For 5 years in a row, we have been very fortunate to have the highly esteemed Acharya Ved Prakash "Shrotriya" Ji visit our shores and impart the true knowledge of the Vedas.

Despite having a very tight and heavily booked schedule until March 2008, he made himself available for eight days for our Annual Ved Prachaar.

In his previous visits, his lectures were centered on the Vedas, focussing on raising the level of understanding of our members and the general public.

This year, his lectures were on the Mandukya Upnishad.

The audience's knowledge of this Upnishad varied between novice to medium. For most of us the only introduction to this Upnishad was self-taught. To have someone like Acharya Ji explain this Upnishad was indeed very beneficial, thought provoking and interesting. We could not have achieved that level of understanding on our own. So this was indeed a very worthwhile experience and the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of NZ certainly deserve a lot of praise for changing the format for this year and raising the Ved Prachaar to the next level.

If you have listened to Acharya Ji, you will know that his excellent knowledge and delivery of the subject of the Vedas gives you that fantastic introduction and inspires you to research more on the subject. His dynamic lectures are certainly worthwhile attending as no amount of reading of the Vedic texts would have been that effective in raising the level of understanding and the motivation of our Arya Bandhus in New Zealand.

This year's Ved Prachaar was also quite significant. This will be our last Ved Prachaar in our existing Vedic Centre which is due to be demolished to make way for a new multipurpose hall. Such was the success of the prachaar that our attendance this year surpassed that of previous years! This year's attendance was limited by the size of our existing Vedic Centre. We even had attendees from overseas, and would like to especially mention Pt. Prashant Sharma Ji and family from Melbourne, Australia.

The Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of New Zealand would like to thank everyone who participated this year. We have always endeavoured to spread the true word of the Vedas using the best available resources and Prachaaraks. With your support we will continue to deliver quality Ved Prachaars in the future.

We will always endeavour to "Awaken the World with Vedic Light" whilst pursuing our goal of "Krinvanto Vishvam Aryam".