Theme Park meant to preserve our culture

Excerpts from talk given by Sri Madhu Pandit Dasa on the occasion of Bhumi Puja of Krishna Lila Theme Park, coming up in Vasanthapura, Bangalore.

Most revered swamijis, other dignitaries on the dias,

You have all assembled here to bless ISKCON’s efforts to fulfill one of the several dreams of Srila Prabhupada, our beloved Founder Acharya of the Hare Krishna movement.

Though we have made tremendous progress through science and technology, humanity has not progressed equally in the spiritual direction. Rather spiritually overall there has been a reverse growth. This imbalance has resulted in modern man becoming less peaceful within himself. An average man on earth a century back was internally more peaceful with lesser facilities for the body and mind than an average man of today. Automobiles, television, mobiles, computers, chemically poisoned food, unhealthy competition and materialistic life style, has created a less peaceful man. This is evidenced by the fact that there are more mental and physical diseases amongst us than a century ago. When there is no peace where is the question of happiness. Reflecting the reality on this reality, our real question should be “is the modern civilization which produces less peaceful people be considered to be really a progressive civilization”? The answer is No unless it is balanced by spiritual growth. Modern civilizations have created solutions for new problems created by technological civilization itself. It is not really progress to create more problems and then solutions.

Indian rishis and philosophers had adopted a different means to unravel the secrets of existence through their tapas or austerities. Their ideas and wisdom regarding complexities of life are recorded in the vedic literature thousands of years back and the solutions to problems proposed by them are valid and applicable even today.

At the heart of every culture is a thought system that consists of varieties of shared beliefs and values. Over long time these values and beliefs get reflected and encoded as way of life, life customs and practices, in the form of our religion, languages, arts, dances and festivals and this creates a unique culture. In spite of centuries of’ foreign invasion our vedic culture could not be wiped out as it is based on very deep rooted understanding of man’s nature.

What are the most important shared beliefs of our Indian culture that distinguishes us from several other cultures. 1. We believe in Atma: We are eternal beings beyond the bodies that we inhabit for short time from birth to death. 2. We believe in Paramatma or lshwara: An eternal Omnipotent and Omniscient God who create this world and who respects the free will of each of the eternal beings. 3. We believe in Karma: Life situations are determined by law of karma or law or universal justice or the law that governs our use or misuse  free will. 4. Prakrti or material nature and 5. Kala: Eternal time that moves everything in this world according to karma and the will of Paramatma. 6. Dharma: Since God and us are eternal, what connects us both is also eternal. That is Sanatana dharma. Santana means eternal and our culture is called sanatana dharma. The essence of sanatana dharma is devotional service to God and service to His parts. 6. Moksha or liberation or Bhakthi: Life between birth and death is to be utilized to realize our eternal nature as spiritual selves. le; we are integral part of God and reunite lovingly with Him in the atmosphere of Absolute Eternal Reality, Vaikunta of which  this ‘temporary world is a poor imitation. 6. Titiksha: Tolerancc. and acceptance of other religions as appropriate paths to God realization suited to the time place and circumstances of different individual. In other words these are the bed rock of our vedic culture and such a culture turn out perfect gentleman.

This is in direct contrast with materialistic western culture which based on the idea that ‘I am this body’. They have no idea of the parallel reality of another substance of the ‘atma or consciousness which is a higher non-material energy of God. There is no higher purpose of life other than life in the particular body itself. Hence for that culture, perfection of life is perfection of enjoyment for the body. It is short sighted and based on a superficial understanding of man’s nature that he is his body and death is end of everything. It is dangerous culture stretched to extreme as eventually it will only create polished animals and not gentlemen.

Any educational system influences the culture. Our trad educational system has been imperceptibly replaced by the western system over last two centuries and hence western culture has slowly invaded our culture especially in the urban India. Today children are very intelligent. Now we will be successful if our children become responsible God loving or at least God fearing citizens with a service mood to humanity and not exploitative mood. We want our children to talk with ease the ideas of atma, paramatma, dharma, karma, free will, destiny etc. Today even the adult Indians do not have clarity on all these things which a common villager in our country knew fifty years back. A generation gap has already been created. It is time to act or else our culture will be replaced by western culture.

Now we have to make the best out of the bad bargain and to use of science and technology to educate Indians on our Vedic knowledge and culture so as to transform individuals to change his life style as much as possible right from childhood . It is not technology that has made man’ more disturbed. Then what is wrong? There is no proportionate growth in spiritual knowledge,which makes man capable of handling this material knowledge) without tampering with natural way of life. We are talking of imbalance.

Our Founder Acarya Srila Prabhupada always encouraged us to use everything modern to enhance the presentation of our cultural values and beliefs in a scientific manner that is appealing to modern minds. So we want to take lead in this. As we have taken a lead in applying technology to address the social problem of hunger among school children in our Akshayapatra program, we also want to leverage technology to build this Krishna Lila Park to close this material-spiritual imbalance and attract the youth of India to its pristine culture. This is our mission here at the Krishna Lila Theme Park. To bring best of the west and east for the benefit of mankind. Presenting our cultural values and beliefs in a modern presentation so that Indian youth ‘will feel self esteem for their rich cultural heritage and proclaim it to the rest of the world proudly that he is part of a culture that has a rational solution to all problems of mankind and is not a superstitious cult as many foreign invaders have made it to appear to the rest of the world.

Krishna Lila Theme Park is going to be an abode of the Lord where thousands of youths of this country, will come in touch and be inspired with our Vedic knowledge and cultural values which will help them to re- look at it from a very rational and scientific angle. There will be special pavilions for science and spirituality to relate modern scientific discoveries with revelations in the Vedas. Bhagavad Gita Experience, planetarium of vedic cosmology as per Bhagavad Purana etc. The Krishna Lila park will have facility for cultural training camps for 5000 school children every day during the summer vacations where they will learn Indian philosophy, Sanskrit, dance, drama, music, arts, craft and Bhagavad Gita and Puranas. No doubt the adults who are lagging behind will have to run faster to catch up with their kids.

Just to give an example of this let us see the effect of one of our attractions. The Story of Narasimha and Prahlada. When the kids see a huge robotic Narasimha come out of a pillar and fight…

The day’s experience for the guests will end every evening with a grand Aroti for the Lord surrounded by a simultaneous colorful laser show to be witnessed by 5000 people from the open air theater.

On this auspicious occasion we seek the blessings and good wishes from Srila Prabhupada our beloved founder Acarya and visionary, all the holy sadhus on the dias and other dignitaries to help us accomplish this grand vision for the glory of God and benefit of mankind.

Hare Krishna. Let us all work for the glory of God and upliftment of mankind to higher peace and happiness.