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Prabhupada’s Palace Nectar: On the Road

Written by Puru das and taken from the April 1983 Issue of the Brijabasi Spirit

Pictures shows Devananda on the left and Jalakolahali on the right.

During the “off” season the Palace staff keeps engaged. Actually there is no such thing as an “off” season in Krsna Consciousness. But this refers to that time during the winter when the amount of tourists visiting Prabhupada’s Palace slows to the point that we can work on Palace maintenance and repair, and busy ourselves for the rush of visitors that will arrive in the Spring.

During the winter, three teams, consisting of Mahabuddhi, Devananda, Jalakolahali, Raghunath, Sankirtan, Jambavati devi and myself, travel all around the G.S.A. representing Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold at 30 or more Travel, Camping, Bus Marketplace and Bus Association Trade Shows. Travel is a tremendously large business in America, and literally hundreds of thousands of summer travelers attend these shows, searching for attractions and places of interest to visit.

At the shows, we set up an 8′ x 10′ booth, with a long table at the front for displaying photographs and Palace brochures. Along with our large 6′ x 8′ photo of the Palace, we also set out two other displays, three easels each, with large 16″ x 20″ color photographs of the Palace and its interior.

Just as during the earlier days of ISKCON when devotees would attend boutique shows and gift shows to market Spiritual Sky incense, we are now attending similar events to generate interest for Prabhupada’s Palace. People are very attracted by the beauty of the Palace, even in photographs, and it is quite wonderful to see their reaction.

Tourist: George, look at that! That’s just beautiful. Why, we didn’t know such a place existed in the U.S.

George: Wheeling, West Virginia, eh? Why, we go through there once a year. How come we never knew that this was there?

Devotee: Well, sir, we’ve only been open for two years to the public. That’s why we’re here at the show. To let you know about the Palace and how you can visit it. We have two large billboards on 1-70.

Wife: Well, we certainly must come and see that when we travel west this summer. We visit our daughter in Ohio once a year. We have to stop and see this!

Devotee: Please come, ma’am. It will be our pleasure to have you visit.

Couple: Well, thank you very much young man. We’re certainly glad we found out about this.

Very often, more times than we can count, the same conversation takes place during the course of a day at one of these shows. The Harrisburg Travel Show, The Columbus Travel Show, The Detroit Show, and Indianapolis Show (all of which we have attended this year) were each nine days long. During that time 300,000 to 500,000 people visited each show, and those who passed by the Palace of Gold booth were given the opportunity to start their spiritual life and make advancement in Krsna Consciousness. They may have attended the show to look at recreational vehicles, or find that perfect vacation, but when they pass our booth they are stunned by the beauty of the Palace and usually stop to take a brochure. Those that do are pretty definite about coming to visit during the next summer season.

Wife: Why Harold, we have to visit this place. Why haven’t you taken me here?

Devotee: Have him take you to our restaurant ma’am. You can dine in a very elegant atmosphere and very inexpensively at that.

Wife: Will you look at these pictures, Harold (as she pages through our photo album)?  How beautiful. When was this built?

Devotee: We started construction in 1973, and it was finished in 1979. We opened to the public about two years ago.

Wife: Well, is it a restaurant, a hotel, or what?

Devotee: No ma’am, the restaurant is in the back behind the Palace. The Palace is a memorial to our spiritual leader, Srila Prabhupada. It now serves as a museum that you can see on our guided tour.

Wife: How interesting. Who built it, anyway?

Devotee: It was built by the members of our religious community. All the work was donated, and all the laborers were previously unskilled.

Wife: I see. Prabhupada, who was he, anyway?

Devotee: He is the founder-acarya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, the Hare Krsna movement. He was the world’s most renowned Vedic scholar, and translated the most authoritative collection of ancient Sanskrit texts from India, called the Vedic literatures. His books are found in almost every major university in the world today.

Wife: This is really fascinating. Look at those flowers. We must come this summer when your gardens are in bloom.

Devotee: Please do. You can easily get overnight accommodations, and here is some information for you about the area.

Wife: Thank you very much. We’ll be seeing you.

Many people cannot quite believe that the Palace really exists. They ask, “Is that really real?” “Is that building really in West Virginia?” “Is it made of real gold?” Then it becomes easy to explain to them that the Palace is located in ‘Almost Heaven’ West Virginia. Since many of them are likely to travel through the state, they all become candidates for visiting the Palace.

