New Dvaraka 40th Anniversary

Giriraj Swami: We have gathered on a most auspicious occasion, the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the manifestation of the ISKCON Los Angeles community here on Watseka Avenue, which has come to be known as New Dvaraka. Srila Prabhupada had commented that, “You have New York, New Jersey—so many places named after the cities of the old world—so why not New Vrindavan,” and so by extension we have New Dvaraka.

At the time that Srila Prabhupada and the devotees acquired New Dvaraka, I was in Boston, and in Boston we heard the news that Srila Prabhupada, our founder-acharya and spiritual master. had acquired a wonderful property that had been a church. Srila Prabhupada made New Dvaraka his Western world headquarters. He established New Dvaraka as the ideal center. He spent months on end here. At one stage he stayed for eight months. He trained the devotees. The activities and standards in New Dvaraka became the model for the other temples in ISKCON. One devotee named Silavati was the head pujari and under Prabhupada’s guidance she and the others established a very high standard of Deity worship. And then if any temple wanted to learn the proper standard of Deity worship, they would send a devotee here to learn or they would write here.

The saṅkīrtana was also exemplary. The devotees would go out on the streets and chant Hare Krishna. Visnujana was the main leader and all the devotees were so eager to go out and chant with him. Tamal Krishna was the main organizer. He made sure all the brahmacharis had nicely colored cloth that matched and all the ladies had very nice saris and they danced in step. It was a wonderful performance and people were attracted.

As we heard in Boston, the devotees had very personal relationships with the Deities. The Deities were really the center of the community and the center of the devotees’ lives. There was a wonderful reciprocation between the Deities and the pujaris and the saṅkīrtana and the public. Everyone was in the mood of saṅkīrtana. Everyone was in the mood to share the wonderful knowledge and happiness that they had found in Krishna consciousness with others. The pujaris also considered themselves to be servants of the saṅkīrtana devotees. The pujaris, the priests, you could say, who worshiped the Deities in the temple were in the mood that, “We want to decorate the Deities very beautifully so the saṅkīrtana devotees will be inspired to go out and chant and tell people about Krishna.” The goal of the devotees who went out to chant was to bring people from the street back to the temple to see the Deities, to see Sri Sri Rukmini-Dwarkadhish, Sri Jagannatha, Baladeva, and Subhadra, and Sri Sri Gaura-Nitai. So there was a wonderful reciprocation between the Deities and the devotees and the public.

In Boston we heard stories of Visnujana. Not only did he sing beautiful kirtan and play wonderful mridanga drums, but he was the temple commander. He was in charge of delegating different services to different devotees and seeing that all the services were done. In Boston we heard stories of how when the devotees got an assignment, they would rush to do it. As soon as they were finished, they would rush back to Visnujana and say, “I did what you told me. What else can I do? What else can I do?” We were astonished to hear these stories of the wonderful mood of service of the devotees and the great inspiration they got here.

We heard about the Sunday programs, the Sunday festivals. They were really festivals. All week long they would invite people to the Sunday festival and when they came it was a real festival. There would always be some special event—a drama or something like churning butter—just all sorts of activities that were very appealing and attractive to people to introduce them to the mood and culture of Krishna consciousness. And then a wonderful feast.

Then personally after I had served in Boston for some time and Srila Prabhupada had worked to establish the movement in America, he decided to return to India to establish the mission there and he asked that one person from each temple—the second person in each temple—come to India to assist him. So I went from Boston and even in India, New Dvaraka was a great inspiration. Srila Prabhupada devised a program called life membership which he said was a way to distribute his books and to give people association. The idea is that someone would give one thousand one hundred and eleven rupees and they would get all of Srila Prabhupada’s books that had been published up to date and they would get all the books that would be published in the future and they would also have a lifetime subscription to Back to Godhead magazine. When they travelled they could stay at our centers in our guest facilities.

So it was a very important program that Srila Prabhupada emphasized in India. Soon after the devotees got New Dvaraka, there was an issue of Back to Godhead magazine with a picture of the temple on the front and so many devotees in front of the temple and pictures of the project. And we would show this magazine. There was another one with the Ratha-yatra in San Francisco on the cover. We would show that magazine. People were very impressed and inspired and so many became life members and began to really progress in spiritual life.

