His Holiness Indradyumna Maharaj: Before I begin I would just like to point out that Bhakti Caitanya Maharaj for many of you is your diksa guru or siksa guru. Above all the official terms he is one of the pioneers of the Krishna consciousness movement here. He has touched briefly on some of the services that he has done. I can see why you are looking at him like he is your Maharaj, he is your GBC he is your leader here but he preaches in other parts of the world as well. I don’t want to make you jealous or anything but when he is there in far eastern Siberia and he is addressing the devotees he is also speaking as their leader and they look to him in the same way as you look to him and he is their Maharaj and also Lithuania and that part of the world as well. I just wanted you to know that you are very fortunate. We have to share him. I hope you appreciate how fortunate you are to have such leadership here which amongst other leaders as well. The jewels that we have in this wonderful yatra, so much success! One time Prabhupada said any program is only as good as the person that is heading it up but you must be good followers as well because that also has to be there.
I don’t feel that I have any claim to be sitting here this evening with all these great devotees. As I look around I must admit that I don’t know most of you and probably most of you don’t know me. I think I just got here by chance or something. I can’t claim that I have done anything. I did have a stint as a temple president in Durban in 1987. I don’t know if I am famous or infamous for that. If it was infamous please bear with me. Being the temple president is most probably the most difficult service in this movement and I learnt the hard way. Bhakti Caitanya Maharaj was actually the president in 1986 or thereabouts. I just came down for a visit to rest and eat and I remember the temple was running very nicely. Maharaj was doing well and then I don’t know what happened. I got this idea that I wanted to be the temple president. Probably pratista or something like this. Maharaj was chanting I don’t know if he remembers. He was chanting his rounds around the moat one morning and I just walked up and said, “Maharaj what do you think if I became the temple president here?” And his immediate reaction, he was so merciful he said, “Oh that would be very nice.” He handed me the hot potato. It only lasted about nine months or so. We went into debt. We had a great time. We had a lot of kirtan, putting on ratha-yatra, a lot of great feasts and in the end there was no money left in the treasury.
Anyway I am happy to be in this august assembly. Actually I was reading the other day about the life of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur. When he was a young man actually he was still a teenager. He was going to school but in his spare time he would go to the park near the university that he was studying in and unlike many teenagers today they engage in so many frivolous sports and such activities, we won’t go into detail. In those days India was very much different than it is now and such and illustrious personality he would sit in the park and he would speak philosophy to the students and he would encourage others to debate with him. This was their pastimes during the school breaks and as a result many of the young men became very attracted to him and he started a men’s group called ‘august assembly’ and this was their free times and in the evenings and vacations. They would just sit and discuss philosophy and come to the conclusion of bhakti, Krishna consciousness. The criteria for joining that group was that you had to come before the Deity and take a lifetime vow of celibacy. It was a serious group – a lifetime vow of celibacy.
So we have many scholars here in this august assembly who did much to spread the Krishna conscious movement here, all part of Lord Caitanya’s master plan because He is the yuga avatar He delivers the yuga dharma which as you know is the chanting of the Hare Krishna mahamantra - Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur once said that you can judge the value of an article by how many times Krishna’s name is mentioned. Just the chanting of Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. As part of that yuga dharma that very simple and sublime process of chanting Hare Krishna He had a whole master plan how that chanting would be spread throughout the world and how those individuals who came in contact with that chanting would benefit from it. Along with the chanting is there a life style, a culture.
Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu when He appeared, He began this master plan by sending His most intimate disciples the six goswamis of Vrindavan to Vrindavan and He gave then specific instructions. He said that they should write books on the science of Krishna consciousness. They should establish temples there and that they should install Deities in the temples and really that is the master plan of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. It evolved down to the present day and we see that, that plan has come to this wonderful country, South Africa. No we have very beautiful temples. So in these temples the Deities that are worshipped are an intricate part of Vedic culture since time immemorial. Prabhupada when he came to the west around 21971 his health was not so good so he was going back to India to recuperate and recover. He wasn’t even sure that he would come back but at that time he said that when he was going on the way to Japan to arrange for his books to be published and then he was going to India to establish a temple for the International Society for Krishna consciousness.
