Hare Krishna World News Vaisnavas in News

metamorphosis · April 12, 2008

Read the below Quote on how the Holi Festival got a little out of hand this year!............

Apr 11, PROVO, UTAH (DAILY HERALD) — Spanish Fork's Krishna Temple has quietly entered a new era.

After years of working to build goodwill among local residents with its festivals and free temple tours, founders are now shifting their focus to missionary work, looking to nurture those who would join the Hare Krishna Movement.

"What we are looking to do now is deep cultivation," said Caru Das, who founded the temple with his wife, Vai Devi.

With the $1.5 million temple now "99.5 percent" complete, the couple has begun to make changes. Forty thousand flock here for festivals or field trips -- more than 10,000 to the Holi Festival of Colors last month alone -- but founders have begun to de-emphasize festivals, closing three of the temple's 11 annual events to the public.

"Up to this point, it has been PR, and we don't want to diminish that, but we are involved with the public so much, I feel personally, and it has been whispered to me [by church members] that I need to devote more time to private people," Das said.

While the temple site is popular, converts to the movement have been much slower. To date there are 100 Western converts and 100 "devotees" from India who have sought out the temple after moving to Utah.

Other changes are also on the horizon. Ground has been broken on the temple campus for a $200,000 glass-walled pavilion that will allow the campus to better host crowds at its winter festivals. It will also provide space for weddings and a permanent exhibit of the movement's beliefs. Founders are also looking for another couple to live on the temple grounds to manage the ever-growing number of tourists and worshippers who arrive here daily.

The burden of popularity

This year's Holi Festival of Colors, easily the most popular event ever held at the temple, was a disappointment to temple founders.

While the festival, which involves guests throwing colored powder on each other in celebration of spring before dancing around a bonfire, has steadily gained in popularity, something changed in the zeitgeist this year. Without warning, attendance skyrocketed from 4,000 last year to 10,000. Organizers simply could not have predicted the sudden popularity and in retrospect were not entirely prepared.

Das put it this way: "Last year's festival was transcendental. This year's festival was good, but next year's will be transcendental again."

Of the huge crowd, few came with any notion of the spiritual importance of the event, which many simply viewed as a party -- and their attitude showed. College students spread litter far and wide across the temple site, violated rules about removing shoes before entering the sanctuary, and stood on and even temporarily removed two huge golden elephant statues flanking the temple entrance from their pedestals, treating a sacred space like a carnival or worse.

"I was somewhat crestfallen by the sheer amount of debris," Das said, noting it took volunteers a week and a half to clean up.

But perhaps worst of all to Das, of those who came knowing little about the religion or the Holi ritual, approximately none were more educated when they left. That is because Das' 10-minute prepared speech to explain the event, calm the crowd and educate them on the sanctity of the experience they were embarking on never happened. With so many people crowded in and waiting to throw colored powders, temple staff were not able to communicate with Das and lit the bonfire early -- the signal that begins the powder throwing.

And the band, a crucial part of the ritual chanting of prayers, was not able to set up -- one member, so frustrated because he could not get through the crowd to the stage with his equipment, actually left and went home.

Rama Ranjana Das, an Estonian convert who attended last year and this year, put it simply.

"This year didn't work out," he said.

The result was that this year's festival had a different feel, markedly less respectful and less spiritual, more like a huge party.

Next year will be different, Das vows. Now expecting 15,000 people, the temple site itself will be cordoned off when the bonfire starts, with no one allowed inside from that point. The entire ritual will be moved farther from the temple. Hours-long lines to buy color will be cut to 15 minutes, the band will be in place, and a "monster" sound system will ensure everyone can hear and that Das can control the crowd.

"There will definitely be a more reverent aura around the temple building next year," Das said. "...The only reason I do this is so people can chant, and enjoy and be introduced to the mantra. Most of these people would never visit the temple otherwise and this is our chance to get them to chant and enjoy the spiritual feeling."

What Das would have explained to the crowd that day, had he had the chance, is this: Holi, the Festival of Colors, has been celebrated in India for thousands of years as a Saturnalia, a chance for the poor to be equal to the rich, throwing powder or water on them -- a way to vent social pressure and literally blend gender, age, ethnicity, wealth and status under a coat of color that temporarily equalizes all.

