Sunday Love Feast Program history
Srila Prabhupada established a Sunday Love Feast Program held every Sunday at Hare Krishna centres from the time he was physically present – a legacy that devotees follow till now with much enthusiasm and dedication in ISKCON Temples across the world.
One Saturday night in the fall of 1966, one devotee was stirring sweet rice in the small kitchen in the storefront temple at 26 Second Avenue, while others were frying samosas, kneading and rolling puri dough, spicing vegetable dishes, cutting apples for a chutney, making golden ghee-fried milk balls (called gulabjamuns), and working on some half dozen other preparations, all under Srila Prabhupada’s direct supervision. This was all in preparation for one of the first of ISKCON’s Sunday Love Feasts, and the devotees, who had advertised the new program in the Lower East Side neighborhood, were expecting about fifty guests.
Word spread quickly about the exotic and delicious vegetarian feasts the Hare Krsna devotees were having. Before long, each Sunday the small temple room and courtyard would fill with guests eager to try the delicacies the devotees were generously serving. Over the years that followed, Srila Prabhupada opened many other temples, and in each one his Sunday feast program became a standard activity that continues today in Hare Krsna temples worldwide.
Indeed, the Sunday Love Feast Program is popular in the world. Even the famous Steve Job (co-founder of Apple company) mentioned in a speech that during his youth in his struggling days – he used to walk for 7 miles to the Hare Krishna Centre every week to partake of the meal offered as part of the Sunday Love Feast Program. You may listen to the speech here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NBrz0HCU7c