In 1973 after serving in India for about three years, I became quite ill with jaundice, and eventually Srila Prabhupada said as long as I stay in Bombay I won’t be able to recover. So I came to New Dvaraka and I was given a room just off where the tulasi greenhouse was. Devotees took very good care of me. After a week or two Srila Prabhupada himself came and as my health improved, I was able to come out of room a little and eventually accompany Srila Prabhupada on his morning walks and sit with him in the garden here when he would meet with people.

Once I came into the garden and there was no one else there. He asked how many devotees there were in the community and I had been curious—it was a very big community, thriving community—so I knew the figures, so I told him. He asked how many men, how many women, and I told him. And then I asked, “Do you want to know how many children there are?” He said, “Oh yes, the children count too.” So I told him the number of children.

There are just so many wonderful exchanges that took place here. Srila Prabhupada had wanted to present the message of Krishna consciousness on many fronts. So one area was in the field of science and at that time Svarupa Damodara who was getting his PhD in biochemistry at the University of California at Irvine, he was coming, and he also had a friend, scientist, Dr. Wolf Rufsky. So they would come and Srila Prabhupada would speak to them on the basic principle that life comes from life that life is the spirit soul and it comes from the Supreme Soul or Krishna, not from a combination of chemicals. 

He also wanted to push or encourage devotees in the field of politics. They formed a political party called the In God We Trust Party because at the time there was some agitation that that slogan, In God We Trust, should be removed because the atheist felt it was unfair to them, so Prabhupada said, “Yes, we must change the society before they remove it.” So he was very enthusiastic.

Srila Prabhupada had very deep personal realization of Krishna consciousness and based on his realization he was very enthusiastic to share Krishna consciousness with others, but the irony or the paradox is that although Krishna consciousness is the greatest treasure, people are often unwilling to accept it. Therefore he taxed his brain as he would sometimes tell us, “You must tax your brain to think of how to present Krishna consciousness in a way that people can appreciate it and accept it.” And he saw at the time that people had faith in science and therefore he wanted his devotee scientists to present the same philosophy of Krishna consciousness but in scientific language. And they did it.

After the scientists who were comparable to the intellectual class, come the politicians who were comparable to the ruling class. Some of the Prabhupada’s disciples had the idea to infiltrate the political field with Krishna consciousness. One of them, Balavanta dasa, actually ran for mayor of Atlanta, and at the time, the rule in the media was that you had to give equal time to all the different candidates. Prabhupada liked the idea that a political candidate who was a devotee would get an opportunity to tell people about Krishna consciousness. We didn’t really expect to win but Balavanta Prabhu ended up getting a huge number of votes far beyond what anyone expected. 

He appeared on a television program with the other candidates. They were all smoking. Srila Prabhupada had said that the theme of Balavanta Prabhu’s campaign or the theme of the In God we trust party should be that the political leaders must be of good character. If the leaders are not of good character, how can you expect good government? Balavanta Prabhu was on the television on a panel with the other candidates and he began to speak on the same theme and he said, “How can someone who cannot control his senses control the affairs of the government.” And then he said that, “Everyone knows that smoking is not good for you [laughter], but because people cannot control their senses, they smoke anyway.” And all the other candidates became so embarrassed they immediately hid their cigarettes [laughter] because they had been exposed.

Srila Prabhupada had a very clear vision of how Krishna consciousness could help the society in every sphere of life and how devotees could present Krishna consciousness in a way that it could appeal to people in every sphere of life. It was amazing that Srila Prabhupada and his disciples who were all just young men and women—he used to say boys and girls—how much they could do, how empowered they were by Srila Prabhupada’s mercy. 

But at the same time Srila Prabhupada was very personal in his dealings with people. Sometimes you might think that someone who has such a grand vision, who has such big plans, would not have time for little people, but Srila Prabhupada did both—he envisioned a mission to help the entire human society and at the same time he was very caring for each and every soul. As he said, “Every soul is important in Krishna consciousness.”

