Aluminium Cans Used to Build Temple in London
Of what use is an empty aluminium can? Not much at first glance, perhaps. Yet millions of used aluminium cans have helped to fund the construction of a temple in north London.
The recycling scheme, which was launched at major Swaminarayan Satsang centers in 1992, has become one of the largest single can recycling projects in the UK. Young and old volunteers collected used cans from their neighbours, streets, markets and football matches and deposited them at the Satsang centers, from where they were sold to Alcan Recycling, a company specialising in aluminium recycling.
...As the temple opening date approaches, the Mission's youth wing volunteers have been busy preparing floats for a procession from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square on August 18...

Neasden's Taj Mahal
Neasden: A New Home for the Gods
The Swaminarayan temple is set in the suburb's suburb, a swathe of non-descript ugliness south of Wembley stadium, where the North Circular Road bends south towards the Thames. It is faced with 2,000 tons of Italian marble, carved until it seems to froth like the milk on a cappuccino. In the hard light of this extraordinary summer, it glitters as if in the tropics. What is not marble is grey limestone from Bulgaria, or teak, also carved until the hard wood looks like a tapestry. It is the first temple in this style to have been built for at least 100 years, anywhere in the world.

Temple of Neasden  
They swept through the West End like a vast multi-coloured tide. The biggest ever march by the Asian community in Britain – more than 6,000 people, plus bands, dance troupes and floats – brought traffic to a standstill...and the message was peace and harmony.
Today, the Gujarati men with the bands, flags and banners led the way from Hyde Park, headed by a boys' band from Leicester playing a medley of popular songs.
Behind came the women and girls, in their celebration best saris, queuing patiently in a long line of gold, red, blue, pink, green and purple.

Hinduism Comes of Age in Britain  
Yesterday afternoon, 17 painted idols were marched through the streets of Central London, from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square. They came from the Neasden Mandir, an extraordinary Hindu temple which has been raised in an unprepossessing suburb in north-west London, and were paraded through the heart of London to welcome them to their new home.
...The new temple in Neasden is a remarkable building by any aesthetic standard and it will probably become one of the sights of London.
The temple's materials may have cost no more than £3m. But the labour that went into them would have cost a vast amount had it been charged at Western market rates. It is in the labour of volunteers that the real wealth of the sect resides.
The past couple of decades have shown an extraordinary revival of religious energy around the world... Often these revivals have taken violent and disturbing forms: it is hard to find a war anywhere in the world today that does not have a religious component. One of the remarkable things about the Neasden Mandir is that it is an almost wholly benign expression of religious fervour.
...Amongst other things, the temple is a monument to family values. Religions play a huge role in preserving and strengthening family life; families, in return, are the medium through which religious beliefs and practices are usually transmitted.

The Independent
Saturday 19 August 1995

Temple to the Gods of NW10  
It is hallucinatory. Happen on a profusion of milky limestone pinnacles, carved pillars...a westerner might feast his eyes, and pass by.
"It's not so much the building, but the spirit in which it is being built," says Michael James, a Cumbrian lorry driver eating ham sandwiches in Brentwood Road, and musing on his and the temple's place in the scheme of things. Two weeks ago he was delivering goods to a supermarket and took a wrong turning in Neasden. He saw the mountains of white limestone, and screeched to a halt: "I was just gob-smacked. It was like...I don't know. I've been back four times just to watch this... You want to touch it, breathe it in..."

Temple Takes Neasden to New Heights 
The largest traditional Hindu temple outside India opened in London yesterday, bringing to fruition the work of hundreds of volunteer workers and endowing the suburban skyline of Neasden with domes and pinnacles.
The 70ft-high, 195ft-long holy temple, or mandir, is surrounded by a moat and has been built to ancient Hindu designs.
There are concessions, however, to the climate and needs of modern British society, such as a lift to provide access for disabled people, under-floor heating, concealed lighting and parking for 550 cars.
The project was conceived by Pujya Pramukh Swami Maharaj, spiritual head of the Swaminarayan Hindu Mission, which has some 20,000 followers and 26 centers in Britain.
A six-day "Festival of Inspirations" to celebrate the monument's completion started yesterday with a cultural parade through central London.

