Obstacles to Outreach

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, we can deal by doubts. In the Bhagavad Gita, in the third chapter, Krishna has this very interesting verse.
He speaks na buddhi-bhedam janaye that janaye is people, buddhi-bhedam. Don’t Prabhupada translates as don’t disturb the minds. But sometimes Prabhupada gives us maximum wisdom.
So, he gives one insight in his word-for-word translation and another insight in his sentence translation. So, here it is disrupt the minds, in the word-for-word translation. The word-for-word translation is disruption of intelligence.
So, basically, it’s a disruption of subtle body. Sanskrit word is buddhi, which generally means intelligence. So, na buddhi-bhedam janaye that don’t disturb the minds of people.
That those who are… Krishna is talking about two unfavourable, negative characteristics of this. That they are ignorant and they are attached. So, he says, what do you do with them? Don’t disturb their minds.
Joshyat means engage them in all their activities, the various activities. Don’t condemn any of their activities. Vidwan yukta samacharan.
So, the wise person is contrasting the vidwan with the ajnana. And the yukta is connected with the karmasangina, the attached. So, Krishna is basically saying over here, let’s say, if the teacher is here and the student is here, the teacher is wise and detached.
In this case, it’s more of yukta connected, spiritually connected. And the student is at the level of being ignorant and attached. So, Krishna is saying that that when we are sharing bhakti, don’t disturb people’s lives, don’t disturb people’s mind, don’t disturb people’s intelligence.
What that means is don’t expect, one way to understand this is, don’t expect people from here to come all the way up to here. Don’t expect them to take a leap like this. Don’t guilt them, don’t shame them if they can’t take that leap.
Most of the time what will happen, they will try to take a leap and they will go down and go further down below where they were. So, instead, what that means is, from where they are, create gradual steps for them to raise them upwards. So, he says, engage them gradually.
So, engage them to elevate them. Don’t just insist that they have to be elevated, don’t demand. So, you could put it, engage them respectfully.
Not that we shame them for being there, elevate them gradually. So, what we don’t want to do is shame them or force them. Shame is also a subtle force into taking a steep leap which is not sustainable.
So, this is one aspect. I’m going to talk mainly about outreach today. Two aspects I’ll talk about today.
So, this is one point. Take them gradually upwards from where they are. And what does this mean? In terms of helping them rise gradually upwards, that Prabhupada talks about, so, now what does this mean? This is where in my understanding, creating these gradual steps, that is where realisation is required.
So, Krishna, Prabhupada in the first canto Purport, when he talks about realisation, he gives two characteristics. He says the original message must be preserved, a thing unscrupulously extracted out of it. But at the same time, things need to be presented in a way that is interesting for the audience.
So, we could say this is the message of scripture. And these are the interests of the audience. Scripture message and audience interests.
So, what it is the expertise of the speaker to find a link. The speaker has to become a link. And that means that we look at scripture and see what is scripture actually teaching.
We look at people and see what their interests are. And basically, we try to bring the two together. So, bringing these two together, this is realised outreach.
Realisation doesn’t mean that if somebody says, you know, people today are so fallen that they can never follow scripture. Then that person actually does not have realisation of scripture. Or on the other hand, somebody says, oh, scripture is spoken thousands of years ago.
It is not relevant today. Again, that person does not have realisation of scripture. So, in this realised outreach, so in realisation, we avoid both extremes.
That we don’t say that people are too fallen. Now, do we say that the scripture is too lofty or irrelevant. It is our responsibility to be able to bring about in his lectures on the nectar of devotion that Prabhupada gave in Vrindavan, where Rupa Goswami is saying, always remember Krishna, never forget Krishna.
So, Prabhupada says over there that I have practically invented the Krishna consciousness movement. Now, we say, what does it mean? Prabhupada said that I didn’t change one word. Prabhupada said, as a postman, I gave him a special massive message.
But then Prabhupada said, I have invented. What he means by that is, he says that, when the scripture says always think of Krishna, somehow or other think of Krishna. So, Prabhupada says that, it is the responsibility of the spiritual master to come up with ways and means by which the disciple can think of Krishna.
So, in that sense, for example, Prabhupada, the idea of the distribution, the idea of the khyatra, these were Prabhupada’s brain strokes, Prabhupada’s geniuses, master strokes are there. So, the idea of people going out on the streets, hippies would like to do, or countercultures would like to do all kinds of crazy things. So, dancing on the streets is one of them.
Previously, they danced on the streets, the police would come and arrest them. But now, they are dancing on the streets and the police were escorting them. So, that is Prabhupada’s brilliance.
So, basically, to be realised, what we need is, on one side, we need to be faithful to scripture. But faithful in a thoughtful way. Why is it faithful? Somebody can quote a lot of scripture.
I see this in India, that anybody who can memorise and quote a lot of verses, that person is considered to be a scholar. They certainly have intellectual ability, no doubt, and that has to be respected. But just quoting verses alone does not really make for transformative scholarship.
Because you could just quote verses for certain ideas, but how are those ideas applicable today? So, faithful, this is a message of scripture, but thoughtful is a person who is ready to think, how is this applicable in today’s world? And, so this is what will link us, let’s put it this way, this is what will link us with scripture. When you are studying scripture, you are faithful and you are thoughtful. On the other side, we need to be resourceful and helpful.
This is what will connect us with our audience. So, we need to be, we have to come up with different resources and our whole goal should be to help people where they are at, to add value to people’s lives. You are here, how can I help you to rise higher from there? So, for example, in the pandemic, when physical talks and classes were not possible, we shifted to the virtual domain.
We had Zoom classes, so many people got connected. That is being resourceful. If somebody had stuck to the literal word of scripture and said, where in Shastra do they say that you can have a Zoom satsang? Okay, you could have said that.
There is no example of that. There is no virtual class experience scripture. And if they said, because it is not in our tradition, so we will not do it.
Well, we would not have been nourished at all. Our movement would have died of starvation, switched to starvation. So, it’s why we look at our audience, we try to understand the audience.
We don’t look at them with judgement or condemnation. Certainly, we need to judge, to understand what their interests are. And there will definitely be areas where the audience will have to give up certain things to be able to come to bhakti.
But it is not that they have to give up everything where they are to come to bhakti. And even when scripture is to be taught, it is not necessary that everything from scripture has to be taught all the time. Prabhupada himself said, Hari Bhakti Vilas is a book of deity worship or in general of rituals.
Prabhupada did not give too many of those rituals. He gave some of them. So, realisation is to be able to bring about this intersection between what the teaching of scripture is and what the level of the audience is and link the two.
So, I’ll summarise. I talked about two points. If you want to have effective outreach, what do we need to do for that? The first is that the speaker and the audience we don’t want to forcibly it’s not a forcible leap.
It’s unsustainable. What we want them is it’s gradual steps. And we need to be patient.
This is what will be what is possible for them, sustainable for them. We talk about say from here to here, it is we build steps for them. And then, how do we find those gradual steps? For that we need realisation.
So, realisation means the message of scripture and the interest of the audience. These need to be we need to find the intersection between the two of them. This is where realisation comes and to find that, what do we do? We are on one side resourceful to connect with the audience and we are faithful and thoughtful to connect with the scripture.
So, a few thoughts before we move toward any questions. Any questions or comments about this or in general about anything? Yes. So, one thing I’ve been wondering is when we hear Prabhupada give class or preaching, he’s quite direct and it can be intense sometimes saying things like, you know, the demons are doing this.