At that time he said what is the need for a temple because in India there are thousands of temples. Perhaps if you take into consideration the home temples there are millions of temples. He said, “What is the need for another temple? But still because we are the International Society for Krishna consciousness we want our own special place of worship.” History has shown how Prabhupada went back to India and practically alone although many disciples were helping him and he was pushing us in the west to distribute his books and give the money to build the temple. It was his desire by his desire that today we the members of the society and the members of India that we have our Juhu beach temple in Mumbai, we have our Vrindavan temple – Krishna Balaram Mandir, we have our Mayapur Candrodaya Mandir. These are the main centers, which serve and will continue to serve the devotees in this movement for the next ten thousand years. So temples are very integral part of our society. Mahaprabhu had his devotees establish the famous seven temples in Vrindavan and went on to five to seven thousand – I forget the actual figure.
Prabhupada came to the west and practically from the moment he landed in New York City he was walking around, we hear from Satsvarup Goswami in his Srila Prabhupada Lilamrta, Prabhupada was looking for a place to establish a temple He wanted a place where new devotees would come to worship Sri Sri Radha and Krishna. He even had a few buildings that he had noticed that would be good. Of course these buildings were worth millions and millions of dollars but as we know Srila Prabhupada always thought very big and I don’t know whether it was he who said it or one of his devotees but he said that this word impossible is a word in the fools dictionary. And again history has shown that Prabhupada went on to establish temples not only New York City. There are several temples there now but not only all over America but all over the world.
Very often we stress the distribution of books because we know how dear it was to Srila Prabhupada. He wanted that and he still wants that we distribute his books all over the world but the temples are equally important and the worship of the Deity are equally important because the result of distributing those books which is the success of every yatra in this world is that people want to come and see what it is all about. So if we just have a little hut somewhere in the middle of the field people would not come and make a request. Therefore we have to build these big beautiful opulent centers so that people would come and visit us. I was told that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur he would have his disciples build these temples as part of the expansion of the Gaudiya Math all over India particularly in Bengal and Orissa and all over India and soon as the brahmacaris would be accomplished in building a center or temple, they would be exhausted then immediately he would begin another temple some place else. It is very much our culture. You could say it is balanced – the preaching and the Deity worship that goes on in the temple. As our movement is evolving we see that they are both equally important although Prabhupada stressed book distribution he also personally saw to that many beautiful temples were established. We can personally experience the result. We get a book or we come to a ratha yatra, or we come to a congregational meeting, we see the devotees chanting then what is the next step? It is to come to the temple and were is all the temple activity centered around? The Deities!
As Maharaj was so nicely describing the beauty of the Deity even from the external point of view these Deities look beautiful but Maharaj with his deep spiritual purity he was appreciating also Their spiritual beauty and this is the effect. Even if a person is materially or mundanely covered when he comes to the temple he experiences something different in the Deities association. The same is true when you go to the holy dham. There is something special about the dham, the Yogapith, place of the Lord’s place of pastimes. Even a mundaner when he comes can experience a change of heart. So when they come to your temple and they see these very beautiful Deities of Gaura Nitai there is a change of heart. To coin the phrase that Srila Prabhupada used for our paintings – it is like a window to the spiritual world. Arca-vigraha is the mercy incarnation of the Lord because Krishna comes for a short time by cosmic time. Caitanya Mahaprabhu was here for forty-eight years. Krishna was here for hundred and twenty five years. It is just a spark in cosmic time but the arca-vigrahas considered the mercy incarnation of the Lord because It comes on the request of the pure devotee and stays and there is no difference between the Deity of the Lord and the Lord Himself.
