190 Sannyasa ashrama in the bhakti tradition: Overvalued or devalued? The Monk’s Podcast 190 with Yadunandana Maharaj

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Hare Krishna Yadunan Maharaj, Tandava Pranam, Chaitanya Chandra, Shri Ram Prabhu. Welcome to the Monks Podcast. Such an honor and long cherished desire to have you on this forum.

It's been, since I started this forum, you know, it was one of my, you could say, fond desires to have some discussion on various topics with you. You have been the chair of the Shastric Advisory Council and yourself also a published author on several, you could say, important and delicate issues. We'll discuss one of them today.

But I am very grateful that finally we could arrange and you could spare your time. Thank you so much for joining. Thank you very much for inviting me.

It's a great honor. Your podcast is very well known and it's profound in the guests you invite, so it's a great honor that you are inviting me. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Maharaj. So I thought of discussing the topic of one of your books. That was your first book, which you wrote on re-examining Sannyas Ashram in the contemporary world, especially with respect to ISKCON.

So before we go into that, maybe could you tell briefly about your journey to Krishna Consciousness and journey within Krishna Consciousness? You have done a lot of services, especially in the education ministry, as well as other services. If you could briefly describe your services as well as your introduction, then we can start with that if that's okay with you. Yes, that's fine.

I met devotees through some of my friends when I was 14. This was in 1977. We had a youth group among friends of parapsychology and UFOs.

Oh, okay. Then we started to practice yoga. Some of my friends started to visit the temple in Barcelona.

We were living in a place known as Mataró, which is located 30 kilometers from Barcelona. So my friends visited the temple and they taught me about Krishna Consciousness. The two main friends who influenced me were known as Santi and Joan Manel, and later on Joan Manel was initiated as Jagannath Mishra Das.

Okay. So they taught me about Krishna Consciousness, and then I started to visit the temple. In a period of one year and a half, I moved to live in the temple.

During that period, I was chanting 16 rounds at home and following the principles. The first month, my parents were pushing me to eat meat because I was only 14, but after a few months, I managed to convince them to come to a deal that I could be a vegetarian even if they were not. Okay, that's another story.

So I moved to the temple in the beginning of 1979. So you must have still been, if you're just 14, that means you must have been in early college at that time? Yes, in those years, I finished compulsory education, which in Spain was called general basic education. It's a bit different from primary and secondary.

And then I started to work for one year because this was part of the deal so that they will allow me to become a vegetarian. I told them when I grow up, I will go to live in the temple anyway, so please allow me to work, I'll bring some money home, and you allow me to be a vegetarian. Because they were saying that if they had to cook separately for me, my mother was saying, it would be more costly, and they didn't have the economy to do that.

I think it was an excuse in one way, but in some sense, it's true they were tied financially. So I started to work for one year. I was studying in the beginning, but I quit my studies to do work in order to make a deal with my parents.

Oh, okay, that's remarkable. So you were from Spain itself and you joined in Spain itself at that time? Yes, and I was based in Spain all the time until I shifted from 2002 to 2014. My base shifted to Radhadesh in order to serve at Bhaktivedanta College.

Okay, so it's remarkable. You did not get so much education, but you became a pioneer of education in our movement. Yes.

So you had your innate interest in scriptural study or how did that become a prominent service for you? Yes, actually it happened. I started to read systematically Srila Prabhupada's books by the influence of His Holiness Keśava Bharati Goswami Maharaj, who at the time was serving in Spain. He was the regional secretary for Spain during the Sonal Acharya years.

Okay. Bhagavan Maharaj at the time was the GVC and Sonal Acharya for Spain and Keśava Bharati Maharaj was the regional secretary. And he inspired me very much to read Srila Prabhupada's books.

So this naturally made me very interested in learning. Even I learned English by reading Srila Prabhupada's books. Because yes, at the time we had only translations into Spanish up to the middle of the third cant of Srimad Bhagavatam.

So when it came to that point, if I wanted to read more Srimad Bhagavatam and Caitanya Charita Amrita, I needed to learn English. So I learned with a dictionary and of course I had some basic notion of English from school. So in this way that is where my beginning of through education we could say in terms of being educated through Srila Prabhupada's books.

That's amazing. So that ethos of systematic study of scripture, you continued that not only in your life but then you started sharing that with others also. So how did you, I mean we could discuss about education itself is a big subject.

But considering that your first book was on the Sanyasa Ashram which is, I would say regarding your book, it may be among the first books in our movement apart from maybe the ISKCON communication journal and Purnachandra Maharaj's book on obstacles on the spiritual path which is so candidly self-critical or at least self-reflective. So could you share what inspired you to write that book and how you developed that subject basically? Yes, the context of how I decided to write this book was that during the 12 years I was serving as principal at the Bhaktivedanta College in Radhadesh. The college was working, we were offering a degree accredited first by the University of Lampeter in Wales in the UK and later on we established a partnership with the University of Chester also in the UK.

So during that period the scholars who taught the academic modules of the degree program, many of them were coming from the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. Shonaka Rishi Prabhu is the director for the centre and he was the main visionary for the beginning of Bhaktivedanta College. So in the beginning my main role as the principal was to take care of coordinating the courses and interacting with the teachers and the students and taking care of the students both academically and spiritually in coordination with the tutors.

So at some point the University of Lampeter offered me the option of studying a master's degree because I was for a number of years, I think six or seven years, I was serving as the principal and I guess I saw I could function well in the academic educational world. So they offered me a scholarship so that they could do a master's degree. For that I had to submit one application in the British universities.

They have what they call accreditation of prior learning and accreditation of prior life experience, prior experience in life. So I submitted an application to be admitted to the master's program. The master's was focused on Indic spiritual traditions.

Naturally it relates very well to Krishna consciousness. I submitted my CV of what I had done throughout the years in ISKCON presented in an academic language so that the university could relate to it. Oh, okay.

And but then specifically why the topic of sannyas you felt with respect to discussing on for academic study? Yes, this was the topic I chose for my dissertation. This was, if I remember correctly, around 2008. I was a sannyas candidate for several years and I was about to take sannyas.

