This is a story about giving a higher taste of spiritual happiness to thousands of people. The world's people can greatly benefit from the deep spiritual wisdom and culture of ancient India, and knowing this, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and the teachers in his line had a strong desire that to give them that opportunity. Festivals are one of Prabhupada's numerous strategies for doing this, and H. H. Indradyumna Swami has developed such nice festivals in Poland for over a decade that they captivate people's hearts. Each year, Jurek Oswiak, a famous Polish philanthropist who raises funds for handicapped children, kindly gives Indradyumna Swami facility on the grounds of his Polish Woodstock concert to set up a wonderful festival of spiritual culture called Krishna's Village of Peace. Oswiak appreciates that Krishna's Village of Peace embodies his Woodstock's theme of no violence and no drugs and it keeps the young people engaged in a positive way. Some of the beauty of this year's (2003) festival, will be described in the words and pictures which follow.

I had such a wonderful experience at Krishna's Village of Peace in 2001 I made a web page called Visiting Krishna's Village of Peace to share it with my friends, relatives, and the people in general. Last year, I wrote a BTG article on the festival in 2002 which appeared in full on Krishna.com as the online article, Krishna's Village of Peace 2002. If you have not seen these pages, you might look at them since on this page I want to focus mainly on 2003 and why it was even better than previous years and to share some of my favorite pictures from this year, not so much to describe the philosophy behind and basic layout of the festival. Rather than an impossible attempt to describe the whole event, I focus on the parts of the festival I was most connected with, and describe them in a personal way. I also invited the personal remembrances of others to make this web page more complete and filled with variety. I hope you find my attempt to be a success. If any of you who were part of the festival have pictures, comments, or corrections that will make this a better site, please do not hesitate to send them to me at krishnak@krishna.com.

I asked people to tell me about their experience of Woodstock this year, and I took excerpts from articles written about it, to give you a little indication of what it was like.

"How does one convey the satisfaction of seeing 100 thousand people eating prasadam [sanctified food] in our village? How does one describe the ecstasy of the book distributors who sold 2,800 books [of spiritual wisdom] in those three days, or of the performers on our main stage, as thousands of people (sometimes as many as 10,000) loudly applauded their bhajanas [devotional songs], dramas, lectures, dances, and bands. How does one recount not one, but three Rathayatra parades on three consecutive days, passing among an ocean of tents on the main field, where each and every festival goer could not help but see the cart and hear the chanting of the holy names? How can one imagine the daily scene of hundreds of young people in different tents around our village, chanting and dancing to kirtanas [congregational singing] led by such stalwarts as Sacinandana Maharaja, Kadamba Kanana Maharaja, and Deena Bandhu Prabhu?"--Indradyumna Swami, festival organizer (for full article, click here).

"This year's Woodstock was especially enlivening and rewarding. Many senior Godbrothers blessed us with their presence. It's so important to associate with those great souls who have given their lives cent percent to Srila Prabhupada. I also feel quite humbled in the association of the Polish tour devotees. They are so surrendered, work so hard, and are so blissful. It just proves that the more we surrender to Krishna the happier we become.
      This year I was asked to speak at the Reincarnation and Question and Answer tents. For me it was probably the most rewarding part of the festival. So many people were sincerely hankering for spiritual knowledge. I was amazed to have the same people come each evening, even some saying that they remembered me from last year. It was very heartwarming to see them becoming seriously attracted to Krishna consciousness. Many said they came to Woodstock just to see us and would spend the entire day and night in all the different tents soaking up the nectar.
      So any devotees feeling a little down in the dumps, not so enlivened and need a transcendental pick-me-up, make plans to attend the 2004 Woodsock festival. You won't be disappointed."--Dharmatma Prabhu

"The most amazing thing was how many festival goers were interested, some deeply interested, in Krishna consciousness. These are youth--maybe 16-26 years old, though some of the local villagers came as well. Most were drinking beer, and many were extremely intoxicated. Everywhere one would see people lying unconscious on the dusty ground. And most people were in some sort of illicit sexual relationship. . . . Yet festival participants would spend hours asking about spiritual life, chanting, and dancing. Many came to dance during the very hours when the main "music" bands were on the huge stage! It was clear that tens of thousands of kids come to this festival only to be a part of the devotees' Village of Peace. One girl who was dancing to Indradyumna Swami's bhajana in the largest tent grabbed my shoulders and said, "I'm a Hare Krishna! I'm a Hare Krishna!" Her face glowed with the happiness of the holy name. Many asked me how to join the movement or which of Prabhupada's books to read after the one they'd recently finished. They asked how much to chant daily and deep questions about the meaning of life. And one of the Polish devotees who acted as my translator told me that she and her husband had joined ISKCON from one such festival ten years ago."--Mother Urmila Prabhu (for her entire description of her visit, click here)

