Radhadesh Special New Year's Edition!

Radhadesh E-Magazine

New Year's special! also in this issue: RADHADESH MELLOWS 2022

GRATITUDE

Issue 12

New Year's special

Dedicated to...

This newsletter is dedicated to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada Founder-Acarya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.

We remain forever indebted to him, our eternal spiritual master, and pray for his blessings so that we may continue to establish Vrindavan here in Radhadesh.

Table of Contents Important info

Gratitude

Radhadesh Mellows 2022

New bank account

Read the beautiful article

What will be the situation

information.

written by HH Radhanath

for the famous kirtan

Swami of the importance

festival this coming year?

of gratitude.

Welcome Home

Radhadesh update

The cows finally enter their

We welcome a new temple

new home! Look at some

president in Radhadesh!

nice pictures from the event.

! o f n i t n a t r o p Im Radhadesh has just completed moving all our banking business to a new bank. As you can imagine, this has been a complicated procedure for us. And now we face the challenge of communicating this change to all concerned parties. So we would like to inform every one of our kind donors that we are no longer using the bank details which you have been using till now, which will no longer be valid from January 2022.

Henceforth, kindly process the new account details for the payments/transfers.

The new account details are as follows:

If you have any questions or need some clarifications, please contact members@radhadesh.com We humbly request you give this matter your immediate attention, so we do not lose your valuable support.

e d u t i t a Gr Preserving loving

relationships in the world requires much

forgiveness, tolerance, patience, gratitude and humility

BY HIS HOLINESS RADHANATH SWAMI

Gratitude is a divine virtue that is so important that other divine virtues could not exist without it. Spirituality grows like seeds within our heart. The goodness of our lifestyle protects that seed. Our spiritual practice of chanting God’s names, reading scriptures, doing seva for God and others waters that seed. But gratitude is what makes the ground fertile so that all these other virtues will actually have its maximum effect. A fertile soil allows the seed to have deep roots and grow very strong and for that a grateful heart is essential.

Gratitude is to see beyond the immediate circumstances that comes upon us. But to actually seek the essence of that situation, which is real wisdom, we need to see every situation as a beautiful opportunity to grow if we are to be grateful. All the dualities in life, success or failure, honor and dishonor, are all opportunities to learn something, to become better and grow.

Ultimately, in every situation there is an opportunity to take shelter of the higher power of God and in doing so we find that life has inconceivable treasures in every moment. Therefore, to seek the essence means to look for the hand of God in every situation. This is the spiritual definition of success.

If we simply lament when things go wrong nothing is accomplished. But if, in a difficult situation, we really sincerely take shelter of the Lord and with our God given ability try to fix and improve that situation, then we can reverse a curse into a blessing. The story of the greatest success in life often involves a person who hits rock bottom only to discover something so beautiful and precious that if they didn’t go through it they would have lived just a mediocre spiritual life and not have accomplished much within.

Source: https://bit.ly/3dsjKsm

M h s e d a h d a R

It is that time of the year again, the time where most of us get together to chant the Holy Names of the Lord on a cold weekend at the end of January.

To be precise, on the 28th29th-30th of January the Radhadesh Mellows Online event will once again take place with many wonderful souls from around the world who will lead us into formidable Kirtans. Due to the ongoing pandemic we unfortunately cannot host the customary 1500 eager chanters that come for this unique annual event. However all endeavours are being made by the Radhadesh Mellows Team to once again create an immersive online experience so that from home, your office, or wherever you might be you can tune into the Kirtans as if you were there. At least you don't have to fight for floor space as most of us do each year ;).

s w o l l e M

BY MANU

Subscribe, tune-in, share and be present on our Youtube Channel on those dates: youtube.com/c/RadhadeshMellows

2 2 0 2

And please support the many costs of the free event if you are able to at: radhadeshmellows.com/support/

Picture by Gert Eelen

The leaves changed colours and the autumn

new home. The cow stable is equipped with

season reigned in, Radhadesh looked toward

wonderful stalls for the cows to rest easy,

a new home for its dear residents, the cows.

and has enough space to, in the future,

The grass started to grow slower and the

welcome more cows into our community.

cows needed a warm home, and just on the

The dedicated construction workers are still

day of Gopastami (a day celebrated for Lord

hard at work, but do greet the cows as they

Krishna becoming the age where He could

continue to improve the stable.

herd cows instead of calves), we were happily informed that the cows could take up

As was mentioned a few editions ago, Bhumi

resident in the much anticipated new cow

had started to miraculously give milk and is

stable.

still continuing to do so in her new home.

As we prepared the ground by covering it with straw to keep the cows warm, Dharma

The cow department is also happy to

(our head oxen) looked on with great

welcome Rohini Nandana dasa as the new

anticipation, knowing something is about to

cow protection department head. Along with

happen. While bringing the cows into the

his wife and small child, they have taken up

new place was a little adventurous, they

residence in Radhadesh and are already

eventually relented and entered into their

proving to be a great addition to the family!

BY SURABHI KUNJA

Welcome home!

Pictures by Gert Eelen

! e t a d p U h s e d a Radh GRATITUDE TO SYAMANANDA AND WELCOME TO EKACAKRA

With gratitude we want to thank Syamananda das for his dedicated service during his Temple president term. He used his different expertise to add finesse to our Radhadesh community, from fixing the flower room to creating a new flow of entering the temple room through the newly renovated Dasavatar room. He put a lot of attention to detail and we hope he will always feel inspired to make Radhadesh a better spiritual home for us as a community as well for the guests.

Ekachakra gram das was warmly welcomed as the new Temple President of Radhadesh.

In 1989 I came in contact with Krsna

It was a nice combination of practicing and

consciousness

Prabhupada's

sharing Krsna Consciousness. In 1999 I

Bhagavad Gita that my best friend found in

moved to Antwerp, where I started to work

the bookshelf of his parents. As we were

for a multinational company, which I still do

philosophically inclined, with a particular

at this very moment. For quite a number of

liking for eastern Philosophy, the Bhagavad

years I focused on developing myself

Gita came at the right time. After having

academically and professionally.

via

Srila

read it, we met the devotees in Arnhem,

who

were

on

In 2013 Govinda Mohini

book

and

distribution. We bought

invited

and

also

to

the

us

Amsterdam

temple

made

with

we

closed down and the sankirtan devotees moved to Radhadesh, where we started traveling sankirtan, living in vans (small mobile homes). In 1993 I became the sankirtan leader in the Benelux and I combined it with Nama hata programs in Belgium and Holland.

our

became our permanent

the extent that

few years later, the Amsterdam temple

up

and the summer house

devotees enthused us to

program I started to go out on sankirtan. A

gave

apartment in Antwerp

the

Jaya Gopala prabhu. After the bhakta

connection

again. Some years ago

in

we joined the bhakta program, led by HG

our

with Radhadesh stronger

the Ruysdaelkade. The association

a

to Radhadesh and that

soon after, the devotees us

bought

summer house very close

a few more books and visited

myself

residence.

Our son, Kyran, goes to a nearby school now and speaks fluent French in the meantime. We very much feel at home in the Radhadesh village and it's a great honor to be able to serve all the residents now in this new (and unexpected) service as 'Mayor' of this transcendental village. I pray to Sri Sri Radha Gopinath and all the Vaisnavas and Vaisnavis, that together with my wife I will be able to please the Lord and His servants.

Happy new year A L L

T H E B E S T F R O M R A D H A D E S H !