I was initiated as a sannyasi in 2009. So I thought, let me select a topic for the dissertation, which is of my interest, both in terms of personal interest that will be useful for me to learn something. And because the step of taking sannyas was a big step I was going to take.

So I thought it would be good to do so, to go in depth into the topic. And I also saw it was very much related to the movement. Because I kept in the movement, for example, I had been initiated by one of the Shonal Acharyas who gave up the sannyas ashram.

I had been serving seven years as president in two different projects in Spain during the 80s and the 90s. I had been regional secretary for Spain during seven years. The reason why I mention these positions is because I had seen the effect of sannyasis giving up in the yatra and I had to deal with it in terms of having a leadership position at the national or local level in Spain.

In the decade of the 80s, the Shonal Acharya gave up, so naturally this created a big crisis of faith in many devotees. In the middle of the 90s, one of our GBC representatives, very respected by the devotees, also gave up the sannyas ashram. This created a second wave of faith crisis in many devotees, even up to the point that the main temple in Spain was proposed for selling at the end of the 90s.

We were not able to maintain it properly and this created a big division in the yatra. So in one sense, my study on sannyas has many autobiographical elements there. It was something that affected me both as a person and also as someone who had the position of leadership and had to deal with issues arising from the problems within the sannyas ashram.

Another consideration is that I was going to enter into the sannyas ashram and I was somewhat, I'm not sure what's the word. We could say a little scared in that if more bigger personalities than me were not able to sustain the sannyas ashram, how can I make it sustainable in my case? And don't do the same, don't follow the same path in terms of giving up the sannyas ashram and again contributing to create difficulties. I don't mean to undermine all the good things.

I have very high respect for all the sannyasis who sacrificed and gave, even if they gave up what they did, I have very high respect for them. But what I mean is that I would like if I take sannyas, sustain it until the end of my life and be able to offer a contribution in this way. So I thought I need to go through to check the journey of other sannyasis in ISKCON who are ahead of me.

And this should include not just sannyasis but also ex-sannyasis out of respect for them and also to learn from them to learn what are the key factors to success and key factors to failure. What failure? I mean failure, I say what in terms of that every soul has his own journey and even if somebody gave up the sannyas ashram doesn't mean that that person will not go back to what he had before someone who gives up his body in the sannyas ashram. Because as you know going back to Godhead does not depend on externals.

If you look at the case of Ajamil, he didn't act as a bhaka brahmana but he went back to Godhead in that very lifetime according to Srimad Bhagavatam. And Bharata Maharaj who was so good in his duties, in his Varna ashrama duties, he was so impeccable that the whole planet was named after him but it took him two more lifetimes even though he was situated in Bhavavati according to Vishwanatha Chakravarti Thakur. So Maharaj, two three questions here.

It's like both as you said analytical plus autobiographical. So to find that balance in between is difficult. It has never been hugely dependent on the sannyas ashram.

There are of course people who follow particular gurus and for them their guru is the central thing but beyond that there is a large cross section of society who do some level of religiosity. And I would say it's not just religiosity in the sense of rituals, some level of spirituality is also there. Not huge, not certainly like the serious sadhana that we have within our movement, spending several hours every day but something.

So is it that the centrality of sannyas or centrality of sannyasis in the building of faith, was that a huge factor in traditional Indian culture as far as you saw, to the extent you examined or you studied it? Certainly we know that there are prominent teachers, Shankaracharya, Ramacharya, Madhavacharya in the Vaishnav tradition as well as in the Jain Vedic tradition, they were sannyasis. But apart from that, to whatever extent, I have seen there have been multiple expressions. So is it that sannyas ashram had excessive importance in ISKCON as compared to what it was in the traditional India? So there are two parts to this question, maybe they are related but I just thought of articulating both.

Yes, what I found out during the research, before studying, going through the interviews to the sannyasis, I thought it would be good to look at the historical development of the sannyas ashram from classical times in India. I mean based on Shastra, because we cannot, other than looking at the Shastras, we cannot do an anthropological or sociological study of those years, unless we will have the time machine, we could go back and look through it, I don't know if that ever will develop. But we cannot do that, so we are, whatever we, and that's not to undermine how essential and most important is the teachings of Shastra, but we do find that sometimes what's written in Shastra and what we, and the popular practice, varies to a certain extent.

Like for example, in, and this will bring, this will be another topic for another discussion, but if we take the role of the guru, like if we take the version of the Srimad Bhagavatam, the Grihasthas, like the Seventh Canto of Srimad Bhagavatam speaks about the wife of the spiritual master, which indicates that the Gurukulas were run by Grihasthas, not by sannyasis, in classical times. If we go back to what we call the Vedic period, meaning thousands of years back, but then in practice many Vaishnavas and Pradayas, they have sannyasis as the primary initiators. Some Sampradayas and Vinis, we have some Grihasthas giving initiation, but the majority of Diksha gurus are sannyasis, which is not exactly what was happening from what we get from reading the Shastras in classical Vedic times.

But it seems that the figure of the sannyasis as the gurus of the Grihasthas and leaders of Sampradayas seems to be more like something that happened in the medieval period. In terms of being organized. Yes.

And Sripada Sankaracharya, actually he is credited both by his followers and by Vaishnavas. Srila Prabhupada refers to him as the, I know the expression in the translated version into Spanish, but a very strong, very firm, very staunch teacher, very big teacher who expelled Buddhism from India and established the teachings of the Vedas. He did so as a sannyasi and he established the Advaita Vada, the monistic philosophy, as a step forward from nihilistic thought, going back to the Vedic perspective.

Later on, other sannyasis coming from actually from an Advaita line originally like Madhvacharya or Ramanujacharya. Ramanujacharya was, yes, he was, first he had Yadavaprakash as guru, who was a follower of Sankaracharya, and later on he, I mean very soon as a child, he questioned him, he rejected him. And later on he took shelter of Sri Yamunacharya and became the leader of the Sri Sampradaya.

He was a sannyasi who took, if I remember correctly, he took sannyas, self-initiated himself. He was a Svatantra sannyasi. Sri Sivabhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur did the same on the basis of reference of Sri Ramanujacharya in the Vaishnava lineage.

