Balancing obedience to authority & independent thoughtfulness, The Monk’s Podcast 122 with Radheshyam Prabhu

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Hare Krishna, Adi Shampuroo. Thank you very much for joining once again for the Monks Podcast. Hare Krishna.

Thank you. Our last podcast has received a lot of appreciation. In fact, it is among the top viewed podcasts on my channel also.

And many devotees told me that they knew that there's a lot of outreach happening in Pune, but the details of how it is being done and what is the vision behind it. So that was quite a revelation for many devotees. So thank you.

It was actually one of the things that I most appreciated in that session was the summary which you gave at the end. You know, you are like Shruti Dhar. You remembered so many points and like putting it all with a thread.

You connected them all and wrapped them up very nicely last time. Just like you translate, just like whenever some proper disciple came to Pune, you used to translate after hearing them for five minutes. It was like that.

I guess I have a temporary Shruti Dhar. I can remember for an hour or so, but not much longer. Satguru, today I thought of a topic which is, it's something which has been on my mind for many years.

It is, and I have talked with different devotees. I could say broadly there are, I'll make it first polarized and then we will unify it. So I have seen broadly like two visions of how Krishna Consciousness is to be practiced.

One is, I was in India, I was in Pune, then I was in other places in India. And I noticed that there is a lot of emphasis on following authority, obedience, you know, make the spiritual master instruction as your life and soul. And the spiritual master, so basically the spiritual master is known to accessorize through the spiritual entities.

So that emphasis on obedience, as obedience set to instruction as a foundation for practicing Krishna Consciousness and going in Krishna Consciousness. Yeah. But then as I traveled across the world, and especially I went to America and I interacted with devotees who have been in the movement for 30, 40, 50 years, and also the subsequent generation.

So I did notice that it could be partly because of the culture in the West, it could also be because of the challenges our movement had in its first generation after Prabhupada's departure, for various reasons. There is a significant, you could say suspicion or skepticism toward authority. And the emphasis is on that we all have our individual relationship with Krishna.

And we are meant to develop that relationship. So that is that, you know, we all, Prabhupada wanted us to become independently thoughtful. So we need to find out what it is that we can offer to Krishna.

And it is Krishna who has made us individual. So developing our individuality in our relationship with Krishna. And I would say there are a lot of factors.

So it's not necessarily contradictory. The two can go together also. But at first glance, it took me a lot of time to even understand that people who came from this background are actually also Krishna conscious.

That because when you have particular conception of what Krishna consciousness is. So in today's world, where our movement is spreading significantly, but at the same time, not many devotees are either trained or inclined to give personal guidance to those who come. So there is a shortage of personal guidance also available, short of personal guidance being available.

So in such a situation, where if we emphasize Krishna consciousness, obedience to instructions, and then there could be many problems, which I can discuss later. But one of the least, you could say least problematic problem is that simply guidance, guidance is not available. Then if there's nobody to guide, then how does a person go on in Krishna consciousness? So then they have to take their own individual responsibility.

So of course, there could be more, more, as I said, problematic situations. But what are your thoughts about this as a start up, start for our discussion today? Yeah, that's like you see, if you look at the nature around us, I made observation like this, like a small child. Once I asked the mother and father of a small boy that till what age the mother or father has to accompany him to the bathroom, you know, till what age they have to keep him on their shoulder, you know, they said at the most, like, you know, up to the age of four or five.

And after five, the child, if it is within the house, he just goes to the washroom on his own very easily. And then I asked them, at what age you think he can go down the stairs to a shop and purchase something and come? No, I asked. So I said, oh, by when he's about seven or eight, you know, if it isn't the near the housing colony children even do that even eight or nine year old children, some of the children are so smart nowadays, I'm saying they are grown up in city, especially born in city.

Then I asked, when do you think he can actually go on his own, you know, travel to another place and come and all when children become like, you know, 10 standard, I mean, 10 years of age, 11 years of age, they grow up to that. And when they become 13 or 14, many of the children actually are so grown up. And so evolved that, you know, they travel, they fly in plane to other places, and they can do many things on their own.

And the dependence on the parents reduces gradually as they grow. And then, at that time, when they come to adolescence, naturally, they would like to stand at their own feet. And they don't like to be spoon fed.

But every small thing in adolescent age means they like more freedom, more creativity, more innovation, and less to do with parents and more to venture into the outside world. How the outside world is they have curiosity, and they don't like to see parents escorting them or, you know, chasing behind them and wanting to protect them. They feel like as if they're bound by that so called protection, which they don't like at that time.

So then they resort more to peer association at that age. And same thing, Chanakya says in his shloka, So he says that, you know, first five years, a child just needs hugs and kisses. Like one mother told me in the temple hall, she said, You know, we were so amazed.

I just made him offer obeisances to Prabhupada. And he's saying Prabhupada. Then she told the boy to tell Prabhupada, and he says, So then the father of the child said, he says, But the mother was so much appreciated.

So you will see that the parents, you know, the child just needs encouragement, hugs and kisses. That's all at the early stage. When the child grows to six years onwards, six to 15, he's actually ready to take good instructions.

And he's in a learning mood to know the things, what to do and how to do, you know, he gets thrilled and he has to be escorted. And after the cross of 15, when he becomes 16 or so, then put him through the acarya, he says, then the superior should treat him almost like a friend. Some of the boys I have seen, they grow even beyond the shoulder of the father when they become 16.

You know, they are taller than their father physically also, you will see. So psychologically also, they would like to be given freedom now because they were given appreciation and love and hugs and kisses in the early stage. And then they were given, you know, guidance, instruction and activities, engagements and everything.

And now it is that time for them to be launched in the world outside. Another example, I'll tell you, I have made an observation that the birds, you know, in the early stage, they're very tiny when they're hatched from the eggs. They make sounds and they're very hungry.

The mother brings them food and then they eat the food. And after some period of time, you will see the birds grow. They also grow wings.

Now they would like to fly outside the nest and you can't hold them within the nest. And when they fly, then they would like to have their mate also. Then they would like to build their house and they would like to produce their own offsprings.

And the parents should actually bless the children birds and let them do that. It's a very natural phenomenon. And this phenomenon, I took it in Pune also.

Pune, actually more than a dozen temples, we have sent devotees. And when I would send devotees, there are two type of devotees, leaders and followers. One is a good leader.

He can guide people. He's known for character, good character and good and competent in his field of preaching and everything. So along with his followers, I sent a team of devotees to one temple in Calcutta and Calcutta, more than 40, 42 devotees went.

And Kanpur also, along with the followers and boys and who eventually joined, there were more than 33 devotees went. So we sent a team of devotees like this to different places. Bangalore, Hyderabad, Juhu.

And all his leaders, they blessed me so much. My special master gave me a name Kamadhenu, cow. At that time, he actually thanked him.

I said, Maharaj, why are you thanking me? They are your disciples only. I haven't done anything. I told Maharaj that now they're actually ready to be empowered.

So I have a TEEE formula. Train, educate, engage, empower. So train means practical things, how to dance in Mangalarthi, how to worship the Lord, you know, how to, it's a practical things.

And also reading Prabhupada books, how to read, how to make notes, all these things is training. And the education is a Siddhanta, the weekly programs. We have a well laid out syllabus for four years.

I mean, the boys are in engineering. And after they graduate, they do job three more years. So seven years, these devotees are trained.

And then when they joined the temple, some of them joined the temple, some of them become grahasthas. So after seven years of training, they joined the temple. And another four, three, four years in temple, they have spent more than 10 years in Krishna consciousness.

And imagine if these devotees go to another place where there's a great need for preachers and great need for managers, preachers, you know, counselors. So the temples are very grateful. And my special master is pleased, he blessed me.

So I thought this is the best service I can do. You know, bring devotees, train, educate, and engage them in services, polish them, and prepare them with all the foundational basics of Krishna consciousness, and empower them to take leadership. And afterwards, what I should do, they will do wonderful things wherever they go.

And I will clap hands by sitting behind. And that's what I do. Every month I have a group called the bliss camp, brahmachari leaders inspiring spiritual sangha.

It's called bliss group. So in this bliss group, about 30-40 leaders come, and most of them are very senior people who are leading a group of brahmacharis for many years. They are in Krishna consciousness for more than 10-12 years at least.

So when they come, I speak first one hour, and next one hour we all do very nice soul-searching discussions. And the third one hour they give a presentation about what they are doing in that place. And all other people get thrilled because they are equal to each other, all of them.

When they see their PPT presentation, and a lot of them put comments in the chat that wonderful Prabhu, you are doing wonders, they get a lot of appreciation also. And then every, this is the most awaited part. First one is a boring part, which is my talk.

And second one is discussion, which is also very interesting. They all like to discuss with each other because they all see each other's face on the zoom, and they feel very much joyful to meet their friends. And the third part is the most interesting, the icing on the cake we can say, which is a presentation by one of the leaders.

Every time one leader presents in that. And so it's a meeting, nobody realizes the pinch of time. We all are thrilled.

So now this is what I am doing, being the leaders amongst the senior Brahmacharis. Same in amongst Grihasthas, I have another group called as GLOSS, Grihastha Leaders Outreach Spiritual Sangha. That is another group with 25-30 couples, families.

And each of these couples are like doing laudable service. And they are all disciples of different Gurus also. And they are doing enormous service in ISKCON.

And I can say some of them have 20 preachers under them, 15-20 preachers under them, and they are guiding them also. So these type of people come. So that means that these people have grown to a stage where actually I am more friends like them.

I deal with them like friends, but they deal with me like a senior, because they request me to take lead in the first part in giving program and everything. As a Brahmachari, I speak from the Shastra. And then when discussion comes, they all bring very good points for discussion.

So this is the third stage, as I told you. So in the early stage, one requires encouragement and just appreciation and everything. And I also learned from my spiritual master by seeing how he does things in Mumbai Chowpatty, that actually, and in my personal meetings with him, also Maharaj taught me many things.

He said that once a person has grown to adolescence stage, they need recognition, they need respect, and they need appreciation for the good work they do. They need challenges, they need adventure. They like to be given problems, not the solutions.

They like to be given opportunities to venture, not ready-made answers. So he taught me also, and I implemented in Pune and really worked out well. And this kind of programs which I do for the grown-up people is much much different from the lectures that I give for other people, generally.

So I think with respect to this authority subordinate thought, you know, in the early stage, like I go to a college to study electrical engineering. They give me a book, D.L. Taraja. I have to accept the book.

Then there's a professor who teaches me. There are exams to be written and I have to pass the papers. And I don't get into research directly.

Then this is what I do. I am allowed to do some MTP, some research. Even in B.Tech last year, I can do a little research.

But when I come to doctorate, I can define a problem and I can actually, like I was doing in finite time modeling, you know, you can get into it and come up with things which are not yet researched at all, totally new things. Like Goswamis, for example, in our parampara, you know, they are able to connect with the spiritual world and write down pastimes which are right now happening there. That is possible for realized, evolved, advanced devotees.

But in their early stage, if you see, this Goswami, like Jiva Goswami was guided by, you know, Lord Nithyananda took him around governmental parikrama and Jiva Goswami also went to Varanasi to study Sanskrit. Jiva Goswami became a disciple of Rupa Goswami and he was actually making the leaves for Rupa Goswami to write and he was cooking. All these things he became an obedient disciple first and then subsequently he was empowered to do great things.

I mean, he became a very great writer and that kind of thing. So, I feel that in all of our lives, these three phases are there. In the first phase, we need simply love and appreciation.

Whatever little services we do, like you hear about how Jaya Padakamalaji helped our Jayananda Prabhu to keep a nail and hit the nail and he got appreciation for that. Isn't it? Maharaj says even today that encouragement inspired him and even now he remembers that he has spoken this pastime in one of his videos. So, in this way, Jayananda Prabhu was an encourager, appreciator and then as one grows, now you can see what Maharaj is doing now all across the globe and how Prabhupada treated him.

When Prabhupada took him to Mayapur and showed an empty land and said, take this and develop it and I want you to make you in charge for Mayapur. So, I have seen Prabhupada himself saying in the early stage, somebody would come to Prabhupada and Prabhupada would say, just do what I am telling you, don't do something else and there are some letters of Prabhupada very strongly, you know, obedience is the first step in spiritual life like that he writes. But the same devotee after four or five years when he met Prabhupada and asked, Prabhupada, what do you want me to do now? And Prabhupada turned to him and said, what would you like to do now? Prabhupada asked him.

The devotee said, Prabhupada, I want to obediently do whatever you want me to do. Prabhupada said, no, that was long before, now you are a grown-up devotee, now you are a thinking devotee, now you tell me what would you like to do? And then the devotee said, Prabhupada, I think this is what is needed in our society, the way I wish to do this, what do you think? Prabhupada said, wonderful, go ahead, he said. So, in this way, it's a question of like I told you about children, I told you about the and I'm telling you about the devotees also.