"Being the lead-singer for Village of Peace was an awesome experience, especially when, by the mercy of Krishna, we got ten thousand people to dance and loudly chant the entire maha-mantra. . . . We can just imagine the long-term result of those ten thousand people chanting. Also, being in the association of hundreds of very humble and extremely hard-working devotees (mostly from Russia, Ukraine, and Poland) was very inspiring."--Candrasekhar Acarya Prabhu

"Two days at Woodstock is like three months anywhere else. . . . It made me realize that the life described in Caitanya-caritamrita is possible--that one can engage always in hearing and chanting about Krishna."--Ekanta Prema Prabhu

"There was so much kirtana at our main stage, temple booth, meditacja, and harinama, sometimes all at once, and it was very ecstatic kirtana too. I was wondering about why we spent so much time with the decoration, but when I saw the kirtana, it was worth it."--31-year-old brahmacari cook from Lithuania

"And then it happened, one by one they rose to their feet and started to dance. I couldn't believe it, Krishna gave His whole mercy. They danced and chanted. And it was a dream come true to me because five years ago I used to be one of them, one of these stoned and drunken heavy metal people, and now I had them chanting God's names, a thing which I never possibly believed could happen at a heavy metal festival like this."--Bhaktin Yvonne (for full article, click here).

This year I want to start by showing you about the good fortune of some of the children of Zary. By seeing the devotees each year when they come to Woodstock festival, they have an attraction for the devotees, their festival, and some spiritually uplifting activities like chanting Hare Krishna and dancing. Indradyumna Swami has a nice dialog with some of them in theWoodstock entry of his diary:

A young girl accompanied by several friends, came up. . . .
"Haribol, Maharaja!" she said enthusiastically. "Thank you for all the postcards you sent me and my friends during the year. We liked the ones from India the best."
"Oh, you are most welcome," I said. "What is your name again?"
"I'm Paulina," she replied. "And I'm 9 years old."
"She keeps a picture of you on her bedside dresser," one of the girls said. "And she talks about you every single day too. And you know what?"
"What?" I asked.
"She has kept her promise to you, to chant six rounds on the beads every day. I saw her."
Paulina proudly showed me her beadbag, with a little hole in it from where her thumb had rubbed through from chanting.
"Thank you," I said, looking at Paulina.
"This year we want you to give chanting beads to the rest of us too," said Paulina's friend.
"Haribol!" answered the others in chorus.

But just as I couldn't distinguish the multitude of festivals we'd done through the years, I couldn't remember these girls, whom I'd obviously had an exchange of Krishna consciousness with last year. They brought out a photo of me with them at Woodstock, but it didn't bring back a distinct memory. I've stood with thousands of people for photos at our festivals through the years. But the eagerness of these young people for devotional service was proof of our previous contact, and so I sat on the grass with them for over an hour and did my best to encourage them further in Krishna consciousness, telling them pastimes of Krishna.

At the end, the youngest one spoke. "Will you pull the big red chariot again this year at Woodstock?" she said. "My parents want to know. They want to invite my aunt and uncle from Germany if you do."

My own encounter with children this year began with the arrival of our buses from the summer tour on Poland's Baltic sea coast. As soon as we arrived, there was a crowd of children there to greet us with "Hare Krishna" and "Haribol".

During the week of preparation for the Woodstock festival, the some of the children sang and danced along with the devotees of the tour, sometimes at the school where we stayed and sometimes on the streets of Zary with the harinama party.

Everyone takes a break from their usual engagements to see and hear the transcendental experience of the congregational chanting of the holy names of God.

Some nice pictures from this year give a feel for the vastness of the Polish Woodstock festival site with its hundreds of thousands of people camped out for two or three days on an abandoned air field in Zary, Poland.

This year was special for me because of the visiting devotees who came, many for the first time, because of the beauty of the decorations, because there was more kirtana (chanting) than ever before and because there was more prasadam (spiritual food) distributed than ever before. There are also always people who were very much attracted to the festival, and I tell a bit about some of the ones I met.

Kavicandra Swami has spent many years teaching Bhagavad-gita in Japan and other parts of the world. Deena Bandhu has lived for the last twenty years in the sacred land of Vrindavana, the land where Krishna spent his youth when He appeared in this world, and he is always ready to inspire us by speaking of Lord Krishna's pastimes. Sacinandana Swami, from Germany, advised us to chant with concentration in the morning before beginning the Woodstock festival and pray to become instruments of compassion. I did that the first two days. It was harder the second day, and by the third I was too tired to remember. Bhakti Vijnana Swami reminded us that the great saint and philosopher, Jiva Goswami, stressed that telling others about the glories of the holy name is the way to get God's mercy in this age even more so than our personal vows to chant the holy name. Krishna showers His mercy on those who accept all kinds of trouble to spread the chanting to others. This instruction stuck in my mind during the festival and even until now. During the festival, when it felt especially ecstatic, I considered that it was because we were sharing this chanting and this knowledge in a very concentrated way, and thus we were blessed with transcendental happiness.

Jayapataka Swami comes to the Woodstock festival every year. Here he leads the chanting on our main stage, playing his extra large karatalas, commonly known as whompers. He sees that many young people benefit from this festival, and he likes to regularly participate in it.

