Project History
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A mystical manifestation / The story of finding the temple land
Construction Site
With the attendance growing each year, to the point that the temple space is filled to far beyond capacity during major festivals, with guests to the temple struggling to find parking nearby, the urgent need for classrooms for youth and adult education, along with kids and parents desparate for a playground, it was decided that we need to build a bigger temple. To expand in Pacific Beach (the area in San Diego where the current temple is located) was too expensive. Also, the thought was that if we are going to go through a major expansion like this, why not do it in an ideal location, one where there is plenty of room for all we need to do, and where members of the congregation can purchase homes nearby? Such a setting, if still a reasonable drive time to the greater San Diego area, would be ideal for developing a devotional community.
We sat down and discussed what the elements of such an ideal temple facility would be. Here is a short version of the list we came up with:
- A temple assembly hall (“darshan mandap”) that can hold twice our current capacity.
- Additional areas to accommodate festival attendance.
- Ample on-site parking
- A play area for kids
- Gardens for ambience and peaceful meditation
- Meeting and classroom facilities
- A hall for serving vegetarian meals (“Krishna prasadam”) separate from the temple assembly hall
- Reasonably priced housing within walking distance of the temple
- Freeway close to the rest of San Diego.
We also decided that as far as possible, the new temple and site should be laid out according the principles of Vastu Silpa Shastra, the principles of sacred architecture laid out in the Vedas (India’s sacred texts).
Thus, I was sent to India to consult pandits (Vedic scholars) versed in the art of Vastu (temple architecture). One of the most renowned school of such scholars is located in South India, in the holy city of Tirupati. Situated at the crest of series of seven hills, Tirupati has been a center of knowledge and enlightenment since time immemorial. Taking a plane, train, and finally a 1965 Fiat / Ambassador taxi I arrived in this beautiful and mystical setting to ask the resident saints how to design our San Diego temple.
They asked me “Do you have the land yet?”
I said “No”.
They said “From the land, flows the building. Get the land first.”
I asked “Any specifics on the land?”
They said “Just a few. It should cow-shaped, not lion-shaped. It should be high in the south and slope down to the north. It should be open to the east and west. There should be a single road in the north, water flowing on the property, and five types of fruit trees growing spontaneously on the site.”
As if that was not enough, they added “You should be able to dig a hole to the depth of your elbow, pour in a gallon of milk, and the milk should drain out of the hole by the time it takes to chant the first line of the Gayatri mantra (a sacred Sanskrit hymn).”
Not surprisingly, upon my return to San Diego, we went through multiple real estate agents as they searched unsuccessfully for property that even remotely met the above criteria. (Just to make it even more fun, we needed a piece of property of at least five acres, centrally located, right off a major freeway, yet peaceful and scenic, and, of course, within our price range.)
After coming to the point of thinking “Maybe Krishna does not want this temple to happen” one of ISKCON’s senior monks visited San Diego. He asked me how it was going with the land search and I shared my frustration. He said “Get me a car and a driver, and I will go look”. I thought “Well, what can we lose?” so I made the arrangements and off he went. After several days of fruitless searching, he was scheduled to leave late that night for London and then on to India. Dedicated to helping us, he set off again early in the morning. By the afternoon, this little spiritual search party was tired, lost on a country road, and ready to call it quits and head home. As our senior monk is an elderly gentleman, he asked to get out of the car for a moment and stretch his legs before the ride back to the temple. They pulled over, he got, and there by the side of the road was a sign “For sale / 23 acres”. As our saintly friend looked, he saw that the site was high in the south, sloped down to the north, single road in front….one by one he began to see that it matched the criteria given by the sages in Tirupati, India.
They called me, I called the real estate agent, and within an hour we were all standing on the property. As we walked around the site, I counted off the fruit trees growing spontaneously: avocado, lemon, orange, pomegranate, and olive. The realtor brought a site map and sure enough, the site was narrow at the front, wider at the back (“cow-shaped” not “lion-shaped”). The only thing missing was water flowing across the site but as we reached the back three acres, I saw a flume carrying water from Lake Dixon flowing right across the site.
The next morning I scanned in the site and topographical maps, along with other descriptions, e-mailed these to our ISKCON temple president in Bangalore, who in turn dutifully made the six hour drive to Tirupati. There he presented the information package to the saintly scholars who declared, “This site is all-auspicious. Perfect for a temple. Get at all costs.”
This is the land we now have for the temple.