That's true. So it's interesting, Maharaj, what you mentioned this. In fact, I'm just taking it one step backward.

It seems in India, if we look at the Ramayana Mahabharata, there are both renunciate brahmanas and gurus and priests, and there are householder brahmanas, gurus and priests. And there doesn't seem to be a huge difference between the two of them. When Lord Ram goes to the forest, he meets different sages and they are all referred to as sages, whether they are married or not.

So in that sense, the emphasis seems to be more on wisdom and devotion and spirituality than that much on sannyas per se. Not that sannyas was not respected, of course it was, but it didn't seem to have that much emphasis. So from a historical perspective, there are some broad Hindu Vedic scholars, they say that the sannyas was emphasized by Buddhism and Jainism more.

And then one of the ways in which that influence was countered was also by Shankaracharya, because in one sense, Buddhism, Jainism and Advaita Vaad, they are to significant extent world rejecting philosophies. Yes, I will agree with your analysis. Yes.

In many places in his book, in many purports, when he talks about sannyas, he refers to the first verse of Chakravarti, which actually refutes the demonistic Advaita Vaada concept of sannyas. The orthodox approach to sannyas by saying that the sannyas is not somebody who doesn't light any fire nor performs any duty, but actually somebody who performs his duty with detachment. That is true.

So in one sense, the Bhagavad Gita is quite strongly against renunciation of the world. Although we could say that is more contextually driven because Arjuna had important duty to perform and the Bhagavatam is quite, you could say renunciation driven, renunciation centered. Because Parikshit Maharaj also, he had already decided to renounce the world and he was focusing on the Lord.

So the context makes a good amount of difference in the emphasis within the content. Both talk about spirituality and about bhakti, but the context makes a significant difference in what is stressed. So the Bhagavatam seems to repeatedly talk about renouncing the world and talking about how family life is entangling, but that doesn't seem to be the tone of the Bhagavad Gita or the Mahabharata or the Bhagavatam in general.

So the point I was making is that if we consider that, so you talked about how the problems that sannyasis had that led to faith crisis for many devotees. So my question was that, why I brought this historical context is that, was it, I wouldn't say, was it like an exceptional situation that led to an overemphasis on sannyas, ashram as the foundation of people's faith? Means were there some special circumstances because of which within our movement sannyas was overemphasized and in the Indian tradition or in general, even in our movement for subsequent times, sannyas ashram need not be the foundation or the cornerstone of people's faith. I hope I'm making my question clear.

Yes, let me see if I can, if I don't reply what you're asking, please let me know and I can try again. So the, I mean, my perception is that trouble path engage everybody, both sannyasis and grihastas in the mission of preaching, because for example, if we look at how the movement is spread in Europe, we have three grihasta couples who came, who started in London. The legendary couples, Shama Sunderu and Malati Devi, Guru Dasa Devi, Mukunda Nau Maharaj at the time, Prabhu and Janaki Devi.

And they were the missionaries who started and Prabhupada was very, sometimes even he will express some, not some, but actually a lot of satisfaction in that his grihasta disciples did what sannyasis couldn't accomplish before. Establishing Christian consciousness in the West. So Srila Prabhupada used both sannyasis and grihastas.

I will suggest that part of the reason why the sannyasa ashram was overemphasized, it's due to lack of purity in the understanding of the ashramas, of all of us as a society. And in one way it's a natural development, because we were, the movement was very young when Srila Prabhupada physically departed from this world, we were very young. So there were quite a number of misunderstandings which contributed to an sometimes unhealthy emphasis on external renunciation, on the externals and not so much on the essence of the ashramas.

Both applying it to the sannyasa ashram and also to the other ashramas. Okay, so it's more you could say that the two things here, circumstantially because of the newness of the movement, Prabhupada also emphasized it, but there was also immaturity in how we understood and applied it. So maybe you could explore both of these.

So when you talk about emergency, it's interesting that when Prabhupada, when he was trying to preach in India, he said that his Guru Maharaj came in his dream and told him that take sannyas and his godbrother also told him that you cannot preach unless you are a sannyasi. So it does seem that at least in the Indian context, sannyas as a foundation for preaching, not necessarily a foundation, as an important position for preaching seems to have a lot of precedence. Mahaprabhu also took sannyas, Bhaktsanshu Thakur did that, Sri Prabhupada did that.

So that you could say in India, things had changed and there was some amount of religious, spiritual resurgence and the renounced order was respected because there are some Adhmetic sannyasis also and Indians, even Christianity which came to India was to some extent there were missionaries, whether they were renounced or not. There still missionaries were there. So there could be various factors, but did my question is that did renunciation itself make such a big difference for outreach in the West? For people, this was a strange or exciting culture and practices and worldview coming from the East.

So whether the teacher of that was a renunciate or non-renunciate, did that make a big difference in the effectiveness of the outreach? I would say yes and no, and to explain, Sri Prabhupada initiated a number of devotees as sannyasis. If I remember correctly, the numbers were about 54. In the statistics, there were not complete statistics in what I mean.

The sannyas ministry was created in the early 90s. So it could be that some sannyasi disciples of Sri Prabhupada who didn't like much would have filtered instead of 54, which is the number I found out in my research. 54 devotees took sannyas from Srila Prabhupada from 1967 when Srila Prabhupada departed.

So he gave sannyas to all these devotees and many of them became important leaders in movement and they were able to have an impact both in ISKCON and also outside ISKCON because they didn't have family duties so they could dedicate themselves 100% as leading missionaries. So they could also make new, like younger, trained new devotees as brahmacharis, lead projects. Srila Prabhupada referred in some of his letters discussing the sannyasasana to the sannyasis as strong men, meaning they were by nature, they were leaders.

And they could make things happen. And usually he would give sannyas to the devotees, he would think they would be capable to make things happen in terms of missionary work accomplished. That's very interesting Maharaj.

