Today we had a very wonderful celebration for Radhastami. Gurudeva
gave class in the morning. He read from Caitanya Caritamrita,
Nectar of Devotion and Lalita Madhava, a play by Srila Rupa
Goswami. Gurudeva was very excited to do a dramatic reading of the
Lalita Madhava, the 1st chapter which details the mysterious and
glorious Appearance of Srimati Radharani. Mother Krishna-priya told
me later this morning that Gurudeva said that when we become pure,
we can stage this play. It would be super wonderful to get to do
this drama, but if we are waiting until all the actors become pure,
then we may be waiting a while.

This afternoon we also had a sweet, sweet program with the children
from the gurukula. It started at 11:30 with an abhisheka of small
Radha-Krishna Deities. These Deities are cared for by Urmila
Mataji. She is a well-known disciple of Srila Prabhupada and an
expert in the field of education. Gurudeva performed the abhisheka,
and the kirtana was led by Champaka dd, Urmila Mataji’s daughter and
a current teacher at the gurukula. The children also took turns
leading the kirtana. I was downstairs in the kitchen helping the
cooks to make Krishna’s tray. We were all trying to guess which
child was leading by recognizing their little voices. Then the
children did a very short skit about Jatila (or is it Kutila?) being
sent by her mother to go and find Radharani. Srimati Radharani’s
mother-in-law was very suspicious due to not seeing her daughter-in-
law all day. It was very cute. On festival days, we often delay
the bhoga offering and arati by 15 minutes to allow the cooks and
pujaris a little more time to prepare speacial things. Mother
Krishna-priya gave the raj-bhoga cooks this extra time, but then
that delayed the arati until 12:45pm. Because the gurukula did not
have enough material planned to fill up the time and because many of
the small and restless children had already run out of the temple
room to go and eat their snacks, Gurudeva had Mayapura-candra,
Champaka’s husband and principal of the gurukula read from the
Krishna book. He read the chapter about Krishna stealing the gopis’
garments. After that was the midday arati for Their Lordships Sri-
Sri Radha-Golokananda. Gurudeva led the kirtana. It was such a
powerful and enthusiastic kirtana and many of the devotees were
dancing like crazy. At the end of the kirtana Gurudeva
chanted “Jaya Radhe, Jaya Radhe!” with such intensity. I looked
over at him to catch a glimpse of his face. He looked very intent
on the Holy Name of Srimati Radharani and he was singing with such
concentration and power, playing his karatalas loudly. Then he
asked Drumila Prabhu to lead the prayers to Lord Narasimhadeva.
Afterwards he announced “Okay, prasadam!” We all then went down to
honor the feast cooked by Srimati Gayatri devi and Srimati Krisangi
devi.

There was also a program scheduled to begin at 5 pm for all the
devotees who worked during the day. Because Gurudeva would be
leaving early the next morning because he had already attended the
noon program, Gurudeva did not go in the evening. I also did not go
to this program as I was trying to finish up some things before
Gurudeva left. However, there were many, many cars in the driveway,
and I saw many of the Sunday Feast congregation in attendence.
Everyone afterwards seemed to think it a very wonderful Radhastami
celebration.

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