The Monk’s Podcast 67 with Gauranga Prabhu – Intellectuals in bhakti @ Bhaktivendanta Research Center

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
I thank you. Hare Krishna Gaurang Prabhu.
Welcome to the monk’s podcast. We have a desire to have you invited many devotees who attended amongst podcasts. Also they ask that we should invite you.
Thank you for sparing your time today. Thank you. So today I thought we could discuss broadly on the topic of engaging intellectuals in our movement and then we could focus on the BRC project for which you are one of the directors.
Now we could take it forward from there. So since my early days in Krishna consciousness, I was very inspired by how deeply you would study scripture and quote scripture and attract people. You are one of my inspirations.
For studying Shastra and over the years, you know, I also appreciating how multifaceted you are doing big projects at the same time. Continue a Shastric study. And I found that there are some other devotees who like to focus more on intellectual work and it’s not so easy for them to find a space because we are a missionary movement.
So over the years, different devotees try to find space in different ways. So maybe can you share your cause you’re also manager, you yourself have intellectual nature and you also guided intellectuals. So how has your experience been in that? And then how did you eventually start getting involved with BRC? Thank you very much.
Chaitanya Charan Prabhu for welcoming me on this podcast. And let me begin by sharing you know, the whole context of activities within ISKCON International Society of Krishna Consciousness is in the context of bhakti or devotional service. And the very definition of pure devotional service as described by Srila Rupa Goswami is Anukulena Krishnanusheelanam Bhaktir Uttama Yes.
Anukulena Krishnanusheelanam Bhaktir Uttama So the main idea is devotion is all about service. Pure devotion means service without other considerations and pure devotional service is about serving and pleasing Krishna without any other personal considerations. And therefore in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna brings in the topic of a graded elevation of our consciousness at whatever level one may be.
And then how yoga is all about using the elements of action, knowledge, renunciation, meditation and devotion. And to the extent a particular component of each of these elements is a majority then that particular means or medium of connectivity is known by that name. Like for example if action is the predominant element or the means and instrument by which we are connecting with the Supreme then that is known as the Karma Yoga.
If knowledge is the more prominent and predominant then it is known as Jnana Yoga. Similarly meditation and renunciation is more predominant is called Ashtanga Yoga. And then devotional service is all about how we can engage all of our desires to match with the desires of Krishna.
And therefore when we speak about intellectual approach then basically one of the most sophisticated literatures written by Srila Vyasadeva is Srimad Bhagavatam. Because the original intellectual is Vyasadeva who is the literal incarnation of Krishna himself. So therefore if you are looking for you know your ideal intellectual or the intellectual who is to be your hero then I don’t see anyone better than Vyasadeva who can be the hero for the aspiring intellectuals.
And the interesting twist in Vyasadeva’s story is after having accomplished a rare or never before seen or may never again be repeated intellectual feat of completing the four Vedas, the 108 Upanishads, the 18 Puranas and all the various other literatures connected to that including the Vedanta Sutra he was still sitting dissatisfied. And then his Guru Srila Narada Muni came and then he asked him Why are you dissatisfied? And then Vyasadeva said I just followed all your orders. I did all these compositions but still I am dissatisfied.
And at that time Srila Narada Muni explained to him that you are dissatisfied because you have not completely glorified Krishna to the extent you should have and explained your devotional service the way it should be very clearly explained. So therefore one of our Acharyas explains which is a Vedanta Sutra aphorism which also means that unless there is repetition of the names and the forms and the glories of Krishna, it does not really invoke true pleasure within the heart. And therefore Srila Prabhupada the founder of ISKCON went to the west carrying the first three volumes of the first canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam and his idea was to create a spiritual revolution in the lives of the misdirected civilization of this world.
So the idea is that yes there may be a manual the manual may be written in a very intellectually stimulating manner and there are two choices we have to get absorbed in the language and the intellectual rigor of the manual or to actually use the manual to do what it is supposed to do or intended for and therefore you know as intellectuals who are practicing devotional service we have to be alert to the fact that we have to be careful to use the manual for the particular purpose for which it has been written and not get absorbed in enjoying the intellectual variety within the manual. Brilliant example. Brilliant example.