So just a quick observation on this. Two things. See one is, here it seems to be more of a logistical perspective, not a faith perspective, that the sannyasis don't have family responsibilities, so they can have more resource, so they can devote their time and energy for doing outreach work and sharing Krishna Bhakti with others.

And now, that does not itself convey the aspect of faith. We can say within our movement we don't have that system, but at least in protestant churches and even in Islam they have people who are missionaries who are married. And then the mission takes care of the financial needs of the couple.

And they also do a lot of work. In fact, missionaries, there are other Hindu groups also which do some kind of work like that. So I'm not sure that logistical problem solving that requires sannyas itself.

I'm sorry if I'm taking a little skeptical attitude. I'm just trying to understand. So the logistical aspect is one thing.

Second is the leadership aspect. But I would say that leadership aspect, which you said there are people who could get things done, well there are people who are, in fact most of the things that are done in the world, no matter how much our sannyasis do things, with all due respect to them, there are people who lead companies and who are political leaders, corporate leaders. They also do a lot of things.

And that doesn't really require sannyas. So my focus was that there is a logistical requirement from the time perspective, from the talent or ability perspective. But there's another aspect which is the centrality of the faith.

That these are the people around whom our faith is based. So is that something which is just an offshoot of the way things were presented? Or is that central to our understanding of bhakti itself? Yeah, this is actually, this can pose a problem. Because if we think that our faith, in one sense, I mean, the issue is ambivalent.

There are two aspects. When I say yes and no, before I said yes and no, like I will say no in terms of what I mentioned before, that the first preachers, successful preachers in Europe were grihasthas. And many of those who opened temples in America were grihastha couples, the majority of them, if not all.

So in that sense, it is not required that it has to be a sannyasi. Also, the first, we learn from Srila Prabhupada Lilamrita, that the first GBC representatives, the first GBC, all of them were grihasthas. And then somehow, Srila Prabhupada's idea, and it is written in some letters, we have to look at them and look at them closely if we want to go more in depth into the subject.

But I do remember having read such letters, that Srila Prabhupada's strategy was the GBCs are grihasthas, I mean in the beginning, and the sannyasis travel and preach. So in one way, the sannyasis contribute to sustain the spirituality and the faith of the general devotees. And in that way, they act as shiksha gurus, following the classical Vaibhavana ashrama system.

The sannyasis act as a spiritual master of all the Vaibhavas and ashramas, even the brahmanas, and they contribute to remind those grihasthas who are distracted, to remind them of Krishna and of their duties. In one way, it follows the classical ashrama system. That's fascinating.

So when you spoke this, I remembered in the Ilamrut, that was like a clear emphasis of Prabhupada that you as a sannyasi should travel and preach. So Prabhupada was creating some kind of differentiation between, you could say, managerial roles and educational or you could say traveling educational roles. So somehow now, maybe in the post Prabhupada period or after that itself, most of the prominent GBCs were sannyasis.

So how did that change, Maharaj? Well, during Srila Prabhupada's time, it seems that for whatever reason, again, the elementalistic functionality is there, because some of the original GBCs were initiated, they were grihasthas and they became sannyasis. Like Satsvarupa Maharaj is one of them, Tamal Krishna Maharaj, I think Hridayananda Maharaj as well. I'm not sure if he's in the first list, I would have to check exactly the names, but some of these names were in the first list of GBCs and they were grihasthas.

Rupanuga Prabhu also was initiated as a sannyasi later on and a few others and Srila Prabhupada gave sannyas to them. Okay, makes sense now, yes. Which indicates that Srila Prabhupada was more concerned about the mission and there are letters to sannyasis saying that you should do as I'm doing and he mentioned the word managing as well.

So it was not watertight, even though in the beginning, ideally, Srila Prabhupada conceived letting the grihasthas manage and the sannyasis preach. Later on he saw that some of the sannyasis were very good in managing, so also they can do some type of management and he asked some of them to be GBCs in India. Like for example, he called Tamal Krishna Goswami Maharaj as GBC in India because he was such a good manager.

Okay, that's interesting, good example and he in one sense insisted that I want to preach and Prabhupada didn't want him to do that. So it does seem that to some extent what Prabhupada did was, we can't really glimpse into, we can't know the mind of Srila Prabhupada but if you look at his actions and writings, it does seem that there were two things. One was that Prabhupada wanted to recreate the traditional way of doing things.

At the same time, Prabhupada wanted to keep the mission moving forward. And if that required the overlapping of traditional category roles or adjustment of certain things, Prabhupada seemed to give greater priority to that or at least significant amount of priority to that, maybe not greater necessarily. Yeah, I would agree with this analysis.

Yes. Yes. So, so going, so going back to the moment, at the moment, excuse me, at the moment I'm serving as president of New Brazil Mandala in Spain.

And I was not thinking that I will become a president of an ISKCON project again, because as a sannyasi, I was thinking I travel and preach, but not, don't get so much into management. But somehow my, my GBC representative and the previous temple president here was a sannyasi, another devotee asked me to do it. And then for me it became clear that Krishna through the devotees was asking me I had to do this.

And I happily accepted that service. Also looking into what Srila Prabhupada had done, that sometimes he did ask some sannyasis to become presidents of some projects. There are not many examples of that, but there are some.

Like for example, in Vrindavan, he asked Akshayananda Maharaj to be the president. So like that, there were different examples. Okay.

So, you know, going on, I mean, it's, it's remarkable. Even in ISKCON India also we have several places, Bhaktira Samut Maharaj is there, he is a sannyasi, he is the president of Belgao. We also have a few other places where sannyasis are managerial leaders and of course many of the GBC members are sannyasis.

So, when you said earlier, we met the earlier question of yes and no. When sannyasis were seen as the, you could say the highest exemplars of how bhakti should be practiced. Then if they had some problems in their personal spiritual life, then that would shake the faith of the entire community whom they were inspiring.

So was this because they were sannyasis and they fell away or was it because they were gurus and they had problems? Are there cases of somebody who was not a guru, but just a sannyasi and their falling also created problems? Because it seems that the institutional, the spiritual and the personal, all three categories are overlapping over here. A sannyas could be an institutional post, a guru is a spiritual post and a guru-disciple is a personal inspirational relationship. In many cases they were sannyasis, initiating gurus and GBCs.