As we know the young brahmana when he came back to ask Saksi Gopal to bear witness for him in Orissa he asked the Deity if the Deity would come. He said, “My dear Lord You are not a statue, You are directly the son of Maharaj Nanda.” So when people come they are having darsan of the Lord and that is purifying. Actually we think of darsan as coming before the Lord and seeing Him, awakening our transcendental senses by meditating on the Lord and the Lord is looking at you. What is the value of the Lord looking upon you? Our eyes are covered so how much are we able to see? Gradually, gradually, gradually we begin to see more so much so that and advanced devotee he can stand in front of the Deity for hours on end and never get restless and go away. Because of our neophyte condition we believe in the Deity. We only stand for a few minutes and we become restless and we go away but if you are actually convinced that here is the Lord you would want to stay all day in front of the Deities. What is the benefit? The benefit is that His transcendental eyes are looking into your heart and what is the effect of the Lord on the heart? ceto-darpana-marjanam – He is purifying the heart. So we should give as many people as possible to come before these wonderful Dieties and have these Deities look into their hearts and purify the lust, anger and greed - obstacles to pure devotion. This gives the Deity great pleasure.
We must worship the Deity according to all the rules and regulations. Prabhupada said detail is a sign of love. We must follow all the details of Deity worship particularly very clean and always on time. Prabhupada said these are the golden rules of Deity worship – punctuality and cleanliness and make nice offerings and on Their birthday, appearance day and other events that are special. We should know that it really pleases Gaura Nitai to bring many people through these doors, conditioned souls for darsan of the Lord. That pleases the Lord more than anything. So as Maharaj was saying we should arrange for as many people as is possible to come and take darsan of the Lord. That means moving Them to another site. Generally in India once a Deity is established It is never moved, that is Vedic tradition. That is why sometimes when you are driving in India you would come to a road and there would be a temple in the middle of the road, a small like chapel kind of temple and you wonder why in the world there is a road that goes around the temple and you have drive around it. Because in India once the Deity is established, He is there, you don’t inconvenience the Lord or request Him to please come here, you don’t inconvenience Him by asking Him to move but this Lord,
namo maha-vadanyaya
krsna-prema-pradaya te
krsnaya krsna-caitanya-
namne gaura-tvise namah (CC Madhya 19.53)
He is so merciful; He is willing to be moved everyday if necessary to claim all conditioned souls. How do we know that? Because as God Himself He traveled the length and breadth of India to deliver conditioned souls! Generally the Lord comes and has His lilas like in Ayodhya Dham, Vrindavan, Mathura, Dwaraka but Caitanya Mahaprabhu He is so eager to reclaim fallen conditioned souls He went from village to village, town to town, city to city – you can trace His route historically if you read Caitanya Bhagavat, Caitanya Caritamrta you can trace where He went exactly and who He met. The immovable Lord was moving by His will to claim conditioned souls. In that sense we can understand if it is required for the purpose of preaching to a bigger congregation to introduce more conditioned souls to His lotus feet we can move – I heard a rumor that we want to have another temple some place else closer to the action so that I am sure will be a great success. It is not an easy thing to do. We were discussing it at dinner. Some of the pastimes of these great stalwart pioneers, Medhavi Prabhu and Bhakti Caitanya Maharaj, Symalal, Ramanuja Acarya – the older devotees, how hard they had to work to collect the funds to establish that temple in Durban, Chatsworth. Someone can stay that it was not honest upfront means, they were wearing wigs and they were selling Hong Kong paintings. We say utility is the principle. If anything it was a white lie it wasn’t a black lie. (Laughter) We judge by the result. By giving to that unknowingly people get ajnata sukriti, unknown spiritual advancement. There are examples of centers in India that have been built under questionable means.
