GBC Istagosthi, 21st of February 2004, Sri Mayapura Dhama

[Guest guest]

Jayapataka Swami: On behalf of the Governing Body Commission of ISKCON, we

offer our humble obeisances unto Om Visnupada Paramahamsa Parivrajakacarya

Asttotara-sata Sri Srimad Srila Abhay Caran Swami Prabhupada, Sri Sri Nitai

and Gauranga, Sri Sri Radha and Madhava.

 

For the annual GBC Deity report to Their Lordships for 517 Gaurabda, 2003-4

Krstabda. Some people in this world are still in the Christian era, but we

know that the real era going on in the world now is the Gauranga era.

 

Devotees: Haribol!

 

Jayapataka Swami: To Your Lordships we have assembled to humbly offer You

the report and the first report will be given by the new Chairman for the

next year, 518 Gaurabda, His Grace Praghosa Das Adhikari.

 

Devotees: Haribol! (applause)

 

Praghosa Das: Thank you very much, Maharaja. Hare Krishna. Thank you all

very much for coming. As Maharaja said, it's the report from the GBC

meetings of this year which just finished yesterday. Actually, it's truly

amazing to see so many devotees here. Just a few short years ago there were

only rice fields here and now there's so much happening here and so many

devotees, and devotees from all over the world, from California to China to

Melbourne to Murmansk, and wherever else. So it's a real pleasure and honour

to be able to give you this report.

 

 

The Governing Body Commission of ISKCON, established by Srila Prabhupada in

1970, held its 2004 Annual General Meeting at Mayapur Candrodaya Mandir from

the 11th through the 20th of February. As this year's GBC Chairman, I'm

grateful for this opportunity to present to you, the good and loyal citizens

of ISKCON, the resolutions of the meeting.

 

The number of GBC members attending this year's meeting was significantly

greater than usual. Actually on that point perhaps we could have a Maha

Pancha Tattva Installation every year. We would get a very good turn out

all around. Or some Maha Festival, maybe not installation of Pancha Tattva.

 

Of the 36 members, 33 were in Mayapur during the meeting (which represrents

more than 90% of the Body). And I think that is probably one of the best

turnouts ever, all glories to the members, for doing their job very well.

And on top of that, not only were the members present in Mayapur but every

session of the meeting was well-attended. Because sometimes they might be in

here Mayapur but not attending so well, so they were very well attended to.

 

One of the aims of the GBC the last numbers of years has been to have more

proactive discussions. In the past it tended to be just resolutions and

lawmaking, dealing with issues like that. But about six or so years ago in

its wisdom the GBC body, created the body of GBC deputies. And that body to

does a lot of that work, 90% of that work, which allows the GBC body more

time to deal with proactive subject matter. So one of the proactive subjects

that they dealt with this year is unity in diversity which is something

Srila Prabhupada directly instructed the GBC to discuss every year in

Mayapura.

 

I have a letter here from SP to Kirtanananda on the 18th of October 1973.

 

"Material nature means dissension and disagreement, especially in this

Kali-yuga. But for this Krsna consciousness movement, its success will

depend on agreement, even though there are varieties of engagements. In the

material world there are varieties, but there is no agreement. In the

spiritual world there are varieties, but there is agreement. That is the

difference. The materialist, without being able to adjust the varieties and

the disagreements, makes everything zero. They cannot come into agreement

with varieties, but if we keep Krsna in the center, then there will be

agreement in varieties. This is called unity in diversity. I am therefore

suggesting that all our men meet in Mayapur every year during the birth

anniversary of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. With all GBC and senior men

present, we should discuss how to make unity in diversity. But, if we fight

on account of diversity, then it is simply the material platform. Please try

to maintain the philosophy of unity in diversity. That will make our

movement successful."

 

So that was a discussion the GBC body took and it will be an ongoing

discussion to create more and more unity in diversity within our movement

because as you know there are many different view points on many different

issues so that's ok, that's fully acceptable. The idea is that as long as

its based on Krishna in the center then things should work out fine. The

GBC body is working on that. Another discussion was parallel lines of

authority.

