Bakari Gopala
This is an interesting story/history, of the beginning of the Spiritual Sky Incense business started, as told by H.G. Gargamuni das.
How I started Spiritual Sky Incense
by Gargamuni das
This is the Story of How I started Spiritual Sky Incense in the winter of 1968 at 61 2nd Ave Iskcon NYC– with the motto, ”Krsna Makes the Best Scents” (Sense), which increased Sankirtan Literature Distribution 20 times. Myself and Brahmananda thought of the name Spiritual Sky, with Srila Prabhupada’s blessings in the winter of 1968. I started making the Spiritual Sky incense in the very small cellar at the temple. I not only made stick incense but I also packaged resin incense, which I bought from an old East European man who was 90 years old. He used to make frankincense that was used in churches. He had several other mixes with spices and resins which were very fragrant. You would put these on self-igniting charcoal. There were little round charcoals, you would light a match and touch it, and it would self-ignite. Then you would sprinkle on these resins with spices and you’d get very nice fragrance. I made different names with small containers, and sold them to the stores. I also bottled fragances in designer dripless perfume bottles. In this way, I was practically the only one making extra money for the temple.
Spiritual Sky started but it was a one-man operation and I couldn’t expand it. So Prabhupada gave me the permission, because I was invited by Tamala Krishna, who was the president in the old LA Temple at La Cienega Blvd. It was a very large Mexican church, old church. There was space and there was man power. There about about 75 devotees there compared to New York which had much less. So I moved the whole operation by the summertime of 1969 to Los Angeles where I mass-produced the Spiritual Sky incense.
