Headlines last a weekend; worship is every day. Once Prabhupada’s three-day visit was over, the devotees at Bethaniënstraat 39 faced the harder task of turning a crowded garage into a temple that worked. Lord Jagannatha, Lord Balarama and Subhadra Devi now stood at the center of everything, and excitement had to settle into routine.
Learning came with mistakes. Kisori, one of the residents who served the Deities, gave Lord Jagannatha a daily bath of honey and yogurt. Prabhupada later instructed that carved wooden Deities should not be bathed directly with liquids. Devotion, it turned out, needed instruction as well as enthusiasm.
New people kept arriving, some from unlikely places. Peter Ohlenschlager, a Dutch actor then appearing in the musical Godspell, met devotees at a neighborhood greengrocer’s and was drawn to their kirtans. He went on to leave the show, shave his head and become temple commander, sleeping in a sleeping bag on the mezzanine floor.
Money and outreach grew side by side. Hari Krishna Das opened a Spiritual Sky incense-packaging workshop in the Jordaan, which earned income and eased the crowding as married couples moved into the area. Later Tulasi dasa helped put book-distribution parties on the road in Volkswagen vans, crossing the Dutch countryside with translated books and raising funds for a growing mission.
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Short previews with videos of the chapters of The Amsterdam Adventure book.