I mean, I wouldn’t be comfortable personally giving a class to new people and talking about demons. Just as an example. But, obviously, when Prabhupada says it, it works and we know Prabhupada’s intentions are pure.
But then that brings up the question, when we’re preaching, should we try to emulate how Prabhupada is preaching in terms of his intensity and directness or does there need to be some adjustment based on our own personality or cultural influences, things like that? I think each of us ultimately outreach is about sharing what has worked for us. Prabhupada gave the example of a patient, a person who has been sick for a long time and the person who has cured the disease. And then that person wants to tell everyone who sees they have the disease, this has the disease, take this medicine, you’ll be cured.
Prabhupada said, it’s like that. So now, we can be authentic only when we share what has worked for us and we focus on that while we are focussing on what works for us. So did Prabhupada want that his specific style is faithfulness to Prabhupada, faithfulness to the message or is it faithfulness to the style of the delivery of the message also? Like say, let’s consider Prabhupada’s preferences.
So there are there are purposes, then there are principles and then there are preferences. So Prabhupada talked about being able to differentiate between the details and the principles. So my understanding with, I’m using these three over here.
So purposes is what, Prabhupada had a clear purpose to spread Krishna consciousness. Now if you consider preferences, there is Prabhupada likes kachoris. Does that mean every single follower of Prabhupada has to like kachori? Well, we have our preferences in food items, isn’t it? If somebody says, I don’t like kachori so much, does that mean they are unfaithful to Prabhupada? Not really.
That’s a preference. Now you say that’s a food item, that’s straightforward enough. Okay.
So Prabhupada pronounced words in particular ways. So do we have to pronounce words in those ways all the time? It’s not even Indian pronunciation, it’s Bengali pronunciation. So we don’t want to imitate Prabhupada.
Like we know Anu Karan, Anu Saran. There are times when Prabhupada himself said, I can speak like this but you can’t. Prabhupada was an elderly person, Prabhupada was deeply compassionate and the point is not how Prabhupada spoke but what Prabhupada achieved or what was the result of the speaking.
That is much more important. Like Prabhupada said that we may win the battle but lose the war. Prabhupada said that if by your preaching somebody goes away then it’s a loss.
I saw a letter in Prabhupada where he says that if purpose of management is to actually engage the devotee in Krishna’s service but if because of management somebody goes away from Krishna then what is the use of your management properties. So of course sometimes some people may go away. It’s just unavoidable in life.
But the point is that what was Prabhupada’s purpose. So you would say these, let’s put it this way. The purpose is the most important.
The principles they are important. Preferences it depends. Somebody may have a direct way of speaking.
Somebody may speak in a softer, gentler way. Our individuality is given to us by Krishna. Individuality is the eternal feature of the soul.
We are not meant to give up that individuality. Madhumangal in the spiritual world is humorous. But that doesn’t mean Subal and Agardagopada are humorous.
They may also like humour but Madhumangal has his own personality. Every person has their personality. Now you may say, our personality, our preferences are conditioned.
That’s true. But Krishna accepts us with our conditionings also. Not all of it in the sense that we have to work on purifying ourselves.
But at the same time I don’t think it’s intrinsic to being faithful to Prabhupada that we have to adopt his style of outreach. Then everybody will adjust when they have to. It’s like somebody who is a fundraiser.
When they come to, like I have devotees who I know a devotee, a sanyasi guru who is a completely confrontational creature. He uses the word fools and rascals even when he is talking about Mayavadis and big, big gurus. He was doing a Bengali translation project.
And he was working with a person who was a Bengali scholar and that person was a Mayavadi. And during the interactions he never used fools and rascals. Because that person was a very good Bengali translator.
He was specialised in languages also change over time. So the Chetan Charita Amrit and that literature like the Shakespeare English is different from today’s English. So the Bengali of Chetan Charita Amrit is different from the Bengali of today.
People don’t speak that Bengali exactly. So he needed that person. So you know, so ok.
So when you are working with him your faithfulness to Prabhupada doesn’t require you to call fools and rascals. Why? Because you need them for your service. So then he said, it’s my service.
Well then different devotees may have different services. If somebody is doing scientific outreach they won’t refer fools and rascals to those who are doing outreach to scientists. Somebody is doing fundraising.
Bhagavatam says that anybody who is not hearing the glories of Krishna that person is like a dog, hawk, camel and ass. You may have heard that verse. But then somebody is a fundraiser is not going to say that to their potential donors.
Isn’t it? So you know, everybody is idealistic with respect to other services. And everybody becomes realistic with their own services. So nobody, nobody can follow Prabhupada exactly.
Because nobody is Prabhupada. And everybody will adjust according to the situation. So I think, as long as the purpose is being fulfilled, that’s good enough.
You don’t have to necessarily adopt his style. And those who adopt his style also, they adopt it selectively. Yes please.
So, going off what you were talking about before school week, that some expectations might be given from someone else to another and bring their bhakti. Or sometimes I can see that happening on one’s self, trying to really ascertain a certain level of practise that might be unsustainable. I’m curious as to what are some indications that something might be unsustainable in one’s practise? Well, at one level we can never know what our capacities are unless we stretch ourselves.
Unless we try to do something. And if something is unsustainable, that could be also we try to practise something as an experiment. Say we fast.
So we fast, okay, I meant to fast, I’ll try for one day. If I can’t, I’ll do it in this amount of time. So we perform some austerities.
Brahmacharya itself is an austerity. So we need to be open to exploring our own capacity for austerity. But at the same time it’s a so when you want to follow some high standards.
So one side is be open. Don’t just think this is not possible for me. Our capacity, it needs to be discovered.
We ourselves may be discovering it. But on the other hand, the focus is on our purpose. The standard is meant to take us toward Krishna.
It’s like you know the word we have in the Upanishad, Niyamagraha. Niyamagraha is like we insist on the rule at the cost of the purpose. And the other is we reject the rule entirely.
But in between is what? We pursue the purpose with the rule as an aid. The rule is important, but the purpose is much more important. So Brahmacharya is important, but Brahmacharya is not the goal of life.
If any particular thing that we are trying to do, somebody says we should sit on the floor and hear class, we should sit and chant. He could if he can sit and chant. But it’s not so simple.
Somebody would say sitting and chanting is Satvagoni. Standing and chanting is Rajogoni. Walking and chanting is Tamogoni.
Well, then what is sitting and sleeping? Isn’t it? There are not simple categories like that. So it depends on our consciousness. Somebody may walk and chant and they may be much more conscious of Krishna than somebody sitting and their mind is wandering everywhere.
So each one of us has to find out that how are my body and mind aiding me in moving towards Krishna or are my body and mind impeding me in moving towards Krishna? The key principle is that is our focus on Krishna increasing or decreasing? Does that answer your question? So just to complete this you know that we are it’s very good for this we are obsessed with our body-mind. Let’s put it body include the mind over there. The other exchange is that we are obsessed with our body means we are constantly oh this is uncomfortable, this is uncomfortable, life is uncomfortable.
We all have to accept some uncomforts. So we can be obsessed with our body. But the other extreme is that we are negligent of the body.
The body is ultimately a gift given by Krishna. Prabhupada says if you don’t take care of your health now in one letter he says to a disciple even if you are very enthusiastic to serve Krishna in the future you will not be able to serve. So be conscious of the body.