It illustrates the pitfall of how we might use the very thing that is meant to take us to Krishna to actually stay away from Krishna in a sense or to not go towards Krishna. Amazing. So basically the idea is that if you know there may be a recipe book so there are two people I can give an example of two people one person memorizes the entire recipe book and you ask him any recipe he can tell verbatim you take this mix this, do this do that including the quantities numbers everything is by heart and he really loves repeating the recipe book and he really impresses people by his thorough knowledge of the recipe book and then there is a second person who doesn’t really go beyond the first recipe which is plain rice but he understands the recipe of the plain rice goes to the kitchen and cooks plain rice for four people so in one sense who is fulfilling the objective of the recipe book the first person has memorized it thoroughly and he can even tell you visually which pictures on which page of the recipe look better than the others and the second one has not gone beyond the first page but he has actually understood the first recipe well and is able to do the needful to remove his hunger and others hunger so therefore that’s the context of devotional service and understanding all these tools which are required for us to become better servants okay so overall if any devotees who are working to work in an intellectual field the primary is the service attitude, the secondary is whatever particular propensity they have, they can engage it so intellectual is a propensity thank you yes so keeping this in mind we also had traditionally Varanashram where Brahmanas were engaged in a Brahminical way Kshatriyas were engaged in a Kshatriya way so we keep Krishna as the purpose but then we look at our nature also and engage ourselves accordingly so when I started getting introduced, I found writing as a way of expressing myself and through that I was able to engage my intellectual nature and when I travel abroad also at some places more than others we have people who are significantly more intellectually oriented at the same time we as a movement are in some ways reaching out to people who are already religiously or spiritually inclined we are not really reaching out to people who are serious intellectuals so one way why I say this is that I am editor of BTG and I also try to encourage devotees to write and I don’t see many devotees many devotees are intelligent no doubt but not many devotees are intellectual or many people who are intellectual very articulate in writing very deep in insights somehow we are not able to attract them so one reason I thought is that I thought of three main reasons for this one is often we go to the our main outreach in university is to the engineering colleges and there it’s people who have more technical rather than the kind of analytical intelligence that is required in humanities and other things so we are reaching out to people who are technically intelligent not like social intellectuals second reason I felt is that our mode of outreach not just whom we are reaching our mode of outreach is also little little too didactic this is right, this is wrong and sometimes thoughtful people require a little more patience to start understanding and accepting things and thirdly which I feel is even if people come through they often feel I don’t have enough engagement over here so for devotees to have a facility for intellectually inclined devotees to have a facility for intellectual engagement within our movement there is not that much infrastructure available so many first-generation Prabhupada disciples whom I have talked with who are now at established positions in academia they told me that most of them were brahmacharis earlier everybody in the past moved into temple they told me that they didn’t see much growth prospect for themselves as brahmacharis especially growth in terms of intellectual growth and they went toward academic studies so in that sense they created a space for themselves and I think in in overall Hinduism studies we have a significant number of Gaudiya Vaishnava scholars now, it’s more as compared to the size of Gaudiya Vaishnava within Hinduism, the number of Gaudiya Vaishnava academic scholars are significantly more so we have created impact there and they are most of them are appreciative of the movement at the same time something within our movement we don’t have that much space for people to get engaged.
