Radhanath M Biography 6 Life Phases Gachibowli

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because other programme is going on. Hare Krishna.
I’m grateful to be here with all of you today. After almost six, seven months now. And today, I’ll speak about appreciating His Holiness Radhanath Maharaj.
And the broad thing that I’ll talk about is, this one mission, many moods. We often use these terms, mood and mission interchangeably. Actually, the two are not the same thing.
So, Krishna Prabhupada had one mission. That was to… So, Prabhupada had one mission to spread Krishna Consciousness. And at different times, He manifested different moods.
And those moods manifested according to a particular place He was at. A particular kind of people He was interacting with. And we just discussed how Prabhupada focused on one thing when He was in America.
So, He was doing a lot of books. In India, it was more built temples. So, it was the mood and mission.
You could say the mission is a more broader thing. And advancing that mission, there can be different moods at different times. So, we will be focussing today on how, in the life of Zoroastrian Maharaj, there is that one mission of serving Srila Prabhupada, of spreading Krishna Consciousness.
And how that has manifested in different moods throughout His life. So, based on my small understanding, we will divide Maharaj’s life into some phases. So, till 1971 approximately, that is described, well documented in Journey Home.
That was more of His, Him as a seeker. Then, He met Srila Prabhupada and then after several interactions with Srila Prabhupada, then He went to New Vrindavan. So, 71, around 71, 72, till around 79.
That was the phase when He was primarily a pujari. Then, 79 to around 87, He was in North America and there He was mainly doing youth outreach. He was going to various colleges and doing various programmes and He built up quite a big college outreach circuit over there.
Then, from there approximately till around 2004, He was primarily a community builder. Now, He was largely based in Radha Gopinath temple and His focus was on building the community over there. Then, from there onwards, it was till about 2022 or so, His focus was more on western outreach.
Now, it’s not that the previous things were stopped but the focus was different. And now, especially in 2020, 2023 onwards, now it seems that His focus is more on consolidation. I’ll explain what that means.
He still wanted to do western outreach but His focus is more on doing western outreach in India. And He plans, actually that’s what I have gathered from talking with Him and several of other Srila Prabhupadas also. Now, in each of these phases, it’s the same person but the same person manifests different purposes, different priorities especially.
So, let’s begin with each of these. Now, regarding His, I’ll not mention much about the journey home phase but just a couple of things which I have gained more appreciation of that after I started doing western outreach. That the 1960s were an especially turbulent phase in American history for growing up.
That was the time of the counterculture and the youth at that time, that was also the time of the civil rights movement. Maharaj mentions about how he also marched in the civil rights movement. So, there was a lot of concern among the youth coming up at that time.
That is the time when they started what they started calling as post-material values. It’s not non-material values. It’s more post-material values.
That means, till people get a basic level of financial security, the primary concern is, okay, which job will give me the maximum money? How can I earn more money? How can I get a better position in society? So, that is considered materialistic values. And like every country, America was also going through that phase. But after the Second World War, America became quite strongly established as both a military and a financial superpower.
So, the youth that grew up at that time didn’t have the driving anxiety that previous generations had. Like we may see in our children also now. Our generation had a certain level of financial anxiety and in one sense, financial well-being was a priority.
But many of the young people who are growing up now, they are pursuing many non-conventional careers also. And there’s a little bit more looking for meaning and satisfaction, what we call job satisfaction. So, people start exploring, what can I do to find more meaning in life? So, that was the time when America was in that phase.
And during that time, Maharaj grew up. And this side of Maharaj, generally that he is an American, he grew up at a particular time and he has drawn from those experiences in shaping his Krishna consciousness. That sometimes gets lost.
I recently did a course on the history of Gaudiya Vaishnavism that I talked about. We can look at the Acharyas from two perspectives. One is how they manifest timeless values.
How every Acharya is devoted to Krishna, how they sacrifice for Krishna. But that’s one thing. But another is how they adopt timely strategies.
Their values are timeless, but their strategies, how they function in the particular challenge that they are facing, how they function, that is called time-placed circumstance. So, if you place an Acharya in that particular time-placed circumstance, understanding what was going on at that time, then we get a different and often deeper appreciation of the Acharya. So, this aspect of Maharaj, for most devotees, including for me, it came into consciousness when Maharaj gave that marathon class about Bhaktivedanta Maharaj.
At that time, he spoke about, he spoke quite elaborately about American history and then he spoke about how Bhaktivedanta Maharaj emerged from that culminant time when the Civil Rights Movement was going on. So, one of the values that was prominent at that time is non-sectarianism. That while people were interested in religion, Christianity itself at that time was, in one sense, quite sectarian.
That God can be accessed only through us and through no other tradition. So, it was in 1965 that they had a Vatican to council and then they said that there are, they didn’t say that you can attain God by other religions, but God is accessible through other religions also. That is, what is noble and worthy in other religions also should be appreciated.
But the youth at that time had a very great aversion towards sectarianism. And the youth at that time, when many of them adopted Eastern tradition, that is Krishna Consciousness or some other path, they went two ways. One of them is that they saw Krishna Consciousness as a non-sectarian and took it up as a non-sectarian universal spiritual practise.
Others, some of them basically, maybe consciously or unconsciously, they just replaced Jesus with Prabhupada. So, the same one-pointed devotion that Jesus is the only way, Prabhupada is the only way. Now, we cannot say that overtly, but that mentality came in at times.
So, that was something which I see is strikingly absent in Maharaj. So, once we were in the Brahmachari Ashram and we were reading the Leela Amrit. So, Maharaj came for the Brahmachari class.
He sat down and we asked Maharaj, please, you speak Maharaj. There was a particular pastime going on. So, there they had, the pastime was that Prabhupada had been invited for some book inauguration and the book was in Odia.
And Prabhupada came for the book inauguration and Prabhupada started. The entire talk was about how Prabhupada said, yeah, so this book has been written. It is in Odia.
I don’t know Odia. So, I can’t say much about this book. But this book is certainly about Jagannath and I will speak about Jagannath.
So, for Prabhupada, that occasion was simply a logic point to speak about Prabhupada, not speak about Jagannath. And then specifically he spoke about, he is Jagannath. Why are you making him Bharatnath? Why are you not writing, devotees from all over the world were sincerely serving, writing them inside.
So, when we were reading this, Maharaj said that, I can never do this. That he said, if I am invited to a particular occasion, either I will not go for that occasion or if I go to that occasion, I will just speak on that occasion. So, this was the first time it struck me that there is a difference between following an Acharya and imitating an Acharya.
You know, we all know there is a difference between Anukaran and Anusaran. But we often think of that primarily in terms of, you know, the Acharyas do some extraordinary things that we can’t claim. Sometimes they may flout the rules or they may override the rules for a higher purpose and we say, we can’t do that.
But it is not just that. Every Acharya has their own distinctive personality. And if we, when I was studying for this, what I mentioned, a history course, I looked at the difference between, say, Bhaktivinod Thakur and Bhaktisaheb Thakur.
A very significant difference. Bhaktivinod Thakur was more of a reformer. Bhaktisaheb Thakur was more like a revolutionary.
So, the idea is that, okay, if, say, in the house, this wall is a little sagging, we need to repair the hall. I paint over this one, I am going to repaint this. That door is a little spoilt, I am going to get a new door over there.
That’s a reformer. A revolutionary says, let’s just blow up the whole house and build a new house. So, now, both may be valid.
It depends on time, place, circumstances. So, it also depends on the nature of a person, what they want to achieve. So, in that sense, Prabhupada often had a revolutionary approach.
Actually, practising and sharing Krishna Consciousness itself is intrinsically revolutionary. They are going against the flow of the world. But a revolutionary purpose can be pursued by revolutionary means and it can also be pursued by non-revolutionary, more of reformist kind of means.
So, generally, Maharaj’s mood is reformist. So, Maharaj has often expressed distress to me when some devotees make statements which come off as very sectarian. And we try to say that ours is the only way.
So, I think, once a devotee in the Radha Goga temple, in the Bhavatam class, gave a talk about how, there was some article in the newspaper about how the Pope at that time, the Pope also eats meat. And the whole talk was how, if the highest religious authority of a particular religion eats meat, what wisdom can they have? And what can people gain by following this religion? So, then Maharaj afterwards clarified to the devotees and to, I don’t know the speaker, but at least he clarified to us, he said that, other than looking at that one particular feature, he said that what we need to see is that, not that this person is actually eating meat, so what value can they have? So, rather we can see that actually, Pope John Paul II was quite a visionary. He was talking about Pope John Paul II at that time.
And he did a lot of work in one sense to try to, not just Christianity, but also protect the work in advance of atheism. So, in his own way, what he did is laudable. So, the thing was that Maharaj said that rather than thinking, if he is eating meat, what good can he do? What we should be thinking is that, in spite of eating meat, if he is able to do so much, then we are not eating meat, why are we not able to do more? So, the idea is, if Krishna can empower someone, ultimately it is Krishna who is acting.
God is not the monopoly of his form. God is acting in various ways in various places. So, if God can act through or empower even a person who has some behavioural deficiencies, that if we don’t have, then what is it that we are lacking? Rather than highlighting what others are lacking.
See, generally speaking, this is the key characteristic of sectarianism, what I observe. Sectarianism is more centred on how good we are and how terrible are we. But, for any thoughtful person, it just doesn’t register.
It’s like, in a cricket match, you say, oh, India has the best batsman, India has the best fast bowler, best spinner, best cricket keeper, best all-rounder, best fielder. And still, India keeps losing, keeps losing. Well, then, if you say others have terrible, terrible players, then how are they winning? Are you losing? So, if we have the best and if we are not winning, instead of saying they don’t have good players, we have good players, you got to see, why are you not working? So, in the history of India, it’s often portrayed as if India had such great kings.
But then, every aggressor came and kept defeating India. So, now, there is a complex historical reasons for that. The point I am making is, a characteristic of sectarianism is self-congratulation.
