Hare Krsna
Please accept my humble obeisance. All glories to Srila Prabhupada
Prabhupada's personal experiences and his instructions encouraged the devotees to carry on with their activities. Prabhupada worked with great concentration on his translation of the Bhagavatam, while Dayananda, in his off hours after work, looked for a new temple location, and the sankirtana party went out daily for chanting and Back to Godhead distribution. Prabhupada would still hold evening programs, but now, without a temple, the location had to be constantly changed. One night the meeting was at Dayananda's apartment, another night at our sankirtana house, and on still another occasion in the garage of some sympathetic person met during the day's preaching.
Wherever the program was, Prabhupada would dutifully come from his apartment to wherever we had arranged. He was equally happy sitting in a comfortable lounge chair in Dayananda's living room or on an oriental rug placed over the cement floor in an empty garage. On behalf of Krsna, he was determined to tolerate all inconveniences in order to establish Krsna consciousness. He saw the whole event as a great challenge and explained that because there was so much difficulty, it meant that there would be Srila Prabhupada said a great reward in the end. Prabhupada was determined to establish an important centre in Los Angeles. As soon as he was seated, he would ask for a report of our day's sankirtana activities: How much money had we collected? And how many magazines had we distributed? Our activities encouraged him that even without a temple, preaching was nevertheless going on. And he would give a full lecture, undaunted by the surroundings, absorbed in training his disciples to become determined servants of Krsna.
After many weeks of searching, Dayananda at last found a suitable building for establishing a temple. Located on La Cienega Boulevard, it had formerly been a church. Its main entrance led into the high-ceilinged chapel, which had equally high windows. At the far end, opposite the entrance, was a stage, where formerly the altar had been. A narrow room ran adjacent to the chapel along one of its sides, and another room, equal in size to the chapel, but not nearly so lofty in height, had probably been used as a meeting hall. This also had a stage at one end, and along its sides were three alcoves, almost large enough to be considered separate rooms in themselves. Between the meeting hall and chapel were two other rooms, both large, perhaps half the size of the meeting hall, and two small offices, two bathrooms, and a kitchen completed the building. It was in reasonably good condition and, set back some fifty feet off the Boulevard, had an attractive appearance. From the sidewalk to the entranceway was a lawn, with shrubs and small trees skirting the building.
Prabhupada was satisfied that this was the suitable place to establish a Krsna consciousness centre, and he advised Dayananda to arrange the rent. Although Dayananda's pay checks were the only steady income to be counted on, it was worth taking the risk of paying the monthly rent of four hundred dollars. The new premises afforded Srila Prabhupada a suitable facility from which to conduct his preaching activities. He envisioned the chapel converted into a temple with established Deities, devotional paintings hung along its walls. There was enough space to accommodate hundreds of guests; the narrow room alongside of the temple could be reserved for his personal use; and there were still three other large rooms, one of which had a stage. These could he used for lectures, prasadam distribution, and for residential purposes. With proper arrangements made, it would be by far the best temple that ISKCON had. Though the devotees had been unceremoniously ousted from their previous Hollywood location, Krsna was now offering an even better facility. The building was self-contained, and there would be no complaining tenants to deal with. This had always been a problem at Prabhupada's storefront centres since the very beginning, at 26 Second Avenue. But here the devotees could hold kirtanas as loudly as they liked. The building had been constructed specifically as a place of worship, and those who lived nearby must already he accustomed to hearing prayers and religious songs. The neighbourhood was mostly residential, but there were also shops and offices spread out along both sides of the Boulevard. Judging from the steady flow of cars that passed by, it was a fairly important thoroughfare.
Biographies and Glorifications of Srila Prabhupada-Servant of the Servant-The West Coast Days-Intimate Encounters-Tamala Krsna Goswami
Comments