So any thoughts on this? Yeah, I think I have a few preliminary thoughts to put things in context as soon as we begin discussion on intellectual and academic engagement I think let me preface whatever I’m going to say by first clarifying that those who are hearing they should not automatically assume that intellectual means superior because sometimes some kind of connotation some people may come to and basically it’s one of the tracks in which a person can feel engaged and absorb them and Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu himself he was one of the top most intellectuals of his time at Naudeep he was the supreme scholar of all kinds of Nyaya Shastras and he was known as Nimai Pandit and then you know Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu at one point of time when he met his spiritual master Srila Ishwara Puri then he as part of his pastime and leela he became really transformed and absorbed in serving and he used his intellectual background and his assets in devotional service perfectly by helping transform some of the most significant scholars of that time like Sarabhaum Bhattacharya and Prakashananda Saraswati and you know using his intellectual acumen Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu presented the conclusions of the scriptures in terms of the Vaishnava context to all of them and transformed them so when we look at you know the modern day academia the way things are set up today different religious organizations whether they are Buddhists or Christian or Muslim or Hindu so we have to find a method by which some people who are inspired by the individual teachings of these different religious texts then they find a way by which they can engage with the secular academic world and that is how the whole academic you know setup is because by definition if you are part of the academia then you cannot be officially or directly be aligned with one particular thought process because the whole idea of academic approach is to question and you know be in the process of evolving your thought process on a regular basis or critical scholarship so one of the best statements I noticed that the difference between the academic approach and traditional approach is the traditional approach to study of scripture begins with faith whereas the academic approach begins with doubt if it passes doubt ok I’ll accept it but the default attitude is doubt it’s a very different paradigm now just to contextualize this I read a scrapbook of Srila Prabhupada of Sadaput Prabhu with Prabhupada that is first meeting about the Bhaktivan Institute and now Prabhupada wanted Bhaktivan Institute not just for scientific outreach but for in general scholarly outreach and he said there are four target audiences over there he said we should make presentations for scholars then secondly for the general educated people third is for students who will probably become scholars or become a part of general educated students and fourth is for devotees who are inclined in this direction so that they can become future members of the Bhaktivan Institute so it’s very good frame so I think intellectual engagement can work in all four ways one is of course academic outreach and now with respect to just to take a case study you know atheism is becoming very influential in the west and one reason for that is there is what is a whole genre of writing called popular science also some scientists they may not be very big scientists but they are science popularizers they take scientific concepts maybe atheistic scientific concepts and write for a mass audience so intellectual engagement doesn’t have to be just writing for the academia but even writing intellectually for the general educated readers so those four are there I think you do that very well which you just described so basically you know as I just described that and you rightly said that currently out of the 7.6 billion population on the planet 31% are Christians 23% Muslims interestingly 16% are described as atheist agnostic non-believers skeptics or whatever 15% of the world population is Hindu and around 7.5% to 8% is Buddhists so as far as we are concerned at the Naktivedanta Research Center our greatest effort is how we can try to establish religious studies within India so as you know that in 1962 63 American academy of religion was established and so it was accepted that you can approach religion either through the emotional mass appeal manner by visiting the churches and the synagogues and temples and all the second is you can also approach religion in an academic way and specifically those who are intellectuals may want to approach it that way and therefore an excellent facility was created through the AAR and today they have more than 10,000 scholars and they meet every year and have large gatherings in huge cities where they have these conferences and I would say that way back in the 1970s you know the Honorable Dalai Lama he took a very strategic step and inspired people to actually go into Buddhist scholarship and like for example Dr. Robert Thurman was one of the first, one of the pioneers who actually established Buddhist studies in a major way and now so many Buddhist scholars have been created and as you rightly said that the Oxford Center for Hindu Studies pioneered by Shonag Rishi Prabhu they have done excellent ground work in creating such a fantastic area of scholars over the last two and a half decades so I think such initiatives are laudable amazing and with the new education policy being rolled out by the government of India recently I think there are tremendous opportunities for integrating traditional wisdom with the modern technical and other education and especially the technical education and the management education has found its place in India in a big way but I do not think that India has come anywhere close to study and creating the study of liberal arts the way they have accomplished in the west and what we know as liberal arts today was traditionally in India part of you know understanding the entire gamut