Krishna devotees observe vegetarian Thanksgiving

Should a turkey have attended dinner at the Krishna temple on Thursday, it would have been as an honored guest. All guests are welcome by Krishna devotees who celebrated the holiday with a vegetarian feast. Read more...

Krishna Temple Field Trip, Sp Fork Junior High

Krishna Temple Field Trip

by david.thacker | Mon, 10/25/2010 - 07:09

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Sri Hanuman showing the students how to do a push up

Attributions:

by: Laura Carter

World Geography students at Spanish Fork Junior High School had a field trip to the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple Tuesday, October 19. They were welcomed Caru Das. Sri Hanuman introduced the students to the animals they care for. Students were allowed to hold the birds, lead the llamas, and compete in a llama race up the hill to the temple where many of the llamas had different ideas about the race and dug in their heels.

Caru Das then gave the students an insightful presentation on India and the foundations for their beliefs. Upstairs, Sri Hanuman led the students in Yoga that left many students realizing how out of shape they really are. He really took our finest football players and athletes to task with push-ups!

Finally, the students were provided with a wonderful buffet lunch trying out many vegetarian dishes. Many students felt that cultural misconceptions were dispelled that day and many talked about taking their families there to experience this wonderful cultural resource in our community. We, students and Geography teachers at Spanish Fork Junior High School, want to thank the owners Caru Dasa for his great hospitality and willingness to teach us about their world.

Grand Diwali Mela in Los Angeles

Several devotees & members (Rajiv & Gita Sharma, Anand Rao, Jai Krishna, Divya Drsti, Julio, & Caru) travelling to Los Angeles this weekend to perform the same Ramayana we did at our recent Festival of India Sept.18th. The venue is Excelsior High in Cerritos, which is said to have 1,500 seats.

Our dear friend Roshan Khandpur is a committee member for this grand Diwali Mela, and made the invitations.

The main contingent leaves Friday afternoon in a rented mini van with five passengers, the 9' X 12' rear projection screen lashed on top, and all the costumes. Some will stay with Roshan in his home and others in a nice Motel on Pioneer Boulevard.

Richard Franklin, who played the role of Ravan in September, could not make the trip. Thus Caru Das will fulfill the double roles of being lead priest in the Diwali puja on stage from 4 pm - 5 pm, and then performing as Ravan in the drama 6 pm - 7 pm. What else is new?

GRAND DIWALI MELA
Organized By
HINDU COMMUNITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AND
GLOBAL PEACE FOUNDATION, INC ( Non Profit Organization)
On Sunday, October 31, 2010 From 3 PM To 9 PM
At The Excelsior High School Auditorium, 15711 Pioneer Blvd; Norwalk, CA 90650
FREE Admission & FREE Dinner

Free Tea & Gifts For Everyone By Continental Foods
Diwali Pooja : Cultural Program : Booths ($100) & RAM LEELA BY Popular UTAH TEMPLE GROUP

Rangoli & Halloween Costume Competitions – Raffle Prizes

Supported By: Mandir, 16540 Aston St, Irvine CA 92606, Tel 949-222-2283

Sponsors: State Bank of India, Uka Solanki, Integrated Wealth Manangement Inc, Sambra Produce& Farm, Sona Chandi, Dr Krishna Reddy, Highglow Jewelers and others

Organizing Committee:
Manorama Sharma Gupta MD 714-846-1301, Kamini Khare 714-280-3774, Dilip Butani 562-569-6722, Amrit Bhandari 949-394-3103

Mohan Sharma 310-698-0183, Lal Thakarar 562-405-0160, Dr Jay Shah 562-279-3817, Ramesh Ramnani-310-409-3832

Usha J Shah 562-279-3819, Manu Patel 562-822-0725, Roshan Khandpur 213-923-1584, Ravji Patel 310-530-5037, PK Nayak 714-600-4900 Dr Kailash Dhamija, Amarjeet Dhamija 562 682-5598, Keshav Patel 714 816-9102, Prakash Pancholi 949 212- 0843, Vishwanath Tiwari

Program

3 PM To 4 PM -- Rangoli and Halloween Costume Competitions and Candy distribution to Children.

4 PM To 5 PM -- Diwali Pooja : 5 PM To 9 PM -- Cultural Program

Diwali Pooja: Suggested Donations $51, $101, $201, $501 Or more

One of the Fabulous 50

http://blog.uvmag.com/2010/fabulous-50/

Caru Das was named with 49 others in the March 2010 issue of Utah Valley Magazine.

