New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

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Thanks to All for Your Support of  BlueHome Artworks during its First Year  

by Jesse and Lilasuka Hanson

New Vrindaban’s newest gift shop, BlueHome Artworks, would like to take this opportunity to thank the NV management and members of the community, as well as the guests who have supported our shop in its fledgling first year. Notice that I’ve used the word “year” instead of “season”, because it is our full intention for the shop to be a year-round business—integrating the physical location with online availability, craft fairs, and other creative marketing possibilities.

At this same time, we would like to express our deep appreciation to our consigning artists, artisans, and crafts persons. The response by these individuals has been quite phenomenal and accordingly we have, in the short few months since we began, acquired so many wonderful creations (mostly one of a kind, original works), which are now available to our customers.
Thus, I’d like to reiterate Our Mission Statement: To support artists and artisans by creating a viable outlet for their work. To support and encourage works that somehow elevate the spirit. To contribute to the ongoing development of New Vrindaban spiritual community.

So, whether you’re looking for that special gift for a friend or loved one, or a work of art to complete the look of a room in your home, we invite you to come down (or up, as the case may be) and browse through our store. And now you will be able to shop BlueHome Artworks from home at our­—soon to be open—bluehomeartworks.com http://www.bluehomeartworks.com/bluehome/ In the future, I’ll be blogging directly from that website.
You can even shop our shop on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/BlueHome-Artworks/413228792046370?fref=ts Just click the “shop now” button on the main page.

Some new items that have recently been consigned are: a great selection of fragrances, essential oils, and incense. We also have a good supply of the Festival of Colors Tee-shirts.

Finally, BlueHome Artworks would like to congratulate Jaya Krisna and all those who dedicated themselves so effectively to create the highly successful first annual New Vrindaban Festival of Colors.

Your Servants, Jesse and Lilasuka

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Words and Photos by Ryan Neeley

as posted in www.appalachianjamwich.com

When it comes to unrestrained celebration, the devotees at New Vrindaban’s Palace of Gold in the hills of northern West Virginia really know how to throw a party.

About 1,000 people attended the Festival of Colors, also known as Holi, a festival celebrated by Hindus in India and throughout the world as a “celebration of life.” As part of the celebration, participants throw colored, scented powder at each other and in the air, showering all of the participants in a blanket of color.

According to Vrindavana Das, the festival organizer, “Although it has a root in religion, the festival is not a religious festival, but a festival for everyone – all classes of people from different backgrounds are invited to join us in this celebration of life.” “It’s a festival for people who want to enjoy their life and share love for each other.”

As my family and I made our way into the event, we were greeted by a sea of humanity smeared in the colors of the rainbow. My son immediately grabbed a bag of colored powder and went to work bombarding everyone around. We made our way to the stage area, where the bands were playing, and as I scanned the crowd, I noticed that it was a delightful mix of young and old, the rich and not-so-rich, hippies and yuppies, devotees and non-devotees, all laughing and smiling while dancing to the music.

Click below to read the rest of the story ….

Acceptance

New Vrindaban’s first Festival of Colors at the Palace of Gold, Moundsville, WV: it was an amazing festival, around 1200 people participated the festival. For more info @www.nvfestivalofcolors.com

The amazing group “Ananda Groove” rocks the crowds at the first annual Festival Of Colors in the New Vrndavan community of Moundsville, West Virginia. Over 1,000 people attended.

From Channel 9 WTOV:

MOUNDSVILLE, W. Va. —

September 16, 2012

By DANIEL DORSCH – Staff Writer , The Intelligencer / Wheeling News-Register

MOUNDSVILLE – It is a tradition dating back thousands of years in India. For one day, complete strangers get together to celebrate life and each other. As part of the celebration, people participate in a “color throwing” in which brightly colored organic starch is thrown into the air. Often, celebrants throw the colors at each other.

On Saturday, the local Hare Krishna community hosted the first Festival of Colors at the Palace of Gold. The palace, located in the hills of Marshall County, is home to the New Vrindaban Community of Hare Krishnas. Vrindavana Das was the project manager for the festival.

“This is the first time doing it (the festival) is here in East Coast America,” Vrindavana Das said. At noon, 300 people had shown up.

“We are expecting between 1,500-2,000,” he said. “Most people are arriving around 3 p.m.”

Vrindavana Das explained that the traditional Festival of Colors usually takes place over two days, though the Palace of Gold will only be doing one day this year.

“We are planning on two days in the future,” he said.

He also emphasized the nonreligious but nonsecular nature of the event. “In India, it’s not religious. It’s just people coming together to enjoy life and share our love of each other without considering race, religion, class or whatever. We are all human beings. Let’s just celebrate each other.”

Yugal Kishore Das, a member of the New Vrindaban community, explained that the festival has a heritage of several millenia in India. “This is a happy festival signifying Holi in India,” he explained. “It is a time when we can be happy and come together, share colors, eat, dance and enjoy.”

