Talks by Giriraj Swami and Ambarisa Prabhu

Ambarisa dasa:

nama om visnu-padaya krsna-presthaya bhu-tale
srimate bhaktivedanta-svamin iti namine

namas te sarasvate deve gaura-vani-pracarine
nirvisesa-sunyavadi-pascatya-desa-tarine

I am very happy to here in New Dvaraka. My wife Svāhā was going [?] on her last days so she had to stay. I have some history here. I have been here several times. I was here when they were putting the museum in and Bharadvaja had his studio here and it was the museum and Srila Prabhupada really loved that museum. I went through the museum with George Harrison and we sat upstairs and ate samosas sitting on the floor. So that was one of the memories that is in my mind of being here. 

This is a very warm temple. Srila Prabhupada, as Radha Jivan was saying, is so proud and was so proud of this temple. This is his western headquarters and I still believe it and Svavasa believes it. It is the western headquarters, certainly one of the most important centers in the world outside of India. And Srila Prabhupada’s mission was to come to the west so this was definitely important because it was in the west. So I am very happy to be here and see all you people. Thank you very much for coming. 

And I am also very happy to see my good friend and śikṣā-guru Giriraj Swami and he had taught me everything I know about fundraising. When I first became a devotee, I went to Bombay, and Maharaja was sacrificing himself to get the temple built in Juhu, and he engaged me very nice, and I was a very green devotee and spoilt kid from suburban Detroit, so I was in culture shock for being in India, but he was such a nice character and such a wonderful personality, every morning he would. . . he had this room and it was across the alley, and he would open the shutters and say, “Ambarish.” I couldn’t get away. So, yes, Maharaja. We worked a lot but it was really a wonderful experience to be there. 

And I will tell a little story. I don’t want to embarrass Maharaja too much. My purpose there was to get into see with Maharaja to make life members out of people who were slamming the door in the face of the devotees. So Maharaja had to stretch the truth a little bit to get into their offices. So he was saying, “Mr. Ford is visiting India and he wants to come and talk to you about [car manufacturing?].” [laughter] He [?] And as soon as life membership things came out, they would throw us out of the office. But it was a very humbling experience and I bow down to his feet. He really gave his life to build that temple. And it was so important. 

Radha-Rasabihari were living in a tent and to get Them into a temple, Srila Prabhupada was so happy to have that temple built. He was very, very proud of that temple. So I a very long history with Maharaja who I cherish very dearly.

So, I will tell you a little about my history and involvement with this project. In 1976 Srila Prabhupada came to Detroit. We just opened the Fisher mansion there. Maybe some of you have been there. It is a beautiful temple. And we had purchased that, myself and another devotee, Lekha-sravanti. So we purchased that temple and put whatever money into it for refurbishing it, making it very first class temple room, [?] we put into it. My parents were freaking out that I was putting so much money into it. First of all becoming a Hare Krishna. They actually threw me out of the house when they found out the first time, but my grandmother got them to take me back in.

So we had just finished the temple and Prabhupada was visiting for the first time. First time and last time in 1976. And we were up in his room and he was talking about Mayapur, how he wanted to build a really fantastic temple there so that the whole world would come to Mayapur and that they would be introduced to the chanting of Hare Krishna and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and he was explaining about the Vedic planetarium and the chandelier—everything—he described the whole project and he turned to me and I was sitting near him and there were many sannyasis in the room and he said, “So, Ambarish Maharaja, what do you think about this?” And I said, because it is Prabhupada, I said, “Oh, it sounds like a really nice idea,” although I didn’t even know where Mayapur was. But I said to Srila Prabhupada, “It sounds like a really nice idea.” He said, “Oh, so you like it also. So you can finance.” And I just finished putting a couple million into this house in Detroit so we all had laugh. And somebody took a photograph at that minute and I have that photograph sitting on my desk at home. So we are all sitting around Prabhupada. We are having a chuckle, but it was at that moment where he planted the seed to help with this project.

Srila Prabhupada departed a year afterwards and the plans for the project went through many variations and we had many groups that were involved and none of them quite fit and the communist government was also in West Bengal. So it was very difficult to get anything done.

Then in 2006 we had come up with many schemes to try to get the government to work with us and be friends with the government and create jobs for everybody. We tried everything and they were onto us. We had all this land that was being held in trusts, but the government actually knew that it was all owned by ISKCON. In 2006 they came down really hard on us and they said, “You are not going to build the temple. We are going to [attach?] all your land,” which means they were going to take the land back and give it to the farmers. “We are going just to stop everything.” So this was a brick wall. We ran into it in 2006.

