The Rising Moon of Mayapur

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Back to Godhead (International) March/April 2012

By Abhijit Toley

In West Bengal, in a little-known village on the bank of the Ganges, an extraordinary temple is taking shape.

The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), or the Hare Krishna movement, is gradually being recognized all over the world as an authentic spiritual tradition with roots in ancient Vedic scripture and culture. Throughout history, the great spiritual traditions of the world have gifted mankind many grand monuments that serve as lasting, inspiring reminders of the glorious traditions they represent. The upcoming Temple of the Vedic Planetarium (ToVP) will be one such monument, representing ISKCON in particular and Gaudiya Vaishnavism in general. Combining modern technology, ancient science, timeless wisdom, and lively culture, the ToVP promises to be a popular spiritual destination.

The Mayapur Connection

The ToVP is rising on the banks of the Ganges in the holy town of Mayapur, West Bengal, India. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, the father of the modern-day Krishna consciousness movement, narrates in his Navadvipa-dhama-mahatmya how Lord Nityananda spoke to Srila Jiva Goswami (both contemporary devotees of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu) about the future of Mayapur. Lord Nityananda prophesized: "When our Lord Chaitanya leaves this world, by His desire the Ganges will swell. Its water will almost cover Mayapur for a hundred years, and then the water will recede. Then, by the Lord's desire, Mayapur will again be manifest, and the devotees will build temples of the Lord. One exceedingly wonderful temple (adbhuta-mandira) will appear from which Lord Chaitanya's eternal service will be preached around the world."

Because Mayapur is where Lord Chaitanya appeared, Srila Prabhupada chose it as ISKCON's international headquarters. Lord Chaitanya, who is Krishna Himself in a golden form, appeared in Mayapur a little over five hundred years ago with the mission to flood the world with the highest love of God, a love rarely revealed. He spread the Hare Krishna mantra throughout India and prophesized that one of His "commanders" (senapati-bhakta) would one day deliver the holy names to every town and village in the world. In 1965, at seventy years of age, Srila Prabhupada arrived in the USA. Within twelve years, he inspired the founding of 108 temples in cities around the globe. Now, forty-seven years later, ISKCON continues to spread Lord Chaitanya's mission with the goal of fulfilling His prediction. ISKCON has about five hundred temples, farm communities, restaurants, and schools, and the number is growing.

It's significant that Srila Prabhupada chose Mayapur as ISKCON's international headquarters. Even today Mayapur is not well connected with the rest of the world; he didn't choose it for its material assets. Rather, he well knew the incomparable spiritual significance of Mayapur. Here Lord Chaitanya first revealed his superexcellent presentation of Vaishnavism: Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Mayapur is the highest seat of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. With the construction of the magnificent ToVP, Gaudiya Vaishnavism could become a well-known spiritual tradition all over the world, attracting millions from all walks of life to its sublime philosophy and culture.

Temple or Planetarium?

In Mayapur, Lord Chaitanya started His sankirtana movement of the congregational chanting of the holy names. The main activities of the Mayapur ISKCON temple, on whose campus the ToVP is being built, center onsankirtana and gorgeous deity worship. Whoever visits Mayapur, for whatever reason, gets a chance to experience and practice Krishna consciousness, thus ushering auspiciousness into the visitor's life.

Srila Prabhupada had a clear vision for the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium, one he often expressed. He wanted a unique Vedic planetarium to present the Vedic perspective of life, including a gigantic display of the material and spiritual worlds that visitors could view from different levels as they traveled through the planetarium. He wanted something startling and state-of-the-art to attract people from around the world to Mayapur.

Srila Prabhupada recognized the hold modern atheistic science has on most people. He wanted to challenge the mechanistic understanding of the universe. To educate people in the principles of Vedic cosmology is a crucial aim of the ToVP. Cosmology studies the origin and structure of the universe, and Vedic cosmology goes further, giving extensive information about its purpose and the subtle laws that govern it.