The experience benefits spiritual, social and psychological health and lest anyone think such a Saturnalia is not needed in America, think again, he said.

"In America, I think because of our alienation with God and the environment, we see concrete all day and are forced into an unnatural situation," Das said. "This is a forum to overcome that."

While throwing colored powders lasts only a few minutes, it is chanting the name of God afterward that "celebrates the soul. We become one."

Das said he was cheered by the online blog responses of those who attended this year's festival, and said that despite the problems, temple devotees were thrilled that so many people had turned out to experience the event.

In the long term, the festivals are certainly not the most important part of the temple's function, he said. With no one clearly in the wings to take over for the founders, the day may come when the festivals end all together.

"It is the festivals that are the huge endeavor," he said. "When we are gone, I don't see anyone putting themselves out to that extent."

A Krishna temple in a Mormon land

Caru Das is a spiritual Sanskrit name meaning Servant of the Most Beautiful. Das was born 61 years ago as Chris Warden, son of Episcopalian parents in Pennsylvania. But growing up, his religion felt like "water off the back of a duck," perhaps in part because one of his childhood religious leaders was hospitalized for alcoholism and others smoked. To Das, these were signs that the men were not really living a spiritual life.

"I think they had little potency," he said. "Nothing settled in my heart."

Das traveled the world, and was a temporary construction worker in Sydney, Australia in 1970 when he met a Krishna devotee as he came off the subway. He stopped to talk because he had already visited India and simply wanted to greet a kindred soul.

He had been searching for religion, but was not expecting a spiritual experience in Sydney, he said.

"What few words (the man) said to me squashed up against a building really sunk in," Das said. "He said the love of God is a seed that lies dormant while there is no means to water it. I remember it just as clearly as if it were that day."

The man told him that for all the technology of the Western world, there was no technology for waking the love of God, and yet "India has had that technology for thousands of years and it is as simple as chanting the names of God," Das recalled the devotee telling him.

The man encouraged Das to chant a complete Krishna rosary once a day for a week, and the experience changed his life.

"I felt more inspired and enthusiastic to get closer to God than ever before in life," he said.

His wife, who was working as a waitress, was less than enthused with his conversion.

"She was a feminist, a personal friend of Doris Lessing in London, and her first mis-impression was that women were not equal and she would be taking a back seat," Das said.

Eventually both were converted to the Hare Krishna Movement, called Vaishnavism, and Das became the director of the Los Angeles Krishna Temple. Producing a radio program about the religion, he was paying $1,000 a month to rent four hours of radio time and had decided it would be a better investment to buy a radio station when one came for sale in Spanish Fork.

Utah held a legendary place in the American Krishna movement.

In the late 1970s, Das had been one of a team of devotees criss-crossing the country to sell $700 sets of Krishna scriptures to universities. The most ever sold had been orders from Harvard and Dartmouth for six sets each, but at BYU, Hugh Nibley bought a set and 16 others followed.

So Utah felt like a good spiritual home for Das. Both religions eschew alcohol, caffeine and smoking and encourage a strong devotion.

In 1982, Das and his wife bought the Spanish Fork radio station, which happened to include five acres of land, for $220,000.

"It was probably a case of fools rushing in where wise men would fear to tread," said Das with a laugh.

Eventually the couple added another 8.5 acres with the idea that they would retire here. They had a vague dream of someday building a temple and when Devi mentioned that dream in a speech one day, statewide media picked upon the idea. The coverage was so positive that Das and his wife felt "that was a sign" and they embarked gung-ho on the project.

A turning point came when the LDS Church gave the couple $25,000 toward temple construction. The local LDS population took that as a sign to be friendly to the nascent organization and the goodwill began to flow, Das said.

Today Das sees the accomplished temple as a blessing guided by a higher power.

"If you are doing something on behalf of Lord Krishna, hard things become easy, and if you are not doing something on behalf of Lord Krishna, easy things become hard," he said, quoting scripture.

Those who are interested in a more serious study of Vaishnavism can attend a free yoga class, which at the Krishna Temple is less of a workout -- while it is that -- than a meditation and search for spiritual progress and higher meaning. Worship services are also held at 5 p.m. each Sunday.

