"We will establish hundreds of temples, and they will all be very opulent. But if we do not follow the instruction of the Spiritual Master, they will just be showbottle. Do you know what showbottle means? It means colored water in a bottle which looks just like medicine, but which does not work." (Srila Prabhupada Room conversation NY July 1970)
[PADA: Right, this is a nice warning, the temples were being opened in the 1970s and were doing nicely, but as soon as the worship became show bottle, their buildings became empty -- because the worship of show bottle gurus is not potent.
This is what Srila Prabhupada is warning about herein, we may have many buildings, but if the worship is show bottle, then there will be problems, and there has been problems.
Srila Prabhupada also said, opening temples is a sign people are following the spiritual master, because that is a sign Krishna is blessing the preaching. He also said (apart from anything else he ordered) -- he ordered that we need to open more and more temples in the first place, that is his direct order, and apart from the Prabhupadanugas, that is one instruction hardly anyone else is following at all?
He also said, not only make more and more nice temples, but MAINTAIN the temples we have already. Right now, many of the GBC's temples are in bad repair because they are not even maintaining the temples they already have. And they even shut down some of the most important ISKCON temples, like the San Francisco temple, because they mis-managed it so badly, its now a laundry mat.
So I have to drive by there today and offer my obeisances to a laundry mat, which is where I first met Srila Prabhupada when it was a temple, because the GBC turned that sacred place into a dry cleaners and laundry place. Not only show bottle, they could not even keep the show bottle program going. They lost the entire program, the temple -- and all the devotees and contents in it, a total loss, due to show bottle worship of bogus people. So make nice temples and have nice worship and it will expand and be a success, that is what he said, and we see that practically going on. Our Prabhupadanuga temples are expanding and having success, theirs are often in ill repair, if not closing down for good. ys pd]
"We will establish hundreds of temples, and they will all be very opulent. But if we do not follow the instruction of the Spiritual Master, they will just be showbottle. Do you know what showbottle means? It means colored water in a bottle which looks just like medicine, but which does not work." (Srila Prabhupada Room conversation NY July 1970)
ReplyDelete[PADA: Right, this is a nice warning, the temples were being opened in the 1970s and were doing nicely, but as soon as the worship became show bottle, their buildings became empty -- because the worship of show bottle gurus is not potent.
This is what Srila Prabhupada is warning about herein, we may have many buildings, but if the worship is show bottle, then there will be problems, and there has been problems.
Srila Prabhupada also said, opening temples is a sign people are following the spiritual master, because that is a sign Krishna is blessing the preaching. He also said (apart from anything else he ordered) -- he ordered that we need to open more and more temples in the first place, that is his direct order, and apart from the Prabhupadanugas, that is one instruction hardly anyone else is following at all?
He also said, not only make more and more nice temples, but MAINTAIN the temples we have already. Right now, many of the GBC's temples are in bad repair because they are not even maintaining the temples they already have. And they even shut down some of the most important ISKCON temples, like the San Francisco temple, because they mis-managed it so badly, its now a laundry mat.
So I have to drive by there today and offer my obeisances to a laundry mat, which is where I first met Srila Prabhupada when it was a temple, because the GBC turned that sacred place into a dry cleaners and laundry place. Not only show bottle, they could not even keep the show bottle program going. They lost the entire program, the temple -- and all the devotees and contents in it, a total loss, due to show bottle worship of bogus people. So make nice temples and have nice worship and it will expand and be a success, that is what he said, and we see that practically going on. Our Prabhupadanuga temples are expanding and having success, theirs are often in ill repair, if not closing down for good. ys pd]
Love the scale of this drawing. Some of the people in it are two times as large as the cars!
ReplyDelete