The ISKCON Laguna Beach temple celebrated its annual regional Maha Gaura Purnima Festival on Saturday, March 13th 2010. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu delivered the fallen souls of Kaliyuga by engaging everyone in Harinama Sankirtan (Congregational chanting of the Holy names) and so the ISKCON Laguna Beach temple celebrates its annual Regional Festival with a huge Harinama at Laguna Beach, California, USA, attended by over 500 devotees.

The festivities began at 10:00am with devotees coming in from all over California and other parts of the country. As has been the tradition, the Laguna Beach temple was decorated with fruits and flowers. It is said that Krishna prefers the offerings of fresh, fragrant flowers to gold and hence special flowers were flown in from Hawaii to decorate the temple hall and the altar. The altar doors opened at about 10:30am with devotees getting wonderful Darshan of Sri Sri Panca Tattva deities beautifully clad in their new outfits. Then all devotees paid their obeisances to Srila Prabhupada during Guru Puja. The devotees gathered had the good fortune of the association of three Senior Sannyasis: HH Indradyumna Maharaj who makes it to this festival every year, HH Giriraj Maharaj and HH Jayapataka Maharaj. HH Indradyumna Maharaj began his discourse first by appreciating the good work of our Temple President Tukaram Prabhu and then explained the importance of preaching on the basis of Caitanya Caritamrita. He quoted various incidents from Prabhupada's life and also from his travels around the world. He also mentioned how the devotees at the ISKCON Utah Lotus Temple are working very hard to spread Prabhupada's message. The discourse was followed by a short play by the ISKCON Laguna Beach Sunday School children. The children beautifully enacted the pastime of the deliverance of Jagai and Madhai by Caitanya Mahaprabhu. The children were trained by the two Sunday School teachers--Bhaktin Poonam and Bhakta Guru.

The play was followed by a huge Harinama procession to the beach. Devotees took turns carrying the deities of Gaura-Nitai. Sakhya Prem prabhu organized the book distribution during the Harinama. Bhakta Deepak Chandani flew in from San Jose to help with the book distribution. The Harinama party returned to the temple to have one more ecstatic Kirtan during a Maha Arati. Devotees then honored a huge Prasadam feast prepared by the Laguna Beach devotees and congregation members, Los Angeles devotees and San Diego devotees.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of the Laguna Beach temple devotees, the festival sponsors and all those who attended; the 2010 Maha Gaura Purnima Festival was celebrated on a grand scale.

By Bhakta Paramesh Jayaram