I’ll Build You a Temple: The Juhu Story—Book Launch

Giriraj Swami: Today we are celebrating the launch of my new book I’ll Build You a Temple—The Juhu Story in New Zealand, and I will read from the book and comment. Just to give the basic idea, the land was owned by a demon named Mr. A.B. Nair. Once I gave a talk about the history in relation to a verse in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that was assigned to me in New Dwarka, Los Angeles, and afterwards His Grace Virabahu Prabhu told me that I usually don’t like it when devotees use the word demon to refer to people, but after hearing your description, I agree; they were demons.

So to set the basic scene, and many of you may know it from the book or from Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta, but in February of 1972, Srila Prabhupada entered into an agreement to buy the Juhu land from Mr. A.B Nair, but Mr. Nair was a cunning person. He had already entered into an agreement to sell the land to someone else earlier, and taken a down payment. But he inserted into the agreement, a condition that Mr. Nair who was quite an influential person in Bombay, he was the editor of one of three English daily newspapers called “The Free Press Journal” and he had been the sheriff of Bombay.

So, with that other party, Mr. Nair inserted a clause that he had to get permission to subdivide the land and then Mr. Nair used his influence to make sure that he could not subdivide it. And thus, Mr. Nair canceled the agreement and kept the man’s money. With us, he inserted a condition that we had to get permission from the charity commissioner, and then again he used his influence with the charity commissioner’s office to make sure that we didn’t get the permission, and then he canceled the agreement and kept our money. Mr. Nair was a big demon but he met his match in Srila Prabhupada. And Srila Prabhupada, he detected that Mr. Nair was a bit tricky and so he made the condition that upon payment of a certain portion of the total price of fourteen lakhs and then the payment of two lakhs, we would get possession of the land.

And then Srila Prabhupada immediately had a pandal program on the land and he brought the deities, Sri Sri Radha Rasabihari, from what had been our center in South Bombay, in the Akash Ganga building on Warden Road or Bhulabhai Desai Road. And he felt confident that with the deities present Mr. Nair would not be able to drive us away. And Srila Prabhupada promised the deities that you just stay here and I will build you a beautiful temple. And that is where the title of the book comes from I’ll Build You a Temple. 

His Holiness Tamal Krishna Goswami commented that we often hear of devotees performing austerities for the sake of the deities, but at Hare Krishna land the deities performed austerities for the sake of the devotees. So, there were a lot of intrigues but things came to a head when Mr. Nair arranged for our temporary temple, we called it semi-permanent temple, to be demolished. So the permit we had for our small temple was only temporary; it had to be renewed every year. Near the end of the first year when we approached the municipality for a renewal we did not get any reply, so we wrote them another letter, again without response.

Finally, when the permit was about to expire, I took all the relevant papers and went straight to the municipal commissioner at City Hall. I explained the situation in less than five minutes, giving the man a concise account without mention of Mr. Nair or our dispute with him. Based on my explanation and the documentation I had brought, the commissioner granted the year’s extension. Just as I was coming out of his office however, I saw one of Mrs. Nair’s agents and I could tell that something was up. So I went straight into the commissioner’s secretary’s office and induced him to type the permission right then on the spot and get the commissioner’s signature. I sat there and waited until he returned with the signed document, and then I took it with me and left. But I knew that Mrs. Nair was trying somehow to get the land back. 

We had also heard rumors that the municipality was planning to demolish the temple, and I should mention that the land was in the name of Mrs. Nair, and by this stage in the proceedings Mr. Nair had died. That is another very interesting incident, but Srila Prabhupada said it is very good that Nṛsiṁhadeva has killed this demon, Nair. So, we had heard rumors that the municipality was planning to demolish the temple. In a letter dated April 26th I wrote to the police department that we are the owners of the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple at Hare Krishna land in Juhu village. In his letter dated April 27th the municipal commissioner of Bombay Sri M.W. Desai has informed us that the permission has extended for one year. Two days ago, a man allegedly from the municipal corporation threatened that at nine or ten today the municipality would come and demolish the temple. Such an act would be totally illegal since the commissioner himself has assured us that permission was extended and so on…