 

Srila Prabhupada set up the system of management for ISKCON with the GBC

body, individual GBC members, temple presidents, etc. But where do the

spiritual masters fit into this? In Srila Prabhupada's time he was the

spiritual master for the whole society. So this is something new we have to

deal with and have it working properly in the system that SP has created for

us.

 

The third one was: How can we best keep devotees satisfied to continue

serving in ISKCON? And that's one of the main responsibilities of the GBC

body to keep devotees satisfied and enthusiastic to remain serving within

the society, Prabhupada's society.

 

Then we had the Sannyasa committee. Sannyasa committee was very interesting

this year because besides the ten candidates already waiting. Again just as

in terms of having a record number of GBC's men present this year for the

meetings, we had a record number of new candidates to take sannyasa. So that

bodes very well for the future, to have more and more sannasis who can

dedicate their lives to travelling and preaching the message of Lord

Caitanya Mahaprabhu. So that was a very positive thing too.

 

The next one was the BBT-GBC relations committee. Of course the BBT is SP,

and ISKCON is SP. So it makes sense that the GBC representing ISKCON and the

BBT work very closely together, which may not have always been the case in

the past so now there is a regular meeting every year in Mayapur among BBT

trustees and some representatives of the GBC. And by all accounts one GBC

member and one BBT trustee made a presentation to the body and they said

that, particularly the GBC member who was a member of many many different

committees said it was the most enlivening and enthusiastic committee he had

worked on all year. So that's very good for the future.

 

Vijaya Prabhu, the Global Minister of Book Distribution, reported that

worldwide, this year between last Gaura Purnima and this Gaura Purnima, that

ISKCON distributed one million more books than it did in the previous year.

Of course the only problem with that is that I am sure if SP was here he

would say "Wonderful, now next year you have to distribute another million

more." Double It. I am being told we have to "Double It." We can't rest on

our laurels. Ok so that's a challenge for Vijay Prabhu. That's a big

challenge.

 

I am just being reminded also that part of the meetings next year will have

one day of the meetings dedicated to BBT discussion. The BBT trustees and

different members of the BBT will have the full day to present presenations,

ideas and suggestions to how to increase the book distribution. So that

bodes very, very well for the future.

 

There was a short presentation by Bhakti Charu Maharaj on the "Abhay Charan"

project. He showed us the latest episode of the "Abhay Charan" video series

and emphasised video as a powerful means of heightening the public's

awareness of Srila Prabhupada.

 

Then we had the Sastric Advisory Council. This is another group of devotees,

brahminical devotees which was set up a few years back. The idea being they

would research philosophical issues within our society and philosophy and

help the GBC on that level. The deputies help with the managerial side and

the Sastric Advisory Council are helping on the philosophical side.

 

Purnachandra Prabhu, Chairman of the Sastric Advisory Council,

presented a paper titled "Looking for a guru? The Choice is Yours!". This

past year, the SAC also wrote two other papers, one on what to do when Srila

Prabhupada's instructions seem to differ from those of a previous acharya,

and a forty-page response to "The Prominent Link", a paper on the process of

disciplic succession in ISKCON. The next project, another very interesting

project for the SAC is researching the topic of women performing the role of

diksa-gurus.

 

The SAC as I said has been in existence for a few years now and it has

proved to be a valuable resource for helping the GBC make decisions based on

Sastra.

 

Another valuable development is ISKCON Resolve, which is two years in

operation and at the meeting of 2002 the GBC authorised this program headed

by Braja Bihari Prabhu for resolving internal disputes in ISKCON. This

program has now adopted the name ISKCONResolve, about which you'll soon be

able to learn more at www.iskconresolve.com.

 

ISKCONResolve offers two basic services: conflict mediation and ombuds.

 

Conflict mediation is just that: a trained ISKCON mediator works with two

(or more) conflicting parties to come to a resolution satisfactory to both.

