prediction made by Lord Caitanya: “The chanting of Hare Krsna will be heard in
every town and village of the world.”

The Society is as famous for its Sunday feasts and festivals as for its chanting in
the streets. Every Sunday, in each of the ISKCON centers, a grand feast of from 10
to 15 courses of Indian vegetarian food is prepared and distributed for guests. The
feasts are arranged around festival days celebrating the pastimes of Sri Krsna during
His appearance on the earth 5,000 years ago. Plays, puppet shows and chanting are
regular items which invite guests to participate in the transcendental glorification of
the Personality of Godhead. Krsna consciousness is not a dry philosophy. Residents
of San Francisco appreciate the yearly Ratha-yatra Festival in which the large cart
bearing the Jagannath Deity is wheeled to the sea. During the Ratha-yatra
celebration of 1969, more than 15,000 people followed the regal 8,000-pound cart,
and thousands were fed full plates of prasadam at the seaside.

The important aim of the festivals, chanting and philosophizing is to engage people
in the service of the Personality of Godhead and in feeling His soothing contact. All
miseries are caused by forgetfulness of God, and ISKCON, by reviving the lost
memory of the Supreme Lord in the minds of the people, is—according to Bhagavad-
gita—performing the greatest service and highest welfare work for suffering
humanity. Moreover, it is performed in this sublime and easy way, by feasting,
dancing, singing and philosophizing.

Sometimes in Lord Caitanya’s time, the devotees were accused by the
impersonalists of being mere sentimentalists because they were always singing and
dancing. The actual fact is that Krsna consciousness is backed by a vast learned
literature, the Vedic scriptures such as Bhagavad-gita, Srimad-Bhagavatam, Vedanta-
sutra, the Upanisads, Mahabharata, Ramayana, etc., so that one could read 24 hours a
day without exhausting the source. All of this Krsna consciousness information is
understood by revelation. Simply by applying one’s energy in a devotional service
attitude, the knowledge becomes known to the devotee through the heart. Classes in
the transcendental science of God consciousness, or bhakti-yoga, are held every
morning and three nights a week at all ISKCON centers, and the public is freely
invited to attend. The Brahma Sampradaya disciplic succession, in which A.C.
Bhaktivedanta is coming, is particularly noted for being a learned line. There is
plenty of philosophy and logic in stock. There are many different religious
philosophies and transcendental teachings, but the Krsna conscious students and
ministers are unique in that they are convinced of the Personality of Godhead. Not
just that they have heard “God is great,” but they have heard from the spiritual