In some of the cases, at least I had the experience of several of them here in Spain and told them in Europe where they have been serving, several of them were the three influential positions at once. But I think what had more impact was that they were gurus. Because the disciples were looking up to them as good as God, as just states.

And then when the guru goes astray, then it becomes a very big challenge for the faith of the disciple who is following that personality. So we could say sannyas was one factor, but most gurus were sannyasis. I think apart from Jayatirtha Prabhu, none of the first gurus that Prabhupada appointed were not sannyasis, isn't it? Also Bhagavan Prabhu in the beginning, he was a grihasta, but both Jayatirtha and Bhagavan Prabhu took sannyas because of the social pressure of the time.

So Bhagavan started to initiate as a grihasta. And possibly they could have remained, I mean they could, maybe assuming too much, but for the sake of the argument, we could say that as grihastas they were doing well. They were both good managers, good preachers, very powerful, very influential.

They didn't need to take sannyas, but both took it and didn't go so well. Okay, that's interesting. So that means by the time of, during the late 70s itself, this, if I may use the word, the glamorization of the sannyas ashram had already started significantly.

Because it seemed in the 60s, like you said, Prabhupada sent his grihasta disciples to England for preaching also. So it doesn't seem that in the 60s at least there was that big of a difference between sannyasis and grihastas. In Kalakant Prabhu has written a book in which he calls, he uses the phrase the saffron 70s.

So he says that was the time when saffron started becoming very prominent within ISKCON. So would you broadly agree with that historical? I agree, yes. In the study I did on sannyas published in the book, I think I'm showing this, some of the participants of this broadcast can see it.

So in the book there is a chapter on the history of sannyas in ISKCON, how it developed. And yes, we see this, that it became more, the emphasis on sannyas became more prominent in the 70s and more in the mid 70s, I would say. And then it continued after Srila Prabhupada's departure, physical departure.

And this may include also some level of imitation. By saying this, I don't blame anyone. All of us were part of the process, but there was some element, some imitation of Srila Prabhupada's position as Diksha Guru by the new gurus.

Because they didn't have any point of reference other than Srila Prabhupada and very little more. Maybe some of Srila Prabhupada's god brothers, those devotees who had some contact with them in India, but there was not much more reference in ISKCON than Srila Prabhupada. And therefore those who acted as gurus in the beginning started to act as such by some level of imitation of how Srila Prabhupada will do things.

This may imply accepting a level of respect. In some cases, maybe they were not qualified to accept at that time. Maybe they needed more time to accept that level of respect and worship.

Yes, that's interesting. So again, they were not at that level. So there are two perspectives.

One is, as members of a bhakti movement, should we be basing our faith on sannyasis, the principle itself, that should the sannyasis be the exemplars of bhakti practice. And second is whether a particular exemplar is mature enough or not. So I think in your book you do go a lot into the second aspect also.

And we could come to that. But if I need to summarize in the first aspect, if you can. So to some extent, if I may say that there was an over-focus on sannyas itself, on sannyasis as the exemplars of bhakti during the first few years of our movement, first 2-3 decades at least.

Is that something which you broadly, is your understanding also that there was an over-emphasis? Yes, I would agree. And that's not necessarily helpful for the mission. I don't mean to undermine the importance and the role of sannyasis as role models in their own terms, because yes, sannyas, there is the inner meaning of sannyas, it's full surrender unto the Lord.

So in that sense, that's important, that's very important. And also sannyasis are the spiritual masters of all the varna system, of all the varnas and ashramas. So that element is there.

We find it in Shastra and in the teachings of the Acharyas. But on the other hand, if we look at the Kibavipra-Kibanyasi verse spoken by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to Sri Ramananda Roy. Ramananda Roy, he is a kshudra, technically speaking, in the historical context where he was living.

And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is a sannyasi and a brahmana. And when Ramananda Roy is telling him that I cannot teach you anything, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is saying, no, no, the criteria is not what you are externally. You can be anything externally, but the criteria is whether you know or not Krishna Tattva.

That's the criteria. You can be guru if you know Krishna Tattva. Interesting.

So there is this dialectic and both aspects are there within our tradition itself. So if we come to the current day situations, unless you want to take the podcast in some other direction. So in today's world, how much importance do you think sannyas plays or sannyasis play, how central are they in the outreach as well as in the community formation or community building for contemporary outreach, especially in the West, we can say? I will say it depends how active the sannyasi is.

If a sannyasi is active and preaching and inspires people, then the influence can be very powerful. But if a sannyasi is not that active, may not be that influential. Or may be influential in an inspirational way.

Sometimes we have some sannyasis who may be doing some work and they give some classes in the temple, but they are not so prominent in preaching. But it may be very inspirational because they are always there for the temple program and they are doing their service and they are for so many years serving in a very loyal way and they are very mature, very philosophical and devotees feel inspired by them. But may not be that relevant in some contexts.

Some grihastas are very powerful in preaching and sometimes they accomplish more than sannyasis. That's interesting. I remember one time, I heard that His Holiness Sivaram Swami Maharaj, I didn't hear directly, but someone told me that he made such a statement.

So it's a secondary source. He mentioned that Her Grace Arutta Mataji, the mother of Radhika Raman Prabhu and Gopal Hari Prabhu, wonderful devotees and Oxford scholars. Yes.

Maharaj said that she had done a service greater than many sannyasis by producing such wonderful children, devotee children, who are preachers and both sons are grihastas and they are doing wonderful service for ISKCON. That's interesting. Apart from her children, her own contributions are also there that she has written books about homeschooling and how to teach children using scripture.

That is also a significant contribution. Exactly. So overall, it does seem that it's not so much the sannyas ashram as what one is doing in the sannyas ashram or what is one doing with the sannyas ashram that is critical.

Yes. Exactly. Yes.

Yes, Maharaj. So now in terms of, I started traveling abroad in the last decade, 2013-14. And to some extent, I was before the pandemic, I spent almost 8-9 months a year outside India, America primarily and UK, Australia, New Zealand.

