Just as Christians adopt local cultural forms while converting Indians, can devotees do the same in their outreach?
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Transcript
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yes so Christians thereafter have sometimes even made temples with spires and they have got Sahasranam and Shatranam and Shlokas and pujas and homes so all the cultural forms they have adapted and that is their innovativeness some people may say that this is stealing of local cultural forms whatever it is they have done what it takes to share their message so we as devotees have to understand that there are two aspects to Krishna Bhakti there is one is the universal and the other is the specific specifically we are practitioners and propagators of Gaudiya Vaishnavism at the same time universally we are also propagators we are also instruments for rejuvenating human consciousness now in many places of India historically we have seen that Krishna Bhakti developed in different ways in South India it developed differently, in Gujarat it developed differently, in North India it developed differently, in Bengal it developed differently, even Bengali Gaudiya Vaishnavism also developed differently in Bengal and differently in Odisha, differently in Vrindavan, in Vrindavan most of the devotees wrote Sanskrit books in Bengal they wrote Bengali books, when the devotees went to Manipur, Manipuri Vaishnavism has developed as distinctively different from Gaudiya Vaishnavism by still having a worshiping Chetan monopoly following those essential principles so this kind of cultural adaptation will be necessary even within India what to speak of outside of India so as an institution we may take time to recognize the need for such cultural adaptation but individually we can always improvise while sharing Krishna consciousness so for example there are devotees in Africa who are writing, who present articles there giving Bhakti commentary on African saints so this way they attract Africans already, they don’t feel that they are living our culture, our own culture, our own wisdom, cultural wisdom that we have learnt, you are explicitly explaining it better so that way Prabhupada would himself quote Bengali saints which are not necessarily directly related to Gaudiya Vaishnavism, so using the local wisdom for teaching spiritual wisdom is perfectly fine so if there have been some, you can use the local saints, if there have been local bhaktas you can quote from them just like Maharashtra people will quote from Tukaram Maharaj or we may adopt the local cultural forms in terms of, so people can perform may be dramas using the local costumes of course if you want to preach seriously over there we have to present in the local language that is perfectly fine, necessary in fact so as individual we need to do whatever is necessary and of course we can consult if we want to do something which is very distinctive and not been done before then we may want to consult senior devotees who also know the ground level reality and with their guidance and under their supervision we can do things but adaptation is a necessary aspect of every tradition and that adaptation should not be seen as being unfaithful because the tradition itself has aspect of adaptation as I said, Manipura Vaishnavism was developed according to Bengali Gaudiya Vaishnavism and as per Gaudiya Vaishnavism as per Vrindavan Vaishnavism so faithfulness to tradition also includes faithfulness to the adaptiveness of the tradition so adaptation is perfectly fine but there are limits to that adaptation and what those limits will be that we have to consult senior devotees and we don’t change the essential principles but with respect to details we can surely adopt the local cultural forms for making the presentation more appealing and intelligible for people