How can we adapt without watering down?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
when we are trying to share bhakti in today’s world we find that some of the ways in which it was done in the 1960s and 70s doesn’t work so we try to do it in a way that works some people say that we are watering things down how do we know that shloka prabhupada is actually pleased with what we are doing i would say three broad things first is that we have to look at shloka prabhupada’s own focus second is we have to understand our nature and we have to understand the audience nature so as far as shloka prabhupada’s own focus shloka prabhupada emphasized book distribution a lot and he emphasized in india temple construction especially life membership even when shloka prabhupada did things the way he did things was very different in america it was mostly book distribution in india it was more life member cultivation now prabhupada in india went to literally hundreds and thousands of people’s houses took prasad in their houses and made them life members even in prabhupada’s time it was not one way he preached so prabhupada himself adapted different strategies at different times but essentially we know that famous incident when some book distributor asked shloka prabhupada what pleases you the most and they were confident that prabhupada would say book distribution but shloka prabhupada said if you love krishna that pleases me the most so what this verse means is that there are there are various actions externals which are important for the sake of growing into bhakti for the growing of spiritual life their purpose is krishna is telling arjuna that if a particular religious formulary doesn’t help you to do then give it up so arjuna is thinking should i do my kshatriya duty and fight against the kauravas or should i do my kula dharma and protect my members of my dynasty so krishna tells arjuna give up that dharma not adharma give up even that dharma if it does not allow you to do so same way we have to see what is inspiring people towards coming closer to krishna towards helping them develop love for krishna and we have to do that and what if we are trying to do that and people are coming closer to krishna they are getting deeper appreciation for krishna then we are pleased prabhupada will be pleased so prabhupada did not do one thing he did many things and he told us what is the most important purpose of it all was now i’ll come to the third part is the nature of the people today see the world is changing very fast and actually prabhupada came at a particular time in american history or in western history in general which is very distinctive to the phase of the counter culture where people were rejecting western culture and they were exploring other forms of culture and that’s why prabhupada’s presentation of bhakti at that time just clicked so now if we see the world has changed the extent of popularity that was there interest in india and indian spirituality and indian culture that is not there so much now you know in universities today almost like the number of people who want to learn chinese languages are 50 times more the number of people who want to learn indian languages the tourists who go to taiwan is probably like 1 30th time of india tourists who go to taiwan every year is 30 times more than who go to india so there is just not the interest in india first of all there is no interest in exploring western culture exploring alternatives to western culture and there is no specific interest in india as such so the world has changed and when the world has changed we have to adopt whatever works to attract people to krishna so say in the first world war when the war happened trench warfare was a standard way to even for a weaker army to check a stronger army because in france and germany both of them dug trenches and both their soldiers were in the trenches and anybody who tried to come out of the trench they would be shot down so for months soldiers just lived in the trenches slept in the trenches it was a terrible life for them but it was a stalemate in the second world war trench warfare was useless because by that time aircrafts were developed the trenches would simply become the tombs so now the same warfare which was very successful at one level in the first world war it had to be completely it had to be abandoned so somebody may say we won the war using that strategy at that time are we winning now see faithfulness to ishwara prabhupada means faithfulness to the purpose of ishwara prabhupada so the purpose of ishwara prabhupada is to win the war against illusion to help people come to reality and if the world has changed if it calls for a different strategy it has to be adopted so the world has changed drastically today and that’s why we will need to we need to adapt things accordingly so as it is said in the bhagavatam things have to be adjusted but the essentials that are not to be changed nobody is going to say that krishna is not god impersonal brahman is absolute nobody is going to say you are not the soul you are the body nobody is going to say oh you shouldn’t chant hare krishna you can do whatever you want do any other form of meditation no the core principles are not going to be changed but certain adjustments they have to be done in a way that attracts people towards krishna so the audience has changed and if we don’t do this see faithfulness to the tradition also includes faithfulness to the flexibility of the tradition because the tradition itself has a component of flexibility i said prabhupada is one example how he preached in america is very different from the way he preached in india in america if you see when he was living how many devoted houses he would go for prashadam most of his disciples were living in the temple and outside people were really not interested so prabhupada would never go to anyone’s house for temple because prabhupada would not do any house programs in america only some polish programs or temple programs or some other yatra festivals in india prabhupada’s main outreach was through house programs some days prabhupada would go to 6,7,8 houses in one day and sometimes the devotees wanted to go with him all programs they would get tired and eventually they had two