What I've Been Doing

A devotee from South Africa commented on my blog and prompted me to write about what I've been doing recently, since I haven't posted anything in a while. I've written before about Second Life, the virtual reality community, and how much I really like it. I decided that I wanted to build a temple and started looking around for land. I ran into a person who had a wonderful deity of Krsna and so I wrote to him. He invited me to build on his land and so we--Bhakta Thor, Bhakti Mimulus, and myself--have been working together for the past couple of months on Bhaktiville. Bhakti Mimulus does landscaping, Bhakta Thor decorating and landscaping, and me, I just fill in. But, boy, what fun!

A little background. Second Life is one of many virtual reality communities on the Internet. You create a person to represent you, an avatar, and you interact with the environment and people around you. People come for interactive war games, to build, to meet other people--whatever their reason might be--but, they're all there doing what they like to do together. I really like computers and I really like Krsna--seems like a good match for me.

So, here's what we've been doing. Our landing spot and welcoming area is on a pier. We have streaming video from YouTube of Srila Prabhupada and other great videos. On our music channel we have Srila Prabhupada chanting japa. We also have a vendor where people can get books, gestures (offering obeisances), and other devotee items. At the end of the pier there's swimming and underwater animals.

On the land, we have the Greenhouse Cafe where vegetarian food is served. With a nice atmosphere and streaming music, it's a nice place to hang out. We're also adding a cookbook with vegetarian recipes people can take with them. Up the hill from the Cafe is the barn with a few of our cows! To the left of the Cafe is the path leading up to the temple.

Just outside the temple we have a little table with some of Srila Prabhupada's books and more cows.

Then there are the Deities, the reason for our project. Many things in Second Life are flat and are put together to represent a 3-D object. The trees may have a round trunk, but the leaves are a series of flat pictures laced together. Many temples in Second Life have "flat" pictures of Deities on their altars. The Deities here are different, They are not flat. They were sculpted by a wonderful artist and are dressable. We have found some wonderful clothes for Them along with jewelry and other accessories. We have a ghee lamp and bell and are looking into creating gestures so that we can offer flowers and artika to Them. Outside the temple we have Tulasi growing strong and wild.

I spent some time creating the temple itself. I added elements of my favorite temples. The tall spires of the Jagannatha Temple, the massiveness of the columns of the Govindadev Temple in Vrndavana, and the wonderful flags on the altar of Govindadevji in Jaipur. I'm already thinking about the next temple I want to build.

Much of my free time is spent working on Bhaktiville and we have many things we still want to add. I can only hope that it is pleasing to the devotees. We are planning an opening day on Gaura Purnima, February 28th. Please stop by if you're around, here's the SLURL. We'll have activities going all day long, more details on that later. Hoping this finds you all well and that your love for the Lord increases every minute of every day. Jaya Prabhupada!
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