info on chicago (evanston) temple circa 1970s

[Bhaktavasya]

I hope this is the right place to ask this; is there anyone here who was in the Chicago (Evanston) temple during the mid 1970s? I am writing the final draft of a memoir, which of course includes the years that I was in Iskcon. Some of my best memories were of the Evanston temple, especially during the time that Sri Govinda was temple president. I remember when the Radha Damodar buses descended on the temple during Prabhupad's arrival in 1975, but I would like to hear more details from others who were there at the time. Thankyou

[Kulapavana]

Were you able to get in touch with Sri Govinda Prabhu? I have heard that he recently took sannyasa in Sri Caitanya Saraswat Math.

[Sonic Yogi]

I arrived at the Chicago temple around the very end of 1975, so I wasn't there when Prabhupada came. I was in L.A. around that time and saw Prabhupada there.

I doubt that I can help much with the info you are looking for. But, I was at the Chicago temple in Evanston and also at the temple when it was moved to Rogers Park in the old Masonic lodge. I was a pujari at the Rogers Park temple, but at the old Evanston temple I was doing other services because I wasn't brahman initiated.

 

I took second initiation in Chicago just a few weeks before Prabhupada passed.

[Bhaktavasya]

Thanks for the replies. I'm wondering if it's another Sri Govinda who took sannyas because the Sri Govinda from Evanston, husband of Sri Leka, never seemed like the type of devotee who would ever do that.

 

Sonic Yogi, who was the tp when the temple was moved, and do you remember approx. how many devotees were in Evanston before the move. Do you know where some of those devotees from that time went? Some of them went to Hawaii (Prasad das, Damayanti dd) and do you know what happened to Ramaii, who was also a pujari from that time and I believe moved to the new address.

[Sonic Yogi]

 

Thanks for the replies. I'm wondering if it's another Sri Govinda who took sannyas because the Sri Govinda from Evanston, husband of Sri Leka, never seemed like the type of devotee who would ever do that.

 

Sonic Yogi, who was the tp when the temple was moved, and do you remember approx. how many devotees were in Evanston before the move. Do you know where some of those devotees from that time went? Some of them went to Hawaii (Prasad das, Damayanti dd) and do you know what happened to Ramaii, who was also a pujari from that time and I believe moved to the new address.

 

Yes, it is the same Sri Govinda who has taken sannyasa from Govinda Maharaja at SCSM.

Uttama Sloka prabhu was the TP in Chicago after Sri Govinda. He came down when they closed the Ottawa temple along with most all the other devotees from that temple.

That is when Sivarama prabhu (Swami) came down as well. At that time I think that Sivarama was the VP or the co-TP at Chicago.

 

Ramai? Sure, I managed to convince him to come to San Jose and join the efforts there under the leadership of Bhakti Sudhir Maharaja. As far as I know he is still the head pujari there at the Santa Cruz temple.

Aindra has been in India for longer than I can remember.

Chicago was a major airport book distribution center so a lot of the book distribution heavy weights were there; Vaisheshika, Bopadeva etc. etc. Some of the old Chicago temple devotees are around the New Raman Reti temple here in North Florida. One lady devotee I remember from then is a leading devotee around the temple. Her name escapes me at the moment.

 

 

I was there when Tripurari Swami pulled off a cout-de-ta and managed to overthrow Suhbha Vilasa, the nice Indian gentleman who had been appointed president under Jayatirtha Maharaja.

Since I was a mainstay of the temple staff, I got stuck in the middle as Subha Vilasa and Tripurari Maharaja were both convassing me to support them in this battle for leadership at ISKCON Chicago.

I had to side with Tripurari Maharaja at that time and the temple basically ousted Subha Vilasa prabhu, who was otherwise quite a nice Vaishnava gentleman and family man.

 

I left Chicago to go to India and when I came back I soon left Chicago to go work with Sivarama Maharaja on the Oklahoma farm started by Tamal.

I ended up back in Chicago after Sivarama Maharaja fell out with Tamal and went off to England where he has been every since.

[Kulapavana]

Bhaktavasya-ji, as Sonic-ji already said, it is the same Sri Govinda. You should be able to get in touch with him through the SCSM website.

 

Another person who possibly knows the events you are interested in is Jitendriya das from Chicago, a life long resident there. You should be able to get in touch with him through the Chicago Temple. He is a very sweet devotee, always eager to help others.

 

Good luck with your book! such memoirs are very enlivening. Let us know when they will be available for purchase.