But a conscious of the body as a part of our Krishna consciousness. That means what? When I am Krishna conscious I am aware of my body. My body is my tool for serving Krishna.
So I am conscious of my body also. So when we say we want to be conscious of our body we don’t want to be bodily conscious. When we say bodily consciousness means what? So bodily consciousness what we don’t want is that a person’s full consciousness let’s put this only they are not conscious of anything other than their body at all.
This is nowadays people have image consciousness when they think that I am too fat or I am too short or I am this. This is something which you don’t want. We need to be conscious of our body.
Thank you so much for coming. When we look at these two different approaches to get someone to take a big leap get them to that really high standard of devotion or taking them gradually on the step one fear with taking someone on steps might be that at some point they will get stuck or they don’t want to go any further. They don’t want to continue.
What happens if someone is on the staircase and then they refuse to go further? Krishna offers a selfless approach in the 12th chapter. He says 12.8 to 11 or 12 you can say. Krishna offers a multiple approaches.
He says that always think of me and be absorbed in me. That’s the 8th verse. 9th verse is try to focus on me.
Try to think of me. Try to think of Krishna. This is pure devotion.
Then he says work for me. If you can’t think of me at least you can work for Krishna. The 10th verse.
Then he says if you can’t work for Krishna also work for some higher cause. Try to cultivate some selflessness. So all these are levels and they are all incremental.
I was talking in the morning about Prabhupada and the life members. Those who became life members Prabhupada gave them a pathway that you give some substantial donation and then they get Prabhupada’s books. They can come and stay in the temples.
They can see the atmosphere of the temple. They can participate in the morning programme. And then you can move forward.
Well, a few of them took that path forward. Most of them didn’t. It’s ok.
Everybody is at their own place in spiritual life and Krishna says in 4.11 All people are on my path. This is very different from the dogmatic idea about certain religions. You follow this way or you are on your way to hell.
All people are on my path. What that means is from your place at your pace access Krishna’s grace. So that is the mood of bhakti.
That is the mood of Krishna. So would we like everyone to become devotees? Dedicated devotees? Yes, of course. If somebody is not ready to become then do you want to push them out of the door? No.
We don’t have to spend a lot of time on somebody if they are not investing their time and energy in it. That’s ok. Now there are some statements of Prabhupada which do say for example it’s better to have one moon than a thousand stars.
It’s true. But Prabhupada had one moon and he also had a thousand stars. The disciples were like the moons and the life members were like the stars.
So we can have both also. If we have to choose between the two definitely we choose the moon. But do we have to choose? When we do classes we are polite and helpful and nice to everyone and people think oh these devotees are nice people.
And that appreciation of devotees itself is a step forward in the spiritual journey. Now some people may become interested and committed. Some people may not.
That’s ok. But they can be well-wishers. And we need well-wishers in the world also.
If you want to comment anything please feel free. I want to give you some questions. You can ask about it.
Yes please. I have a question. So I’ve seen in America people if you follow a certain procedure of communication Procedure of? If you follow a certain procedure of communication you can sell a lot of books.
And people will take Bhagavatam set from the spot. And they never heard about Bhagavatam. They don’t even know what Hare Krishna is.
They buy Bhagavatam set or they buy Chaitanya Chandita set or stack of like essential books. But what would be what would be best way to connect these people to those books they already have? Because here people will take books very easily. But to kind of connect their life to the scripture it may take some time.
I believe most of them are they just give up. Like one person the other day he told me he was looking something about Lord Chaitanya and I told him why don’t you read the teachings of Lord Chaitanya? And then he tried reading teachings of Lord Chaitanya and he said it’s boring so I went to Wikipedia and I found out so much about Lord Chaitanya without having Bhagavatam. So practical problem see with respect to people who find say maybe our the way our books are written little uninteresting or little complicated, challenging.
So we have to be clear what we are trying to do. See broadly in any kind of religious tradition there are two people. There are insiders, there are outsiders.
Now when we talk about insiders and outsiders there is when we have communication we can have insiders who are experts in particular fields and we can have outsiders also who are experts in particular fields. So there are broadly you can have four levels of communication. So insiders to outsiders is what we call as outreach.
Then insider to insider is what we call as education. Kote Shastri, Bhakti Shastri. Then outsider to outsider that is our reputation.
And then there is outsiders to insider. That is actually our awareness. So our movement starts with this particular modality.
Insider to outsider. And that is what we have largely focused on. Now if you consider from a historical perspective if you consider the history of ISKCON our focus initial focus or you can say focus of the history focus of our communication mostly one.
From 1970s, 1980s now only in 1990s slowly we started doing two. We started having Bhakti Shastri kind of things. Devotees also need to be educated.
Sorry one is, this is two. I didn’t put it. Three and four.
So now, so one was basically our book distribution our programmes basically. Generally our college outsider programmes. Now two was something like Bhakti Shastri.
For many years people said why do you need something like Bhakti Shastri. At the same time that you spend hours and hours studying go out and distribute some books. Go out and raise some money.
Build some temples. But we need, our tradition is complex. We need to understand our tradition.
We need to understand how to apply our tradition, how to present our tradition. Then around the same time in the 1980s for example, this is a communication. It’s called communications.
So now when we say outsider to outsider what it means is that this kind of communication is going to happen. Like Wikipedia for example. It’s an example of outsider to outsider communication.
Say if you are going to buy any phone. Now we will go to their website and see what are the features of the phone. But we don’t want to trust that alone.
We are going to reviewers. We will try to find out who are third party, unbiased, trustworthy reviewers. And we are going to look at them.
So similarly we may tell what our tradition is. But people are going to say you are going to talk about your tradition, you are always going to talk positively. You are a marketer for your tradition basically.
So people are not going to trust us. Or at least they will take it with a grain of salt. So sometimes the bucket full of salt.
But there are what they consider as neutral or reliable sources of opinion. So do we try to influence that? The Catholic Church has something like from last time they had 25,000 people who are paid workers that the job is editing the Wikipedia entries about Catholicism. So we don’t have even one person like that.
What to speak of paid, even among unpaid people nobody is doing. Very few people are doing anything about Wikipedia. There are some devotees who are dedicated.
Many, some gurus, disciples are maintaining their guru’s page. Some devotees are maintaining Prabhupada’s page. I think Prabhupada’s page, Bakhtinath Thakur’s page and Sikon’s page.
Those four pages are quite well done overall. But apart from that we don’t have anyone doing that. Now we cannot just put our perspective there.
Because that’s a neutral perspective. But we can make sure that it’s not just a perspective opposite to our critical perspective. So we have not really cared for our reputation.
And to care for our reputation means that we as insiders should be able to learn how outsiders think and speak in their language. Speak in their modality. So, this was to some extent considered completely unnecessary.
Now the fourth is still considered taboo in ISKCON. It’s, at least in some circles, those foolish, karmic, sinful meat-eaters, cow-flesh-eaters, what are we going to have to learn from them? That’s the idea. But, we do need to learn.
We are living in the material world. So, if I get a new phone, I don’t know how to use the phone. I’ll have to look at a manual that somebody has made.
I’ll have to join a course to get a complicated gadget. Our new Vrindavan temple is an architectural marvel. But at the same time, it was made without consulting any architects.
And the design itself, the aesthetics, it’s marvellous. In terms of structural robustness, it’s not that robust. And the devotees over the years have had to spend far, far more to repair and maintain it.