We are so great by which I am so great, basically. I have not seen that at all in my life. So, this self-congratulation actually puts off thoughtful people very much.
So, I think that’s one key value, which, of course, if you say that was quite a bit in the net value also, but that’s what, from that age, that’s something which very strikingly comes up. Now, after Maharaj went on his search, he met Shri Prabhupada and then we, with various circumstances, he went to New Vrindavan. Basically, among various things, his visa ran out and he had to leave India.
So, he felt that he was in love with Vrindavan and Prabhupada said that there is, Prabhupada has created New Vrindavan. So, he went there. And New Vrindavan was like a military camp at that time.
It was, there are many different conceptions of what ISKCON is. So, some people think it should be primarily a home. Some people see it primarily in office.
So, some people have the idea that ISKCON is primary, like a military camp. So, in military camp, what is the primary value? Discipline. Just obey and do whatever you are told.
Discipline and immense amount of sacrifice that is required and expected and demanded and even insisted on. So, that was what, I think I mentioned this last time that somebody would ask Maharaj that Maharaj, will you be writing another book about your New Vrindavan days? So, Maharaj said, those who come by reading the first book will go away after reading the second book. So, it was a time of immense austerity.
Now, in some ways, almost everyone at that time did some austerity. It was a very difficult time. So, what Maharaj did was in some ways exceptional, but in some ways it was normal at that time.
Not everybody necessarily did all the offerings for the deity and sleep in just a few hours in between. That level of austerity was enormous. But certainly, everybody was, it was not an easy life for anyone at that time.
Everyone was living in immense austerity. And in some ways at that time, Maharaj, it was just he and Krishna. It was he and Krishna and the cows.
So, the way Ganesha Baba was living, Maharaj saw him living. So, it was just like that. And for many of us, in one sense, we try to share Krishna Bhakti, we try to connect with devotees because it is a service to Krishna.
We want to build a community, we want to share Krishna Consciousness with others. But it is also that we need that. If we are alone, we won’t be able to practise Bhakti for very long.
If we are alone, we will just be alone with our mind. And our mind will, our mind has a mind of its own. It can take us anywhere and everywhere.
So, for us, it is that we need association, we need engagement when we are interacting with people. So, Maharaj’s interaction was very, very less. So, it is like, basically, the way I have seen that we need Maharaj.
Maharaj does not need us. Maharaj wants us. So, there is need and there is want.
And now we say we should follow, in material domain we say fulfil our need and fulfil our wants. But in the spiritual domain, those who are Atmaram, they have no needs. But what they have is, A, Krishna does not need anyone at all.
When Krishna has relationships, that is not out of a need, a sense of inadequacy or incompleteness. That is because Krishna just wants to share his completeness with others. So, there are times when Maharaj also withdraws from the world and he is completely satisfied in himself.
So, for many years, previously, he would go to Rishikesh, especially he was writing a book. At that time, he would go to Rishikesh and he would just be with one or two people. And for days, Maharaj would not talk with anyone else.
And in fact, for sometime, till sometime before, the same rock on which Maharaj had sat and meditated, that rock was still there in Rishikesh. Then there was a landslide and a storm and that rock went away. But Maharaj would go and sit on that very rock.
And I think Maharaj is meditating for writing his books and other things over there. So, that capacity to be immersed in Krishna and to be content in Krishna, that is something which is extraordinary. In our tradition, we have these two kinds of transcendentalists.
We have Bhajananandis and we have Goshtanandis. So, now, these two categories generally are made in the sense that those who are Bhajananandis, they are satisfied in their own Bhajan. And Goshtanandis, they want to share with others.
And that is required, of course, that sharing with others. But Bhakti Santh Shukla says in one lecture that actually, every Goshtanandi has to be a Bhajananandi. That if we are not actually getting contentment and enrichment in our Bhajan, we can’t really effectively share with others.
So, for him, he was once telling some senior Godbrothers that he had thought that this was going to be his life for the rest of his life. Every day he would wake up, worship the deities and that’s how it would go on. And he was quite ready to do that.
There was no any need for external recognition or validation. And now when Maharaj meets with all these celebrities, we’ll talk about that phase when we come to it. But one of the devotees who organises this for Maharaj quite a bit, he was telling me that for Maharaj, actually, it’s an austerity.
You know, he is much happier talking about Chaitanya Leela and talking about Krishna Leela and talking to devotees directly. But he’s doing this as an austerity. He does not need that kind of recognition.
And that was the stage 34, probably 50 years ago almost, from 71 to 79. He’s completely enriched in Krishna. So, that was one phase where, of course, we knew that he was a serious spiritual seeker, a seeker in the sense of seeking a spiritual path.
But it’s like just being immersed in sadhana. Even the seva is just like sadhana only, it’s a deity worship. That is the seva, but it’s also sadhana.
So, he’s just satisfied in that. And then in around 79, suddenly he got an instruction. He says, you go and now do preaching in colleges.
So, now, Maharaj tells that immediately, I heard in this class that when they were introduced to bhakti, one of the things was, there were some people who were serious spiritual seekers and there were others who were not spiritual seekers, but they were pretending to be spiritual seekers because they just wanted to be draft dodgers. Draft was basically, America had a policy where they were compulsorily drafting young people into the military, very young men. So, the Vietnam War was going on and they wanted the army.
So, that was one of the ways devotees would get people to join also. He says, if you don’t join into our temple, you’ll have to go to Vietnam. So, you’ll be drafted.
So, Maharaj then in around 79 onwards, he started going to college outreach. He was going for a college programme and he said, he spoke the same thing. He said, if you don’t, if you join the temple, otherwise you’ll be drafted.
And the student looked at him and said, the draft ended a decade ago. So, almost a decade ago, really, Maharaj said, I had no idea. So, the time was completely disconnected from the world.
So, then it’s not just connect back with the world, but connect with the youth who are generally most connected with the world. So, it was, in one sense, a huge challenge. And the way he was told was, he was not even, he was not given any assistance.
He was just given one broken van as a means, you go to various colleges and do outreach. So, in America, what do they call it? Army, right? What is it? Army? Like Krishnaji? Army, where people stay in that. Yes.
So, Maharaj eventually got that van like that and then he used to travel from place to place in that van. One of our godbrothers in Dallas, he still has that van in which Maharaj used to stay. I don’t know whether it was the same van throughout from 79 to 87, but at least it was for several years.
So, Maharaj stayed in that van, he would cook in that van, he would have the deities in that van. So, I don’t know, some small, some charanities, but he worshipped in that van. He used to go from place to place.
And that was the time when he was, he knew Vrindavan was his base, but he just once in a few months, he would come there, stay for a few days, and then he would leave, because that was his focus. And it was remarkable how much service he did at that time. It was, it was a very difficult thing because at that time when college outreach was happening, it was, there was no systematic plan for college outreach.
And there were hardly any Indian students, it was mostly western people. And America was also, Maharaj would go around the New Vrindavan area. And New Vrindavan area, around that area if you consider, it is still quite a Christian area, Christian evangelical area.
So, it is not that easy for somebody who is a monk from a different tradition to go and speak. Now, things have changed so much. Now, monks are considered very cool.
Now, many of our devotees, when they write books, mainstream publishers, I am also working mainstream publisher, the first thing the publisher says, we want the monk’s picture on the cover. So, it is, things have changed quite a bit. And that is a fascinating cultural change that has been happening in India in the last 10 years or so, 10-15 years or so.
But it was, it was very difficult at that time. So, it was not just, I did not have the logistics, logistical support from his side, but the environment also was not very supportive. And, any problem? Sir, I am not able to hear you.
Yes, sorry, sorry. So. Actually, even now, when Maharaj is in Chicago, he drives himself.
Yeah, when he is in Chicago, he stays, he has a, sorry? I have seen Maharaj driving. Yeah. So, in Chicago now, he is, he has the same house in which he grew up.
One of our, Balram Prabhu got that house and he was staying in that house and Maharaj will stay in the basement of that house. Maharaj said, this is where I would need and think. And now Balram Prabhu has moved to a house nearby.
So, Maharaj had that whole house for himself and his guests come and meet him and they talk with him. So, Maharaj drives on his own. So, so he used to do everything himself.
That is where, in one sense, when a service changes, we could always just see this is a new service and I just have to learn everything or we can carry forward things which we have learned from the previous service and take it forward. So, Maharaj especially took forward cooking. I started cooking classes over there.
And his cooking classes were quite effective. Recently, I met one devotee who was very close to Sadaput Prabhu. Sadaput Prabhu was Dr. Richard L. Thompson.
He is one of the best scientists, two scientists in our movement. He wrote several very good books. I think Cosmography, Maya, the World and the Virtual Reality, Mechanistic and Non-Mechanistic Science.
His books were one of the things that really convinced me about Krishna Consciousness. So, he, he apparently, Sadaput Prabhu and Maharaj would travel together. So, Sadaput Prabhu would speak scientific stuff and Maharaj would speak direct devotional stuff.
So, it was quite powerful. I had no idea this would happen. I am going to talk with Maharaj about this.
This is something which we can try in today’s world also. Have somebody speaking proper science and have somebody speaking proper spirituality together. So, not even audio at that time.
Technology was not there so much at that time. And neither of them at that time were leaders who would have followers with them. Sadaput Prabhu was more of a solitary scholar.
And Maharaj also did not have any followers at that time. Now, through that he developed a significant community. When I was in Columbus, I had visited Chicago and I had gone from Columbus to Chicago.
Maharaj was asking me where I was. So, I said I was in Chicago and he said he had got the degrees of Columbus. So, basically while he was doing college outreach, Columbus has Ohio State University which is a big university.
And through that some outreach people started coming. And then we decided to have a centre. So, even now Maharaj, Columbus devotees have now built a big temple.
And so, Maharaj has promised that he will personally drive the car in which the deities will go from the old temple to the new temple. So, he has that personal connection. Many of the areas where outreach started around New Vrindaban, it was all actually done by Maharaj.