This also works with another issue I talked about, keeping devotees

satisfied within ISKCON because if there is, sometimes there are difficult

circumstances between devotees, if it is not resolved it can lead to one or

more devotees becoming disillusioned. So ISKCONResolve in the past year has

trained more than 300 devotees as mediators in courses held in Radhadesh,

Hong Kong, Ukraine, Moscow, Vrindavana, Mexico City, Dallas, Mumbai and

London; and also the ISKCON Resolve they've mediated 200 disputes. And

apparently every single one of them has been a success.

 

The ombusperson is slightly different from a mediator. A mediator is between

two parties trying to come to an agreement. The ombudsperson is a

confidential, neutral, informal, and independent source of advice and

assistance in dealing with conflicts or apparent injustices.

 

This is interesting because we got the assistance of a very, very famous

ombuds/mediator. A world famous man called Arnold Zack and he, as far as I

know, is the ombuds for the International Monetary Fund among other

organizations, so he is a very, very famous and well known mediator ombuds.

He is a professor at Harvard University in the US. He was saying that it is

a first time a religious organization has implemented a system of resolving

disputes. It is a first for ISKCON to do that. Because as a general rule,

relgious organizations tend to be shy of this particular procedure. As a

result it has attracted a lot of attention in the media: India Today

published two articles on ISKCONResolve; a dozen periodicals covered the

establishment of an ombudsperson at Bhaktivedanta Hospital in Mumbai; and an

article will appear soon in the American Bar Association's spring edition of

their magazine Dispute Resolution.

 

Plans for ISKCON Resolve for next year are:

" Fully implementing the ombuds program by identifying potential

ombudspersons and training them, as well as spreading awareness of this

service to all ISKCON devotees.

" Holding mediation training courses in Australia, New Zealand,

America,

" Poland, Russia, and South America.

" In consultation with professionals, monitoring the program and

adjusting it to ISKCON's needs.

" Braja Bihari Prabhu beginning a Masters degree course in this

subject of dispute resolution.

 

There is a very wonderful development and I think there is a presentation

this afternoon in this regard is the new temple in Moscow. This seems pretty

far out, pretty far out stuff actually.

Bhakti Vijnana Maharaja, GBC in Russia, described the struggle of the

Russian devotees to build a new temple in Moscow. After ten years of

attempts to procure land, last year they were suddenly called to the Mayor's

office and told that the city would give ISKCON two-and-a-half acres, valued

at 15 to 20 million dollars, smack bang in the middle of Moscow just seven

minutes drive from the Kremlin!

 

[applause, cheers]

 

And this land was donated on the 80th anniversay of Lenin's death. Very

auspicious.

 

[laughter]

 

Maharaj is asking me not to get to carried away because there is something

else to read.

 

It seemed too good to be true and it almost was: the decision wasn't the

final one; it still had to be approved by the Mayor. And as news spread

that the city had offered ISKCON this land, the press, encouraged by other

organizations and other interests, became filled with bad publicity. At

the same time, the rented building that was Sri Sri Gaura-Nitai's temple and

place for Moscow devotees for fourteen years was scheduled to be demolished

to make way for commercial development. City officials notified the devotees

that they'd have to vacate. They had to get out of the existing temple.

Demolition of the buildings around the temple had already started, you can

imagine during Gaura arati and the wrecking ball smashing into the buildings

around you. Construction of new buildings had also started. Time to time

the city cut off the temple's electricity and water to try to force them

out. Finding themselves imminently out on the street with Sri Sri

Gaura-Nitai, the devotees gathered 50,000 signatures, some on the streets of

Moscow and some from Indian friends, asking the city to keep its promise.

On that point you are requested to sign the petition at the Moscow booth at

the mini-market to add to that number. Miraculously, on the 21st of January

this year, exactly one month ago the Mayor finally signed the papers, giving

the devotees title of the land meaning the land officially belongs to

ISKCON Russia. Just to add Icing on the cake, the construction company

trying to get the devotees to leave the old temple the biggest

construction firm in Moscow agreed to build the devotees a temporary

dwelling on their land within the next month absolutely free!

[cheers, applase]

The Russian devotees have made a beautiful model of the proposed 80,000

square-foot temple, of which a large picture is standing outside the

courtyard between the Lotus and Conch Buildings.