Around noon, on the morning on May 18th  two large trucks from the Bombay municipality drove onto Hare Krishna Land and fifty municipal workers carrying crowbars, chisels and sledgehammers descended on the temple. Following close behind was a big police truck, from which twenty or thirty constables emerged. I rushed forward to meet the municipal officer in charge and asked them what was happening. Why were they there? He said our structure was unauthorized and they had come to demolish it. I replied that the temple was authorized and that I had the papers to prove it, that I had just had our permit renewed. “We have permission” I said, “you cannot do this”. The officer however seemed uninterested even after I showed him the permit and the letter I had receive from City Hall, signed by the municipal commissioner himself. “We don’t accept your papers”, he said and ordered the demolition to begin. I approached the policeman for help but was told off handedly “we are here to see that there is no trouble, that’s all. Actually, they knew that we would try to stop the demolition and they were there to make sure it continued without interference. What we heard later was that Mrs Nair had collected twenty-five thousand rupees at the death of her husband and had distributed the money to the municipal corporation and the police. The municipal council for Juhu Pushpakant Mhatre who had been supporting Mr Nair all along had arranged for the temple to be demolished. Some workers put up a ladder against the temple but when one of them was about to climb up with a sledgehammer to break the roof of the temple I knocked the ladder over. Three policemen grabbed me, one by each arm and one by the neck and tossed me into the police truck. Other devotees rushed forward to stop the demolition. But one by one each was apprehended and thrown into the police truck. Maybe twenty of us in all. The last devotee left was Maithili, the head pujari. She had locked the doors to the Deity chamber and was standing steadfast in front of them, ready to knock down anyone who came near. “I was carrying the Deities’ raja-bhoga offering,” she later recalled. “When I saw that there were a lot of policemen surrounding the temple, I dropped the plates and started to run towards the temple. I closed, locked, and bolted the Deity-room doors, which were up a few steps, and I stood on the top step with my back to the doors. The workers were knocking down the whole roof of the temple hall, including the long tube lights, as well as the framed pictures of Krishna, and when they turned to destroy Tulasi I left my position with my back to the doors and went to the middle of the temple, where she was standing from the morning – because they were going to hit her – and at that point they grabbed me. I hit one of the officers in the face – then they all came around me and starting to drag me out of the temple.

“On the way, I wrapped my elbow around one of the steel tubes supporting the corner of the temple and held on as hard as I could.” She was a big, strong woman, and they couldn’t pry her off. “They started hitting my elbow with a stick so I would let go, and I fell onto the floor of the temple, and then they picked me up by one foot and one braid of my hair and dragged me across the field, which was now full of people watching the whole thing. They carried me halfway across the field and, as many people watched in horror, threw me face down into the police wagon.” When Prabhupada heard that Maithili had been kicking and screaming at the policemen as they were dragging her by the hair, he said that she would go back to Godhead kicking and screaming. And he compared her to Draupadi, whose hair, infamously, had been grabbed by the evil Duhshasana. After Maithili had been dragged from the temple, two women – Jagat Purusa’s mother-in-law, Yashoda, and another local woman – guarded the Deities. And because they were Hindu Indian ladies, the police did not touch them. But other than them, no one – not any of the hundreds of neighbors, tenants, or passersby – lifted a finger to help us.

Only one devotee wasn’t arrested during the demolition – Manasvi. He was crouched behind some bushes watching the whole thing. When he saw us all being carried away, he found a telephone, called our friend and supporter Mr. Kartikeya Mahadevia, and asked him to help. Mr. Mahadevia phoned Bal Thackeray, a staunch Hindu and the founder and leader of the Shiv Sena, one of Bombay’s most powerful political parties, and told him what was happening. If he did not intervene, Mr. Mahadevia told him, the temple would be destroyed and he would get a bad name. Bal Thackeray phoned the municipal commissioner, informed him of what was taking place, and told him to stop the demolition. The municipal commissioner, being part of the clique that had conspired against the temple, objected, but Bal Thackeray warned him, “Just remember who this city belongs to.” “Okay, Balasaheb, okay,” the commissioner said, and he called the local ward, which had dispatched the attackers, and told them to halt the demolition. The ward officer himself came running, reached the site just as the workers were getting ready to dismantle the Deity chamber, and ordered them to stop. They had already completely destroyed the darshan-mandapa (viewing area) and had removed the first few pieces of the roof covering the Deities. Those of us in the police truck were taken to the Santa Cruz station and locked up in a holding cell. “I want to phone my lawyer,” I called out. “No phone calls,” they said. “Stay where you are. You’re not going anywhere.” When Dr. Singhal heard that we had been arrested, he came to the station and appealed to the officer in charge on our behalf. “They are not sinful,” he said. “Or criminals. And they are not hypocrites. They are genuine people. We know them. They should be released.”

