By Amala Prema devi dasi
The Bhakti Tree in Newcastle, NSW, Australia, the hub of loving exchanges, delicious food and transcendental sound vibrations celebrated its 1st anniversary and ISKCON’s 50th year anniversary on Friday, 18th of March. World-renowned international kirtaniya, His Grace Madhava Naidoo led the evening. More than 150 people attended the evening and enjoyed delicious prasadam. The Bhakti Tree has become a steadily growing community center, which gathered all its well-wishers, community members, volunteers, kirtan and yoga enthusiasts under the same roof on this special evening. The Bhakti Tree hosts, His Grace Abhay Charan dasa and Her Grace Jayanti devi dasi certainly made everyone feel welcomed and cared for as many expressed their heartfelt thanks to them for nurturing the seed of the Bhakti Tree and turning it into a peaceful space for all.
His Grace Madhava Prabhu relentlessly and humbly represents the cult of bhakti as introduced by our ISKCON founder-acarya His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada 50 years ago, all around the world. As Madhava Prabhu epitomized the kirtan mood in the evening, we have been fortunate to experience kirtan which is not an artistic performance but a sincere call to the Divine energy by which we try to open our hearts more and more to bring in real love into our lives, and share it with others. Madhava Prabhu eased us into chanting of several mantras ending with the Hare Krishna Maha-mantra. He got the Bhakti Tree all ears and as the crowd imbibed the transcendental sound vibration of the holy names, the kirtan built up into a mood of ecstasy where everyone participated enthusiastically in dancing, clapping and chanting their hearts out.
The Bhakti Tree, the city arm for New Gokula Farm and Sri Sri Radha Gokulananda temple, Millfield, in the Hunter Valley operates as a Café/Restaurant serving vegetarian lunches Tuesdays through to Saturdays between 11:30am and 2pm, and is also an attractive destination teaching spiritual traditions and culture. It holds two main weekly programmes; yoga class followed by prasadam on Wednesday evenings at 6pm, and kirtan followed by prasadam on Friday evenings again at 6pm. The Bhakti Tree serves about 700 lunches a week at the University of Newcastle on a recommended donation basis. The Bhakti Tree is actively spreading the teachings of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu through chanting, dancing and feasting.
Please cherish some of the photos from the evening, and feel inspired to take the opportunity to come and meet all the wonderful people at the Bhakti Tree if you are in this area. You may visit The Bhakti Tree Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/thebhaktitree for more photos from the evening, and join their page if you have not done so yet, in order to stay informed about all the upcoming events and updates at the Bhakti Tree.
your servant,
Amala Prema devi dasi