 

Haribol!

[bhaktajan]

ATTENTION ISKCON Distractors [and also old world Hindu Ashrams organizations and gurukula life Distractors]:

 

POST #4: I'm wondering if it's another Sri Govinda who took sannyas because the Sri Govinda . . . never seemed like the type of devotee who would ever do that.

 

This ATTESTS to the forgotten (or very seldom remarked upon) common opinion of the first generation of ISKCON Hare Krishna Members:

 

They all knew that 'time-was-of-the-essence' --that their stay in ASHRAM-LIFE was to be short lived and thus the benefits had to achieved and then in future we would move on . . .

 

So, it is a sincere sentiment [Post #4] to expect less than full-all-out-staunch-determination to be the result, even after 'being-Trained-Up' --

 

So, the sentiment: "never seemed like . . . devotee who would ever do that. . . ." may appear to be axio-moronic [this initially had been the ideal aim] --when actually it is indeed the exception to the commonplace devotees game plan.

 

So brainwashing is not the program of ISKCON nor will it ever be.

[stonehearted]

Things change. Sri Govinda's sannyasa name is Bhakti Vigraha Nyasi Maharaja. You should be able to reach him through SCS Math. He may also have MySpace and/or Facebook pages.

[Bhaktavasya]

Thanks again; a few comments in regards to the responses:

post #5, I was in Evanston during the change of tp from Sri Govinda to Uttamasloka and, for the record, Uttamasloka was the tp for Toronto, not Ottawa (I know this for a fact as I was in Toronto when Uttama was tp, he originally came from Montreal where he was tp), Tripurari had nothing to do with the decision to replace Sri Govinda with Uttamasloka, as he wasn't a GBC and didn't interfer with temple politics in that regard. Common knowledge at the time was that it was Tamal Krishna who wanted Uttama there. Out of curiosity, what was your initiated name at the time, because I was very familiar with most of the devotees there, and I also was one of the sankirtan devotees who went out to the O'Hare airport, although I was never a 'famous book distributor', just steady from '74-76, with a few months break back in Toronto temple, my home temple. I also knew Subal Vilas and his wife very well, but that's another story (not in my book).

Shivaram was from the Winnepeg temple in Canada, and you are correct that he closed that temple and brought the devotees to Chicago with him, although he was never co-tp. He started up a temple in Minneapolis, and eventually, of course, took a leadership role in England.

 

post #8 Yes, Stone-hearted, things change. Sri Govinda of very pro-grhastha and there was, as you may recall, some family feuds between the

householder leaders and the sannyasi faction, waged from the pulpits of Bhagwatam classes.

I do have to say again, that Tripurari Swam wasn't part of that ''we sannyasis are better than the grhasthas" immature bickering. I know because I was the only woman, for a while, to go out to the airport in the van with the men. Tripurari or one of the men usually read from one of Prabhupad's books, usually the one that had just been released. Class at noon prasadam time in the airport was a reading from the Srimad Bhagwatam or Chaitanya Charitamrita with Tripurari giving a class tieing the verse into Lord Chaitanya's sankirtan movement, the auspiciousness of the Holy Names.

[Bhaktavasya]

 

Since I was a mainstay of the temple staff, I got stuck in the middle as Subha Vilasa and Tripurari Maharaja were both convassing me to support them in this battle for leadership at ISKCON Chicago.

I had to side with Tripurari Maharaja at that time and the temple basically ousted Subha Vilasa prabhu, who was otherwise quite a nice Vaishnava gentleman and family man.

 

.

Sorry, I just re-read your post and somehow missed this part. There reason we may not know each other is that I was leaving Evanston for Toronto just as the 'battle' for leadership was in mid stream...but it is interesting that my memories of that time differ from your's. My memory is that Tripurari and Uttamasloka had an uneasy peace...over the number of BBT book salesmen being 'deployed' at the O'Hare, competing with the Evanston temple sankirtan devotees. But that could have come later, after you left.

[Sonic Yogi]

 

Sorry, I just re-read your post and somehow missed this part. There reason we may not know each other is that I was leaving Evanston for Toronto just as the 'battle' for leadership was in mid stream...but it is interesting that my memories of that time differ from your's. My memory is that Tripurari and Uttamasloka had an uneasy peace...over the number of BBT book salesmen being 'deployed' at the O'Hare, competing with the Evanston temple sankirtan devotees. But that could have come later, after you left.

Sounds like two separate incidents.

When this cout-de-ta happened, Uttama-sloka prabhu was long gone.