of languages, literatures especially connected with Sanskrit and all of that was described in great detail but with the breakdown of our traditional education system thanks to the intervention by Macaulay we have kind of lost touch with our traditional education system and so we are kind of in a confused state neither here nor there so I think that’s an arena which we need to really deal with and I think it’s gone with its vast talent pool globally and with a very vast number of intellectuals and intellectually inclined people they have a major role to play because today in India we have around 27 crore or 270 million students in the first to twelfth standard around 300 million or 3.5 million or 3 crores or what you call that you know 30 million people in the college system but the challenge is that majority of them are the majority of them who are at the top of the intellectual niche they actually take either engineering or accountancy or they go for the professional courses and what we know in India as you know Bachelor of Arts or even language studies or whatever those kind of courses are taken up by those who cannot get into any of those colleges so many times we find that in many of these Bachelors of Arts or Masters of Arts courses the ones who are taking to those courses are not the ones taking by choice but it is because of circumstances because of which they are there so overall then the quality of the intellectual pool which we are landing up with within these genres is of a different kind whereas one advantage we find with many of the spiritual organizations like ISKCON and many others is that many of these spiritual organizations of different denominations and let me just focus specifically with the context of India because I have more experience here that all of these organizations whether they are traditional or new age or whatever all these spiritual organizations are attracting all kinds of talented people and especially from the corporates very successful people who have made their money and have settled down and are looking for now purpose as what Maslow calls it self actualization they are looking for some kind of fulfillment and direction and therefore if religious studies as a field is given priority in India and secularism as it is known now is redefined in a whole new healthy manner then it will give a lot of opportunities for many of such people who are in their 30s and 40s to also connect with religion and spirituality in a more intellectually engaging manner than what opportunities they have presently so that with approximately 65,000 colleges and universities which we have across India which all have certain basic courses very readily available if all of those institutions also have a parallel school of religious studies where people while they are studying they could always take some kind of course, an audit course or an introductory course or get introduced to those courses so they have some idea as per their interest to get connected with and those who are already in their career track and with their families they can always have an option of you know joining in as part of their adult education program you know in person, in class or online so the varieties of offerings which spirituality and religious studies could actually lend is innumerable and at the same time it could create a complete transformation in people’s character and value systems with the reality being that 2000 crore rupees you know almost you would say that one third of a billion dollar of drugs is being smuggled into India every single day and that’s specifically targeted towards you know the habits of the youth and when people just do not have the sufficient strength to say no to their temptations and they become victims to all kinds of habits and we have you know people across the world struggling with addictions, 1 billion smoking addicts across the world are struggling with the habits of smoking and therefore especially in the pandemic we see that yes after IQ, after EQ, after SQ now we really have to take EQ or adversity quotient very seriously on how we develop capabilities within people to develop their strength to be able to deal with adversities and adversities so I think there are a lot of opportunities this is an amazingly used picture this is an amazingly used picture that say what you are saying is that people could approach religion itself in two different ways one is traditionally by going to temples also academically by going to get degrees and that facility is there in America but that’s not there much in India in fact hardly anything at all I was talking with one devotee or one Sanyasi Guru so one of his disciples wanted to do a religious studies degree and he was going to go into engineering and masters so when he said this to his parents his mother’s reaction was almost like her son wants to become a Brahmachari. She said if you do that I will commit suicide. So it seems that that is not at all considered a viable path so that could be a big change and I think we as a movement will have to work with the government and that will require a huge effort to actually do it so religious studies as you rightly said because of the distorted or unclear definition of secularism religious studies is not much possible at this stage.