The police allowed Dr. Singhal to come inside and see us. “The devotees were doing kirtan,” his wife recounted, “sitting and chanting with kartals. They were not sad – except for the Deities and the temple. Otherwise, they were happy there. They had full faith in Krishna.”

Only after several hours where we released from custody and able to return to the site. When we got back from the police station, we came upon a strange scene. In the middle of a vacant lot strewn with rubble and the metal bars that had once supported the temple structure were the beautiful Sri Sri Radha-Rasabihari, dressed in Their green-and-silver outfits and garlanded with flowers. They stood on Their carved teakwood altar amid the fragrant scent of burning incense and warm glow of ghee lamps. Only a few small pieces of the roof over Them had been removed; other than that, They and Their Deity room remained intact. And the picture of Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva over the altar doors, though slightly tilted to the side, had survived as well, as if He was looking down upon us and assuring us that He had been there to protect the Deities. “It was amazing,” Maithili recalled. “The flower that I had put behind the ear of Radha-Rasabihari was still there and the ghee lights were still burning. The only offering They had missed was the raja-bhoga offering.”

Then there was a whole lot of publicity that Mhatre had arranged, and of course the Free Press Journal was Nair’s paper, he was the editor of it. And the Free Press Journal had a headline “Unauthorized Temple Demolished by Municipal Authorities.” And Mhatre had arranged for hostile reports about us to appear everywhere which, as we learned, could be achieved by bribing the newspaper people.

When Srila Prabhupada was informed of what had happened, he was of course concerned, but he told us not to worry. The episode was part of Krishna’s plan, he said. And if we took it as an opportunity, the results would be positive; the demolition of our temple by the municipality would actually strengthen our position. So then we undertook a systematic campaign to meet all the members of the municipal corporation, to convince them of our bona fides, to get permission to rebuild the temple. While we had been working with our life members to get permission from the municipal corporation to rebuild the temple structure, Mrs Nair and her lawyers were busy trying to prevent us so we continued to hold meetings with our friends and life members discussing how to proceed. At one of these meetings at Sadajiwatlal’s office, one of our friends pointed out that we might not actually need permission after all, we had already been approved to build the temple in the first place. The municipal commissioner had already agreed to extend the temples permit and the municipality didn’t have any valid grounds for its demolition. So, although we hadn’t been given specific permission to rebuild there was no ruling that said we couldn’t, nothing to stop us from just restoring it. Somehow Mrs Nair found out what we were planning to do and the next day, Friday, she went to the High Court with a petition for an injunction to prevent us from rebuilding.  It was her property, she argued, and she hadn’t given us permission. She petitioned that “pending the hearing and final disposal of the suit the defendants, their servants and agents may be restrained by an order and injunction of this Hon’ble Court from constructing or reconstructing any structure on the Plaintiff’s said property . . . or any part thereof” and “[t]hat pending the hearing and final disposal of the suit the defendants, their servants and agents may be restrained by an order and injunction of this Honorable Court from entering into or remaining upon or otherwise committing trespass on or into the Plaintiff’s said land.” The judge, Justice Nain, had been both Mr. Sethi’s advocate and a chief guest at our second Cross Maidan pandal, so he was familiar with our Society and activities and appreciative of Prabhupada and our movement. He said he would consider granting the injunction only after he had heard both sides. Because it was Friday, he pointed out, the end of the week, he would take up the matter on Monday.

“Just give a temporary injunction for the weekend and then you can decide on the permanent injunction,” Mrs. Nair appealed, but her request was denied. “No,” Justice Nain responded. “Without hearing the other side, I will not pass any judgment.” When we heard of Mrs. Nair’s petition and the judge’s response, we knew we had to take advantage of the opportunity. If the judge ruled against us, we would be prohibited from going ahead with the reconstruction. But once the temple was up, we understood, an injunction—even if it were granted—would be meaningless. The temple would already be in place, and no rebuilding would be necessary. We figured we had the weekend, until Monday morning, to put up the structure. So, although it was difficult I had arranged to get all the construction materials and our dear P.L. Sethi, Srila Prabhupada’s staunch supporter happened to visit Juhu with his family to check on his house under construction and enjoy a weekend beach outing, and before returning home, he visited the temple. “When we came,” he recalled, “we saw that the small shed had been demolished. And the description given to us of the demolition was horrifying. Not only was the temple demolished, but they wanted to take away the Deities.” Mr Sethi was in poor health but he declared “ no matter whether laborers are available or not, I will rebuild the temple and do the labor work myself. As it turned out he was able to bring plenty of laborers and also supplies of his own construction site. In the course of the day Mrs Nair, Mhatre and Mrs Nair solicitor, Bachubhai Shah all came to the site. “You can’t do this” they shouted, demanding that we stop. The solicitor, Bachubhai Shah, served me with what I presumed to be a notice preventing me from rebuilding the temple and threatening me with consequences if I did. But when I saw him I ran away as fast as I could. And he came running after me as fast as he could, in his suit and tie. I thought the respectable solicitor Bachubhai Shah is running after me like a child in a playground, where is his dignity. He couldn’t catch me and when I looked back from a safe distance, I saw him looking frustrated. Leaving the letter with someone who is just there with no proof that I had received it or ever would. Mhatre too demanded that we halted the construction. No,” Mr. Sethi replied. “Why should we stop?” “You can build it up,” Mhatre threatened, “but I will come in the night with fifty goondas [hooligans] and break it down.”Mr. Sethi turned to his son, who was by his side, and said, “Brijmohan, bring my revolver and my rifle.” Then he said to Mhatre, “Don’t bring fifty goondas. Bring a hundred. Bring two hundred. I have two hundred and fifty cartridges. You’ll have to bring at least two hundred and fifty-one.” He had a kshatriya side, and he was staunch.

