The appearance of Lord Nrsimhadeva

We arrived on the 24th of April at Simhachalam in the Eastern part of Germany - one day before most devotees and guests assembled to witness the festivities for Lord Nrsimhadeva's appearance celebration. This event is one of the main festivals in Germany and its neighboring countries, and many devotees come together from far and wide to celebrate the Lord's wonder-ful appearance. In most other communities this event is given only a few hours of attention, but here where the Lord personally resides it goes on for four full days! It certainly is the best place to be for this event.....

Since I arrived a little earlier I was invited to give the SB class in connection with the Lord's appearance - to set the mood for the upcoming festivities. I chose to speak on one of my favorite analogies given by Hiranyakasipu in SB.7.5.46, which glorifies Prahlada:

"Although he is very near to me and is merely a child, he is situated in complete fearlessness. He resembles a dog's curved tail, which can never be straightened, because he never forgets my misbehavior and his connection with his master, Lord Visnu."
In the purport Srila Prabhupada comments:
"<...> The example is ordinary. However one may try to straighten a dog's tail, it is never straight but always curved <...>"

A wonderful image to illustrate how unflinching our faith in the Lord has to become - like a dog's curved tail, which can never be straightened.....
No matter how much maya is trying to straighten us out, she should never succeed....

Our main honorable guests were HH Krishna Kshetra Swami, HH Chandramauli Swami and HH Bhakti Vaibhava Swami, and a group of young kirtaniyas. Several disciples of Srila Prabhupada from Germany as well as Dina Sharana Mataji serving as the GBC were also attending the event, uplifting the atmosphere.

I was invited to offer three sessions on the topic of "Being in Harmony with the Other Gender", which was exceptionally well attended and received. It gave me a fantastic opportunity to introduce my book, which went out like 'hot cakes'. I guess it is a topic which is just so catchy and relevant to one and all, no matter in which phase of life one might be! Everyone is eager to receive some new insights into this fascinating mystery of how men's and women's energy are meant to perfectly complementing each other....
Especially on the Lord's appearance-day itself, all kinds of pleasing arrangements were offered to the Lord - an oil abhisheka in the early morning, a wonderful new outfit and an elaborate abhishek throughout most of the day. I also took the opportunity to go on the altar and bathe the Lord with various substances and decorated him with garlands made from grapes. A sweet and intimate exchange.....
As every year, on the following day the Lord received an outfit made from colored sandesh - a special highlight of the celebration! And on another day He was dressed in the "forest outfit", with the entire altar being transformed into a forest scene. On the concluding day we were even swinging the Lord, together with Laxmidevi. Since our Lord is in a friendly and calm mood, together with Laxmidevi, They can also relish the pastime of a jhulan yatra.

We heard wonderful Nrsimha katha given by our visiting guest speakers, and were swept away in deep and ecstatic kirtans, thus spending those festival days in blissful sravanam kirtanam. In one morning lecture we heard some amazing pastimes when this community was established in the early 1980's. Lord Nrsimhadev had been sent by ship from India and was to arrive by truck, but the driver had not been able to locate the address, since the temple is a farm house in the middle of nowhere. So the truck driver simply dropped the huge box in the middle of some fields. And after a long search the devotees found Him! So the Lord appeared by being found in the fields.....

Most of my time I spent at my book table. The great idea had entered my mind of giving all the collected profit to their fund raising appeal of renovating the temple brahmacari ashram, which was received with great cheers and joy. It was announced to all the guests in the temple room, and Chandramauli Maharaja even gave a little book review, recommending the book to everyone and all. This was of course a great promotion and people clearly understood my mood of not being interested in profit, but in everyone receiving the knowledge discussed in the book. Being at the table was a great way to connect with people, build relationships and be available for exchanges. And I met so many wonderful devotees from all around Europe, and received so much encouragement and appreciation for my humble preaching efforts. Vaidyanath Prabhu, who is the elder physical brother of HH Sacinandana Swami and also a disciple of Srila Prabhupada immediately took ten copies for his community in Hamburg. So I had a blissful time associating with devotees, here and there offering inspiration and guidance for their spiritual practice. And I ended up distributing 128 books over the four festival days.

I experienced this to be the most blissful Nrsimha Caturdasi ever......

On the 1st of May I flew off to the United States - for the first time in my life....

Your servant, Devaki dd​