The temple
When Kevin said he found great hope from the temple, he meant a building you can walk into, in Culver City, that has been there since 1977.
“I came to find great hope from the temple when I still lived in LA. I was alone and seeking a spiritual path. I\u{2019}m very thankful for my experience in meeting the monks and practicing the lifestyle. It has helped me greatly and will stay with me forever.”
— Kevin Wu, ISKCON News, June 2017
Where
known within the tradition as New Dvaraka
3764 Watseka Ave, Culver City, CA 90232
Times are deliberately not printed here. Programme hours change, and the most specific schedule findable online is several years old. Check the temple's own site before you go rather than trusting this page — being wrong about this would put someone outside a locked door.
What goes on there
A Hare Krishna temple runs a daily cycle that starts long before dawn: mangala arati in the early morning, a class from the Bhagavatam, and japa chanted quietly on beads by people standing and walking in the temple room. Through the week there are classes, kirtan, and kitchen service.
The Sunday programme is the one built for visitors — chanting, a talk, and a free vegetarian meal served to anyone who turns up. In Los Angeles that meal is famous in its own right and feeds hundreds of people a week, a large number of whom are not devotees and are simply hungry or curious.
If you go
No booking, no fee, no membership. Temples are open to the public and nobody will ask what you believe at the door.
There is a rack by the entrance. Dress modestly; beyond that nothing is expected of you.
Joining the chanting is welcome and so is not joining it. Standing at the back is a completely normal thing to do.
Prasadam is offered freely and accepting it commits you to nothing at all.
It is worth saying plainly what Kevin's sentence describes: a person at the end of a very public life walked into a building where nobody needed anything from him, and was met. He credits the people there — “meeting the monks and practicing the lifestyle” — rather than an idea.
This site is not affiliated with ISKCON and does not speak for the temple. It names the place because Kevin Wu named it.
The place
The temple has a name of its own, and a history that predates everyone reading this. In 1969 A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada installed deities at an earlier Los Angeles temple on La Cienega Avenue — the first installed as the society moved beyond New York. In February 1970 the community acquired a property on Watseka Avenue, and that Janmashtami the larger deities were installed there. That is when New Dvaraka began.
Prabhupada made it his headquarters in the West and ran it as the model the other centres were supposed to follow, staying for months at a time. It is still at 3764 Watseka Avenue, Los Angeles, more than fifty years on.
No times are printed here on purpose. Programme times change, and the sources that list them go stale quietly. Being wrong about this would leave somebody standing outside a locked door, so if you are going, check with the temple first.
