Personal Art

Hare Krishna, this is my personal art, done many years ago, Your Servant, Visoka dasa

 Their Lordships above, Lord Gour [right] and Lord Nityananda [left]

By Their Lord's mercy, I was able to sculpt and produce a nice set of Gour-Nitai Deities, in the early 80's. Akilananda dasa made the molds, and I cast Them, in a creamy colored resin, which resembled white marble, and then made set after set, and sanded Them into a perfectly smooth finish, and had Them painted by some of the BBT artists, like Rama Dasa, Dhriti dasi, Drgha dasi, and Dharmada dasi, and sometimes I painted Them myself, and then They distributed 100's of Themselves to many devotees around the world. One of the greatest moments of fulfillment in my devotional service to Sri Sri Gour Nitai, was in 3 Rivers CA, at the temple there was a mataji who had a set of Their Lordships, and she was in total ecstasy dressing Them and serving Them every day, and she didn't know that I was observing how she served Them, and it put me in great rapture too, just to see Them and her in such ecstasy. Eventually I had to stop casting Them, because the resin was making me sick.

Actually, because of Lord Caitanya's great mercy upon me, He empowered me somehow to sculpt and produce Their Lordships. I think this is how I got some mercy. It was in the later 70's, and we were traveling in a mobile home, all over the USA, doing sankirtan, with some Gour-Nitai Deities, and I wasn't Brahman initiated yet, but I took care of Them, and offered bhoga to Them, and read Srimad Bhagavatam to Them every morning in a moving bumpy mobile home on the road, and I think by this little service, They later blessed me by giving me the privilege of being Their Murti-walla. It always seemed to me that Lord Gour was actually self-manifest, and I had nothing to do with it, because I personally never had that kind of talent to produce Lord Gour, His face. Somehow I got a ball of clay, or plastilene,  in my hands, and I sculpted and worked on His face, but He really self-manifested into Lord Gour's head and face, because I could never do that by myself. Look at the Lord's face, and anyone can know for sure that I could never do that, I'm definitely not the doer in this transcendental appearance of the Lord. My friend and fellow FATE sculptor, Dayal-Nitai dasa, we shared a stall in our huge studio in LA, for a while, and he helped me refine the face and head I made, and he helped me finish the body. Akilananda molded Lord Gour, and then I casted a plaster figure, and worked on Nityananda's figure, and I changed the legs around and finished Lord Nityananda, and then we molded Lord Nityananda, and thus ended with two molds, Lord Gour and Lord Nityananda. After that, I replicated Their Lordships 100's of times, and They traveled all over the globe, and They were the first Deities to be smuggled into Russia. I am constantly running into Devotees who have a set of Their Lordships, when I can't remember mailing Them, or we don't know for sure how They traveled from the molds and ended up on their altar, as the Lords moved around the world in many mysterious ways. As far as I know, They are still being manifest in this world.

Some devotee asked me if I was the Vishoka who made the Gour Nitai Deities that first went to Russia. I told him yes, and that I served in FATE in LA and we made a museum for Detroit. Here is a nice pastime of Sri Sri Gour Nitai. I made 100's of Their Lordships, and shipped Them to devotees all over the world. I got an order from a Nitai in Gita Nagari, and then shipped a set to there, via the BBT shipping department. A few days later, I asked the devotees if they shipped the set. They said, "yes, we shipped Them to Nityananda in Mississippi, like you said." That was a slight mistake, it was Nitai, not Nityananda. [This was Lord Nityananda's pastime]. So, I called Nityananda dasa on the phone, and asked, "Did you just get a set of Gour Nitai Deities?" He said, "Yes, and I didn't know why, till you called, but I tell you, I want 6 more sets!!" So, I was commissioned for some more sets. The Lords tricked us somehow, so They could spread the mercy to the south. Also a devotee got two sets from me, and took Them to South Africa, and duplicated Them, and distributed Their Lordships all over Europe and Africa, Australia, so on. I also shipped some to Australia and Europe, but mostly I would always get a phone call from a devotee, right around when I was finishing a set, and in that way I was always busy making Deities.

I also sculpted and produced a small 4-5 inch murti of Srila Prabhupada, and Akilananda dasa made the mold, and I made many brown skin colored resin casts, probably about 25, until I lost the mold. What I hear, one murti was installed in a temple in Manipur.  I'm trying to find a photo of Srila Prahupada, to include on this page, still looking. 

This is a pencil drawing of Maha-Bhairava, or Lord Siva. It appears rather gruesome, with the decapitated head, and the dog nipping on the head, and so on. One may wonder why I drew this scene. The answer is that the FATE devotee artists, we were all scultors, would regularly go on field trips to hone our craft, to practice our sketching skills. Sometimes we would hire models and the BBT painters would come to our large studio in LA, and we'd all sit around the model and draw. I learned a lot from that practice. Sometimes we would go to parks and draw trees. Also for practice, I would draw in Bhagavatam class, I would draw circles, one after another, and I would draw my hand for practice. Sometimes we would go to the LA art museum, where they had a section of Asian Art, and they had murtis or statues of Shiva and Durga and a few of Krishna. We took our notepads and pencils, and we'd sketch these various murtis. This drawing of Lord Shiva above is from a LA museum trip. I may have sketched this at the museum, and finished the details in Srimad Bhagavatam class.

From Srimad Bhagavata, 1st canto - Highly qualified brahmanas situated in the mode of goodness have no grudges against the mode of worship of others. They have all respect for other demigods, even though they may look ghastly, like Kala-bhairava or Mahakali. They know very well that those horrible features of the Supreme Lord are all different servitors of the Lord under different conditions, yet they reject the worship of both horrible and attractive features of the demigods, and they concentrate only on the forms of Visnu because they are serious about liberation from the material conditions. The demigods, even to the stage of Brahma, the supreme of all the demigods, cannot offer liberation to anyone. Hiranyakasipu underwent a severe type of penance to become eternal in life, but his worshipful deity, Brahma, could not satisfy him with such blessings. Therefore Visnu, and none else, is called mukti-pada, or the Personality of Godhead who can bestow upon us mukti, liberation. The demigods, being like other living entities in the material world, are all liquidated at the time of the annihilation of the material structure. They are themselves unable to get liberation, and what to speak of giving liberation to their devotees. The demigods can award the worshipers some temporary benefit only, and not the ultimate one.
It is for this reason only that candidates for liberation deliberately reject the worship of the demigods, although they have no disrespect for any one of them. SB 1.2.26P