The Krishna Temple, 8628 S. State St., Spanish Fork, is open daily for free tours from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. For information on Holi or future festivals, Krishna radio, the gift shop or vegetarian restaurant,

metamorphosis · April 13, 2008

Search Youtube with "Hare Krishna - Holi Festival 2008 " I am still a "visiter" and so can not yet post outside URL's and so it is off to the test forum for me to get my 15 post to change all that.....

Without warning, attendance skyrocketed from 4,000 last year to 10,000. Organizers simply could not have predicted the sudden popularity and in retrospect were not entirely prepared.

Das put it this way: "Last year's festival was transcendental. This year's festival was good, but next year's will be transcendental again."

Of the huge crowd, few came with any notion of the spiritual importance of the event, which many simply viewed as a party -- and their attitude showed. College students spread litter far and wide across the temple site, violated rules about removing shoes before entering the sanctuary, and stood on and even temporarily removed two huge golden elephant statues flanking the temple entrance from their pedestals, treating a sacred space like a carnival or worse.

suchandra · April 13, 2008

Search Youtube with "Hare Krishna - Holi Festival 2008 " I am still a "visiter" and so can not yet post outside URL's and so it is off to the test forum for me to get my 15 post to change all that.....

Without warning, attendance skyrocketed from 4,000 last year to 10,000. Organizers simply could not have predicted the sudden popularity and in retrospect were not entirely prepared.

Das put it this way: "Last year's festival was transcendental. This year's festival was good, but next year's will be transcendental again."

Of the huge crowd, few came with any notion of the spiritual importance of the event, which many simply viewed as a party -- and their attitude showed. College students spread litter far and wide across the temple site, violated rules about removing shoes before entering the sanctuary, and stood on and even temporarily removed two huge golden elephant statues flanking the temple entrance from their pedestals, treating a sacred space like a carnival or worse.

Spanish Fork's Krishna Temple is a huge temple complex which needs to be maintained and might entice the leaders to follow the crowd in order to achieve the monthly cash receipts for paying all the bills.

That things in a spiritual place can easily get out of balance is obviously the rub in it when making everything real big. Same with the old church buildings - they interlock millions to renovate and in this way easily change owners.

General framework for simple living and high thinking and at the same time spreading the Sankirtan movement at best capacity is a challenge not so easy to cope.

metamorphosis · April 20, 2008

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1160482

HONG KONG: By day, Kenneth Valpey dons his academic robes to elevate his students at the Chinese University of Hong Kong to a higher orbit of understanding about Indian religions and cultures.

But come evening, he assumes another avatar. He slips into something a little more comfortable — like a pristine white dhoti-kurta and a wrap-around angavastram — and sermonises on the Bhagavad Gita to the devotees of Krishna in Hong Kong.

Valpey’s ‘double life’ is easily explained: The theologian from the Oxford University has been appointed to professorship in Indian religions and culture at the Chinese University, established with a HK$4 million (about Rs2.2 crore) donation from the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) of Hong Kong.

And as a member of ISKCON, he joins other worshippers at the Krishna temple for the chanting and celebration that has practitioners across the world dancing in the streets.

The professorship was established by the university as part of an effort to “enhance exchanges between the East and the West,” says university pro vice-chancellor, Prof Liu Pak-wai. Under this programme, four courses are offered, including religious traditions in India, tradition and modernity in India, and self and identity in Indian culture.

Most of the graduate students at the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies are from mainland China, which is officially an atheist state and where freedom of religious worship is heavily circumscribed by the Communist Party.

In addition to classroom lectures and discussions, Valpey envisages field visits — he has taken his students to the Krishna temple — and a study tour to India.

suchandra · April 20, 2008

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1160482

They forgot to mention that Kenneth Valpey is an ISKCON guru known as Krsnaksetra das. Why he says that he's performing his karmic duty when teaching his students is rather strange. Hare Krishna to that.

"And when he’s imparting lessons on Indian religious traditions to a roomful of Chinese students, he’s only doing his “karmic duty”, he reckons. Hare Krishna to that..."

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1160482&pageid=2

"On campus, he’s been screening Peter Brooks’ film The Mahabharata.

