Radha Krishna Temple ISKCON London

I have to say one of the first thrills I had was offering the midnight arati on Janmastami, because at that point of the year, the devotees whatever they have been doing wherever they are, whoever they are, congregation, what ever, everyone turns up to the point that the temple room at Soho St is at bursting point.

Still some how most people fit in, and to be offering arati with all those devotees pouring in a visual way their emotions towards the deities, its like standing in a river of invisible energy because wave after wave of this energy just keeps on coming. And I remember that every time I did ,I always used to break into a sweat. In one sense you are the Pujari and you in between the body of devotees and the deities and even thou you are behind that pillar so to speak and out of sight you can’t not feel it because its just rushing. Devotees have been fasting, many devotees have done extra rounds, everyone has tried to cook something, the guests are bringing something and to be there at the moment when they see the Lord of their hearts and also when you look down on the floor which is covered with offerings leaving hardly a place to stand, that for me was very very frilling. So along with being on the Rathcart and expecting to be told to get down at any moment they are the two highest points. 

 Now I will add a negative which just goes to show that when you are taking part in Krsna’s worship or you are doing any thing in Krsna’s temple how important it is to be conscious or thoughtful, mindful of what you doing. I was offering arati once and in my mind I could here the words ‘concentrate’ or something to the effect of  ‘think about what you doing’. My mind basically had run away. I was there physically but the mind was not there, I was going through the mechanics and at a certain point I looked and one of the ghee wicks had rolled off and the bottom of it had landed on my thumb, and it was going round like that on my thumb, it was being offered on my thumb. That was when I heard the words ‘pay attention’ and when I looked there was the ghee wick burning on my thumb and I could understand, yes ‘pay attention.’ ‘You know the deities are not dull you are their to pay attention’ So that was a very good lesson to me that ‘pay attention.’ And that was Krsna’s way of showing that he should ‘pay attention to me, right in front of me and his mind is wherever it was.’ So that was just an example of how important it is to be mindful and actually put attention to what you are doing.

Murli Manohara das: Do you see any particular changes from when you were engaged full time and the present 

I would say the devotees are much more aware of what they are doing. They are much more read, much more knowledgeable about the whole process of Krsna Consciousness and why they should serve the deities and as a result of that they seem to do with much more of a free mind.  Whereas the body of devotees that I joined with, I always used to describe them and myself as work horses. For us it was all about distributing books and everything else was almost secondary. To the point sometimes that we would be offensive to the general body of devotees living in the temple, and if I may just add a footnote. Their was a time when Ranchor Prabhu who was the temple president at the time, that the travelling Sankirtan devotees that was headed by H.H Sivarama Maharaj were not allowed to come here because our mentality towards the temple devotees was so offensive. I remember once that I came to visit my parents from Caitanya College and I came to the temple. Then the devotees found out that I was a Sankirtan devotee, but it was to late I had already stayed the night. 

 Because we used to come back and ride rough shot a little bit, because we were the ‘Sankirtan!’ and we were under ‘Sivarama Maharaja!’ There were only 24 of us and we were conquering. But having said that, that type of ego was also necessary to keep on doing what we were doing. So in that way we were workhorses, and the devotees today are much more knowledgeable to what they are actually doing, they are much better read. Sivarama Maharaj would plead with us to read the books. Now in the ashram I see temple devotees and congregation devotees come and sit down and open the books. In the ashram pratically speaking if the devotees do not do their hours reading by their own joice they become unhappy. Whereas for us Maharaja would say ‘please read the books, please read what you doing’ but we never did. Just distribute them and latter on maybe we could catch up with the reading.

Murl  Manohara das:  You mentioned earlier that this could sometimes have an adverse effect. In the past someone may be asked to do a particular service and they would do it, whereas now they might ask ‘where is that instruction in the book’ or I haven’t done my reading. 

Yes there is also that side. Because they are more learned, they know what is in the books, so sometimes some of the workhorse type of devotees including myself, and proud to be, to be honest because it was a special era in ISKCON England’s history which did not last that much longer after I joined, but I was fortunate enough to have taken part, and proud to say that I was one of Sivirama Maharaj’s Sankirtan devotees. So we were workhorses, whatever we were told to do we would do it. But sometime due to the fact that the devotees are so well read sometimes they are asked to do something and they want to know what standpoint its coming from before they actually do it, and the person who may be requesting them to do something doesn’t have the time or doesn’t want to quote Bhagavad Gita every time they request something to be done. So it has its pluses and minuses, but overall we have to admire the pluses because Srila Prabhupada always wanted his devotees to know his books. So the fact that the devotees joining over the last twelve to fifteen years joining with the mentality of wanting to know Srila Prabhupada’s books I would think it would be very pleasing to him. 

Murli Manohara das: Any ideas for the future, how could we improve, or what would you like to see happen say the next say 5 or 10 years...

 Final part to be continued next week