Henry: Bookseller at Bhakti Fest 2024

Henry and Cindy at their book booth at Bhakti Fest 2024.

September 27-29, 2024: Henry attended Bhakti Fest 2024, a yoga, dance, and sacred music festival that has been held annually in Joshua Tree, California since 2009. Bhakti Fest is a certified non profit 501c3 and has its roots in yoga, sacred music (kirtan), and meditation. It embraces ancient and modern sacred wisdom and traditional and non-traditional spiritual practices. Bhakti Fest is billed as the ultimate Yoga & Conscious Music Festival. It is held annually at the Joshua Tree Lake and Campground in California’s Mojave Desert. The festival features a weekend filled with music, yoga classes, breathwork, sound healing sessions, spiritual and wellness workshops, a vibrant Kidsland, and a lineup of conscious music on multiple stages and practice with renowned yoga teachers and spiritual leaders.

Henry and his wife Cindy set up a book table featuring Henry’s books of Hare Krishna history. Henry reported:

Cindy and I had a blast at Bhakti Fest at Joshua Tree Lake and Campground in the California Mojave Desert! We sold our first book within fifteen minutes of setting up our booth. We had a lovely vendor’s spot on the lake, with views of the mountains in the south.

On the first day we met a few dozen wonderful people; Krishna devotees, former Krishna devotees, friends of Krishna devotees. One fellow who came to our book table said he lived as a brahmachari at New York ISKCON in 1970 for six months; then left to follow Baba Rama Dass. Another fellow, Bir Raghava dasa ACBSP, used to live at Los Angeles ISKCON. He purchased a copy of Eleven Naked Emperors. I was surprised not to see an ISKCON booth (there was a booth for Radhanath Swami’s Govardhan Eco-Village in Maharastra, India), but Bhaktivedanta Narayana Maharaja’s followers had a booth, and they performed very nice kirtans, which I could hear from my book table, maybe 100-200 feet away.

On day two, I met Sridhar Silberfein, the gentleman who founded Bhakti Fest in 2009. He walked over to my booksellers booth and said, “You need some shade.” (The temperature reached a high of 101 degrees F that day.) I replied, “These umbrellas help a lot, and we’ve been drinking lots of water and spraying ourselves with a mister spray bottle.” (Later I heard that day 30 people had been treated for heat exhaustion at the first aid tent.) Sridhar had heard about my books, and after a 5-minute chat he invited me to come backstage during the evening performances.

I did go backstage after sunset, and got to chat with him and some other friends of his in the backstage lounge, including Peter Rader, a filmmaker and screenwriter, who served as consulting producer for Yadubar’s 2017 film Hare Krishna! The Mantra, the Movement and the Swami Who Started It. Peter is best known for Awake: The Life of Yogananda (2014), The Last Legion (2007), Waterworld (1995), and Grandmother’s House (1988). I gave him a comp copy of Killing For Krishna, and the brochure for my 12 books. Perhaps something may come if it in the future.

I also met the singer Vijay Krsna of the Kirtaniyas, a devotional music ensemble, backstage. Coincidentally, as Cindy and I were packing up our book table that night, he and several members of his entourage walked past our booth and stopped. He recognized me from meeting me backstage and remarked, “I know who you are! I’ve seen some of your videos! I like how you are very respectful to Srila Prabhupada.” We chatted a bit, and he said he was friends with Bhima Karma. I spoke a little how Bhima Karma, in my opinion, was the hero of the 2023 movie, Krishna: Gurus, Karma, Murder. I gave Vijaya Krsna a few brochures about my books.

Bhakti Fest logo.

Sridhar Silberman, the founder of Bhakti Fest, visits Henry at his book booth. Henry and Cindy used umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun.

A former ISKCON devotee, Bir Raghava dasa ACBSP, purchases a copy of Eleven Naked Emperors and asks for an autograph.

The lake at Bhakti Fest.

A scene from Bhakti Fest.

A scene from Bhakti Fest.

A scene from Bhakti Fest.