So what I noticed is that to a significant extent, we have been able to reach out to Indians quite a bit, but not so much to, you are in Europe, so I don't know whether I can use the word Western or for everybody in Europe, but the native people, native is also not the right word, local people, we are not able to reach out the way we were reaching out in the West. Now in India, the brahmacharis and sannyasis are the prominent preachers, but it's not like that. When grahasthas are preaching and if they are teaching, if they present the philosophy in an attractive way, they also attract following.

So would you say that the reason for less outreach in the West, that doesn't have much to do with the presence or non-presence of the renounced order? How much are they related? Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure it is that. I think it is more, we need to update our strategies for preaching in the West. My conviction is that if Srila Prabhupada will be physically present at the moment, and he presented a seminar on this in the ILS, in the last one in 2020, in Srilanka, Mayapur, my conviction is that Srila Prabhupada will be sending many preachers from India to the West.

Okay. Because Srila Prabhupada, like what he did in India, when he wanted to preach in India and he was successful in the West, he took some numbers of Western devotees, preachers, and took them to India to help him there. So naturally, he will see that now India is flourishing and it's growing, and you have now new temples in India as mushrooms.

When I say you, we have, I say we because the movement is one. Many new temples in India which grow very quickly, very, very fast. I'm convinced Srila Prabhupada will send preachers from India to the West and will encourage, will request his followers to do something in the West because he wanted to preach to the locals.

I don't know what you think about that, but this is my conviction based on what I have read from Srila Prabhupada's books, like the Bharata Bhumite Hoila verse, which is very much quoted by him. He will preach this even to any culture people in India who were not yet committed devotees. What to speak of his disciples and grand disciples, how much more he will push them to do that.

Okay, interesting. This is another topic, but it's related and that's why I'm referring to it. I like the term also you used, update our strategies.

There are different words which you could use. Some people say adapt, adjust. Some people will say that all that is compromising.

But I think update is a very apt word because yes, we have to present according to time, place and circumstance. This could be a whole different subject, but maybe since we are focusing right now on sannyas, just a couple of more questions about that. First is that in many ways the world has changed the way it was in 1970s and the way it is now.

Things are quite different and just staying in the renounced order may be much more difficult in today's world than it was even 50 years ago. And what you had mentioned about peer pressure, pressure to take sannyas, that also to a significant extent has decreased in our movement today. And in fact, even if some devotees want to take sannyas, they are encouraged to wait, not even encouraged, you could say they are expected or it's insisted that they wait for a significant amount of time.

So what are your comments about these two trends, both in the outer world as well as within our movement with respect to the renounced order? Yes, in one way we could say it is more difficult to remain a sannyasi, but also on the other hand, because many of the devotees who are taking sannyas now in ISKCON are mature devotees and they have in one way or in many ways proven themselves. I don't mean completely, proven themselves in terms, if we look at the sustainability of the ashram, could be seen at the end of their lives. But still, these are devotees who are mature, both in age and in understanding and realization and preaching of Krishna consciousness.

So naturally this has contributed to diminish the level of attrition in the sannyas ashram, because it is not the same in Srila Prabhupada's times, some devotees took sannyas when they were 20, 20, 20 plus. Many of us will say he's a kid in one way, colloquially speaking, he just became a man very early. And some of them succeeded and did wonderfully for the whole life, but also some were not able to sustain it.

And it's very different if somebody is taking sannyas when he becomes 50 or 60 years old, it's different, you know what I mean? So different in the sense that we as a movement have better understood what sannyas requires, both from the individual perspective as well as the social perspective? Yes. Okay. Yeah, that is true.

So in one sense, Maharaj, what is, maybe since you mentioned it, what is your understanding of why Srila Prabhupada gave people sannyas at the age of 20 or 25? Because that was, it was quite a Herculean challenge for them. And, and so was it, from what I understood, Ravindra Swarup wrote an article about this, he says that, that was what was necessary at that time for the spread of the movement. And that's how our movement actually spread.

And it was like, he used the metaphor that it was like an ambitious, ambitious attack. And in an attack like that, there will be casualties. So there were casualties, but there were also significant successes.

So he uses the war metaphor to explain that. What are your thoughts about, generally, like I said, somebody just a kid becoming a man, for them to renounce the world. It is, it is quite non-conventional at the very least.

Yes, I mean, my take based on the interviews I conducted to both sannyasis and ex-sannyasis, and hearing their opinions, and then my own little self-reflections on the subject, I think that Srila Prabhupada knew that some of them would not made it, would not be able to sustain it. But I also think that he also trusted that probably the percentages were not what he estimated, if we can express it in this way. Meaning, because sometimes we have heard several times, when some devotees will not follow the vows of initiation, that in some occasions Srila Prabhupada said, but you promise.

So he trusted more the word that the people will, if people promise something, they will do it. Although he, in the same time, he knew it was difficult for, to sustain a lifelong sannyasa ashram, and he gave, but he still took the risk. And in the book I published, in the, like the introductory verse, the Akhvasva Dharman Jananambuja Kharer verse from Srimad Bhagavatam, which is what I say Srila Prabhupada was seeing, the fact that he was at risk, or some level of risk, because of the urgency as well.

He knew he could leave the planet at any moment, and he wanted to leave some living persons, and the sannyasis would be like the natural leaders, if they would be able to follow his example. And I'll read the translation of the verse for those who are not familiar with it, with this verse. So my take on that would be that Srila Prabhupada was, he was aware that some would not make it, but maybe he didn't expect, we don't know, as you mentioned before, at least Srila Prabhupada was thinking.

He saw the sannyasis can play an important role, a leading role, and at any time from this planet, trying to leave the movement as much established as possible. So did Prabhupada, we can see that Prabhupada wrote something in his books, and in this case, what he implemented was significantly different. So Prabhupada also has said in his letter that, more or less, I was experimenting here, in a famous letter written by Sumathi Moraji also.

So in one sense, we can say that that was an experimentation, and it worked to some extent at that time. But we as a movement are now going back more towards what was the scriptural and the traditional standard. I mean, yes, this will be a good discussion to have at the level of the leaders of the movement, maybe even also the level in the ministry of sannyas, to what extent do we want to go to the classical practices of sannyas.

