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CALENDAR  Comment on this story Srila Narayan Maharaja In Alachua BY JALAKARA DASA CALENDAR, May 22 (VNN) — Sri Alachua Gaudiya Math would like to cordially invite all devotees to our Third Annual "Festival of Understanding" featuring His Divine Grace Srila Bhaktivedanta Narayan Maharaja. The festival this year is a little different than before, because we are going to start some activities a little before the arrival of His Divine Grace. Srila Narayan Maharaja will arrive at the festival site from Orlando airport at approximately 3:00pm Tuesday May 22nd, at which time the traditional welcoming ceremony will be performed. Thereafter, Maharaja will speak every day beginning on May 23rd through Memorial Day May 28. Maharaja and his party will depart from Jacksonville airport at mid-day Tuesday May 29th, proceeding to the Washington D.C.-area festival. His Divine Grace is expected to speak every morning around 7:00am and every evening around 6:00pm. There will also be bhajan, kirtan and plays. His Holiness B.V. Aranya Maharaja will depart Miami and arrive with his party in Alachua on the afternoon of Saturday May 19th. He will then speak every evening on the 19th, 20th and 21st in the main tent at the festival site. There will also be a morning program every day beginning on May 19th and ending on May 29th. Between May 23 and 28th there will be mid-morning lectures by Aranya Maharaja, Madhava Maharaja, Pundrika prabhu and Jadurani prabhu, as well as others. There will also be afternoon talks as well as trips to the springs, etc. This year, in order to help finance the festival, we have book sales, tee-shirt sales and sales of snack items such as drinks, pizza, samosas, etc. There will also be three prasadam meals served: breakfast, lunch and an evening feast. We have also reserved a larger tent than last year, and have erected better cooking facilities. The Sri Alachua Gaudiya Math devotees started a half-acre garden in the spring, so this year we are growing all the flowers and a good deal of the vegetables for the festival. There will be a recommended festival donation to cover the cost of the tent, bhoga, sound system, etc. Last year we tried to get $50 from every visitor. This year there will be one donation if you camp and another if you just take prasadam. As an added bonus, due to popular demand there will also be camping on site and outdoor toilets and showers. All campers and others needing accommodation must register upon arrival. There will be an open marquee for sleeping, as it will be warm and temperate. For those of you who have visited before when the festival was held in June, you will be pleased to learn that the month of May is cooler, less humid and drier than June. For those of you who need to arrange transportation from an airport, as always we will do our best to help you. Generally speaking, in the days before the festival we will be running a daily shuttle to Jacksonville (JAX) airport, and we will coordinate the timing of that to coincide at the time when most devotees arrive. As Orlando (MCO) is more distant, we are not now planning any regular shuttle to MCO, but we will make a special arrangement if enough devotees are arriving and departing there. If you use our shuttle service, you will be asked to contribute towards the costs. We have no plans to operate and service to Tampa airport, but if anybody is arriving at Gainesville Regional Airport (GNV) we will collect you. As always, is you can coordinate your arrival-departures with Narayan Maharaja's arrival and departure, you can be assured of a lift, as there will always be plenty of transportation available at that time. There is a slight difficulty for air travelers because Maharaja is arriving and departing from two different airports, but we will work to facilitate all air travelers. For complete details of Motels, directions, airports, etc, please refer to either of the following websites: http://www.gurupuja.com/contact.htm or http://www.purebhakti.com . You can contact the Sri Alachua Gaudiya Math festival organizers by telephone on (386) 462-0569, fax on (386) 462-1156 and e-mail at jala@cdoctor.com. Please note the area code is changing from (904) to (386). Those of you who have visited us in the past know what a nice festival we have in Alachua every year. In particular, Narayan Maharaja is very relaxed here, and he enjoys spending time in his garden in the woods with the devotees, and he finds the climate here very pleasing. All the devotees were very happy last year when he gave two classes every day, as well as frequent darshans inside the house or deep in the woods. The devotees of Sri Alachua Gaudiya Math look forward to hosting all the visiting devotees and will work hard to make this a festival to remember. Our festival of Understanding is the premier established Gaudiya festival on the East Coast and this year we are expecting 400+ guests. Whatever help you need, contact us; we are here to serve you. We would also like to tell everyone that we need the following help during the festival: quantity cooks, play actors, bhajan singers, groundskeepers. If you arrive a little before the festival, we will put you to work doing seva like cooking, cleaning, gardening, setting up tents and tables and things like that. We also will need devotees to man the book table, tee-shirt table, samosa table, etc., as well as shuttle van drivers. We offer our obeisances to you and our prayers for your safe journey to us and back home again. Related VNN Stories Comment on this storyContact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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