Saturday is Hindu Day in Melbourne
BY: KURMA DASA


Aug 27, USA (SUN) — ISKCON Melbourne Temple is a special place of worship, and is of great significance here in Australia. As is the case for all ISKCON temples worldwide, Melbourne too, has a unique connection to our Divine Spiritual Master, Srila Prabhupada. We can see this on the DVD's of Srila Prabhupada's visits here.


The temple is run by Aniruddha dasa and his wife, and quite frankly, you would be hard pressed to find someone better for the job. Fortunately for Melbourne, the fanatics and crooks have not been able to get their foot in the door for this position, but there are plenty of wolves and their supporters waiting at the door. Melbourne's Temple President is a person who takes his spiritual practice very seriously, someone you could depend on in upholding his vows -- a very good man.


A Temple President's position becomes difficult at a street level, where all the various forms of political lobbying are manifest, and it would be very hard for any Temple President to get a handle on this, especially with such a large amount of Hindus now visiting the temples.


The whole Hindu thing sits well with a bogus guru philosophy, because of the natural sentiment Hindus display toward the many varieties of sadhus within India, even the cheating ones. I think ISKCON's many gurus know this. They see the Hindu-ization of ISKCON as a good thing, something that will keep their $-funds rolling in.


Every Saturday at ISKCON's Melbourne temple is Hindu day. The Hindu community practically have control of the whole temple, including the worship of the Deities. You may never see the pujaris for this day during the week, so are they weekend pujaris? This is certainly of serious concern if Srila Prabhupada's standards are compromised, and in many areas they are.


The temple has at least two imported and salaried cooks from India, and many quasi-style ceremonies are now turning up at the Temple. For example, I have personally seen (more than once) one of the temples pujaris out in the front on the street doing a puja in someone's car. I assume this is a blessing of the car.


12,000 guests visiting a temple is a wonderful thing. How could we not want this? However, we must draw the line when it comes to Srila Prabhupada's standards. The fact is, the standards are getting lax, to cater for Hinduism.


As far as we know, Melbourne's temple only has two full-time Indian brahmacharis. This is poor, considering the amount of Indians visiting the Temple. Most Indians don't want to become Hare Krishna's, they simply want to attend and get a blessing. There is nothing wrong with this, provided Srila Prabhupada's standards are not compromised, and the Indians are not simply seen as a source of money.

Kurma Dasa (not the chef)