Staying away from the Holy Dhama, New Vrindaban, and living away from the association of our God brothers is an austerity worth accepting for the sake of preaching to the conditioned souls. We feel very fortunate to be allowed to travel around the U.S. and represent the Palace and do what we can to attract everyone in America to come and visit. Of course, there are many other booths at the shows, but the people who run the booths are now old acquaintances. They have all heard a little philosophy from the different devotees, and are happy to see us when we set up our booth next to theirs. A familiar face in unfamiliar surroundings is always a pleasant experience. Now, for some of the different people that work these shows, those familiar faces are devotees.

Last winter we distributed 50,000 brochures and spoke to at least twice as many people at the various shows. We expect to see many of them at the Palace this season. Last year we had over 300 motorcoach tours visit; this year the number should double. When we attend the Bus Association shows, and the Bus Company Marketplace, the likelihood of attracting whole busloads of  visitors increases. At these shows, group leaders are always invited to attend the first part of the show, even before the general public is allowed entrance. All of these people are presidents of travel clubs, old-age groups, school groups, and travel agents that charter buses with the various companies. They are all very eager to find new and interesting places to take their groups.

The Palace of Gold is such an attractive place to visit. Once, during a show, the vice president of one large bus company in Pennsylvania was bitten by the Sankirtana bug. Although he had his own booth, he would encourage his customers to stop at our booth and to book a tour with us. “Listen,” he would tell them, “you’ve got to visit this place. Go on over and get their information.”

One time at a bus marketplace, a bus driver who had driven one group to the Palace last season remarked to several women looking at the booth, “Oh, ladies, don’t miss this place. We went there last year on our ‘mystery tour.’ Everyone just loved it. It was so beautiful.” He actually did a better job of convincing them than I could have. Wearing his official bus company driver uniform, he appeared a paragon of bus travel authority. They listened to him and all took information about the Palace.

It is certainly encouraging to see how everyone is actually attracted to the spiritual energy that the Palace generates. Even though they are so absorbed in material illusion, when they get the opportunity to engage their senses in Krsna’s service, many take advantage. They may think that they are attracted by the gold, or marble, or crystal chandeliers, but actually Krsna is in their hearts and it is their spiritual senses that are becoming enlivened. The Palace is situated on McCreary’s Ridge, but actually it is Prabhupada’s paraphernalia and is in Vaikuntha. When someone sees one of our ISKCON paintings they look at a “snapshot” of the spiritual world. The Palace is made of the same spiritual potency and has the same effect on them. They see the Palace, become attracted, and are convinced that they should visit. Their senses are enlightened by Krsna’s internal potency.

Materialists are usually not attracted to devotional life, so devotional service is the last thing from their minds. Nevertheless, by the mercy of Krsna’s devotees they become interested in some aspect of Krsna Consciousness when they visit and see the opulence of the spiritual world manifest in the hills of West Virginia. They may not become devotees in this life, but they will never lose the benefit they derive from coming in contact with a pure devotee. Krsna and Krsna’s pure devotees are all-attractive. The Palace of Gold is like a powerful magnet that draws them here for a visit. They may never engage in any other devotional service for the rest of their lives, but their spiritual bank account has begun.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada, as he is benedicting the fallen souls of Kali yuga with unlimited opportunity to engage their senses in the Lord’s service.

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ISKCON Kolkata Chandan yatra 11th Day Darshan 12th May 2014

When religionists point to the many things that science can't explain and say that this proves the need for God as an explanation, won't such a God become redundant when scientific progress explains those things?

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New Vrindaban Board Meeting Reflects Cooperative Spirit.

By Madhava Smullen

From the very beginning, this spring’s Semi-Annual Joint Boards Meeting at New Vrindaban reflected the cooperative spirit that has been growing in the community since its current transformation began.

Held on Saturday March 22^nd and Sunday March 23^rd,  2014 at the Palace Lodge conference room, the Meeting introduced two significant changes.

The first was the addition of two new Board members, Bhima and Kevala, both second generation gurukulis. Bhima is a member of the Eco-Vrindaban board, while Kevala is a member of the ISKCON New Vrindaban board.

“As part of its transformation New Vrindaban is engaging the next generation, which historically hasn’t happened as much as it should have,” says ECOV board member Chaitanya Mangala, himself a second generation devotee. “So this was a conscious move in that direction.”

Bhima and Kevala, the 2 newest Board members

Becoming a Board member has had a positive effect on the life of Kevala, a 35-year-old software tester for JP Morgan Chase who grew up in New Vrindaban and now lives in Philadelphia.