 

Undoubtedly Srila Prabhupada will be profoundly pleased to see an exquisite

temple in the heart of Moscow, just down the street from the Kremlin. He

said: "It will be a great triumph if we open a temple there. If you work

sincerely, it will come definitely."

So all glories to the Russian devotees for working so sincerely to please

SP. Haribol

[cheers]

The Ministry Of Education Development.

 

Sesa Prabhu gave us an overview of the MED's strategy to educate devotees

"from cradle to samadhi".

 

At England's Oxford University, one of the most prestigious universities in

the world, a growing number of ISKCON devotees are enrolling under the

auspices of the Oxford Center for Hindu Studies (OCHS). And within the past

few days at Oxford, both Krishna Kestra Prabhu and Radhika Raman Prabhu have

successfully defended their PhD dissertations. Radhika Raman Prabhu, at

just 21 years old, is one of the youngest students ever to receive a PhD at

Oxford.

 

[applause] All glories to Radhika Raman Prabhu, Jaya.

 

I am just told that Radhika Raman Prabhu's father is just arrived from

America so congratulations to his father too.

 

Oxford graduates are perfect candidates for teaching at Bhaktivedanta

College (BC), now situated in Radhadesh. What happens is that happens is

that we have our own college now, devotees go to Oxford which of course is

which I think with all due respects to my American fellow members of the

GBC, Oxford is arguable the most college in the whole world. It's perfect

because they get their accreditation, PhD etc., recognition from a college

like Oxford and then those same devotees then can go to our college and

start teaching devotees.

 

The Bhaktvedanta College is currently situated in Radhadesh, eventually to

expand to other locations. Three of these graduates taught at Bhaktvedanta

College in 2003.

 

The BC recently became affiliated with the University of Wales at Lampeter

in the UK. This means that graduates of BC will get an official, recognized

university degree.

 

Graduates of BC will may go on to any number of ISKCON services such as

becoming teachers in our primary and secondary schools (as one did last

year), going on to higher studies in Oxford (as another did last year), or

becoming preachers / administrators / counselors in ISKCON centers (as a

number of graduates did last year).

 

Krishna Candra Mataji, a twenty-one-year-old recent graduate of BC, told us

that she learned a tremendous amount there, but even more than that, she

relished the association of the teachers and students. Her father, Krsnadas

Kaviraja Prabhu, one of our GBC Deputies, also glowingly appreciated seeing

his daughter more happy than ever in Krsna consciousness since attending BC.

So what's really important here is that for the first time in our history we

can educate our children from the primary school, kindergarden, right up to

university and all the time they can actually remain in the association of

devotees, they don't have to go outside.

 

Then there was the section on Training and Assessment of GBC Members

 

The Executive Committee allotted an hour-and-a-half for GBC assessment and

feedback, led by Anuttama Prabhu, our International Director of

Communications and the convener of the Training and Assessment Committee.

 

Anuttama Prabhu said that to do a good job of assessment, first we have to

train those we're assessing. Therefore last year the committee launched the

Leadership and Management Training Course, which to date has been taken by

several sannyasis and GBC members. This year the course will be available

for leaders and managers worldwide.

 

Anuttama emphasised that the purpose of all kinds of assessment is to

improve our service, not to chastise or discourage people. The emphasis is

on encouragement, we need that. GBC members then completed a

seventy-two-item self-assessment form, which helped us think honestly about

our individual performance. Next Anuttama led us in a forty-five-minute

written exercise in which individual GBCs analysed each other's strengths

and areas needing improvement.

This coming year the committee plans to create assessment tools related to

service or job descriptions for the top services in ISKCON. Thus the

committee is continuing to help improve the GBC's performance and

accountability to the Society and all of the devotees.

 

Book Distribution

 

In an effort to increase the worldwide distribution of Srila Prabhupada's

books, we decided to allocate each year one day on the first or second day

of our annual meeting to the topic of book distribution. The BBT Directors

and the Book Distribution Ministry will inform us of their developments and

plans, and we'll hear reports of book distribution in each GBC member's area

of responsibility.

 

Then the next item was related to Children and Ravindra Svarup Prabhu will

talk a little bit after me on this subject. I will just talk about the

little fun we had.

