On the 18th of July I flew off to Stockholm, together with two brahmacarinis from Kharkov: Margarita and Natasha. I had invited them to come along - to assist me, and to take them for a little spiritual holiday and thus broaden their horizon of being a devotee in ISKCON. I have always considered visiting other countries and temples as an important part of training and education.

On our arrival in Almvik I immediately found myself very busily absorbed in the final preparations for our upcoming Bhakti Sangam festival.
It was sceduled for seven days - from the 22nd to the 28th of July, and we were expecting wonderful sadhus to bless us with their association:

HG Krsna Ksetra Prabhu who hadn't visited Almvik for many years, and who has been serving as initiating spiritual master for more than twenty years, HG Dina Bandhu Prabhu coming all the way from Vrindavan in order to turn our Almvik village into Vrindavan village, and who had never visited Almvik before, HG Dhananjaya Prabhu, who had so much wonderful association with Srila Prabhupada and who was full of Prabhupada nectar, and HG Narayani Mataji who was well known to one and all for her relevant classes and humble demeanor.

Another highlight of my visit to Kharkov/Ukraine was the two-week course
"Exploring The Roots Of Spiritual Culture" for Vaisnavis......

On the 30th of June we welcomed forty ladies coming to participate in this transformational journey - twenty coming from various parts of Russia, and twenty from different cities of Ukraine and Moldova.
I had limited the number of participants to forty ladies in order to create a personal atmosphere where I could give attention to each and every person, and allow everyone to ask questions and share realizations and comments.

We had rented rooms in several hostels of Colleges and Universities in order to accomodate everyone for these two weeks.
And as usual the entire event was conducted on donation basis - no fixed fees, since this is indeed such an important part of brahminical culture!
And this fact creates a wonderful mood of service: if the leaders are in a selfless mood of service, then this mood filters down through the entire program, and every participant wants to serve and give.

Spiritual culture is a culture of giving, where everybody is simply absorbed in wanting to serve and contribute. No need to charge, since there is a competition of service in selflessness.....!