You have to go through something like sociology or philosophy or something like that. Some other channels so now within this big picture how does BRC fit in or say create scope for religious studies how is BRC, how are we going ahead in that? Ashila Prabhupada actually mentions you know in one of his quotes treat this matter very seriously and thoroughly and take all precautions to protect these Vedic literatures and Ashila Prabhupada was very much wanting that ISKCON be at the forefront of having systematic spiritual knowledge being disseminated so at the Bhaktivedanta Research Centre we are now running courses in eight cities including Mumbai Pune, Thane Kolkata, Vrindavan etc and the Bhaktivedanta Research Centre in Mumbai is affiliated to the University of Mumbai Mumbai University in 2014 so we are an accredited affiliated research centre so we can give MA and PhD programs and we can also run diploma and certificate programs and basically we are trying to facilitate the study and research of ancient Indian philosophy, arts and sciences but then many people say what is the point of going back into tradition today is the day of technology so yes can tradition be married seamlessly with technology so therefore by having intelligent people do research we are trying to find contemporary applied solution in five areas first is ethics applied solutions in ethics applied solutions for people in emotions applied solutions in environment applied solutions in entrepreneurship applied solutions in improving efficiency oh that’s very contemporary we find that you know one of the greatest challenges people face today is just to give an example of efficiency if a person has all the capabilities he has the best skill but his mind is overwhelmed with worry and there was a report many years ago in UK that you know the three biggest challenges the Indian community in United Kingdom is facing especially London is you know they found that the maximum percentage of cardiovascular diseases was found amongst the Indian community at that particular point in time and so the report said that three reasons for such high incidence of heart disease first they said was curry which was the cuisine which was very heavy with oil and other things first was curry second was hurry that we are trying to do too many things you know and not having a proper schedule so first was curry, second was hurry and third was worry and worry is something which as you know that across the world 300 million people are experiencing disorders connected to anxiety and you write a lot about those things but it affects efficiency and we find that Arjuna one of the most efficient of all sharpshooters was right there with all of his skills at his disposal but suddenly the situation he found himself in completely paralyzed his efficiency so he had the skill but he lost the will and therefore you know ethics, emotions, environment entrepreneurship and efficiency who can say that these are not relevant topics and if our research in ancient wisdom can help the modern you know housewife or the corporate or the student and improve in any of these five areas why not so when we are say focusing on these five areas is it like we are having devotees do some studies to do some PhD over there or are we getting academic scholars to study these books and come up with these paradigms or how are we approaching this right now see currently academic scholars across the world are anyway working on these and you know coming up with research topics and everything but we are specifically within Bhaktivedanta Research Centre focused on not just you know we are not saying that you know we have only practicing devotees who should do this or something like that the Bhaktivedanta Research Centre just like the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies is a centre which is dedicated to see how high class, world class academic research can happen in the area of Vaishnavism okay so it could be anybody from anyone anywhere across the globe you know the access to do research in Vaishnavism specifically and philosophy generally is open to all so the whole idea of Bhaktivedanta Research Centre is that we are affiliated to Mumbai University within the philosophy department and specifically we specialize in being a library which preserves the Vaishnav literature and the great treasure house of Vaishnav lore like that so this is basically meaning for anyone who is interested devotees are intellectually inclined as well as those who are non practitioners who may be interested in subject this is basically like any you could say university department or university research centre that people can come with a special focus that’s wonderful you know with respect to how a tradition interacts with the contemporary environment with the contemporary world there are four modalities they say Insider, Insider Insider, Outsider Outsider, Insider and Outsider, Outsider so Insider, Insider is say like our Bhagavatam classes or our Bhakti Shastri somebody already is practicing so for intellectuals the way I think of engagement some intellectual devotees become satisfied in Insider, Insider engagement so they may become systematic teachers of Shastra or they may translate some books which are primarily meant for devotees so Insider, Insider is one modality then Insider, Outsider is primarily what we call as outreach so that can be done at a normal level where people come to us to our forum, they come to our temples our websites, they read our books and there is some way to reach that and in that I feel there is not much scope for intellectual outreach but it is primarily Outsider, Outsider means a devotee gets a place in an Outsider forum a devotee gets to write a newspaper, a devotee’s book is published by a mainstream publisher a devotee becomes a faculty in a mainstream university or forums which are arranged by Outsiders and there we get to present so there we get some training for that Outsider, Outsider and then Outsider, Insider is where we learn from Outsiders certain ways of analyzing things what they think about our tradition and then we engage in dialogue so from what I can see, in some ways BRC is facilitating all these four things you have the Bhagwat Vidya Peetha which is like an Insider to Insider training serious Bhagwatam overview and study and then there is Insider, Outsider through all these ethics and emotions these can reach a broader audience also and then if devotees become well trained academically, they can also go into Outsider, Outsider so broadly if some devotees today want to or some people want to join so is it that it’s like normally applying for a university it’s a normal way to apply like that and take it forward from there well at this stage you know we have become active with MA and PhD program primarily in