The temple at Sri Rangam, actually there was one sadhu who was lamenting, “Why can’t we have one big beautiful temple in this holy place?” He would always go to all the businessmen, the merchants and the wealthy people and the politicians and ask, “You give some donation for building some nice temple.” For some reason they were adverse, some material consciousness there! So he came up with a very peculiar way to establish the temple. He went out into the forest and he contacted the dacoits. He said to the dacoits, “Why don’t we all work together. I will help you, I will protect you, I have a lot of connections in town.” The famous robbing theory, they steal from the rich to give to the poor. Krishna is not poor but anyway he employed his devotee in this way and the dacoits under the direction of this sadhu they would rob these wealthy merchants when they were going to deposit their money or going here or there. They came up with a vast amount of money. Of course he promised that he would give them a certain percentage in the end after the temple was built. It was built and they came and said, “We want our money now.” He said, “This is all Krishna’s money. Why should I give it back to these rogues? They are going to use it for all kinds of illicit activities.” So he said, “The money is there on the island. I put I under a tree. We will go to the island and then I will give you your reward.” He rowed there. Of course none of them knew how to swim because in India most Indians don’t know how to swim. He just managed to turn that boat over and they all drowned and he swam out to shore. He must have had some swimming lessons and in this way this is history. This is how the Sri Rangam Temple was originally constructed. I am not recommending (laughter) times have moved on and we have become pure brahmanas and honest so it is really a question of the desire. Nowadays you have a larger congregation. You have many experienced devotees, many good ideas and a wonderful national council working so cooperatively together I am sure if you want you can do it. That dream can actually come true. Sometimes you think do dreams actually come true. They can come true.
There was one gentleman in Bengal around the time of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur who was in his late twenties and he decided that he would leave his education and go find a spiritual master in Navadwip. So as he left home he wasn’t married he was studying. He walked away from everything, promising career, beautiful women they wanted to engage him to. He just decided that he wanted to pursue spiritual life so he went to Navadwip. Unfortunately he fell into bad association the apasampradaya. Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur was preaching very strongly against them. He was living in the ashram of one of their gurus. It just so happened that he heard about Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur so he left the ashram of this bogus guru and he went to hear from Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur. He was so impressed, so astounded by the philosophy that he heard that after the lecture Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur called him and gave him some instructions. He went back to the ashram that night and he was so excited that he could hardly sleep. He didn’t eat. Finally he fell asleep and that night he dreamt that the bogus guru and some of his female associates were attacking him in the forms of tigers. That was a terrible nightmare he had. Subtly Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur in his dream appeared and chased the bogus guru and the tigers away and invited him to his ashram. He woke up at about 4.30am or 5am and immediately went to the ashram of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur, fell at his feet and asked him to accept him as his disciple and Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur did accept him. That was his very first disciple. This is the story of how he got his very first disciple. So it is a dream but it came true. In the same way if you have this dream because if not manifest in the dream if you want to establish a bigger place of worship were you can offer more service to your beautiful Deities as a means to bring more people of this part of South Africa to Their lotus feet I am sure that under the great leadership that you have certainly it would be possible. Hare Krishna. (Applause.)
I don’t feel that I have any claim to be sitting here this evening with all these great devotees. As I look around I must admit that I don’t know most of you and probably most of you don’t know me. I think I just got here by chance or something. I can’t claim that I have done anything. I did have a stint as a temple president in Durban in 1987. I don’t know if I am famous or infamous for that. If it was infamous please bear with me. Being the temple president is most probably the most difficult service in this movement and I learnt the hard way. Bhakti Caitanya Maharaj was actually the president in 1986 or thereabouts. I just came down for a visit to rest and eat and I remember the temple was running very nicely. Maharaj was doing well and then I don’t know what happened. I got this idea that I wanted to be the temple president. Probably pratista or something like this. Maharaj was chanting I don’t know if he remembers. He was chanting his rounds around the moat one morning and I just walked up and said, “Maharaj what do you think if I became the temple president here?” And his immediate reaction, he was so merciful he said, “Oh that would be very nice.” He handed me the hot potato. It only lasted about nine months or so. We went into debt. We had a great time. We had a lot of kirtan, putting on ratha-yatra, a lot of great feasts and in the end there was no money left in the treasury.
Anyway I am happy to be in this august assembly. Actually I was reading the other day about the life of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur. When he was a young man actually he was still a teenager. He was going to school but in his spare time he would go to the park near the university that he was studying in and unlike many teenagers today they engage in so many frivolous sports and such activities, we won’t go into detail. In those days India was very much different than it is now and such and illustrious personality he would sit in the park and he would speak philosophy to the students and he would encourage others to debate with him. This was their pastimes during the school breaks and as a result many of the young men became very attracted to him and he started a men’s group called ‘august assembly’ and this was their free times and in the evenings and vacations. They would just sit and discuss philosophy and come to the conclusion of bhakti, Krishna consciousness. The criteria for joining that group was that you had to come before the Deity and take a lifetime vow of celibacy. It was a serious group – a lifetime vow of celibacy.
