Hare Krishna to all
Pranams
All glories to Srila Prabhupada
I wanted to keep this part separate from my overall trip description since this event was on the very last day as I was flying out of India.
The events leading up to this trip to Madhu Pandits famous temple in Bangalore which is spectacular, are this–
I had heard a lot of positive and negative stories about Madhu Pandit in the past, which I wont go into at present. Of course everybody has heard about the million children his group is feeding daily with Prasadam.
And that is just one program of several going on there.
However the devotees who were around me while I was in India, as well as my wife via email, all said I should go visit the temple and see for myself what is going on there. I resisted right up to practically the last day.
Previously while Yasoda nandan his wife and myself were in Vrndavana together, we did go to the Vrndavana branch of the Bangalore temple. This place itself was huge, the temple building was quite nice, and the grounds showed lots of room for expansion of their Akshaya patra program of feeding children.
The local devotees there were inquisitive about our presence there, but guarded as well since they didnt know us personally. When they found out we were directly initiated by Srila Prabhupada and were Prabhupadanugas, their moods changed a litle bit.
One has to understand that for devotees living in India these days can be dangerous and downright disastrous.
Especially if you suscribe to the “ritvik philosophy” and you happen to be near some iskcon fanatics.
This is a tense situation and basically the two camps are at war with each other. And it appears that Madhu Pandit’s camp is winning at present and iskcon does not like that one bit. That is why iskcon wants his temple on the hill in Bangalore. It is super opulent and filled with around 250 first class devotees all mostly highly educated and determined like their leader Madhu Pandit to correct the ills of iskcon.
So I was hearing both sides to this story even while I was in India, since I stayed at iskcon Jaipur temple for about a week and heard the TP talk badly about Madhu Pandit.
So after our short visit of a few hours at the Vrndavana temple, Yasoda Nandan and I split up and met again about ten days later in south India in Udupi , Karanataka. He then left again to stayed eventually for 8 days at the Bangalore temple and got first hand experience of what goes on there.
I still wasnt convinced at this point and told him I really didnt want to visit this place due to lots of reasons, two of which were it was in a huge city with unlimited Indian type nasty traffic, and secondly I had heard too many stories about Madhu Pandit.
Finally Yasoda asked me if he could get MP to arrange to pick me up from the airport and then drive me back to the airport, would I then come?? Finally I relented, since there was not a real good reason not to go for the visit.
And I am now glad I did visit. First of all I am not impressed at all by huge temples as I have seen lots of them. For me personally large temples means large problems of management, and I would rather live within a smaller framework of devotees due to the simplicity of the affair. But this temple is very organized, maybe too organized, but it gets things done. For example while I was in Jaipur, I went to the Radha Govinda temple and while there I noticed a book table out front, manned by Bangalore temple devotees–nobody from iskcon Jaipur was there. One of the books on the table was a small compilation of how congregational members can move from being in outright maya to becomming a first class devotee. The book gave a step by step program for one to follow in ones life with a daily check list in the back. I was impressed first of all by the book table, and then the book itself. …Now Back to Bangalore.
So I flew into Bangalore airport at 10am monday morning, Vaikuntha Ekadasi, got picked up immediately by one of Madhu Pandits personal drivers and whisked away to the temple and saw immediately huge traffic jams of people trying to get into this temple for Deity Darshan. This was my first impression before I even got inside the place. It looked like the entire city wanted to get inside. Lots of police and military men guiding traffic and providing security.
So my driver took me to a guesthouse, a devotee greeted me and told me I could go with him upstairs to “my room”. I didnt know I was to have a “room”, as I only wanted to meet MP and take Daity darshan,then leave. So I got into my very clean room, cleaned up a bit after the early morning taxi and plane travel–then went downstairs where that same devotee proceeded to take me to see all the Deities, and he cut in front of the long lines I might add, to do this. The Deities of Radha Krishna Chandra are exquisite as are all the others. Inside the large main temple room is a huge vaulted ceiling with large hand painted murals of Krishna and His devotees. Everywhere my tour guide and I went were huge crowds of people wanting darshan of Lord Krishna. Then he took me to the prasadam hall for some ekadashi prasadam which was delicious by the way. I ate to my full satisfaction, cleaned up and then we proceeded to Madhu Pandits office where Yasoda Nandan was waiting outside.
Almost immediately after greeting Yasoda, we were both taken inside the office of the devotee primarily responsible for these huge projects. I almost felt like Sudama Vipra, the story in Krishna book when he entered Dvaraka, by the warm welcome Yasoda Nanda and I received here, by Madhu Pandit and his crew of devotees. We were both basically honored as senior disciples of Srila Prabhupada which is the proper way to receive older Vaisnavas, although we never asked nor expected such a reception. So right away, my impression of this devotee was changing. In the office was present Madhu Pandit’s secretary always, and a couple of others,as well as Yasoda nandan and myself.
So the three of us talked very congenially for about two hours, with intermittent disruptions by people who wanted to see Madhu Pandit for some reasons. But he kept these visits very short as he wanted to get back to us, his guests from America who were part of the Hare Krishna Society, who have been dedicated to Srila Prabhupada and his orders long years before Madhu Pandit and his other men even figured it all out. So for him, I imagine, this was sort of interesting to meet us, and for us it was special in that we got to see what can be done in India at least, when some devotees are fixed and determined.
It was special for Madhu Pandit because he has known all kinds of “devotees” in his years in Iskcon, especially previously as a most loyal follower of Jayapataka swami as his former “guru”. He has seen all kinds of corruption, murder, character assinations, you name it. He even told Yasoda and myself the story of when he and Yasomatinandan and one other, confronted the GBC and basically told them they were now going to follow the ritvik system and abandon the bogus guru system of iskcon.The next day literally, all hell broke lose and from that day on it was war–not from his side, but by iskcon attacking Madhu pandit and his temple and projects. Iskcon Bangalore has put out several small booklets explaining all the sufferings they have had to endure at the hands of the leaders of the GBC and their lackies. They didnt want to do this, but felt after so much time had elapsed, that the genreal public should know what was going on inside iskcon-the “other” story they never would hear.
So we had some good talks just about everything, guru tattva, what we do in America as the Hare Krishna Society, what can we do now, like that. Overall the meeting went well and we all left very good friends and hoped to work together in the near future to combine forces of India with America-by putting Srila Prabhupada back into his own movement.
But my visit wasn’t over yet, as now they informed us that their Film crew was arriving and wanted to film both Yasoda and myself for lessons in Iskcon history from what we both saw first hand.I reminded MP that I had to get back to the airport and needed to know if my bags were ready to go in the taxi and my driver was ready to go with my shoes. Like most of the rest of India, they assured me it was all taken care of, “dont worry, prabhu !!”
So both Yasoda and myself went into Chanchalpathi’s office (the Vice Pres) and proceded to get filmed about our experiences with Iskcon in the days before and after Srila Prabhupada.
I had only 20 minutes to give them as I had to get back to the airport. So told what I could, then my driver showed me to his car, bags and shoes all there, and whisked me away thru all the maddening traffic back to the airport.
As quick as my visit took place, it seemed that quick also when I left.
Iskcon Bangalore is an incredible place and I only was there for a few hours. Yasoda nandan was there 8 days, so got to see more.
We both were impressed by what the devotees there have done, and it is impressive in that this all took place only a few short years since 1999.
People can say what they want about the devotees and the place, but the results speak for themselves, as Srila Prabhupada would often say. Judge by the result.
Hare Krishna
Damaghosa das
Speak Your Mind