And in many ways, devotees have… Yuga Vishwa Prabhu, he was also based in New Vrindaban. And from there he went and travelled and preached to his faces. So, Maharaj was never a prominent leader in New Vrindaban.
Maharaj was… I said I have never been a president of a temple. I was not in… It was not in management directly any time. And New Vrindaban went through certain phases.
So, basically, I will talk briefly what New Vrindaban is. Then we move forward. That is a whole complex history.
But the leader over there, he basically felt that we are too Indian to be able to reach out to western people effectively. So, he started doing some adaptations. He said let us wear black robes like the way Christian preachers wear.
He says our names are too Indian. So, he started giving initiated names which were more like western names. So, they will do like English translations of Sanskrit names.
Actually, the Christians are doing that in India. Now, when somebody becomes a Christian, they do not change their names. They still continue to have their Indian name.
Maybe they have some addition. But it is like they take whatever is a Hebrew name or a Latin name. They find its Indian language equivalent and they use that name so that people do not change.
So, it is not unprecedented. And some kind of cultural adaptations. Then another thing that they did at that time was that all the morning Mangal Aarti and others, they created English version of those songs.
And whole Mangal Aarti would be in English. Guru Pooja would be in English. And I have heard those songs.
Quite nice lyrical songs. And then they also when they came to India, they made Mangal Aarti Ghin. And you would have Mangal Aarti Ghin.
So, they did quite a bit of adaptations. You could call it adaptations, innovations, deviations, whatever. Basically changes.
So, Maharaj did not buy into those changes. So, Maharaj still would wear saffron robes. Maharaj would still… So, at that time, they would have this… He said, loud chanting is not meditative.
So, you should try to be soft and almost in the mind. And Maharaj would still chant the way which was standard and Prabhupada recommended that. So, because of that, Maharaj is telling me about… Because in New Vrindavan, many things happened.
And there are some devotees who still accuse that Maharaj was a part of it all. But Maharaj told me actually in New Vrindavan, the leaders always treated me like a black sheep. Because he did not buy into the various changes.
And I was not even… So, three things Maharaj told me. I didn’t stay much in New Vrindavan. I didn’t buy into the changes that they were doing.
And I was not involved in any… I was never in any managerial position in New Vrindavan. So, he was… Most of the decisions that were taken, he didn’t even know about them. And whatever happened, all that was just going on over there.
So, then around 86-87, so those were times when devotees in their zeal to share Krishna Bhakti, they often did things which were… which sometimes crossed the moral line. So, like in book distribution, what devotees did was that they would… Maharaj was never actively involved much in book distribution. He was going from college to college.
He would actually give a class. He would do kirtan. He would do cooking.
But he was not actively involved directly in book distribution. And book distribution has been a remarkable thing in our moment’s history. But sometimes some devotees got over enthusiastic.
So, what they would do is… There are many people in America who are unemployable even security. So, maybe once a fortnight or once a month, they would get the allowance from the government, which they are supposed to use for maintaining throughout the month. And when people get that allowance, most of them immediately buy a lot of drugs and they go high.
And then at that time, they are dazed. So, some devotees would deliberately go at that time and give books to people. And in America, we are not selling books.
We are giving books and we will give it to a new charity. So, people would be dazed and devotees would talk in a particular way. And they would take one book and they would take $100, $500, $200.
So, basically, almost the entire allowance that was supposed to be there for that person’s whole month, all that would be declined. And the devotee would get more collections and that would be glorified. So, over a period of time, this became so bad that we got a very bad rap.
And Tamang Krishna Maharaj at one time told you to stop doing book distribution directly. So, like this is some question. Now, this is just one.
Many other questionable practises were involved where it started being haptic. But Maharaj was not involved in this at all. Because he was not in the management.
He was not in that sense guiding devotees. But then, because of various issues, in 1987, the leader of New Vrindavan, he also used to come to India. And he couldn’t come to India because of legal reasons.
So, he couldn’t leave America because of whatever legal complications were there. So, then he told Maharaj to come here. Maharaj used to come sometimes year over year.
But he told Maharaj to pick up the leadership of this project. And then, from that time onwards, Maharaj started spending more time in India. And so what? But there was this dismissive attitude.
Basically, in the college outreach, I just conclude this point. In college outreach, basically, one thing I have observed about Maharaj is that he takes up one thing and it’s devasaya atmika bhutti. Maharaj doesn’t… So, when he was doing pujari service, just pujari service.
In college outreach, he’s focused on college outreach. He would meet with devotees, talk with devotees in various places, cultivate devotees. But he’s just focused on doing what he finds… What he sees is valuable.
What is his service? He focusses on that. Later on, when some of the… In ISKCON, many of the leaders in the 1980s, they had problems and they fell away from their spiritual practises. And then that’s how the… There were some different groups that came up.
There was one group which was more of an internal ISKCON reform. The other was the Rithvik movement. The internal reform was the gurus need to be chosen.
A guru need to be more accountable. They are not absolute authorities. There’s some oversight on the power of the gurus.
The other was actually there are no gurus. Prabhupada is the only one. So, Maharaj was once telling about the Rithviks.
He said that they criticise us that we are gurus and we are doing this. But he said that the people who betrayed them are also the people who betrayed us. That it’s not that we… Most of the gurus who are influential gurus in ISKCON right now, they were not in leadership position in 1980s so much.
There are others who were leaders and all of them were supporting it. And you look at some of the histories, the kind of demands that were made from Maharaj. It was quite… Somebody would call it abusive, the kind of services that were expected, the kind of surrender that was expected.
So, Maharaj went through that phase and so his idea that there are many things wrong in the world. But rather than focussing on what is wrong, we’ll see what we can set right. And so Maharaj takes one service and just builds on that service.
With Pujari service, do the Pujari service. In college outreach, just do college outreach. That’s the purpose of Prabhupada’s 7th canto.
He says we should always be healthy and stout in mind and intelligence to determine the goal of life amid a life full of problems. A life full of problems means there are hundreds of things wrong. But what is actually going to make a positive difference? Just keep fighting hundreds of problems or complaining about hundreds of problems, that doesn’t help.
So, Maharaj’s focus was on creating a healthy alternative. So, one thing is he tried to build a whole… He tried to build a community in Nivrinda through college outreach. And actually around 86-87, after all the years of service that he had done, when the whole college outreach was just starting to have fruits, that is when the community was being built, that time he was told to come to India.
And the way it was, it’s like say if we have invested our blood and toil in some project and suddenly we are told to go somewhere else, that itself is difficult. But at least if there is a worthy successor who will take care of that project, then okay, we have invested this to someone and let them take care of it. So, Maharaj asks who will take care? He says that is not your problem.
This is not your project, this is Krishna’s project. Now, that is true at one level, but it is a very harsh way of just neglecting or devaluing the service that the person has done. Not just giving credit to the person, but also actually the whole service and the college outreach just collapsed after that.
Many people, individually some of them became devotees. But it was extremely difficult at that particular phase when I feel in that, that was like in some ways 5-10 times bigger than what Prabhupada tried to build in Jhansi. He tried to start the League of Devotees.
Prabhupada stopped his business, Prabhupada stopped even visiting his family. He was not officially a sannyasi at that time, he was still like a vanaprastha. But Prabhupada, who was a contemporary, he put all his eggs in one basket.
And then, not that the eggs broke, the basket itself was taken away. It was like that. So, Prabhupada walked away from it.
But here, Maharaj put years of effort and suddenly he was taken away. So, that happened. That key thing, take one thing and focus on that.
Even now, you see, when he goes to America, he doesn’t travel to many many places in America. We will talk about what he does in India also later on. But then, when he came to India, generally there are two ways of looking at the material.
One is at material things in the world, that it is lacking in the spiritual. And the other is, it is pointing to the spiritual. So, the material can be seen as maya, there is nothing spiritual in this and nothing of value in it.
That’s one way of looking at it. The other is, okay, this is actually pointing to the spiritual, it is preparing one for the spiritual. So, in the past, most of, most leaders, they took certain things for Prabhupada.
And based on that, most, I would say many, this is, this was a prominent approach. In fact, this was seen as a strong, non-compromising approach. So, for example, in the 80s, slowly Indians started coming to Krishna Consciousness as followers.
So, there is a difference between Indians as supporters and Indians as followers, as people who wanted to become dedicated devotees. During Prabhupada’s time, there were many life members. So, during Prabhupada’s time, there were full-time devotees.
There were relatively few in number, but they were there. And then there were life members. So, the life members were, they were offering some kind of support to Prabhupada financially or institutionally through their own contacts.
But there was, now most devotees are Congregational devotees. So, this is a new whole genre, which was a new category of followers, which is not there in Prabhupada’s times. So, when Maharaj came to India, the previous leader was there.
All the Indians who would come, he would just say, you are, you don’t think you are pious. All this is just mundane rituals. And no amount of rituals will ever get you to Krishna.
He says, you have to give up all your rituals. Only then you will come to Krishna. So, this was the mood of many leaders.
I was in Scotland two, three days ago. Oh, there was a leader over there previously. He said that, I will push you through a hole so tiny that nothing except your soul can go through it.
So, everything, all the conditioning, all the ego is left behind. Only the soul will go through. Now, that is one way of looking at it.
But another way is that Krishna has not given us our body, mind, intelligence to reject it all. All these, they can take us away from Krishna, but all these can take us towards Krishna also. So, that approach of telling people to just reject everything from their past, it is all just ritualistic.
So, that was causing a lot of problems. So, many of the devotees who are leaders now in the Radha Bhakti Foundation, those are doctors who started the Bhakti Anta Hospital. Their idea was, they were also told, you just join the temple, you become full-time devotees.
You move to the temple. And they did that. Now, their parents were understandably very upset.
And not only that, many of them were already married. And husband and wife were both living in the temple. And it was quite difficult for them to manage everything like that.
So, then Maharaj, he was very, he understood the situation, the ground reality, talked to the devotees. And Maharaj had the experience of being in India. And he had observed Indian culture before he was, in one sense, exposed to his own culture.