Each year before the meeting, the GBC Secretariat prepares for each member a

folder of information, schedules, etc. This year each folder included a

colorful hand done welcome card designed and painted by one of the students

of the Sri Mayapur International School. It is easy to buy a card in the

shop, but when someone sits down and makes a card there is a lot more

feeling in it. So each GBC member received one of these hand made cards from

one of the current gurukulis. So it was very, very touching and very nice.

Some of the cards were very sweet, artistically attractive and beautiful. We

were very touched by that. What we decided to do was we invited all the card

creators to the GBC meeting room on the second to last day, they all came

along. We put them on the table in the GBC chairs, they were all sitting. We

had a chairman and a vice-chairman and all the different children sitting in

the chairs. And we had made some cheese cake prasadam. We served them while

they where sitting in the chairs, went around and served each of the

children. They really appreciated that, then different members spoke. We

made the point that some of them were probably going to be GBC members in

the future and we hoped that we don't make any decisions now that will

create problems for them to deal with in the future.

Anyways it was very nice, then the children spoke too. We had a nice big

kirtan to finish it all off, it was a very, very nice part of the meetings.

 

Then we had Srila Prabhupada's 108th Appearance Anniversary which is of

course this year. ISKCON will make the celebration of Srila Prabhupada's

108th Appearance Anniversary a highlight of its activities up to and

including Vyasa Puja 2005. His Holiness Lokanath Swami has kindly agreed to

serve as the Global Coordinator for this activity.

 

Just to let you know the Executive Committee.

This year's members of the GBC Executive Committee will be:

 

Chairman: Praghosa dasa.

First Vice Chairman: Devamrita Swami

Second Vice Chairman: Bhaktivaibhava Swami

Secretary: Radha-Krishna Prabhu

Special Duty Officer: Bir Krishna Goswami

 

Just to give you some highlights from the GBC reports. Unfortunately the GBC

meetings were very crammed and we did not get to hear all the GBC reports

from the members from their zones. Just a quick few things:

 

HH Radhanath Swami said preaching to college students by devotees from Radha

Gopinath Temple at Chowpatty has reached a new dimension since they have

rented apartments close to eight prominent colleges in Mumbai. Groups of

serious students live in these apartments and practice Bhakti Yoga.

Basically devotees have set up houses for the students of universities of

Mumbai to live in and be trained as devotees while they attend the local

university. This project is supported by the Times Foundation of the Times

of India group.

 

Highlight of this year was a Parikrama of Mayapur Dham in which more than

1400 devotees participated in 26 bus coaches. So that was a wonderful

festival and a wonderful achievement by the devotees of Mumbai.

 

Finally I would like to mention, I think this is a wonderful development

this year was that His Holiness Bhakti Bhrnga Govinda Maharaj in Kazakhstan,

one of the places that a lot of you except for the devotees from Kazakhstan

have probably never been to and don't know too much about. Pretty wonderful

things going on there and it culminated in an interfaith meeting that was

broadcast live on the national TV in Kazakhstan on which Bhakti Bhrnga

Govinda Maharaj was on live TV and was presented as like the main guest with

the president and the presidents wife. He was on national TV presenting

Krishna Consciousness to the whole of the Kazakhstan country so I think that

is a pretty wonderful thing too.

 

That ends my report, thank you all very much and glories to Srila

Prabhupada.

 

Hare Krishna.

 

Bhaktitirtha Swami:

 

vancha-kalpatarubhyas ca

krpa-sindhubhya eva ca

patitanam pavanebhyo

vaisnavebhyo namo namah,

 

Sri Sri Radha Madhava ki jai! Sri Pancatattva ki jai! So very brief. You've

heard so many amazing things our leaders have been pondering upon, arranging

and deciding, and it's been a very awesome and wonderful year. If you notice

we're all so different, just as you are so different [i think he's referring

to the GBC's on stage and the audience} and we have so many different ideas

and sometimes we clash, but when it comes to really trying to see how carry

out the vision of Srila Prabhupada then we see this amazing power in

diversity in unity, or unity with diversity.