It’s not at all to criticise those devotees who build the temple. What they do is glorious. But the point is that there are people who are professional architects.
And we are not professional architects. Unless someone among us is. So, there are many areas with respect to the world we need to learn about what is going on in the world.
Awareness is required. So, just to address your question, as devotees, we may need to learn the language that people speak today. And we need to speak in that language.
Speak in ways that people understand. So, if you look at the Indian history, the tradition, bhakti tradition especially spread primarily because of the vernacularization of the tradition. The Sanskrit Ramayan is highly respected.
But that is nowhere as much read as is the local retellings of the Ramayan. Whether it’s Ramcharitmanas in North India or the Kamba Ramayan in South India or bits of the retellings of the Ramayan. So, we will need in that sense a similar vernacularization of our tradition.
The Valmiki Ramayan still remains the core book. But, we will need appropriate presentations. So, that’s the broad answer.
Am I addressing your question? No. You have some thoughts? So, how important is a cultural background for the practise of Krishna Consciousness? Sorry, how? How important is having a cultural background of Varnashram in the practise of Krishna Consciousness? I don’t know if anyone has a cultural background of Varnashram. How necessary is it to practise Krishna Consciousness? No, I don’t know if anyone has that cultural background.
I was born in India. I was born in a Brahmin family. But, there was not much of rituals.
Can I clarify my question? How important is it to establish or implement a culture of Varnashram through the practise of Krishna Consciousness? Well, once you start asking how important it is, it depends on whom you ask. So, I will say some devotees who feel very strongly inspired by it, they feel inspired. They can set up a model and if it works, others will take it up.
But, as far as my travels, I haven’t seen any successful model of Varnashram either helping in outreach or even helping in devotee maintenance. So, all that I have seen, in fact you can say all the greatest disasters of our movement are associated with trying to implement Varnashram. The Gurukul system led to horrendous child abuse.
The New Vrindavan that was completely… Now, somebody said that not Varnashram, but they were trying to do something like that. So, I am not saying it’s not going to work. Prabhupada wanted it, so it is our duty to try it.
But we should not be stopping all other forms of outreach just for this. So, if somebody, some spiritual master or some particular devotee feels inspired, the whole world is there, try it out. There is a lot of opportunities.
Basically, I think there are three issues over here. When we try to implement a culture of Varnashram, the biggest question is, what it is? What does Varnashram mean? Does it mean dividing people into four groups? The ashram system, the brahmachari system, the grahasthas and the sannyasis, that is well defined in our movement. Manaprastha is not so well defined.
But is it Varnashram? How are you going to divide people into Varnashram? How are you going to determine the Varnashram? There was a gurukul in Mayapur, there the guru decided, you are a brahmana, you are a kshatriya, try to have your judgement, whatever it was. It was horrendously wrong. And many of those boys who grew up, they felt tormented.
Somebody who was not a brahminical nature, and that person was spent hours and hours studying scripture. And somebody who was told, you are of a shudra nature. And everybody would just give all the work that they had to do to you.
That is your nature, do it. Like all the dog work, all the menial work, everybody gave to outsource to them. That person was miserable.
So, first of all, what it is? Does it refer to dividing society into four groups? Does it refer to living on a farm? Does it refer to taking care of cows? What is it that itself is a big issue of debate right now? The second issue it is, is that how vital is it? That it is valuable, no doubt, is it vital? There is a difference between the two. Prabhupada talked about it. If Prabhupada, for example, said that 50% of my work is remaining, that’s the quote that is often used for this purpose.
But then Prabhupada also said, I have given everything you need to go back to Godhead in my books. So, if Prabhupada knew 50% of the mission incomplete, okay, then if it was 50%, it was that important, did Prabhupada say 50% of the time in his purpose? Maybe it’s 2-3%, 5% of the time, definitely not 50% of the time. So, so how vital is it? Is it that nobody can become Christian conscious without Varanashram? Is it that all those devotees who depart from the world before Varanashram comes in, that they cannot go back to Godhead because there was no Varanashram? If it was that vital, why did Prabhupada not say it is the international society for Varanashram re-establishment? Prabhupada will repeat, it is the international society for Krishna consciousness.
So, again, the point of this is not to devalue it. The point is, we need to have an honest discussion, how important is it? So, how vital is it? So, we could say, what is it? I’ll come back to this question. How vital is it? My understanding is, it is one tool for Krishna consciousness.
What is it? I can say, my understanding is, arranging one’s material situation harmoniously to pursue spiritual growth. That is the essence of Varanashram. So, in the past, it meant that if a Brahmana does Brahmana work, a Kshatriya does Kshatriya work, a Vaishya does Vaishya work, then that’s their natural work, they can do it peacefully, they can do it productively, and they can focus on the higher purposes of life.
So, the essence of Varanashram is what? That we have a material side, and that material side can be arranged harmoniously for individual social well-being, so that we can pursue spiritual growth. That’s the idea. That’s my understanding.
Now, how is that going to be done today? Can we create a social structure for that? Or is it something which is individually to be done? I think the way the movement is moving, individually devotees are finding out what inspires them, and devotees are doing that. Sometimes the authorities give them instructions, who that people discover, but does Varanashram actually mean dividing society into four Varanahs? I don’t know. Is that the essence of Varanashram? Even if we say we divide into four Varanahs, Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Yudhra.
So, which occupations are truly Brahmanical today? If we consider, say, a faculty position in a college town. So, is that really a Brahmanical work? Well, definitely it’s Brahmanical to some extent. But a big job of the Brahmanas is fundraising, in the sense that they have to get sponsorship.
And they have to write elaborate proposals, talking about the feasibility of their proposals. That’s not really to be concerned so much about money. It’s not really Brahmanical work.
So, it’s complicated. Basically, so people’s natures, today’s people’s natures, today’s jobs and traditional categories. The three different things.
Does anyone today have a purely Brahmanical nature? Can people have a mix of Brahmanical and Kshatriya nature? Like Prabhupada said, I want Brahmanas with a Kshatriya spirit. So, that is, Prabhupada is himself asking for a mishmash of two categories. He’s requesting that.
He’s expecting that. He’s praising that. He’s recommending that.
That means those categories are also black and white. So, it’s a view. So, how vital is it? And then, how to implement it? So, even if, say, I give my understanding, to arrange people’s situation in such a way that their material position is in harmony with their spiritual life.
How is that to be implemented? What do we do? Devotees start a company, and then in that company, they all work together, and basically, when they’re working also, they’re an association of devotees. They don’t have an association with people whose values are different. They don’t have to drink alcohol, or they don’t have to go to parties where they drink alcohol.
That could be one way. So, is that Varnashram? That may not be considered traditionally Varnashram, but it is serving that purpose. But suppose devotees start a company, and the devotee is not really good at that company.
We ask, this one devotee starts a company, and other devotees join that company. And that devotee is not competent or whatever, that leading devotee. And the company goes bankrupt.
Then all those people suffer. Are we ready to take responsibility for them? I don’t know. So, my understanding is there are definitely places where this could be tried out.
And if it works, others would adopt it. But at this, is it vital? It’s one strategy. And to the extent it works, it will be adopted.
How vital it is, how valuable it is, time will show. Okay? Does it answer your question? Yes. Yes.
