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Today has been a Day for Gatherings and Plannings

2008: The Year of the Congregation

I'm writing at the end of a long day. I arrived at the temple for the 7.00 am darshan this morning, and immediately went to work completing the final details of a Powerpoint presentation on "2008: The Year of the Congregation." Next year is thus designated so that we'll all put more effort into developing strategies for 'Learning, Guidance and Organisation' for our growing congregation in London and the South.

The senior managers of the temple took everything needed for long-term growth in this important area and formed a strategic planning document for it. Well, at least we completed the Vision, Mission Statements and the Key Result Areas. Our KRAs came to eight in number, so we labelled that the 'eight petals' of our lotus and head-hunted qualified devotees for those areas.

The initial presentation, show and discussions following were attended by a good number of thoughtful and talented devotees. We were in the good discussion space of the theatre and with no disturbances, the results were good.

I then met privately with a small number of devotees to show them some other ideas. There seems to be a lot of energy surrounding this and I am excited by the prospects of the new teams.

Jayadeva came in to see me and brought the manuscript of his new book. Its the story of his life as a pop singer in The Rubettes, his seeking for spiritual life, and the many amazing stories along the way. He is going to begin a four-day recording period tomorrow where he will be joined by Irish musicians to complement his singing of traditional Sanskrit bhajans.

The Killing of Gangotri

While I was busy this morning, Gauri das, our temple president, was with the BBC radio down in London. Several stations do some kind of religious or ethical feature on a Sunday morning so he was interviewed by three stations in quick succession: London, Three Counties (our local radio station) and the thinking person's Radio 4. Things moved so fast the rest of the day that I have yet to ask him how they all went.

At 2.30 we began gathering in the main dining room where a conference sitting arrangement had been laid out. I talked to Wenda and her partner Mathew, who run a 38-acre cow sanctuary down near Brighton in Sussex. She is a practising Vaishnavi and has more than 30 cows. She'd come specially for the emergency meeting. By 3.00 around 25 Hindu leaders had arrived, the local papers took a few photographs and departed and we began.

A lot of anger and frustration. And a lot of quiet determination and plan making. Some highly placed and influential people. Over the next few weeks I think that things will gradually develop towards a favourable outcome. We cannot bring Gangotri back, but we can make damned sure that she didn't die in vain.

Had a look at some footage that a witness to the killing wants to put on Youtube, then went to my office to compose the press release for the day. Wrote this.