In this way, there are phases of our spiritual life where we have to grow and like in the first five years, we are not even an apprentice, we simply want prasadam. Sorry, I mean, I appreciate the example that you're making, giving and I fully recognize that there is a natural growth process. Yeah, I like the principle of, you're giving examples of empowerment also in due course.

I would say that, see, in principle, that works, that sounds very well. In reality, we live in a highly corrupted world. And there are many possibilities.

One is even we live in a world where sometimes when parents or close family members can be abusive toward their children. And so, the same can happen either intentionally or unintentionally. So, when we teach that you have to be obedient, which is important, no doubt.

But generally, in the scriptures, we don't have cases of say, people of the, it's very saintly teachers, expecting and receiving utter submission from their disciples or their prospective disciples. But this is Kali Yuga. And one of the big dangers in focusing on ideals is that we neglect realities in today's world.

So, we may neglect the realities of the world today. So, what is the real say, what is the, say, safeguard or check balance system available, where if, now, I would say that three possibilities, that the authority figure is well intentioned. But sometimes everybody is fallible.

Everybody makes misjudgments. Sometimes the authority figure is not making a misjudgment, but that they have a particular purpose in their mind. And this is, I would like to make this clear that this is not about the way outreach is happening in Pune.

I'm just talking about the principle and how it is to be applied in today's world. So, sometimes it could be that the authority has a particular project, and their interest is not really in nurturing the devotees under them, but simply getting the project done through their devotees. In fact, in the western world, I found that many devotees who left the ashram, many Prabhupada disciples who are now scholars in academia and other places, they said that they left the ashram because they felt that they had no future growth, they saw no future growth in the ashram for them.

They were just treated like free labor, and they felt that they could serve Prabhupada better by moving out of the temple. Now again, this is not about ashram also. It is in principle.

So, sometimes the leader may have a particular, now they may also be well intentioned, they want to do it for Krishna. But in pursuing institutional goals, they may not really care for individual growth. Now, third is that sometimes the power corrupts.

And when there is insubordination or for whatever reason, if a leader becomes exploitative, then if the ethos has been that you have to unquestioningly obey the leader, then people can get misled into doing wrong things, which they think that they may go against their conscience, they may do something which is of a questionable moral nature, just because they are told by their leader to do that. And that has happened in the religious movements. And that has happened to some extent in our movement also.

In fact, Anuttama Prabhu, I was with him at an interfaith conference in America. And then we were discussing various things. So, he told that at one time, we as a movement were accused of being a cult.

And then he worked with people. And he worked with these anti-cult activists. And he said, initially, we thought they were all demons, demoniac people.

But I said, many of them were actually very concerned about the potential for abuse. And then he said that we have over the years, implemented systems to prevent abuse of power. And in fact, now, I don't want to go into the specific system that were implemented, and what was done, this was mostly North America, because that was the concern over there.

But the point was that he said, now, they, many of the same people who were accusing us of being a cult, now they say that they invite me to speak at conferences, Anuttama Prabhu told me, where he said, you know, how we have created systems of checks and balances to prevent abuse of power in our movement. And our movement is being offered as an example of how a tradition can have checks and balances. So, my concern is this, in principle, I fully agree that people need to be nourished.

But in the real world, when that is treated as the ethos, that this is how you will grow in your spiritual life, but then people find that they are not growing that way, because of whatever reasons. So, because the authorities may misjudge, the authorities may have other priorities, or sometimes the authorities may get corrupted. So, what are the checks and balances to prevent this from happening? Yeah, very important question.

Yeah, I agree with you in that. So, like I was in Bombay in 94, I joined full time there and 95 I was sent to Pune. So, my spiritual master actually had told me that now you are very young.

Yeah, you are sent to Pune now, and you should visit Chowpatty temple regularly now, and take advantage of weekend programs. So, not only I was going to Chowpatty twice a month or thrice a month, I was going for the programs and everything, I was in very good touch with my seniors like this Ramananda Prabhu, there's Govind Prabhu, there's Radha Gopinath Prabhu, and my dear friend Gauranga Prabhu. So, and I would get to meet and spend time with them.

And whenever I faced challenges in Pune, when I was made a president in Pune, I could call them, if I have anything connected to policies, I will call him Sanath Kumar Prabhu. Anything connected to with emotion, dealing with people, is there's Govind Prabhu. And anything to do with my personal life and growth is Radha Gopinath Prabhu, you know.

Next to my spiritual master, I look at Radha Gopinath Prabhu as my Shiksha Guru who is guiding me in many of my qualities in my personal life. His Holiness Bhaktivedanta Maharaj also, although he went to Belgaum, Maharaj is easily to me over phone and he also visits Pune. So, I would request these people to visit Pune and they have been visiting also.

And one interesting observation I made that whenever I come to Pune and go, many devotees feel free to go and meet them and tell them some little complaints about me, what they may feel that I need to improve. They will never tell me, but they will tell them. And they were so kind that whenever I would go to Bombay, they will tell me that on these areas you can improve.

And if you do, your people will be more happy, they would say. So, this is the first thing I would say in ISKCON society. Anywhere we post anybody as a leader, we should not drop them like a hot potato, but they should be getting ongoing connectivity as well as visits of the devotees.

Both the subordinates should not have only that one leader, but they should also be able to see other leaders. Like my spiritual master, I see in Bombay, he has a long dasasana where he puts five, six Prabhupada disciples to sit and he gives lecture. I adopted the same policy in Pune that the greatest glory of Pune is this, I will tell you, which is every month we would have sometimes three Prabhupada disciples would come to Pune and we made a very thick relationship with many of them, like Shankaracharya Prabhu.

So, every month we will have two to three of such visitors. So, people also thronged the temple in big numbers. So, when they come, I tell all the brahmacharis, sanyasis have come, go to the room of the sanyasi, go and meet them personally, ask them questions.

So, the Bhagavatam says that Mahat Seva and Mahat contact is very important. So, many devotees were encouraged to go and meet them. So, when they meet and spend hours and hours individually also.

So, it is good for me, good for them. And therefore, the credit of something happening good in Pune, I would give it to those visiting Vaishnavas in Pune for many years. So, I have somebody to sit down under their feet and here, I also would do that and I would attend their classes and learn myself a lot of good things along with other devotees.

And other devotees also feel more inspired if they keep hearing only from me, they'll get bored. But I bring many, many visiting preachers. So, they get encouraged.

And when brahmacharis come from Bombay and other places whom they know very well, I mean, then they get a chance to talk to them also, especially Gaurang Prabhu, I would say. Gaurang Prabhu is very kind to me and he has given me a lot of valuable inputs in the early years to develop this temple. And Gaurang Prabhu and Goenka Prabhu came and helped us build this temple in Mississippi by cultivating the donors also.

And so, Shri Gaurang Prabhu is in touch with those two people. One thing you will see, there is a lot of freedom given for the devotees to associate with other Vaishnavas. We are not like a, what do you call it, like a closed system where everybody has to align with only one leader.

Like everybody has their hero, you know, they have attraction for certain leaders. And in fact, brahmacharis have the freedom to, not only brahmacharis, congregation also, they can say that we want to invite this preacher. Then we have a very simple policy.

You only, please help us connect with that preacher and when the preacher comes, just take them to their home also. And then they serve them very nicely and later on after, they in fact sponsor the flight tickets also. You know, they take care.

In fact, I didn't do anything. I just allowed them to bring the preacher and we benefited, they benefited and the money is also not spent also from a temple side. And then for doing this, they thanked me a lot for this.

That is the greatest joke. I didn't do anything. I just, I just have to act as a, you know, zero resistance conductor.

That's all. Just let them do something good for Pune. So number one, I told, told is that the leader, wherever they are posted, they should not be the single leader.

There should be other people who should also be in touch with their subordinates. Like yourself, when you are a scientific-minded person, I saw, then you saw that when we invited Michael Cremo, isn't it? You met him. Similarly, there are also others also who, so in the same manner, I find that in ISKCON, when people are sent to different continents in Prabhupada's times also, unfortunately, in some other places, it became like a cult, where the top man did not attend the morning programs himself.

You know, he wouldn't sit in the Srimad Bhagavatam class and he wouldn't be visibly seen in the morning program chanting. But then the authority role was taken by some of those people. Then what happens when the people below also will imitate? Oh, if the top fellow is not coming, then we don't have to come.

So in this thing, Prabhupada was very fanatically strict that he wanted, you can see several letters Prabhupada wrote to GBC. He said, the duty of GBC is to go to all the temples in their area and find out whether the morning programs are going on well. Devotees are chanting 16 rounds and devotees are attending Srimad Bhagavatam class.

As you know, one past time, Prabhupada asked when he was giving Bhagavatam class, where are the devotees? And this Prabhupada's devotees have gone for services. Prabhupada said, call them all here. He said, we can pay employees for doing services, but we can't pay anyone for hearing Bhagavatam class.

He said, devotees only can hear Bhagavatam class. So I would say morning program should be stressed. If a leader is not attending morning program, he shouldn't be made the leader.

4.30 to 9.30, he has to be there. Number two, there should be his peers and his superiors should visit the project and be available for the people, subordinates also to connect with them. They should not have only like apex in a pyramid connection.

They should have connection with multiple devotees. That's second thing. And also those who are forming like a cult, they are very closed.

They are not letting other people come to their project. They should be actually taken to task by the spiritual master. Spiritual master should actually call them and say, why are you not letting other people come and give lectures in your temple? Why are you giving all the time, all the lectures? People are eager to hear, so you should take them to task.

And also, as you said, some authorities have been fanatically engaging their subordinates for like a labor class, which you said, you know, like laborers, free labor, which is a painful thing actually. Imagine we tell the devotees to go and distribute books and come till midnight and they don't come for the morning program and the authorities don't care for them. It's a very unfortunate thing.

And eventually, they can't control their mind and senses and there is no good morning program, no spiritual advancement. They leave the temple and go and have happened due to immaturity. Here, I want to make one more point that the authorities need training and education also.

Like I was a part of CSV, counselors for spiritual vision. Every month we have been having two and a half days of training program in Chowpatty temple as well as in GV, as well as Raghunath Maharaj many times called 14 of us and told, I insist that you should never stop this program. You should keep doing it in those days.

Out of 14, about 7-8 will come, sometimes 10-12 will come. But I would be the first one to go because I understood that I am one of the youngest members of the group and I needed the Sangha of all those devotees and they were all like Shamanand Prabhu going to Raghunath Prabhu. Thrilling meeting it would be and it would be a very good blend of Shastra versus practical application.

It'll be like that. There was discussion on Japa, there was discussion on Bhagavatam, Mahabharata, different things like that. So this is another thing we need to open our heart to peers where we will have no fear to present our defects and deficiencies and then we can take inputs from there.

So I feel that actually can nourish us and grow us also because the leader is always not all perfect. We are all growing people. We do commit mistake.

In early stage, we commit one type of mistake. At later stage, we may commit new mistakes. So we will need people who are mentoring us or people who are our peers who will share with us.

So in this way, I feel the leader should be able to draw help from peers and superiors and from spiritual master and also subordinate should get multiple inspiration and then morning program should be must. These are some of the check and balance system I am suggesting which you asked which will make a leader, you know, one example I'll tell you there was one devotee who was making a kind of cult type of group, a small group of people began with three, four, five, it was increasing, number was increasing. So that leader was giving lot of love and care for the members in the group.

So then that was blind following because when the subordinate get lot of affection from the leader, they blindly follow him and he becomes a singular hero for them. Then I asked the same question to the leader, tomorrow if something happens to you, what will happen to your people below? You know, yeah, and eventually that leader went away and all the subordinates became like orphans, you know, because they don't, they didn't know anybody other than him. It was like a closed box.

I really hate that system and it is not proper, you know, it is not actually, it's not what Prabhupada wanted. Actually, Prabhupada empowered the presidents to take care of temples and be responsible but he told the GBCs to go and supervise what is happening in the temples, in each of the temples and Prabhupada actually wanted the devotees to take part in the morning program. As you rightly said, Prabhupada also appreciated independently thoughtfulness because Prabhupada told GBCs also, you should not control the temples and you should not control every small decision.

You should actually allow these fellows to collect funds and spend funds in Krishna service and you should just observe and see whatever is not going on well, you give some inputs to them but the management, administration, fundraising, spending, everything should be done by the local temple. Every temple leader should be given that freedom to do and what you should centralize, Prabhupada clearly has said, Prabhupada said the BBT and the books publication and distribution of the books that should never be compromised and people should not be allowed to take any book by any organization and be preaching but Prabhupada wanted the Srimad Bhagavatam classes to go on in all his temples. He said morning verse by verse it should go on and our book should be distributed and this book should be prominently kept.