So, Indian devotional culture, Indian spiritual culture, he had observed that. So, then Maharaj basically, so, Maharaj’s approach was that all that you have, that is, in one sense, preparing you, building you for Krishna. That’s how from eventually the idea of, those who are already doctors, they could have, they could start the Bhakti Anta Hospital.
They had a small clinic before. But first they had a moving medical van, which means they would go and give free treatment in various places. And they would get some financial support.
And gradually from that idea of hospital came. So, the idea of basically affirming what people have and taking it forward from there. Rather than rejecting or devaluing what people have, that this is Maya.
This is also something which can be used in Krishna’s service. That was something which he focused on. So, he, so, at that time, the whole idea of wearing robes, that was told, even Indian devotees were told to wear black robes.
Now, in India, we don’t want to look like Christians. In the West, we don’t want to look like Christians. But why do we need to India to look like Christians? So, that was all the leader was expecting.
Maharaj, I think Krishnendra told me, Maharaj was on top of that leader. And he said that, if this is what you want, then you can do that. But I will no longer be a part of this service.
And the previous leader had no one else. So, he just hung the phone. And so, Maharaj was true to his principles.
In 1993, there was some big upheaval, where the previous leader, he had some issues which he got exposed. And then he left the community. He was in Dhawan.
And then, at that time, the devotees from Radha Gopila temple, they all had developed great trust. Till then, many of them were initiated by the previous leader. Maharaj was not the initiating guru.
But all their connection was with Maharaj. And then they called Maharaj back. And Maharaj had left.
Maharaj was not the new Radha Gopila. But they called Maharaj back. And then, at that time, basically, the Radha Gopila community started functioning.
So, in around 1984, 85, something like 84, 85, 86, basically, the whole New Vrindavan community was expelled from Islam. For various reasons. Many things.
One was that they were found to be involved in some questionable activities. New Vrindavan was a huge land. And that land was used by drug traffickers for taking drugs across.
And then, the leadership there decided that, you know, they will give us some fund for building the palace of gold. And they will leave us alone. We will leave them alone.
But these things don’t work like that. And things started becoming worse and worse and worse. So, a lot of things happened.
So, when things came out, ISKCON said that, you know, we should have nothing to do with this. But the leader didn’t listen. And the previous leader of ISKCON came on national television.
And he, like I said, you know that, on national television, he said that, basically, you know, there is some quote, Prabhupada quotes from an Indian author. This Indian author, he said, like, just like you beat a Mridanga. Mridanga is a good sound, like that.
Like, women should be beaten. And he said that in public, on television. And that started becoming like, this is the teaching of ISKCON.
No, that is certainly not the teaching. So, basically, at that time, ISKCON expelled. But the way things were, that many of the Nivrindavan devotees, so, the idea was that, the women become disciplined by being beaten.
So, just like you whip a dog, like that, you beat a woman. It’s a horrible idea. But so, basically, he did many things like that.
So, he was expelled from ISKCON. And Nivrindavan was quite close. There was no internet over there.
There was no television over there. Radio was also not much there. So, devotees didn’t know what happened.
They only heard their side of the story. And they said, oh, you know, all these ISKCON, they don’t follow Prabhupada strictly. We are only following Prabhupada strictly.
And they feel insecure. That’s why they expelled us. So, basically, some of the devotees stayed with Kirtanand Swami, who was the leader at that time.
Others left. But Maharaj was practically not in Nivrindavan. So, he never officially left with the group when they left ISKCON, or when they were expelled from ISKCON.
But he didn’t officially come back to ISKCON. Because he had his whole Krishna consciousness helping Nivrindavan and then college outreach. But then in 1993, when that leader had issues, that’s the time when the whole Narayana Upanisad community and all those who were following Maharaj, they officially came back to ISKCON.
So, they never actually went out of ISKCON, but de facto they were out of ISKCON. So, they came. So, then from that time onwards, the integration of, you could say, the Radha Gopinath Kirtan community with the mainstream ISKCON has started going on.
But there is one devotee who is a good sociologist, technically a social observer. He said that Bhakti Teertha Maharaj and Adhaar Maharaj, both had been in Nivrindavan. And both were in that sense on the fringes of ISKCON.
And because they were on the fringes, they were able to do certain things. Which other centres were not able to do. And those were mainly three things.
So, Maharaj, I think I mentioned that last time also, Maharaj said that there will be no fundraising by the Brahmacharis. The Brahmacharis will focus on studying Shastra. And Maharaj said there will be no focus on temple building, there will be no focus on book distribution.
Maharaj said we want to first build the community. And this was a radically different focus from what was conventionally there. Now the fruits of that are there to see.
But this idea of actually building a community, that itself was not there in the past. It was, you know, okay, you have a temple, people move into the temple and they go on. If they can’t go on, that’s their problem.
So, but as we start having a congregation, as we start having devotees not staying in the temple, so what do they mean for that purpose? So, this phase of building a community is in many ways, what Maharaj has pioneered. Many other devotees have done that afterwards, their communities have been built. Now, there are two different things over here.
Wherever there is a charismatic preacher, people will come. And in one sense, you could say a community is formed over there. And that’s true at one level.
But that is based on the charisma of the preacher. But what we are talking here is about providing facilities for devotees to continue the practise of bhakti without overly depending on the inspiration by that leader. So, the, in that sense, one is a community forms and the community forms around the leader.
The other is a community is carefully built. So, Bhakti Tithi Maharaj will say that preaching doesn’t just mean speaking about Krishna. It means two things.
It means breaking the walls that are stopping people from coming to Krishna and building the bridges by which people can come towards Krishna. So, that’s a very beautiful vision. What are the walls that are stopping people right now? And how can we break those walls? And what are the, what are the bridges that need to be built? So, that community building in that sense, like somebody can be a charismatic preacher and just speak and people come to bhakti.
That’s, it’s a community forming. So, community building versus you could say a community forming. And community forming is also wonderful.
It requires the potency of the preacher to be able to do that. But the difference is it’s more the preacher centre. So, because of the charisma of the preacher that is going on.
But community building means that walls are broken, walls that are obstacles and then bridges are built. So, basically facilities are created so that devotees can, can actually get whatever resources are needed for the practise of bhakti. So, among the various things now, which has become very prominent is for our devotees when we have children.
So, where are the children going to be educated? In the past, it was just send them to gurukul. And the gurukul will be somewhere far away and that doesn’t work. Or just send them to mainstream school.
That is none of our business. If you are sending them to gurukul, then you are unsurrendered. It’s you and Maya and your children will be Maya.
It is not like that. We have to create some facilities. So, a school, Gopal Garden School was built.
And before that, we had the whole council system. Devotees would take care of devotees in the bhakti hospital. Then some facility, some support for devotees to get married.
So, in the past, if some devotee had to get married, it was basically the spiritual master would have been present inside and would say, you get married to this person. That’s it. Or it was almost like a Rajasic version of arranged marriages.
So, now in arranged marriages, there is some amount of deliberation. Now, maybe the financial is one aspect of it. That’s a major aspect.
But still, there is a lot of deliberation that goes on. What is appropriate? The parents know the children to some extent at least. Astrology, many things are concerned.
But it’s that you have surrendered to Krishna. You just work together. It didn’t work.
And when that didn’t happen, then devotees were left to their own means. So, to try to create some support facility. Now, what exact support facility will work when? That depends on time, place, circumstances.
But just the vision to try to do something like that. So, in that sense, putting in sustained efforts to build a community. That is very important.
Gaurang Prabhu is now doing his Master’s and doing his PhD. So, his focus on community building in Bhakti, the history of Bhakti, Vaishnavism. So, it’s quite an interesting subject.
Because Bhakti has been often thought to be other-worldly. Like the iconic images of saints. Whichever we are in Maharashtra, there is Tukaram Maharaj.
Iconic images that he is not even concerned about his job. He is not concerned about his family. You know, if there is no food, Krishna will come and provide the food.
But he is completely absorbed in chanting Krishna’s name. He is supposed to take care of a farm. And animals are coming and eating that farm.
But he is simply chanting the name of Krishna. And then Krishna recognises that farm. Now, the saints, Krishna can do that.
But that was not the model for everybody. See, there is a difference between an inspiration and a model. There can be many inspirations.
Like sanyasis can be inspirations for grahasthas. But sanyasis are not models for grahasthas. At least not in that ashram.
You know, I was talking with one devotee in UK. He was telling me, just so I am in UK. So, I said, you know, yesterday was my wife’s wedding anniversary.
So, I first told him, I wanted to meet her. I said, is this your ex-wife? I asked him. No, this is my wife.
Isn’t it? You are wedding anniversary. So, he said, you know, these are all mundane things. I don’t believe in all that.
So, I don’t care for them. I am not attached. So, I said to him that, you know, if you don’t care for them, that is all the more reason to care for them.
Because bhakti is not about detachment. It is about service attitude. Sometimes, if detachment is overemphasised, then we cannot form relationships.
We cannot form community. You know, family cannot be formed if detachment is the primary value. There is one devotee who had a lot of variety of experiences.
He told me, the first lecture of Aadhaan Mara that he heard. So, he said, Maharaja emphasised it. There should be love and thirst among devotees.
And he said, I was sitting and I was talking, looking at the devotee next to me, love and thirst among devotees. Is that? It’s called philosophy. Sir, it’s called philosophy.
Chat, Hare Krishna, get purified, go back to Godhead. Now, of course, Satguram, Preeti, Lakshanam is there. But what happens is that, because in the first generation, almost everyone moved into the temple.
So, that ethos of renunciation is overemphasised. And that has almost like a generational jet lag has been carried off. So, now devotees who are grandsons, you know, if they are there, the family has to be together.
The family has to be together and serve Krishna together. And you know, see, that’s one of the purposes of ISKCON also, that Prabhupada said to bring people closer to each other and closer to Krishna as the prime entity. That’s one of the purposes of ISKCON.