One incident took place when I was here. Because I had been in India for three years and then I got sick and came back, so my parents and sister came to visit me here. We all went on a morning walk with Srila Prabhupada at Chaviette Hills Park. Srila Prabhupada was so expert that he could engage everyone. On the walk there were scientists, there were political aspirants, and there were managers, there were book distributors, and in that mix was my parents. He was genuinely charming. When he saw my mother, he said, “Oh, Mrs. Teton, you look so young.” [laughter] She was very happy. At that time the devotees had organized a Rolls Royce for Srila Prabhupada, so at the end of the walk, we came to the parking lot, and there was the Rolls Royce. Srila Prabhupada was about to enter and my father was eyeing it. Prabhupada said to him in a very shy, humble, diffident way, “My disciples arranged this for me.” And my father immediately said, “Oh no, no, you deserve it. You deserve it.” [laughter] And then Prabhupada said, “You can ride with me. You come and ride with me.” He said, “No, we rented a car. That’s all right.” Prabhupada was just so pleasing.

Later I heard that Prabhupada’s servant had said, “Srila Prabhupada, everyone likes you so much.” And Srila Prabhupada said, “Yes, because I like everyone.” Srila Prabhupada ki jaya! 

It was a big thing, I had come back to America and I was in Los Angeles, so my uncle came from Chicago. The whole family was in Chicago and my uncle was a doctor. He was very idealistic, my uncle, and he was disillusioned with doctors. He felt that they were too materialistic. They weren’t really thinking of the welfare of the patients which was his mood. I don’t know what he would have thought about the doctors today. But even then, in 1973, he was concerned, and he just went on speaking about his grief at the condition of the medical profession. Prabhupada just listened with such intent attention and sympathy. I think in that conversation which probably lasted—for me it was if time stood still—I don’t think that Prabhupada said more than a few sentences. He was just listening with tremendous sympathy. And then at the end my uncle said, “I have taken enough of your time. I will take your leave.” As we were walking out, my uncle turned to me and said, “My God! I’ve never met anyone like him.” And he said, “I have to get a picture of him. I have never seen anyone who looks like him.”

So Prabhupada had a way. . . it was Krishna. I am not sure how many of you saw the DVD earlier of the live footage of Srila Prabhupada here in Los Angeles, but in the morning when Srila Prabhupada would return from his walk, the devotees would line up on either side of the sidewalk leading to the temple room, and they would offer Prabhupada flowers, and he in turn would give the flowers back to the devotees in a very personal exchange. One of the things I heard in Boston was that Visnujana had said to Prabhupada that, “You are attracting all of us.” And Srila Prabhupada had replied, “That is Krishna’s trick.” In other words, Krishna was manifesting Himself through Srila Prabhupada, and Krishna is all attractive. But a pure devotee who is fully surrendered to Krishna also shares in the same qualities of Krishna—almost all of them. Srila Prabhupada certainly did and so we were attracted.

Another time in his garden Srila Prabhupada was talking about, in his language, bogus gurus and yogis. There are many statements in the scripture that one who is not a devotee of the Lord has no good qualities, and there are statements to the effect that the impersonal speculators may imagine that they are liberated, but because they neglect the service of the lotus feet of the Lord, they fall down. They cannot maintain that impersonal position. Srila Prabhupada said that what he wrote in his purports was not just based on the philosophy—of course it was confirmed by the philosophy—but he said that he had personal experience with so many swamis and yogis in India. He said once he went into the men’s room at an ashram and the swami was just coming out of the men’s room and when Prabhupada entered it, he could smell marijuana smoke. The swami had gone in to have a smoke. So like that he said he had many personal experiences with them.

He did tell one story about Dr. Misra. Dr. Misra had a yoga ashram in upstate New York and when Srila Prabhupada first went to New York, he met Dr. Misra and Dr. Misra actually gave him a place to stay in an apartment he had in Manhattan. Srila Prabhupada said that personally they were friends. Although Dr. Misra was a Mayavadi (impersonalist), Prabhupada said personally they were friends. He would cook for Dr. Misra and Dr. Misra was very sickly and he felt that Prabhupada’s cooking had actually nursed him back to life. Then Prabhupada said, “When it came to philosophy we would differ. We would argue very vehemently, but personally we were friends.” I thought that was a very important instruction because—and it is natural in the beginning stages. One should avoid impersonalists because if one is weak, one might get confused. But when one is in the intermediate stage of devotional service and one had firm faith in Krishna and the process of bhakti-yoga, one can associate with someone and be friends and still have philosophical differences. You don’t have to necessarily abandon the relationship because you have philosophical differences. So he said, “When it came to philosophy, we would argue very vehemently, but personally we were friends.”