So, therefore, we in there are things which Prabhupada wanted to be centralized and there are things which he wanted to decentralize very clearly. Yeah. Okay, that's for you.

So, I mean, thank you. These are all important points. Before I respond to any of those points, if I understand right what you're doing is because generally whenever I had this Monks Podcast discussions they are of two different kinds.

One is say I have conceptual discussions on issues and then I have discussions about projects with particular project leaders. So, our previous, now of course beyond in a project also there is a vision and there is some concept over there. So, I would say that our last discussion was probably like maybe 80% about a project and maybe 10-20% about the vision or the concept.

So, I would so if I understand today I wanted to discuss more of a at a conceptual level and I understand that you are also addressing things at a conceptual level but you are doing it by giving examples from the project that you are leading and what you also observed. So, some worldwide examples of damages, something just happened. We are not quoting anyone's names but we are learning from those damages also what is not to be done also.

Yes. Yeah. Okay, so that's clear.

So, now I will appreciate the examples but I also like to talk about a little bit more about the concept. So, if when you talk about checks and balances I was thinking in terms of Shastra also that there is Guru, Sadhu and Shastra. So, like that when we instead of having one authority alone if along with Guru there is also Sadhus.

That's what in one sense you said that when we have a bigger Rasas in Radha Gopinath temple and you also said that many other devotees and many other leaders also coming there to Pune. So, it's like in one sense we are drawing on the tradition itself to provide a check balance. So, if there is a Guru but the Gurus you could say at one level the Guru's authority is both reinforced and balanced by the Sadhus.

So, if the Sadhus are coming the Guru is doing something well. By Guru I am not strictly referring to Nikshaguru. It can be Shiksha Gurus also.

So, that the Gurus do something well and the Sadhus appreciate that that reinforces authority and if the Guru is doing something which may need to be amended then that is balanced also. So, in that sense within the tradition itself we have that is one resource that you talked about that having the Sadhus. Then the second is that I was talking with Ravindra Swarup once.

He mentioned to me that in the early days of our movement we had this zonal Acharya system and that was very different from the GBC zones we have now. The GBC zone is basically each GBC is responsible for a particular area. But at that time it was like one devotee alone would initiate everybody in a particular area.

So, at that time what happened was basically the International Society for Krishna Consciousness became divided into 11 regional societies for Krishna Consciousness based on the 11 leaders. So, that is an example of things which a lot of things went wrong at that time. So, where what you said is that if the walls are built too strong and somebody is alone on their own then that is a problem.

Yeah. So, in one sense within our not in general. Yeah.

Yeah. Cult type system. Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah. So, so within our tradition itself we could say there is a resource and within our movement's history we have evidence of the consequences of not using that resource and the good results of using that resource also that having the Guru and Sadhus together.

Now the second point which you mentioned was about that Sadhana. That when the leaders are well connected spiritually through their own spiritual practices then that itself can act as a protector. So, that is also an important point.

Now along with these. Yeah. While these both are important and you also said that there is a certain amount of decentralization where there's not too much intervention by the by the broader GBC or the other authorities in the local temples.

So, temple has also given freedom that way and that can be extrapolated to the temple president also not too much interfering in the lives of grown-up devotees in the temple and giving leaving them the freedom. For example, in Pune we are starting some BYC we call it Bhakti Yoga Center. So, similar very nice centers have started in Bangalore also and other places also in India.

So, the grown-up devotees have grown beyond 10 years or 12 years and even within the same city as well as Gopaksha Maharaj in Delhi has started 14 temples. You know I heard Prabhupada told him to start 12 temples. Now he has exceeded Prabhupada's number and in all these temples Maharaja sent once in a devotee and a group of devotees and Maharaja is telling that as devotees grow when all of them are kept in one place, you know actually it's like birds they have grown up they can all go and actually make their own nests and they get children and get a mate and all that in the same and devotees are grown up.

Maharaja has empowered them very nicely sending them to different parts of Delhi. Now the whole Delhi is booming with Krishna consciousness. So much books are being distributed and so much preaching is happening and because he has empowered them like that so and they say just as GBCs don't interfere with every small happening in a temple but they will supervise and oversee things are happening properly.

Same with the temple president also he should do his service and then the grown-up devotees will actually bring color to the temple by having diverse talents and diverse innovative ideas and they will form multiple committees and they will do. So, I feel that there is a simultaneous obedience and alignment on one hand especially in the early stages and empowerment and creativity innovation on the other hand in the same project. What are the two things? Can you repeat once again? Empowerment, creativity? In the first one, there is obedience and alignment and stress in the stage for the devotees are coming into the project and after they cross 10-12 years then there is freedom and innovation, creativity.

There is room for that because they have shown stability, consistency over years. They have shown, they have proven themselves. So, then there is no need to chase like I have told that to remove some of the names from our attendance sheet.

I've told for the morning program it is useless to tell them to put attendance because they get 100% always. You know, they always get 100% in the attendance. I told that these are like honorary devotees.

We don't need the name in the attendance sheet. So, because they have grown beyond 10 years, 12 years, now they know the importance of Mangalarthi and everything. They come and they encourage so many devotees and we don't need them to be putting attendance like they were putting in the first year or second year.

Isn't it? So, that's what I was telling in the same temple you'll find both that we need obedience, alignment with authorities and cooperation and submission to the HOD as well as the temple president and working together and because in the early stage there is a tendency for becoming independent and lazy and careless if they are not supervised especially those who are joining newly and staying in the temple. Like for example, we have parental control for all the computers and everything. Why it is needed? Because you will find all through the Shastras when we read, we find that the conditioned soul has certain tendencies which are unfavorable for him for his spiritual advancement and if there is no provision made to take care of those unfavorable things, they will damage themselves, they will hurt themselves.

Like mother tells the child, hey don't touch the knife, hey don't touch fire in the kitchen, don't go out on your own. So, this is required for the child. Child may think mother is restricting my freedom but that's required but on the other hand when it becomes a problem if the authority is an unexemplary, if the authority is characterless, if the authority is duplicitous then it is a problem because sometimes the authority demanding subordinate to do things but he himself is not doing that is actually called duplicity.

Is it not true? So, unexemplary authorities, Prabhupada says in one letter, if authority is exemplary then he gets the right to teach it to others. Like Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu told in Gundicha Mandir Marjan also, those of you are cleaning very nicely, you teach others how to clean. He says that, the devotees.

I mean I appreciate this point about the leader setting the example and that's important. Now, having said that, even setting the example has different dimensions to it. That means that each person has their own capacity and just because a leader can set an example doesn't mean that others will also have the capacity, the psychophysical nature, whatever it is for setting an example.

Now, I was in America and I was talking with some Prabhupada disciples and they told me that, now this is an extreme example but I am giving this example to illustrate the principle which I want to highlight. So, this is, I mean it's not just one but several devotees told me and this is one devotee doctor who was treating all these Prabhupada disciples. He said that, now many of them are in the 60, 65, 70 age group and they were all having serious health problems.

And in America, they say health care is actually health scare. Of course, I don't want to lump all of America into one together. There is, but health is quite expensive and something not covered by insurance and it's very difficult.

And many devotees never really worked with any big companies and our temples initially were not that well structured to have insurance. So, these devotees were, thousands and thousands of thousands of dollars were going in either their health expenses or they were going through, they were living with very sickly bodies. And then this doctor told me that, he said, I had to actually fight with those devotees.

I mean, they were senior Prabhupada disciples. He said that, you know, you are at an age where your body cannot do with six hours sleep. You will need eight hours sleep.

He says, no, I cannot do that. I've not slept for more than six hours for 30 years. You know that, no, you just do that for one month.

He says, so they said, we have now that their life was structured in such a way that they could cannot sleep before 10, 11, 12. He said, I can't attend the morning program. No, he said that, you will be able to, you will live longer, you will serve better.

And I'm not, there's not just one devotee. I'm not recommending this as a standard for anyone. I'm just, so they said that, there's two, I mean, all of them are quite dedicated Prabhupada disciples.

They said that, no, we started, we tried to sleep earlier, but we just can't. They're also preachers. They're also doing a lot of services.

So we sleep by 10, we wake by not 3, but by 6. And he says that, all my health problems are gone. I'm 70, but I feel like I'm 40 now. And so much of Krishna's Lakshmi is saved.

So he told me that, I mean, this was, I mean, not this one devotee, but several devotees told me that, you know, it was very difficult for us to think that we are not attending the morning program, I would feel guilty about it. But then I had to balance that guilt with the guilt of being sick and having other devotees serve me, with the guilt of having so much of Krishna's Lakshmi being spent on my health. So, so now I'm in no way, minimizing the importance of the morning program.

But the point I'm making over here is that sometimes, when we emphasize certain things, as defining of spiritual advancement, or as indicative of spiritual seriousness, then there are subtleties to the situation, which need to be taken care of. In fact, one of the devotees, this is Mataji, she told me that, I felt so guilty that I was not attending the morning program, that actually that guilt of not attending the morning program increased my ill health. And then finally, she said that her spiritual master was not there, but she said another spiritual, another senior devotee who was like her spiritual master, very close to her, he called her from another country and talk with her and reassured her, you know, Prabhupada will not be displeased with you, because you're not doing this.

But Prabhupada want you to be serving healthy and serving happily for a long time. So that I felt pacified. And then I was able to continue service.

So I'll conclude this point by saying that I talked about this with, as well as Radhanath Maharaj in Chicago, that there are many devotees, we'll come to this point a little later about Western outreach, but there are some devotees who are very inspired and dedicated for Western outreach. But just to do that, they often don't fit into the existing systems of the local temples. They may not necessarily come for the local programs.

They may not come for the morning program. They may not bring the people whom they're cultivating to local program. So, and they may do their own sadhana and they extend in themselves.

So Maharaj told me that we have, he said, I know those temple leaders and I respect them very much. And I know these devotees also personally, and they're doing wonderful service. So he told me that we have many empowered devotees in our movement.

But unfortunately, we lack enough empowered leaders who can engage empowered devotees. And his point was that, that, that empowered devotees need sometimes a long rope. They need a lot of space.

And if the leaders are not ready to give them that space, then we lose those devotees could do for Prabhupada and Krishna. Good point. So, so this, so the point I'm making is that, that we may have two points.

One is that we may have certain parameters of what comprises spiritual seriousness, which may not be universally applicable. I'm not saying that it is unimportant, but it will not be universally applicable. And secondly, that when we come up with such particular expectations from devotees, then they may feel choked and that may, that may sap their enthusiasm.

So I know, just to conclude this point, maybe I'm taking long. One devotee is one of the best painters in our movement. And he told me that the only time I get inspiration really to paint is in the morning hours.

So he said that this painting I can do in the three, four hours in the morning, I can spend 400 hours in the daytime, and that quality doesn't come. So now, should I attend the morning program and not do my service to Krishna? Or should I do my service to Krishna and do my sadhana at other times? So again, I'm not in any way minimizing the importance of standard practices for growth of an individual. And for indication of spiritual seriousness, but sometimes in emphasizing standards, we may not leave room for exceptions, and we may drive out those who need those exceptions.

Correct, correct. Good point. Yeah, I understand.

Yeah. So two important things I heard when you spoke now. The first one, regarding that I have a very beautiful answer for that.

There is a book by His Holiness Satsvarupa Das Maharaj called as Vaishnava Compassion. I really love that book, because I wanted to learn some years ago, how to get rid of my self-righteousness. Because sometimes when I do nice morning program sadhana, you know, I may tend to become proud that, you know, I'm a very strict devotee, uncompromising devotee and things like that.

So and then I wanted to learn more about how to be compassionate to Vaishnavas. So in order to do that, I purchased that book, and I read that book. Thanks to Maharaj, that book really, really brings out many, many valuable pointers for application.

So one of the pointers he says there is that devotees whose health is not very good, they are stretching too much, they should have self compassion, he says. Just as we have to have compassion for others, we also need compassion for our body and our mind and our physical needs, and we should not, you know, feel that we are actually compromising in spiritual life, or we are drawing so much from the movement, and we're becoming lethargic and things like that, because everybody's body is not the same. Actually, sometimes it so happens that a devotee doctor tells him that you are not able to sleep till one o'clock in the night, you have insomnia type of problem, so you'll sleep at one and you get up at seven.