Mumbai and then the Mumbai University norms allow a few people to get registered in the first phase depending on the number of guides we have and things like that therefore at this stage we have a few people who are registered with us for PhD and they are taking this forward and few people have also registered for the Masters program but and generally speaking what we also have is we have different scholars from different parts of the world who are also like the additional guides who are who conduct once or twice in a year they conduct courses and course work for such students so at this stage I think you know we have not yet gone beyond Mumbai in terms of MA and PhD program but hopefully moving forward very soon we will be opening up in Pune, in Kolkata and in Vrindavan also these programs where gradually many other people can get connected and affiliated so at this stage I would not say that we have vacancies available and create hopes amongst people but we are just trying out with a few people to make sure that we are actually able to get the model correct because ultimately we want to make sure that whoever does get registered and follows up this particular activity does it with high degree of quality yes that’s true so therefore once you know I would say that the best way we would share the news about this more would be through successfully you know completed course work of candidates who have done this program well and then you know the quality of their scholarship should speak for itself yes scholarship is not something which can be done in a haphazard manner or in a shortcut manner and it has to be done thoroughly and properly so we are very happy to have a good team of guides who are extremely diligent and who do not you know compromise at all with respect to quality so therefore there is a certain quality benchmark which has been set and then whoever can match that goes forward and whoever will not be able to match that then you know tries again and that’s how this entire program will function yeah I saw the report you have of the last year’s activities it’s impressive and I will share this on the YouTube in the future I think you got a elite set of scholars who are already quite respected they have very good publications in the mainstream academy in the west and also all of them are sympathetic to the tradition either they are practitioners or they are supportive so in that sense they can also it is not like a big jolt for some people who come from within the devotional world who study the academic way of restudying it can be actually quite challenging for one’s faith to suddenly adopt a critical approach to study so overall I think it’s a very good setup we have for a pilot stage project right now so one major challenge whenever I talk with people who want to get into academic studies or do some kind of academic project is the financial sustainability first of all to run the project itself and then for the graduates who do it how the engagements for them for which they can sustain themselves so how are we addressing it at present? At present we only have students who are already engaged in the regular profession because all said and done even till today the reality is that education is equal to employment especially in India so therefore we are only connecting with people who are already employed, engaged and a few monks who are interested to do this so as far as and our guides and international guides are also those who do not need any major financial remuneration on an ongoing basis for us but they are happy to affiliate so we do have you know very willing donors who are willing to support this cause because throughout history education has always been supported and funded by the governments and by the wealthy and so even the top Ivy school institutions in America many of them began as theological theological institutions only and even in India typically you will find that the last temple town which was ransacked by Mohammed Ghazni was basically in Somnath and then Varanasi, Vrindavan and then the 6 Goswamis and Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu rebuilt Vrindavan you know so basically temple towns as a concept has been almost become extinct in India whereas previously they were the main centers for not just learning but along with learning also trade, commerce and all kinds of other powerful exchanges and so we find that when there was royal patronage the scholars could flourish, scholarship could flourish and the whole society would benefit from it and in today’s context if you see that amongst the academic institutions Harvard has one of the largest endowment funds in the whole world and the reason being that you know when people see very good quality intellectual work happening then those with wealth are willing to support it so if we are able to create a framework for very high quality intellectual work and support the entire society in those 5 areas as I just described you know so then why would people not want to support because ultimately wealth is created when you solve some real problems which society is facing and only thing is people at this stage have not understood at least you know within the Hindu society I would say the value of financially supporting intellectual work in our traditional wisdom Hindus are very very generous in supporting creation of temples they are very supportive of creation of large complexes where deities are worshipped and there is lot of emotional appeal connected with that and I think that’s wonderful along with that we need to create a culture where we need to create a culture where favorable you know wealthy patrons come forward to support intellectual work connected to our Vedic wisdom so that’s I think very important so Srila Prabhupada’s desire for establishing an academic research institute offering PhD degrees and affiliating with Calcutta University is something which I want to read out from avyasa puja offering by Ravindra Swaroop Prabhu so that people can also see it while you are reading it if you want or