Dear Maharaja and Prabhus,
Please accept my humble obeisances at the dust of your lotus feet. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Greetings from Sridhama Mayapur and blessings from Sri Sri Radha Madhava, Sri Pancha Tattva and Sri Nrsimhadeva.
The TOVP Team, consisting of Their Graces Jananivas, Ambarisa and Svaha prabhus along with myself, and led by Lord Nityananda’s Padukas and Lord Nrsimhadeva’s Satari, recently concluded its ten day tour of South Africa on a highly successful note.
This is our second visit to South Africa and the tour took us to Durban, Capetown, Johannesburg and Botswana, as well as some smaller cities. We were overwhelmed by the enthusiasm, support, cooperation, attentiveness and generosity of the South African Yatra leaders and general devotees, especially considering this was our second visit. We received pledges well over $2 million, matching the amount pledged on our first tour two years ago. The overall feeling was one of deep commitment to the project and unity of purpose. As reported by Swarupa Damodar prabhu, the Regional Secretary of Durban: *“The TOVP team made such exciting and inspiring presentations and although about $1m was ‘liberated’ from the Durban yatra, everyone, including the managers and devotees were so blissful.
This is clearly a project that can unite us all on a macro level, and if we can all band together behind it, we can learn from those unifying elements to work together here in South Africa.”* In addition to the unification that this single-mindedness to the order of Srila Prabhupada can bring about, the tour clearly revealed to us several other important facts. First of all, despite some serious set-backs this year, we see that the Lord’s mercy and blessings transcend any material impediments. With the desire of Srila Prabhupada in the forefront we can accomplish anything. Secondly, we also found that many people outside of ISKCON were ready to support us thus expanding the scope of our donor base. Thirdly, and perhaps most important, we realized even more deeply a concept presented by His Grace Ravindra Svarupa prabhu in his treatise on the TOVP, *Revealing the Heart of ISKCON,*based on an article by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur: “When this central temple (the TOVP, ‘Parent Temple’), by the mercy of devotees, extends outward from its inherently sacred environment into profane regions, these expansions or branches, even though distant from their source, are essentially identical with it.
The analogy of “one lamp lighted by another,” employed by *The Harmonist*, is taken from *Brahma samhita* (5.46), where it is used to elucidate the relationship between Lord Krsna and His expansions, like Balarama, Maha-Visnu, and so on. The use of the metaphor here implies that all the institution’s temples, as integral components of a spiritual organization, will be equally potent, even though one is the original, and the others, its branches or branches of branches.” This concept from Srila Bhaktisiddhanta further solidifies a statement by Srila Prabhupada regarding all ISKCON temples benefiting by serving the ‘Parent Temple’: *“The more you help develop Mayapur, the more Lord Chaitanya will bless your area of the world and it will flourish”* This was also the practical experience of Swarupa Damodar from Durban: “I am also convinced that if the South Africa yatra puts its full weight behind building the TOVP, our own yatras will flourish since the flood of love of Godhead will flow with tremendous current here..
So, I encourage our yatra leaders here to take a leap of faith and support this project whole heartedly and as Jananivasa prabhu comments, “It will be good for the world and it will be good for you.” It is our conviction that not only can all of ISKCON be unified on a grand scale by this purpose of constructing the TOVP, but that each temple will be spiritually nourished and surcharged by such focus of service. In our attempts to fundraise throughout the world this is always our message. Thank you for your time and attention to this brief report of our activities in South Africa. We hope to provide more ecstatic news from our upcoming tours throughout India.
Your servant, Braja Vilas das
Global Fundraising Director
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