So then we had gotten calls from the government of Orissa and they were saying, “Why don’t you come down to Jagannatha Puri. We will give you land and we will support you 100 percent.” So it was tempting to take the whole project and move it to Orissa where we could get the support of government and do the project that we were envisioning. But we all, we were. . . I was really torn between, “Shall we do this? Should we stay in Mayapur and just wait and see what is going to happen?” 

So the night before I came over to India to go to the GBC meeting, I was very frustrated. I was in Florida, there was a thunderstorm, and I went to bed and I just coiled to sleep, and I said, “So, just tell me what you want me to do,” because I was so frustrated. And I went to sleep and just before dawn I had a dream and I was sitting at Prabhupada’s feet and I said, “Srila Prabhupada, what do you want us to do? You want us to move this project to Jagannatha Puri because Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had His pastimes in Puri? Or do you want us to say in Mayapur?” And Prabhupada just sat there and didn’t really say anything and then I woke up and I was thinking afterwards I had an opportunity to ask Srila Prabhupada anything and you asked such a stupid question. He had been talking about Mayapur for so many years and reiterated it so many times, time and time again how important this project was, how much he wanted it in Mayapur.

So I took that as a sign that, yes, we have to figure out how to do it somehow or another. So the whole way over to the GBC meeting I was thinking, “How are we going to do this? We have been stopped by the government.” We did have twenty-five acres that was totally in ISKCON’s [stand?] where the gardens are. Some of you have been to Mayapur. There are beautiful gardens right in the middle of the campus.

So I got to the GBC meeting and I said to them, I said, “Look, we have the land here. We can build the temple here. I still want to build the temple. I don’t really want to build this design because I think it is unbuildable.” Before I came to the GBC meeting I went to see my friend Radhanath Swami in Chowpatty and I told him what my dilemma was that I wanted to build the temple, but I wanted to build a buildable temple. Not only buildable, but affordable for ISKCON. We are not Swami Narayana; we are ISKCON. Maybe four, maybe less than a hundred million. A hundred million is stretching it for ISKCON. Krishna is the friend of the poor and believe me It is very true. 

So I presented that I want to build this temple; I want to make it so that it is buildable and affordable and make [?]. And so we started then, came up with the land based on everything that Srila Prabhupada had said that he wanted in this temple. We went back to the drawing board, we pulled out every single quote, every experience that any devotee had had, like Yadubara had been sent out to take pictures of the Washington Capitol during the Bi-centennial because Prabhupada really liked that building. So we wanted the dome. And in hind sight thinking about it, when you see this building, when you go out there and you stand on the dome and you understand how brilliant this idea was because we have a kirtan hall now that is over an acre and a half inside. It can hold ten thousand devotees and there is no pillars in it. So everybody can see the Deities, everybody can be together and chant and dance. It is really the most brilliant idea of having a dome. So, it is really the most brilliant idea, the idea of having a dome. 

So, as I say, we started putting the pilings in 2010 and Janani vasa, he was describing how the Ganges used to flood and how there’s one picture of Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva where the water is up to here and they are offering puja to Him, but since we started construction, started putting the pilings in, there hasn’t been one flood in Mayapur. 

We are really getting blessed. Once we, once our initial seed money was in then we came up with a plan to go out and go around the world. We went to South Africa, we went to the Middle East. We have a wonderful team. Radha Jivan is a dynamo. He is terrific. Please give him a hand. His heart and soul is so much into this project, I get embarrassed because I can’t keep up with him. And Vraja Vilasa also is a wonderful devotee. So then we came up with this plan and asked Janani vasa and Radha Jivan had described and so we are so lucky to have him, he is the heart and soul of Mayapur. Whenever I go there I see him up during the greeting of the Deities. In the morning he is holding the mirror up to show Radha-Madhava what They look like after he has dressed Them. He is so attached to Them and They are the most beautiful Deities in the world. And Pancha-tattva is the most merciful and the most beautiful Deities in the world.

So we are very fortunate that we have this plan and this project to work on. It was very dear to Srila Prabhupada. It is actually. . . I told Radha Jivan in confidence I think this project is uniting ISKCON. There is been so many problems we have been through the last twenty, thirty years, and every temple I go to I see the devotees, they are so attached to Srila Prabhupada. They want to work together, cooperate together the way Prabhupada asked them to bring about this temple as world headquarters. It is home of every devotee, every follower of Srila Prabhupada, every member of ISKCON. This is your heart and soul, Sri Dhāma Mayapur. As Janani vasa Prabhu was saying, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is just waiting to flood the world with His mercy and from His heart, the heartbeat will spread this movement all over the world in every town and village.