Barbie Dutter
The Daily Telegraph
Saturday 19 August 1995

Gateway to Heaven  
No non-Christian religious organisation in Britain has previously built with such confidence in the long-term future. The new mandir, being such an evident manifestation of a particular ethnic group, is therefore a very brave enterprise. Such temples, we are told by the Swamis, are meant "to raise the consciousness of civilisation". It is a beautiful building that enriches London enormously.

Britain Sees the Gentle Face of Hinduism
A British Home Secretary who interrupts his "sacred" weekly holiday to attend the consecration of a Hindu temple, greets the audience with abhinandan and reads out shlokas from the Bhagavad Gita, makes a telling contribution to multiculturalism, and "The Images of Britain-95."
This is what Mr Michael Howard did to the delight of thousands of Swaminarayan devotees gathered under the shadow of an exquisite purpose-built temple, set to become a sight of London.
High Commissioner L.M. Singhvi described the temple as a gift to Britain from Pramukh Swami Maharaj and a monument to inter-faith understanding, and read out a message from Prime Minister Narasimha Rao.
The consecration of the Swaminarayan temple was an event as significant as Swami Vivekanand's lecture in Chicago, which made the world take note of Hinduism, Mr Advani said.
Pramukh Swami Maharaj blessed the large congregation, and urged his followers to lead a simple life of hard work and service, which alone could bring inner peace and harmony.
The Swami's followers projected a gentle face of Hinduism which received considerable publicity in British media.

Times of India
Tuesday 22 August 1995

Hinduism Finds a Home in Neasden
Colin Amery marvels at a temple of divine perfection in a north London suburb, once a mecca for home furnishing sheds.
It is a miracle...I went to see it late one hot evening, and in the shadowy light it seemed I was in some crowded suburb of Ahmedabad. In fact, Neasden is the land of London's North Circular Road: a kind of limbo between Wembley stadium and IKEA showrooms.
To see how perfectly the temple has been built is to recognise a continuing tradition of craft skills. At night it is wonderfully lit, with triumphant silk pennants flying and golden pinnacles shining. Most striking of all is its brilliant whiteness.
The spiritual head, his divine holiness Pramukh Swami Maharaj, is the inspiration for the movement...
Alongside the temple is a huge cultural center, and in the temple's lower regions there will be a permanent exhibition, "Understanding Hinduism". But it will be the wonder of the building itself that will arouse curiosity.
In turn, the enormous cultural center covers more than 100,000 sq.ft. and follows the traditions of Haveli-style north Indian timber architecture. In its way the center is as beautiful as the temple. Certainly its scale is impressive... There are enormous vegetarian kitchens; a small hall for marriages; health center, sports hall and big library.
There is no doubt that London has acquired a significant new building of traditional Indian beauty and interest. While once the imperial English scattered the Indian sub-continent with gothic churches and classical palaces of government, the Indian community is now returning the compliment. We can be grateful that this has happened in a part of London that needed transforming.

Financial Times, Canada
Monday 28 Aug. 1995

Neasden's Temple of Light Woos Tourists
By day London's new magnificent Hindu temple is impressive enough, but at night it becomes a truly wondrous sight. It is likely to become one of London's tourist attractions alongside its role as a place of worship.
Americans Jim Hempey, 64, and his wife Jean, 63, had travelled to England to visit their daughter who is married to a Hindu.
Mr. Hempey said: "It's great – not what we expected to see in England. We came to Buckingham Palace and the theatres, but our daughter told us about it and we thought we'd come."

Once in a Millennium
...Contemporary churches, mosques, and even temples, are largely built by rich men keen to advertise their spirituality who, probably, hope it will wash away their sins. But Neasden, taking us back to medieval times, has been the voluntary effort of Swaminarayan devotees driven to fulfil the desire of Pramukh Swami Maharaj.
...I was tempted to ask His Holiness Pramukh Swami Maharaj about Krishna and Christ. But as I reached him at the end of a patient line, he looked so gentle and peaceful in the saffron robes casually draped round him, and was answering questions with such calmness in his native Gujarati, that I did not feel it was appropriate.

Mihir Bose
Independent Magazine
Sunday 9 Sept. 1995