New York Rathayatra | The Hare Krishna Movement

We are planning to go to the New York City Ratha-yatra this year. It will be held on June 14. It has been 49 years since I last attended the Rathayatra in New York City. But that day is still fresh in my memory, for two main reasons. First is that Srila Prabhupada was there Riding on Lady Subadhra’s cart, and the second is I took my first initiation the next day, and was given the name Vyasasan das.

It was also memorable because my dear friend and God brother Jayananda das brahmacari, was there. The following is an interview with Jayananda published in the Back to Godhead Magazine Vol. 12, 6, 1977

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Interview with Jayananda Prabhu

(Back to Godhead magazine, June 1977)

BTG: Jayananda, how did you first get involved in Krishna consciousness?

Jayananda: I heard Srila Prabhupada speaking in San Francisco, and somehow I knew he didn’t want to cheat me. So I just wanted to work for him.

BTG: And now for ten years you’ve worked on the Ratha-yatra carts.

Jayananda: Yes.

BTG: What were the first Ratha-yatras like?

Jayananda: The first year, 1967, we just rented a flatbed truck and started out in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. We decorated the truck with flowers and put the Deities on the back, and the girls passed out fruit. A good crowd walked along with us at the beginning, and when we turned off Haight Street a smaller group of maybe fifty people came with us and we went all the way to the beach.

The second year (1968) we made our own cart, with saffron silk canopies, small ones. And we had the parade through Golden Gate Park to the beach. By that time the San Francisco temple had grown a little—we had maybe 30 devotees—and about 100 people came with us through the park. The chanting was very nice that year.

Then in 1969 we built a much bigger cart, with a tall silk canopy, like the ones they build in Jagannath Puri in India. But in 1970 we worked for two months straight and built the three big carts, basically the same ones we use now. Also, we had all kinds of publicity—TV, billboards, posters. And Srila Prabhupada came to that Ratha-yatra. So a lot of people came, maybe 12,000 people. It was big—a tremendous success. We had a few mishaps, though. One cart broke down in the middle of the parade. And it was a bitter cold day. But even though it was so cold at the beach, thousands of people stayed there with us and ate a lot of Krsna prasad (spiritual food offered to Krishna). We brought 20 50-gallon barrels of prasad, and they ate it all.

Overpopulation?

overpopulation

The theory of overpopulation was explained by Srila Prabhupada at the famous New York Ratha-yatra festival in 1976. I remember clearly, We were at the park, in one of the worlds largest cities, sourounded by thousands of people, and Srila Prabhupada was speaking about how Krsna is feeding the world…

…God is father, supreme father of everyone. If we simply study this verse from the Bhagavad-gītā, that the mother nature is the mother of all living entities and God is the supreme father of everyone… We can study these two lines very carefully. On the earth we can see so many living entities are coming out, beginning from the grass, then so many insects, reptiles, big trees, then animals, birds, beasts, then human beings. They are all coming from the earth, and they are living at the expense of earth. The earth is supplying food to everyone. As the mother gives life or maintains the child by the milk of her breast, similarly, the earth mother is maintaining all different types of living entities. There are 8,400,000 different forms of life, and the earth, mother earth is supplying food. There are thousands of elephants in the African jungle, they are also being supplied with food. And within your room in a hole there are thousands of ants, they are also being supplied food by the mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. So the philosophy is that we should not be disturbed by the so-called theory of over-population. If God can feed elephants, why he cannot feed you? You do not eat like the elephant. So this theory, that there is a shortage of food or overpopulation, we do not accept it. God is so powerful that He can feed everyone without any difficulty. Simply we are mismanaging. Otherwise there is no difficulty.