A fundamental concept pervades Vedic cosmology: Everything and everyone has a relationship with, and depends on, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Sri Krishna, the source of the creation, maintenance, and dissolution of the manifested worlds. The Vedic Planetarium and Science Center will attractively present this profound understanding. It will also provide scientific evidence that supports the idea that there is a supreme conscious intelligent being, Krishna, who is responsible for the order and complexity we observe in the universe. And the ToVP will challenge atheistic claims about human ancestry by showing through evidence and logic that life cannot come from matter and that humans could not have evolved from apes.

Five hundred years ago Mayapur was a center of learning in logic, philosophy, and theology. Today, ISKCON Mayapur hosts primary-school students as well as adults taking advanced courses in Vaishnava philosophy and practice. Mayapur's leaders, headed by His Holiness Jayapataka Swami, plan to build a university. Along with an academic education, Mayapur students also experience a practical way of life centered on devotion to God. The ToVP will be the hub of this spiritual education.

The ToVP's aim is the aim of any true temple: to attract people to God and educate them about Him. Thus, even with the emphasis on the Vedic planetarium, the ToVP is most definitely a temple—a temple with a difference, the first of its kind: the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium.

Grand and Exquisite

The ToVP will be the largest Vedic temple built in the last thousand years. Srila Prabhupada is the original ToVP architect. In letters and conversations, he clearly outlined its key features. In July 1976 he expressed his preference for the outer design of the temple. While visiting Washington, D.C., he instructed his disciples Yaduvara Dasa and Vishakha Devi Dasi to take detailed photos of the US Capitol building, which would serve as a prototype for the ToVP. The most prominent external feature of the ToVP will thus be its three towering domes. In consideration of Prabhupada's various instructions, the highest and central dome, more than three hundred feet tall, will house three sets of deities. On the left will be the disciplic succession of spiritual masters in which Srila Prabhupada came. In the center will be huge, effulgent Panca-tattva deities: Sri Krishna Chaitanya, Nityananda Prabhu, Sri Adwaita, Sri Gadadhara, and Sri Srivasa, who are already being worshiped today in the present Mayapur temple. And on the right will be the gorgeous Sri Sri Radha-Madhava and Their intimate servants the eight principal gopis(cowherd girls). The combined presence of all these deities on the 140-foot-wide ToVP altar will offer a deity darshana (viewing) unmatched in the world.

The huge temple space around the central deities will hold ten thousand devotees. The high ceiling of the dome will remind visitors of the greatness of God and inspire humility and submission to Him. Hanging inside the central dome will be a chandelier with a difference: a moving 3-D model of the structure of the universe as described in the Srimad-Bhagavatam.Visitors will be able to study the universe from multiple levels. At each level will be galleries and exhibits to explain the various aspects of the universe, along with its purpose. The highest level will take visitors on a tour of the spiritual world.

The inside walls of the central dome will be of the best marble, ornamented with gold inlays. Onyx, known for its translucence and delicacy, will adorn the altar. Two smaller domes will flank the central dome. The dome on the right will house the deity of Lord Nrisimha. Its interiors will be South Indian style and dominated by black. The dome on the left will house the Vedic Planetarium. The temple will use green architecture. For example, a state-of-the-art system for natural airflow will ventilate the central and right domes. In contrast, the Vedic Planetarium, consisting of multiple floors and seminar halls, will be fully air-conditioned.

The towering domes will be visible from miles away. Beautiful landscaping, with lawns, fountains, and ponds, will surround the temple. The massive size of the complex will awaken visitors to the temple's immense significance. The outside walls will be clad in various exquisite shades of blue, white, and gold marble of the highest quality, from the quarries of Turkey. True to its purpose of being a world temple, its architecture will be an eclectic blend of Vedic and non-Vedic styles of sacred architecture. The main entrance will be like that of a classic Vedic temple with pillars and a courtyard. The domes will be elaborately ornamented with weavings of gold. An astronomical clock similar to the famous Prague Astronomical Clock will sit above the entrance to the central dome. Eight staircase towers all around the structure will lend delightful symmetry. At night, the play of light will create another breathtaking scene. Apart from these major features, innumerable finer aspects will lend unprecedented beauty to this magnificent temple.