Among the Hare Krishnas celebrating was Cita Rina. “We are re-enacting a pastime from the Baghavad Gita,” explained Cita Rina. “It’s for anybody who wants to join in the fun. We’re very open about that.”

A number of non- Krishnas were on hand for the festival Saturday. Among them were Bryanna DeFazio and Jordyn Clements.

“We just came up for the day to have fun and enjoy the experience,” DeFazio commented.

“We’re excited to be here,” Clements said. “It’s great to just have fun with complete strangers,” she said, admiring the free-spirited nature of the event.

From their spot in the shade, Tanner Sebastian and Sara Dinwiddie also were enjoying themselves.

“It’s our first time doing something like this,” said Dinwiddie. “It’s awesome! I hope a lot of people show up.”

“I’m having a wonderful time,” added Sebastian.

Aside from the color- throwing, food and drink were served and musical entertainment was heard throughout the day. One of the musical groups was The Other Tribe. According to an interview with the group, they have been playing bongos and spinning fire for morethan seven years. They are mostly local, often performing around Wheeling and St. Clairsville.

Smitha Krshna Das came to America from Mumbai, India to visit his daughter in Washington, D.C. As an Indian, he had experienced the festival first hand at its birthplace.

“In India, this is Holi’s festival,” Smitha Krshna Das said. “It’s traditionally held in March or April in India, but to have the spirit, you can celebrate anytime.” While important on the spiritual level, he also said the festival has a social significance. “It’s a community festival,” he said. “It gives people a chance to meet each other.”

By Madhava Smullen in ISKCON News

Holi, an ancient festival which commemorates Lord Krishna’s playful throwing of colored dyes with His most beloved devotees, the gopis of Vrindavana, is at least 5,000 years old.

But it’s just now going mainstream. And New Vrindaban, West Virginia temple president Jaya Krishna Das wants to make sure ISKCON doesn’t miss the boat.

“The last issue of Time Magazine featured a two-page spread on a Festival of Colors in Dresden, Germany,” he says. “Last week, CBS News’ website ran a photo feature on another celebration in Berlin, attended by 3,000 people. In March, 10,000 attended Holi in London’s West End. None of these were run by ISKCON devotees.”
Of course, one ISKCON temple is leading the trend in the Western world. The Sri Sri Radha-Krishna temple in Spanish Fork, Utah started holding Festival of Colors in 1997 with 100 people. In 2007, the event reached a new level with 3,000 guests. This year, an unbelievable 80,000 people attended, most of them young, white Americans.

But Jaya Krishna Das wants to make sure other ISKCON temples get on board too, before business people see an opportunity and turn the ancient spiritual festival into a commercial venture.

“This event is a wonderful opportunity to present the Holy Name of Krishna in a way which attracts everyone,” he says. “But we need to take it up within the next 12 months—if we don’t do that, it’ll be gone.” Jaya Krishna isn’t just talking the talk. On Saturday September 15th, over 1,000 people—mostly very inquisitive young, white American students from local universities—attended New Vrindaban’s first-ever public Holi celebration.

“We already hold twenty-eight festivals a year in New Vrindaban,” says Jaya Krishna. “But they’re all attended by devotees and Indian congregational members. We wanted to open a new field for reaching out to Americans. And when Yugala Kishora, our head preacher, returned from a visit to Utah and told me about his experience there, we knew we had the answer.”

New Vrindaban devotees set a date of September 15th for their Holi festival, and although they only had six weeks to plan, they did their very best to get the word out.
A promotional team of about half a dozen devotees contacted deans of student activities in twenty-two high schools, colleges and universities within a 150-mile radius of New Vrindaban.

Altogether, deans helped put up 1,000 posters advertising the festival on campuses all over West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

Devotees also distributed 34,000 flyers, sent out 150 press releases to newspapers and TV and radio stations, and ran Google ads for their website nvfestivalofcolors.com, which received 225,000 hits, and 9,000 individual visitors. On the day of the festival, 1,084 people paid the nominal $3 entrance fee to attend the event. Many also purchased the $25 package deal, which included one t-shirt, one vegetarian meal, and five packs of powdered colors imported from India.

The paying festivalgoers were joined by thirty volunteers from Cincinatti, Rochester, and Pittsburgh, as well as New Vrindaban community members, making a total of 1,200 people—a hit for New Vrindaban’s very first Festival of Colors.

Festivities ran from 11:00am to 6:00pm on the beautifully landscaped lawn in front of Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold, a memorial built for ISKCON’s founder that has been a tourist attraction for many years.

Five bands rocked the youthful crowd with back-to-back ninety-minute sets, headed by ISKCON legend Titiksava Karunika and his Namrock band, and Jai Krishna Das and his Ananda Groove.
Both headliners sang only the Hare Krishna mantra.

“The audience looked a little lost at first, when the bands started to chant Hare Krishna,” says Jaya Krishna. “But within a few minutes, their minds were transformed, and they took it up, dancing and chanting the Holy Names with great enthusiasm. It was incredible.”