So then such a devotee, what we would do in our ashram is just put up in the notice board what is your health issue, and what doctor has told you prescription, and you're sticking to it, and let Vaishnavas be aware in the ashram that this is a prescription given by the doctor, and therefore he won't be able to come for a few years, by the morning he has to get very healthy. So then that devotee is peaceful, then nobody would think that he is not coming and things like that. So that's what we would do in our situation here, and similarly when devotees become aged, say they cross 50, 55, 60, you know, and they have done 20-30 years of service in the movement, now if they're coming late, instead of 4.30 they come at 5 o'clock in the morning, then they also need not feel guilty, nor should other people, you know, finger point them that they are not coming on time and things like that, as the body is getting older, sometimes becomes difficult.

But one observation I made, that devotees somehow or other they tend to go very late at night, in the name of preaching, they sleep at 10, 30, 11, and they say that what to do the city situation is such that people come only by 7.30, 7.45 and the class starts at 8, it becomes 11 by the time I come to temple, now what can I do? So many devotees write mails to me asking what we should do for you, we heard that like I sleep at 8.30 to 9, I get up between 2.30 to 3 in the morning, so they ask me how do you manage with your preaching. One of the things that I tell them is that when you grow in seniority, you have a lot of, you know, upper hand, you can choose the time slots in which you want to preach, you can tell the people I'm unavailable beyond 8.30, you come on time, beyond that I have all my day for you to discuss with you and people 8.30 when I finish the program, people may ask questions, I tell them questions in the weekend, Saturday, Sunday you come and meet me in the temple, you can ask questions, beyond 8.30 I cannot go, that's one of the things I would do. Other thing I would do is, you know, we all can stay in some center like youth center or something near the place of the program, so the whole idea is what every preacher has to think how I can retire to bed early.

See, this 4 a.m getting up is not any fanatical prescription by any temple president, it is prescription by Prabhupada himself in one of the purports. Prabhupada says all devotees in ISKCON should rise by 4 a.m in the morning, Prabhupada says before 4 a.m in the morning, like the Prabhupada writes, which means he has put it in the purport, it is not a letter or it is not some conversation or something, so therefore many devotees may feel guilty when they see that I am not coming for the Mangala Aarti, they may feel guilty. But if there are health issues as you rightly said, you know, exceptional situation is that they are sleeping early at night but they're not able to rise in the morning due to health issue, doctor has told them sleep 8 or 10 hours and I would say that, you know, the local authority should actually oblige and give them that freedom, because it is a health issue, like some of the devotees now are doing yogasanas now regularly, they have to spend half an hour to one hour in doing yoga to keep themselves healthy, because doctor has told them you're getting back pain, you're getting knee pain, you should stretch your nerves all the time, you can't be sitting in the computer, so like I tell those devotees, Prabhupada himself took out time to go for morning walk every day based on the doctor's advice and Prabhupada took regularly oil massage between 11 to 1 every day, Prabhupada had time to even take off his pecs and put it in a box, Prabhupada had time to keep his pen in a box also, he didn't say I am a world guru, so I have no time for all these things, he didn't say that, he took out time, so we should have self-compassion I would say, actually here is where the fanaticism comes, you know, the fanaticism shows that in reality our body has no capacity, but the fanaticism makes us stick to the ideal platform, idealism platform, which actually wears out our body and we get doubly, triply sick and we become nuisance to other people, so what you said is correct and we feel guilty at that time, even more guilty we feel, so this is all due to fanaticism I feel, we have to give up that fanatical approach, nor should the other leaders and temple devotees fanatically demand that you have to be like a kid, you have to be on time and why are you not on time, you know, so that kind of treatment is a childish approach I would say, especially in exceptional cases of people who have genuine difficulties, so Maharaj writes about that genuine, those who have genuine need, one should have self-compassion, that was one point and the second point you said about, very nice point, that there are people who don't fit into the ISKCON type of style of life for multiple reasons, one reason is the whole morning program, they have to do painting or they have to do for work in the field, you know, like ploughing the field or something in the morning time or that is one reason, another reason you said is that sometimes they're preaching to a certain class of people and if they call them ISKCON temple, those guys won't come and sometimes the early stage you have to carefully bring them up, so sometimes they stay outside the temple in another apartment or something from where they may preach, yeah, if all these things are done with the guidance of the spiritual master and the local authorities, I don't see any problem with this, with this kind of arrangement but when the problem comes if they're living in a separate apartment outside, they're saying they are preaching in case there is a character problem with some opposite sex or they become very slack in their sadhana and they don't complete their 16 rounds, they may miss the whole morning program and they may not be able to because night it becomes late for them, then eventually over a period of time, you know, whether they will be able to save themselves is a question mark, so I would say that all these things should be done in consideration with both local GDBC authority as well as the spiritual master, if it is done without blessings, then I would consider it authorized behavior from my side, yeah.

Okay, so there is a room for exceptions like we have the Niyamagraha can be in two ways, when is that yeah, you just reject the rules because as you said one is lazy or one is irresponsible or whatever or one may stick to the rules and become fanatical and stop being compassionate towards one's own self, neglecting the needs of one's body, that's beautiful point. Now, one interesting example I'll tell you, see my doctor told me that you should not talk while eating, so what I did, I started taking prasadam in my room privately every day in the morning but then I found during prasadam time, five, six fellows come to have a meeting with me, you know, they understood that's the place I take prasadam, so now what I do, I leave my room and go and sit with all Vaishnavas in prasadam hall because when I'm eating prasadam, they're reading from Leela Amrita, so nobody can talk to me, you know, this way everybody has to think which is best self-care, sitting in my room and eating while eating many fellows come and have meeting one by one fellows come and go knowing that you are here or when you sit with all Vaishnavas and eat along with Katha also you're hearing and nobody's allowed to talk, everybody is eating prasadam peacefully and you can chew well and eat, you know, so in each aspect, in sleeping aspect, in eating aspect, in doing exercising and limited use of, you know, digital media like computer, phone and all those things and walking and having, you know, good rest and taking the programs moderately, not taking too many programs, like we say, you know, there's a comfort zone, stretch zone, panic zone, so the people who are fanatics, who want to change the world in overnight, they tend to go to panic zone, you know, and other fellows who are just reading and relishing the Shastra themselves, sometimes the nuances of the subtleties of the philosophy, they are in comfort zone without doing anything for the world, so we have to put ourselves in stretch zone and each of us should find out what is my capacity, what is comfort for me, a stretch for me or panic for me in each aspect of life, so I have one seminar called this thing, what do you call it, it's called coming out of comfort zone, when I was study making a study for that, there are more than 20 aspects in our life, see in this what all aspect we should take care, we should take care of spiritualities at the top, then there is nutrition, there is exercise, stress mastery, relationships, finances, work, play, health care, environment, life purpose, self-esteem, so I would like to see that I help our local devotees here in each of these aspects, yeah, because such a nice, so we are on each of this, we can be in comfort zone or we can be in a learning zone or stretch zone or we can go to panic zone, each of this, so we have to have some kind of, you know, planning, each devotee has to plan, yeah. Okay, yes, beautiful, so two broad things, one is that we have to seek the balance and if we know certain things are important, then we have to prioritize those things, so sadhana is important, we need to prioritize it, yeah, important point, hmm, so and then if there are to be exceptions, then in the guidance of the spiritual master and the GBC, whoever is there with their guidance, things can be done like that, yeah, perfect, that's true, so thank you, so then moving ahead, when I went to the, when I started going to the west, now you're also, you're also spending a good amount of time or at least planning to spend a good amount of time there, so it took me some time to appreciate the impact of upbringing on, not just people's behavior, but on their attitudes itself, on their mode of thinking, way of thinking itself, yeah, so there's one devotee, for example, he told me that, you know, he had abusive parents and then his parents passed away and he went through, he had abusive, he was in foster care and there also it was quite abusive, so he said that whenever I hear that God is like a mother or father, I just don't want anything to do with God, because if God were like my mother or father, I don't want to have anything to do with such a God, so now, so now this is something which, it is such a natural metaphor that comes up, for most of us, even if not all of us may have had very expressively loving parents, but I think most of us, at least in our generation, and you are maybe 10 years older than me, but in our generation broadly, most of us grew in relatively secure families, so, so, but people who haven't had that background, now for them, often from their childhood itself, authority figures are figures, more of fear and disappointment and betrayal rather than of trust and love, so it seems in the western world, increasing, you know, statistics vary based on where we are talking about in the west, it's America or Canada or Europe or wherever, but a large number of children grow up with single parent family, in single parent families, it depends on, in some communities it is almost one out of two children, in some communities it is one out of four, but still it's quite large, and on top of that, it is mostly single parent means, there are a few single father families, but mostly it's single mother families.

So, what that results in is, there is a lot of resentment toward authority figures, and especially towards male authority figures, relatively speaking, because they had their mother, now, so that female authority figure, they can accept relatively easily as compared to male, but irrespective of the gender, the point is that psychologically, the acceptance of authority figures is much lesser. In fact, if we, even if we go to the universities in the west, in India, if you see, for example, the culture is that all the students come for the, even in the academic university, for the sake of spiritual, that all the students come first and the teacher comes afterwards, but in the west, it is the professor usually comes first, professor heads up the room and then one by one the students stream Now, again, I don't want to absolutize, there are always differences in different universities and different places, but broadly, the ethos is very different, and even say in companies also, people address their boss by the first name, they don't use the word like sir or anything like that. So, it's just, so on one side, I'm talking about something people are psychologically, emotionally scarred, and secondly, people are just grown up in a particular way.

So, that's just the way their culture is. So, how much can we, now, in 2007, when Maharaj, Radhanath Maharaj wrote Journey Home, and I had appreciated Journey Home, the book, the main thing, Maharaj asked me, what did you like about the book? So, many devotees told me the stories are so adventurous and everything. So, I said, Maharaj, what struck me the most was your tone in the book, that you are not writing this book as Acharya, as a spiritual master, you are writing this as a seeker sharing wisdom.

And I could see Maharaj was appreciative of that, Maharaj told me at that time that, yes, that is the tone you need for reaching to a western audience. And India is also becoming westernized now. So, if you can learn to use this tone in your writing and your speaking, you can also reach to a large number of people.

So, in my small way, I've been trying to do that. But the point I was making is that when people have come from a particular background, then to expect them to submit to authority or to say that submission to authority is a prerequisite for spiritual advancement, that itself becomes a huge demand, it becomes alienating. And we see that in our outreach results also, in countries where there is still that vertical or hierarchical structure, that is India or Russia, I've been told even in China, although we are not, Hinduism itself is not legal, so what to speak of Krishna consciousness being allowed, but still there are people who are coming, devotees are going through yoga and other channels, and there are people who are coming, and if they are coming, they become quite committed.

So, where that authority structure is still there in the mainstream culture, our current modes of outreach are significantly successful. But at other places, where that is not there, it is not sufficiently successful. Or not insufficiently, I would say it is our temples in America are a shadow of what they were during Prabhupada's times.

And we could go into various reasons for that. But this is one aspect of it. So, for such people, if the idea of being independently thoughtful is presented right from the beginning itself, then that spiritual life is about being independently thoughtful.

If that is given equal, if not more emphasis, then submitting to authority, then it might be, we might open more doors for more people to come to Krishna, not just in the West, even India is becoming westernized now. So, I just, again, maybe I am going too long, but I will conclude with one more point that, when I was helping Sraddhant Maharaj with his second book, Journey Within. So, there I mentioned, when Maharaj is talking about how we can explore, how there are various spiritual paths and how we take to a particular path.

So, then I said, Maharaj, maybe you need to say something about how people need to commit themselves to a spiritual path. You can't just be a spiritual shopper, you have to become a spiritual seeker. So, Maharaj laughed and he said, most of the people who are reading my book, who will be reading my book, will be reading it because they are spiritual shoppers.

Yeah. So, he said that if I tell them not to do that, the first thing they would do is stop reading my book. So, in a sense, expecting commitment, one form of commitment is obedience.

Commitment is a word which people are very scared of, whether it is in ordinary relationships or in spiritual path. So, how much do we need to consider this current cultural context in our presentation of Bhakti? Yeah, yeah. Actually, in the path of Bhakti, although we use the word authority, subordinates and such kinds of terms for the practical usage, in the true sense, the mentor or the Guru is often seen by the subordinates as a friend.

Guru, Guru, Sudrida, Saugruda, it is said. That's a word used there. If you see, Krishna plays the role of a friend of Arjuna in the beginning and does not give any advice.

And in 2.7 Bhagavad Gita, when Arjuna surrenders to him, the friend turns into a teacher at that time, philosopher. The friend turns into a philosopher. So, until Arjuna hired him, Krishna did not agree to become his teacher.