Later Maithili recounted  “They did not count on the amazing heroism and bravery of my personal hero, Mr. P. L. Sethi,” Maithili said later, echoing everyone’s admiration. As Brijmohan Sethi remembered, “So, with the revolver in my hand and the rifle in Daddy’s hand, we started the work. We could do this not because of something in us, but because of the blessings of Prabhupada. Only with his blessings and mercy could we start the construction. The entire night it was raining cats and dogs, but we never stopped the work; it went on.”

As the rain fell, Mr. Sethi recalled how by lifting Govardhana Hill Lord Krishna had protected the inhabitants of Vrindavan from the devastating rainfall sent by Indra. He was unperturbed. Indra wants to test me, he thought. All right, if you want to come down, you can come down more heavily, but I have the blessings of Srila Prabhupada. I have to rebuild the temple, and I will. They were joined on guard duty by a few of our friends. A few police constables came in a van, but they left around midnight.

I was overseeing the rebuilding, and Tamal Krishna told me, “I want you to stay up all night and make sure the work is done. People will be working all night long, and goondas may come to attack. I want you to stay up and make sure that the work keeps going and that nothing goes wrong.” A few days earlier, Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, my first temple president, by whom I was greatly inspired, had passed through Bombay. I appreciated his humble and gentle demeanor, and I wanted to emulate him. When Tamal Krishna told me to stay up all night and oversee the work, I mentioned how I wanted to be like Satsvarupa Maharaja—a simple, humble sadhu. Tamal Krishna looked me straight in the eyes and, with a firm intensity and controlled anger, responded, “Your humility will be to stay up all night and make sure this temple gets rebuilt.” I thought about it, and I had to agree: Where was the humility if I was not ready to surrender to the order, or desire, of the spiritual master? If I would have retired for the evening so I could get up early and be a good devotee and chant my rounds—which wasn’t bad—I wouldn’t really have been humble. It was more humble to submit to the authority and do the needful for Srila Prabhupada’s service. To be humble meant to be ready, without personal consideration, to do whatever the spiritual master wanted, whether or not it conformed to popular conceptions of a humble sadhu. Mr. Sethi and his son, the friends and life members, and the laborers stayed up all night to protect and complete the construction. “I was there with a gun,” Mr. Sethi recounted. “We started at nine. At eleven, one man came at the road, but I challenged him, ‘If you come inside, I will shoot you,’ and he ran away and shouted to some other men, ‘They are ready to fight—don’t go there.’

Sridhar was at the site, too, chanting japa in the Jeep. When someone asked him why he was in there, he joked, “If anybody comes, I can make a quick escape.” “Actually, the whole thing was right in keeping with my nature,” he recalled. “When there is a good chance for a fight for Krishna, I don’t run away from it. It was very exciting. I was ready. We stayed up all night. Miserable night, but we were waiting for them to come. Mr. Sethi had his gun, and I had a knife or some other weapon.” And the devotees, life members, masons and other skilled workers, laborers, and other friends did it: they put it all up in that one night, finishing around four in the morning, and no one came to disturb the work. And then we had maṅgala-ārati.

Mhatre returned around seven the next morning, but by then it was too late. “It is built,” we told him. “Go to the court.”

Later that morning, we appeared in the High Court and told the judge that the temple had already been rebuilt. “What is built is built,” he said to Mrs. Nair. “No one can destroy the temple.”