"Fabulousness is cropping up all over Utah Valley. We’ve got do-gooders who remain down-to-earth, innovators who thrive by going against the grain, and great minds gaining ground in their fields. And the best part of all? Our 50 most fabulous people are all homegrown — they live and work locally, blooming where they’ve been planted. Read on for a look at 50 of Utah Valley’s most fabulous people."
Caru Das
Whether it’s culture, cuisine, art, architecture, animals, festivals, yoga or philosophy, the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork has something for everyone.
“Between tours, festivals, shoppers, diners, yoga classes and retreats, there are about 50,000 visitors annually,” says Caru Das, the temple’s president.
And that doesn’t count the visitors who use the temple’s offerings virtually.
“Our lives have been enriched by exposure to the Krishna Conscious lifestyle,” Caru says. “We wanted to use the most up-to-date technology to pass it on.”
That technology now includes Facebook (Caru has more than 1,700 friends), daily Tweets, multiple blog posts each week, a YouTube channel with close to 100 videos, and temple webcams for devotees who want to see the altar. In less than three months, the temple’s iTunes channel has seen 1,100 downloads of its Sunday lectures.
“A lot more interested people have been orbiting around the temple, both physically and in cyber space,” Caru says.

Shiva Ratri etc.

This evening's Shiva Ratri was wonderful. Attendance was in the hundreds of interested people who listened to a 45 minute power point by Caru Das, enjoyed the bhajans of Julie Ray & dance of her daughter Ankith, and lustily chanted and danced to the kirtans of Jai Krishna. The bathing lasted 45 minutes because so many people were lined up eager to do it.
Megan Smith of KBYU filmed the event, which will be featured this Wednesday at noon on Channel 11.
Next Friday February 19th, Caru Das is scheduled to give the opening prayer of that day's session of the Utah State senate, 10 am.

Flower Festival in Chowpatty

This is a video link to the famous ISKCON Chowpatty Flower festival, held on Saturday January 29. In attendance were Caru Das, who filmed the event, Radhanath Maharaj, Vyasaki, Satyaraj, Chandra Mouli Swami, Prithu Das, 300 brahmacharis, and about 8,000 members of the public.

http://youtu.be/YEAhT6-Aq3Q?a

Nityananda Festival in Pune

This is the link to a video taken of the recent Nityananda festival in Pune: huge crowd, abhishekam, drama, and talk by Caru Das.

http://youtu.be/0SXRDeXMtHI?a

Nishargopachar Ashram

Nisargopachara Ashram was founded after Gandhi came to the small Maharastran village of Uruli Kanchan in 1946 for some natural healing. He thereafter collaborated with Manibhai Desai to establish a permanent center in this rural village for health and well being through natural foods, natural treatments, and yoga.

Today the 25 acre campus provides Spartan accommodation for about 125 guests at a time, grows quite a bit of its own food, gets milk from its cows (located elsewhere), and runs separate treatment centers for men and women. These centers offer as part of the registration fee (which varies from 80 rupees daily for dorm to 350 for shared rooms – minimum stay one week) local and general steam treatments, mud applications, yoga classes, neem oil soaks, enemas, and doctor consultations.

Half hour oil massages cost 30 rupees per, acupuncture is 300 rupees for ten days of sessions.

Patients purchase coupons, which are tendered for two inexpensive meals (approx. 40 rupees each) daily and fruit juices twice a day. Some of the juices available are carrot, white squash, beet, orange, amala, tulsi, neem, karela, and last but not least, WHEAT GRASS. The meals are prepared without white flour, oil, salt, or sugar. Typically there will be a boiled vegetable, rice, buttermilk, chapattis, and shredded carrot salad with coconut chutney.