For example, if we go to the classical practices of sannyas described both in the Srimad Bhagavatam and the Dharma Shastras, in terms of the eating, for example, a sannyas will not have to take a full meal. Only we could live by taking madhukari, by practicing madhukari. But is this what we want? I'm not sure that Prabhupada will do that, if he will be physically present.

So yes, I will agree that we need some level of adjustment or updating. And that's why one of the ideas I suggest in the book is to establish or to work on a Dharma Shastra for contemporary sannyasis. Because we do have a model of a Dharma Shastra for medieval sannyasis, which may be different from some of the previous statements.

Because in the medieval times, sannyasis may be living more in monastic settings as a community. And it was not that as much the case in a classical setting. I don't say there were none, but there seem to be less examples of that, if any.

Okay, so what I meant by the medieval or the Bhagavatam standards, if you consider the Bhagavatam, what it describes, even for a brahmachari or even what Bhagavatam describes as qualities of a shudra may also be unrealistic in today's world for many people. So in that sense, and we can also look at how much did Prabhupada literally follow what was the description of a sannyasi in the Bhagavatam. In one sense, he followed that with body, mind and words, we serve the Lord.

But that's the more of an essential principle rather than specific rules. Yes. So there would need to be a significant level of, like you say, updating of even that those things for application in today's world.

Yes. Yes, Maharaj. And so now we… Yes, even like now we are using computers and all these devices.

Exactly. I was thinking of the same example. I mean, we don't see any Vedic sannyasi with these devices.

We are using the social networks and like this podcast for preaching Krishna consciousness and Srila Prabhupada was actually advocating for it. Sometimes even adamantly in very intense ways that we use anything for Krishna's service and that's yukta-vairagya. Yes, Maharaj.

They travel and preach but they only use that much level of commodities. I mean, this will be a whole debate, whole discussion. Yes, I was traveling with Jayadvait Maharaj once.

So he was traveling to one, he was staying in one devotee's house. Maharaj, what all facilities do you need? Maharaj said, I'm a sannyasi. I just need prasad and Wi-Fi.

So this is a contemporary context. But if we look at that, for my study I used one book by Yadava Prakash, who used to be Sri Ramanujacharya's guru, who later on became his disciple, his follower. He became a sannyasi and he wrote this dharma shastra for sannyasis of Sri Sampradaya.

It's titled Yati Dharma Samuchaya. This could be a good reference for writing a contemporary dharma shastra for sannyasis, for ISKCON sannyasis. But then we will have certainly to discuss many points, because one of the chapters of Yati Dharma Samuchaya deals with the possessions of sannyasis.

Oh, okay. So, and then we enter, and usually we're very, very, very, very few possessions. So, but nowadays, even sometimes, for example, I didn't have a bank account on personal name until just very few years back.

Of course, I consider that whatever usually is quite empty, that bank account, it was for ISKCON projects. At one time I went to preach to the University of Tenerife, and the university wanted to offer an estipend for the lecture I had given there. And they asked my bank account, I didn't have one, I said, you can deposit it in the name of ISKCON's bank account.

But they were asking so many documents in order to do that, due to the bureaucracy of the university, that it was easier to open a personal bank account than they send in the money to the ISKCON bank account. So, I opened the bank account in this way. So, anyway, there are so many different considerations that are there, but it will be good to, at some point, to discuss them and to define how it should be, or what it is ideal, what it is acceptable, what it is unacceptable.

In terms of all the different aspects of the external lifestyle of a Sanyasi. Yes, Maharaj, this is going to be quite a tough thing, because how exactly, if at all we look for Dharmashastras, what exactly will we look for in the Dharmashastras, which would be compatible with current world scenarios, it's going to be difficult to some extent. I'm losing the sound.

Sorry? I lost a few things that you said, I don't know, maybe you need to come closer to the mic. Okay, is it better now? Yes. I was saying that it is going to be difficult to find even in Dharmashastras, specific statements which will address current day scenarios.

It may ultimately be more like each devotee will have to develop their own inner spiritual compass based on scripture. And of course, with some guidance from others about how to move forward. Because if we start looking in scripture, first of all, in general, Prabhupada did emphasize the Dharmashastra so much for specifics, like Prabhupada referred to Manu Samhita many times as a book for guidance, but not many of the things which he implemented in the Skaun were actually based on Manu Samhita.

So in that sense? Yes, but for example, and here I'm going to touch a contentious topic. For example, the whole discussion of the female Diksha Guru, which has created some polarization to the point that even there have been some members who have come to the point of talking about splitting the movement for such a thing at some point due to different understandings. But for the duties of women, we do refer a lot to Dharmashastras.

Manu Samhita is quoted by Srila Prabhupada and we use it, but we don't use it that much for the sannyasis who are the head, the spiritual masters of the whole society. That's not very cautious. It's not consistent.

We have some homework to do there as a society. True, very true. And in one sense, if we expect, if sannyasis today were expected to follow what Manu Samhita is saying, much of our missionary work would get hamstrung by that.

Significantly. Yes. So it's a whole, it requires a mature discussion.

Yes, Manu. Because, for example, I remember I hear from, I got this from the diary from one of the earliest sannyasis. He took sannyas in 1972.

It was an initiation, I think Srila Prabhupada gave sannyas to five disciples. Two, maybe more, I think two of them are still sannyasis. The other three gave up.

So Srila Prabhupada said, when they asked him, are there any rules we should follow in terms of eating? Should we eat less? In comparison to other devotees, members of the other ashrams, Srila Prabhupada said no. He gave, but he did mention that never regret having taken sannyas. And he explained that if you are in the house of a grihastha when you go for preaching and you become attracted that I could have a nice wife like this person has and so on, or I could have such opulence and live comfortably.

He said never regret having taken sannyas. But basically he said no restrictions for other activities, comparing to the other ashrams. Specifically I mean in terms of eating and sleeping.