When Prabhupada heard the news, he considered it a complete victory. The temple had been rebuilt. “In Bombay we have just been victorious over the party who had torn down our temple and the temple has been completely reconstructed, in addition to our gaining overwhelming new popular support,” he wrote to Gurudas. “I am glad to hear of victory in the matter of Bombay property,” he wrote to Mrs. Singhal. “Now it is rebuilt and people are supporting our cause and finding out more about our great movement. You please help and tell everyone how nice chanting Hare Krishna is.”

Two weeks later, in London, Srila Prabhupada brought up the topic of the demolition with George Harrison. “In Bombay we are undergoing some tribulation. You have seen this booklet?” Prabhupada asked, showing George the special demolition issue. “The city, municipal authorities, knocked our temple down,” Shyamasundara explained. “Why did they do that?” George asked. “Oh, that’s a long story,” Prabhupada said. “About the land,” Shyamasundara added. “There was some dispute. We purchased it, and the other owners had tried to dispute it, and they were powerful with the police.”

Then there was more discussion with George and then he said,

“You’d expect it somewhere like in America, in the West,” George said. “In India you wouldn’t expect that.”

“No,” Prabhupada agreed, “this is an extraordinary incident. Now the public is on our side. . . . When one preaches, he must tell the truth. Just like Lord Jesus Christ. The people did not like his preaching, but he did not stop . . . But in preaching there is possibility of creating animosity.”

During the temple reconstruction Mr Sethi had demonstrated his kshatriya spirit for which Srila Prabhupada had expressed his appreciation, also teaching us a lesson, that sometimes a fighting spirit was required. “In this way we have to fight”, he later said we should not be afraid for these rascals. Why should you be afraid if they take to gundaism we shall engage 50 gundas. Come on let us see, we have to maintain that spirit.  Anaye yei kare prabhu anaye yei sahe he Rabindranath Tagore's one poetry: "One who does wrong and suffers wrong, he is wrong." One should not do anything wrong; one should not suffer anything wrong. That is human. If somebody does harm to me, wrong to me, I cannot suffer it. I shall not do any harm to anyone. That's all right. But if you want to give me suffering, I must fight you. Why shall I suffer it? That is kshatriya spirit. Yuddhe cāpy apalayanam. "If you are challenging, 'All right, come on,' I accept this challenge." We have to do like that. Prabhupada was referring to the verse in

Bhagavada-gita 18.43 describing the qualities of a kshatriya.

śauryaṁ tejo dhṛtir dākṣyaṁ

yuddhe cāpy apalāyanam

dānam īśvara-bhāvaś ca

kṣātraṁ karma svabhāva-jam

Heroism, power, determination, resourcefulness, courage in battle, generosity, and leadership are the qualities of work for the kshatriyas.

Prabhupada continued, “if someone is aggressor and you have attacked me then I must kill you, just as you have done here Sethiji.”

I will bring my revolver, here they wanted to put us in trouble and he was in great trouble. Alright, common we shall fight. So, we have to do like that. Why should I tolerate unnecessary injustice, take that spirit. If there is a fight Prabhupada said, you must be prepared to fight.

Mr Sethi mentioned me, that I supported him and I had responded referring to him “ He was very heroic” “Yes” Prabhupada said, “he is a kshatriya” and Mr Sethi told us about his experiences fighting at the time of the partition between India and Pakistan.

Anyway… that is also another interesting story but I will conclude this so we can move along.

“That is also Krishna conscious”, Prabhupada said, “you see how many demons were killed by Krishna”. Referring to the building of the temple Mr Sethi said, “I declare that if they challenge us, I am ready come on! In the night at the temple, when Mhatre came with that barrister to give Giriraj notice, I scolded him and insulted him publicly. “Therefore, Prabhupada said, Mhatre was so against that we must stop that. Yes, I heard from that doctor that he was insulted by Sethi. Either Sethi should go… he has repeated, remove Sethi, but I replied I will not let that happen. And that doctor was Mhatre’s man he also gave a hint, “give Mhatre two lakhs of rupees”. He was asking on behalf of Mhatre. “We will not give you a single paisa”, Mr Sethi concluded, we will find you, come on.

There are so many adventures that took place in the course of the struggle to get the Juhu land, and to eventually build the temple which Srila Prabhupada did—for Sri Sri Radha Rasabihari. And now I think we can take some time and if any of you want to ask any questions, or make any comments, share any reflections, you can do that now. You can raise your hand; your physical hand or your virtual hand. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.