you can just I’ll share it on the screen are you able to see? yes yes yes clearly yeah so basically here he says from the avyasa puja offering 2019 by Ravindra Swaroop Prabhu during the 1976 Gorapurnima festival I was summoned by your servant Kamal Krishna Maharaj Srila Prabhupada wants to talk to you brought me to you in place before planned Sridhar Mayapur what you call as ISKCON Bhagwat college you also told Kamal Krishna Maharaj to compile a list of ISKCON devotees in the west who already had undergraduate degrees from these would come the students at ISKCON Bhagwat college the faculty would be composed of me and others who had a PhD then you instructed me to go to University of Calcutta and confer with the proper authorities about affiliating ISKCON Bhagwat college with that institution as it became clear as we talked that what you wanted in Mayapur was a degree granting graduate research institute you told me that students at our ISKCON Bhagwat college prepare their dissertations under our direction and then the University of Calcutta would give the final exam about the degree and that degree you announced would be PhDV doctor of Bhagwat philosophy beautiful that’s true so I thought people would appreciate seeing one such quote amongst hundreds of quotes which Prabhupada has actually shared its remarkable how multifaceted Prabhupada’s vision was so not just directed like building temples and distributing books but also establishing university and creating degrees for studying Bhagwat is beautiful one of the exciting things I noticed in the newsletter was the exploration of the possibility of Prabhupada University would you like to speak something about that or were you saying something more you want to complete that yeah so basically you know considering Prabhupada’s focus on connection with Calcutta his grace Harishori Prabhu and Pranava Prabhu 29th of June 2009 they began the Bhaktivedanta Research Centre as a library and this library consists of more than 20,000 books and this has the personal collection of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur which is known as the Sundarananda Vidya Vinod connection also this has more than 3000 books this particular collection and you know the books have been categorized into 14 different categories the 4 Vaishno Sampradayas then the Harinam, the Dham, Haribhajan Haribhaktagan, the Vedas and Vedanta Sutra, Upanishads the Puranas, the Dharmashastras the Bhagavad Gita, the Vishvakosha, the Bhagavatam then the what you call as the Grammar or Vyakarana books of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu books of the Goswami, Acharyas we have books of Srila Rupa Goswami, Jiva Goswami Sanatana Goswami we have of Baladevidya Bhushan Raya Ramananda, Narahari Chakravarti Narottam Das Thakur, Prabodhanam Saraswati Kabiraj Goswami so and then we have apart from this Sundarananda Vidya Vinod collection we have various manuscripts and copies of Bhagavad Gita, Bhagavatam, Ramayana Mahabharata, Brahmasutras Upanishads, Vedas, Cosmology many many books connected to the Indic religions philosophy and culture so we have a manuscripts mission which goes out to all the different villages and places across and try to get either the original manuscripts or digitized copies so nearly 1500 manuscripts have been digitized and we have gathered information of more than 3000 manuscripts and various remote places people are having this wealth but they just do not know what to do with it and therefore it’s very important that if any of the viewers or hearers of this podcast if they have access to any such manuscripts or they feel that they can connect us with such manuscripts then our team would be more than happy and willing to reach out and get these manuscripts or digitize them and it’s there on our brcindia.com website you could have a look at all of the manuscripts digitized so far and we have what is known as the Bhaktivedanta Research Center BRC Library Organization and Digitization Project which started in 2018 and over the last two years out of 20000, 3000 books have been completed and this is a very important thing and for those of you who are not aware that in the 50s and 60s many of the manuscripts from India they were sent to American libraries and many of the original manuscripts are there in the American libraries and we also have started a project called BRC New York where we want to actually digitize many of those manuscripts and then also have a copy with us and this year we are very excited to share with all our viewers those who are attending our podcast that we have some significant projects going on especially Thakur Bhaktivinod’s autobiography is being worked upon which is known as the Swalikita Jeevani Project which is the only autobiography of a Gaudiya Vaishnava Acharya and this has many details about how he grew up and things like that it was written in the form of a letter to his son and we have you know scholars like Dr. Shantanu Dr. Abhishek Ghosh who are actually leading this project and basically the translation almost 60% has been done and then various historical contextualizing of the words, personalities and places with annotations that will happen after that and then there will be a chronological timeline of events of Thakur Bhaktivinod’s life and this was written in 1896 and so a postscript of the remaining 14 years of his life after 1896 will also be documented and there is an idea to form a database of scholarly writings on Thakur Bhaktivinod so there will be other contributions also from the scholars and so this is planned to be launched sometime next year Krishna will depending on how things progress the BRC team of scholars is also working on one Uttadanga Junction where as you know that ISKCON has now the property and sometime next year that property will be renovated and opened as a museum and cultural house for the whole world to come and see the exact spot where his Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada as Abhay Charan received the instruction from his Guru Srila Saraswati Thakur that you