Temple Visit

As I was shopping in London today, I decided to pop into the local Hare Krishna temple. Yes, there is a Krishna temple smack dab in the middle of London! It's been quite a while since I've been there; I used to be a regular visitor but my interest seems to have waned sorta, none of my friends are around anymore and they seem to be selling the same old books. Although I did pop in because I am interested in buying the final part of the Caitanya-bhagavata series and I wanted to see if they have it.

Unfortunately they didn't, but I ended up buying a VCD of Srimad Gour Govinda Swami's lecture instead. I was surprised to see it there - and on sale too! - because despite my reading of his books and my deep admiration for him, I had never seen him "live" on video and I thought this would be a good opportunity to see it. They also had the Vishnu Purana by H.H. Wilson there. I had seen it before and I found the reference to Kalki last time but I couldn't find it today. It was incredibly hot today and sweat was pouring off my face. I would like to keep that Kalki reference on record, but I am specifically interested in Wilson's translation of the Padma Purana. I haven't seen that yet.

It is unlikely that I would have bought the CB if I was there because of their unnecessarily high prices, but I thought I'd just go and take a look at it anyway. I might have bought it if the mood had taken me, but I guess I can wait. I have enough of the previous volumes to read anyway!

Good thing that I had arrived shortly before the curtains closed for darshan in preparation for the 7pm arati, so I quickly rushed in, paid my respects and took a few photos. Today the Deities there were wearing tartan! I had to laugh to myself and I wondered if a Scottish devotee had been behind that idea, but it was definitely unusual. Here are some of the shots that I took:





















































And I was so engrossed in this as well as trying to take these pics as quickly as possible before the curtains closed, I forgot to take a pic of my beloved Gaura-Nitai! :-( Would have been nice to have a pic of Them wearing tartan.

And also I met my dear friend Monica there. I have known her for years and she is like a sister to me, I love her very much. Such a soft and sweet person she is, almost as if she's stepped out of a fairytale book. People like her are very rare these days. She owned a complete video set of Prabhupada's lectures of which I borrowed a couple of installments. Actually I still have them and haven't given them back! Argh! Anyway so I guess she became influenced by those videos and she joined ISKCON. Now she has become one of the top book distributors and was recently initiated by H.H. Radhanatha Swami during a six-week trip to the New Vrindavan temple in West Virginia. Her new name is Mana-biharini devi-dasi.

It was good to catch up with her. Here is a picture of her, my dear sweet sister: