Prabhupadas Palace Of Gold PDF Download

SWAMI BHAKTIPADA (1937-2011)--also known as Kirtanananda Swami--was the charismatic and highly controversial Hare Krishna guru who established in 1968 what became the largest Krishna community in the United States: New Vrindaban in the northern panhandle of West Virginia. The son of an Upstate New York Baptist preacher, Bhaktipada (born Keith Gordon Ham) in 1966 met A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977)--the Gaudiya-Vaishnava guru from Calcutta who founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). Keith became one of Prabhupada's first American disciples and in September 1966 was given the name Kirtanananda. Less than a year later, in August 1967, he became Prabhupada's first sannyasa disciple and became known as Kirtanananda Swami. During the 1970s and 1980s, Kirtanananda Swami was recognized as a key leader of the Hare Krishna movement and, after Prabhupada's death in 1977, became a "guru" in his own right. In 1979 he adopted the honorific name "Bhaktipada." At New Vrindaban, Bhaktipada presided over the construction of the ostentatiously-lavish Palace of Gold, billed as "America's Taj Mahal"--a marble and gold memorial shrine for Swami Prabhupada, dedicated in September 1979--which reportedly became the second-most popular tourist attraction in West Virginia. Summary of Volume 3 Gold, Guns and God, Volume 3, covers a ten-year span from 1973 until 1983. During this period, due to the construction and completion of Prabhupada's Palace of Gold, the New Vrindaban community was dramatically transformed from a primitive, often unsanitary, rural farm village of a few dozen people who used horses and oxen for plowing fields and hauling firewood, into a bustling, wealthy and popular center of Hindu pilgrimage inhabited by several hundred devotees who used automobiles, tractors, bulldozers, dump trucks and computers. Hundreds of thousands of tourists reportedly visited the Palace each year, and this helped bring about an increase in revenue and renown. Despite the inexorable progress of the community during this decade-long period, there were several unfortunate and serious setbacks. In June 1973, the temple was attacked by a small posse of men armed with a shotgun (some claimed the men also carried pistols and automatic weapons). The inmates (residents) of New Vrindaban were inconvenienced also in 1976, when a West Virginia college professor died from a virulent strain of hepatitis contracted at the community, and the state governor ordered the community quarantined to contain the spread of the infection. State police set up roadblocks which prevented travel to and from the commune. High points, on the other hand, during this period include the third and fourth visits of the ISKCON Founder/Acharya A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada to the community, in 1974 and 1976 respectively. These visits were a source of great inspiration and pleasure for the Brijabasis (residents, or inmates) of New Vrindaban. The terminal illness during the summer of 1977 and the death in Vrindaban, India, on November 14th, of A. C. Swami Prabhupada, were incredibly sad and depressing times for all ISKCON devotees. Kirtanananda Swami played an especially important role in the final pastimes of the ISKCON Founder/Acharya, during which his affection and love for his spiritual mater was revealed to all. The September 2nd 1979 dedication of Prabhupada's Palace of Gold, an incredibly joyous event for all the Brijabasis, is described in detail, and the remainder of this volume delineates the rapid growth of the community and the establishment of a veritable Hindu place of pilgrimage complete with a guest house, restaurant, gift store, rose garden, and parks. On the surface, Swami Bhaktipada's leadership at New Vrindaban seemed remarkably successful, but underneath, something was eating at its roots, and this would be exposed in due course.