An Inspired Team

Srila Prabhupada requested his disciple Ambarisha Dasa (Alfred Ford, great-grandson of Henry Ford) to help build the ToVP. Taking this instruction as his very life, Ambarisha Dasa is covering a major portion of the cost. The temple construction started in 2009 and is well under way. Srila Prabhupada talked about the ToVP most with his disciple Bhavananda Dasa, who was involved for many years with the early development of the current Mayapur temple. He now serves as the creative director for the ToVP. Íadbhuja Dasa, a 22-year Mayapur veteran and project coordinator for the completion of Srila Prabhupada's Pushpa Samadhi in Mayapur, is now project director for the ToVP. Working under him are Pundarikaksha Govinda Dasa as the site project coordinator and Vilasini Devi Dasi as the consultant coordinator for architects.

Gammon India, one of the largest construction companies in India, is building the temple. Mr. Vibhuti Choudhary is the consultant. The plan is for the superstructure to be complete within the next three years, with the possibility that the deities could move in at that time. The completion of the external decorative work will take some years. As a token of love and immense gratitude for the unfathomable gift of Krishna consciousness Srila Prabhupada gave to the world, the ToVP team desires to present this grand temple to him in 2016, the fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of ISKCON.

Srila Prabhupada said that the ToVP already exists—Bhaktivinoda Thakura saw it. Whatever the Lord desires will manifest. What remains is to put the bricks and cement and steel and paint in their place. Srila Prabhupada explained that Krishna showed Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra that He had already killed Arjuna's enemies and Arjuna only had to fire his arrows and become an instrument for the victory. Similarly, whoever helps build the ToVP will become an instrument of the Lord in fulfilling His cherished desire to see His message spread everywhere in the world.

Srila Prabhupada named the present Mayapur temple complex "Sri Mayapur Chandrodaya Mandir." Chandrodaya means "rising moon," indicating that the moon of Lord Chaitanya's mercy will rise in Mayapur and spread around the world. Srila Prabhupada once said in reference to the ToVP, "The plans and contemplations are going on in different phases; now when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu will be pleased, it will be taken up." That time has come. With the rise of the ToVP, the resplendent moon of Lord Chaitanya will ascend further and bathe the world with the most pleasing moonlight of love of God.

The God Logic

This article appeared in the November-December issue of the Back To Godhead (International) magazine.

Can scientists accept God?

Many modern scientific-minded people find it hard to accept that God exists. The scientific method consists of conducting physical experiments and verifying the results, and God just doesn't seem to fit in: He can't be produced or studied in a laboratory, His behavior can't be analyzed, His interactions with elements can't be plotted on a graph. But throughout history the realm of science has expanded, with newer tools and methods enhancing the power of experimentation and perception. It's about time we expand it more.

God and the Scientific Method

Spirituality is as scientific and logical as any branch of science. To understand how, we need to first understand the general definition of the scientific method. In principle, the scientific method consists of collecting data through observation and experimentation, and then formulating and testing a hypothesis. Subsequent experiments then try to prove or disprove the hypothesis. If the results of the experiments match the predictions of the hypothesis, the hypothesis gains credence. Otherwise, ideally at least, the hypothesis is discarded. (Unfortunately, hypotheses are often prematurely accepted as truth. The Big Bang theory and black holes are examples of this.)

We can quite easily apply the scientific method in our quest for spiritual truths. Around us in nature we see laws, design, beauty, majesty, symmetry, intricacy, and so on. We can surely hypothesize the existence of a supremely intelligent being who is the source of all that exists. Many of the most celebrated scientists and thinkers have expressed such views. For example, Isaac Newton said, "The wonderful arrangement and harmony of the cosmos would only originate in the plan of an almighty omniscient being. This is, and remains, my greatest comprehension."