I think this was 1979 or 80.

Previously, if some rift occurred between Tripurari Maharaja and Uttama-sloka das, that could have been for a number or reasons.

Around 1976 when the Ottawa temple closed and many of the devotees came to Chicago, Sivarama quickly ascended to CO-TP because Uttama-sloka prabhu was coming under fire for rumors of being loose with his wife or possibly having an affair with female devotee in the temple.

 

Instead of just ousting him, they made Sivarama the CO-president and allowed Uttama to leave on his own terms.

 

After Sivarama left to go managed the 1000 acre farm that Tamal had acquired in Oklahoma as the TP, Jayatirtha appointed Subha-vilasa as TP.

 

After Sivarama fell out with Tamal and went off to England I went back to Chicago while Subha-vilasa was still the TP, though from the very beginning of his appointment the big gun book distributors like T Swami and his pals were trying to figure out how to get Subha-vilasa out of the TP seat.

 

Shortly after I arrived back all the temple devotees were deciding to oust Subha-vilasa and T Swami was of course the biggest power-broker of the situation.

 

If T Swami had some problem with Uttama-sloka it would have been in 76 or 77 before Uttama-sloka left and Sivarama became the TP.

 

I do remember that Mrigendra prabhu was TP in Early 1978, because he made a deal with me that he would pay my way to India if I would stay back at the temple and help keep the temple going with a skeleton crew while everyone went to Gaurapurnima in 1978.

After everyone got back, then I went off to India.

 

I don't know for sure how long Mrigendra was TP but he was for some short time.

 

I came and went at Chicago about three times.

I went back and forth between there and the Tennessee farm and the Oklahoma farm about three times at least, maybe four.

 

So each time I went back to Chicago temple something different was going on there.

 

I don't have the best memory to speak of.

 

Jitendriya would be an encyclopedia of info if you could somehow contact him.

 

The guy has been around Chicago temple longer than anyone.

[Vedesu]

 

I don't know for sure how long Mrigendra was TP but he was for some short time.

I remember him as a part of the Dallas community in early '79, so apparently he didn't remain long as TP in the Windy City. Interesting how quickly things change. I wasn't a member of the Chicago Temple, although I visited a few times during the mid-70's and was there for the maha-initiation when all the RDTSKP busses were there. Anyone remember the devotee who took Babaji initiation at that time, I think his name was Audolomi? And wasn't there a devotee there named Pundarika who had memorized the entire Bhagavad Gita (an amazing feat at that time) and recited it to Srila Prabhupada?

 

When Uttama Sloka prabhu left Toronto, was it Vishvakarma who replaced him? My memory is getting really fuzzy these days. Glad you're writing these memoirs, Bhaktavasya Mataji. I remember that there was a famous letter to Sri Govinda regarding how everyone should go out on sankirtana, including the TP, and only 1 or 2 devotees to stay back at the temple? Some of the cooks and pujaris were made to feel (by some of the book distributers) that they were 3rd class members of the Movement. They required some gentle preaching that an army moves on its stomach, so to speak.

[bhaktajan]

 

 

--Bhaktavasya das Prabhu--

A Bonefide Hare Krishna Airport Book "Distributer"

 

 

"I also was one of the sankirtan devotees who went out to the O'Hare airport, although I was never a 'famous book distributor', just steady from '74-76"

 

Bhaktavasya Prabhu,

You are a genuine piece of 'Americana'.

 

While others, during your years doing Book "Distribution", where earning their merit badges for entree to infamy --you were among the few, the proud, the most rarified humans that ever walked in the Three-Worlds & the fourteen planetary systems. It is due to your comrades-in-battle that I am aware of Srila Prabhupada, Thank you Sriman Bhaktavasya Prabhu.

 

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I was doing service for Mother Jadurani at the Time in 1990, when Satyaraj Told me that the court order was issued to ban Hare Krishnas & others too from Book "Distribution" solicitations ---I must ask you:

 

What insights and sentiments have you contemplated inregards to this expulsion --now that 9/11 occured?

And, similarly whenever there is a plane disaster?

And, similarly whenever there is any mass-tranportation disaster?

 

The vagaries of Mass-activities that blindly fraternise with mass-karmic actions --must fascinate some one like your self with such a background in selfless propagation.

 

Hoping you will reveal the benefits of your efforts to curtail others' bad-karma,

Bhaktajan

 

BTW, Did you ever meet Vrindapati during your time in Oklahoma?