Nevada desert, USA August26 (odisha.in) There will be a Krishna Camp and Rath Yatra (chariot procession) at the world famous weeklong Burning Man festival starting August 27 in Nevada desert where tickets per person cost $350.
About 40 thousand participants gather annually to create Black Rock City in Nevada desert, about 127 miles from Reno, dedicated to self-expression, self-reliance, and art as the center of community, and leave one week later, having left no trace.
An American couple will get married in the traditional Hindu style at Krishna Camp, where a temporary full-fledged Lord Jagannatha temple with life-size deities has been set-up and where the visitors can offer incense to the Lord.
Krishna (Krsna) is the eighth incarnation of Vishnu, the all-pervader deity in Hinduism, and traditional history places him around 3000 BCE.
Annabelle Younger, one of the coordinators of the Krishna Camp, says that devotees of Lord Krishna from around the world have helped set-up this Camp, costing about $20,000, which will house over thirty people.
The Rath Yatra chariot for Lord Jagannatha has been transported from Vancouver in Canada to this site, traveling over 1,000 miles and costing over $2,000 in transportation.
Rath Yatra will be held on all seven days of the festival, beginning on Balaram Jayanti (birth anniversary) and ending on Janmashtmi (Krishna’s birthday).
About 1,000 people are expected to participate in the actual procession everyday, which will be watched enroute by about 35,000 people, when it goes around the temporary Black Rock City, traveling about two miles.
Leaving the Camp at 10 am daily, the Lord’s chariot will return home at 10 pm after passing through the streets of the desert city, Younger adds.
According to Rasikananda and Nitai Das, other coordinators of the Camp, starting with Mangala Arti ceremony at six am, each day at Krishna Camp will include discussions/talks about Krishna, mass kirtan (devotional singing), guru puja (worship), prasad (blessed food) distribution, etc., and ending with Sudarshan Narsimha Yajna (fire sacrifice).
Free hot and cold chai (Indian tea) will be available round-the-clock for the visitors to Krishna Camp. Indian delicacies like samosas, jalebis, gulab-jamuns, pooris, pakoras, etc., will be cooked fresh everyday at Krishna Camp—the playhouse of Lord Jaganantha.
Krishna Camp will also be promoting vegetarianism at the festival, which draws environmentalists, activists, techies, alternate thinkers, etc., from all over the world.
“Go vegetarian” and thus increase duration of your life; purify your existence; give strength-health-happiness-satisfaction to your body, community, and environment—is the message.
Besides no meat/fish/eggs, other restrictions at Krishna Camp are no sex, no gambling, and no liquor, although the Burning Man festival does not prohibit these.
Famous Hindu chaplain Rajan Zed, who recently read the historic first Hindu prayer in the United States Senate in Washington DC, has congratulated the organizers for proposed Rath Yatra and urged the communities in other cities of USA and Canada to organize Rath Yatras in their respective cities to create awareness about ancient Indian culture and Hinduism, which is the oldest and third largest religion of the world.
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