Colors were scheduled to be thrown into the air every two hours. But the students just could not wait. Bursting with anticipation, they tore open their color bags, playfully hurling the contents at each other, dashing about the field, and snapping photos to put on Facebook and send to their friends.

Then they went to buy more colors.

“We had to change the schedule to throwing of the colors every hour, and then to every half hour, because no one could wait,” Jaya Krishna says. “Clouds of color were exploding into the air, and cascading down all over everyone as they jumped for joy and chanted Hare Krishna.”

Festivalgoers continued to show that they were embracing Vaishnava culture at lunch time. Although a variety of food stands at the event sold vegetarian burgers, “Not-Dogs,” and tacos, visitors instead went for the samosa snacks and Indian-style prasadam feast served.

Meanwhile others, taking a break from throwing colors, paid to take a tour of Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold, where they viewed devotional art, learned about the ISKCON founder, and saw his murti form.
While wandering around the beautiful Palace grounds, with its lotus pond, rose garden, and gazebos, many expressed their interest and asked deep questions about Krishna consciousness.

“Palace caretaker Purnima Dasi recalls bumping into five different groups of young Americans during the day, who all asked her, ‘Who’s Krishna? What is your faith all about? What do you do here?’” Jaya Krishna recounts.
The fun, carefree nature of Festival of Colors, he feels, helps make ISKCON more attractive and relatable to young local people.

“It breaks down the walls between us and our neighbors, and creates a new image for devotees, showing that we are nice and easygoing and like to have fun just like them,” he says.
Sure enough, all the feedback at New Vrindaban’s first Festival of Colors was positive, with guests all promising that they would tell their friends and come back next year.

Next year, Jaya Krishna plans to start promotions six months, rather than six weeks, before the event, and hopes to draw 5,000 visitors.

The Festival of Colors will be a way for New Vrindaban devotees to make and strengthen connections with local young people, in preparation for a College Outreach program that they hope to start soon.

But Jaya Krishna hopes that he’s not the only one to take advantage of Holi’s draw.

“All ISKCON temples should take it up,” he says. “We should even have a Festival of Colors tour in North America. It’s a perfect way to attract young, inquisitive, enthusiastic Americans and give them an experience of chanting, dancing and prasadam—while creating a completely new image of our Society in the process!”

Read Raji’s Travelog:

Raji’s Travelog

http://raji-the-traveller.blogspot.com/2012/05/palace-of-gold-iskcon-temple-in-west.html

I am not a deeply religious person, and temples are not in my most visited places, but ever since I heard about the ISKCON temple in Moundsville, West Virginia, I wanted to visit it, for reasons like its absolutely beautiful location, the fact that the township is called “New Vrindavan” (yes, there is a township in USA called Vrindavan!) and I am a fan of the entire ISKCON movement. Their energy, belief and enthusiasm is incredible. To the non-believers, they may resemble some hippies singing Hare Krishna Hare Ram, but they say their prayers take them away to some other world, far beyond this materialistic one! It doesn’t matter whether you belong to the Hindu religion or not, if you are a Krishna devotee or not, visiting an ISKCON temple is always a joyous experience.

New Vrindaban 24 hour Kirtan Coming up

Sat. November 3 to Sun. Nov. 4, 2012

Thoughts from a college student on local food culture, restaurants and gastronomy.

One Student’s Thoughts

For those of you who know me, you know that I’m very interested in theology. I love learning about other cultures. My friend, Kaitlynn, got word that the Hindu temple in New Moundsville (New Vrindaban – Palace of Gold) was going to celebrate Holi, which is an ancient Indian traditional festival – a celebration of life.

This was their first Festival of Colors, and they got more than 1,080 people. There were bands, food, tons of color throwing and some merch. We bought our tickets online, which gave us five bags of powder, a T-shirt, and a vegetarian meal.

The vegetarian meal was like chicken tikka masala (but with potatoes instead of chicken), rice and a berry dessert. Yum!

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Saturday, September 22, 2012 at 10 AM

RADHASTAMI 

We would like to invite you to a celebration and presentation to Srimate Radharani of the First of the Vrindavan temples (Sri Sri Radha Gopinath Mandir). 

This is a milestone in New Vrindavan history as we witness the unfold Srila Prabhupada’s desire to make New Vrindavan a replica of Vrindavan in India.

Srimati Radharani, in the company of Her Prananatha Sri Krsna, her little sister Ananga Manjari, and the Asta Sakhis will be entering within the temple walls for the first time where they will receive Their feast and birthday cake, prepared by a devoted crew serving under the auspices of Radha dasi. There ofter the assembled inmates will honor Their remnants in a picnic on the shore of Their favorite lake (Radha Kund).

A few of the devotees working on this project have come forward and approached me with the request that the presentation of her new temple be offered to Radharani as Her birthday gift. In the mood of continuing the inspiration guiding this project, we would like you to come and share in the mood of joyful service and encourage us forward in completion of the temple. 

10 AM                  Kirtan

11 AM                  Class

12 Noon               Arati/ Offering/ More     Kirtan

1:30                     Prasadam at Govardhan Hill

JAYA RADHE!!

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