Sri Sri Rukmini-Dvarkadish
BY: BHUTATMA DASA
Aug 27, 2011 — LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA (SUN) — Written for the Los Angeles Temple's 2011 Janmastami magazine.
sri-vigraharadhana-nitya-nana
shringaira-tan-mandira-marjanadau
yuktasya bhaktamsh cha niyunjato pi
vande guroh sri-charanaravindam
"The spiritual master is always engaged in the temple worship of Sri Sri Radha and Krsna. He also engages his disciples in such worship. They dress the Deities in beautiful clothes and ornaments, clean Their temple, and perform other similar worship of the Lord. I offer my respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of such a spiritual master."
Srila Prabhupada described offering service to the arca-vigraha as analogous to placing a letter in an authorized post box. Because the mailbox is an extension of the federal postal service, any letter placed within it is duly delivered, just as if one had directly brought it to the central post office. Understanding this truth, we offer our service to Their Lordships Sri Rukmini-Dvarkadish, fully confident that our service is accepted by Krishna, the Original Person. Yet Srila Prabhupada not only instructed us in the knowledge of arca-vigraha, he also revealed his personal loving attachment to the Deity Form of the Lord. Such direct manifestation of his divine attachment was at the heart of the wonderful morning programs in New Dvarka, when Srila Prabhupada led the assembled Vaishnavas in greeting the Deities.
Arriving from his morning walks at Venice Beach or Cheviot Hills Park, Prabhupada would enter the temple room just as the Govindam prayers began, stirring a spiritual excitement in the hearts of the awaiting devotees. Here was Prabhupada, smiling and confident, the bona fide representative of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Here was Prabhupada, the joyous revolutionary, bearer of the Great Chanting for Deliverance. With perfect intelligence he challenged and defeated all our preconceptions and illusions, while his supreme love opened our hearts to the realm of selfless service and the light of the Godhead. And now we were about to share an hour of sweet transcendence with this most wonderful person--- greeting the Deities, singing the Jaya Radha Madhava prayers, and hearing Srimad Bhagavatam from the self-realized acarya, just as, millennia ago, the sages did in the Naimasarayan Forest.
When the class ended, Nanda Kumar, Prabhupada's servant at the time, would gather up the mrdunga and step to the microphone to lead the singing. A mood of sweet surrender enveloped the temple room, and as the kirtan gently swelled in tempo and intensity, all eyes gazed on Prabhupada, regally seated upon his Vyasana, deep in the ecstasy of sravanam-kirtanam. Looking around the temple room I would see my dear Godbrothers and Godsisters---Jayatirtha and Danavir, hands uplifted and swaying in bliss, Sachi Devi, moving gracefully to the divine rhythm, and Nalinikantha, letting the transcendental vibration lift him beyond the confines of space and time. And, smiling over us all, both Their perfect pure devotee and the 100 "happys" who still struggled to get up before dawn, were the beautiful and kind Deities.
These morning programs with Prabhupada were special beyond compare. They seemed to create an enduring mood that pervaded life in the temple, making it an incredible experience in self-realization. In such a surcharged atmosphere, the distinction between Krishna and maya seemed stark, even for neophyte devotees. False egoism was laid bare, exposed as vain and silly, and, like chocolate smeared on the face of a messy three-year-old child, immediately apparent to all our fellow sojourners. As such, any display of pride or attempt at self-aggrandizement would be met with gentle reminders from a Godbrother or Godsister, perhaps only in the form of a gesture, that service to Krishna is free of such pettiness and illusion, and that humility is the necessary state of mind for chanting the Holy Names.
The appearance of the Rukmini-Dvarkadish Deities in Los Angeles Temple goes back to this time, and the story of Their arrival in New Dvarka may not be known to everyone. They were, in fact, originally to be installed in San Francisco Temple, as Kesava dasa and I had arranged with Prabhupada's traveling secretary, the inimitable Shyamasundar dasa, to have Them carved in India by one whom he described as the "best Deity sculptor in India". No temple in the West, or perhaps anywhere in ISKCON at that time, had full-sized marble Deities, and we took Shyamasundar's offer to arrange for Their carving and shipping as a real blessing.