In fact, according to Acharya's commentary, Krishna told Arjuna, why are you asking me to become your Guru? You go to Veda Vyas or you should go to Brihaspati. Such people, because they are all learned people, they will teach you from the Vedas and they will relieve you of your weeping. But Arjuna said, nobody can understand me, Krishna, except you.

You are my closest heart-to-heart friend and you know my situation and you only can solve my problem. And he wanted to become his disciple. And then Prabhupada says two things there.

Krishna smiled because the friend has turned into a disciple now. And secondly, Prabhupada says, he chastises and dissipates the ignorance and illusion. These two things comes there in the Bhagavad Gita.

In the same manner, I have seen my spiritual master also. What he would do is deal with people as they would want you to deal with them. Somebody want to approach him like a friend, he will approach like a friend.

One example, I'll tell you. We were in Kolkata. Maharaj gave one program, youth program, my special master.

So one all-India chess champion came and then he met Maharaj after the program and he had read the book, journey home book he had read. So he asked Maharaj, Maharaj, how is it that, you know, you dedicated your life at the age of 19, you came to India and gave your life serving in this movement for so many long years. You know, I read your book, it was interesting and I was telling.

So Maharaj said, your Krishna checkmated me. Because he's an Indian and you know he wanted to give him a sense of belonging with Krishna. Your Krishna checkmated me, he said, because he told it in his language, you know.

That's what I liked. One sentence really made him clean bold, you know. He was so charmed by Maharaj's behavior.

Maharaj didn't get time to talk much. He had to rush for another program or something. But this fellow, it was ringing in his ears.

Even after Maharaj went, he said, oh what an exchange I had with Maharaj, you know. So Maharaj, actually what he does is, if you want him to deal with you like a friend, he will deal with you like a friend. If you want him to deal with you like a guru, he will take the charge of being a guru and he will guide you, tell you what to do, what not to do, accordingly he will do.

If you just want affection from him, he'll give you affection. And same thing if you see what Krishna does with Arjuna. Arjuna, you want me to be a friend and take the chariot to the middle of the army, I'll take it.

Or now you want me to be a guru and give you philosophy, advice, judgment, I will do that. Actually this is the meaning of respecting the individual. One meaning of respecting individual is reciprocate with the needs of the individual.

Like imagine someone family, you know, grandmother, grandfather, son and his wife and two children are coming to a home to go to somebody's house as a guest. So what will the people do in the family? You know, for the children they may give ice cream, for the grown-ups they may give full food or something. For the grandmother, grandfather, they may give some liquid which they can some juice or something.

And that is the way they are respecting the individuality. Each one needs different things, accordingly they are supplying. That means they treat everyone equally by treating them differently.

So that is the way we can respect everybody. So I feel that this is what we have to do even while preaching in the west also. You know, as you rightly said when Prabhupada was in the west, you know, Prabhupada told Mr. Goldsmith while starting ISKCON society that, you know, you are asking me to keep only three regulative principles and not the fourth one.

But let me tell you, I have not come here to please the Americans. Prabhupada says that in the Lilamrita we have read, I can't compromise on the fourth principle because Bhagavatam says He says that. So and then at the same time how Prabhupada instituted it is very important.

You know, like for example, he writes the principles about women in his purports. But when it came to all the disciples of Prabhupada, Prabhupada treated us like his own daughters. You know, he respectfully treated us.

Even today fondly remember many past times with him with tears in their eyes. So that's actually called Vajradapi Katoram, Kusumadapi Komalam. And how did Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu implement this? Prithipurna Vyavahar, Yuktipurna Prachar.

In Vyavahar he was Prithipurna, loving, gentle, affectionate. And in Prachar he was Yuktipurna means he would use like a sharp philosophy to cut the misconception and illusion into pieces. So therefore on the Vyasa Sen we speak the truth.

When we get off the Vyasa Sen we understand the people's need and deal with one-on-one with people as they need us to deal with them. Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did it, Shri Prabhupada did it. I have seen my spiritual master doing it.

I think if we follow this formula of Prithipurna Vyavahar, Yuktipurna Prachar, people will be willing to accept it. And also I have seen westerners, there are good number of westerners I can show you, who are able to actually take up the type of ISKCON movement that Prabhupada instituted, you know, very strongly. Like for example, you know, chanting 16 rounds, rising in the morning, studying Bhagavatam and living a clean life.

Even in Prabhupada's time also, the hippies are actually, as you know very well, they had left their home, left their college, left their studies. One place I read, they neither obeyed the parents or the teachers or the government or police. They were like, you know, what do you call it, like counterculture.

But when they heard from Prabhupada, the pure philosophy, they knew it is difficult, but it is truth. And after presenting the truth, we can tell people, you gradually come to this. You may take your own time, you may take a decade also to come, but the truth is this.

So the truth has to be presented. So therefore, my spiritual master once told me that you should preach like Prahlad, preaching to his friends. He said, Prahlad, there are three things, compassionate, authoritative, pleasing.

Cap, you should wear the cap of compassion, authoritative and pleasing. So don't think of them like demons, feel sympathy for them, be compassionate. But at the same time, present the truth authoritatively as you heard from Narada, which Prahlad presented.

And in a very pleasing manner, which means be their well-wisher, be their friend, encourage them, tell them that you will be able to make it. It's not very difficult for you, you are very sincere. So in this way, he says that.

So at the same time, you will see Prahlad is not compromising on the truth. You'll see in the Srimad Bhagavatam, Prahlad Maharaj speaking to his friends. My spiritual master has seen, he speaks the whole Krishna Leela pastimes to the yogis who come for this program.

And then at the end, there's a dancing kirtan, Hare Krishna kirtans. So I feel that it is possible even in the West to present the truth. If you are sensitive to the other people, like it is said, no, be satisfied with yourself and be sensitive to others.

That is actually the universal formula. You know, don't have too many expectations from them in the beginning, be satisfied and be sensitive to their needs, interests, concerns and expectations. And then if we act accordingly, slowly a group of people will pick up interest and eventually the old type of ISKCON what Prabhupada in 1965, he started, it could be revived all over the West, surely.

Okay. It's beautiful. Yukti Purna Prachara and Preeti Purva Kevahar.

Yeah. Is this a subhashita or something or is this just something which you… Yes, I heard in one lecture about Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, one of the devotees, I think Hariparshad Prabhu or somebody was telling, I heard it. So I just, you know, cling to my head.

I remember it. I use it also always. And it was a great learning for me also by hearing this.

Yeah. Like if you see Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, when he preached to Prakasha and Saraswati and Sarovaracharya, what he did, initially he had Preeti Purna Kevahar which touched their hearts and he entered their hearts. Because what happens when you touch people's hearts, they open their hearts and you enter inside.

After sitting inside, you put the bomb there. Because Anartha's are in the heart only. Then the Anartha's are removed after that.

That's what he did in both the cases. But unfortunately, many times myself as a preacher, I put the bomb outside only and the person only runs away. You know, instead of… That's it.

I have to blossom the heart and open it because mind functions better when it is open like a parachute. Mind is like a parachute. Parachute functions better when it is open, you know.

So when we open the people's hearts and then we tell the truth, people are willing to accept. Yes. You know, so just a lot of points you've made.

I appreciate them. Just one by one. About like during Prabhupada's times, yes, the hippies were a part of the counterculture.

However, even those people who became hippies, they are technically called the millennials or the pre-millennials. They grew up in integrated families, most of them. See, 1940s, 1950s was that generation when America was very prosperous because… 1950s basically, because America more or less suffered the least casualties and got the most prosperity after the Second World War.

And they grew up in families that were quite authoritarian. The churches also grew like anything in 1950s and 1960s initially. But so it was not that they had no familiarity with authority structure.

It was up in a very good authority structure family. But they felt that their authorities were hypocritical or superficial. That they felt that there has because for them, material prosperity was something which already had in life.

And they said, what more is there to life? And they saw whether it was their parents or their teachers or even their pastors, none of them were thinking of anything beyond material well-being seriously. So in that sense, the hippies, they were rebellious. But when they found a trustworthy authority, they could actually go and do what they had been trained to do in their childhood.

So the children who have grown up in the 80s, 90s, 2000, they never had that authority structure itself. So it's not the same thing. It's that that's one significant difference.

So, you know, like the idea of obeying an authority is only something which people today in the Western world see in movies, especially in sports movies where coaches are often demanding from athletes. That's where they have the idea of authority because, you know, if you have to succeed in sports, you have to be disciplined, you have to do workouts and other things. But apart from that, that is quite, that is just beyond their domain of experience and acceptance.

Of course, as you rightly said that we need to reciprocate with people as Krishna said. So if people want us to be friends, then we should be friends. And so Maharaj also told me that and several other devotees in Western outreach also have told me that ultimately, people in the West are very lonely.

And most important, they're not looking, they're lonely. So more than authorities, they're looking for friends. So we can be, if we can be friends to them, then that is the way to help them come to Krishna.

And yes, of course, there will be some seekers who are there in every culture, every country. And they will, they will become serious irrespective of whatever obstacles they may face because of their upbringing. But overall, see, last time you had mentioned to me that there are that rather than making people interested, we try to get interested people.

The challenge with that is in the Western world is, if people have some innate piety, innate inclination toward their spirituality, they often go toward the culture or the religion or the spirituality of their birth. India, if somebody is spiritual, they won't immediately explore Islam or Christianity if they've been born in a, you can say Hindu family. They try to explore the Hindu tradition.

And if they don't get answers, they may go elsewhere. But in the West, it is, it is people, those who are natural piety, they are often in the American parlance, they're conservatives. And those are conservatives, they're often quite strongly Christian.

So if you look at the demographic of our movement right now, in the Western demographic is mostly the people who come to our movement are people who are liberals, only because they're liberals, that they don't have very strong attachment to their standards that they grew up with. Yeah, that's why they're exploring things. So when we are attracting people with a liberal mindset, and then we come up with a very conservative movement, the third structure.

So then, so what happens is those who are in every culture in the world, there are people who recognize the importance of authority, and they want to, they can, they feel that they will learn, they will gain more from authority than they will lose. In general, one way to differentiate between conservatives and liberals, many ways to differentiate, but one is that those of a conservative mindset is that they feel that in submitting to an authority, not necessarily an authority figure, but some rule, something coming from the past, they stand to gain more than they will lose. Yes.

On the other hand, liberals feel that by conformity to something in the, something that has come from the past. They feel they lose. Yeah, we lose more than what we gain.

Yeah. So that's a challenge. So I understand this point, good point.

I have something to say in this connection. Yeah. One thing all of us as preachers have to be very clear that what are we looking for to do in this world? Actually, when Prabhupada went to the West in those days, he actually was looking for helping hands to practice this movement and propagate this movement.

He needed people, you know, he said, I am coming to America in search of Brahmanas, Prabhupada said, and many Jews you will find in our movement also, they were very conservative, very coming from families where they were very protected by parents and everything, such people, they dedicated their lives to Prabhupada, many good number of people. So one of the reasons for that is Prabhupada presented Krishna consciousness as a universal religion, his teachings and the way he presented it, it was so good. So even now I derive tremendous inspiration from Prabhupada's morning walks, conversations and his books and everything.

I feel that, you know, anybody would feel that what I would be learning from my mother religion, like the parent religion from where I come from, you know, there are some understanding is there, but this is actually matching with what is taught there. This is much more broader, universal, they'll feel like that love of God presented by Prabhupada in such an amazing manner. So I think that we can also try presenting to conservative families in the way that Prabhupada presented it universally and there's a likelihood that some of the conservatives and Prabhupada openly told them, if you wish to practice Bible very well, you can do that, if that's what you are inspired by or if you are ready to follow this movement, you are most welcome.

He gave the type of open thing and they understood Prabhupada accepts Jesus as also a Guru, as a Vaishnava and the spirit of a Vaishnava Prabhupada presented very powerfully, you know, missionary spirited Jesus and missionary spirited Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Haridas Thakur and the souls are all parts and parcels of the Lord, you know, Bible gives some detail about God, but we are presenting far more greater detail and how the Vedas are very old and they are time-tested truths and even Henry David Thoreau, Emerson, they all showed interest in the Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita and everything. So Prabhupada would present it in a way that they could accept, even today I feel many of the conservatives in the West will consider taking to Krishna consciousness in a very serious manner, willing to accept the authority of the Bhagavad Gita and everything. Now with respect to the liberals, in my observation, the liberals actually will not want to conform to anything.

They have their freedom, if they like something, they may like to flow with it for a while. So now in case we preach to liberals, liberals may come to what platform, in my understanding, they will actually appreciate some part of our philosophy, like for example, you teach on reincarnation, you teach about mind management, you teach about having a healthy eating and healthy lifestyle. So these things they may accept when you go to the core principles of Krishna being the supreme personality of Godhead and surrender to him and chanting the holy name and aligning with the four regs and all that.