should go and preach in the English language all over the world as they say that it was a word which transformed everything and therefore the entire research on the Uttadanga Junction is happening with a group of scholars led by Dr. Ferdinando and various senior Vaishnavas of those times are being interviewed Sundar Gopal Prabhu is one of the staff at the BRC is very actively involved and so various other museum projects that are envisaged and there is a Maharas Manjusha research project, a poetic rendition of from the 16th century Srinagiri temple tradition of Braja from the Vallabh Sampradaya so that is happening and a lot of powerful research work is being conducted which is being led by Dr. David Heberman and Dr. David Heberman and Shri Manoj Goswami and Prakriti Goswami they are leading this project so as I said the BRC is not restricted to just only Gaudiya Vaishnavism but across any kinds of academic activities which are faced with philosophy and religion another interesting project is the Vaishnava Encyclopedia project where there is work known as Gaudiya Vaishnav Abhidhan which is a multi-volume encyclopedic work which is being published by Haridas Das and you know Saraswati Thakur writes in his will that something related to this with respect to the Vaishnava Encyclopedia of a different type was being at that point handled by the Gaudiya at that time it was very close to his heart and therefore this is a very important project which is being led by a group of scholars they are regularly meeting and working on this and I think in another couple of years time this one will be actually released a lot of work field trips are involved and future plans of this project is also to connect this with some kind of holy places of pilgrimage and tourism which is related to spiritual pilgrimage spots and then another project which has which is being conducted is understanding the context of counseling, philosophical counseling because as the COVID has hit across the world many people are going through anxiety syndromes and difficulties hoping with change so philosophical counseling with special reference to Bhagavad Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam which has hundreds and thousands of episodes of exchanges happening between someone who is distressed due to a particular situation and finding shelter in a philosophical discussion and dialogue and how we can find all of these ancient philosophical dialogues which were spoken to relieve people of their current distress be applicable in today’s context. So that is another exciting project being taken up and another very interesting project is the Bhagavat traditions in Maharashtra because across Maharashtra different scholars, different saints at different times have approached Bhagavatam, interpreted Bhagavatam and explored Bhagavatam in different ways and so Dr. Ravi Gupta Dr. Shakuntala Gowde Dr. Sumantha, Dean Gaurang Vadas from ISKCON Choppadi are very much involved in trying to explore this Bhagavat traditions in Maharashtra and in this way all of these exciting research projects are happening which create a plethora of opportunities for intellectually inclined devotees who are grounded in the basic idea of Vaishnavism of being a Das, Dasa, Das and once we are grounded in the right frame of mind with the right attitude then the amount of intellectual exploration which is possible for self transformation and for transforming society is limitless Amazing So it’s the university is only a research center where we are giving degrees is only one part of it in a sense you are doing a lot more than that creating museums preserving books and it’s sometimes also what you said is sometimes we are seen as a little bit of an exclusivist kind of organization where we care only for ourselves but here we are creating a project which is taking people to which is engaging with the Bhagwat tradition in general with somebody with a scholar from a poet from outside tradition also I mean from the Pushti Marg also this is wonderful So would you like to speak a few concluding words about the Prabhupada University because that is something which I read about or it’s in a recent stage right now You can also share the link to recent Facebook live conversation I had with Dr. Vijay Bhatkar Yes I saw that Founder of the India’s Param Computer Project very very noted educationist and a leading scientist one of the chief advisors to the prime minister on scientific matters and also with Dr. Bhushan Patwardhan who was also kind enough to be part of that conversation who is the vice chairman UGC University Grants Commission and we have discussed a lot on this subject the essential point being that we need to approach education not just from the perspective of something which can help create career but also how it can add to the component of character and create a holistic personality for students so we aspire to create students who are trained not just to solve problems in paper but who can actually solve problems in their own life and with that perspective the conversation is there that’s pretty exciting and as you said that it is still in the process of discussion as you know that it is creating a huge institution with terrific responsibilities attended to it so it will take some time before we are actually able to understand the whole gamut of activities involved and then when you know things appear positive then you may hear something more from us okay thank you very much for your time it is very enlivening to see so many universe of outreach and opportunities opening up and we will keep hopefully as things move forward we will have you again and we can have further discussions thank you very much for your time thank you very much Chaitanya Charan Prabhu for inspiring the whole world with your amazing ocean of transcendental wisdom and so many books and podcasts and presentations you are making it’s really very enlivening and enlightening to the whole world we are very grateful to you and I wish and pray that you continue your amazing efforts thank you