“Growing up in New Vrindaban I didn’t participate so much in the community — I was kind of a taker,” he says. “But being part of the Board, I started to feel the community spirit, and to feel like more of a giver. Like I was participating. And I really enjoy it.”

Since he has been on the Board, Kevala says he has also received a lot of thoughts and suggestions about New Vrindaban from his peers. “I think it gives a voice to the second generation,” he says. “They feel like they’re getting heard.”

The second significant change to this spring’s Meeting was to the structure. Previously, the Boards held a dialogue presenting what they had talked about with the community at the end of the weekend.

“This time, we decided to turn that on its head and share our topics with all interested members of the community first thing on Saturday morning,” says Chaitanya Mangala. “Then we’d get their feedback, and use it throughout the Meeting as part of the decision-making process.”

Chaitanya Mangala

Thirty to forty community members attended the session from 10:00am to 1:30pm during which Board members presented a number of projects to focus on for the next five years, and asked for feedback on which should be prioritized.

One high priority was to create a devotee care department that puts the same level of resources and energy into caring for devotee residents, as that which is currently put into congregational development.

Another was making sure there is enough manpower and funds to care for New Vrindaban’s protected cow herd, which aims to maintain the current number of eight milking cows at all times and to have a projected herd of 100 cows in the next five years.

Onsite food production is another area of New Vrindaban which will get a lot of attention this year. “We just hired Kacey Orr, a local Wheeling resident who ran her own organic farm in the area for five years,” says Chaitanya. “She’s excited about going from a small operation with few resources to heading up a five-acre garden with significant resources supporting the effort.”

New Vrindaban’s infrastructure, neglected for decades, is also a focus. The Palace Lodge, which received a major renovation of its guest rooms early last year, will now see its ground floor space converted into more guest rooms and conference rooms of different sizes. And Srila Prabhupada’s Palace, which is undergoing a complete restoration in the long term, will have its front stairs and entranceway renovated this year.

Another infrastructure problem is the lack of housing in New Vrindaban for residents. Board and community members discussed plans to buy existing housing in the area and build new apartments and houses – essential steps to have more devotees move to the community.

Additionally, the Deities’ kitchen and dressing rooms will receive upgrades, and a heating and cooling system with temperature control will be installed to make both the Deities and the devotees caring for them more comfortable.

With all these priorities discussed, Board members took a break for lunch before going on their bi-annual tour to parts of the New Vrindaban property.

This time, new gardenerKacey Orr took everyone on a tour of New Vrindaban’s gardens. First came the smaller Teaching Garden, which Sunday guests often tour as their guide leads a spiritually-minded chat about the importance of simple living and local produce.

“The Garden is getting a makeover this summer,” says Chaitanya Mangala. “Its eight-foot fence for keeping out deer is twenty years old and needs to be replaced. The beds will be reconfigured with a layout that works better for giving guest tours. And we’ll start growing fresh flowers for the Deities, as well as perennial herbs to use in cooking and developing homeopathic tinctures.”

Next the Board members followed Kacey to the hill behind the temple, where the seven acre Garden of Seven Gates lies. There Kacey laid out her plans for planting different kinds of vegetables and supplying the Deity, devotee, and restaurant kitchens with fresh produce.

Next, Board members took a tour of the temple barn, where all the eight milking cows are kept, along with their youngest calves. “We’re now at a point where we have a surplus of milk,” Chaitanya says. “So independent devotees living in their own houses can use some too.”

New Vrindaban Temple Goshalla

Finally, the tour went on to the main ECOV barn in the valley, where devotees have been steadily renovating and improving facilities. While in the late 1980s they housed 400 cows, there are now only about fifty, allowing for much more space and attention for each cow.

With more financial resources now available at New Vrindaban, veterinary care has also vastly improved, allowing devotees to put up the large amount of money needed to, for instance, set and repair a cow’s broken leg – something they wouldn’t have been able to do before.

Wrapping up the tour at 5:30pm, Board members then attended the monthly sanga with Srila Prabhupada at his Palace. After kirtan, Chaitanya Mangala – who met Srila Prabhupada several times as the child of devotee parents – and Tamohara Das, who remembers Prabhupada spending time with his own children, shared their memories of the ISKCON Founder Acharya.

“It’s a wonderful space to do that kind of thing, sitting in the small temple room, spending time with devotees and appreciating Srila Prabhupada in his Palace,” says Chaitanya.

The next morning, New Vrindaban’s fifteen department heads each took five to ten minutes presenting how they planned to continue improving their areas of responsibility in 2014.