Devotee: Hare Krishna Maharaja. Thank you very much for reading from your wonderful book. I have been reading it and I have been really impressed and appreciate your presentation and how you integrate the past times of Srila Prabhupada, while also presenting the philosophy of Krishna consciousness. I found that very enlivening and how Prabhupada and yourself how you live sastra. You live the person Bhagavat and the book Bhagavat and see those qualities in yourself and as well as Srila Prabhupada. And your book perfectly presents that.

Giriraj Swami: Thank you.

Devotee: Anyone who is online, if you would like to ask Maharaja a question, please unmute yourself and then you may do so. The devotees here in the temple room don’t appear to have any questions at the moment.

Giriraj Swami: Hema Gauri has her hand up. Hema Gauri Mataji?

Devotee: Hare Krishna Guru Maharaja. Please accept my most humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. Guru Maharaja, I was just wondering, this whole scene of demolition it was very touching the way they were dragging Manasi out of the temple room and then Bal Thackeray called the commission. Considering the fact that there were no mobile phones at that time and there were old fashioned telephones you dial, and so somebody who was hiding behind the bush he must have gone to somebody’s house to get a land number and call the commissioner, and then the commissioner had to be in his station to pick up the phone, and then he called Bal Thackeray and Bal Thackeray also had to be available near the phone to receive that call. I can’t imagine, nowadays everything is done so fast on the mobiles and all but in those days there was definitely Krishna’s intervention for saving the demolition completely.

Giriraj Swami: Yes, that is a very good observation, everything just fell into place. If one link in the chain was missing, and it easily could have been, then we wouldn’t have been successful in stopping the demolition. That is a very good observation. We didn’t have any phone of our own. Srila Prabhupada once commented about India at that time, if you want to get a telephone you have to bribe the Minister twenty thousand rupees just to get a telephone. So yes, we didn’t have a telephone of our own but that devotee Manasi, he was Gujarati, he managed to use one of the tenants’ telephones and he phoned Mr. Mahadevia and Mr. Mahadevia got Bal Thackeray and Bal Thackeray got the commissioner; the commissioner got the ward officer. 

Devotee: Very nice coordination. Of course it was the Lord’s intervention; you can see there, how everything got coordinated so well.

Giriraj Swami: Yes, that is true. 

Devotee: Another question Guru Maharaja. I was wondering, Mr. Nair, we know that he was a demon but Mrs. Nair seemed to be more of a demon, like a female serpent is even more dangerous than the male serpent, because she bribed the people to demolish. 

Giriraj Swami: Yes, she was under very bad influence especially Mr. Mhatre, but at the end she surrendered to Srila Prabhupada; that was a whole other story. But yes, in the end she surrendered to Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada said, “I accept you as my daughter, you can stay in any of my temples anywhere in the world, and my disciples will take care of you.” And in the end when the big day came that she was signing over the land, Prabhupada said, “Don’t worry, if you go off the path in the morning and then you come back on the right path in the evening then it is all right.” We had a momentous occasion signing the conveyance to give the land to Srila Prabhupada.

After the signing, Srila Prabhupada had arranged a feast for everyone who came; we served the feast. It was at the Catal’s beach house. We didn’t have any proper place on the Juhu land, so it was done at the Catal’s beach house and afterwards Srila Prabhupada said, “All right, now we have the land we should start the construction fund. And Mrs. Sethi took off some of her gold bangles and gave it as the first offering to the construction fund. And Srila Prabhupada said “This is very auspicious to begin with gold not with paper money.” Afterwards, after everyone left Prabhupada leaned back on his bolster, he would always sit down on a cushion on the floor on the low table; he sat down and leaned back and he said, “It was a good fight, someone should write a book about it.”

Devotee: Jaya, jaya Prabhupada ki jaya. Prabhupada was so merciful.

Devotee: Maharaja, in the face of adversary both in personal lives and in the service of Krishna. how do we see the silver lining? How do we see the hand of Krishna or see what Krishna is testing us and how do we maintain that focus?

Giriraj Swami: Actually, even in relation to this incident when Srila Prabhupada was speaking with George Harrison, he quoted this saying, “Failure is the pillar of success.” This is what he said to George Harrison, “Failure is the pillar of success.: And he said that especially in spiritual life failure was not a discouragement. We just had to try and try again. That was echoing the saying that if at first you don’t succeed try, try again. And in our case, by his and Krishna’s mercy, we were successful. I forget the exact phrase, but at one stage my dear god sister Archana Siddhi devi dasi, she asked me to write something about how… I think she called it when bad is good—it seems bad but in the end it turns out to be good—and I use the example of the temple demolition; when bad is good. I would say that attentive japa is very important to stay connected with Krishna and the paramparā, and to be in tune with their plan and to have faith in their mercy.

