March 23, 2020, was the day when the first lockdown in England was announced.
Few days after that I found myself “being in charge” of the deity department and given the responsibility to ensure Radha Gokulananda worship is maintained despite the lockdown.
A month before that I arrived from a 4-month intense deity worship course in India.
In my mind, I created the plan to slowly start to practice whatever I learned in Mayapur but lockdown changed everything. Our head pujari and the whole temple management were not allowed to come to the temple which meant that between a few inexperienced resident devotees we needed to become temple presidents, managers, temple commanders, head pujaris, cooks, and any other roles that are required to run the temple.
We all embraced this new situation, seeing it as Krishna’s arrangement.
Lockdown with Krishna! Does it go better than this?
In Vraja, there are hundreds of sadhus who left their family and gave vows to never leave Vraja.
We end up being in a similar situation where we could not leave Bhaktivedanta Manor Dham(which is nondifferent from Vraja) but the difference between us and sadhus in Vraja is that we didn’t need to do anything ourselves.
Krishna made arrangements so even if we wanted to leave Vraja we could not because of lockdown rules.
Moment lockdown started the whole Manor turned into the peaceful monastery with a handful of sadhus whose only focus is worship and prayers.
Sometimes whilst offering an arati on the altar you could hear cows mooing from the goshala and birds chirping in the gardens as if they are singing the arati for the pleasure of Radha Gokulananda.
Occasionally whilst chanting japa in Srila Prabhupada garden we could see young deer that would come and wander around looking for the fresh grass.
We always had green parrots at the Manor but now it seemed they increased in number and became more active, flying around, enjoying life in the peaceful Bhaktivedanta Manor.
Our milkman would bring fresh milk from the goshala and a couple of resident devotees would enter into the mood of the gopis and make fresh yogurt and panner for their Lordships.
Some devotees became inspired and would spontaneously sing for the deities whilst pujaris would run around making sure bhoga offering is on time.
Radha Gokulananda became the center of all activities at the temple and all devotees felt reciprocation for even the smallest service they would offer to their Lordships.
One year has passed since lockdown started and I can truly say that this was the best time of my life.
Yes, it was intense at times but looking back I can see that Krishna had a bigger plan for all of us.
Srila Prabhupada: My Guru Mahārāja used to say that “Don’t try to see God. You work in such a way that God will see you.
Ananta Gopal das
13 March 2021
Bhakti Wisdom 