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For the first time Gurudev traveled from Hungary to Bulgaria by car, passing through Serbia where he took bath in one of the rivers near the Bulgarian-Serbian border. To our great joy, Guru Maharaja was accompanied by Harijan Maharaja from Hungary, Swami Maharaja, Ambarish prabhu and Balabhadra prabhu from Germany and Shyamananda prabhu from Sweden.
When we reached Bulgaria, the group of people was already waiting in front of the ashram. Gurudev started immediately the evening program, giving a lecture about the holy land of Vrindavan and singing Govardhanastakam in worship of Giriraj Maharaj deity in the Vishnupriya temple. There were many questions about the Vedic scriptures, about Srila Prabhupada’s life and message.
Next day Guru Maharaja visited the vegetarian restaurant “Veggie home”, which is run more than a year by Svilen with the help of his wife Elisaveta, who gave great joy to Gurudev with their recently born baby Saviv. The restaurant has very rich menu of Indian, Arabian and Bulgarian cuisine and the dishes are prepared by ecological products which Svilen chooses especially. Also, there is a long list of different kind of herbs and mixtures for tea, served with a natural honey. Separately there is a big bakery which produces the best breads of different kinds of black flour and other ingredients with the names “Sun and Moon”, “108” etc.
On 9th of August, it was Lord Balaram’s appearance day and the celebration of 28 years of Gurudeva’s sannyas initiation. We visited the eco farm Zhelen, situated 60 km away from Sofia, where Akshara prabhu is helping his friend Fillip to develop this nice project. Right now there is a house with land where they cultivate fruits, herbs and vegetables and a house in the higher territories of the area with big land and horses. The eco farm already produces and distributes an ecological strawberry marmalade, and many people from France, Spain and Germany come to work in the farm and to study the science of ecology and living in harmony with the nature. There are also many festivals here and workshops on painting, music and singing where many artists take part.
On this day Guru Maharaja gave initiation to Raivati devi and to Balaram Kumar prabhu.
In the evening we came back to the ashram for the Balaram festival and program. Gurudev spoke about his dear Guru Maharaja – His divine grace Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
The last day Gurudev gave morning lecture on the OIDA therapy project, and in the afternoon he was presented very beautiful project of the Bulgarian web site of the Spoon Revolution made by Iasen. We hope very soon to have it online.
In the airport Gurudev gave one more initiation to Vipralambha devi dasi who succeeded to come in the last moment to receive his mercy.
We would like to thank Gurudev and all the devotees who visited Bulgaria, for giving us this special mercy and enlivening our spiritual life.
All glories to Sri Sri Guru and Gauranga!
Trying to serve,
Bhakti Sakti dasi
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