Deities Stolen from Narayana Maharaja's Venice Beach Temple

BY: GEORGA A. SMITH

Mar 5, CALIFORNIA, USA (SUN) — Today I was informed by Dayanidi das that the deities of Radha-Govinda that had been installed by Narayana Maharaja at the Venice Beach Radha-Govinda temple in California, USA, have been stolen. Not only that, but the temple community itself, one of the only two temple communities of the Gaudiya Math in the U.S., has been disbanded, it's devotees sent packing off to India.

The temple itself is being sold off, in what Dayanidhi, Vidura, Tirtha pada and others have told me is some sort of real estate scam, being perpetrated by a corrupt temple management, in concert with some of Narayana Maharaja's topmost disciples, who along with others have taken over the control of the movement from him.

Five members of the community have decided not to go down without a fight and have refused to leave the temple. They are hoping to save the temple by halting the foreclosure and perhaps even raising the 3.5 million dollar purchase price for the property themselves. They had hoped before this that they would be able to get Narayana Maharaja himself to intercede on the behalf of the temple. As of last Thursday he had done exactly that, siding with them, only to reverse his decision the very next day after the disciples who I am being told are controlling him demanded that he reverse his decision. He then did reverse his decision, authorizing the selling of the temple.

Nevertheless, the five residents of the temple community are still hoping and making efforts to save the temple community and to retrieve the stolen deities.

The Venice Beach community has been in existence for four years but has not been that successful. I had noticed an apathy, or in actuality a noticeable lack of enthusiasm of its temple management to even go out on harinam, let alone book distribution. I was informed today that this was deliberate, that thy had deliberately practiced a policy of alienating the Venice Beach residents so that they could claim as an excuse for selling the temple that the "climate just wasn't a favorable one", in which to preach.

Although I find it somewhat ironic that my help is being requested by the disciples of Narayana Maharaja to keep the doors of one of his only two temples in the U.S. open, I do not like to see any temple of their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Krsna closed down and its community of devotees destroyed by anything, let alone by those who seek to do so for their own selfish reasons. There is far too little chanting of the Holy Names of Krsna and far too little presentation of Krsna consciousness being done at all now in the U.S., upon the same pretense that the climate just isn't favorable, and by the same type of men.