So we have many scholars here in this august assembly who did much to spread the Krishna conscious movement here, all part of Lord Caitanya’s master plan because He is the yuga avatar He delivers the yuga dharma which as you know is the chanting of the Hare Krishna mahamantra - Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur once said that you can judge the value of an article by how many times Krishna’s name is mentioned. Just the chanting of Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. As part of that yuga dharma that very simple and sublime process of chanting Hare Krishna He had a whole master plan how that chanting would be spread throughout the world and how those individuals who came in contact with that chanting would benefit from it. Along with the chanting is there a life style, a culture.
Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu when He appeared, He began this master plan by sending His most intimate disciples the six goswamis of Vrindavan to Vrindavan and He gave then specific instructions. He said that they should write books on the science of Krishna consciousness. They should establish temples there and that they should install Deities in the temples and really that is the master plan of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. It evolved down to the present day and we see that, that plan has come to this wonderful country, South Africa. No we have very beautiful temples. So in these temples the Deities that are worshipped are an intricate part of Vedic culture since time immemorial. Prabhupada when he came to the west around 21971 his health was not so good so he was going back to India to recuperate and recover. He wasn’t even sure that he would come back but at that time he said that when he was going on the way to Japan to arrange for his books to be published and then he was going to India to establish a temple for the International Society for Krishna consciousness.
At that time he said what is the need for a temple because in India there are thousands of temples. Perhaps if you take into consideration the home temples there are millions of temples. He said, “What is the need for another temple? But still because we are the International Society for Krishna consciousness we want our own special place of worship.” History has shown how Prabhupada went back to India and practically alone although many disciples were helping him and he was pushing us in the west to distribute his books and give the money to build the temple. It was his desire by his desire that today we the members of the society and the members of India that we have our Juhu beach temple in Mumbai, we have our Vrindavan temple – Krishna Balaram Mandir, we have our Mayapur Candrodaya Mandir. These are the main centers, which serve and will continue to serve the devotees in this movement for the next ten thousand years. So temples are very integral part of our society. Mahaprabhu had his devotees establish the famous seven temples in Vrindavan and went on to five to seven thousand – I forget the actual figure.
Prabhupada came to the west and practically from the moment he landed in New York City he was walking around, we hear from Satsvarup Goswami in his Srila Prabhupada Lilamrta, Prabhupada was looking for a place to establish a temple He wanted a place where new devotees would come to worship Sri Sri Radha and Krishna. He even had a few buildings that he had noticed that would be good. Of course these buildings were worth millions and millions of dollars but as we know Srila Prabhupada always thought very big and I don’t know whether it was he who said it or one of his devotees but he said that this word impossible is a word in the fools dictionary. And again history has shown that Prabhupada went on to establish temples not only New York City. There are several temples there now but not only all over America but all over the world.
Very often we stress the distribution of books because we know how dear it was to Srila Prabhupada. He wanted that and he still wants that we distribute his books all over the world but the temples are equally important and the worship of the Deity are equally important because the result of distributing those books which is the success of every yatra in this world is that people want to come and see what it is all about. So if we just have a little hut somewhere in the middle of the field people would not come and make a request. Therefore we have to build these big beautiful opulent centers so that people would come and visit us. I was told that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur he would have his disciples build these temples as part of the expansion of the Gaudiya Math all over India particularly in Bengal and Orissa and all over India and soon as the brahmacaris would be accomplished in building a center or temple, they would be exhausted then immediately he would begin another temple some place else. It is very much our culture. You could say it is balanced – the preaching and the Deity worship that goes on in the temple. As our movement is evolving we see that they are both equally important although Prabhupada stressed book distribution he also personally saw to that many beautiful temples were established. We can personally experience the result. We get a book or we come to a ratha yatra, or we come to a congregational meeting, we see the devotees chanting then what is the next step? It is to come to the temple and were is all the temple activity centered around? The Deities!