Caru Das is half way through a two-week stay. He is the only Westerner on site. All the signs and most of the speech are in Hindi, so it’s a great opportunity for him to put his limited Hindi to use.

Ramesh Patel of Salt Lake City had informed him of the ashram and kindly offered to sponsor the visit if it would help Caru put the melanoma cancer of 2008 further behind him and give a few more years of life with the Utah Krishna Temple.

When Caru received this offer from Ramesh, he thought Nishargopachar Ashram also would be an ideal peaceful place to prepare Sunday lecture talks and power points for 2010. That has proven true, as in the first five days he’s done the research from Vedabase and other sources for four new talks: Setting Godly Goals, Express Yourself, A Matter of Time, & Ever a Hero. Internet access is limited and slow, so he’s going to wait to add the images, but all thought sequences and text is done.

These talks and power points will eventually be available for download on the web site, http://www.utahkrishnas.org/. Incidentally, we’ve had over 1,000 downloads of 2009 talks from Itunes, since Jerry, God sent Internet whiz, started placing them there in October.

Another bonus for Caru has been the 5/8 mile walking/running track around the ashram compound. Each morning he has managed 45 minutes of jogging while listening to inspirational lectures on his ipod. He had no running shoes but discovered that crocs are not bad for casual running.

His roommate, a 58 year old Bombay Brahmin named Dattatreya, and he have formed a fast friendship, trade Sanskrit slokas back and forth, and share a papaya every evening before bed. Caru buys (20 rupees) and Dattatreya peels and slices.

While probably most people come to the ashram to lose weight, Caru is eating a lot more solid food here than at home, where his principal sustenance is from juices: squeezed carrots, celery, beets, apples and pineapple. This is his first in 20 or more visits to India where he’s not had to worry about getting sick on the food!

India Trip 2010

Caru das left for India early Sunday morning January 3rd via Delta from SLC to Atlanta to Amsterdam and Mumbai. Due to the expert booking of the tickets by Kiran Kamdar there were no long layovers. He basically got out of one plane and walked to another gate where boarding was in progress. It was the easiest India trip he’s ever made.

There he was accommodated in one of the excellent guest rooms by Nakula das, guest master. Radhanatha Swami was in Delhi with a number of devotees for the launching of paperback version of his book, The Journey Home. Gouranga was with him, but instructed the devotees in Chowapatty to take every opportunity to hear from Caru. Thus he gave an afternoon class the day he arrived, and three classes in each of the next two days. Only two of them provided him an opportunity to use power points but they were the best received, further revealing the potency of this type media. Gouranga also instructed Nakula to take all power points from Caru’s computer with a flash drive. Caru’s room was equipped with wireless Internet, so he was able to work on new presentations when not lecturing. It was a very nice three-day stay, and he plans to return there after the present engagement. Nakula arranged a train ticket to Pune early Friday morning and took him to the train.

From the window he had his first good look at the inland of Maharastra, the rugged land from which legendary Shivaji waged a guerilla war of independence against the Moghul Auranzeb.

Pune devotees Rukmini Priya, Dina Saran, and Mahamantra Das showed Caru hospitality equal to Chowpatty, providing him the VIP guestroom, a brunch, a chauffeured trip to the new temple construction site (he took video of the building but had a problem getting it downloaded to the desktop) and lunch, before personally arranging a car and driver to take him the 35 kilometers east to Nisharagopachar ashram in the rural town of Uruli Kanchana.Gandhi and Manibhai Desai founded Nishargopachar Ashram as a Natural Cure Oasis in 1946. The 25 acres campus holds a capacity of about 150 guests, and considerable staff. More about this idyllic place in the next posting…

Provo Daily Herald on Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple

Ask any Spanish Fork resident and they will be able to point you in the direction of one of the most unique buildings in town and possibly in the whole state. Perched on a hill just south of downtown Spanish Fork stands the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple. Completed in 2001, the Krishna Indian Temple certainly stands out among the surrounding rural fields. Read More...