festival as outreach

I will be attending the Toronto Ratha Yatra,the biggest -- and rumored to be the best -- Ratha Yatra in North America, this weekend.

That got me thinking about the communications purpose of these festivals, and their significance for ISKCON.

A blogger in Montreal recently stumbled upon one such Ratha Yatra festival and wrote a short but nice observation. Here's the intro teaser:

Every year, I see colorful tents set up at the corner of Parc and Mont-Royal in Jeanne Mance Park for the Hare Krishna/Hindu festival. I've also seen the colorful chariot covered in flowers parade by. There's always free food given out and you would think that me being me - where there's food, I would be there - but oddly enough, I have never gone to check things out. This year, I decided to be more adventurous and went to visit the festival site...

(Read the whole thing here)

I think as devotees we sometimes take it for granted that these festivals -- as much as they are in need of repair, revamping, and re-strategizing -- are attractive and valuable gifts that ISKCON shares with the world. In a world where "preaching" usually means some holier-than-thou fanatic thumping on a ____ (insert your scripture of choice) and talking down to people, such events can be an effective and pleasing way of sharing the culture of God consciousness with others.