When these kind of things come, many of the liberals may actually turn away and we see that happening in India also, not only the West, the reason is India is becoming westernized India. So what are we looking for? We have to be very clear. For example, take three type of boys, one boy, you give him a ball, he will take the ball and run and put it in the basket and he will bring victory, he'll bring success to the whole team.

Like that there are some Indian boys I have seen who are already studying, you know, Puranas, Vedas, they're looking for truth. There are people like that and when they come to ISKCON, they like the bhakti moment, it's a moment of the heart, moment of love and they understand that karma, jnana, all of them are blended in bhakti and then they may accept this movement and they are born leaders. They will actually practice also very well and they will take the movement to many more people also like that and second category of people are those who are not so evolved in spirituality but they are trainable people and they are willing to accept the Guru Parampara and when they are trained, they become very empowered to do wonderful things by training and the third category of people we find is the Indian boys who are of the liberal category, you know, they are looking for movement not only from, they are looking for truth not only from our movement, they are also connecting with these big, big religious organizations nowadays.

I don't want to take any name but there are many powerful figures nowadays who are also giving lectures which are fitting the head of the liberals very well, it fits them very well because those people, those are big religious gurus, you know, they will tell you something and they will laugh it off, they tell you to laugh, they also laugh, had a good fun today and then they don't expect any commitment from you that you have to join their movement and dedicate your life or anything like that so many of them feel matching. So I feel that if I go for the third category of people who may actually come in large number in the beginning and like waves of the ocean come and waves of the ocean go back, so then it's likely that people may at the most say that, good, that was a good point you made, thank you, that's all. After that what do you want to do after that, you know, will you chant Hare Krishna, will you help in, you know, practicing this movement and taking it to others.

So honestly speaking in my preaching I am very clear about the goal, I tell the students in any college where we are preaching, if 10 students are ready to become committed every year, in that some seven, eight of them will get married, one or two of them will get dedicated fully as a full-time devotee, you know, that's a big success I would say in any college, although we start with number of 600-700 people in the beginning, one-time program we do, like you remember one of the NITs when you did a program thousand students attended, so we may start with a big number but then eventually at the end of the year even if we get the two digit it's a grand success I would say, why? Krishna says one out of thousand inquire about me and out of that one out of thousand understands me, one by ten power six, the ratio is very small, that doesn't mean others are all good for nothing, it's not like that, it's like in a pyramid we have with the apex and then then there are like we say, you know, so we want Chandramoon like devotees, you know, who are very serious about this moment and the message and everything but the others people, other people can practice to whatever extent they wish to, so I would say that our preaching should be such that we can have different levels of devotees, those who are congregation and brahmacharis who are very committed to the moment, selling books, Prabhupada books and doing Harinam Sankirtan, coming for the morning program and Prabhupada, they take him as life and soul and they practice chanting 16 rounds and get initiated in ISKCON, become seriously practicing devotees, families like that, that's a category I would say, then there's a B category of people who actually appreciate Prabhupada said, two successes Prabhupada says, one is if people become committed devotees or they give donation to the moment, Prabhupada says in one place, I read it, so if somebody is supporting your activities, either they give a donation or they are sympathetic to propagation of this moment, like they may be in a big post, like recently I had an NHRD program, the National Human Resources Development Department, some 650 people attended, all 35 to 50 year old professionals, big people in big companies, you know, so one devotee helped me in arranging that program, so somebody can be sympathetic to our moment, they may help us and then that way they are also helping us distribute books and companies, preach to the people and then those people will take to Krishna consciousness and in their own way, they may not daily chant, they may follow some other relative principles, they may follow, they may be well-wishers of ISKCON and or they may become gradually some kind of devotee, you know, little mixed devotee or whatever, but then there's a third category also, those who are inspired by ISKCON also, there are people inspired by ISKCON, they are doing cow production, you know, they are doing many things like that, they also come and draw some inspiration from our philosophy and ISKCON devotee, they invite us and give us opportunity sometimes, but they may not become Krishna devotees, so in this way I feel that there could be many levels of people, but what I feel Prabhupada has been looking for, whether in India or the West, he wanted many committed devotees, but that doesn't mean other devotees are not important, but the committed devotees are quite important, otherwise how will we run the temples, how will our all over ISKCON temples expand and how will we run the temples, because for example as well as Gopaksha Maharaj was telling in one of the meetings, that after starting this 14 temples, now many more fellows want to hand over land to me and some are ready to hand over Krishna temples to me, but I'm not taking, he said, why? Because I want committed leaders in Brihastas or Brahmacharis, who are ready, who are telling me that I will go Maharaj there and I will take charge of that place, I want people, I don't have people right now and I don't want to expand without having capable leaders, he was telling, and which is actually a fact, there are temples in India and abroad who are telling me, here is a key bunch, take it, you send some 10 Brahmacharis from your temple and we have no Brahmacharis here, please kindly maintain the temple, preach there, we will give you all facilities, we have land, we have money, we have wonderful prasadam, we have beautiful deities, we have thousands of visitors coming, only we want committed full-time devotees who will actually run the temple, they can be married also, if you want salary also, we will give, we don't mind, you can give salary to husband, wife or if you are Brahmacharis, you send them, we want dedicated committed devotees, they are asking, what can I do, so I feel this is the need of the hour now, all over the society now, so we have to get devotees both from India and the West, devotees like for example, His Grace Devathiraman Prabhu, you know, his spiritual master Jayapadakasamy Maharaj sent him to Tirupati, when he went there, he was actually working in Singapore, Malaysia in those days, but when he went there, there was empty land, his Guru gave him, but he developed a beautiful lotus temple there, now thousands of people are benefiting from that, similarly you find in various temples in South India, you find many Grihasthas have taken lead, so I will not differentiate between Grihasthas and Brahmacharis, whoever is committed, dedicated as full-time devotees, they can actually offer opportunity for thousands of people to take the Krishna consciousness, it's undeniable fact, we can see with our eyes, like yourself, myself, we are all preachers, imagine if one Grihastha is running a temple abroad, he gives us chance to preach, is it not wonderful, we just go there, like I go to Boston two months in a year, you know, His Grace Svanamali Pandit Prabhu, he's working in IIT company also there, but he also runs the temple in Boston, he's the president of the temple and he has a community there, I really wonder, I really admire him, how he is able to take care of the temple, his wife and small son and also he's a preacher, he gives classes every Saturday, Sunday himself, so he arranges for me to come to West, only one visit I made, I'll be making also, so I am telling you, it depends on what are we looking for through our preaching, I wouldn't mind preaching to liberals, if my goal is simply to just inspire them and say that, oh that topic of mind management was good, you guys have good knowledge about mind or you guys have, you know, very interesting information about reincarnation, that's not, that is also good, but is that what we are looking for, is that the only thing, that question we have to ask ourselves, yeah. It's a wonderful point, I think if we could reach out the conservatives in the West, that would be wonderful, in general, even during Prabhupada's times, we never reached out to the conservatives, now I said that they were rebellious people who joined, they had a conservative upbringing, but they didn't have a conservative mindset, in one sense, very few of our western members were people who were established in mainstream western society, they were mostly people who had disillusioned with mainstream western society and that's how they started exploring other things and they came to us. So, in general, that is going to be a challenge, but that's an interesting option which can be explored.

I've talked with several devotees from Prabhupada's times, they said that, you know, people who are well established, western people who are well established in their careers, in their society, in their family, those kind of people hardly, even during Prabhupada's times, hardly any, very very few of them came and thereafter also, it's not there. But yeah, it also, I would say even Prabhupada was quite resourceful, he recognized that he was, at least during Prabhupada's times, there was no significant difference in Indian's willingness to take up serious spirituality just because Prabhupada had got western disciples. Now, earlier people were not even ready to listen to him.

When he brought western disciples, people were ready to listen to him. Yeah, they were impressed. They got impressed, but even then, they were not committed.

Yeah, correct. Actually, Prabhupada commented, Prabhupada said in 1976-77, Indians have not understood my movement yet. Yes, Prabhupada said that, but still, Prabhupada was very appreciative of the life members and the life members did a lot of service for him.

In one sense, Prabhupada, we could say during Prabhupada's times, there were two broad demographics in our movement. One were in the western world, people who basically moved into the temples and they lived as temple residents, as full-time followers. And the second demographic was in India with life members.

And Prabhupada, in his conversation with life members, Prabhupada hardly ever mentions to them, you have to come for the morning program, you have to chant 16 rounds. Prabhupada just talks about the principles of bhakti and engages them where they are at. So Prabhupada accepted both of them.

Yeah, correct. The challenge is, so we had Prabhupada's, we have example of Prabhupada's dealing with life members, where he confronted them sometimes philosophically, but overall he was, as you said, pritipurvakya vahar, that was what he did. And then we have the temple residents.

Now, our movement's demographic is neither the life members nor temple residents. It is mostly congregation. And of course, people like Revati Ramana Prabhu, their example is extraordinary and it's inspiring.

However, just as a preacher like you is going to be rare, even in the brahmacharya ashram, a preacher like Revati Ramana Prabhu is going to be rare in the garhast ashram. So most devotees are not likely to be of that level of spirituality, that level of commitment, that level of abilities. So we need a structure for, or a way for accommodating them and engaging them also.

So in some ways, what all will be required, that's the challenge. So that's why I started by talking about independent thoughtfulness. So one of the things which I found that Prateksha Bhagavan Dharmam Krishna says, so that Krishna consciousness is not so much a set of do's and don'ts, believe this or don't believe this.

It is actually a set of tools by which we can ourselves experience reality in a new way. So that aspect of Krishna consciousness, I feel is lost when we emphasize too much the principle of believe in this or follow this. So when I talk with Maharaj about Pushpa Abhishek and other places, he just, as you rightly said, he speaks about Krishna's pastimes and even the miraculous aspects of Krishna's pastimes, he doesn't soften them.

It's like Krishna lifted Govardhan Nila, Govardhana, anything like that. So I asked Maharaj, how do you, you know, don't people not hesitate to accept this? So Maharaj said that people are curious. So there is a difference between curiosity and commitment.

The same way Krishna did this, that is not a problem, but telling them that you have to believe that Krishna is the Supreme God, that is where the problem comes up. So in one sense, what I felt is that the exploratory aspect of Krishna consciousness is often lost under the conformity aspect of Krishna consciousness. So because of that, people feel if I become Krishna conscious, I have to do this, this, this, this.

And I have to believe this, this, this. But Krishna consciousness is actually also an exploration. You follow this and you will experience this.

So I feel that that exploratory aspect if it's sufficiently emphasized in our presentation of Krishna consciousness itself. And that's why when we talk about independently thoughtful, that's not being whimsical, that's not rejecting authority, but that we are providing you the tools by which you can verify this yourself. So you can experience these higher realities and you can come to the conclusions yourself.

So that aspect somehow, I somehow, I felt that that is not adequately emphasized. So I felt that emphasizing that now we see that, I would say now all the places in India or wherever I've seen outreach, now I would say that the kind of systematic logical outreach that we do in Pune, that is significant. We have faith and doubt sessions where we invite people to ask questions and that is quite helpful for people to be candid.

At the same time, I feel that that kind of questioning is encouraged in the initial stages when a person is new to Krishna consciousness. But after that, after a few years, then if those questions come again, so that is a little difficult for people to digest. That is seen as faithlessness or that is seen as insubordination, that is seen as offensiveness and that's where also, so I mean, we all are trained in such a way that anybody who's coming new to Krishna consciousness, whether in the East or the West or wherever, we are welcoming for them.

But once people start exploring a little bit more, then they come to a level where, okay, you have to behave like this. You have to believe like this. And if you don't do that, then people are often sent either consciously or unconsciously on a guilt trip.

No, why don't you do like this? Why do you ask questions like that? And then that just puts people off. So again, so my point is not that we have to pander to the liberals. That's when I started independent thoughtfulness, just like you mentioned that there are safeguards within our tradition, like sadhus for protecting against abuse of power.

So I feel we have safeguards within our tradition with respect, not safeguards, resources. We have resources within our tradition itself for appealing to people even with a liberal mindset. So liberal doesn't mean that they never accept authority.

We could say that, okay, let me put it this way, that a difference between a conservative and a liberal could be that the default attitude toward authority in a conservative is, okay, I will have faith till I have reason for doubt. Yes. Whereas liberal is, I will doubt till I have reason for faith.

So it's not that, I mean, nobody, everybody knows that if you don't accept any authority, we'll never get anywhere in life. So that principle is obviously understood. But the room for questioning, the room for encouraging people to use their own intelligence and check with their own experience in their growth, if that could be emphasized a little bit more in our initial presentation, as well as in our subsequent practice of bhakti, a lot of people would be more open to pursue bhakti.