The scriptures of most major religions have always asserted the existence of God. Along with assertions, they detail processes by which one can perceive God in lesser or greater degrees. For example, in the Srimad-Bhagavatam (2.9.31) Lord Vishnu says, "Knowledge about Me as described in the scriptures is very confidential, and it has to be realized in conjunction with devotional service. The necessary paraphernalia for that process is being explained by Me. You may take it up carefully."

Following scriptures and sincere devotees of God is not blind faith. It is accepting the existence of God as a sound hypothesis, and then experimenting, by following the prescribed process, to establish or disprove the hypothesis. By sincere effort on a well-documented path

revealed in the scriptures, one can perceive God.

Initially, a little bit of reasonable faith (hypothesis) is required to start off (experiment) on a path suggested by the scriptures and the devotees of God. A systematic understanding of the science of God fortifies one's faith, which strengthens even more when one sees that the results of following the process match the theory. And the fortified faith, in turn, inspires one to follow the process even more sincerely, leading to even deeper experiences of God. As with any other form of learning, a teacher advanced in the practice of the science is a must. One can take practical instructions from the teacher, ask him deep questions, and study the scriptures under his guidance. Of course, the teacher must a devotee of God; otherwise how can he guide his students toward direct perception of God? As Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad-Gita (4.34), "Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realized souls can impart knowledge unto you because they have seen the truth."

Direct Experience

Even though God is beyond the perception of the common man, He appreciates the sincerity of the seeker's efforts and responds accordingly. To the degree that God reciprocates, the internal world (essentially the desires) of the seeker transforms. Although direct audience with God is difficult to achieve quickly, one can reap many other tangible results in a short time, and thereby gain confidence in the scriptural instructions.

A sincere seeker's realizations are in line with the principles of the scriptures, and therefore are not hallucinations. Powerful transcendentalists in all spiritual traditions have spoken or written about their experiences with God. To discard all their experiences as irrelevant is presumptuous. Furthermore, realization of spiritual truths helps the practitioner lead a better, more meaningful life, and to have better control of his life than others. While results of material processes can be verified in a laboratory, the results of spiritual ones can be verified in the laboratory of one's own heart. Lust, greed, anger, and other dirty things in the heart reduce drastically and quickly when one practices spiritual processes. The practitioner can easily verify these internal transformations, which manifest externally in the form of positive changes in one's life. A person progressing spiritually will give up bad habits like intoxication, increase spiritual activities like prayer and meditation, and improve in qualities like patience, mercy, cleanliness, and tolerance.

Along with these changes comes the lasting joy of spiritual happiness. The practitioner discovers a positive energy driven by the lofty goal of spiritual progress and enjoys the process itself. Spiritual activities are natural to the soul, and consequently the most joyful.

These tangible results inspire the practitioner to continue following the process, leading to more results, all of which are tangible. In fact, what was abstract and theoretical yesterday

becomes practical and tangible today. What was once just the word of scripture becomes the reality of one's own life. What more proof could one ask for?

In the Bhagavad-gîtå (9.2) Lord Sri Krishna summarizes this point succinctly: "This knowledge [spiritual knowledge] is the king of education, the most secret of all secrets. It is the purest knowledge, and because it gives direct perception of the self by realization, it is the perfection of religion. It is everlasting, and it is joyfully performed."

It's a Science

Following a spiritual process as described above is as scientific as the so-called scientific method. Spirituality is a verifiable science, and moreover, it is genuinely helpful to everyone who practices it. The tools and methods for practicing this science might not be prevalent in the scientific world today, but surely the ancient wisdom traditions suffered from no such handicap. Their system of logic and reasoning did not exclude God from its domain; on the contrary, all their logic was used to eventually establish the existence of God as an undeniable fact. Indeed, theirs was the God logic.

Scientific Preaching

Dear All,

I had the great fortune of being with H.G. Chaitanya Charan Prabhu (August 01, 2007) when he was instructing us on the topic of “Scientific Preaching”. Here is a write-up on the main points from that lecture.