So we are glad to be here and we are offering this very unique opportunity where you have Lord Nityananda’s shoes, Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva’s helmet on His disappearance day you are here. Janani vasa Prabhu is here, Giriraj Maharaja is here, and our humble team, we are all here, and we are offering you an opportunity of a lifetime to be involved in a small way or large way—that is up to you—in this project because Krishna consciousness is absolute, every little bit is important and every little bit counts to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. We know that story about Lord Ramachandra and He was building the bridge and the sparrow or spider was throwing grains of sand. So every bit helps, every big bit helps, and altogether we are all family trying to build this temple. It is something that we all can be proud of as members of ISKCON.

So I fall at your feet. Please help us if you can and give us your support and your love so we can carry out this very important mission and desire of the founder-acharya Srila Prabhupada. Thank you very much. [applause]

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna. As a relatively new devotee in Calcutta I didn’t really know what was a higher priority or a lower priority for Srila Prabhupada. I just saw that he was absolute and all his programs and projects were absolute. But after a while of close observation I started to distinguish and so one morning while Srila Prabhupada was taking his massage on the balcony I just came up and sat near him and sat, “Srila Prabhupada, I have been thinking what pleases you the most.” And Srila Prabhupada was such person, he was an ocean of love and compassion and kindness, and even though I was such a new devotee and I wasn’t of much significance, but he was like, “This is very important.” And then I said, “First, if we distribute your books and second if we build the big temple in Mayapur,” and Srila Prabhupada’s face broke into a huge smile and he looked at me with such kindness and affection and he said, “Yes, you have understood.”

So, I was in Calcutta for a while and Srila Prabhupada spoke about Mayapur and he went to the West, then came back to Calcutta with a plan for the Mayapur project. He called the devotees in his room to discuss the project and then he raised the question that, “Sometimes it floods in Mayapur. What will happen to the project if it floods?” And he was given so many vehement arguments. I had heard of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu that He would take one side of an argument and He would refute all the other arguments from all the disciples. Then He would take that position and defeat all the other arguments from the other side. So it was like that, “Should we build it in Mayapur, shouldn’t we build it in Mayapur.” It was going back and forth. Finally the conclusion was we should build it in Mayapur. And then he said, “If you build this temple Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura will personally take you all back home, back to Godhead.” [applause] 

Now, in this august assembly here on this auspicious occasion, a purport to that statement came to mind. And the purport to the statement is included in a purport in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam to the verse, āyur harati vai puṁsām, that by rising and setting the duration of life of everyone is increased except those who utilize the time in glorification of the all good Personality of Godhead. And Srila Prabhupada explained that by hearing of the realization extends to all the other aspects of the Lord. And then he quotes Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura from smṛti-śāstra and he says that if one gives charity to an uneducated brahman, in order words an unqualified brahman, whatever one gives will be returned in equal proportion. If one gives in charity to a half-educated brahman, the amount will be returned double. If one gives in charity to a qualified brahman, the amount will be returned in multiplications of hundreds and thousands. But if one gives to a Veda-parāga, that means one who has realized the conclusion of the Vedas which is Krishna, in other words someone like Srila Prabhupada who has realized the conclusion of the Vedas, the amount given will be returned in unlimited multiplications. 

Now what does that mean? How do we get our unlimited return? It can’t be only in the material world because everything in the material world is limited. It can only be in the spiritual world. So on the basis of that purport which quotes the smṛti-śāstra, I’m substantiating the idea that if we build this temple for Srila Prabhupada and Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Srila Bhaktivinoda will take us all back home, back to Godhead. 

And when Radha Jivan Prabhu said, I don’t even know how he ended the sentence, but he began the sentence by saying that as a result of all of my austerities in Bombay and unfortunately my mind wandered at that moment because I was [?] the sentence within my mind and I repeated it because of all my austerities at Juhu I’m now sitting between Janani vasa Prabhu and Ambarish Prabhu. [applause] And two feet away from Radha Jivan. That was next to Srila Prabhupada and we have been given this opportunity to serve as the servant of the servants of the servants. And I really the feel the best that I can do for you or any of us can do for anyone is to cooperate with this great mission and flood the world with love of Godhead. Hare Krishna.