They did indeed arrive as Shyamsundar promised, and when notified that They were available to be picked up, Kesava and I raced to the docks to bring Them back to Their new home. Beginning with the first shipping crate, we carefully pried open the lid and cautiously lifted the heavy wooden cover. Once the top was removed, the thick layer of packing straw still allowed us only a slight glimpse of the Deity, so we slowly bent down to brush it away. Once it was cleared back we both gasped and stared in astonishment at the vision of Radharani's radiant moonlike face smiling up at us. Kesava clutched my arm; we felt stunned and overjoyed, as if we had been given a peek into the spiritual world.
We returned with the Deities to San Francisco Temple, planning to install Them once all preparations had been made. At the same time we had received our 48" marble deities, a 24" set of brass Radha-Krishna Deities had come to New Dvaraka. Supervised by head pujari Silavati devi dasi, the Deity worship in Los Angeles Temple was elaborate, and compared to San Francisco, far more time and money was dedicated to Deity outfits, flower arrangements, backdrops, and so forth. So it was not so surprising when Kesava's elder brother, GBC secretary Karandhar dasa, rang us up with a suggestion: why don't we exchange New Jagannath Puri's newly acquired large marble deities for New Dvarka's smaller brass ones? After all, he explained, even with 50 plus devotees, San Francisco is essentially a sankirtan temple, the birthplace and driving force of book distribution, where many of the prabhus are off on traveling SKP for weeks or months at a time! Well, we were pretty loyal and surrendered, and the logic was sound, so we agreed to the proposal and dutifully took our brand new, but already very dear to heart, Deities to New Dvaraka.
The installation ceremony in Los Angeles Mandir was gorgeous, and in recognition of our sacrifice Kesava and I were granted the privilege of carrying Them up to the altar during the ceremony. Some years later, the new temple room was opened in what had been the main church area before ISKCON purchased it. Rukmini-Dvarkadish were of course transferred there, and remain to this day; growing ever more beautiful as They are wonderfully served and worshipped by Their devotees.
Shortly after the Los Angeles Temple installation ceremony, we installed Radha-Gokulanada (personally named by His Divine Grace) in San Francisco. To take advantage of Prabhupada's proximity, we had arranged some preaching programs in the Bay Area, and Prabhupada traveled to new Jagganath Puri for his initial visit since Their installation. On his first morning at the temple, I stood behind him as he greeted the Deities, pouring the carnamrta into his palm and following his lead in offering dandavats. I had been dressing Radha-Gokulanda for some months, and although it was deeply enlivening to have Prabhupada visiting our temple, momentarily, in some corner of my mind, there lingered a speck of consternation. Here I stood next to the most intimate servitor of Their Lordships, and it occurred to me that They might take the opportunity to tell him I must be removed from my Deity service; I was too fallen, they might point out, and my extended presence each morning was unpleasant for Them. I was also aware that our dressing and decorations were not as lavish as New Dvaraka, where Prabhupada was headquartered during his visits to the West, and that Prabhupada might be dissatisfied that our standards were less opulent.
But in one glance all my concerns were completely dismissed, for as the altar doors opened and he greeted Their Lordships Sri Sri Radha-Gokulanada, Prabhupada, with tears of affection in his eyes and his voice husky with emotion, turned to me and asked who had sewn such a lovely outfit for his Lordships. "Kastorika devi dasi," I replied, feeling humbled, and blessed, and understanding that all had come to pass as Krishna had wanted. We had all played our parts as His servants, and Srila Prabhupada, the Lord's confidential emissary, had come to these shores to show us the mellows of the Lord's pastimes.
