Lord Krishna explains in the sacred text, Bhagavad-Gita, “Whatever action a great man performs, others will follow. And whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts, all the world pursues.” Yesterday in Washington, D.C., we saw the truth of this statement, and the terrible impact of the misguided thoughts, words, and actions of an influential and powerful man.
In 2014, ISKCON Seattle started a novel way of reaching out to the homeless through "burrito sankirtan". Every Saturday, the devotees go to University of Washington (UW) area and distribute hot burrito prasad along with kirtan and book distribution. The program attracts the homeless and UW students alike. The efforts have grown further now. The temple acquired a food truck, which goes out every Saturday and serve out hot prasad for free.
Over 1,000 attended the service in Washington, DC,, including religious dignitaries representing Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish and Christian faiths, members of Congress, U.S. government representatives, Ambassadors, members of the diplomatic corps, and Sri Lankan community members.
This year over 4,000 people attended the event, also dubbed Festival of Colors, on Saturday May 4th. So many turned up, in fact, that offsite parking had to be arranged with buses to shuttle them back and forth.
At each meeting over the past decade, volunteers from each tradition have presented a paper on a chosen topic, one sharing the Vaishnava perspective, and the other the Muslim perspective; followed by an open discussion.
"There are a lot of reasons for me to make this decision. There are a lot of challenges that are facing the American people that I'm concerned about and that I want to help solve," Gabbard said in an interview.
Most people know him as being a maverick in the political arena, but he was also a friend of ISKCON devotees.
Around fifty spiritual leaders, lawyers, civil society leaders, government officials and scholars attended the meeting.