 

So our leaders have done amazing activities in trying to serve the society,

of course as we're trying to serve you. First let us all congratulate you,

as we are all making Vaisnava history at this time. . . such a wave of

devotees and we're just representing different countries and there are so

many other devotees that each of us are connected with. Let us congratulate

you in making Vaisnava history in being able to be here in one of the most

holy places in the universe at a very, very awesome time. We're inviting the

Lord to appear with His eternal associates in a very big way. Just as we all

understand when some great person is coming to visit you, and what to say to

live and to dwell with you, it means that there must be mental preparation

as well as physical preparation.

 

And the greater that that personality or persons are, then the more we must

be conscientious to prepare arrangements that will be satisfying for them.

So each of us are representatives for our whole ISKCON society in preparing

now for Mahaprabhu and His wonderful eternal associates, who specifically

come to give the greatest benediction:

 

namo maha-vadanyaya

krsna-prema-pradaya te

krsnaya krsna-caitanya-

namne gaura-tvise namah

 

Not Krsna just appearing in His aisvarya presentation, but coming in such a

way how to do everything and do it amongst ourselves, to eat, to dance, to

chant with the devotees. So here is the greatest, most intimate, most

confidential, most loving, most personal, most direct way that Krsna is

giving His love. And we are so happy that we are under the umbrella of our

Founder-Acarya, Srila Prabhupada, who is marching on as we are having chance

to carry on his mission at each stage.

 

So what has happened, is that due to so many devotees being here. . . for

instance how many of you are here for the first time? Raise your hands . . .

Wow, haribol! Give yourselves a hand. Gaura premanande!

 

So I have had several devotees who are here for the first time tell me

personally that it just fits, it just feels so natural, it's home. Because,

haribol, it is home for all of us. Hare Krishna. So here we are reminding

ourselves as we come, as Sridhar Maharaja came in the other day, it was like

something of antiquity, of a great general who has been in the battlefield,

who's brought back by chariot, and then he is being received and also

greeted by those with whom he's connected with. So all of us are also

soldiers and generals and we are in our particular battlefields. And so we

come to get rejuvenated in these situations, we come to check in, we come to

become more focussed in our resolve in what we are to do for the coming

years. So this is extremely historical that we have more devotees than we

have ever had in the holiest place, and we are bringing the Lord in such a

huge and wonderful way, and that means we have to then extend and amplify

our own consciousness to be able to receive the Lord, and we have to amplify

and unify our projects, that means our institution, our families, so that we

can keep the Lord with us. And that He'll very satisfied.

 

So in that effort of focussing more on how to have this unity, how to have

as many people participate, as well as much as we can, how that each devotee

feel excited and honoured about what they've done and what they should

continue to do in the future, and also based on just practicalities and

other considerations, it was decided that when we have this abhiseka we

would have special representation for all of us. That we would first have a

representative of the GBC Body, which would be none other than His Holiness

Gopal Krsna Maharaja ki. . . jai! And bathing Their Lordships, representing

the Mayapur GBC would be our famous and fabulous, great and glorious His

Holiness Jayapataka Swami Maharaja ki. . . jai! And most consistent,

dedicated, persevering devotees who represent us every day in their services

here as well as what they set and amplify around the world, the wonderful

pujaris of Mayapur, they will be bathing also. Mayapur pujaris ki. . . jai!

 

So as they bathe we will all be sending our minds and our hearts and our

love to them as they do this for us and as they also remind us how we are

inviting and invoking the Lord's blessings. Also if His Holiness Sridhar

Maharaja will be able to bathe then we are all pleading and begging and

happy that he will have this opportunity. So let us pray that he will be in

shape to be able to do this.

 

Last thing, if we look at our individual years of how long we've been in

devotional service, some are new, many twenty, twenty-five, thirty years or

even more, we put all of that together here, what to say of all around the

world, we have so many hours and days and years and also decades that even

in this life that we have offered at the feet of sadhu and guru. So we want

to find more and more ways how we can be mindful of our own activities, do

it the best as we can, but we want to do our own individual services, our

projects, etc., in such a way that not only will there be excellence and

high-level achievement but that we will constantly be able to inspire each

other as we have more and more and diversity with unity.