Indradyumna Swami invited his friend Caturatma Prabhu from Alachua, Florida, to come to Woodstock to be the priest for this year's wedding on stage. Weddings were a popular event in previous Woodstock festivals, but were replaced by a festival for Krishna's birth (Janmastami) in 2001 and the Rathayatra ceremony last year. This year's festival with its three Rathayatras and as well as a wedding was a big increase.

Here Caturatma puts his heart into his singing and the crowd responds. Although he was scheduled for two hours, his successor did not appear, and so he kept going at this pitch for three hours. Afterwards, when he looked at his watch, he was amazed so much time had passed. It had seemed to him a few moments only.

Indradyumna Swami describes, "That evening, as I walked past the meditation tent, I saw a tumultuous kirtana going on inside. At least 60 people were dancing wildly, loudly chanting the holy names. Curious as to who could be leading such a kirtana, I looked inside and was amazed to see a young woman (left) in a scant bathing suit (and wearing big black boots) playing the harmonium and leading the kirtana. Her friend was playing a small drum (right), the kind we were selling in our gift shop, and another friend was playing kartalas. There was not even one devotee in the tent, but these three girls, intoxicated by the holy names, were leading a kirtana that had sixty other young people chanting at the top of their lungs. When I returned two hours later, their kirtana was still going strong."

After hearing Indradyumna Swami's description at our post-Woodstock meeting, we went to the site to clean up. While helping to pack up the temple tent, I saw this girl who I remembered as being one of the most enthusiastic chanters and dancers there in the temple tent. She was wearing a bathing suit and black boots, just like the one Indradyumna Swami said led a two-hour kirtana in the meditation tent the night before. I said to her that our leader mentioned someone was singing in medytacja [the meditation tent] for two hours the previous night and asked if it was her, and she said it was. I praised her enthusiasm.

In the temple tent, from time to time, I would look at each person there and try to encourage them to chant or dance through smiles and gestures. She was one of the more reciprocal ones and would always smile, sing, or dance. Later I saw her and her friend smiling as they viewed the beginning of the final Rathayatra, and I continued on to my post at the reincarnation booth [reinkarnacja]. Later she and her friend and a couple guys who were with them came there. Her friend asked if we had rituals like baptism and I explained about initiation and the vows we make and the positive effects of chanting Hare Krishna and the detrimental effects of illicit sex, intoxication, meat-eating, and gambling. One of the guys she was with, like many people, expressed the philosophy that it is good enough to be a nice person and do good deeds. One need not believe in God. I explained that unless one actually develops an attitude of serving God, he cannot make it to the kingdom of God. Since service to God is all that is going on in the spiritual world, one must develop that consciousness to go there. The guy just couldn't get it and repeated his own philosophy, so I tried to explain it again. The girls acted like they understood and were smiling at their friend's inability to appreciate this simple point. (Later while cleaning up the festival when I saw that guy for the last time, he told me he really liked me. That was a surprise since all I had done was defeat his philosophy repeatedly. Putting my aversion to his atheistic philosophy and external appearance aside, I said I liked him too, and we all said good-bye to next year.) The girl, whose name I found out is Kinga, spoke briefly to my translator at reincarnation, Marek, who wrote down her e-mail address. She came to the temple booth for a second time along with her girl friend, and they both chanted the response and danced with great enthusiasm for almost two hours. Impressed with their great joy in kirtana, I took their picture (below). According to Marek, this was the first Krishna festival for Kinga and her friend, and they found it wonderful. They hope to attend the nama-hatta programs near their hometown in Poland.