In connection to this, there is a view that modern society in the West, particularly the society influenced by Marxism and liberal ideologies is incompatible with the practise of Christian consciousness. Well, it depends. Because Marxism and liberal are two different things.
Like I said, left and liberal are two different things. So, in the left, like when the Soviet Russia was there, devotees had to practise bhakti at the threat of their life. The only places that Christian consciousness actually spread during Prabhupada’s time were the countries which had liberal ideologies.
Can you say that again, please? Where Christian consciousness spread was where people, countries had liberal ideologies. A liberal can have extreme liberal also. Liberal in the sense that in America, there is no official religion of the country.
People have freedom to practise the faith that they want. In the Middle East, we don’t have that. So, we have devotees, a good number of devotees, but it’s only in, only we are preaching to Indians over there.
We can’t even preach to any Muslim over there. So, now, liberal can mean many different things. So, I don’t think, it’s one of the principles of bhakti is that it is apratihata.
It is uninterrupted. It is materially uninterrupted. Now, Vishwanath Prabhupada explains such a way that no material situation should interrupt our practise of bhakti.
Vishwanath Chittathapuram’s commentary says that this is an attribute of bhakti. What he means by that is no material situation can interrupt the practise of bhakti. He says, it’s not should, but it can send a feature of bhakti.
So, yeah, somebody can live in a liberal ideology and they can also practise bhakti. Now, see, to expect that the ruling ideology has to conform with bhakti, it’s not going to happen. You know, even if you see that suppose somebody adopts Vaishnavism, somebody adopts Gaudiya Vaishnavism.
Now, even in Gaudiya Vaishnavism, in our own tradition, there are so many different variants. So, they adopt one particular variant. So, what is going to happen after that? Isn’t it? So, we can’t expect the mainstream ideology to conform with our ideas.
We have to make the best of the situation and share. So, I don’t think that any ideology we can say, if we say any ideology incompatible with bhakti, that basically means we are making that ideology more powerful than bhakti. No.
They may be less receptive, more receptive, but no ideology can stop the soul from moving towards Krishna. You had some more question on this? Yeah. Well, India is mixing all hypocritically.
You know, that is sexual energy has to be regulated. Now, how exactly the boundaries are going to be there, that is something which has to be decided upon time, place and circumstance. In India, not criticising India, I am in India, but a lot of illicit affairs happen everywhere.
So, in the West, because of the liberal ideology, consent as a value is respected. In India, because it is conservative, consent is not very much respected at all. So, if a woman is walking on the street, she is considered fair game.
If she is out on the streets, you know, a man will attack her if a man gets an opportunity. Now, we say that is not traditional spiritual culture. That is true.
But my point is, the way the traditional culture has come out, consent as a value is not considered very important. In the West, consent is generally valued. So, is consent the topmost value? No.
Of course not. People can consent to do terrible things also. Consent alone cannot be the basis of sexual interactions.
But every culture will have certain boundaries. So, consent is one boundary. Is that sufficient? No.
But the principle of boundaries is universal. So, what kind of boundaries will be there that will vary from person to person, from situation to situation. And some boundaries will need to be there.
No doubt. So, does it make it more difficult? Of course, it makes it more difficult. But does it make it impossible? No.
So, we need to come to a level where there is a culture of overall respect. And the sexual component will always be there at the background in the male-female relationship. But that has to be regulated in some way.
Now, can we turn back the clock and have the boundaries that were there 50 years ago in India or even 100 years ago in America? We can’t do that. Does that mean that we just cave in and have no boundaries at all? No. Of course, that doesn’t mean that also.
So, I don’t think it’s incompatible. It’s definitely a challenge. And that’s a challenge that has to be met.
Every particular place and time will bring its challenges. And those challenges have to be met. So, the opposite of liberal, literally speaking, is not conservative.
The opposite of liberal is illiberal. Are illiberal ideologies compatible with bhakti? Well, the illiberal ideology is Islamic ideology. If the illiberal ideology is Christian ideology, that will not allow for practise of bhakti.
There will also be a challenge. So, I don’t think we should give too much power to material situations. Simultaneously, if we have a society which the underlying foundation of that society is the progress of material enjoyment, the cultural values of that society is the pinnacle of material enjoyment, the attainment of material enjoyment and material opulence.
I don’t know if there’s any… So, that says a great spiritual determination. So, I’m just curious how that kind of harmonises. No, I don’t know in the history of human society, in the history of humanity, was there ever any society that was not concerned about material enjoyment.
That’s why we are here in the world. So, that has always been there. Now, the thing is whether there is at least a significant minority of people who are looking for something like it and how influential that minority is.
So, I somehow don’t like the polarisation between India and the West. I feel it’s a difference between material values and spiritual values. And there is, there can be materialistic values in India, there can be spiritual values in the West.
But, yeah, so if somebody’s main sense of enjoyment, the main goal of their life, then it’s going to be very difficult for them to practise spirituality. But that’s what, that is the case for many people in India also. You say India is a religious country.
But many other people are religious. They are religious enjoyers. Religious sense enjoyers.
They will come in thousands for a Diwali festival or come in thousands for a Holi festival. And they will go in thousands for a Bollywood movie also. So, sometimes we may just have a utopian idea of how the world should be.
The world is what it is. And yes, in today’s world, liberalism has gone towards a severe extreme. So, every ideology can become extreme.
The liberal ideology can become extreme. The conservative ideology can also become very extreme. And generally what happens is there is a conservatives.
Often conservatives are more concerned with conserving the status quo rather than conserving the tradition. So, life is complicated. my understanding at least, you have all of you are born and brought up in America.
But what I have observed in India, as compared to India and America, yes, our outreach is not happening in America very effectively. But is the free mixing of the genders the main obstacle for our outreach? I mean, it’s my theory. If you want, I can go into it.
I feel it’s a favourite bogeyman for ISKCON to blame. It’s a bogeyman. Is it a part? It’s definitely a part.
But there are many other issues with us that we need to address. So, I would say that when you talk about obstacles to outreach, there are obstacles associated with spirituality itself. Some people are just going to be materialists.
They are not interested in spirituality. Then there are obstacles associated with Vedic spirituality. Say, it comes from India, they are not interested in it.
There are obstacles associated with Vaishnav spirituality. The idea of Krishna as God. So, the obstacles associated with ISKCON as an organisation.
The obstacles associated with ISKCON’s particular ethos. Because ISKCON also has different kinds of ethos. Some temples may be more receptive to bhakti.
Some temples may be less receptive to bhakti. And then there are obstacles associated with particular people. So, my understanding is, these extreme liberal that ideology is going to be an obstacle for spirituality.
And that will apply to all traditions. Now, Christians may have gender boundaries and gender mixing. Their particular boundaries will be different.
But they also have boundaries. And evangelicals are spreading in their own way. America is the most religious country in the first world.
Christianity is dying in Europe. Christianity is dying in Australia, New Zealand. It’s almost dead in New Zealand.
It’s dying in Australia. In America, it’s still very vibrant. Among the best developed world.
I was in Australia. They say that, Oh, America! Oh, those religious nuts! That’s the way they refer to America. So, I would say that the free mixing is a problem for every religious tradition.
It’s not unique for ISKCON. So, I think we fixate too much on that. And now for India, it is a concern because the free mixing culture is coming to India and that is changing, affecting Indian value systems and everything.