Of course, the vow of celibacy is very clear in the case of the sannyasi, but also for devotees who follow the vows of initiation, no illicit sex, the difference is very little. And I will say that even in one way more difficult for a grihastha than for a sannyasi to externally follow, isn't it? Like a grihastha, if a grihastha is following strictly no illicit sex, having sex only for procreation, this will be the paramilitary standard. So it is more difficult for a grihastha who has the opportunity to have an intimate connection with his wife and a sannyasi doesn't have opportunity for that.

So it's easier for the sannyasi to follow in one way than for the grihastha. So, you know what I mean? That's true. It could be a whole big subject of what that particular principle means and how realistic it is in the Brahmanical standard expectation.

So in one sense, there will always be this tension between the ideal and we could say the practical or the real and how we bridge that tension is a challenge for every ashram and in fact for every spiritual seeker itself. Yes, yes, indeed. Yes, Maharaj.

So overall, we will provide a link for your book online, but how has been the response to your book? Are there any other points you want to explore or you could focus on the book and then conclude it? Yes, I mean, the response was very good. When the book was published in India, it was printed by a branch of the BBT in Spain by the help of Hanuman Prabhu who is presently the BBT trustee for Latin America and Spain. He has a brand called Sankirtan Books for publishing books, titles of other authors that may not be suitable to be directly published by the BBT because of the nature of the content.

So it was printed in India and I gave a copy of the book to all the GBC members and gurus and sanyasis who were present during the SGGS Sangha. I think it was 2013 or 2014 when the book was published, maybe 2014. So I gave a copy and I got favorable feedback from devotees who read it.

I mean senior leading devotees, which I was very happy to hear that because I was a bit, to be frank, I confess I was somewhat concerned. I mean, I didn't know what would be the reaction because it could be taken that it was criticizing the sanyas ashram and maybe somebody could take offense for it. So I was a bit worried, maybe I misunderstood what I'm doing by publishing this book.

I did publish some statements which were somewhat heavy by some of the ex-sanyasis and could be considered offensive. But I thought I should publish this because in order to do a proper study, we need to see what are the perspectives of our different members. Especially those who took such a big position, which is considered like one of the topmost leading positions in the movement.

So we need to hear, to look at this topic very thoroughly or at least start looking at it. I don't say the book necessarily looks at it thoroughly. It's a starting of a discussion or it is a start and there is much more to be researched and considered.

I usually at the end of the podcast, I try to summarize what we discussed. So I'll try to do that briefly now if you're okay and then if you want to add some concluding words. So broadly we discussed about your spiritual journey, how you're already having many unusual interests that were conducive to spirituality.

Right from UFOs and then yoga and other things and in one sense you left your education, completed education, did some work like basic education, then you joined and over a period of time you became a pioneer of education. And as a part of your affiliation of the Bakhtiyan Institute, of the educational forum with the mainstream education, you decided to do research on sannyas. Because it was such a central aspect of our tradition and so the book you wrote was autobiographical because the challenges faced by our sannyasi guru leaders, GBC leaders, that affected everyone in a significant way.

Affected the faith negatively of many devotees. So we could say that in some ways the centrality of sannyas within ISKCON was exceptional. Look at the epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, the sages are quite significant, the wisdom is quite significant, sannyasis are not that much.

But medieval times it does seem to have become significant. All the Advaithic leaders as well as the Vaishnav spiritual leaders took sannyas. Mahaprabhu also did that, Bhikshan Siddhartha also did that.

So while sannyas was important, but to some extent our application of it was also a bit extremist, a bit imbalanced. And then when individual practitioners may also not have been mature enough to actually shoulder the responsibility of sannyas as well as accept the respect that comes through the sannyas ashram. So overall now we are, as we are maturing as a movement, we are, as I said, in our tradition there is an emphasis on sannyas.

At the same time there is a Lekhadeva emphasis also. Mahaprabhu himself took sannyas but then he heard from Ramananda Rai. So it's not so much the ashram as what somebody is doing in the ashram.

So what are the, not in the nature of the person, what are the contributions of the person. And somebody may be in the grahastha ashram also, somebody may be in a female body, but they might be doing in some cases more services than a sannyasi also. And then what Srila Prabhupada did was in some ways exceptional.

And from the exceptional when we now go towards, we could say what is the normative, but then what is the normative thing that itself would be a challenge to determine. Because we cannot really turn back the clock. And even if we decide to turn back, where are we going to turn back? Is it to Mahaprabhu's times? Is it? So if you look at dharma shastras, we need to be consistent.

Can we expect the dharma shastras to be applied only for women and not for sannyasis? If we apply them for sannyasis then that will limit our capacity to do outreach. There are a lot of questions that need to be discussed and in one sense your book was a significant step forward in engaging in this discussion. And the fact that you could be both self-critical as well as gain acceptance and we could say even appreciation within the movement indicates our movement's maturity.

Maturation and also in today's world a sannyas now as a movement has matured, we have examplars of those who were successful as sannyasis. And they can be an inspiration and guide for those who want to embrace sannyas. And simultaneously whether somebody is sannyasi or not, we all can try to carry forward Prabhupada's mission and Krishna's mission in whatever capacity we can.

Any points you would like to add Maharaj? Of course there are many more things we discussed. Yes, very well summarized. Thank you very much Chaitanya Charan Prabhu.

One thing I will mention regarding all these topics that need discussion, Srila Prabhupada wrote in his books that for a society to be successful we need three things. I mean two in terms of the social organization and then of course overall devotion to God. So cow protection and brahminical culture, these are the two aspects and overall devotion to God.

So part of the brahminical culture is to have respectful systems for exploring all these important topics where different opinions are shared and we can come to conclusions. Or at least in terms of ISKCON, come to integrate as much as possible the different views in a way that will make the mission of spreading Krishna consciousness succeed in a united way. Yes Maharaj, that's true.

We need ongoing discussions and these are actually major discussions. Without these discussions we will all have fragmented understandings which may actually lead to either immature application on our side or even conflicts among different people who have different understandings. Thank you Maharaj so much for your time and sharing your wisdom.

I look forward to having you again for many more discussions in future. Thank you very much. Thank you.