The two young ladies in green pants (above) met us on the summer festival tour six hours away at Ustronie Morskie on Poland's Baltic coast about two weeks earlier, where I had photographed them dancing happily during the Village of Peace concert (below).
They were from Warsaw and were on vacation. They liked their experience at Ustronie Morskie so much they came all the way to Zary to spend the three days with our Krishna village, sometimes singing and dancing at our main tent and sometimes at the temple booth. After Woodstock was over they came by the school where we had stayed and heard Indradyumna Swami speak at our post-Woodstock meeting. They even helped us clean up a bit and honored a very delicious feast with us. The young man with upraised arms sang and danced for quite a while near the front of our temple. The girl above sang and danced all three days for hours at a time! What amazing fortune to be so attracted to this process of self-realization! (The guy uses his shirt to protect his lungs from the clouds of dust.) The two young ladies on the left, singing, dancing, and smiling, came repeatedly to our temple. At the Woodstock festival, I am always reminded of this quote from Krishnadasa Kaviraj's Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, "In distributing love of Godhead, Caitanya Mahaprabhu and His associates did not consider who was a fit candidate and who was not, nor where such distribution should or should not take place. They made no conditions. Wherever they got the opportunity the members of the Panca-tattva distributed love of Godhead. . . . The flood of love of Godhead swelled in all directions, and thus young men, old men, women and children were all immersed in that inundation." So far I have showed some of the young men and young women who were touched by the singing and dancing of Lord Caitanya's present-day followers. Now I shall show some of the "old men, women and children." This old man (left) and this old woman (right),  although not singing and dancing like the others, appeared quite happy in the temple hearing the transcendental singing and viewing the dancing. This young lady, and her young daughter both have faces painted with gopi dots. The girl rides on her mom's as mom dances along with the singing. These two young girls delight in dancing in a circle holding hands, along with the older kids. This mother, with three kids having faces painted with gopi dots, happily dances in a circle with her kids. The girl in blue was among the kids greeting us when we arrived in Zary.  The devotees called her Syama. She came to our festival each day. Here she dances to Sacinandana Swami's kirtana in the temple booth. When I showed her this picture, she insisted that I give it to her, but I kept the digital version to show you. With her mother's permission,  she came for the last two weeks of the summer tour along the Baltic coast. Some show their devotion by dancing in the temple and others by bowing down before the Lord's altar. On the final evening, the temple kirtana was to end at 1 a.m., but Arjuna Krishna Prabhu kept it going till almost 2 a.m. When he told the people it was over, I begged him to keep it going. Although some people left, I kept it going and the temple tent filled up again. Then Indradyumna Swami came and saw the temple kirtana was still going strong, and he told the pujaris (priests) to keep the Deities there and the kirtana going as long as people were there. Arjuna Krishna Prabhu recovered his enthusiasm, and we kept going till 4 a.m. when the last band finished on the main Woodstock stage, and many people looking for something to do came by to visit our temple and sang and danced happily (below). One of our security people from Russia also led the chanting there in the early morning. By 5 a.m. the sky began to get light, and those who were dancing were now sitting down, lying down, or in most cases, returning to their own tents, so we packed up Sri Sri Gandharvika-Giridhari and headed back to our base, after a very full and a very fulfilling evening. The day after the festival, we went back to the site to clean it up. There were still a couple of hundred people in our main tent, and some devotees went through it picking up the trash. After I helped dismantle some metal fences underneath the main tent, I saw, as I was leaving, a girl laying down on the grass with another girl sleeping on either side. She was reading our pamphlet called Krishna: The Reservior of Pleasure. It was so nice to see her reading the Krishna book there under our tent the day after the festival, I took her picture. Then I went to help pack up the inside of the temple tent in which I had chanted and danced so much along with other fortunate souls. It was sad for me to think that it was all over until next year. What would I experience that would even faintly compare to singing and dancing for twelve hours a day and answering the questions of sincere souls for another two hours. After an hour I came back to the main tent, and was surprised to see the same girl was still reading the book about Krishna. I decided to speak to her and found out that she had come the previous year and had such a good time that she brought two friends to share it with. They had lived in our main tent for three days. Before leaving her, I asked if she would like to know if we have any Krishna programs in her area, and she said she would. I went to find a nice brahmacari from Warsaw named Govinda Prema Prabhu who had told me he was involved with congregational development. He came over and greeted them, shaking hands, and asking their names. When they told him their village, he said that we had a group there that regularly held programs, and he got their e-mail addresses. I was glad to connect them with someone who could keep them in touch with Krishna. I thought that in addition to picking up the trash, if we talked with the people remaining in our main tent, many of whom had heard transcendental Krishna-katha for three days like these three girls, perhaps we could have got a few more contacts for future programs. Maybe we can do that next year, and thus give the people a chance to taste some more spiritual experiences in this otherwise dreary materialistic world of people dedicated, knowingly or unknowingly, to the degradation of the soul.

The Beauty of the Festival

The art department worked late into the night the week before the festival creating the beautiful decorations.




The Rathayatra cart (left) and the temple (right), made Krishna's Village of Peace a pleasure to see.

Last year the temple was just a bare tent bearing the sign "Swiatynia." This year, however, the temple was stunning. The front appeared like an authentic temple you might find in India.


This ornate temple facade is very beautiful and a great improvement over last year.


Inside the temple, the beautiful peacocks and the forest scene behind the Deities was also a nice addition.
Santiparayana Prabhu, who is performing arati (worship), and his wife, arranged for the nice decorations.

Another nice feature this year was that Lord Baladeva, Lady Subhadra, and Lord Jagannatha (left to right), resided on the altar in the temple tent after Their Rathayatra (cart festival) increasing the beauty and opulence of the temple.


Here the Deities Gandharvika Giridhari stand in the center, with Laksmi Nrsimha below them.

We even had a very beautiful ceremonial gate constructed at the entrance to Krishna's Village of Peace,
or as they say in Polish, Pokojowo Wioska Kryszny.





Rathayatra

Rathayatra was special this year because the devotees' had their own Rathayatra cart, and instead of going just one day we went all three days for two hours each time.


The Rathayatra leaves our temple and main tent behind as it enters the oceans of tents ahead.


We went out through a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people . . .


. . . and through fields of tens of thousands of tents.


Indradyumna Swami looks up toward Jagannatha as devotees and festival goers sing and dance.


Here many delighted festival goers help the devotees to pull the cart thus getting extra mercy.

