I woke up at 4:30 this morning, getting dressed and to the temple just in time for Mangala Arati, when the deities are awakened with fruit, flowers, incense, and other offerings, while being constantly fanned with yak-tail and peacock-feather fans.
In celebration of Krishna at New Vrindaban, worshippers chanted the maha mantra repeatedly to the drumming of the tablas, as offerings were presented to the different deities and the statue of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the American Hare Krishna movement in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.
But that which was offered also came around to the congregants, as water was sprinkled on worshippers head, and worshippers were presented with ghee lamps in which to bathe their hands in light before raising them to their foreheads.
This was my favorite deity, Lord Nrisimhadeva, an incarnation of Krishna who protects his followers:
My favorite part was a recognition of Krishna’s life-giving powers, as worshippers circled a tiny tree in the center of the hall three times. They then touched water to their hands and watered the plant three times as well, showing respect for life and God’s creation.
After the ceremony, I was offered prayer beads by one of the devotees to join in chanting the maha mantra. Made of 108 beads from wood from sacred trees in India, the beads are meant to help clear the mind and aid in connection to Krishna. For almost an hour, I sat on the floor, chanting, making it through the beads numerous times.
Chanting can really affect a person. Time flies by, your body starts to sway, and the world seems immaterial. I haven’t done it enough to experience its full effects, but even to someone who has never done it before, it can easily clear the mind and move the consciousness. It’s almost impossible to concentrate on worldly thoughts when your tongue, ears, and body are occupied with chanting.
As I returned her beads, I conversed with Kyra, a devotee of two years from Miami. Two weeks ago, she packed up everything she had and moved to New Vrindaban, expecting to live a monastic life for two years. A garrulous woman, she said that being in New Vrindaban was sometimes difficult, as devotees are expected to spend their time in service of Krishna, and not in conversation with each other.
In fact, she said, if a devotee speaks with someone of the opposite sex, it’s often assumed that there’s something going on between them. When you want to have a real connection, you get married. “It’s hard to imagine marrying someone you hardly know,” Kyra said. “But in a way, it works. You know you both have a huge love for Krishna, and with that in common, that’s all you need. That’s the deepest connection you can have.”
She also said that the spirit of Prabhupada, who died in 1977, has been known to wander around this and other shrines in the country. Spooky.
I then sat through a teaching session by one of the gurus on the life of Krishna. Unlike other religions, Vaishnavism depicts God’s incarnation with explicitly human traits, as Krishna was a mischievous trickster of a boy, stealing butter and flirting with cowgirls. Hare Krishna devotees view God as someone you can relate to as a friend, who will provide for you, guide you, but play with you too.
In this story, I learned of Krishna’s battle with the many-headed snake. In summary, one day, the inhabitants of the magical forest of Vrindavan found Krishna in the grasp of a huge snake that appeared in the river Yamuna. Krishna looked so beautiful and helpless that many of the devotees fainted with fear for him.
But Krishna was just playing, and couldn’t be defeated by the snake. Soon, he freed himself from its grasp and started dancing on the snake’s heads, calling his friends down to play music. He goofed off with the snake for a while, before killing it.
Later, some of the women in the village were gossiping about how beautiful Krishna was, when they saw a huge fire engulfing the forest, destroying everything in its path. They called on Krishna to help, and when he saw that some cows had died, he devoured the fire. Immediately, the forest was restored as if nothing had happened.
You see, it wasn’t a real fire. The moral of the story was that Krishna wanted the attention, wanted the people to see his power, and love him for the protection he offered. If you thought the God of the Israelites was jealous, you haven’t seen anything.
After morning ceremonies, I took a tour of the Palace of Gold, the main attraction for tourists to New Vrindaban. Originally it was intended to be a small house for Prabhupada, as devotees were upset that the first times he had visited, there weren’t amenities like running water in their part of West Virginia. They started building in 1973, but when Prabhupada died, it hadn’t been finished, and the devotees decided to expand it into the massive memorial it is today.
Legend has it that when they were digging the foundation, they came across a large formation of marble that stuck out of the ground, making construction impossible. That night, a terrible thunderstorm came in. Lighting struck the marble over and over again, making a monstrous cracking noise. In the morning, all that was left was sand, which was attributed to God’s grace in the building of the monument.
Here it is today:
It’s an astonishing construction, with most of the decoration made of plaster casts coated with gold paint. Inside, some of the more interesting attractions are artifacts that Prabhupada used during his life, and an office with his statue made to look like ha was hard at work writing texts to be disseminated in Hare Krishna outreach.
Here’s the shrine to Prabhupada, decorated with lavish paintings of the life of Krishna and with a statue of the teacher in the center:
This is a stained glass depiction of a peacock, with 500 panes of glass:
And here is the rose garden outside, which consistently wins gardening awards:
When I returned to the temple for another service, members of the community were working feverishly to prepare for the festival tomorrow, which celebrates the birth of Lord Balaram, who is simultaneously Krishna’s older brother and an incarnation of Krishna himself.
Here is Kyra, on the right, preparing wreaths to lay around the necks of the deities:
This post is getting way too long, so I’ll finish with another teaching moment from the evening. It’s a parable, and I think it really applies to all religions. I’m paraphrasing it, of course.
Once there was a guru who was incredibly admired, and people from all around would come to learn from him. One day, a flock of parrots came to him, asking for teaching. He thought, “What can I teach parrots that they’ll understand?” and simply gave them a poem that they could easily remember:
The hunter will come
He will spread out a net
He will lay down some grain
Don’t get caught in the net
(In Sanskrit it rhymes and flows better)
The parrots left the guru, repeating the poem over and over again. In fact, whenever the guru passed them, he could hear them singing it to themselves. But one day, the hunter did come and spread out his net. The parrots flew down and ate the grain, and were scooped up in the net. Later, the hunter walked by the guru, and he could hear them, chanting to themselves: “The hunter will come…”
It reminds me of a long time ago in Quaker meeting when a friend asked me what the two types of Christians were. I was stumped. No matter what I guessed, I couldn’t get it. It wasn’t Catholics/Protestants, baptizers/Anabaptists, interpretive/fundamentalist or anything I could think of.
He said it was non-thinking and thinking. Non-thinkers learn the teachings and repeat them mindlessly, without understanding their intent and meaning and without discerning their truth. Thinkers take in the whole picture, and are constantly trying to improve themselves, and questioning their spiritual routines.
This teaching at the temple reflects that. Memorizing texts or rules means nothing when we don’t know why they exist in the first place. Without discernment, they are empty and ineffective, and can’t steer us on the right path. It’s impossible to walk a straight line blindfolded.