So, that’s a bogeyman. In India, it’s like in the past, when wealthy or powerful people would get angry, they would take out their anger. They would have a whipping boy.
They would pay that person to be beaten by them. So, for us, that’s like a whipping boy. You know, all those rascals, sexuality, this, that.
So, at a ground level, is that the main thing stopping people from practising bhakti? How many people refuse to practise bhakti just because our sexual standards are not what are stopping them? You know, see, everybody negotiates the sexual standards in their own way. How many devotees have been thrown out of our movement because they had an illicit affair with someone or they had premarital sex? I don’t think that’s a major stopping point. We need to actually look at what is stopping us.
yes, is brahmachari life difficult in America? Yes, it is. But is it difficult because the culture is so sexually explicit? I don’t know if that is the cause. At least that could be one of the causes.
It could also be that have we invested enough time in providing satisfying engagements for devotees, satisfying and challenging engagements? Have we provided sufficient support to nourish brahmachari spiritually? So, all that I think those are equally if not even more important factors. So, did I address your question? Yes. I guess what you could just keep here, kind of at the end speaking about more important obstacles.
What do you feel are the obstacles which we should be thinking about and focussing on rather than, you know, kind of having a whipping boy or a boogeyman or whatever? What are the things we should really be applying our intelligence to? Because the fact of the matter is that even if one has a particular standard in terms of how genders should associate, society is going to go on in ISKCON and outside ISKCON regardless of our opinion. We can have our own standards internally but there is nothing we can do about other people. But what are the things that we can apply our intelligence to that we could potentially do something about? So, it’s a very good question.
See, I find four areas broadly where sattva is rising in the west. One is the vegan culture, the other is mindfulness, the third is yoga and fourth is the environment. So, these are areas where we can actually tap and reach a lot of people.
Now, will all of them be ready to go all the way toward bhakti? Maybe not. But that is where people are available. All these four are becoming prominent in the liberal world only.
In the conservative world, the whole environment is considered to be a hoax. There are climate deniers and climate sceptics. I am not saying they are all bad.
Certainly, what has happened is that the environmental movement has also become politicalised. And to some extent, there are some questions about it. Similarly, yoga has become commercialised.
That’s true. But there are a lot of people who have become open to Indian Eastern spirituality through yoga. So, mindfulness, at least people have become open to the idea that there is something to move towards our physical side and that non-physical side affects us.
So, there is a lot of mindfulness that can be taught from the Bhagavad Gita’s perspective. But mindfulness has become equated with Buddhism now. So, we have really not tapped that.
Veganism, from what I read or I have read, Prabhupada is among the first spiritual teachers who came to America who emphasised on vegetarian food. Many of the other previous teachers who came didn’t emphasise vegetarianism. So, Prabhupada certainly the first spiritual teacher who actually introduced vegetarian cooking.
That’s definitely true. And he emphasised it and then now veganism has become huge. The values also, the Ahimsa value is very much compared to the Bhagavad Gita.
But you know, in the vegan scene, where are we? So, even in areas where there are potentialities for outreach, somehow we are not we have not tapped those. So, these are with respect to areas where we could do outreach. Now, with respect to specifically obstacles, I see three main obstacles that hierarchical.
We are too hierarchical. And our current approach is working in countries which still have a traditional hierarchical culture. Say like in Russia, Europe, not Europe, Eastern part of Europe, Ukraine, other places.
We are successful to some extent. And from what I have heard, even in China, our devotees have to go underground discreetly. But there are a lot of people, especially older Chinese women who are becoming devotees.
They grew up in a hierarchical culture and they are able to take it up. So, wherever the culture has become more egalitarian, we are not able to reach to those people. So, is the hierarchy essential to Bhakti? Like I was talking with one very intelligent American religious studies scholar.
He started religious studies and then he became interested in Hinduism, then he became interested in ISKCON. Started studying that. And then he came to a temple.
And he was attending a class. So, he says, Prabhu, I have a question. And the person next to him slapped him on the head.
He is not a Prabhu, he is a Maharaj. Don’t commit Vaishnavapurat. And he said, this is a path of love and yet you have encircled that path of love in such a rigid structure of power.
Where does the love actually get expressed at all? So, he was quite appalled. He said, I see ISKCON as the ideal example of an organisation that is religious but not spiritual. So, that is the opposite of what people want.
Spiritual but not religious. But now, is it like that? Do we have a rigid structure of power? Well, we do have a hierarchy. Now, how important is the hierarchy? That’s one of the things which I noticed when I came to America.
The gurus, they are not so vertical in their approach here. They are much more approachable. They are much more, their relationships are much more horizontal.
So, the hierarchy to some extent is important. But I don’t think we are too hierarchical in that. That’s one big obstacle.
Then, the second is that cultural, sometimes, it’s not a problem with being culturally Indian. But the problem is we expect people to become culturally Indian. So, how much that is required? There is a, there is a huge amount of cultural curiosity because of the multicultural ethos.
Indira Gandhi Maharaj told me that they have this stall in the Festival of India in which the saree stall is one of the most visited stall where western women want to try out a saree. They want to put on the gopi dots and things like that. So, there is a lot of cultural curiosity.
What do you people do? Some will say, oh, I like your kirtan. It’s great. It’s cool.
And the next thing he says, okay, tomorrow morning 4.30 we have a kirtan. Come for that. So, from curiosity we start demanding not just commitment but almost conformity.
And that is the big challenge. There is one very successful church in New York. They have like 10 services on Sunday.
And there is a service for Caucasian, there is a service for Latino, there is a service for Chinese people, there is a service for Japanese, there is a service for Indians, there is a service for Arabs, and there is a service for Africans, for Blacks. And they have different menus, they have different preachers speaking, they even have different languages, they even have different music. And there is such a, Martin Luther King said that the hour of worship is the most divided hour in America.
What do you mean by divided is, people like to worship with other people of the same background. So, I think this is a, certainly our tradition comes from India, but how much of Indianness has to be adopted by people in the West. Are you speaking about the phenomenon where Western temple congregations are becoming increasingly Indian and it’s difficult for Westerners to relate? With how Indian a congregation is, it’s like you walk in and it’s like 95% Tamil.
No, I am saying, it’s not a matter of, people go to 95% Indians. That itself is not a problem. That could be a problem, of course, if they are talking in Tamil only.
But, if they are Indians who are aware of Western, they are talking in English, they are welcoming, it’s not a problem. It is not intrinsically a problem. The problem is, when people think that, people feel that everything is overwhelmingly an alien culture.
And to practise this, I have to join that Indian culture. So, now, how much it needs to be done, that is something which is, which has to be negotiated. I think that’s a significant issue.
So, I see many Western Brahmacharis, they may wear dhoti kurta when they are in the temple. I was in Texas, there is a sanyasi over there. He wears dhoti kurta when he comes to the temple.
But then he wears trousers and other things and other times he says, that’s what I am comfortable. And people, he doesn’t come out publicly in the Indian community, but he wears that and people accept that. So, he says, that’s the clothes I am comfortable in.
I am not recommending that. But I am saying that, that negotiation, that, when people feel that, it’s like, am I converting to another culture or am I adopting something spiritual path? When people start seeing that it’s just converting to another culture rather than going spiritually, then it becomes a much more of a problem. So, that’s an obstacle that needs to be negotiated.
Many people will say that the cultural side of Christian consciousness is a secondary by-product of the spiritual practise. That’s something that some people say. See, I am not taking a side over here.
