ISKCON Disciple Course Now Compulsory For All Melbourne Applicants

Please note that passing the ISKCON Disciple Course is now compulsory for anyone taking shelter in Melbourne Yatra. The Course is designed to assist applicants prior to selecting a guru, not afterwards.

By ISKCON law the Course became compulsory for anyone applying for first or second initiation after 6.9.2015.

Melbourne Yatra will host an ISKCON Disciple Course over four days this month:

• Thursday October 22 and Friday October 23 6-9pm at the Mary Kehoe Centre in Danks St. opposite the Temple.


• Saturday October 24 and Sunday October 24 in the Temple Theatre, 10am-1pm and 2-5pm daily

The Course is facilitated by His Grace Aniruddha Prabhu. Taravali Mataji manages our ISKCON Disciple Course (IDC) registration and invitations. You can contact her in Reception.

The 20 person Course group will include:

50% devotees who are aspiring for shelter, or are sheltered
50% initiated devotees

Please note that acceptance of your registration is on a first-come-first-served basis.

You can register online here. If you do not receive a response, please follow-up by contacting Reception.

Festival of Vedic India at Bestchance Kinder

By: Navadwipa Isvari dasi.

The room was infused with the sound vibration of the Maha Mantra as the children and parents came in. Many parents commented on how calming they felt.

We were invited back the following week to present our Vedic India program to children of age group 4/5 years. It was truly so rewarding to be given the opportunity to interact with children of this age group. They were
very enthusiastic to participate.

After a brief introduction we started our program this time with yoga. We noticed the children were quite well coordinated when it was time to try out the various fun postures. They were quite interactive keeping our
yoga teacher entertained.

We later had a wonderful interactive power point presentation about our culture and festivals.

We also had hands-on demonstration and participation of the mrdanga and kartals. Then it was time to teach the ever popular Maha Mantra. The children learnt the mantra word for word a few times before singing  all together using the instruments. They were very excited to learn and sing, as i could see the seated children on the floor moving forward and surround me at the front to sing. One of the students  who appeared tired earlier on, asked "to sing the song again" once we had finished this segment. He said he "really liked singing this song". We were very pleased to hear that.

Then we showed the children the beautiful clothing and jewelry we had brought for them to try on. Most of the students got dressed while others were happy watching their teachers and class mates getting dressed.

We distributed Maha prasadam and maha garlands to the teachers and students. They really loved the fragrant and colorful garlands. Some immediately wore the garlands around their neck while some used it to decorated their hair with it.

The teacher was very impressed with our presentation and is looking forward to us coming back. She was so impressed that she told teachers of the other age groups in the same facility.

We felt very privileged to have had the wonderful opportunity to share our culture with these young people.