 

So this is very commensurative today and the next few days in what goes on,

so as we cone to the final installation, closure of the activities, that it

should be a shift in consciousness for all of us. Each of us here should

shift in consciousness while we are opening our minds up in a greater way to

be attentive to sadhu, sastra, and guru, we open up our hearts in a bigger

way to let Krsna who is there, who is always ready to come forth more, that

we are installing Krsna more in our heart, we should open up our projects

more and more while we are focussing on a higher level of devotion-that we

can all offer that the lotus feet of Srila Prabhupada, at the lotus feet

Radha-Madhava, as we welcome Lord Caitanya and His wonderful associates.

Pancatattva ki. . . jai! Gaura premanande, hari hari bol!

 

Jayapataka Swami: As His Holiness Bhaktitirtha Swami Maharaja has mentioned

that now, today we are starting the prana-pratistha installation ceremonies

for the Pancatattva and Mayapur has been working on this for many many

years, researching the Deities' size, shape, form, colour, and having the

models made. His Holiness Tamal Krsna Goswami, whose sacred disappearance

anniversary is today, he also was participating in this effort and saw to

the design of the Deities, he approved, and many different devotees have

been participating over the years.

 

And so now this is the culmination that we've been waiting for that

Prabhupada's desire and instruction to install life-size Radha-Madhava asta

sakhi was fullfilled by the GBC some years ago, and now that the life-size

Pancatattva will be installed is the next instruction that we are praying to

offer to Your Lordship and all the devotees. How many of you want to

participate in that ceremony? During all these three days there will be many

different activities to be performed, and today in the morning going to the

Ganges and bringing water for the abhiseka. So all of you are going to be

participating in the abhiseka, you're going to be providing the water. And

also the major donors and the GBC's will be requested to bring silver and

clay kalashes to the front of the altar and which will be bathed on top of

the Deities. So if you're one of the major donors you'll get a special VIP

badge and be able to go into that. But even if you're not a major donor

there'll be other smaller utsava-murtis at different strategic locations and

you'll be able to participate in the bathing there. And from your heart by

watching you'll participate and even by bathing by the smaller Deities. So

there'll be a lot of bathing opportunities; we want everyone to participate

in different ways.

 

I want to request His Holiness Lokanath Swami to give his report to the

Deities and the devotees assembled about the 108th anniversary of Srila

Prabhupada's appearance which the GBC has decided to implement this year.

 

Lokanath Swami: (invocatory prayers) Srila Prabhupada ki jai, Sri Sri

Radha-Madhava ki jai, Pancatattva ki jai. So we are here in Mayapur, this is

all the merciful arrangement of Srila Prabhupada. Of course Caitanya

Mahaprabhu is the cause of all causes but we do not see that arrangement

being very spiritual and subtle, but we can experience, understand, realise,

admit that Prabhupada certainly is the cause who has brought us to Mayapur.

Srila Prabhupada ki jai! So Srila Prabhupada appeared in Calcutta in 1896 so

this year 2004 is his 108th birth anniversary year. We had celebrated--I'm

sure most of you know-the 100th anniversary of Srila Prabhupada, the

Prabhupada Centennial eight years ago and it was quite an affair, festival

celebration. So the leaders have decided to also celebrate Prabhupada's

108th birth anniversary year. We have not spelled out everything how we're

going to do this but we have some broad idea. We're going to divide this

into three parts, one will acar part, one will be pracar part, and the third

one will be utsaha part. Acar will be working on Prabhupada's family and

increasing our spiritual strength, our commitment to the morning programmes

and attentive chanting that Prabhupada gave us to do. So that would be

briefly the acar, spiritual practices.

 

The pracar would be working on expanding Srila Prabhupada's mission further

in the areas of congregational chanting, developing worldwide congregation,

book distribution, etc. Then there would be the utsaha, the festivities all

over the world. I could only imagine that next year's festival will be

bigger than this years festival! That would be the theme and the offering of

all of us to glorify Srila Prabhupada.

