In Jan 2015, I felt inspired to catalog stories, analogies, pastimes from our Scriptures along with their source in electronic form. I wanted to save them on a site so they are searchable and usable by other devotees as well. Krsna inspired us to name the site: lightofgodhead.com. “Light of Godhead” – an humble attempt to spread the knowledge (light) about Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Feeling these stories, analogies are very effective in communicating philosophical concepts even to a child, soon we started “Govinda Story Time” with kids in Seattle. The sessions were very well received and kids started enjoying them. We started recording these sessions and posted them on our website. Simultaneously our Bhakti-Vaibhava teacher H.G Radha Krishna prabhu asked me to teach Srimad Bhagavatam to mathajis. We started developing systematic notes based on Srila Prabhupada’s purports and lectures, to guide our classes. We saved these notes as well on the site to benefit others.
All the above services lasted an year while we moved to Houston in June, 2016. Two years passed by in getting used to Job, kids school, building our home etc. Back of the mind I was thinking I am not contributing anything now, should I even keep this website around? Then in 2018, when we started “Kids Bhagavatam” sessions, this website got a new life. We started using this to share the poems with the children. A little later in Jan 2019, I felt inspired to start teaching Sanskrit to Children. This past summer we dedicated to increase their reading/writing proficiency. We will soon be posting a video of the same shortly. To serve devotees on the Facebook, I felt inspired to write articles sharing our realizations in Krsna consciousness. These articles are categorized and documented on the website.
While Krsna changed our plans of Homeschooling, I felt vacant in my heart as to what would be my service when we move to Mayapura, India. Answering my sincere prayer, Krsna inspired and revealed that I could be dedicating rest of my life to serving young Vaishnavas by teaching Srimad Bhagavatam, Sanskrit and other scriptures in a fun-filled way. I felt very satisfied and grateful for this service.
We wanted to register an non-profit organization to support our missionary activities. Can you guess the name for the same? Yes, “Light of Godhead”. August 6th, 2019 we applied for tax exemption with IRS for the organization. The following was documented as the purpose of the organization:
To spread knowledge about Krsna (God) and Love for Krsna among the humanity by:
1) Teaching Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhagavad-Gita, other Gaudiya Vaishnava literatures and Sanskrit to Adults and Children.
2) Develop curriculum/teaching resources like poems, videos to teach the above to children.
3) Publish books, resources, handouts as required for purpose 1 above.
4) Promote awareness of organizational activities via traditional press/internet/social media/website etc.
Yesterday, Aug 23’rd, 2019, on the most auspicious occasion of Sri Krishna Janmashtami, I saw a letter from “IRS” on my desk. To my excitement in there was the approval for our “tax exemption”. Usually IRS does a lot of scrutiny and inquiry, sometimes it takes months. So I wasn’t expected the response so soon, on top of it, on the Janmashtami day? I took this as blessings from our dear Lord Krsna. On this auspicious occasion of Srila Prabhupada’s appearance day, we humbly place this letter at his lotus feet, seeking his blessings to empower us to assist him in his mission.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada. Hare Krsna.
p.s: If you haven’t already, please visit our website lightofgodhead.com and like our FB page @lightofgodhead to encourage us. I pray there is something in these that inspires you.