The auspicious evening of Sri Rama Navami at our Hare Krsihna Temple began with the greeting of the temple's presiding Lordships, Sri Sri Radha Mandana Mohan in Their new set of finely tailored clothes.

Their Lordships in Their special new outfits

One of the nice things about this Rama Navami Festival and other festivals, at our Hare Krsihna Temple is the inclusion and participation of the younger children.

The young devotees recited & sang the glories of Lord Rama (below), and dressed as Lord Rama, Laksmana & Sita (right).

(Lt. to Rt.) Raksha Patel, Sheila Sarkar, and Prianka Kansal recite and sing the glories of Lord Rama

The evening concluded with an arati to Lord Rama and the congregation offering flowers to Lord Rama to the accompaniment of ecstatic chanting of the Lords Holy Names, lead by Mahidhara Dasa while devotees young and old danced joyfully.

Getting blessings from Lord Ram
after offering flowers

Youthful devotees chanting and dancing during the Rama Puja Kirtan

After the greeting and Arati, the concluding class of the 9 day lecture series (Rama Katha) began wherein Akrura Prabhu spoke from the Bhagavad-Gita's verse 4.7 about the Lord's manifestation.

Akrura Dasa lecturing during 9 Day Rama katha in a full temple room

A Young (blessing giving) Lord Rama, with a determined Laksman, and a shy Sita walked around the temple room giving blessings to the festival attendees.

Yatika Patel as Sita, Krishna Das Sharma as Lord Rama and his brother Siddhartha Sharma as Laksmana walk around the temple room

 A live theatrical drama by the Natya Shastra Theatre Troupe, depicted "Scenes from the Ramayan".

Bhaktin Sara, played the role of the lovely and beautiful Sita, wife of Lord Rama, (Bhakta Stephan), who was kidnapped by the evil Ravana, (Peter Konikow). 

Jatayu, (Gaura Sundar), the Vulture devotee of Lord Rama came flying onto the scene with an acrobatic cartwheel challenging Ravana to unhand Sita. An action packed battle between them ensued with Ravana finally cutting the wings of Jatayu leading to his defeat.

Hanuman (Haridama Dasa), allying himself with Lord Rama, Jumped across the ocean finding the the kidnapped Sita, in Ravana's palace garden. After being captured by the agents of Rama, Supurnaka (Ishvareena Sharma) along with her brother Ravana taunted Hanuman and set his tail ablaze. Escaping his captives, Hanuman set the kingdom on fire with his burning tail and then returned to Rama to report the whereabouts of Sita thus bringing Him and the army of soldier monkeys back to save Sita and Killing the Evil Ravana.

Hanuman being blessed by Lord Rama before his leaving for Lanka

Meanwhile throughout the evening a nine preparation vegetarian feast was continuously distributed to an estimated 1500 guests in the temporary Prasadam tent set up in front of the temple.

an estimated 1500 guests relish a 9 preparation prasadam feast