So, we could say in the first generation, circumstantially, detachment was a very high virtue. And it is important. But in the second and in most likely all future generations, if you are going to have families, if you are going to have communities, then what is required as a primary virtue is service attitude.
Not so much as… So, if detachment is what is emphasised, then we cannot count communities. So, you see, Maharaj, in his classes, hardly ever focusses too much on giving up sense of education. His focus is more on trunaan, the peaceful nature of the road, of being sanctioned.
It is not so much of don’t be attached, but more be humble. So, it’s like if our purpose is to practise, just renounce the world and go back to Krishna, okay, detachment is helpful. But if our purpose is also be together in the community of devotees, then we don’t need detachment as much as we need humility.
Now, you can say humility is detachment from the ego. That is true. But the emphasis comes both from who he is, but also from what he has seen is the need of the community.
So, in the last few years, I’ve been analysing different preachers and what is the emphasis in their classes. So, if you see in Krishna Consciousness, we can have multiple things. We can have siddhanta, we can have sadhana, we can have seva, we can have sadachara.
So, that means that each class and each of these are valid things. Siddhanta means this is mayavada. This is how it is wrong.
This is our philosophy. All this is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. I was in the manner, I gave a class and there is some devotee asked, is our philosophy similar to panentheism? Panentheism is everything is God.
Panentheism is that God is everything and God is more. So, I said, yes, among the various terms in the Western philosophical tradition that could be used, panentheism would be the closest. There are some differences.
But the next day, one devotee gave a whole class. The whole class was how it is deviation to say that our philosophy is panentheism. Well, okay.
I’m not saying it’s panentheism. But the point is that he was not criticising me, but effectively you are saying that that is not correct. So, I had a nice talk with the devotee afterwards.
Now, some devotees for them siddhanta is very important. Now, yes, we can say that, you know, we are not Hindus. We can say that.
But if we are going to put ourselves in the religious classification of the world, we are certainly not going to say we are Muslims. Isn’t it? So, we can say we are practising the spiritual path, so we are not Hindus. But there is a vyavaharik and there is a paramarthik.
This paramarthik, we are Krishna bhaktas, we are not Hindus. But in the vyavaharik categorisation, we are Hindus. And if we don’t acknowledge that, then we can’t expect other Hindus to help us when we need them.
And when they need us, we say we are not Hindus. That is just opportunistic. That doesn’t work.
That’s what is right now happening in some of you may have heard about Bangladesh. You know, the terrible things are happening. Now, of course, our temple has been sacked and some Hindu homes have been attacked.
So, we have to reserve judgement right now, whether it is religiously targeted riots or it is just crime run rampant. Because right now, there is practically no government over there. Police are not responding to anyone.
So, Indians generally, what happens is Hindus have a thought of responsibility. So, even in Pakistan, actually Hindus are among the wealthier class of society. And in Bangladesh also, Hindus are wealthier.
So, when Hindus are targeted, is it because of their religion, is it because of their wealth? It is probably because of religion. But right now, it reserves judgement. But the point is that our devotees, they are contacting RSS and others for support.
And they say, you know, when has ISKCON supported any Hindu cause? So, that’s a valid question. Now, we cannot support any and every Hindu cause. But still, the point is that we cannot reject the Vyabhaharik company.
There is the Vyabhaharik and there is the Parmarth. So, if the Vyabhaharik philosophical categorisation is, say, Panentheism, then there is no need to reject that company. So, anyway, for some devotees, Siddhant is very important.
It is important, no doubt. But we can emphasise it way too much. More than what is necessary for most devotees.
Now, some devotees may be very focused on Sadhana. You know, this, this, this. You have to chant it around.
You have to wake up in the morning. You have to do this. You have to do that.
Some devotees are focused a lot on Seva. That all their classes will be how? You have to have service attitude. And their favourite pastime will be that, something like, you know, when who was that person who had a lot of questions and he came to Bhukthaswami Thakur.
Bhukthaswami Thakur told him, go and watch the plates of the deities. He watched the plates and he came back, I have no question. So, something like that.
So, everybody has, has their own inspiration. And based on that, they will find something in Shastra to support that. And that’s fair enough.
Everybody can have their own inspiration. You know, when I first gave Vahavatam class at Radha Gopinath temple, I was quite new. I was not, I mean, 7, 8 years, 8, 10 years I was there.
But I had come to Gopinath, so Radha Gopinath attended my class. And I asked him after that, how was the class? He said, after a long time, I heard a class in which I couldn’t detect any management agenda. No, I didn’t even understand what he was saying.
I was so naive at that time. But sometimes it happens that, it’s not a bad thing. Sometimes managers may also have a particular purpose and then we use the class for that purpose.
But, so for them, if somebody is going to get things done, then service attitude. So, all classes will be about service attitude. So, generally speaking, what I have seen is, Maharaj’s classes, the focus is on Sadhacharya.
And not like hammering virtues down, but humility, tolerance, coming together in the community. And being together as devotees. So, he does talk about philosophy in the club, Dante talks about when it’s required.
But Maharaj is not too emphatic about it. Once, there’s some philosophical issue, there’s a lot of conflict. So, I asked Maharaj, what should you do? Maharaj said, you know, this philosophical pettiness is a waste of time.
It’s very philosophical pettiness. So, sometimes we can get too caught in things. So, Maharaj focusses more on the values, the virtues that will help build the community.
And are other things important? Of course, they are important in their own place. But one of the reasons I understand that Maharaj’s classes are loved by devotees all over the world is because he focusses on the things that make immediate difference in people’s lives. See, emphasis on sadhana is important, no doubt.
But it’s very easy when emphasis on sadhana that people feel guilted into doing sadhana. Then the sense of guilt comes much more. And then it’s not so much a positive connection with Krishna as more of a negative connection with Krishna.
Oh, if I don’t do this, what will people think of me? But when that acceptance, affirmation is there and that value, amaan in amaan dena, that we respect devotees from wherever they come, whichever background, whatever be their particular situation. So, that helps build a community. Now, in many places, this value of building a community and what is required for building a community, that is being picked up now.
And among all the things that Maharaj has done within ISKCON, I consider community building to be the biggest. It is in my small understanding. Now, within community building, there are many things.
There is a Brahmacharya ashram which is focused on studying Shastra and teaching Shastra and a lot of other things. There is a Grahastas who are trained as counsellors and mentors. There are various other ideas of devotees using their profession in Krishna’s service, in Bhaktan’s hospital, whatever.
So, that is the community building phase. And then after that, there is the Western Outreach phase. So, I’ll talk about that in the consolidation part and then we’ll conclude.
So, around 2004-2005, when Bhaktivedanta Maharaj departed, so he told Maharaj, write your story. Now, Maharaj did spend a lot of time writing his story. But then, in general, what I’ve seen is that when Maharaj does something, he does not do it half-heartedly.
Either he doesn’t do it or he does it and he invests himself fully in it. So, okay, it is not just, okay, if I write this story, write my life story, what will be done with that? So, in the West, the way the world is right now, experience is seen as the highest pramana. That means, if in my experience something is good, see, if you see, now, I don’t remember what all I spoke in the session we had last time, and probably you also don’t remember.
So, okay, so that was more of, you could say, my personal interaction with Maharaj, something like that. So, okay, this is a little more analytical. I’m talking about few interactions with Maharaj.
See, basically, the world has gone through different phases. You can say pre-modern, modern, and now, what is post-modern mostly. So, in pre-modern, basically, the value, the decision-making authority was Shastra.
Whether it is Vedas in India, the Bible in the West, the Quran in the Middle East, decision-making authority was Shastra. Now, in the modern times, it was science. Is this scientific? Is this scientifically valid? So, now, while there is still a lot of infatuation with technology, not so much with science, per se.
It’s not that people think science will provide all the answers to life’s questions. We still are excited about technology, people in general. But now, in the post-modern times, the authority is experience.
I will do something, not because some scripture says so, not because science says so. I do it because it works for me. In my experience, this works.
And if something has worked for someone in their experience, then I want to hear from them. I was at an internet conference in America, in DC, and talking about contemporary post-modern authority. So, one Christian pastor was giving his experience.
He says that 20-30 years ago, if we were giving a discourse, a sermon, divorce is a sin against God. If you divorce, you will go to hell. That kind of preaching would work.
But in today’s, this was 2016-17, not even more true. Today, if we tell a young couple, if you divorce, you will go to hell. They say, first, you go to hell.
We don’t care for you. So, on the other hand, in the evangelical tradition, they have no monks. So, they have only husband, wife, both of which.
So, if a preacher couple comes and says, we have been married for 20 years, and we would like to share how we made it work, then people are very interested. Now, within that, you can bring in the principles of the Bible. It all starts with the Bible says this.
This is how it works for us, and this is how the Bible is also saying the same thing. So, the idea is, experience is considered a big authority for people. And to some extent, this was also understood in this con.
It is more like how I came to Krishna Consciousness, a story which we ask everyone. And that’s one of the popular columns in Back to God also. So, that was there, but nobody had written a full booklet on it.
So, Maharaj saw this as a way of, after he put his time and effort in writing this story, he saw this as a way of being Western authority. And so, that’s where his focus has been for the last almost one and a half or nearly two decades. And in my understanding, that was for three reasons.
One is, Maharaj often quotes, especially when he is talking to preachers, where there is greatest need, there is greatest mercy. He quoted Bhagavad Gita also said that. So, if somebody wants a glass of water, he will give it to them.
That’s wonderful. But if somebody is on a war field, they are fighting war, and they are parched to a thirst with a glass of water at that time, it’s far greater value. But he wanted to, so he feels that there is a great need in the West.
In the West, we have lots of Indians becoming devotees. So, one devotee, he recently wrote an article about how ISKCON is becoming like a Indian Society for Krishna Consciousness with international branches. So, that is definitely a matter of concern.
Actually, it’s not entirely true. It is more of in Russia and in Ukraine, you had lots of people becoming devotees. So, it’s more like among cultures, the West is more egalitarian.