Does that address your question or do you want to ask further?

Devotee: It certainly does Maharaja. Thank you very much.

Giriraj Swami: Okay, we have Vraja Mohan who has his hand up.Vraja Mohan Prabhu, would you like to unmute yourself to ask Maharaja a question? 

Devotee: So I just had a question because in the later part of the book there is one pious supporter, I believe it was a supporter of the temple, when Prabhupada is in his last days and he is going from Bombay to Vrindavan, he is about to take the train and there is one devotee who drove him in a Dodge. An Indian gentleman. But the way it was written, it sounded like devotees have been trying to preach to him and he was very difficult to get to turn around. But I tried looking back for him trying to discover more about him and his interaction with Prabhupada, but I was wondering if you remember who that was and what his history was?

Giriraj Swami: Oh yes, that was Dr. Andy Desai, he was a brilliant person but he was initially under the influence of Swami Chinmaya Nanda, who was an impersonalist. So he would present his impersonal arguments to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Prabhupada would defeat them. Then he would go back to Swami Chinmay Ananda and say Prabhupada said this, how do I answer? And he would come back with Swami Chinmaya Nanda’s response and again Prabhupada would defeat it and he would go back. And eventually he came to the conclusion: one, that Srila Prabhupada could not be defeated that the impersonal philosophy could not stand up to the personal philosophy; and he was also convinced that Prabhupada was of impeccable character, and so eventually, he surrendered. We called him because we wanted a good car to drive Srila Prabhupada to the train station and he had a Dodge and he and his wife personally, they cleaned it up and decorated it and made it nice for Srila Prabhupada.

And then at the at the train station, there are many details, but finally we reached the train station and the train was leaving early but Srila Prabhupada kept insisting that Dr. Desai drive faster and so we made it in time. We rushed out on the platform with Srila Prabhupada and Prabhupada was placed in his cabin in the train and then he asked to see Dr. Desai. And so Dr. Desai went on to the train and within his heart he surrendered to Srila Prabhupada, right then and there. And Tamal Krishna Goswami said, “Don’t touch his feet.” And Dr. Desai thought, This is this is my only chance, I am going to grab the mercy. So he put his head on Srila Prabhupada’s feet and surrendered. And he went on to become one of our greatest supporters and devotees in Bombay.

Yes, it is amazing. Okay, are there any other questions or reflections?

Devotee: Maharaja, I can’t help but be impressed still today Bombay what’s it called now Juhu temple is one of the best in the world. Anyone that stayed at the Juhu temple is super impressed the way it was designed, the way it was constructed, fabulous darshans; one can’t help but being impressed with the younger devotees like yourself taking on this incredible austerity to please Srila Prabhupada and to please Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. And just so many lessons are there; these books and your discussion should be the foundation for bhakta programs and new devotees. We have Satsvarupa’s book and now we have this wonderful book and to have you here in person by transcendence through the internet is such a great and honorable situation to be in. We are so glad that you had the incredible faith to actually surrender to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Prabhupada’s instructions. Just an incredible story and you were so young and still you didn’t give up the fight. It is just amazing how Krishna blessed you, how Prabhupada blessed you and all the devotees at that particular point to do such an incredible service. So I am so glad that I could thank you in person. 

So thank you very much; and it is incredible just mind-blowing, what you had to go through and you are still here today with strong determination and strong faith in Srila Prabhupada and Lord Chaitanya saṅkīrtana movement. So I think any devotee within our society and those devotees that will join in the future, will get great satisfaction and it will increase their determination to have faith in their guru and faith in Krishna to push on the saṅkīrtana movement. So thank you very much just incredible. Hare Krishna.

Giriraj Swami: Thank you, wonderful, very encouraging. Hare Krishna.

Devotee: Thank you Khala Prabhu. We have Nikunja Mathaji that would like to ask a question if that is all right.

Devotee: Hare Krishna Maharaja. Please accept my humble obeisances. I have a question. In Vrindavan, Krishna came to kill the demons and in the Kali-yuga Krishna came as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to give the holy name. So, these many demons in the Kali-yuga like Mr Nair was there any way of giving Krishna consciousness to Mr. Nair, or somehow giving him the holy name just like how Lord Nityananda gave his mercy to Jagai and Madhai? Was there a way of giving him that?