Highlights included a presentation by head cowherds Ananda Vidya and Lalita Gopi, who milk the cows twice a day, seven days a week. Reporting that the number of milking cows had gone up from six to eight this year, they pointed out the importance of maintaining quality care and avoiding rapid expansion.

New Govinda’s restaurant manager Vasudeva Das then spoke about introducing more Western-friendly dishes to his menu, to appeal to the Western tourists Prabhupada’s Palace managers hope to attract. This year Govinda’s also plans to increase its use of protected cow dairy products and locally grown produce. And the staff will begin wearing uniforms – Govinda t-shirts with dhotis – that will add to customers’ unique exotic experience.

Vasudeva’s son and Palace Lodge manager Gaura Bhakta Das then outlined his plans for focusing on the quality of service offered to Lodge guests. These include a standard uniform with nametags so that guests know who to approach for information, and personal service such as carrying guests’ bags and showing them right to their room.

The Sunday Feast program followed the presentations. In the evening, there was a lively two-hour community dialogue in which the discussions and conclusions of the weekend were presented. Board members plan to move this dialogue, and the department heads’ presentations, to Saturday morning at the next Meeting in November, for a less repetitive feel.

Jaya Krsna, Community President

Overall, however, the Meeting was productive and reflected positive progress at ISKCON New Vrindaban.

“You can see that the level of energy and enthusiasm is increasing, and there is a greater mood of cooperation amongst the devotees,” says Chaitanya Mangala. “Underlying everything is a growing level of awareness and respect for each other – for the years that everybody has dedicated to making Srila Prabhupada’s vision a reality. Seeing that evolve is the most enlivening thing for me.”

From Dr Sathe, Phd Physics

I am a scientist and I like Krishna consciousness, but I am disturbed that devotees constantly criticise science and scientists, labelling them as rascals, and say that only by so doing are we faithful to Srila Prabhupada. Can't I have respect for science, my material profession, and bhakti, my spiritual calling?

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Relevant references

"So you all write very strongly, vibrantly. Even it is little offensive still, these rascals should be taught good lesson. Yes. They're misleading. Godlessness. As soon as you say "God created," immediately they become arrogant. That is our protest. If they accept God, then we give them all credit. That's all right. Otherwise zero. We don't deprecate their intention of advancement in knowledge. But we simply protest against their defying the authority of God. That is our point."  --

(Morning Walk -- April 19, 1973, Los Angeles)

Richard Dawkins quotes this example in his "The God Delusion". Is there any good response to this?

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“I have just seen one Sanskrit dictionary of Pradyumna's [Prabhupada's Sanskrit editor], and it is compiled by one Englishman, Williams . . . he has taken so much trouble and he has made thorough study and it is very nice and scholarly books . . . and because he has chosen Sanskrit language for his study, therefore it is the highest example of scholarship and knowledge.”

(Letter to: Mandali Bhadra — Sydney 2 April, 1972)

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 2010, Melbourne, Australia)

I was thinking of the bull, Dharma. When Dharma’s legs were broken by Kali, Kali was standing there next to the bull with a stick in its hands. Maharaj Parikshit arrives on the spot and says, “Who did this!?” And the bull says, “It’s hard to say. It’s hard to say who did this. It could be karma. It could be the will of the providence.”

So I also was thinking that; I could look at the causes and the ultimate cause is Krsna. Somehow or other, Krsna sent me this. I’m trying to be a devotee and Krsna sent me this for my purification, for my growth and I will have to take it like that. I’ll have to take. This is Krsna’s mercy and I have to learn from this.

In the Nrsimha Sahasra Nama it is said:

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History, if seen from a purely materialistic perspective, seems to be nothing more than a list of names of dead successful people. Decade after decade, century after century, millennia after millennia, people come, people live, people die. 

This detox diet has been around for almost 50 years. It's effectivity in breaking down toxins in the body while contributing to short term weight loss has made it a popular option for a spring detox.

He’s already retold the epic spiritual classics, Ramayana and Mahabharata. His are among the bestselling English editions, with 60,000 and 100,000 in print respectively, and have garnered ebullient praise from the media, academia and general public alike. And now Krishna Dharma has retold the work closest to his heart in “Brilliant as the Sun: A Summary of Srimad Bhagavatam, the Complete Science of God.”

On May 13th, Nrsimha-caturdasi, the Bhaktivedanta Archives offers two new releases: the VedaBase 2014 update and the original audio of Śrīla Prabhupāda for 1975.