In Varaždin prison the inmates mainly come from the Gipsy community. It was the Ekadasi in the Kartik month. When Mahatma and myself arrived, there were three inmates waiting for us, one of them had attended our programs before. A bit stiff, the new ones needed some time to relax. We attempted to involve them in bhajans, with moderate success. The philosophy part was also quite challenging – a simplified story of hunter Mrigari was something they could relate to, I then followed with the story of the life of Maharaja Bharata. We managed to connect with the inmate that came to the programs before, but the others were a bit withdrawn.
It seems that the best policy here is to just sing the Holy Name, so we ended with bhajans which they tried joining in. Though it didn’t appear as a big success, yet such programs for us grhastas are a great chance to serve, and to develop our preaching technique.
Sri Sri Radha Damodara ki Jaya!
Your servant Dharma-vatsalah Das