Giriraj Swami: Well, Srila Prabhupada said that it is a characteristic of a good man to take the bright side in others and not the dark side. So applying that principle to Mr. Nair, he offered Srila Prabhupada the land. The dark side was he wanted to cheat Srila Prabhupada, but the bright side was that he did offer him the land and Prabhupada did use that land and created the wonderful project in Juhu. So, a devotee asked Srila Prabhupada about Mr. Nair’s destination, I think the devotee was thinking he should have taken birth as a snake or gone hell to be punished. But Srila Prabhupada said no, that Krishna would see the bright side. But yes, he had a lot of association with devotees. In the very beginning, he received Srila Prabhupada at his home, he served Srila Prabhupada, and that is where they negotiated the whole deal, at Mr. Nair’s home in Juhu. And Mrs. Nair, she was very favorable. In the beginning you can see there is film footage of the groundbreaking ceremony in Juhu and Mrs. Nair was there. And I think she was carrying, I don’t know what you say in English but in India they say kamayla with dirt in it and she was putting the dirt in the hole.

And then when Srila Prabhupada was leaving Bombay, she came to the airport and the devotees did kirtan. There was a really a blissful kirtan. The devotees were singing and dancing and Mrs. Nair was there as far as the kirtan. And Srila Prabhupada said, “Oh Mrs. Nair, you are becoming one of us.” And after Prabhupada left, this is very significant, after Prabhupada left, and all that happened there was a memorial service at the Juhu temple. Acyutananda Swami later recounted and you’ll never guess who was in the front row weeping. There was Mrs. Nair. So Prabhupada really did touch her heart.

Devotee: Thank you Maharaja. 

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna. Good question.

Well, there is a question in the chat but it is from Indulekha devi dasi; I see her right in front of me. Can you just ask your question orally?

Devotee: Yes. Thank you Maharaja for wonderful a class. Hare Krishna. I just wonder how to know properly if there is certain fight for the temple, when is it time to give up and how long do we need to fight? I believe there is a difference when dispute is between devotees and non-devotees and let’s say in Boston temple, occasionally we come to a situation where some devotees want to sell the temple and there is always group devotees who doesn’t want to. And it becomes sometimes very ugly, so far we are keeping it but time and again this keeps coming up.

Giriraj Swami: Which temple?

Devotee: Boston temple.

Giriraj Swami: Boston?

Devotee: At the at the moment it is peaceful. The last time the temple, they were trying to sell it; was around 2005. . .6. . .7, that was the last time. It never went too far but there is always somebody thinks that is too expensive, it is in a good location; so it is better if we sell it and some move out. But sometimes it becomes very ugly. So devotees think that we are just attached to the location or stuff like that. So I just wonder what is the proper way to deal with these issues.

Giriraj Swami: Well in principle Srila Prabhupada didn’t want temple properties to be sold, it is in his will. And I don’t know what the legality is in Boston, but there are three trustees assigned to every property and I think it is worth fighting to keep. It is very prestigious on Commonwealth Avenue; very prestigious and I would say we should keep it.

Devotee: I agree. It just becomes very ugly sometimes and in the process, some devotees they are not around anymore; somebody always gets hurt or something.

Giriraj Swami: You mean they left the movement when you say they are not around?

Devotee: Yes, some of them because I have been here from 1994 in Boston, and three times it was very seriously considered being sold by different temple presidents. So now I have a joke, if we get a new temple president if this person decides to tell sell the temple, he or she will be for some reason will leave the temple. It keeps happening.

Giriraj Swami: In a few days, I forget the exact date but they are celebrating the anniversary of Gopi Vallabha the deities, in Boston. They invited me to speak. They were not there when I was there. I went to India before those deities came. But yes, I did agree to speak and I will keep it in mind that it might need some encouragement to be steadfast.

Devotee: Thank you. 

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna.

Devotee: I think that is all the questions we have for today. I don’t see any in the chat and the devotee’s hands haven’t been up in Zoom. So we might want to conclude then Maharaja.

Giriraj Swami: Well we are going to end then I would suggest we conclude by offering Vaishnava praṇāma. Let us offer our respectful obeisances and to all the Vaishnava devotees of the Lord who are just like desired trees and fulfill the desires of everyone, and our full compassion for the fallen conditioned souls.

Chanting

Giriraj Swami: Thank you very much.

Devotee: I think we should end. Maharaja, thank you again and I am sure we would love to have you again on another occasion and we can communicate that by email. Thank you once again.