Dear Uttamasloka Prabhu;
Back in the authorized days, Kishori Kishora and Radha Gopinatha used to eat like kings!! Nowadays, it seems canola is used, aluminum pots, its just not anywhere near as opulent, not by a long stretch. Do you think they are misundertsanding the philosophy of Deity worship? My understanding is that if the Deities are pleased, the whole temple becomes opulent.
Do you have any comments re Sivarama Swami, who basically took the Winnipeg temple and moved it to the USA, leaving us without a temple now for the last twenty-five years? Was this Satsvarupa's idea, zonal manager at the time, or Sivarama's, president for a short while there? What is the story of the Winnipeg devotee's ventures after leaving Manitoba? Where are the Nitai Goura from Winnipeg, now? You may not know, but then, perhaps you have heard something of those days. HK. Pamdo.
Uttamasloka; 90% of all Canola crops are GMO - very bad. The Deities should have ghee or organic cooking oils, ie: Olive, etc. Aluminum pots are also bad. Stainless steel all the way.
Any lowering of standards re Deity worship, is a symptom of poor management and neophyte levels of realization.
I shocked every TP in ISKCON when they heard I had a $5K/month prasadam budget in Chicago! Our breakfasts were better than most temple's Sunday feasts, and we were not being extravagant either - just high quality ingredients and sufficient quantities to satisfy the devotees. After all, it's practically the only sense gratification you can get at a temple! You can just imagine the Sunday Feasts!
TPs who skimped on feeding the devotees/Deities paid the price of very low moral and unhappy devotees - not Chicago or Toronto!
I shaved up Sivarama in Montreal and trained him up personally. He eventually was TP of a temple in Minnesota around 1976/77. Unfortunately, they couldn't $ustain the temple there so they merged with Chicago. After Prabhupada left in 11/77, I asked Krsna and Prabhupada what my service should be and I was inspired to leave ISKCON and work on the front lines.
Chicago ISKCON was arguably one of the best managed temple's in ISKCON at the time, so the only way I could leave without causing a big disruption, was if Sivarama took over, since he was the only one qualified to maintain the standards that I established.
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