That's what my thoughts are, my experience suggests. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, Prabhupada says that religion which does not give you practical experience is no religion at all.

Like the Prabhupada says in one quote, I have the quote with me. You know, one of the purports Prabhupada writes, if a religion doesn't give you practical experience, it is not religion at all. He says that, which means actually Prabhupada respects the individual's realization also.

There is one more verse. It says, You read this purport of this verse, Prabhupada says how the deity behaves with his devotees and how the devotees actually receive reciprocation from the deity. Prabhupada writes that even practicing devotees, Prabhupada writes that.

So actually the Krishna Consciousness itself is a very joyful process. Whenever somebody came and asked Prabhupada that why should I take Krishna Consciousness, Prabhupada said the proof of the pudding is in its eating. You take to it, you study our books, you practice it and see for yourself.

He said like that. At the same time, one very important point I want to emphasize on, Prabhupada actually gave sufficient emphasis on faith. A couple of examples come to my mind from Prabhupada's lectures.

He says when you want to go to America from India, you know, first you purchase the ticket, flight ticket. You don't tell the people, first you land me in America, then I will pay the money. You don't say that.

So the first you put faith that the plane will reach you there and you purchase the ticket and then they land you there. Similarly, at least in the beginning of Bhagavad Gita, one should theoretically accept that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Like the Prabhupada writes in the introduction, he writes based on Madhava, Ramanujacharya, Shankaracharya, all these Acharyas you know, they glorified him and then Krishna opened his mouth and showed the Brahmanda and many things like that.

Prabhupada quotes and says that, you know, if one keeps aside Krishna and Arjuna and studies Bhagavad Gita, he can at the most, at the best he can become a Jnani, but he won't be able to awaken devotion to the Lord. So the spirit of Bhagavad Gita is explained in the introduction itself. Prabhupada emphasizes.

Another example he gives is the barber. The barber is taking the knife very close to your neck, but you know, you have trust that he will not slit your throat. So you put faith in him and stretch your neck.

He says in this way, Prabhupada says, everywhere we put faith in everything and similarly in spiritual life also. In some good way you have to start. That's one point.

Second point about Vaidhi Sadhana Bhakti, then Raganuga Sadhana Bhakti, Bhava Bhakti, Prema Bhakti. We have four stages in awakening of devotion and this awakening of devotion is like priming, you know, priming in a pump. You know, you take a mug of water and put it in the pipe.

Sometimes you switch on the motor, sound is coming, but water is not lifting up. So when you put the water a little bit and that is what Guru does to the disciple. Guru is giving the wisdom to the disciple by associating with the spiritual master and he does priming.

Then our water inside comes out, then it is taken to the tank. Then you don't need to keep on putting water. Similarly, Guru gives the Bhakti Latha Bija and he gives the Shraddha in the heart of the disciple.

With that initial Shraddha, he does Vaidhi Sadhana Bhakti on the order of scriptures, on the order of Guru. When faithfully adhere to those things, it's not seen as a mundane set of meaningless rituals or rites and rituals, blind rituals. We don't say that because it is actually meant for awakening love of God.

These rules and regulations which we follow, 64 regulative principles, they are actually meant for awakening love of God which we follow. And then it's like priming because it actually awakens the love very soon. It's like, you know, the red hot coal is covered with ashes.

You know, these procedures and rules, it uncovers it. Like that when you do it, it is uncovering it. And then when little bit love is manifested, you develop more faith in the rules and regulations.

You think, oh, this is wonderful, this is working. Then you more faithfully follow. And then a stage comes when these rules and regulations are no more rules and regulations.

Just like we say, you know, when you do a work which you love very much, then you don't have to work for a day. You know, we say like that. Similarly, down the line, after 20 years, 30 years, when I look back, I joined ISKCON 91.

I mean, 94 I joined, 91 I came to Krishna Consciousness. Now, you know, the chanting, the dancing, taking darshan of the deities, you know, going for yatra with devotees, every activity is like Anandampati Vardhanam. It is like hearing Srimad Bhagavatam class from young devotees, old devotees, all types of people.

Every activity is like, you know, replete with so much of spiritual nectar. And you ask, one brahmachari asked his grace, Shankaracharya Adhikari Prabhu and his good wife, Vishnupriya Mataji came to our temple. He asked, Prabhu, some people are saying that if you rise too early in the morning, you know, in the long run, we may have problem.

He asked one brahmachari. Prabhuji said, see, I every day get up at two o'clock for last 50 years and I'm healthy. You think you will get sick? He asked him.

He has lived it. He has practiced it. And he's very ecstatic after 50 years of practice.

So, I am very convinced about this, that these rules and regulations are not blind rituals, but they are all given by Vaishnava Acharyas like Rupa Goswami, Jiva Goswami and Lord Chaitanya originally who taught them. So, whenever I practice any of these rules, immediately, I remember Lord Chaitanya, Rupa Goswami, Shilpa Prabhupada. It is a gift that they have given us.

It is not some kind of conformity that they are imposing on us. Rather, it is like giving a spiritual nectar. Accept this, like, you know, chanting with all devotees is nectar.

In dance with devotees is skin. Kirtan is nectar. Taking darshan of the deity is nectar.

So, I agree with you in one point that newcomers should not be imposed to follow these things, you know, when newcomers are coming. Rather, because generally for, once I, myself and Shamanpoo had a nice dialogue. Shamanpoo said, for educated people, philosophy comes first.

Conformity to this Tilak and Sita and all these things comes much later. But for village people, people in village, for them, external conformity comes first. Tilak, Kanti Mala, dress and everything.

And their understanding of philosophy comes much later, like that he said. So, because we are dealing in our preaching with mostly educated people, you know, we will, we shouldn't force them to conform to this Vaidhi Sadhana Bhakti instantly, you know, making them chant the holy name and Varadoti, Kurta, Sari and Tilak and everything. Instead of emphasizing on this, give them the philosophy in an independently thoughtful manner.

Let them think over what we are suggesting. Let them understand it and then over a period of time, they themselves will be willing to accept the external rules, regulations and everything. Yeah.

All right. So, you're saying that there is an experiential aspect and those who have practiced Krishna consciousness, they are releasing the experiential aspect. Yeah.

Yeah. Of course, conformity will come for those people who are already, who don't have too many questions. Yeah.

Others, it may not come. That's true. Yes, that's right.

That's true. Yeah. So, yeah, I think we are doing that.

We are presenting philosophy in a rational, intelligible way. Yeah. That is definitely there.

So, in the Western world, what happens? I mean, I think we will have to continue this later in our feed because I don't want to take too much of your time. I think we have planned two hours. But in the Western world, see, in India, the culture is not considered unfamiliar.

So, we may say we are presenting the philosophy, but the first thing that people see about us is that we've dressed in a particular way. They see our culture and their culture seems as alien. So, that's sometimes what happens is people don't get to experience our wisdom before they see our practices.

So, a doubtful thing for me, like his guy is Gauragopal Prabhu, you know, nobody in the world misunderstands him. They see him with tilak, with clean shaven head, wearing saffron, but they like the content of what he's presenting for their immediate application in their daily life. And they don't have to think about God and other things too much at the moment.

Some immediate application is available for them. So, Jaya Shetty Prabhu, they are seeing him as a, you know, what do you call it? Somebody presents something immediately applicable in their problems in life like that. So, one is a pan shirt wearing devotee, another one is a saffron devotee.

Most people would see both of them, you know, they don't too much attach importance to the external appearances as long as the person is able to deliver the goods. Yeah, let's see. Okay, there is an important point.

I agree with you fully. The challenge is not that we are wearing something. People are very open-minded about what you wear.

To follow what you are teaching me, I have to start wearing that. That is, Gauragopal Prabhu is not talking, he doesn't hide his spiritual identity in terms of saffron. But nowhere in his talks is he actually talking about bhakti and practicing what he is doing.

So, when we are talking about somebody taking up Krishna consciousness, the challenge is that, Jaya Shetty Prabhu, I would say that both of them are providing, you could say, not even spiritual wisdom, they are providing pre-spiritual wisdom. Yeah, correct. So, there is a need for that also.

And they have served that niche quite well. Yeah, but when we talk about… People fear you that because you are preaching spiritual message, will I have to become like you? People frankly ask also, many people ask, will you expect me to do this tomorrow? No, we tell them that it is up to you, you can serve as a monk, you can serve as a grahastha person and also you have to show examples. I think India, sorry to interrupt you, in India the dynamic is whether I have to become a monk or not, in the West is whether I have to wear dresses like you.

So, if I become a devotee, do I have to wear dhoti kurta, do I have to wear a saree, can I wear my own clothes and continue to practice bhakti? Now, in principle, Prabhupada did say that, that famous conversation of Prabhupada in Gainsbourg, where he expressed the same concerns and Radha Maharashtra told me, that is the conversation that is a must read for anyone who wants to understand how to do Western outreach. So, Prabhupada says, yes, the dress, the food, they are, you can offer, you can wear whatever dress you want, you can take whatever food you want from your culture, that is not an essential thing, the essential thing is that you learn to love God. Yeah, exactly.

So, Prabhupada presented that. However, that is not the perception that we present to people. See, when I was at an interfaith conference and then I met this devotee, I met a Christian.

So, he said, before I came for this interfaith conference, what was my perception of you Hare Krishnas? And he had been coming for a long time, so I was going for the first time. So, he said, he had read a Christian preacher and the Christian preacher had said, he had given a list of what are the outrageous things going on in today's America. Okay.

And he had given like 10-15 things and one of them is a shaven headed monk coming and telling you that a blue boy, blue, blueish boy is God. Okay. So, they talk about shaven headed person wearing a saffron robe, ochre robes.

When I was in Boston for two months, every single day I went for Harinam. We went to the Copley Square in Boston Temple, near the Boston Temple. Actually, we were actually, I was singing also every day in the table.

We were about seven, eight of us. I was playing mridangam and singing. A lot of Westerners would wave the hand like this, Hare Krishna, you know, they would say like that.

That is Western culture. The books also. No, Western culture means that, you know, they are very, as I said, curiosity is not lucky.

There is no lack of curiosity. There is a great fear of conformity. So, that is the, you know, as far as curiosity, where is this? This was some survey done in maybe 1990 or 2000.

So, people were asked in America, how many Hare Krishnas are there, do you think in America? And almost every person, their estimate was almost 10 to 100 times more than the actual count of Hare Krishna devotees. So, in terms of visibility, we are, because of our kirtans, we are very visible. And curiosity is people will dance, people will sing.

But do I want to become like that? That is where the problem comes up. So, I'm not saying that we stop doing Harinam, we stop doing Harinam. For that matter, many people have fear about any organized religion, for that matter.

Not only ISKCON, there are many other organizations. For example, in one organization, you know, people wear white and white dress, complete white dress they wear, you know, women wear saris, white dress, saris. In some moments, like, you know, if you become, even Christian churches, if you see some people join as brother and our sisters, you know, people don't want organized religion, especially the new age people.

You know, they say that, if your bhajan can help me to relieve me of the stress, please do it. I am happy with that. I agree with you.

Maybe, you know, as I said, we may have to discuss this next time. But just three sets, you know, one is there are universal problems that any religious organization will face in reaching out to today's people. That's one.

That is something which like you said, any organized religion will face negative perception. Second, that there are problems of perception that we as a movement face. And third is, there are problems with our core principles and practices.

So, if somebody has problems with the core principles and practices, then there's nothing we can do for them. And the third level, we all have to deal with it. But when I had this discussion, the second level problems, where sometimes we are perceived different from what we are offering.

So that perception, so that if rather than focusing on this, as you rightly said that, this is not just conformity that is being demanded, that these instructions are guidelines given by acharyas to help us love Krishna and become happy, that is true. But if that is the primary perception, so these second level problems are to some extent avoidable. The third level problems and first level problems, we can't do much about it.

Now, we can't change our core principles, we can't immediately change the mainstream culture. So that is something which we have to deal with. But the second level problems, where we are perceived, so the exploratory aspect of Krishna consciousness is sometimes lost.

And if you come to the temple, you have to do this, this, this. And if you don't do this, then, okay, nobody will say don't come to the temple. But then people get neglected, people, as I said, people are made to feel unwelcome or guilty.

You're coming for something and you're still not chanting. So then people start feeling, people start feeling unwelcome, they stop coming then. So that's why my point was that if we could emphasize a little bit more on the independent thoughtfulness aspect of Krishna consciousness, of course, we don't have to reject, we don't have to deny or reject the aspect of following instructions.