A kanishta adhikari is one who sees God only in the temple. But a madhyama adhikari sees the relationship with Krishna as omnidirectional, i.e. every activity he can see as connected to Krishna. Without such knowledge, materialistic people are engaged in what is called “ugra-karma”. Bhagavad Gita 16.8-9 describes “ugra karma”. Its characteristics are that it is (i) at best unbeneficial, and (ii) at worst destructive. Moreover, in the modern society, such work is considered progressive.

Srila Prabhupada used to say that we want to change the way people think!

….

Why Preach Scientifically?

[1] As an expression of love for Krishna. To counter blasphemy.

How we react to atheistic scientific theories also affects our own spiritual progress! We can see how Srila Prabhupada openly challenged atheistic scientific theories. Why? Because if one really has bhakti, he will naturally want to strongly challenge the atheistic theories.

In this connection Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Prabhupada used to say that those who criticize the devotees for criticizing the blasphemers are themselves on the kanishta platform.

[2] To counter the strong intellectual hostility against God

In today’s world, spirituality is either downplayed or totally denied. Srila Prabhupada found that the main reason for this was the Darwin’s Theory of evolution. By preaching scientifically, we want to create a favorable situation for preaching Krishna Consciousness. Once Darwinism is defeated, Krishna Consciousness will really flourish!

Srila Prabhupada was not interested in preaching only to disillusioned hippies or peasants who do not know anything about the materialistic way of life. On the contrary, he was interested in preaching to those who strongly propagated the materialistic way of life!

[3] To remove the misconceptions from people’s minds about the existence of soul and God.

The misconceptions about the existence of the soul and God ultimately lead to the situation described in Bhagavad Gita verse 16.8. It creates atheists who say that the world is unreal, without a Supreme controller God, has come by chance, and has only one purpose – sex enjoyment. The atheistic philosophy thus leads to the understanding that sense gratification is the goal of life.

….

This kind of scientific preaching is not non-devotional. H. H. Bhakti Tirtha Swami Maharaj defines a preacher as one who removes the obstacles between the conditioned soul and Krishna. One such great obstacle is the doubts created in the mind by modern science. We have to prove that science does not point in the direction of atheism.

Yours in the service of Krishna,
Abhijit.

Sincerely In Search Of Truth!

Dear All,

I have a very intense desire to know the Truth. I am ready to take it even if it is painful to digest. I wont say that I am not hurt by pain, but I will surely say that I would welcome that pain if that’s what is required to know the truth. All my childhood life, I had been subconsciously searching out for the truth and after that in my youthhood, I have been very consciously searching out for the Truth. I just have to know the Truth! Perhaps such a quest is termed as philosophical, but I don’t really care what it is termed as by others. All I know is “I want to know the Truth”.

With this background, perhaps my readers can now appreciate why I painstakingly right logical arguments in a lot of articles. However, I would like to add that understanding God is by definition of God, beyond logic. This statement suddenly seems to deflate all the high sounding things I have written in the first para.. but if you think deep enough, it just gets us back to the question “am I ready to accept the truth even though it doesn’t make sense to me at this moment?” Note that we are talking about truth, that which exists without any other support. Truth is truth whether one likes it or not.

However, it also does not mean that one cannot understand anything about God. Saying that it is beyond logic does not mean that there are no other means. The other means we will come to later once there is an honest acceptance of the limitations of logic to understand or express something beyond its domain. Any elementary logician will accept that. One cannot prove properties on fractions in a logical system that defines only integers and transformations on them. Similarly, one cannot prove properties of the inconceivable potencies of God with a logical system that only defines conceivable things and their conceivable transformations. Unless one accepts the limitations of contemporary scientific logic, how can one wholeheartedly focus on a superior logic that explains God quite easily. Why? Because that logic is based on the axiom that God exists and has inconceivable qualities!

