Krishna Janmastami was celebrated in a most grand manner this year in Melbourne in the presence of our beloved Krishna at the Ashram. For the last few years we have celebrated Krishna’s birthday at Box Hill Town Hall but this year Krishna had other plans. We could not get the booking this year and all enquiries into other venues proved fruitless. When it was decided to have the celebration at the Ashram it felt right and many people expressed their delight that we would be with our own Krishna.

Another big change was that the adults at Chinmaya Mission took responsibility for organizing the event. Usually the CHYKs co-ordinated it but they were fully focused on their very successful fund raiser play “A Day In the Life “ which was performed two weeks prior to Krishna Janmastami. We had a marvellous team of adults who co-ordinated the many areas necessary to run such a big function like crowd logistics, parking, decorations, parking,maha prasad, archana, the children’s program and so on
to mention but a few.

The team worked with three objectives behind their dedicated seva to Krishna. These were to create an atmosphere of devotion to Krishna, friendly and warm hearted service and good organization.

One amazing event happened that confirmed Krishna was the real player behind the flute in this whole Krishna Janmastami and that was this year we couldn’t get any carnation heads from the growers and we needed lots of flowers! We asked quite a few ladies to raid their spring gardens and bring them in. We were praying to Krishna we would have enough. The night before, Nimmi arrived for a rehearsal with a very large box from one of the devotees. That day was Daffodil Day, where they sell bunches of daffodils to raise money for cancer patients. We opened the box and it was full of more than a 1000 daffodils. Next morning someone else delivered two more of these boxes!! It was an answer to prayer!

The Ashram was transformed through the amazing decorations team into a flood of colour and beauty. There was a festive colonade of marquis through which the devotees entered the Ashram to our Prayer Room ablaze with reds and pinks and oranges. Krishna was resplendent, the focus of all devotion.

The program from 3.00 to 6.00pm was predominantly devoted to the children. The Aspendale Gardens Junior Chyks, after weeks of rehearsals, performed two wonderful plays for the children, Krishna and the Fruitseller and the very famous story of Krishna and Kaliya. The fruitseller’s basket of jewels mysteriously turned into lollies at the end and were thrown to a very eager audience exploding into excitement to secure them.

Next was a craft activity where they made a mobile of Krishna holding up the Govardana Mountain while Indra rained down his thunderbolts. Then came the Children’s Puja, their own 16 step worship of Krishna followed by pot breaking and more lollies to eat, lots of fun and a sea of happy faces. Lastly some of our wonderful dancers had the children on their feet dancing and acting out more Krishna leelas.

Every year the children miss out on the midnight Aarti because it is school the next day or it is too late, so this year we did a little Krishna magic with time and moved the midnight birth 6 hours earlier. The children and parents crowded into the Prayer Room and after a few heart felt bhajans and chanting of Shri Krishna Sharanam Mama, building up the excitement and devotion, the conch was blown and Krishna was born. We had a magnificent Aarti and the cradle was unveiled. All the children got to rock the cradle this year. The looks on their faces said it all. Many came back for a second rock of the cradle!

Next came the Mahaprasad , a generous and sumptious feast fully donated by Everest. While the children had their program the adults were able to do a family Archana and Abhishek or could sit in the Prayer Room and listen to the continuous reading of the Bhagavad Gita and Krishna Leelas from Bhagavatam in the devotional atmosphere of background bhajans. It was most auspicious that we completed the whole 18 chapters just before the Devotional Program for the evening was to start!

At 8.30pm we did the Puja for Lord Krishna followed by the Vishnu Sahasranama. We heard an inspiring DVD message from Swami Swaroopanandaji and then sang bhajan up to midnight. Five minutes before midnight, there was a very beautiful and spellbinding enactment of the Birth of Krishna in the jail and Vasudeva carrying the child to Gokul and placing him in the cradle. The chanting of Shri Krishna Sharanam Mama reached a cresendo and the conch blared forth to announce his mystical birth of the Lord in our hearts with the waving of the Aarti light and the unified singing of the Jaya Jagadeesha Aarti. Flowers rained down on the cradle as the baby Krishna was unveiled. Jai Shri Krishna!! Jai Shri Krishna!!

Please click here for more photos.