His Holiness Tamal Krishna Goswami: In London we had another interesting negotiation. By the time I got to London, in September of 1969, Prabhupada was about to get 7 Bury Place. But what is a temple without Deities? Prabhupada instructed us to install Radha Krishna Deities when the temple opened in December, but we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have any Deities, and he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ask for any Deities to be made in India. How are you supposed to find Radha and Krishna in London? We started to ask anyone and everyone. It was like a national alarm, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Anyone knowing the whereabouts of Radha and Krishna please phone such and such number,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and that was the number of Mukunda\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wife, Janaki. Week after week went by. Prabhupada would call us and say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Where are the Deities?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d We said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know where Radha and Krishna are.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Prabhupada said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You have to have Deities.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Finally, miraculously, when we were practically giving up, Janaki got a phone call. Someone said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We have Radha-Krishna Deities.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Immediately she informed Mukunda, and Mukunda and I went to this man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s house.<\/p>\n
The man took us into his study and said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I have marble Radha Krishna Deities. Would you like to look at them?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Would we like to look at Them? Sure we wanted to look at Them. He took off the cloth, and we offered our obeisances. That was Radha London Isvara. We said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re beautiful, They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re so beautiful.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And They were beautiful. He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m considering giving Them to your temple.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d We said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Can we bring our spiritual master to see Them?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes, you can do so.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d We raced out and immediately called Prabhupada\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s apartment near Regents Park. He was resting, so we decided to go there. We went in and told him, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Prabhupada, we found Radha and Krishna.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Prabhupada immediately said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Take me, I want to see Them.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d So, Prabhupada, Mukunda, Shyamasundar, myself and maybe Gurudas went in the temple van. By that time it was the early evening. Prabhupada started to talk with this Indian gentleman in a very friendly way. The man said that these Deities were for some other society, but there was some difficulty, and they could not use the Deities. Prabhupada ignored that point and kept on asking the man, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Where are you from? How are you? How is your wife?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He had the man bring in his wife and children, and Prabhupada blessed everyone. He was talking and talking.<\/p>\n
Finally, the man said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Swamiji, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you want to see the Deities?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Prabhupada said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes, we can see the Deities.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It was nonchalant, as if he was not even interested. The man said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Please, I want to show Them to you.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Prabhupada walked over to Them and said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hmm,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d turned around, walked back to the sofa and sat down again. The man said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Swamiji, what do you think? Can you use the Deities?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Prabhupada said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They look like They may be used.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The man said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thinking I can give Them to you.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Prabhupada said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes, we could accept Them.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He told us, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Go and see how heavy the Deities are.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Shyamasundar and I went over and I tilted Radharani and said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Not very heavy,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d although She was heavy. Shyamasundar had Krishna. Prabhupada said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All right, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll take Them now.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Pick Them up.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The man said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Wait, wait, Swamiji, wait a moment.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Maybe he had an idea of recovering some of the cost. Prabhupada said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No, no, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no problem. These are American boys, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re very strong.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d We carried the Deities out, and the man was protesting, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Swamiji, Swamiji, one minute.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d We walked to the van and put Them in. Prabhupada sat in the seat next to the driver\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s seat. He said to the man, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll take care of the Deities. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be in touch with you,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and then he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153OK, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s drive.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d We drove off and when we got around the corner, Prabhupada said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stop the car.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d We stopped, and Prabhupada said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Take the cloth off the Deities.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d We took the cloth off and, with tears in his eyes, Prabhupada started to sing the prayers from Brahma-Samhita. He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Krishna has now appeared in London.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
His Holiness Tamal Krishna Goswami: In London we had another interesting negotiation. By the time I got to London, in September of 1969, Prabhupada was about to get 7 Bury Place. But what is a temple without Deities? Prabhupada instructed us to install Radha Krishna Deities when the temple opened in December, but we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-london"],"views":8837,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iskconuk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iskconuk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iskconuk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iskconuk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iskconuk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/iskconuk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iskconuk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iskconuk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iskconuk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}