The Rathayatra festival brings all kinds of people together on the joyful spiritual platform of God's service.

Spiritual Food

I promised I would tell you about the food, known as Krishna prasadam, spiritual food offered to God in devotion. Well, it was really good. Still only 3 zlote (about $0.75), and if you didn't have that you could pick up trash in exchange for it. There were beans, rice, vegetables, papadam (fried bean wafers), and some really good halava (a sweet dessert made with farina). Indradyumna Swami describes, "We also had plans to increase our prasadam distribution from the 90,000 plates of last year, to 100,000 plates. Fifty tons of foodstuffs had already been donated, all free."


From 10 a.m. to at least 2 a.m. devotees served a crowd of hungry festival goers.


You can see from their smiles, they were really eager to get the prasadam.









These two couples each enjoyed sharing a plate between themselves.


There were little groups of friends who sat throughout the area in the middle of our tents like the one seen below.



The most amazing thing about the prasadam was the great quantity distributed. Here is an excerpt from Indradyumna Swami's journal for the last day of this year's Woodstock:

"The devotees in our Food For Peace tent stayed up until 6 a.m. the next morning distributing prasadam to the kids and then, exhausted, they closed the tent and went home. When I went back down to the festival site at 8 a.m. to oversee the breakdown of our village, I was surprised to see a long line of about 400 young people, still in front of the tent. Then I noticed a small opening in the tent, where every so often a ladle of rice would appear and empty into the cup or plate of one of the kids.

"I went closer and finally into the tent. To my surprise, an older Polish devotee woman, Surabhi dasi, was slowly giving out prasadam, sometimes nodding off to sleep. 'I've been up all night,' she smiled.

"I was even more surprised when she pointed to 10 large containers of rice, halava, and papadams that had not been distributed. I opened the tent flaps even wider and began to help her distribute the rest of the mercy. I telephoned for more help, and within an hour, a crew of devotees came, and we continued distributing prasadam until noon.

"As we cleaned up, I marveled to think that the tent had served prasadam almost continuously for over 60 hours. Just as we were leaving, another devotee arrived. She was taking a tally of all the paraphernalia left at the site. With pen and paper in hand, she casually asked how many plastic plates were left.

"'Actually, not a single one,' I said. 'We ran out an hour ago and put the last portions of prasadam into the kids' hands.'

"Her eyes opened wide. 'That means we distributed exactly 101,000 plates,' she said.

"I closed my eyes. 'Srila Prabhupada,' I said silently, 'please accept that as an offering at your lotus feet.'"

Other Booths

This is one of three book booths, two in Polish and one in English. Gaura-Nitai are present here. All together 2,800 books were sold at the festival.

A team of gopi dot painters paints the faces of the guests, to their great delight.

The shop was very popular with many items imported from India.

Funny Photos

People would decorate their bodies in a variety of ways..



Recollections of Other Devotees

I asked many people to tell me what they thought of Krishna's Village of Peace at the Woodstock festival. A few gave a lengthy desciption of all or part of it. A disciple of Srila Prabhupada, Urmila Dasi, who runs a devotional school in North Carolina, U.S.A. and who came for the first time summarized her whole experience in an article. A young lady from Germany named Yvonne who is aspiring to be initiated by Sacinandana Swami, described her experience leading the singing in medytacja, the meditation booth. Their accounts follow:

Urmila Dasi's Visit

Because my tickets were purchased at different times, I had to fly from Venice to London with the group, and then take a flight from London to Berlin. I then rode to the village of the Woodstock festival. I left Prabhupada desh at about 11 a.m. and arrived at the festival grounds after midnight! The 400 devotees organizing the festival were staying in three schools. I shared a room with one lady from France who teaches English in "college" (the upper grades of high school for us Americans.) She lives far from devotees, and travels to temples in Belgium or London for festivals and to render service. The room was large and reasonably clean--many devotees had spent uncountable time trying to get these rooms clean for us! There were no showers as such; just drains in the middle of communal bathroom floors where one had to bathe with buckets of very cold water and hope that no one walked in while one was bathing! When considering the bathing facilities I thought of all the austerities the devotees undertook to put on this festival and do so many wonderful things for spreading Krishna consciousness.

I got to be in the school that was about a ten minute walk from the devotee area of the festival. I don't know if I can possibly adequately describe it.


The area for the devotees' "Village of Peace" was a rectangle,


one side of which was one huge, huge, huge tent that could hold over 10,000 people.


The back and sides of the stage in that tent were decorated with carved and painted walls like the arches and domes of a temple.


Going outside the main tent, on one "width" of the rectangle was the tent for serving prasadam. There were many lines, and they charged three zlotas a plate, about $0.75. Kids could get a free plate if they picked up garbage or gave out books. In the three days the devotees are there, they distribute about 100,000 plates. It was pretty basic prasadam--halava, fried little rice/potato papadams, beans, rice, and potato subji. The kids loved it--several asked me for recipes or cooking lessons! There were 70 cooks working in shifts 24 hours a day. Prasadam serving was continuous from 10 a.m. until 2 a.m. Everywhere there were festival participants taking prasadam. And, of course, the cooks had to supply prasadam for the 400 devotees, as well. And, should I mention that the second and third days of the festival were extremely hot? (Inside the question and answer booth was a literal sauna!)

