By Cody Clark
Sometimes being in the right place at the right time means being in the middle of Utah’s largest city in the throes of an economic recession. It’s an unlikely combination of factors that is helping Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork expand its worship and cultural offerings into Salt Lake County.
A new Krishna temple housed inside a former elementary school in Salt Lake City is already offering limited worship and programs, and the new temple will hold its first festival today, with Krishna Janmastami, the celebration of the Hindu deity Lord Krishna’s birth. The temple will be a satellite of the Spanish Fork edifice in some respects, but is already forging its own identity.
Krishna Janmastami will be celebrated at both temples (the Spanish Fork event is being held Sunday), but the Salt Lake temple will host its first signature, standalone event, the Great Salt Lake Yoga Fest, on Sept. 3.
Caru Das, temple priest at the Spanish Fork temple, said that he’s been thinking about a second temple in Salt Lake City for years, but that, until recently, the high cost of real estate had always kept his dream at bay. He also wanted to find a site with the right combination of natural beauty and relative calm. As Das put it, “Some of the things I thought might be OK for a meeting place didn’t have nice natural surroundings.”
The property Das eventually acquired is a school building on a 4-acre parcel formerly owned by a Seventh-day Adventist congregation.
When he toured the property in December, Das said, he knew immediately that he’d found the right place: “I thought, ‘This is it. This is why we weren’t able to find something before now.’” The Seventh-day Adventist location, he feels, was meant to be.
The two faith groups share some beliefs, such as vegetarianism, and Das said that an atmosphere of mutual respect helped to seal the deal. “We’ve kind of bonded in the process,” Das said. “We were told right from the beginning that they wanted us to have it.”
The Spanish Fork temple has been a haven for many Krishnas in Salt Lake County and further north, but travel has always limited participation in worship and cultural events for some. Ramesh Goel, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Utah, has made regular trips with his family to Spanish Fork since moving to Salt Lake City from India in 2006.
Having a temple in Salt Lake City, said Goel, 40, is like a dream come true. “Spanish Fork is great, but far away,” he said. “The whole community needs something here.”
Festivals and community events
The primary purpose for having a temple in Salt Lake City is to serve the small but growing Hindu population, but Krishna temples are also somewhat like community centers.
Being in Utah, Das said, “we recognize that the percentage of people who are going to become involved because of the worship aspects is very small.” In that sense, he said, the temple is also a “cultural resource.”
Das said he expects that Salt Lake City temple, with wi-fi and, eventually, a sandwich shop and vegetarian buffet, to become an occasional haven for students at the nearby University of Utah. And the temple also will host community events that showcase aspects of Hindu culture, beginning with the Great Salt Lake Yoga Fest.
“We’ll be bringing in yoga practitioners from all of the schools in Salt Lake City,” Das said. “There will be different spiritual groups and bands, exhibits, all different kinds of workshops.”
Many events at the Spanish Fork temple are either free or have only a nominal fee — it’s just $3 to attend the annual Llama Fest — and Das said that prices will be low for the inaugural yoga fest. A three-day pass to the entire event is just $25.
Eventually, Das said, the Salt Lake Temple will offer tours and host festivals similar to the popular Holi and Diwali events in Spanish Fork. Some of the Spanish Fork events also will be held in Salt Lake City, and others will be unique to one location or the other.
The Spanish Fork temple is largely supported by volunteers. Vraja Sundari Dasi, a full-time volunteer in Spanish Fork, said that the Spanish Fork staff is helping to support the Salt Lake City temple, but that Salt Lake City volunteers have already begun to take part.
One person who’s ready to pitch in is Pakhi Misra, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker who lives in Salt Lake City. Misra, 36, said that having a Krishna temple in Salt Lake City has already been “a wonderful experience. I’m very excited to volunteer my time here.”
What does a Krishna temple look like?
The Spanish Fork Krishnas closed on the Salt Lake City property at the end of May, and held a formal opening with about 400 people in attendance July 23. Das said that a whirlwind renovation is still in progress, but that the school building has many highly suitable features already. “The gymnasium has a beautiful wooden floor with an arched wooden ceiling,” Das said. “It’s just a fantastic showplace.”