I am saying that this is an obstacle. How to resolve it? And what is the resolution? I don’t have any answers for that. So, Prabhupada did emphasise the cultural aspect significantly.
Bhakti Sahasra Dakho did not. We are followers of Prabhupada. Now, there is one theory that Prabhupada emphasised the cultural aspect because that was his unique selling card, selling point in India.
Because there are many other spiritual leaders who had gone from India to the West. But they did not bring about a cultural transformation. So, they brought their followers, their followers still came in western dresses.
What created a sensation in India was Prabhupada’s western followers adopting Indian culture. So, was that a strategy for Prabhupada or was that a matter of principle? Bhakti Sahasra Dakho certainly did not ask his western, when his followers went to the West to wear. It was with his permission that they wore western clothes and went to the West.
And Bhakti Sahasra Dakho himself wore western clothes even when he came to receive the Viceroy. When one time he went to Radhapur, wearing western clothes. So, that didn’t seem to be a central principle for Bhakti Sahasra Dakho.
That was a significant principle for Prabhupada. So, is it a central principle of our tradition? Is it a central principle for Prabhupada? So, those are issues. So, my point is that it’s a complex issue and I’m not taking sides.
I’m just saying that that is a obstacle which needs to be addressed. So, the hierarchical aspect, the cultural aspect and the third in my understanding is it’s like the community aspect. Cultural and community can be related.
See, people come to spiritual organisation to be a part of a community. To want to have a sense of belonging. Now, are we able to provide that sense of community to people? It’s like, devotees are trying that, no doubt.
But, many times people feel that they are used more than they are valued. It is not their welfare that is sought. It is more the organisation’s growth that is sought and they are simply used as tools for that.
So, do people feel a sense of belonging? So, I think there’s a lot of alienation that happens after some time. Initially people are attracted to the practise of bhakti, the kirtan, the chanting. Even the discipline of bhakti also is, see the morning programme is a challenge for many people.
But, I’m not sure I’ve heard, like I’ve talked to many people who have left ISKCON or who have different degrees of relationship with ISKCON. Monk Prabhupada disciples, second generation devotees. I have not heard anyone saying that I left the movement because I found the morning programme too difficult.
So, is it the discipline that has left them? My understanding is, discipline is fine if it creates a sense of community. But, the discipline is used to judge and punish and that only creates a sense of guilt and it creates a sense of feeling insecure and unworthy. Then that becomes a problem.
So, here I would say, I’m going into the domain of subjective opinions and I’m not a community builder. So, I can very easily be an idle critic. But, so, I feel that these are bigger issues than specifically the gender boundaries.
I would say, more than gender boundaries, gender roles is an issue. If you at all want to go into gender direction, gender roles is a bigger issue than gender boundaries. To some extent, yes.
But, it’s interesting, it’s not necessarily Indian culture also, you know, that because the current Indian government is considered to be quite a right wing government. It’s a culture, it’s a Hindu government, as they say. Not exactly Hindu, but it is.
But they have more women ministers than any other previous government in the history of India. So, I, that this subordination of women, that doesn’t reflect the Indian ethos. Among all the religious traditions of the world, Hinduism has had the maximum female leaders including female gurus and female founders of organisations.
Islam has had very few. Christianity has had some. Christianity has had Catholicism and nuns.
But Hinduism is so, it’s not even Indian, I would say. It’s an idiosyncratic challenge at a particular time in our moments in our history right now. I think this point about community is really interesting because most people, at least people who motivate us to practise in Christian consciousness, as you’re saying, it’s not a discipline issue.
It’s an inter-communal feeling, lack of feeling, a sense of acceptance, belonging, community, appreciation, appreciation, yeah, a sense of purpose within a community. That’s a good point, purpose. It’s like the community has a purpose and if you’re not following that purpose, then get out of the way, become like that.
Then you become no one over there. So, if that feeling of community is created, then I mean, I think that because the sexual challenge, sexual dimension, that’s a universal challenge for every particular, every tradition. So, is it that spirituality or religion itself is going down? Or is it all the religious traditions which have some kind of sexual tradition, are all of them going down in alarming numbers? They’re going down but not so much.
And to some extent, people also become cheated. In one sense, it has worked both ways from what I’ve seen. Like say, one side holds that that because this culture is so free with boys and girls mixing together, so boys are, even if they want to become brahmacharis, they probably have had sexual relationships or have been sexually active before.
And that creates impressions which become obstacles for them in the future. But I’m not sure it necessarily works like that. It can work like that, but it’s also like the forbidden fruit is always more fascinating.
Somebody who has never been sexually active, sometimes they become more fascinated by sexuality. If somebody’s already done indulging for a particular amount of time, then a person can also become jaded by that. It’s not that they completely become detached.
The difference between being detached and being jaded. So, I don’t know whether that is that big an obstacle. So… I think what you said about…because I’ve travelled extensively in India and I’ve seen in my conversations with Indian brahmacharis, their perception of the West is what’s hard for being a brahmachari is the sexually exploitative culture which surrounds American society.
But I tell them most of the time that’s not the primary challenge to being a brahmachari in North America. That’s a very, very secondary even third tier issue to being a brahmachari in North America. Agree fully.
Most of the issue is creating viable sangha which people feel they have a sense of belonging and a sense of commitment and a feeling of a future. Because I see many boys, they come into the ashram and they just start to wonder, what’s my future here? And there’s no future communicated to them. There’s no vision passed to them that this can be your future.
Yeah, true. I talked with several Prabhupada disciples we should stop and finish this. There were brahmacharis living in the temple for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years.
Then they left. And they said the main reason they left was that they felt there was no path for growth for them within the movement. Now, I would say that if somebody is a vigorous preacher then there is a path for growth for them.
They can build their own community, they can have their own temple, they can start their own centre. And it was an illustrious path for them. But not every person who joins as a brahmachari is necessarily going to have that set of qualities.
You need some charisma, certain extrovert nature, certain set of attributes by which they can actually become leaders. So what are the pathways for them? Or even if somebody has to become like that, they also need some training for that. So basically brahmacharis are treated as free labour for the temple.
And if that is the case, then people get disillusioned by that. So what happened in the history? So, okay, now the history of India, I have been associated closely with the Pune temple and the Chowpatty temple. So Chowpatty and Rajnath Maharaj came to the west, came to India, and he started got in touch with the temple.
He said, first of all, he said, we will focus on training brahmacharis to be sadhus. And that means that they will not go for fundraising. And at that time, the temple is in a different state.
He says, right now, we won’t do guru distribution. Now Chowpatty does a lot of guru distribution now. But at that time, for a few years, our focus will simply be on studying.
Attending the morning programme, strictly, and he was not a very strict person, but he emphasised it by his own example. And also, he said, studying Shastra. So Maharaj himself would lead classes every day on Chaitanya Chaitanya Tamrath and the Dwarta Vaishnava.
So, that’s what created that foundation. So, I think, creating that sense of community where people feel that they are growing, they are gaining something of value, which they can contribute to society. As individuals.
That’s something which is very important. Now, Chowpatty has more of a community spirit. Pune has more of a missionary spirit.
So, either of them is good. Missionary also gives a sense of purpose. See, from a psychological sense, you need both of these things.
You need a sense of purpose and you need a sense of belonging. So, the Pune community is very good in fostering a sense of purpose. But there are a lot of people who feel disenfranchised.