 

And many other things: BI is organizing a conference, the temple

construction of Vedic Planetarium will commence in 2004 here in Mayapur! And

more things, you will be informed. We have a basic master plan, same as

Centennial and some of the items in that master plan we'll be communicating

to you through website and other ways. So you will get to know more about

it. Srila Prabhupada said once that ISKCON is his body, so during this year

we'll work on making Prabhupada's ISKCON body a healthy body. If somebody

has a headache then of course we pay attention to the headache. So there are

several challenges during this upcoming year, this youth fund and taking

care of our children is going to be one of our major obligations and

highlight. And special attention would be paid to areas of that nature so

that Prabhupada's body, ISKCON, would be healthy, strong, rejuvenated and

ready to spread all over the world Krsna consciousness, which is the purpose

of ISKCON.

 

So I'm just here basically to let you know so you become messengers, go back

with the news that this upcoming year is Srila Prabhupada's 108th birth

anniversary year. Now just for your information, as you are hearing 108th,

tomorrow the abhiseka is coming up and some items you are hearing about

already, so it is kind of starting from now, but more officially it will

start from Prabhupada's 2004 Vyasa-puja and will go on up until 2005

Vyasa-puja. So keep that in mind and get ready to glorify Srila Prabhupada

to your full satisfaction. Haribol, Srila Prabhupada ki jai!

 

Jayapataka Swami: Thank you, Your Holiness Lokanath Swami Maharaja for

reporting on the 108th birth anniversary celebration.

 

In conclusion, I'd like to make a short report to Your Lordships and the

devotees about our ISKCON congregational development:

 

By your mercy the ISKCON congregation has been expanding steadily all over

the world, more numbers, better quality, more Bhakti-vrksa groups,

Nama-hatta groups, counselling groups. So we're very grateful for your mercy

that our congregation is expanding. How many of the devotees here don't live

in a temple and are congregational members, practice Krsna consciousness

from your home? You see, including our Chairman. [chuckles] So as our

movement now is mainly made of congregational practitioners and we neeed

Your mercy on all of them. For their interest we now have Congregational

Development Journals in English, Russian, Spanish and many other

publications.

 

Mayapur Project, a brief report is that a new structural design for the

temple has been found which reduces the cost of the construction to 1/4th of

the original cost and this has enthused major donors like Ambarisa Prabhu

who should be here any moment if he's not here already. And because it's

making it quite possible for us to quickly build, so within even four-five

years we can see the opening of the big temple by Your mercy. [Devotees:

Haribol!]

 

So hopefully we'll be able to start within this 108th anniversary of Srila

Prabhupada's appearance, and then there'll be more room in the temple for

all of you. Now it's already become too crowded.

 

So because this programme has gone a little late, the procession to the

Ganges will start at 10:30 instead of 10:00, but you can start assembling.

 

We'd like to conclude this Deity report for 2003, for 517 Gaurabda, to Their

Lordships Radha-Madhava, To Their Lords Nitai-Gaura and to His Divine Grace

A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. This is the GBC report, but you can

still make your report. All the assembled devotees can stand up for a few

minutes and make your personal report and your personal commitment. Like one

of the things Anuttama Prabhu made us do is make our personal commitments

for what we would like to do in the year. Three of them at least. So here's

a chance for the GBC's and everyone that what commitment would you like to

make for improving your Krsna consciousness, for improving your dedication

to Guru and Gauranga.

 

When the Deities have come down now to hear from us, this is an opportunity

for you to give your report also. So this is traditionally done at this

time, you please take advantage.

 

Your Lordships! Immediate news has just come that in ISKCON Mira Road temple

in the Bombay metropolitan area, the government has officially that major

road as the Bhaktivedanta Swami Marg as an offering for the 108th

anniversary of Srila Prabhupada's appearance! Srila Prabhupada ki jai!

Bhaktivedanta Swami Marg ki jai!

 

Harih om tat sat.

 

(chants Pancatattva maha-mantra x 3 and Hare Krsna x 3)

 

Harih om tat sat.

 

We need some volunteers to take Radha-Madhava back to Their temple, and take

Nitai-Gaura back. Kirtana party?