So, what relevance does the Bhagavad Gita have for Chinese students? “The essential teachings of the Gita,” says Valpey, “are relevant to everyone, and I think Chinese students are quite engaged by it.” In fact, he notes, a number of Chinese persons have been initiated into ISKCON.

Valpey himself was raised in the liberal Unitarian tradition in Berkeley, California, and was drawn to the Krishna consciousness movement when he dropped out of college in the late 1960s to “see a bit of the world”. Travelling in Europe, he met Krishna devotees, and was inspired enough by the teachings of the group’s founder Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada to be initiated into the movement. In 1972, as part of the rite of initiation, he was ‘christened’ Krishna Ksetra Das, which means “a servant of the places associated with Krishna’s life and, therefore, of Krishna himself.”

Valpey acknowledges that his embracing of the movement “might have been a result of the youthful enthusiasm for the exotic” that characterised the 1960s, the age of “flower power” and hippie nirvana. “But with the initiation came a certain commitment to follow a certain lifestyle, which has been very helpful,” he says.

Does that make him a ‘practising Hindu’? “Because the term ‘Hindu’ has certain connotations of cultural perspective, which are appropriate, I don’t mind being identified as a Hindu,” says Valpey. “But on the other hand, as soon as the term starts dividing me from others, I don’t want to be a ‘Hindu’ any more.”

More than two decades after his formal initiation into ISKCON, Valpey returned to university “to learn something about this religious tradition from an academic perspective.” He studied theology at Oxford University, and conducted his research at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies.

Academic engagement with religion did not create any dissonance with his practice, he says. “Of course, the academia is fraught with the hermeneutics of suspicion: That things are not the way they are presented within the tradition.” But there are two aspects to the study of religion, he says. “There’s the ‘cumulative tradition’ — which consists of everything visible and substantial, including religious texts, music, buildings, and so on. And then you have that which is invisible, but which is at the core of the tradition: Personal faith.” Ultimately, that remains “beyond the grasp of the scholar.”

Valpey believes the spiritual evolution he’s attained from his journey in Krishna consciousness was, in a sense, meant to be. “I like to think that Krishna’s hand is in our lives,” says the man who comfortably fuses a practitioner’s faith with scholarly investigation of that faith. “You may call him something else, but I’m accustomed to referring to that highest divinity as Krishna. So, there’s some intentionality, some plan.”

And when he’s imparting lessons on Indian religious traditions to a roomful of Chinese students, he’s only doing his “karmic duty”, he reckons. Hare Krishna to that..."

theist · April 20, 2008

Spanish Fork's Krishna Temple is a huge temple complex which needs to be maintained and might entice the leaders to follow the crowd in order to achieve the monthly cash receipts for paying all the bills.

That things in a spiritual place can easily get out of balance is obviously the rub in it when making everything real big. Same with the old church buildings - they interlock millions to renovate and in this way easily change owners.

General framework for simple living and high thinking and at the same time spreading the Sankirtan movement at best capacity is a challenge not so easy to cope.

Yes we see this practically and not just in Iskcon where they feel obliged to play the Hindu game for support but in the Catholic church as well.

This is why I favor a more simplified approach over more big expensive structures and compounds, at least in the west. Kirtans Halls. Large open space for Kirtan and festivals. Panca-tattva in picture form as the altar. Big attached kitchen.

Prabhupada warned these big building could become just a burden.

metamorphosis · April 21, 2008

http://www.alligator.org/articles/2008/04/21/news/local/080421_krishna.txt

Hundreds of students find their way to the Plaza of the Americas every weekday to eat a $4 vegetarian meal served by the Hare Krishnas.

Some are interested enough to pick up a book off the self-service rack. A few attend classes on yoga or meditation at the Hare Krishna House on Northwest 14th Street.

But to casual diners, the history and philosophy of the Hare Krishnas who serve them lunch remains a mystery.



Building Foundations

The first Krishna follower came to Gainesville in the fall of 1970, said Parama Lieberman, a Krishna who has documented the group's history. The Krishna movement had only just come to the United States from India in 1966.

That follower, named Gargamuni, chanted on the Plaza each day, sharing food and information with anyone who was curious.

Eventually, two interested UF students, David and Adrienne Lieberman - Parama's parents - started practicing and offered Gargamuni use of their home in the student ghetto.

