(H H Kadamba Kanana Swami, 27th March 2012, Cape Town, South Africa) Lecture: B.G. 2.17
We really must do something on these special days. It’s not that the vaisnava calendar is just invented as a form of entertainment. Well we do not want the TV anymore but we have the vaisnava calendar. No the vaisnava calendar is actually essential because they offer us opportunity to do some special service. In that special service we can gain a lot of strength, which we need from time to time.
So on Janmashtami, at this temple we read the entire Krishna book from morning until midnight, and they do this in some other temples too. There are things going on everywhere, maybe in some other room at the side, but they are always there and it goes on till midnight and if you do this in every Janmashtami, then you will see that you really get something from that! Even if you do it for one hour and then an hour of chanting in front of the deities!
Well how early can we get up on Janmashtami? Five minutes after midnight? Go from midnight to midnight? Don’t miss a second of Janmashtami! Why sleep for half of the Janamshtami? So the more we try such things, then the more Janmashtami becomes meaningful.
There was a devotee in Vrindavan who for six to seven years in a row, had made a vow that he would distribute one hundred Bhagavad-Gitas. And he did it every year and he had a table at the temple and so it was really far out! So that was the service. Then he started to distribute one hundred Bhagavad-Gitas and one hundred rounds on Janmashtami, and that’s serious:
‘Take a Bhagavad-Gita. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare.’
You have to be practical, but you get the point that you also have to make an endeavour!
