Fire, flowers for opening of temple

Press, 22 September 1980, Page 3

Fire, flowers for opening of temple

Within 50 years, the prevailing influence over the • whole world will be the Hare Krishna movement, according to His Divine Grace Bhavananda Goswami Vishnupada. He was in Christchurch at the week-end to open the movement’s new temple in Latimer Square, The opening, and the initiation of a new Hare Krishna devotee, was marked by a traditional fire ceremony in the beautifully decorated temple in Latimer Square. The ceremony, watched by about 300 people, was conducted before an open fire in the middle of a room and surrounded with a colourful display of flowers, fruit, incense, and coloured rice flour.

Hare Krishna songs and mantras were chanted, as Sri Vishna Vishnupada fed the small blaze with wood and ghee (clarified butter), and watchers threw gram into the blaze. After the cermony, Sri Vishnupada, one of the world leaders of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, said a Gallup poll had shown that half a million young people in the United States belonged to the movement. There were many others who did not belong to a temple and who practised by themselves. He said that the attraction to Hare Krishna would come because the movement offered standards for people to live by. At present there were no recognised standards, “In America now people are so frustrated. They have Reagan and they have Carter, but it is just a choice between two evils,” he said. “The change is going to come about sooner or later

because nothing is going right at the moment.” Sri Vishnupada said the Krishna movement did not want to govern the world but wanted to make the leaders of the world work for the spiritual and material development of its citizens.

He Said the Hare Krishna movement had no difficulty adapting to Western society. The numbers of those who believed that people could be Hindu only by birth were diminishing. But the movement would never accept meat-eating and intoxication, even from tea and coffee. Hare Krishna devotees were the only true Christians because Krishna consciousness was the root of all religion, he said. It developed the consciousness of the love of God, which was the basis of all religions. Sri Vishnupada said New Zealand was an ideal country for the Hare Krishna movement because here people could live simply and With lofty ideals, which the movement demanded, but things were in a bad way because so much killing of animals went on.

“In this country the citizens get all the protection, but not the sheep,” he said. “You have the perfect situation here for raising and protecting the cows. If you did that your country would be glorious. As long as you keep killing there will be bad karma in the air.” A former film maker and freelance journalist, Sri Vishnupada said he became a Hare Krishna devotee after visiting a temple in Los Angeles in 1969. He now works in India, where he is in charge of an international project to build a Vedic city near Calcutta.