As Maharaj was so nicely describing the beauty of the Deity even from the external point of view these Deities look beautiful but Maharaj with his deep spiritual purity he was appreciating also Their spiritual beauty and this is the effect. Even if a person is materially or mundanely covered when he comes to the temple he experiences something different in the Deities association. The same is true when you go to the holy dham. There is something special about the dham, the Yogapith, place of the Lord’s place of pastimes. Even a mundaner when he comes can experience a change of heart. So when they come to your temple and they see these very beautiful Deities of Gaura Nitai there is a change of heart. To coin the phrase that Srila Prabhupada used for our paintings – it is like a window to the spiritual world. Arca-vigraha is the mercy incarnation of the Lord because Krishna comes for a short time by cosmic time. Caitanya Mahaprabhu was here for forty-eight years. Krishna was here for hundred and twenty five years. It is just a spark in cosmic time but the arca-vigrahas considered the mercy incarnation of the Lord because It comes on the request of the pure devotee and stays and there is no difference between the Deity of the Lord and the Lord Himself.
As we know the young brahmana when he came back to ask Saksi Gopal to bear witness for him in Orissa he asked the Deity if the Deity would come. He said, “My dear Lord You are not a statue, You are directly the son of Maharaj Nanda.” So when people come they are having darsan of the Lord and that is purifying. Actually we think of darsan as coming before the Lord and seeing Him, awakening our transcendental senses by meditating on the Lord and the Lord is looking at you. What is the value of the Lord looking upon you? Our eyes are covered so how much are we able to see? Gradually, gradually, gradually we begin to see more so much so that and advanced devotee he can stand in front of the Deity for hours on end and never get restless and go away. Because of our neophyte condition we believe in the Deity. We only stand for a few minutes and we become restless and we go away but if you are actually convinced that here is the Lord you would want to stay all day in front of the Deities. What is the benefit? The benefit is that His transcendental eyes are looking into your heart and what is the effect of the Lord on the heart? ceto-darpana-marjanam – He is purifying the heart. So we should give as many people as possible to come before these wonderful Dieties and have these Deities look into their hearts and purify the lust, anger and greed - obstacles to pure devotion. This gives the Deity great pleasure.
We must worship the Deity according to all the rules and regulations. Prabhupada said detail is a sign of love. We must follow all the details of Deity worship particularly very clean and always on time. Prabhupada said these are the golden rules of Deity worship – punctuality and cleanliness and make nice offerings and on Their birthday, appearance day and other events that are special. We should know that it really pleases Gaura Nitai to bring many people through these doors, conditioned souls for darsan of the Lord. That pleases the Lord more than anything. So as Maharaj was saying we should arrange for as many people as is possible to come and take darsan of the Lord. That means moving Them to another site. Generally in India once a Deity is established It is never moved, that is Vedic tradition. That is why sometimes when you are driving in India you would come to a road and there would be a temple in the middle of the road, a small like chapel kind of temple and you wonder why in the world there is a road that goes around the temple and you have drive around it. Because in India once the Deity is established, He is there, you don’t inconvenience the Lord or request Him to please come here, you don’t inconvenience Him by asking Him to move but this Lord,
namo maha-vadanyaya
krsna-prema-pradaya te
krsnaya krsna-caitanya-
namne gaura-tvise namah (CC Madhya 19.53)
He is so merciful; He is willing to be moved everyday if necessary to claim all conditioned souls. How do we know that? Because as God Himself He traveled the length and breadth of India to deliver conditioned souls! Generally the Lord comes and has His lilas like in Ayodhya Dham, Vrindavan, Mathura, Dwaraka but Caitanya Mahaprabhu He is so eager to reclaim fallen conditioned souls He went from village to village, town to town, city to city – you can trace His route historically if you read Caitanya Bhagavat, Caitanya Caritamrta you can trace where He went exactly and who He met. The immovable Lord was moving by His will to claim conditioned souls. In that sense we can understand if it is required for the purpose of preaching to a bigger congregation to introduce more conditioned souls to His lotus feet we can move – I heard a rumor that we want to have another temple some place else closer to the action so that I am sure will be a great success. It is not an easy thing to do. We were discussing it at dinner. Some of the pastimes of these great stalwart pioneers, Medhavi Prabhu and Bhakti Caitanya Maharaj, Symalal, Ramanuja Acarya – the older devotees, how hard they had to work to collect the funds to establish that temple in Durban, Chatsworth. Someone can stay that it was not honest upfront means, they were wearing wigs and they were selling Hong Kong paintings. We say utility is the principle. If anything it was a white lie it wasn’t a black lie. (Laughter) We judge by the result. By giving to that unknowingly people get ajnata sukriti, unknown spiritual advancement. There are examples of centers in India that have been built under questionable means.