Next to the prasadam serving tent was a face decorating tent with about 7-10 devotees painting people's faces. Next to that tent was the entrance to the security area for devotees to rest, take prasadam, change costume, keep flowers, and so forth. In that area were two gigantic pots--each one bigger than an automobile--for cooking the beans. They were heated with wood, and had to be moved with cranes. One had to climb stairs to stir them.



On the other side of the prasadam tent in the main area was an astrology tent. There, as in the question and answers tent and the reincarnation tent, a rotating group of devotees would answer questions--generally with a Polish translator.


In the astrology tent a devotee astrologer also read the charts of festival goers.

In addition to those tents, the other parts of the rectangle held two Polish book tents, one English book tent, two devotional shop tents, an information tent, a meditation tent, and a temple tent that looked like the Krishna Balarama temple with Russian onion type spires. In the temple and meditation tent were continuous kirtanas or bhajanas, with some brief lectures interspersed. Kids would come and sing and dance. In the temple tent were beautiful Radha Krishna deities, Jagannatha, Balarama, and Subhadra, and some Govardhana silas.

Jagannatha, Balarama, and Subhadra also rode around the major festival grounds once daily on a Rathayatra cart. The main area contained a huge stage for the music (or should I say noise from hell?) and was full of thousands and thousands of small tents (small ones that the festival goers brought for themselves to sleep in) with pathways between them. Devotees had a wonderful Rathayatra festival through the tents. Harinama parties went into the main festival grounds as well.

And on the stage in the devotees' big tent were continuous programs from 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. bhajanas, dramas, dances, bands, talks. There were "puppet" shows where the artistry is beyond description. A huge Aghasura, puppets that were like actors' costumes. Simply amazing. And the dramas were complete with professional lighting and sound effects. The whole festival was so professionally done and with such intense devotion that it was simply stunning. Donated were one ton of bottled water, three tons of frozen vegetables, mountains of potatoes.

But the most amazing thing was how many festival goers were interested, some deeply interested, in Krishna consciousness. These are youth--maybe 16-26 years old, though some of the local villagers came as well. Most were drinking beer, and many were extremely intoxicated. Everywhere one would see people lying unconscious on the dusty ground. And most people were in some sort of illicit sexual relationship, though conspicuous by its absence was the open homosexuality that is obvious near the London Soho temple.

Yet festival participants would spend hours asking about spiritual life, chanting, and dancing.


Many came to dance during the very hours when the main "music" bands were on the huge stage!


It was clear that tens of thousands of kids come to this festival only to be a part of the devotees' Village of Peace.

One girl who was dancing to Indradyumna Swami's bhajana in the largest tent grabbed my shoulders and said, "I'm a Hare Krishna! I'm a Hare Krishna!" Her face glowed with the happiness of the holy name. Many asked me how to join the movement or which of Prabhupada's books to read after the one they'd recently finished. They asked how much to chant daily and deep questions about the meaning of life. And one of the Polish devotees who acted as my translator told me that she and her husband had joined ISKCON from one such festival ten years ago.

Some of the Pandava Sena members who had come to the Italian festival from America were also at Woodstock in Poland. They told me that they had never before directly seen how degraded Western youth were. "You never went to a party at high school or college?" I asked them. It was a very good, sobering J experience for them to see the results of playing with Western youth "culture," as most of these kids from Indian backgrounds think they can play with the music, cinemas and so forth of the West without becoming degraded. They don't really understand the result of their fascination.

If all the people coming to Krishna consciousness weren't enough to float one in the ocean of nectar, it was enlivening to have the association of so many wonderful devotees who work for and attend the festival. There were Indradyumna Swami and Sri Prahlad, Rtadvaja Maharaja, Sacinandana Maharaja, Suhotra Maharaja, Bhakti Jnana Maharaja, Jayapataka Maharaja, Kavicandra Maharaja, Kadamba Kanana Maharaja, and BB Govinda Maharaja, Caturatma, Dharmatma and his wife Dvija priya, and many others. I met one Polish devotee who told me that on his first trip to Vrindavana last year--during the hot season--he was chanting 192 rounds a day! (Generally he chants 64 rounds a day.) He told me that he so much enjoys spending time with his good friend, the holy name. I heard that Sacinandana Swami spends at least one day a month only in chanting Hare Krishna, and one month a year at Govardhana--not at the "palace"--simply chanting and living on whatever alms are given to him. There are so many devotees who give heart and soul to please Krishna.

Yvonne's Bhajana

Haribol. . . Well you want to hear about my realizations of the Woodstock in Poland. . . . . Hmmmmmh. Let me think.

I didn't have any exact realization, but I had a nice experience which was very inspiring for me which I can share with you.

