Question: There were some projects of Vrinda in Mayapur some time ago. What is the mission of Vrinda in Mayapur now?
Answer: Mayapur is the place where Lord Chaitanya appeared. I have a great desire to serve the dham-vasis and all the holy Vaisnavas who live there, with an increased presence of the WVA.
Actually, since the time of the WVA-festivals at Srivas-angam, we felt great joy to participate in the development of Mayapur-dham. At one point the police was called to stop a meeting of the WVA. Because of some dispute of influence over Srivas-angam, the police was ordered to stop the festival, and they where looking for the foreigner who organized the event. I was hiding inside and thinking: "Mahaprabhu, what to do, what to do". But as the confusion increased outside, I decided to face the matter personally. I Asked: "Who is the police officer in charge?" They brought me to a man who was around 45 years of age, and I asked him: "Are you from a hindu-vaisnava family?" He moved his head in approval. Then I said: "This place is called "khol bhanga danga" - the place where the cand khasi stopped the kirtan and broke the mrdanga, 500 years ago. Today many great devotees of Mahaprabhu are going to come here and deliver hari-katha. Do you really want to stop that? What could be the reason? He said: "I got orders to stop this event." I told him: "Just tell your authorities, that you did not meet anybody here. Tomorrow this festival is over and nobody will be here anymore. I beg you, do not disturb the sankirtan-yajna. He smiled and sat down on a chair. After an hour or so, sitting with his 10 police officers, and watching many pilgrims comming to see the exibits and books on the book fare, he called his man and they disappeared with a smile on their face.
Srila BP Puri Maharaja gave me the charge of the samadhi mandir of Bhakti Saudha Asrama Maharaja, right next to the Lion´s Gate at the entry of Mayapur. I was so happy about the trust my siksa guru had put in me, to be able to take care of this place. Unfortunately we lost this place later due to some illegal falsification of documents, done by somebody who was greedy to take money from the foreign devotees. Since I did not receive clear papers, I could not do anything to protect our service there. I saw it was very difficult as a foreigner to deal with the local Bengalis and their ruthlessly defendend interests. Another attempt to safe an old and broken temple in the Hulaghat area failed, because many negative elements in the area preferred to keep this temple for their illicit business. They showed up with many people and threw out the brahmacari I had positioned there, before the restauration had started.
Mayapur is a great adventure. Even though there are many pure devotees with their incredible asrams, there are also other people without any sacred motives. I still pray that one day we may be able to establish a beautiful branch or Vrinda there. Between the Ganges and the Saraswati is a very nice area, where the sweet water dolphins jump continuously. I am waiting for a sign from Chaitanya Mahaprabhu that it is time for us to do there some service again. In the meantime we stay with our friends when we go there, like Upendra prabhu of Vamana pukur, in the Gopinatha Gaudiya Matha or the Caitanya Gaudiya Matha.
One of the reasons we need a temple of our own, is that we need a place to have soft and sweets kirtans and bhajans. In most temples they slam the huge kartalas and gongs and ring the bell so loudly, that one can not even hear what song they are singing. The pain in my ear drums order me to depart immediately. And most of my friends and myself just cannot tolerate the incredible amount of hot chillies in almost any preperation. So we need our own kitchen too. And then we want to hear classes in our respective languages. That is very necessary in order to go deep into the meaning of bhajan, hari-katha and parikrama. What can I do? These are some conditionings we drag around.
I shared my feeling about the deafening sounds with some senior vaisnavas, and to my surprise they said to me, that they themselves suffered from it from the beginning. That where Sripa Bhakti Vijnana Bharati Mahraja and Hrsikes Maharaja, who has just started his mission opposite of Caitanya Matha. And how surprised was I to hear, that Srila Prabhupada Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura prohibited the use of Chillis in his temples. Well, I hope indian devotees follow him more seriously in other respects. :-)
Anyway, it is good to know that you are not alone. Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu and the Holy Dham of his appearance ki jay!
Also there are other wonderful areas in the dham, such as Godruma. I am not so fond of the site of Navadvip town, because it is too much city atmosphere there. And really the feeling of Mahaprabhu and Nityananda prabhu becomes more intense without any modern distraction. I pray to Lord Gauranga that we will be allowed to serve Him there once again and also that the Holy Land may be kept up in the purest and cleanest way, by all of us.
Our work in the WVA is to create new levels of communication to discover and defend common goals amongst all vaisnava missions. And what better place could be there to rejoice in this new form of cooperation than the place where the Lord of love appeared personally. Anyway, it is very delightful to see new vaisnava missions appear and open their branches somewhere on the nine islands of Navadvip.
If someone has a good idea, how to make some Vrinda center there, feel free to contact me.