ISKCONyouth.com

1) Gangadas Pandita

2) August 16th, 1989

5) I was born in Seattle, Washington. From there I moved to Alachua, Florida. For the next couple of years I lived in between Alachua, Seattle, and Hillsborough, NC. During this time I attended the Vaisnava Academy for Boys, public middle school, and Mother Urmila’s gurukul. After North Carolina I finally settled in Alachua, where I returned to the Vaisnava Academy for Boys. From there I went to the new Vaisnava Academy for Boys headed by Rohini Kumar. After that I went to public school for two years wherein I focused mostly on my education. I began working at the fleamarket in Jacksonville a little before this time. In the summer of 2006 I went on the bustour, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was a very nice experience, very different from the two summer trips I had previously attended. I graduated high school in 2007 and again went on the summer bustour. Now in the fall of 2007 I am a student at SFCC full time and I work full time at the preaching center and fleamarket.

6) Just recently I’ve become very interested in volunteering for Food For Life this summer. Other than that I want to go to India to see the dhams, travel, and get at least my bachelors from the University of Florida. I want to become a much better devotee and improve my study habits.

7) I love travelling and extremely enjoy playing the mrdanga in a good bhajan or kirtan. I love playing competitive sports such as soccer, hockey, basketball, football, and more recently wrestling sometimes. I enjoy learning interesting, applicable things as well as history (For which I am trying to think of a practical use but for lack of one immediately coming to mind will leave the sentence as is).

8) From friends mostly.

9) I would like to come on the bus tour because I have been on it before and I know it will be an amazing experience. I am especially looking forward to Mexico because it’s a very different country. I am expecting to have a blissful spiritual time while also making and developing friendships.

10) The spiritual aspects to me are a big bonus because I know they are lacking from my daily life. I have a lot of excuses for why I can’t chant japa or go to the morning program, but I’ve found that these things are much easier and indeed are very enjoyable on the tour. For me the experience of being on the tour doing these spiritual activities, being with a group of youth sharing these experiences, and hearing other peoples realizations has really solidified my spiritual beliefs. That is of course not to say that my priorities aren’t a little skewed, but I know this and try to work on it.

11) Krishna is who most of my life has been centered around. Although I cannot say the same for my daily activities which primarily consist of going to school, most of the major decisions in my life have been to develop my connection with Krishna. Even in my daily life I hear Krishna katha everyday, at work, at school, and at home. I am really fortunate to work at the preaching center, where I get to associate with devotees who talk about Krishna all the time. I try to go to the Sunday feast every week, although my work often interferes. I also try to go to gurupuja, especially now that it’s kartik.

12) Right now I don’t feel that I am realized enough to preach. First I need to realize that the goal of life is to go back to godhead. Basically as I said earlier I know that my priorities aren’t straight. However I do really enjoy preaching and helping others. I’m not sure how I will do this, although the bus tour experience really attracts me towards a similar type of preaching. Working at the preaching center has also taught me a lot about prasadam distribution and I realize that this is a very good method of preaching. I would like to give people prasadam and develop friendships so that they can gradually become Krishna Conscious. Especially this idea of developing friendships, I believe it has a lot of power.

13) Despite all the naysayers I believe ISKCON is alive and active. ISKCON is learning from past mistakes and is gradually undergoing a change of guard. But Prabhupada had firm faith in ISKCON and its potential. Really ISKCON is just a name for all the individual devotees who compromise it. Some may have faults but many others are doing amazing things.

14) For one I would never live in Alachua if it weren’t for the devotees. I doubt anyone in the community would. My entire life is centered largely around temple activities and devotee friends. If the temple disappeared I would lose all of my friends and mentors and my spiritual base. The temple is a place that represents Krishna Consciousness, where I can go and focus almost entirely on Krishna. There is no other place as god conscious as the temple.

15) Well I liked what Manu Prabhu was telling me the other day about having youth trips every month. More youth involvement. Really though I feel that gurukulis aren’t taking enough advantage of the opportunities that are already present. But some programs that are solely for the youth, such as an Alachua youth ministry or monthly youth trips could help youth to contribute in return to the temple.

16) I would like to be more involved in festival preparations and behind the scene work. I would like to try and organize the youth to participate more because I believe that the temple could benefit greatly from more youth involvement. However before I would take on this type of position I would obviously need to improve on my sadhana and participation at the temple. In general I am attracted to progressive youth programs such as Krishna Lunch or the bus tour and would love to be more involved with both.

17) Intelligence, ability to make friendships, and work ethic.

18) Faith, spiritual knowledge, and musical ability.

19) Coming on the bus tour would mean a lot for be because… Even though I live in Alachua, the largest devotee community in North America, I find it difficult to be spiritual when I’m so busy with work and school. The bus tour will, and has, provided me an opportunity to relax, be more introspective, and become more spiritual. And I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t mention that I would love to visit Mexico and really want to see my best friend Aniruddha as well. The best thing about the bus tour is associating with other youth and together participating in spiritual activities which are really fun.

20) Kalakanta Prabhu

Rohini Kumar Prabhu

Mother Kaishori