Egalitarian means it’s more equal. Like in Western companies, if you work, you refer to the boss also by the first name. So, in the East, the cultures are more hierarchical.
So, wherever the cultures are hierarchical, we have been fairly successful. Wherever the mainstream culture is egalitarian, we have not been very successful. So, now, some devotees have the opinion that the hierarchical structure is central to Krishna Consciousness and some devotees feel not necessarily.
So, at least the hierarchical way of spreading Krishna Consciousness has not had much success in the West. So, Maharaj felt that there is a great need in the West and not only is there a great need, there is also, he felt that he himself as an American who has been in India and now he has his own personal story as a testament. So, he is very specially disposed to do this.
That he can do this in a way that few other people can. And also, Prabhupada wanted it very much. Prabhupada, when he was in all his pastimes, Prabhupada was in Africa.
Devotees are preaching to Indians. Prabhupada is in Africa, we should be preaching to Africans over there. So, we should be getting local people over there.
So, Prabhupada, the moment he needs it, because we don’t have so many western people. Maharaj has the capacity to do it. And Prabhupada wanted it.
So, there are three reasons. And in the western outage also, there have been different strategies that I have seen. First was like a book-centred strategy.
Around book, he did many small book launches. And that was successful in creating initial awareness. He did a second book also.
He did some book launches based on that. Then after that, the whole idea of the Govardhan eco-village. That was something which Maharaj has been planning for a long time.
But then the idea is that when people in the west, they come to, if they get introduced to bhakti, they need to have a soft landing in India. So, if people come to many of the places in India, they are supposed to be spiritual. So much noise, so much congestion, so much, like one devotee said that, I was reading the biography of a western person who came to India.
He said that, my senses were never as much exalted in India. Exalted anywhere in the world as they were in India. So many people, so much noise, so many smells, so many colours.
So, people think in the west, there is so much temptation. That may be true. But here, it may not be temptation, it’s like overwhelming distraction.
So, every time I come back from the west to India, I was just one month in UK, I came back. The first thing that strikes me is the noise level in India. It’s almost like you don’t realise it when you’re not there.
In the west, nobody honks. In India, nobody drives without honking. Or very few people do.
So, Maharaj wanted a place which would be natural, comfortable and spiritual. So, it’s like a very good soft landing. And there are many yoga groups who may not be devotees also.
They also come there and they, so it’s become a very significant place. So, for the western outreach, one is the book launches in the west. Second is the yoga outreach over there that has happened.
And third is creating resources in India. It’s interesting. Maharaj was talking to Radha Gopinath community leaders recently.
And one of them told me, it is, like there are so many things that are there, but they don’t register to us. So, he said, why did Prabhupada want to build big temples in India? You know, we could say that Indians are impressed with big temples. And Indians have that kind of religious pride in building big temples.
And they would contribute to that. Indians at that time would not contribute to home distribution. Even now, they don’t contribute so much.
Now, they do, but not so much. So, that was one reason. He said that Prabhupada wanted temples in India, so that they would be on the tourism map of India.
And westerners who come here, they would be like hosting places for them. And it’s quite a remarkable vision. So, now, Juhu temple was grand and it was supposed to be on the tourism map.
So, Juhu is on the tourism map. Radha Gopinath is also on the tourism map in Mumbai. Anybody who comes from Mumbai, they come and see the temple.
So, having various things which are attractive. So, and creating that base. So, when Maharaj picks one thing up, other things do get, it may seem neglected.
But Maharaj is focussing on one thing and his mood was that he has built, he has trained the counsellors, he has built the community. So, devotees can get nourished even in his absence and they can be trained and guided and things can move on. And that’s one of the things that Maharaj may not have done, like conscious succession planning.
That is also a discussion going on at the moment. But he has actually done that right from the beginning. He has, in one sense, decentralised the leadership.
It’s not that like one disciple, like he is the centre and everything has to be sanctioned by him. Some people, when they are the boss, you know, I need to know everything. But, you know, there are many things that you don’t need to know.
But I need to know so that I know that I don’t need to know. So, sometimes over-centralisation can, that person can extend themselves a lot and that’s wonderful. But then people don’t grow, people feel suffocated.
And that person is not available, then either things don’t move at all or things just move everywhere. So, Maharaj says that he was visionary and then that’s in the communities and devotees are not being nourished. So, now, last year Maharaj resigned from the GBC, or this year only, when the decision was accepted.
So, Maharaj became a GBC in 1993 and when he came back to ISKCON, he became a guru in ISKCON and a GBC. I think around that time only. So, Maharaj has gone on to become a GBC and several other devotees may also become GBCs now.
One of the reasons, Radheshampu’s service is there also in America. Now, GBC is that you should go out of your zone and do some service somewhere else. And then you will be actually trained to be a leader for international movement.
So, Radheshampu also becomes, some other devotees will also soon become GBCs. But Maharaj, at least from what I have talked with, Maharaj is now in the mood of consolidation. That what he has built, he expanded in India, he expanded in the West and the focus is more on consolidation, reinforcing what has already been built.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu ended preaching for 6 years. For the last 18 years, he was in one place and there were Swamis who would come from Vrindavan, other people could come from other places and he was entering deeper into the hearts of those who were already following him. So, that’s what it seems Maharaj’s mood is.
Maharaj told me that, it’s become clear to me that my main service is in India, Radha Gopiyat community, the Vaktanth Hospital and the Govardhani College. So, of course, Maharaj was with his father and his father passed away last year towards the end. So, Maharaj spent a good amount of time with his father and now that… So, Maharaj’s focus is much more on India now.
So, India will be his base and from there, it seems he will be going to various places. So, in consolidation, I will make two points and then I will conclude. You can have your questions after that.
That Maharaj’s general mood right from the beginning was that he will build one place as a model and others can come and look at that and then they can adopt it accordingly. So, Radha Gopiyat community was built like that. And many other… Each place will adapt according to time, place, circumstances, what can be adapted, what can’t be adapted.
But… So, now that is one thing which he had done. The consolidation, right now, if I, to whatever extent I understand it, it is that Maharaj, he spends a lot of… He gives classes in Radha Gopiyat temple. Now, he travels to other places also.
But his idea is that devotees come to the eco-village, devotees come to Gopiyat temple. And when in eco-village, he is also accessible. At least people, devotees can exchange a few words with him if he is there.
So, Maharaj once telling me that, not me, he was telling all of us, and that he said that, you know, I am ready to meet anyone who wants to meet, but I just can’t. So, I just can’t meet everybody, right? He said that I am grateful to… He was talking this in Vrindavan Ashram. He said, I am grateful to every one of you.
Every one of you who is serving Shri Radha Gopal and Krishna. And so, right now, the way I see it is that several of our leaders, Shivram Maharaj is also retired from the GBC. Of course, he is still the authority in this community.
Radha Maharaj is still the authority in the Gopiyat temple. But officials from GBC, many of the leaders are resigning now. And they are now… So, Maharaj is meeting celebrities, connecting with them through some offices like Gopalpur in India, Jai Shetty in America.
So, the idea is that what one Joel Harrison did was remarkable. And there are people who may do like that. But Maharaj is very, you could say, very selfless in that.
I mean, some celebrities come to… Many celebrities come to Radha Gopiyat or to Jigko village. Maharaj meets them one to one. Maharaj says that, I will never talk about them in my classes or in my meetings.
He says, if they want to talk, when they want to talk, they can talk. So, the idea is that many of these celebrities, they are very afraid of being used by others. You know, everybody wants to use that connection.
And yes, we can say that Sukta Vairagya, they have their fame, it should be used. But that’s what everybody is trying to do that. Then it just feels very utilitarian.
And so, Maharaj… So, it seems Shyam Sunder, we know that incident when when we wanted some Lakshmi for the temple in London. And Shyam Sunder asked George Harrison. George Harrison gave at that time.
But it does seem, that was the time onwards, he started withdrawing himself. And afterwards, he was connected, but he was never, like, very connected. Many reasons.
But overall, in his biographies, there was like one phase in his life. He explored various paths. So, he also had a Krishna phase in his life.
So, sometimes, now, who will feel used by when? By what we can’t say. So, we have to be careful. Maharaj is extremely careful about it.
But he is talking with, he is connecting with a lot of influential people. And giving them appreciation of Krishna Consciousness. So, Maharaj did some, initially, he did some events.
And he spoke in House of Commons, he spoke in companies. But Maharaj said that, that takes a lot of toll for me. He says, preparing for the occasion, speaking, he says.
Rather, you bring individual people to me, I talk with them. So, that’s what, Maharaj is not so interested in just going to big forums and speaking in big forums. He may go to big forums, or he may have big celebrities coming and talking with him.
And he spends time with them. So, that way. And then, with respect to the community building, that is, I would say, his biggest legacy.
You know, wherever we are, I was in London, sorry, in UK. As in, I went to Scotland for the first time. So, there are devotees, there also, who are inspired by Maharaj.
Some of them initiate when they come to, when Maharaj comes to the manor. So, Maharaj, basically, he is, if anybody asks me, is Maharaj liberal or conservative? So, I told him that, what I see is, Maharaj is a non-disruptor. Like, the overall trend is liberal.
He doesn’t take, it’s an intensely conservative stance. If the overall culture is conservative, he doesn’t take intensely liberal stance. His focus is on, whatever is the way things are going on, within that, how can people move towards Krishna? So, sometimes, you can disrupt and take people towards Krishna also.
But, in my understanding, that’s like a high-risk approach. Like, you know, somebody is here and we are here. Till you come to Krishna Consciousness, take a high jump from here to here.
Now, a few people succeed, but many, they go lower and lower. So, that somehow doesn’t work very well. So, this is actually, Krishna says, don’t do this in 326.
Other ways, basically, create steps, gradually, for people to come to Krishna. So, this, in my understanding, is the mood of Maharaj. People who take gradual steps, and from where they are, they come towards Krishna.