No logician can logically argue against an axiomatic system for the simple reason that all practical logical systems are axiomatic. The number theory (who has not heard about it?) is based on the undefined axiom of the point. So, does that mean arithmetic is not a valid truth? In fact, throughout the (quite short) history of modern science, the observations have come first, the hypothesis next, and then the logical systems that were built around the observations so as to mathematically model the perceivable observations. And remember, these logical systems are all based on unverifiable or undefined assumptions which are called axioms!

Modern science accepts (should accept) a theory (or a logical system) only when that theory explains all observable events in that particular domain. Even if the theory is based on axioms (which it always is), as long as it can explain all observations in the particular domain, that theory has some merit. However, as soon as the theory falls short in explaining an event in that domain, the theory is no longer valid and has to be either totally rejected or modified to incorporate the new observation while still able to retain the other observations in its provables. A well known example of how well established logical and mathematical systems can prove ineffective in certain circumstances is how the laws of linear geometry don’t apply in curved spaces. For example, in curved spaces, parallel lines can meet!

But truth, by definition, is unchangeable.

What this means is that a theory constructed by a human being does not represent the truth. It represents a mathmatization (or philosophization) of the observations so far in a limited domain of human perception. And what to speak of the realm of the imperceptible? No scientist or philosopher can claim that his theory or philosophy is the last word in realizing the truth. Any theory or philosophy has to always by definition lag the truth!

This is what I want to establish by this article. That a theory or a system of logic coming out of the human brain can never claim that it is perfect. In fact such a theory will kill the modern understanding of scientific research! How will scientists earn a living if the perfect scientific theory is discovered? Perhaps this is one of the concerns of modern scientists in not accepting the perfect science of God as it is given by the spiritual masters (scientists) of the ancient times. The truth never changes and thus the science given by them is equally valid even today and will always be valid in the future eternally.

So then, is scientific research or philosophical research a waste of time? Yes and No. Yes, if one is concocting a hypothesis based on observations made by undoubtedly limited and imperfect senses, and then constructing a scientific theory or philosophy around it just to satisfy ones intellectual hankering and/or perhaps to get some fame. No, if the scientific research and philosophical understanding is directed towards trying to better understand the already well known and universally accepted Absolute Truth – The Supreme Personality of Godhead!

Having said this, I want to assert that the intent of this particular article is not to prove that God exists or to get into an argument with those who believe otherwise. As I have already mentioned clearly earlier in this article, any theory, whether proposing the existence of God or proposing His non-existence, coming from the limited human intellect, is bound to be imperfect. However, the truth remains irrespective of whether we have a theory that supports it or not. And the human endeavor should be to find out what it is!

Once reaching this mutual understanding that there in no evidence that any theory coming from human intellect can possibly explain all that exists, all the parties involved will be forced to think of alternative ways to find out the truth. This I am saying assuming that all parties are really interested in the truth and not in personal fame and/or in gratifying their own intellectual hankerings.

So, what is the way to get perfect knowledge? The Bhagavad Gita comes to our rescue! Just ask someone who knows it, a bona fide spiritual master, because he has seen the truth! He has seen it because he followed the instructions of his own spiritual master. And so on.. And the original spiritual master is? Yes, you guessed it – God! In the absence of any evidence contrary to this, one has no choice but to accept this method. It saves time too! For a person eager to know the Truth, this is exactly the method. If one carefully analyses this system of ways and means and the ultimate goal (achieving love of God), and carefully studies under the guidance of the bona fide spiritual master, then that person will no doubt realize that this system is more robust than any that has ever been built by modern science. He will realize that this is as scientific (or even more so) than the so called scientific theories of modern science.

But, that initial step forward is required. One has to start following the process to appreciate the system and the philosophy. Any sincere seeker of the truth will take this step, but not those who are not really looking for the truth.

Let me conclude with this : I am not against science. But I am also very much eager to know the truth. And I rather take it from a source that has never got amended (Vedic literature) as instructed by a pure saintly person than from a source that has always proven to be inadequate (modern science with its innumerable amendments) practiced by people full of desires for personal fame and glory and who would not hesitate to change their experimental observations just to prove a theory that they have proposed.

Thank you,
Abhijit.