While I was sitting with Srila Prabhupada in the garden, he looked up—and I was facing Prabhupada. I couldn’t see what was happening at the entrance way to the garden—but Prabhupada’s face lit up and his eyes opened wide and he became very, very happy, and I thought, “Wow! Who has come? It was like Prabhupada is meeting his long lost friend. Who is this?” And then I turned and I saw that it was a devotee carrying a tulasi plant and Srila Prabhupada just became so ecstatic and he was so moved by the presence of Tulasi-devi. He said, “The whole atmosphere has become sanctified just by the presence of Tulasi-devi.”

Prabhupada’s servant, Srutakirti dasa, one of Prabhupada’s servants, commented how much Srila Prabhupada just liked the activities of Krishna consciousness. He was such a devotee, he just took pleasure in Krishna consciousness. He said that most devotees would only see Prabhupada in the temple room when he was speaking or some might see him in his quarters when he was giving them directions on how to organize the movement and manage and spread the mission, but Srutakirti Prabhu said one of the best parts of being Prabhupada’s servant was that he could be with Prabhupada when Prabhupada was not acting as the acharya of the world mission, the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. And when Prabhupada was alone, sometimes he would just take out his harmonium and begin to sing. There was no one there. No one was recoding him, but he just enjoyed being with Krishna. He enjoyed singing songs about Krishna written by our Vaishnava acharyas. 

Sometimes Srutakirti Prabhu would come in his room and he was reading. Once he went into his room and Srila Prabhupada was reading Kṛṣṇa book which is Prabhupada’s summary study of the Tenth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Prabhupada was relishing and he looked up at Srutakirti Prabhu and said, “This book is so wonderful that if you just read this book, you will be Krishna conscious.” And then he said, “Even if you read just one chapter of this book, you will be Krishna conscious.” Then he said, “Even if you read just one page of this book, you will be Krishna conscious.” Then he said, “Even if you read just one line of this book, you will be Krishna conscious.” And then he said, “Even if you read just one word, you will be Krishna conscious.” [laughter; applause] So Srila Prabhupada had such faith in Krishna and he knew that his books are Krishna. The Kṛṣṇa book is Krishna, the Bhagavad-gītā is Krishna, and by associating with Krishna, your life becomes perfect.

My sister also came. She was two and a half years younger than me and still is [laughter]. She stayed with two devotees in the community here—Kanka and her husband—and she loved Krishna consciousness. By then I was feeling a little better. I was able to move around and interact so I mentioned to Srila Prabhupada that she had come. Prabhupada met her and then after he met her, she came with me to the temple room which was where the [faith? fake?] museum is now. I was just showing her the pictures on the wall and telling her about the pictures. There was a very sweet picture of Krishna and the cowherd boys herding the cows in the forest of Vrindavan—very sweet picture. So I was explaining, “This is Krishna. He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. And this is what the spiritual world is like.” She was just drinking it all in. Suddenly she had a glimmer of realization and she turned to me and she said, “Has Prabhupada seen Krishna?” And I said, “Yes.” And she said, “Oh my God!” [laughter] By Prabhupada’s association people could be immediately elevated just by being in his presence.

So, eventually as my health got better, Prabhupada was encouraging me to return to Bombay. He used this phrase, “So Giriraj, when are you going back home, back to Bombay?” [laughter] The way he said it, he didn’t say it explicitly, but the way he said, I got the sense that he was saying, “If you go back to Bombay and do your service there you can go back to Godhead.” 

So it happened and the day when I was leaving I wanted to take leave of Srila Prabhupada. He was getting his massage right upstairs in the room with the skylight, just sitting in his gamchā, very relaxed. I told him I was leaving and I took the opportunity to ask a couple of questions. I was very inspired. I asked about the scientists because he was preaching so much about the scientists and I said, “When you speak about the scientists, you use phrases like, ‘fools,’ ‘rascals,’ ‘kick them in the face with boots’ [laughter]. When we speak to scientists, should we speak in the same terms?” And he said, “No, you should speak like a gentleman.” So I took leave.

