

Than we finally arrived @ the house we were staying at in queens.
We slept on the floor in sleeping bags 3 nights (friday, sat and sunday night)
Friday we pretty much just came and went to sleep.

Sat we woke up and on the way to the broocklan temple stopped by Krishna and Balaram temple in Queens which is officially my second favorite set of deities.
There is just something so sweet about those deities I can't explain.
I really enjoyed seeing them so much.

Than we went to the Brooklyn temple go too see the deities and jaganath being sent off by car.
The festival was HUGE, three carts one for Balaram, subadra and one for Jaganathha!
Amazing, three huge Kirtans going on at each cart as it went down 5th avenue, one of my favorite parts about the Ratha Yatra were the three different flavors of kirtan.
There were over 3,0000 devotees there and at least 10,0000 people in general there.
I got some footage but i was so hard! Ran out of battery very quickly.

Afterwards got some maha off the carts and what was beautiful about the Ratha Yatra as well was that during the whole of it there was a beautiful light cool drizzle the whole time though later it poured temporarily.
The prashadum was excellent and hundreds lined up to eat.

Next day an 8 course meal for eckadashi to commemorate for a Devotee that had passed recently. It was very opulent feast for a fast...lol. Than kirshna das (sweet boy who gave me and Govinda Mohini a tour , the son of the man who let us stay in the extra house) gave us a wonderful tour of 2nd avenue and 23 street, we got to see ground zero, Prabhuphadas tree, matchless gifts store front (first temple/center for KC in U.S) and the bhakti center nearby. Than the after party @ Brooklyn temple!
So many devotees could barely fit in the room. Amazing kirtan, good feast.
During dinner was interesting, this russian devotee hit on me, and than a Ridvick piped in and explained to me what he believed in. I had barely just found out what a Ridvick was until someone told me. Even than no one was really explaining to me which was annoying. Finally Arya's wife told me some definition to it. Even than didn't really go deep into it. But it's enough to know to stay away from, Met some other nice devotee's than left. Oh and I found out they can have not only men but women stay at the ashram which is nice to know. Making some connections in case I ever plan on staying at different temples and where I can stay etc.
And than Monday long drive home, and back!

So that was New York Ratha Yatra in a nutshell. Once again another amazing experience.
I thank Krishna that I am here and experiencing all of this and try my best to not take for granted all I am experiencing.

~Kim