A former classroom is now a temple room, for meditation and worship, and there will be a large gift shop on the premises as well. Goel said that the fact that Seventh-day Adventists built the property and owned it provided an unexpected benefit that would have been difficult to find in many other existing structures. “They never cooked any non-vegetarian food there,” he said.
Das said that taking over an existing structure, instead of building one, provided another benefit. “Right from the beginning,” he said, “there’s a return on the amount that we spent. In Spanish Fork, when we built that temple, there was nothing coming in. That was nerve wracking for me. This is a walk in the park. This is fun, this is easy, this is great.”
Another key difference is that, unlike the temple in Spanish Fork, built from the ground up by the Krishnas and dedicated in 2001, the Salt Lake City temple doesn’t have any distinctive and breathtaking Hindu architecture. For the time being, the exterior of the building will retain most of its original features.
Misra said that’s just fine for now. It’s what happens inside the building that makes it special. “Every time I come here,” she said, “the musicians are performing. It feels so very peaceful to come in and hear that.”
Das chuckled when asked whether that Salt Lake City temple’s unremarkable exterior might create a sense that something is missing from the property.
“What’s missing is the $5 million it would take to build it,” he said. “We’re fully committed. We’ve done nothing but expand since the day we arrived. Just give us a few years, and then we’ll start talking about new construction.”
Caru Prabhu and his wife Vaibhavi devi dasi are like touchstones…
Whatever they touch becomes like gold…
They are undoubtly blessed by their spiritual master, Srila Prabhupada, who grants them some incredible results in their seva… Hence, they offer an example, worth learning and drawing inspiration from !
Here are some of the ingredients of their success, as far as I could witness on the occasion of a short stay at the lotus temple, one and a half year ago…
– Talent: they both engage their material skills and talents in Guru & Krishna’s service.
For instance, Vaibhavi is an artist and remarkable painter, who ventured into the field of architecture to plan the layout of the lotus temple in Spanish Fork and supervise its construction….
– Creativity: they dare experiment and venture into new ways of communication with the outside world and fund raising.
For instance, they raise llamas and rent them to people hiking in the surrounding mountains. Similarly, they sell peacock feathers and, as many of you know, they raise tremendous amount of lakshmi each year, thanks to the original, unique and largest Holi festival outside of India they organize each year, gathering thousands of young people from all over the State and beyond!
Caru Prabhu has also an interesting way of lecturing to the public, standing while displaying a power-point presentation on a screen behind him…
– Simplicity: they don’t put on a show, act and behave with simplicity, and thereby easily bridge the gap with outside people. Moreover, their non-assertive nature, enables them to befriend people of other faith, such as the Mormons. Being tolerant of others’ faith, others tend to be tolerant with theirs…
– Practicality: they have some nice furniture imported from India for people to sit both in part of the lotus temple room and in the restaurant, by the gift shop, where they organize a nice vegetarian self-service. Similarly, they are already thinking of doing the same, plus of selling sandwiches to the large number of students in Salt Lake City…
– Progressive preaching approach and strategy: For instance, they organize yoga classes, run by a nice devotee, Sri Hanuman Prabhu, who is also expert in martial arts. In this way, people of other faiths, learn to come to the temple for some side purpose and befriend with the devotees on a non-committing basis, which gradually breeds within them a taste for more association and knowledge…
– Welfare work: they are also involved in youth rehabilitation, which played a big role in their being welcome and respected members of their community. They also took part in Food Relief on several occasions.
– etc.
There would be some scope for more praise, but I do not wish to put their modesty under assault any further, otherwise they may put a ban on me (just kidding) and deprive me from any future association with their success, which is something any enthusiastic devotee would naturally aspire taking part in and contributing to…
Hoping they may get all the help and assistance they deserve, so that Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, may become more appreciated in a State where His son, Jesus, is already highly worshiped…
Their servant in the service of Srila Prabhupada
Puskaraksa das