Are devotees being told to be too other-worldly that something so simple as voting is made into such a big issue?

Question from Trivikram Prabhu. Are devotees being told to be too otherworldly and not sufficiently involved in worldly things that even a simple activity like voting in elections has to become a major matter of discussion? I felt that because I am living in the society and it is natural for me to vote.
Why does this have to become such a big issue? And are devotees being too otherworldly by making such a big UN cry about such a simple thing? Answer, it’s not exactly that anybody is educating devotees wrongly or that devotee are too otherworldly. It’s just that things change and the way our movement was at the time of Srila Prabhupada and the way our movement now is different. And according to time and circumstances, even within the expansion of the Krishna consciousness movement, the definition of success is changing.
At the time when Srila Prabhupada was on the planet and for several some years after him that also, more than 93% of ISKCON devotees were staying in the temples and the movement was largely a monastic movement. It’s not that everybody was monks, but it was like a monastic movement in the sense that just as monks live in a cloistered community separate from the world, so the renounced order as well as the householders were living in the temple and cut off from the world largely. And so, in that situation, the conception of success was that more and more people should drop out of the world and drop into the temples.
And in fact, at that time, largely the idea of many people was that if somebody leaves the temple and goes out, the person has fallen away. The person has fallen away. That was the idea.
And the whole concept of congregational preaching and building up a congregation who had their own life, but who also supported a temple, that was not there only. In fact, several ISKCON preachers, Ranga Saro Prabhu has given a lecture on congregation preaching development in ISKCON. And he said that in America, when the devotees would preach, they would always be looking for people who would be likely to join the temple.
And there were many Indian origin people who would regularly come to the temple every week, but they were married and they had no interest to join the temple. And sometimes the preachers in the temple felt, oh, these people are not serious. They neglect them.
But then over a period of time, the temple leaders started observing, but these people whom we don’t pay much attention to, still they come. Week after week, regularly they come and they support the temple in their own way, although they have no intention of joining the temple. And then they realize that we also have to care for them.
And then one way of caring is not just they come to the temple, have programs in their houses. Earlier, the idea was to just go to make people life members in their houses. That’s about it.
So, then after that, the congregation preaching developed. And now, if we see today, most of ISKCON, what to speak of 93%, more than 95% is householders. And most of the householders are not staying in the temple or even in the community around the temple.
They are staying in different places. They are staying in their world. And therefore, depending on the composition of the devotees in the movement, the priorities and the definition of success will be different.
So, devotees are living in the world now and they have to interact with the world. So, this does not mean that the ultimate definition that we all have to develop love for Krishna and that will change. But circumstantially, how we act, that will be different.
So, now, even now, there are some devotees who feel that the definition of success for ISKCON should be that not the devotees enter into the mainstream culture, but devotees reject the mainstream culture and offer an alternative culture. And the idea of alternative culture is that there should be farm communities with eco-friendly living and there gradually one ashram can be established. And that is also a vision for which some leaders within our movement are working.
And that is also an important definition of success. Shri Prabhupada wanted it. But Shri Prabhupada encouraged different devotees who are serving in different ways.
So, those who were in farm communities, he would tell them that this is an extremely important project. And those who are distributing books in the cities, he told them also this is an extremely important project. And then those who were doing translation, editing and publishing, he told them this is an extremely important project.
Those who were teachers in the Gurukul, he told them also this is important. So, now, Prabhupada gave different definitions of success. There are devotees like say George Harrison, he was quite devoted to Shri Prabhupada.
And he asked Prabhupada, do you want me to leave the world and join the temple? Prabhupada said, no, you are already famous, you do not have to do that. You use your fame to sing about Krishna. And similarly, there was a famous Dennis Chaat, whom Prabhupada told, you do not even have to be like a devotee, just enhance the Satvagunayan people, teach them, talk to them about vegetarianism and sattvic living.
And that is what he is doing through his books. So, Prabhupada was very broad and he gave multiple definitions of success to different people. So, now, yes, the presenting of an alternative culture to the mainstream culture, that is an important parameter of success.
And if that is what is our aim, and eventually say whenever a national community develops, we will have not democracy, but monarchy over there of some kind. Then parties not participating in democracy would be natural and sensible. But Krishna Consciousness cannot wait for these things.
Just as Bhakti Sankarapu told Srila Prabhupada that the Krishna Consciousness cannot wait for India’s independent struggle. Although India’s independent struggle was very strongly, was at least portrayed as a struggle, which would also re-spiritualize India to help India to go back to its spiritual roots. But still they felt it cannot wait.
Krishna Consciousness has to go on. So, same way, yes, establishing Varanashram or building an alternative culture, that is important. But that does not mean that the propagation of Krishna Consciousness has to stop till then.
And there are many devotees who want to practice Krishna Consciousness seriously, but they are not interested. They cannot relate with the idea of leaving the cities and living in some farm communities. So, just as in the early days, there were devotees who wanted to be serious devotees associated with the Krishna Conscious Movement, but they had no idea, they had no intention of joining the temple.
So, initially, they were rejected as not serious people, but eventually recognized these are also serious people and they are also important for our movement. And that is how the congregation is developed. So, same way, when we are living in the mainstream society, then it is not that we have to merge in and disappear in the mainstream society.
We do want to have our value and live according to our values. But then while living in the mainstream society, whatever we have to do to live responsibly, to live competently and to try to have a socio-cultural, socio-political environment that is conducive for devotion, we need to do that. So, the problem comes up when we assume that one definition of success is the only definition of success.
So, those devotees who are focusing primarily on say, dropping out of today’s mainstream society and trying to build an alternative society, they feel that this whole you and cry about politics is useless. And it is just much ado about nothing. And they are in their own way, at least from their definition of success, they are right and we have to respect their right to their understanding.
But we also have to recognize that the situation has changed and we have to serve the needs and concerns and interests of the devotees as they live now and as they try to practice Krishna Consciousness in the culture that they find themselves in. And that involves, and devising again involves now living according to a slightly different definition of success, not in terms of ultimate success, but in terms of progress towards that, then that is perfectly okay. So, it is just a matter of recognizing that there is plurality in the definition of success.
And as I mentioned in my article on voting elections, Prabhupada has built a house big enough for both groups of devotees to live in. So, those devotees who would like to live in mainstream culture, not as participants of the mainstream culture, but with their own values and trying to, in one sense, bring that culture towards spirituality or sattva guna in whatever small way is possible. They are also living in the house of Prabhupada and those who feel that they want to live separately and create an alternative culture.
So, both can live in the house of Prabhupada and we do not have, neither group should discourage the other group. But we recognize that both of, ultimately, both groups are trying to become Krishna Conscious and they have to, based on the principles that are given in the scriptures and the dynamism that is shown by the great teachers of scripture throughout history, they have to find out how best they can live in a way by which they can practice Krishna Consciousness and have an environment that is conducive to Krishna Consciousness. Thank you.
Hare Krishna.