As you may have heard the Woodstock Festival is mainly a punk and heavy metal festival. There is one big, big stage where all the karmi [nondevotional] bands are playing and then there is the devotee stage which is a tent stage and which is also very big. Around 500,000 people come to the festival. The devotee stage is in the Village of Peace area which is a football pitch size space where they have many tents with stuff to buy, books, a meditation tent where they play bhajanas all around the clock, a temple tent where there is always kirtana and the Deities are in it, a astrology tent, a question and answers tent, and Food for Peace, where the karmis [nondevotees] buy there food because it's the cheapest place to buy food in the whole festival.

So I was standing in front of the meditation tent with my Gurudeva, Sacinandana Maharaja, and the organizer of the bhajanas, Tara Prabhu.

So while we were talking Sacinandana Swami mentioned that I should play next year on the devotee stage because "she is also into punk and rock." That's what he said.

And then he said, "But actually what about Yvonne performing tonight in the bhajana tent?"

Immediatly Tara said I should maybe also consider to lead kirtana in the temple tent. And I was thinking to myself " Oh no, not kirtana, I never led any kirtana, please Krishna I can't surrender like that" (although I always want to someday do kirtana). Fortunately Gurudeva said, " No, I think Yvonne would fit better into the bhajana tent," and I thought, "THANK YOU GURUDEVA"--a wave of gratefulness flooding my body.


Yvonne (left), her friend, Bianca (center), and her guru, Sacinandana Swami (right).


Tara Prabhu selected the singers in the bhajana and temple tents,
and speakers in the reincarnation and question and answers tents.

So Tara Prabhu said, "OK then you will be on the schedule at 8:15 tonight, and you will have 1:15 hours bhajana time."

"All right, all right," I thought, "this is big."


The meditation tent (medytacja) where there was bhajana (singing) for 14 hours every day.

So at 8 o'clock I went to the meditation tent, ready to play. As I was approaching I realized that the prabhu [devotee, literally 'master'] who was playing before me didn't know that I was on the schedule next, and actually I didn't want to push myself in it. but somehow mystically when I entered the tent the prabhu who was sitting in front of the harmonium said to me, "Hey, oh well would you like to do some bhajanas!"--What made it more strange that he said that was that as I heard no matajis [ladies] at all were leading bhajanas at the Woodstock. Secretly this fact made it for me even more exciting to play there. So I said down in front of a not even half filled tent with drunken metalheads.

And as I was playing for a while the tent slowly began to fill. Some were singing some were not, but I was in bliss cause everyone was looking at me expecting me to entertain them, and since I love to be on stage because I have a real big musician EGO, I beamed at them in ecstasy.

After half an hour my wrists started to hurt like mad because the harmonium didn't have too much air, so I had to pump the air into it much more to make it louder.(You have to imagine that in the background you heard the rumbling of the karmi heavy metal stage.)

But I just thought I want to go on. Then I thought I want this to be really ecstatic for everyone, so I need everyone to join in the chant. But how could I do that, a drunken and dull looking bunch of metals in front of me? I prayed to Krishna and to my Gurudeva and then came the idea. I just thought I have to become very personal then they will start to chant. So I started to look around in the tent looking into the eyes of several persons, smiling at them and trying to inspire them with my eyes to participate. And it worked. . . . somehow a personal atmosphere developed.

Normally in the temple most of the people who do bhajanas close their eyes and it's not so common to look into the eyes of the men or whatever. But under these circumstances it was totally welcomed.

The atmosphere rose and rose more and more blissful.

After one hour my mind said, "No, I can't go on, my wrists are hurting like ANYTHING."

But then the prabhus who played the kartalas said, "Please go on. Please!!!"

So I said, "Okay" . . . and while the mrdanga players changed cause their wrists were hurting as well, and I thought, "Oh how lucky they are", the bhajanas went on.

And again after half an hour of a wonderful bhajana, again my mind said, "Oh that's it I think my wrists will fall off. OK, I will end here. I even have played more than 1:15 hours."

But as I thought this the Prabhu with the kartalas said, "Hey go on now, the moment has come where you have to surrender. Your wrists will have one year after this to heal again."

And I said, "That's true!" And because this sentence hit so much my motto which I used to have several years ago, which is "I´ll sleep when I am dead" (inspired by song from Bon Jovi)--I now knew I had to go on!

So I started my last bhajana. It was the melody I once made up while I did some kirtana for my Deities. I didn't play this melody anymore at our Nama-hatta programs back at home cause some devotees didn't like it too much when I started to scream in the end phase of that melody. But I always felt that this is the way I had to sing that melody.

And now the glorious moment had come--to perform this melody in front of a crowd which loves when you scream! Probably the best crowd ever for that bhajana! I now knew, I could give all I had!!

