By Murli Manohara dasa
Dear Friends and Well Wishers,
You have no doubt heard about our campaign to collect 10,000 names to assist in requesting land in Regents Park for a new temple for the International Society of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).
Following the launch of the campaign at our 44th Anniversary Event in November 2013, so far we have approximately 2,500 signatures. Although the collection of signatures has not been happening as fast as anticipated, we are working hard to encourage all friends and well-wishers of ISKCON to take part. We humbly request you to please continue to inform all your family and friends about the campaign and encourage them to sign up. This can be done using the following link: www.londontemple.co.uk
You will also be interested to know that we have recently formed a New Temple Committee who are meeting regularly to discuss all issues regarding building a beautiful new temple for Sri Sri Radha-Londonisvara and Their growing community of devotees.
Our bold request of requiring land in Regents Park is in pursuit of Srila Prabhupada’s instructions to his disciples when he was personally present in London, but we are also taking into consideration that Srila Prabhupada was very pragmatic in his plans to spread Krishna Consciousness. In this regard, Srila Prabhupada was also requesting his disciples to consider other locations in London for a temple should Regents Park not be available. Our New Temple Committee is thus also pursuing this same mood.
Other issues we are discussing at present includes the timing of our campaign, especially in consideration of the magnificent Temple of Vedic Planetarium (TOVP) which is now being built in Sri Dhama Mayapur. In order to ensure its speedy completion, the leaders of ISKCON are requesting that all other major projects are put on hold until it’s opening.
In the meantime, we are therefore continuing to build up a team of committed devotees who are presently working on the design and strategy of a new temple in London. It’s a big project and requires careful planning along with patience and determination.
In our next news update we hope to show you a proposed initial design of the new Temple. So stay tuned for that.
We are open for feedback and welcome any questions that you might have as well any way that you feel you can assist. Please get in touch with us at newtempleproject@iskcon-london.org. We also request that you continue to encourage others to sign our petition. If the request for land in Regents Park is not accepted we will greatly value taking your signatures as positive support for a new Temple for Sri Sri Radha-Londonisvara in central London.
Thanking you in advance for your support.
Your servant,
Murli Manohara dasa
On behalf of the New Temple Committee
Prabhu, I wonder would you be stressing to the city council that a proposed temple in this park would be – from their point of view – a beautiful tourist attraction? London is competing with New York, Paris, etc as being the world’s top cities, and you want to help them keep London in front.
Plus if the proposed building was strikingly unique (for example, the Sydney Opera House is strikingly unique) that may help to sway them in favour. A wild idea, but if you could mix a Stonehenge native-looking arrangement with a Vedic temple – or just do something no one has ever done before, they may take interest. Plus, in delicately chosen words, if you were ever to hint that the British Empire in India accumulated some bad karma in the sense of taking wealth that wasn’t theirs, but that this temple would be a due return to Mother India and Vedic Culture. But that’s a delicate area!!