But that can open a lot more doors. Yeah, I agree. See, the independent thoughtfulness is observed in our society.

There are so many people writing nice articles in BTG, even their own words they're writing, there are many people like that. Similarly, there are people in the scientific area working in BI, you know, putting up conferences and things like that they're doing. Similarly, every person in different field like, you know, artists and cooks, they are all getting opportunities to express their talents in our society, you know, Matajis, Prabhujis, children.

Similarly, the culture, drama, arts, poetry, painting, writing, you know, all these things. I feel that like, you know, Radhika Raman Prabhu, you know, son of Mataji, he's writing such amazing books and everything. So I feel that that is one aspect of ISKCON where evolved people are getting their audience as well as their opportunity.

They are getting. But you will find the vast majority of our society is not a part of that class because that class is not, you know, too many. So majority of the people are going to be good followers.

And they pick up the rituals very easily, quickly, which are not very difficult to follow. And they want to be told what they should do. And they will follow very easily.

So that's in a Vedic life also, one Brahmana and nine Kshatriyas and 90 Vaishyas and 900 Shudras, it is said, you know. So out of a thousand people in a village, only one is a Brahmana, you know, Kshatriyas also nine. You can guide nine kings, you can guide, you know.

So I feel that the independently thoughtful people are spiritually evolved people, those who are thinking people and who can actually give inputs to even making this movement a better movement. Such people, I feel, are rare in number. The number is not a very big number and they should surely be recognized by our leaders and given that kind of opportunity to express themselves, I feel that could be done.

But the vast majority of the movement, our movement is in a spiritual communities where congregation devotees are 90-95 percent of the congregation. And then there is temple with some full-time devotees, both Grihasthas, Brahmacharis running like this. And for them, the basic philosophy or Prabhupada's books are the basics and they are all practicing.

In that they have all the, the percentage of the evolved people for independently thoughtful thinking, I feel, in my understanding, I'm telling you, that is not a very big majority. But nevertheless, that's a very important lot. Just like in a whole society of thousand people, the Brahmana class is very important because that's the head of the society.

Actually, once I heard Radhakopinath was telling that, Brahmanas give vision to the society. Brahmanas can listen to the suggestions of the people very well because of their ears. And they can smell the grievances of the people like we can smell the food getting burnt in the kitchen.

And because you have the brain, you can be like a brain center, which actually gives direction to whole society. Therefore, Brahmanas are compared to head, he said. So you tell me, is there in the, in the, in the Iskcon society, such people, probably they may not be very much encouraged, but they are not, what do you call it? They are not, not given opportunity for expressing themselves.

I mean, full that, you know, they have to create the space for themselves. They, I won't say they are not given opportunity. I would also not say, I would not say they are given opportunity.

Correct. I have to create the space for themselves. That's true.

Yeah, that's true. But I just to conclude this point that, that somehow. You heard about BRC, you heard about BRC.

Yes, I agree with that. Those kinds of initiatives are coming up more and more now. And that's a, that's a positive.

Also you may be aware of IBMV in Vrindavan. Yes, yes, yes. They are all very, very first class teachers.

IBMV has come. Pune also we have started BVRV, Bhaktivedanta Rajya Vidyalaya. So now these institutes are increasing thanks to Gauranga Darshan Prabhu, who has made very nice Bodhini guides now.

And many, many teachers like you are actually reaching out everywhere, different places. So I think the intelligentsia of our society is going to increase more and more in the time to come. So that they'll do great good to the world in the time to come.

And as I said, there's independent people could be given a little more attention and facility and opportunities. So they could do, they could actually take society to another height with their intelligence. That would be very nice.

Yes, I agree. So I just definitely that the demographic is not going to be much, like you said, the Brahminical kind of people in the world are not going to be many. So that's true.

So I agree with you. So should I try to summarize through that? I think things are, yes, you can. Yeah.

So this is, we started with this discussion of, you know, like a sort of polarized vision of two visions that this is Krishna Consciousness, obedience to authority, or is it independent thoughtfulness? So you responded by saying that, it's a progression, infant has to be trained initially, and then infant grows and does things on their own as they grow adults. And with the same with baby birds growing up, and several other examples like that, same in training in any field. So, so, so in principle, the idea that we need to be trained and guided, like an apparent child relationship that is acceptable, but then I pointed out that, what about situations when the relationship is not congenial, like a parent and child? So when there is possibility for abuse and exploitation, because of various reasons, so, and you mentioned about how there has to be the inbuilt, there's an inbuilt check balance, and that is the Sangha, the sadhus, and then no authority should be like an island, disconnected from everybody else, then it will become like a cult.

But if there are the equals of the authority, the superiors of the authority, they're also regularly visiting and monitoring that authority is also performing visible sadhana with everyone. And then, then that way, there is the facility for protection from abuse of authority, or devotee is getting, getting discouraged by something like that. And I discussed also about, if there is some issue with, we have certain expectations of what spiritual seriousness or spiritual standards mean.

And if somebody is not able to conform to that, say like, somebody because of health, because of creativity, or because of the nature of services, then you said that we don't, we have to be balanced. If somebody takes guidance from the spiritual master, their authorities, and then they're doing that under guidance, then those exceptions can also be, can be accommodated. At the same time, we don't want to make the exceptions the norm.

That's why the standard practices need to be adequately prioritized. And we need to say, rearrange our schedule so that we can give time to those standard practices also. And then we discussed about, that was, I think, a major part of the discussion was, how much do we need to adapt ourselves for people who have grown up without any authority structure, no experience in their authority structure.

So, in the western world, Prabhupada did attract such people who are rebellious, but still they had authority, some experience with authority in the past. And today, most people who come to us have no experience like that. But then you mentioned that we have to really consider whom we are trying to reach.

If people are of a very liberal mindset, then they may come to us, but their connection to us also will stay at a very liberal level. That means they may become, like three categories, those who are committed followers, those who are appreciative, and they have some level of commitment, and those who are just broad well wishers. Are there three levels? Yeah.

Correct. So, if we could reach out to conservatives in the western world also, and in the westernized world, then they could become very committed followers of our tradition. And the challenge in that is, we discussed a little bit of that.

But during Prabhupada's time also, Prabhupada accommodated both. You could say Prabhupada was conservative with those who committed, those who came and stayed in the temples, and he was liberal with the life members. Prabhupada was both.

Now, in today's world, we are having congregation devotees who are, in one sense, in between both of them. So, we can have extraordinary examples of congregational devotees, like some devotees who may start their own temples and do big things. So, what about the general devotees who may not have that caliber? Then we discussed that everybody needs to be accommodated appropriately.

And with respect to westernized outreach, so two things broadly came out. So, my point was that the exploratory aspect of Krishna consciousness is sometimes lost in our presentation. And he said that that needs to be emphasized.

And in one sense, when we have question answers, when we have open environment, when we, as I say, we reciprocate with people as they want us them to. They want us to be friends, we are friends. If they want us to be guides, then we become guides for them.

So, that is one way we can keep that exploratory atmosphere available for people. And Krishna consciousness is, there are rules, but the rules are not just like blind rituals. They are purposeful and they can actually give us experience of Krishna.

So, that experience, they can make us. So, if we adequately, if we can help people gain that experience of Krishna, and then they experience the joy thereof, then they will no longer be suspicious of the rules or resent the rules. So, in one sense, we cannot change the mainstream culture, those people who are anyway against organized religion, they may be suspicious.

Everybody has to face that. Some people are against our core principles or practices. Those are also, we will have to deal with, we cannot really reach them.

But with respect to perceptions, if we could present that idea of that, yes, there are rules, but the rules are not just you have to believe and follow that you can experience higher realities. So, in that way, we could balance, say, obeying instructions with being independently thoughtful. And then we can help reach more and more people.

Any thought or anything you want to add in conclusion? Very wonderful. There is one area I feel where if preachers put a little focus, it may be very rewarding, which is now many of our grahastas are crossing 40 years of age, you know, those who have practiced Krishna consciousness as well. Now, the children are also growing up.

So, by the time they reach 50, if we can inspire them, motivate them to commit their life more, husband and wife together in a moment, and that will pay way for vanaprastha ashram. A lot of devotees in the community. And right now, they all have family responsibility between 25 to 45.

By the time they become 45, children are grown up. So, I'm thinking that if many of the preachers can pay a little extra attention to this category of devotees, you know, you may get many, many committed grahastas who will actually take care of many of our temples. And some of them, as you said, may be very evolved and independently thoughtful preachers.

They may do either Brahmanical service or they can do Kshatriya type of administrative service, you know, and that kind of services they could do. Because one thing is making new devotees and making them committed is very challenging. At the same time, making the existing community members into more committed devotees, this is one category I've been thinking about.

Yeah, and then we can get more preachers out of this. Imagine, for example, if we take the existing devotees above 45 years of age and train them to become preachers, about 100 preachers. And these 100 preachers actually can help in that there can be all kinds of preachers, intellectual preachers, simple preachers, all kinds of preachers.

And right now, many of our communities devotees are practicing, but not all of them have time when they're going to IT companies and all. They don't have time, enough time between 25 to 45. But after 45, some of these people coming from well-to-do families can withdraw from IT type of job and take up some consultancy and create more time for Krishna and Krishna's movement, you know.

And then if we can devote a little time for them and that's what we are recently we have started in Pune. We are trying to do that and it's very rewarding. Even in a short time, five, six couples have come forward and they're giving a lot of time for preaching activity and everything.

So I feel some of them, because they have been in the outside world, that rich experience which they had will also help them to reach out to the world very easily. And that way, ISKCON can have more, I feel, devotees who will actually work for ISKCON's mission by being in any of the ashramas. It'll be very nice.

And regarding this independently thoughtful behavior, I feel that Prabhupada in his, even in his morning walks and other things, I observe that he respects the questions of people. He takes the devil's advocate many times, you know. And then he will make them speak, you know, he will argue, he will make them devotee and he will take the Christian role or atheistic role, you know.

And he actually made them dig deeper and think about the philosophy. I think we can learn from Prabhupada how to inspire people to become independently thoughtful and not just dump the philosophy in their heads and demand alignment, I feel. And that was one point which was lingering in my mind when you were talking about independently thoughtful.

So we could arrange more debates like in Pune, we arranged two debates. Did man evolve from branches to benches? Another one was living together or marrying. And there was a lot of roaring response for this.

People like, and through debate you convey the philosophy. Many independently thoughtful people come in such programs. But thank you, Jain Janmabhu.

You are actually reaching to some of the very fine class of people in the West. I've seen some of your videos and articles and all, reaching professors and scholars and the interaction has been very fruitful. Some of the people are really very big fellows.

And through your thousands of questions which you have answered in your site and also the many of the videos you have put which are very thought-provoking and the Gita daily, it is actually reaching to that class of people. I would like to see your audience who are daily reading Gita and everything and get access to you, one step even more closer to you. You could make one circle of, you know, such people who are regularly interacting with you to bring them to the point of more, you know, commitment to Srila Prabhupada's movement.

Because some of them are your fans for many years. They are appreciative. They may be rendering some service also in that place.

But you could give them more access to our Vaishnava practices because many, many people are inspired by you across the globe. So you are yourself very independently thoughtful devotee right from the early days when we met you as a student. And you can actually fan that spark in people and help them get a chance to access the sweet philosophy of Gaudiya Vaishnava Sampradaya without remaining far away and seeing from a distance.

Let them come closer. Thank you. Thank you.

I guess the last, I mean, I would reciprocate. I've traveled all over a lot, most of places in ISKCON. And I would say that the kind of logical, rational attitude I had, I don't think I could have had a better introduction to Krishna consciousness than what I had from you.

Because, you know, you've spent a lot of time answering my questions. You spend hours and hours, days and days together. And so in that sense, I'm very fortunate, you know, ultimately beyond whatever strategies we are discussing, to say Krishna is running this movement and we are his instruments.

So I would say that you are also by the kind of question and answer sessions and camps, what you said about Prabhupada playing the devil's advocate with his disciples in his morning walks. I say that our faith and our sessions in Pune are in one sense carrying on that tradition itself. And if that tradition can carry on more across our movement, we can attract a lot more thoughtful people.

So, you know, I think both of us present spirituality systematically, but I have never gone beyond the systematic presentation of spirituality to create a systematic structure for people to come towards spirituality. So what you are suggesting just now, I will work on that, you know, like building some kind of community where people can connect more with Krishna. I've also been thinking about that.

You are, I would say, a genius in that. And I'm grateful for your suggestion because I have also been thinking of the same thing. So I see that also as your blessing.

And thank you very much for your association and for sharing your thoughts today. Hare Krishna. Thank you.

Hare Krishna. Jai Shri Prabhupada.