So, whoever is ready to show whatever level of connection, commitment, Maharaj accepts that, and then he engages them accordingly. And, different devotees, or different well-wishers, they are at different steps in this life. But, there is a huge amount of outage happening.
And, I was talking about monks, I concluded that one. See, one of the things, this is a, like I said, 10-15 years ago, if somebody would become a Brahmachari, it’s like the whole movement, the whole ideas, you are brainwashing young people, and you are taking people away. Now, that is not there at all.
I mean, it’s still there, to some extent, but that is not the primary perception of our movement. It’s like, monks are seen as sources of wisdom. I mean, there are 3-4 monks in India who are quite influential, but I feel that Gaurav Gopal was a pioneer in that.
And, it was Maharaj who encouraged him to do that. It was, this is one of the things I find very significant about Maharaj. I mentioned this, I’m sure I mentioned this last time also.
Maharaj said that, in our movement, we have many empowered devotees. But, we do not have enough leaders to engage empowered devotees. That means, empowered devotees, they have both the ability and the desire to do a lot.
But, if you try to fit them into a particular box, or a particular paradigm, it doesn’t work. So, basically, through people like Gaurav Gopal Prabhu, initiators are, why is he talking about self-help and mundane things like that? He’s not talking about Krishna at all. Yes, but it was an incremental approach.
See, basically, what happens is that everybody needs Sattvic wisdom. Now, people are, they may not know it, they may not know the word Sattvic, but everybody needs wisdom for living practically in the world. So, see, even when we call practical application of the Bhagavad Gita, most of practical application of Bhagavad Gita is, how to live in this world to get out of the world.
Isn’t it? It is not how to live better in the world. So, that is maya. Well, not, that’s not necessarily maya.
It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. But the idea is, people are going to need Sattvic wisdom. And if we don’t give Sattvic wisdom, somebody else is going to give.
In the Mormon church, I was in Salt Lake City. The Mormons are a group of Christians who are considered a bit heterodox. They are not accepted by major Christian denominations.
But now they are. They have like, they accepted, many polygamy and other things are accepted. But anyway, Stephen Curry was actually Mormon.
And he, in their tradition, they consider him to be the biggest Mormon preacher. Now, among the millions of people who don’t, seven hundred, seven hundred, nobody, most people don’t even know that he is a Christian. Why don’t you call him Mormon? But, like, that was a book which reached millions.
And then he has a subsequent book. One of the books is Divine Centre. That’s also quite a big selling book.
And the Divine Centre is all about not just Jesus, but the Mormon way to Jesus. So, it’s a step. So, lots of people take that first step.
And a few people take the next step. So, there are others who have done that. Christians have done that.
There are Buddhists who have done that. There is a Buddhist mindfulness. The word mindfulness is associated with Buddhism in the West, in India.
But actually, in the mindfulness that they teach, there is very little Buddhism, actually speaking. But people get an appreciation for Buddhism by that. And then they become very… Actually, I don’t know how much in India, but in the West, Buddha has become like a culturally cool icon.
Laughing Buddha, sleeping Buddha, reclining Buddha. You know, I was in a devotee farm community. Devotee farm? And I saw that out there, there are more Buddhas than Krishna.
How do you say, people feel comfortable with Buddha? Not as much with Krishna. So, we have Krishna. Yeah, true.
Altar? Yeah, in the altar. There is no need for anything else. So, it’s like… You show your model and you are neutral.
And you are open to all beings. It’s like your Buddha has become an icon of spiritual, but not religious. Laughing So, the idea is that we have something like this, that is sattvic to spiritual.
So, Ghanchandra Prabhu, Yashasthri Prabhu also stories like that. He was also in the ashram, then he left the ashram. And now, his selling point is as a former monk.
So, in the past, it was like the way the culture was, if you are a brahmachari and you leave brahmachari ashram, it’s almost like a fall down. But now it has become a selling point. I was a monk.
So, things have changed. And to some extent, we are beneficiaries of the change. But to an extent, I would say that we are pioneers of the change also.
So, overall, see, this is what… If we consider, it’s like a tamas, rajas, sattva, then we can say bhakti or we can say shuddha bhakti. And then we have Gaudiya Vaishnava. So, now, shuddha bhakti can have various places also.
Devotees of Narayana also, Ram also are shuddha bhaktas. But specifically in the mood of Radharani, in separation from Krishna. So, what is the purpose of the Krishna Vanshi in this moment? So, many devotees feel that, or at least some devotees feel that, we have to get everyone over here.
So, they can be anywhere, they can be from anywhere they become, but we have to take people all the way. And to some extent, that is true. But getting people from here to here, getting people from here to here, getting people from here to here, that is also a possible result.
And that is also a desirable result. So, Prabhupada, the first purpose of ISKCON, he says, to correct the imbalance of materialistic values in the society. In fact, in the various purpose of ISKCON, Krishna and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu are only mentioning one-one purpose each.
To build a temple for Krishna and to do varinam kirtan, as taught by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. So, many of the purposes are quite broad. So, it could very well be that for some devotees, their primary service is to get people from Trajas or Tamas to Sattva.
And although same devotees may take somebody from Sattva to Shuddha Sattva, some devotees may not. And some devotees, their primary service may be to take people from Sattva towards Shuddha Sattva and towards Bhakti and Vishnu. So, overall, in the past, I would say till 2050, definitely till 2019, this was the main vision.
Now, it has become more or less clear that the different devotees will do different things. And more or less, we have come to, there is still criticism of devotees that this is right, this is wrong. But that has toned down because the effects are the same.
One of the things that radical change that has happened in the last 10 years, 15 years is, not just moms, but ISKCON has also become a respected brand. Many people appreciate ISKCON. Many companies want to associate ISKCON.
We have CSR and other things. So, that is because we are also doing this kind of outreach, which people can appreciate. So, it’s like, if we consider in our stages of Bhakti, there is Shuddha, then after that Sadhu Sangh, then we have Vajanakriya, then we have Nishtha and all that goes on to Ruchi and Asakti and Premi.
So, we have. So, now if you consider, most of the classes that we had are focused on this area. Vajanakriya and Anathni Vritti.
Now, for many devotees, there is service where we just get into Prashad. And that is important. Now, it’s also important that we have some people who talk about, now we don’t say that we are on the stage of Ruchi and Bhava and Prema, but we also need nourishment in that direction.
If we don’t do that, then it’s happening that many devotees in our movement, who have been around for 10-15 years, now they are going to Gauriyamma and other places to hear more about Krishna. Why? Because they say that we don’t speak much about Krishna. Now, our Acharyas are there, they have written about Krishna.
But if we don’t speak about it, the devotees have that need. Yes, everybody needs Anathni Vritti. But we also need Artha Pravrutti, which comes by hearing directly about Krishna.
So, what we had done last time, we had discussed the Gopikita. So, that is more for nourishing specifically our attraction towards Krishna. So, it’s a whole pathway.
Now, maximum people will actually be needing a journey towards Shraddha. So, it is not necessary that every preacher has to take every single person on the way. Some devotees may focus only on building Shraddha.
Some devotees may focus only on, say, Bhajanakriya, how to practise. Some devotees may focus on Anathni Vritti. And some devotees may choose to focus only on the subsequent, like say, Ruchi and Bhava and Prema.
So, basically, if you consider these stages, not just as distinct stages, they are distinct, but they are also overlapping to some extent. It is not that when we are, if we are not on Anathni Vritti, there is no Ruchi at all. There is no Asatya.
Some Asatya is there. It may not be very strong or very deep, but it is there. So, different devotees will nourish different people in different ways.
So, that great completion that Maharaj had, that has played a significant role in accommodating different devotees. So, going forward, focussing more on the outreach of Dharma. So, where we feel there is so much Adharma in the world today.
And just some people come to Bhakti, but some people just come to Dharma more. That’s also valuable. Important.
So, that breadth of vision, we talk a lot about depth in Krishna Consciousness. But as much as depth is important, breadth is also important. So, Maharaj is very deep in his Krishna Consciousness.
And because he is deep, he can also be broad. So, that he appreciates devotees doing endeavours in many different ways. And someone makes a mistake, they learn from the mistakes and they grow.
So, he is not so much focused on, you could say, catching people when they make mistakes. Let’s people learn and grow from the mistakes. And that way, a lot of talented, dedicated devotees, people become devotees and they continue serving.
And right now, through the eco-village and projects like that, so many people who previously not even considered Krishna Consciousness, not only considering it, but they are exploring it, they are connecting with it, at various degrees. And we have the capacity to accommodate people at various levels. So, it’s like, so I said, if Maharaj is not so much liberal or conservative, he is a non-disruptor.
Non-disruptor means, if somebody has an inclination to serve Krishna in a particular way, and somebody is moving toward Krishna in that particular way, they may not be moving very fast, they may not be moving all the way, but it is, I conclude, it’s one of Maharaj’s ever telling me, sometimes we are so anxious that people go to Krishna in the next life, that we are unable to keep people with Krishna in this life. That is what happens. We push people so much, you know, you don’t want to take birth again.
You know, this one devotee told me, I feel, I have to say, maybe I should not have taken birth this time also. There’s one very articulate, you could say, semi-devotee. He was born in a devotee family.
He was Gurukul. So, he told me that, he said that, he said, my prominent memory, he’s a young man now, he said, my prominent memory as a, my prominent childhood memory is my parents’ constant disappointment that I was not the reincarnation of Prahlad Maharaj. Now, every parent will have great expectations from their children.
And we want them to go back to God also. But they have to live this life also. And in trying to push them forward, we push them so much that they go away from Krishna.
So, yes, we all need to push people. But how much? It is falling apart, I think. Is that pushing actually towards Krishna or is it pushing, taking people away from Krishna? So, that mood of the, what? So, this is, the Maharaj embodies this mood.
I had written this separately long ago. But from your place, at your pace. Access Krishna’s grace.
From your place, at your pace. Access Krishna’s grace. So, Maharaj has created different places for devotees and at different places, there are many, many people moving towards Krishna.