Not lot, some number of people who feel disenfranchised over there. They don’t feel a sense of belonging over there. The Chowpatty temple is much better at cultivating a sense of belonging, but I’m not sure whether the devotees there have a sense of purpose.
Devotees are doing outreach, but it is not that there is a top-down emphasis on outreach. So, these two things, purpose and belonging. When I have here, I am valued over here.
And when I am here, there is something I can do over here. So, both of them are required. I think maybe one o’clock we will finish.
Thank you so much for giving us so much of your time. I will kind of merge this into one question. Sometimes, I feel in certain time and place, fear kind of right over me with philosophy and practise.
That time and place might be a factor in and of itself. And… And so, I was wondering if you could speak on that aspect of reckoning with fear as one develops their… Fear about what exactly, can you tell me? Fear with… You know, a couple of things. On one hand, it might feel like, wow, I’ve got the lotto ticket, the cosmic lotto ticket here.
I was in ignorance, but now I have this. But it’s a very high standard. And the philosophy itself could be very scary in thinking that 8.4 million species of life, the hellish planets, and having it make logical sense also adds to that fear.
Maybe that’s the weight that this is the situation. And I find that that could cause a disturbing mental state sometimes to grapple with, especially with not being at a high standard and never reach that high standard. You know, there’s presentations of this philosophy which nourish the cup inside and nourish that feeling of love for Krishna.
But there are also times where I feel just very scared. And I’m almost practising that fear. Scared about what exactly? Scared about not being able to meet the standard but to progress.
Well, generally, religions, they have broadly fall in two categories. One is what is called messianic and the other is apocalyptic. So messianic means that some future person or some future leader is going to come and that person is going to deliver of the world.
Apocalyptic is that a future apocalypse, a disaster is going to happen. And only those who are saved before that will be saved, everybody else will be doomed. Now, all religions have these features.
That’s true among many other features. That all religions have the idea of some great saint, some charismatic leader, that person will be the galvaniser. And that there is going to be some future disaster.
So, in general, Prabhupada, when he presented Krishna consciousness, he did not emphasise either of these too much. You could say in our tradition, Prabhupada himself was a Nasiha. But Prabhupada did not emphasise that too much.
Prabhupada did not say that I have come as your saviour. Prabhupada said Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is our saviour and Prabhupada also encouraged devotees to take individual responsibility. And while our tradition does talk about, say, hell, well, our tradition does talk about the dark age of Kali.
But, you know, that was not a very significant emphasis of Prabhupada’s teachings. How often do you, Prabhupada say, you know, if you do illicit sex, you will go to hell and therefore don’t do illicit sex. Prabhupada’s idea was that you are a spiritual being.
You are meant for so much higher happiness. Why are you cheesing the happiness that is available even to animals? So, Prabhupada’s outreach was not to your beast. And even the dark characters of Kali Yuga, like 12th Canto, those chapters are there.
How often do you hear Prabhupada speaking on those? And that should be your impetus for practising. So, now, I think in some ways, some devotees have taken on the apocalyptic mode of outreach a lot, wherein they demonise the world. And the world is such a dreadful place.
If you fall down, you are lost forever, like they say. Prabhupada talked about, Prabhupada said, be brave, have a healthy fear of maya. But Prabhupada didn’t want us to live in a state of paranoia.
So, we want to be more Krishna conscious than fear of sin conscious or fear of fall down conscious. Fear is one part of it, but Krishna consciousness has to be the much more prominent part. So, if we can’t follow a particular standard, there are, we can talk with seniors and find out a standard that we can follow.
Bhakti, sometimes in the apocalyptic tradition, what happens is it’s very digital, one or zero. Those who are going to follow, they are going to be saved. Those who don’t follow, they are doomed.
But that is not the mood of the Bhagavad Gita. That is not the mood of the bhakti tradition, I said. It is incremental, multi-level.
So, in the past, it was taught as if if you live in the temple, you are in transcendental. If you live near the temple, you are in goodness. If you live at a distance from the temple, you are in passion.
If you live far away from the temple, you are in ignorance. the transcendental, the philosophical was reduced to the geographical. Now, it’s not that simple, certainly.
So, fear-based outreach is very convenient for any organisation so that it can have compliant followers. But that was not Prabhupada’s general mode of outreach. And I think, if that kind of fear is coming within us, then we can try to see what the source is and we can try to find out devotees or hear classes of those devotees who don’t have that much of a fear-based approach.
I have a similar question. My question could be zero or one option which you have. One devotee approached me and he was concerned that if he had a class where it is stated unless you develop prema or pure love of God in this lifetime, you won’t be able to go back to Russia.
That’s the whole point of Rupa Goswami’s presentation of the scale from Sravasti to Prema. So, I would like to hear your answer to that. See, you can go into letters of courts and you can get caught in it.
Somebody can quote Shastra. Somebody can quote Prabhupada. You’ll catch my dhoti, I’ll take you back to Godhead.
Somebody can go towards that quote. My understanding is just focus on the principle. The principle is that Krishna doesn’t… It’s not that Krishna wants us to stay in this world.
Krishna wants us to come to Him. And Krishna doesn’t make it more difficult than it needs to be. But the simple criteria in my understanding is that we will go to Krishna if we want to go to Krishna.
If our desire for Krishna is strong enough. At the very least, our desire for Krishna needs to be stronger than the desire for things in this world. Say, if I am interested in cricket and politics and movies and I go to the Krishna Texts of the spiritual world and I ask, you know, who won the elections? So, it is that… My understanding is that it’s not that Krishna is going to hold us away from Him.
But at least we need to come to the level. So, is it that just chanting 16 rounds of the four elements will take us back to Krishna? Well, somebody might just mechanically chant 16 rounds. But, if they are interested in political power within the movement or they are interested in politics outside, if they are interested in controversies over here, then they will be out of place in the spiritual world.
So, if we can come to a level where our desire for Krishna is stronger than our desire for anything in this world, then Krishna has no reason to keep us in this world. And another point I would say is that even if we don’t go back to Godhead, I don’t think it’s a disaster. Even if we don’t go back to Godhead at the end of this lifetime, if we have tried to serve Krishna according to our capacity, Krishna will take us to a place where our journey will continue onwards.
So, in that sense, it’s not 1-0 again. If we don’t go back to Godhead, it’s not that we are doomed. We are still within Krishna’s embrace and say, if we put it this way that in this life, many of us were not really searching for spirituality at a very serious level.
Some of you might have been, but many of us were not. So, in spite of we not seeking spirituality, somehow Krishna brought us to his lotus feet. So, now, after spending several years trying to seriously practise spirituality at some level, at least at some level, if we don’t complete it, will Krishna just cast us away? That Krishna who brought us toward him when we were not interested in him, will that Krishna cast us away now, after we have spent lifetime being interested in him? Even if we have not become absorbed in him? So, I don’t think there is a need for fear that way.
So, those are two parts I would answer. That we will go closer to Krishna even if we don’t go to Krishna. Or we will go to a place where we can keep moving closer to Krishna.
And secondly is that, even if our desire for Krishna is stronger than the desire for things in this world, then that will be enough for Krishna to take us to him. Krishna can just burn all the other desires. Krishna doesn’t want to overwrite us, we will.
Because that goes against the principle of love. But Krishna also wants us to see that we want to love him, at least to some degree. Okay.
Thank you so much.