"Basically they made their little duplex a temple," Parama Lieberman said. "The first temple in Gainesville."

Krishnas began serving food out of the house, and when lunchtime crowds grew to about 70 people a day, they decided to take the food to the Plaza.

They continued to serve there until the late 1970s, when the university ordered the Krishnas to comply with certain health codes, which the Krishnas said were impossible.

When Parama's father continued to serve the food, he was arrested.

But the case against the Krishnas didn't hold up in court, said Kalakantha Das, the current president of the Gainesville Krishna House.

"The judge said, 'Let the Krishnas have their picnic,'" Kalakantha said. "It's part of our religious expression."

In 1977, land was purchased in the city of Alachua by Gainesville Krishnas with the idea of creating a sustainable agrarian community, said Chaturatma, president of the Krishna temple there.

Today, Gainesville's Krishna population is small compared to the 750-person Alachua compound.

As Krishnas married and started families in the 1980s, the focus of the compound changed from farming to education. The community is now centered around a temple and two schools - a Krishna day school and an Alachua County charter school staffed mostly by Krishnas.

Following Krishna

Though food is spiritually important for Krishnas, there's more to their religion than eating lentil soup and subji.

All devotees chant Krishna's name many times a day as meditation, Kalakantha said.

In addition, Krishnas are vegetarians and practice celibacy until marriage.

They believe in karma, and remain free from intoxicants - including caffeine, alcohol and material possessions.

Each Sunday, local Krishnas gather at the temple in Alachua, a bright, tiled room with open glass doors along either side.

They start by performing arotik, a service in which they make offerings to Krishna of fruit, flowers and incense.

Congregants bring up offerings and place them in a basket before nine glittering statues of Krishna and his companion, Radha, as women in saris and men in loose robes dance barefoot, chant and beat on drums.

The service is followed by a lesson on the Bhagavad-Gita, the Krishnas' holy book, and prasadam, a shared outdoor meal similar to the one on the Plaza.

On holy days, the temple in Alachua serves people from as far away as Jacksonville and Orlando, Chaturatma said.

People travel from all over the country to be a part of the Alachua community, he said. Members come from about 15 nationalities and speak about seven languages.

"The traditional sense of being a Krishna is give up everything, move into a temple, and that was your life," Chaturatma said.

Now, he said, Krishnas pursue careers as doctors or lawyers, he said.

Lieberman's father, still a Hare Krishna, now works as a First Amendment lawyer in California.

"That guy that delivers your UPS package could very well be a Hare Krishna guy," Chaturatma said.

Developing Relationships

Eating lunch on the Plaza is the first place many devotees started to explore Krishnaism, as it was for Andres Salim, a UF biology junior.

Now a follower for more than two years, Salim was looking for religion.

"I think I'm the classic UF student, to be honest," he said. "I was fine, but you start to realize there's more than just studying all the time and partying all the time. There's no peace in that."

Salim's family was open-minded about his choice, he said, but not everyone is.

Trey Rapczak, a Gainesville resident, said his mother wasn't pleased when he became interested in Krishnaism a year and a half ago.

She finally kicked him out after one argument too many.

"I was supposed to clean my house," Rapczak said, "but for hours, I was offering things up to Krishna."

But Rapczak said he doesn't regret his decision.

"Some people are like, 'I need a cigarette,'" he said. "I'm like, 'I need to chant more rounds.'"

But before he became a devotee, Rapczak said he had small hesitation. "Right before I started chanting, I was like, 'Oh, what will everyone think?'" he said.

People's reactions to Krishnas are not always positive.

Lieberman said that while chanting on the corner of 13th Street and University Avenue, he's received foul words and hand gestures. But the Gainesville area, as a whole, he said, has been welcoming.

"When I would walk around at least the student area in my robes, I'd never get any negative remark," he said.

The good relationship Krishnas have with the Gainesville community probably has something to do with the food they've distributed there for so long, he said.

But Chaturatma said he sees something more spiritual at work. According to Krishna teaching, he said, certain places are home to unusually large pockets of positive energy.

"My guess is that something like that exists in Gainesville," he said. "Otherwise you'd say, 'Why here?'"