More and more people joined in the bhajana, the tent was full. One prabhu even gestured to me I should come over to the temple tent and lead kirtana. And then it happened, one by one they rose to their feet and started to dance. I couldn't believe it, Krishna gave His whole mercy. They danced and chanted. And it was a dream come true to me because five years ago I used to be one of them, one of these stoned and drunken heavy metal people and now I had them chanting God's names, a thing which I never possibly believed could happen at a heavy metal festival like this. There was even a drunken guy stumbling over to my microphone and try to sing in it like on a rock concert. Some prabhus had to hold him back cause he tried several times to grap the mike.

And as the kirtana now became faster and faster, my mind wondered how long I could stand that speed. But as I thought on the energetic bhajanas my Gurudeva used to lead I got more and more strength.

Once Sacinandana Swami said to me that in a conversation with Vakresvara Pandit about how to perform bhajana, Vakresvara said, "when I do kirtanas I try to sing in an imploring way, and when the crowd sings I hear Krishna answer me with a thousand mouths."

And that's how I felt in that particular bhajana.

After two hours I stopped and stumbled out of the tent. Some Polish people even came to gratulate me in broken English. Then I met Tara Prabhu, and he invited me to come next year again and do bhajanas every day. I was in total bliss.

All I could think is "Thank you very much Gurudeva for your mercy and for this oppurtunity to surrender unto you!!!"

Those were my best moments on the festival.

Going Home


Indradyumna Swami chants bhajana before our final meeting in Zary following Krishna's Village of Peace.

The day after the festival, Indradyumna Swami told some stories about the festival (which I included above) and praised the devotees for their hard work. Rtadhvaja Swami then spoke, reminding us that all the hard-working devotees with their numerous talents could not have joined together and cooperated to put on this festival without the inspiration and tireless work of Indradyumna Swami who organized it. He also shared his own story of how a 14-year-old boy came up to him while he was dirty from picking up the trash and embraced him saying, "I love Krishna."


Polish Woodstock youths, many of whom got a taste of Krishna consciousness, wait for train to leave Zary.

It is hard for me to think of Woodstock now. It was an extremely beautiful experience that now exists as memories, photos, and words. I have to wait for another year to experience the transcendental pleasure of sharing the cream of the Vedic culture and philosophy on such a large scale again. I hope you can come too and be part of this pastime of Lord Caitanya's and His associates of showering divine mercy on the confused souls of this age and transforming hippies into happies.

(To read about the rest of the summer tour, please click on Reflections on the Laksmi Nrsimha Summer Tour 2003.)

"In distributing love of Godhead, Caitanya Mahaprabhu and His associates did not consider who was a fit candidate and who was not, nor where such distribution should or should not take place. They made no conditions. Wherever they got the opportunity the members of the Panca-tattva distributed love of Godhead. . . . The flood of love of Godhead swelled in all directions, and thus young men, old men, women and children were all immersed in that inundation" (Sri Caitanya- caritamrita, Adi-lila 7.23,25).

All glories to Srila Prabhupada, by whose mercy great sacrifices to uplift suffering humanity up to the platform of spiritual bliss, like Krishna's Village of Peace, are going on around the world.

Acknowledgments


I would like to thank Dvijapriya Dasi, Dharanikanta Dasa and Vrinda.Net.pl, Krishna.com, and especially Jayatam Jaya Sila Dasa for the nice pictures that help make this site come alive. I'd also like to thank Yamaraja Dasa of Back to Godhead for scanning and fixing up pictures for me and for putting four of my Woodstock pictures on the "Chant" page of the November/December 2003 issue of the magazine and including a link to this web page with them.

Interesting Links

Polish Festival Sites

Festivals of India in Poland
Indradyumna Swami's Diary of a Traveling Preacher
Indradyumna Swami on Woodstock 2001
Indradyumna Swami on Woodstock 2002
Indradyumna Swami on Woodstock 2003
Visiting the Laksmi Nrsimha Tour
Reflections on the Laksmi Nrsimha Summer Tour 2003
Visiting Krishna's Village of Peace 2001
Visiting Krishna's Village of Peace 2002
Villa de la Paz de Krishna 2003 - Festival Woodstock (Spanish)
Woodstock 2001 Pictures by Drdha Dasa
Vrinda.Net.pl (Polish)
Woodstock 2002 Pictures Day 1 (Polish)
Woodstock 2002 Pictures Day 2 (Polish)
Woodstock 2003 Pictures Krishna's Village of Peace (Polish)
Woodstock 2003 Pictures Day 1 (Polish)
Woodstock 2003 Pictures Day 2 (Polish)



Some Krishna Sites

Krishna.com
Nectar of the Holy Name
Bhaktivedanta Institute (Alachua)
Hare Krishna World

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Krishna-kripa Dasa, a disciple of His Holiness Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami (author of many books on spiritual life), serves at the Alachua, Florida, branch of the Bhaktivedanta Institute, the science division of the Hare Krishna movement. In his free time, he studies Bhagavad-gita As It Is, Srimad-Bhagavatam, Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, and Nectar of Devotion, organizes and participates in harinama parties in northern Florida, and writes devotional poetry.

If you have comments or corrections, please click here to contact Krishna-kripa Dasa by e-mail at krishnak@krishna.com.