So, I’ll summarise what I discussed. We discussed mainly the broad phases. So, I’ll say the pre-bhakti phase or pre-manifest bhakti phase, we can say.
That is, when he was seeking that idea of non-sectarian. That means not being self-congratulatory. We are so great.
Why are you laughing at the word? We won’t be able to congratulate anyone. What do you mean? I mean, we won’t be able to congratulate anyone after this. No, it’s more about congratulatory ourselves.
No, no, no, self-congratulatory. It was a very accurately phrased that you chose to say that. In asking that question, I was being self-congratulatory.
Then, as a pujari, Maharaj told that bhajanananda, bhajanananda, that is so, let’s say, even when he got involved in so many things later, his connections with Krishna is very strong. Then, as a youth preacher, I would say, that’s the time, let’s focus on working, you could say, almost working with whatever resources, and nothing is available. That’s what he focused on at one point.
Just do with what we have, keep doing what we have. Then, I would say, the community building phase, that is the biggest, we discussed that a bit elaborately also. That was from around 87 to 2004, 2005.
This is basically where we provide, we remove the walls and we build the bridges. So, what is required? What is obstructed? Instead of just telling new lectures, become Krishna conscious, we investigate what is it that is making things difficult for people. Then was Western Outreach, where we discussed how, you know, because, so, he used, his book became like a book that he was holding, became a launching pad for him, for doing something that’s very necessary.
The last part I discussed was consolidation now. So, in consolidation, the idea is that engage devotees, engage people from whatever level they are at. So, from their place at their place.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. So, let me say like this, in a non-disruptor kind of a mode, can we criticise what is happening? Because sometimes it is part of preaching.
Of course, I would say it’s not that. See, in one sense, any kind of education involves some correction. This is how you think.
And this is what you’re thinking is wrong. This is what is right. So, I don’t think criticism itself is a problem.
It’s how the criticism is done. It’s done in a way that people are not publicly shamed. It’s not done in a way that it comes off to others as an ego trip from our side.
It’s not come up in a way that self-corroborating. So, I think a lot of, nobody can actually lead a community without needing to correct. Otherwise, everybody will go in their own directions.
Certainly, corrections are required. But it’s more about how it is done. Okay, actually, it’s very nice.
I was supposed to tell this before. This is a simple example. But say now, a lot of young people have started coming to our temples.
I don’t know if you notice it. These young people, they may have a boy and a girl, boyfriend, girlfriend. They’ll come together.
But they’ll come to the temple. And nowadays, the cool thing is to take a selfie. So, whenever they are.
So, at Radha Gopinath temple, what happened was, many times young people take selfie with their deities. Now, turning our back towards the deities was not a good thing. So, the devotees asked, then Maharaj, should we stop them? Maharaj said that, yes, turning our back to the deities was not good.
But he said, if we make a rule and we stop people, then we can’t control how, who will stop people. You know, how it will be. Don’t do this.
Oh, you are coming in a path. There is this. So, we can speak in so many ways.
And finally, see, what happens is, for many people, rules are their virtuous excuse for going on and on. Rules are a virtuous excuse for exercising power, even abusing power. I am only implementing the rule.
But Maharaj said that, don’t do that. So, it’s that sensitivity that, yes, there are certain things which are not good. But if some people, they feel that, you know, they were treated rudely, it’s quite possible.
We cannot control who is going to be the temple, who is going to speak, how to tell. If people feel that way, they will never come to the temple. Now, which is better? Or which is worse? If they turn their back towards the deity, or they turn their back to the deity for a few minutes when they come to a temple, or they permanently turn their back to the deity, never come to the temple.
So, in that sense, we may have, we have to correct. But when do we do it? How do we do it? That is the key thing I am understanding. Now, my understanding is that selfies are not to be taken, that will be noticed, might be there.
But it’s like, how much do you enforce it? When the temple security guard is snatching away their mobiles, and people are getting afraid, if their mobiles are gone, I think they feel rude and do that. Yeah. So, it’s more like, I would say, it’s more like enforcing, more of enforcing something.
So, they could probably offer to take the picture themselves. So, this, last time, like the, the path was getting closed, and there were some people trying to take a selfie. And the guard guy was in the background.
I said, don’t take a selfie. He said, no, no, no, God, deities didn’t come. I said, it’s not about deities coming, you are turning your back towards God.
He said, oh, yeah. So, people don’t even realise that they’re turning their back towards deities while taking selfies. It’s not.
Then they realise, yes, we’re turning our back. He said, thank you so much. I was at a temple, where was it? In Canada.
That was quite clever. In the temple hall, they have created a selfie spot. Even in Ayodhya, Ram Mandir, they have created a selfie spot.
Oh, is it? Yeah. There are a lot of photo booths. Yeah.
So, it’s like, basically, like a very beautiful background. And not the deities, but pictures of deities and the pictures of like a very beautiful background. And you go there and you take a selfie over there.
That’s a good thing. Yeah. Because that’s a trend now.
I think it should be. Yeah, it’s actually very nice that people are not ashamed of going to a temple. They want to say that I went to a temple.
And so, it’s nice, you know, even those with other friends who don’t come to a temple, they get to see the deities, which is also a good thing. So, it’s like, which rules are small and which rules are big. That is, Prabhupada says, intelligence means to see things in their proper perspective.
So, a few years ago, there was a debate that if we make Mahaprasad, you know, we make Mahaprasad packets, should we put pictures of the deities on those? Because after the people take the prasad, people will throw away the packet. And then the food will be all fallen on that. So, what do we do? So, the general consensus was that Krishna is merciful.
So, we can put pictures of Krishna, but better not the pictures of the deities. So, we can have some picture of Krishna on the prasad packet. And that way, people get to see Krishna also.
But then there is a difference between the picture of Krishna and the deity of Krishna. So, that’s something. Any other questions? No, I think that’s it.
Yeah. I have a question. Like, when we get the calendars, or the new calendars, because we are meeting 5th of every year, what should we do after the previous one, the previous calendar? Ask Subbarao, he’ll get it for you.
You know Subbarao. I will take a photo of him and give it to him. You can call him, yeah, okay.
I’ll give you the photo frame. That’s a good idea. I’ll give you a little gift.
I’ll give you a little gift. I’ll incorporate gifts with you. We cut them and then we make a photograph of it, and whenever some guest comes, or whenever you are going to birthdays or your relatives, just give that as a gift.
We make photo frames of those calendars, and then we give it. That’s a beautiful idea. Everybody who drinks a bar of Prasad gets one.
Oh, okay. You will have to get the collection of the Prasad. Oh, okay.
What about the question? Calendar. You had a question already? No. My, where? I’ll share it with you.
Hi, Krishnakant. Yeah, so earlier you mentioned about material means lacking in spiritual and also pointing towards spiritual or preparing towards spiritual. So I didn’t understand how material can prepare one for spiritual life.
Okay, so as in that example, if somebody has by their past upbringing come towards sattva, you can say sattva, there is no bhakti. And therefore, it is lacking in spiritual. But sattva is a better preparing ground, launching pad for spiritual.
Then it is Vyasa Tamas, isn’t it? So in that sense, it is good. So like somebody maybe may have studied a lot, and they want many degrees. Now we could say, oh, this is avidya, it’s all sign, it’s all ignorance.
Okay, that may be true at one level, because they know all about Krishna. But maybe that knowledge they can use in Krishna sense afterwards. In acquiring that knowledge, they have developed certain discipline, certain dedication, that they can use in Krishna sense.
So like even that meat-eating example, the religious Pope was eating meat. You can see this is lacking. Or we can say that, okay, in spite of eating meat, this person is a religious head and he is inspiring people to move towards God.
The same situation can be seen in two different ways. So, and both are valid ways of looking. It just depends on the context.
In the whole concept of Vibhuti, in the 10th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita is how the material is pointing towards the spiritual. So depending on what is anupul for whom, it depends on that how one can connect with Krishna or how one can help someone else to connect with Krishna. Some people need to be told that what they have, that’s not enough, you need to connect with Krishna.
Some people need to be appreciated for what they have, and then they in themselves connect with Krishna. So it depends. So when Prabhupada met George Harrison, Prabhupada appreciated that he was thinking about Krishna and he was already interested in Krishna, so Prabhupada said, sing more about it.
When Prabhupada met Ambarish Prabhu, he was not a celebrity, but he was still a very wealthy person. The first thing Prabhupada said, so you are the great grandson of Henry Ford, where is he now? So Ambarish Prabhu says that Prabhupada was not flattering him. So Prabhupada is saying that okay, he had so much wealth, where is he gone now? His wealth is temporary.
So he actually appreciated Prabhupada for being that candid. So where is he now? So it depends. Both approaches can be used.
The applications one has, same also like this. Yes, that is true. Many scientists have written, and you are, so many of you have done research institutions.
Yeah, so it is, yeah, so it is, the idea is that if somebody, it is almost like the material gets value after he becomes spiritual. Exactly. But, see, examples have their context, you know, like there are zeros of zeros, and we add one to it, it becomes value.
And that from a Parmarthik perspective is true. But from a Vyavaharik perspective, you can’t call all of them as simple zeros, especially with respect to parenting, after being in the West. See, the Indians, even if they are not spiritual, Indians are very serious about parenting.
They may be Drajobra company, you know, they have, they don’t even want the children to go into spiritual, go to temple, do anything. But, they may just want the children to succeed and become famous and wealthy and all that. But if a child falls sick, the child falls sick, then they move heaven and earth to take care of their child.
Now there are Tamasik parents who are just told on drugs, and they don’t even know that I have a child. And there are, there are people like that, unfortunately. So, Bhaktivinoda Thakur also says that, actually there is a significant difference between Rajas and Tamas.
He says, Rajas can be an antidote for the poison of Tamas. Now, of course, Rajas can also be a poison. I need to go beyond that.
But it all, it depends on context. Okay. So, thank you very much.
Namaskaram. How many of you felt that?