That was the only time I was in Los Angeles with Srila Prabhupada. Many more things happened than I have time to relate, but it was wonderful, and I got a little sense of how dynamic Los Angeles was, and how important it was, and how much time Srila Prabhupada spent here, and how much his presence, it permeates every aspect of the project. 

Personally I was in the mood of separation before the class and I went up to Srila Prabhupada’s quarters and I was feeling separation. After a little while of just sitting there—nothing dramatic—but I just felt Prabhupada’s presence and I felt he was saying, “I am still here. I am still present and you can feel my association even now.” After the eighth month stay of Srila Prabhupada here, when he finally left, it was very hard on all the devotees, because he had been here for eight months. They were seeing him every day. They thought he might just say forever. He might never leave. And when he left, he spoke to them about the two ways of associating. One is vāṇī which is transcendental sound or words and the other is vapuḥ or physical presence. And he said that, “Although I am leaving physically, you can still associate with me by my vāṇī, by my words, by following my instructions,” and the association of vāṇī can be more intimate than associating by physical presence. This is something that we all experience to different degrees that if we really absorb ourselves in Srila Prabhupada’s teachings and endeavor to follow his instructions, we feel his presence, we feel his reciprocation. As Svavasa Prabhu mentioned in his introductory remarks, it is forty years, unless there is something there, why would we continue to be serving after forty years. There is something there and it is love and that love is based on personal reciprocation. Love means two. There is an exchange. So even though Srila Prabhupada is no longer physically present, but still, there is ongoing reciprocation of love with him, through service and surrender and inquiry. Even though Prabhupada is not here physically to answer our questions, but if we are serious about our spiritual lives, we will have questions, “What does this mean?” “How do I apply this?” “How can I improve?” And we can get answer from Prabhupada’s books and tapes and from other devotees, from Prabhupada’s sincere followers.

So all the exchanges that we can have with the spiritual master in his physical presence, we can have through vāṇī, through his words. As he said, “If you read just one word, you can be Krishna conscious.” Of course the problem is we become Krishna conscious and then we forget. So we have to keep absorbed in chanting and hearing about Krishna. As long as we do, we are on the liberated platform, and if we maintain that effort, even if we are not always successful, but if we maintain that effort, then we will be Krishna conscious and Srila Prabhupada will take us back home, back to Godhead, and that is the purpose of this temple, this project, this community. 

Once Srila Prabhupada told me, “Not everyone will be able to live in the temple, but the temple is necessary so that people can come to the temple and get the idea of how they can be Krishna conscious at home.” In principle there is nothing we do at the temple that you can’t do in your own home. Of course Prabhupada said the best is to live in the temple and next best is to live near the temple and come every day, but if you can’t, due to circumstances, live close enough to the temple to come every day, then you can make your home into a temple, and you can do the same things at home that the devotees do in the temple. Whenever possible on Sundays and holy days and whenever possible, come to the temple and associate with the more advanced devotees in the temple and get more encouragement in this wonderful process that is leading to a most glorious result. Hare Krishna. [applause]

Devotee: Your thoughts on impersonal brahman?

Giriraj Swami: I spit at the thought [laughter]. Impersonal brahman is transcendental. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam explains that the Absolute Truth is realized in three features: Brahman, Paramātmā, and Bhagavān, and they are nondual (advaya). They are all the same, but for a devotee, the idea of merging into impersonal brahman is anathema, he doesn’t want it, because in impersonal brahman, there is no loving reciprocation with Krishna, there is no chanting and hearing the glories of Krishna, there is no rendering of service to Krishna. Therefore one great devotee, Prabodhananda Sarasvati said, kaivalya narakāyate, that the thought of kaivalya (oneness), impersonal oneness—narakāyate—-is like hellish for him. It is worse than hell because at least in hell you can sing the glories of Krishna, but in impersonal brahman, there is nothing. So, those are my thoughts in two minutes.

Devotee: Recently I saw an invitation card for New Dvaraka and it said at the end, “Hare Krishna Cultural Center. . .” [end of recording]