The temple at Sri Rangam, actually there was one sadhu who was lamenting, “Why can’t we have one big beautiful temple in this holy place?” He would always go to all the businessmen, the merchants and the wealthy people and the politicians and ask, “You give some donation for building some nice temple.” For some reason they were adverse, some material consciousness there! So he came up with a very peculiar way to establish the temple. He went out into the forest and he contacted the dacoits. He said to the dacoits, “Why don’t we all work together. I will help you, I will protect you, I have a lot of connections in town.” The famous robbing theory, they steal from the rich to give to the poor. Krishna is not poor but anyway he employed his devotee in this way and the dacoits under the direction of this sadhu they would rob these wealthy merchants when they were going to deposit their money or going here or there. They came up with a vast amount of money. Of course he promised that he would give them a certain percentage in the end after the temple was built. It was built and they came and said, “We want our money now.” He said, “This is all Krishna’s money. Why should I give it back to these rogues? They are going to use it for all kinds of illicit activities.” So he said, “The money is there on the island. I put I under a tree. We will go to the island and then I will give you your reward.” He rowed there. Of course none of them knew how to swim because in India most Indians don’t know how to swim. He just managed to turn that boat over and they all drowned and he swam out to shore. He must have had some swimming lessons and in this way this is history. This is how the Sri Rangam Temple was originally constructed. I am not recommending (laughter) times have moved on and we have become pure brahmanas and honest so it is really a question of the desire. Nowadays you have a larger congregation. You have many experienced devotees, many good ideas and a wonderful national council working so cooperatively together I am sure if you want you can do it. That dream can actually come true. Sometimes you think do dreams actually come true. They can come true.
There was one gentleman in Bengal around the time of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur who was in his late twenties and he decided that he would leave his education and go find a spiritual master in Navadwip. So as he left home he wasn’t married he was studying. He walked away from everything, promising career, beautiful women they wanted to engage him to. He just decided that he wanted to pursue spiritual life so he went to Navadwip. Unfortunately he fell into bad association the apasampradaya. Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur was preaching very strongly against them. He was living in the ashram of one of their gurus. It just so happened that he heard about Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur so he left the ashram of this bogus guru and he went to hear from Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur. He was so impressed, so astounded by the philosophy that he heard that after the lecture Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur called him and gave him some instructions. He went back to the ashram that night and he was so excited that he could hardly sleep. He didn’t eat. Finally he fell asleep and that night he dreamt that the bogus guru and some of his female associates were attacking him in the forms of tigers. That was a terrible nightmare he had. Subtly Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur in his dream appeared and chased the bogus guru and the tigers away and invited him to his ashram. He woke up at about 4.30am or 5am and immediately went to the ashram of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur, fell at his feet and asked him to accept him as his disciple and Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur did accept him. That was his very first disciple. This is the story of how he got his very first disciple. So it is a dream but it came true. In the same way if you have this dream because if not manifest in the dream if you want to establish a bigger place of worship were you can offer more service to your beautiful Deities as a means to bring more people of this part of South Africa to Their lotus feet I am sure that under the great leadership that you have certainly it would be possible. Hare Krishna. (Applause.)
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