batches one group would go for first four houses second group would go for next four houses so prabhupada himself adopted different settings and different time different places so that’s with respect to the audience and third is with respect to our own nature shila prabhupada is very multifaceted and different devotees would be inspired by different aspects of shila prabhupada so some devotees may be inspired by shila prabhupada’s extensive emphasis in book distribution others may be inspired by temple construction others may be inspired by study of sculptures see in general in the time of shila prabhupada at least as is depicted in most popular renditions of prabhupada’s life there are three definitions of success how many books are distributed how many temples were built and how many devotees were made these three are important parameters of success along with that prabhupada himself in 1975 now it’s time to boil the milk so that means he is basically saying that instead of just trying to get people inside now focus on quality also so prabhupada recognized the need for for modifying the emphasis over a period of time similarly now there are different devotees may be doing different things so to say that something is watered down is actually a very strong value judgmental statement somebody could say that way prabhupada himself watered down his program when he started life membership you know life members had no commitment to chanting, no commitment to following the four regulatory principles the only commitment was to give a donation now did prabhupada watered down his own program no rather than seeing something as watering down we see it like a step down like some people if they are here they can like sometimes if you are going to a temple the steps may be very high some people can just climb the steps and they can just take a big leap and go up, others can’t do that then maybe there is a gradual sliding ramp which takes them up so like that prabhupada himself has given us a very radically different level of connection with his movement that is life membership so one definition of connection was initiation where people follow the four regulatory principles, chant 16 rounds but if you consider that to be like one circle, if you consider the life membership is like a very broad circle and prabhupada wanted them to be connected he wanted those people also to come to the level of becoming becoming devotees but he was satisfied at least they become life members, they are contributing something they are at some level connected with Krishna so rather than seeing something as this is what prabhupada wanted and everything else is wrong, we see outreach more as a set of concentric circles of expanding radii and at different levels people get connected with different levels of commitment, different levels of appreciation different levels of comprehension and that is actually the overall spirit of the Vedic culture if you can’t worship Krishna, worship the devatas if you can’t worship the personal form, worship the impersonal form if you can’t worship the devatas, worship the universal form if you can’t worship the universal form, at least understand you are not material spiritual ekatvena pruthatvena bahudhavishvato mukham this is in 9.15, various levels at which people can approach him so the Vedic culture was broadly that at whatever level you are, from there you connect with Krishna from there you move towards Krishna so from your place, at your pace join the race that’s the mood of Vedic culture and prabhupada also has in all examples shown a remarkable level of flexibility so there are literally hundreds of letters in which prabhupada has told his disciples use your intelligence, you are a sincere person, use your intelligence and some devotee does something creative for serving Krishna because you are so sincere you are sincerely trying to serve Krishna, Krishna has given you intelligence from within prabhupada would quote 10.10 in the Gita so as long as people’s appreciation for Krishna is increasing then we should know that we are pursuing prabhupadas we are satisfying shloka prabhupada in our own way so our nature will determine to some extent which aspect of shloka prabhupada legacy inspires us some people may want to study scripture deeply and share the deeper aspects of scripture some people may want to just conduct big programs and create awareness among people so in the Nilamrit it is described that even in the early days 1965-1966 when ISKCON was established so first ISKCON was established in New York and then they went to San Francisco so the San Francisco group Mukunda Maharaj, Mukunda Prabhu at that time they were all people who wanted to do big things and they were in a sense not so serious about standards their focus was more on awareness we just get people to do this thing we know that Prabhupada did a program in the Avalon ballroom where they were all hippies who were on drugs and now when the devotees in New York heard this New York was a place where Prabhupada had stayed you could say at that time also they were a little more conservative how can Swamiji go for a program like this what are you thinking about but when Prabhupada heard about the program how many people will come, how many people will chant, Prabhupada was very happy and he went for that program so Satsvarupa Maharaj writes in the Nilamrit that there were clearly two different groups of people one was focused more on stricter standards, following oneself very seriously others was not so strict about the standards but they were focused more on preaching out to people and Prabhupada appreciated both at that time Swamiji was so inclusive that he accommodated both and encouraged both so I feel that we can always consult some senior devotees who understand us and whose explanation is understandable to us so both ways they have to know us and understand what we are doing and also when they explain, their explanation should be understandable to us otherwise some devotees will just dismiss you this is wrong, that is wrong consulting them will only discourage us but if we have Vaishnavas who really understand us then we can of course consult them to check whether we are on the right track but overall we all need to be faithful to the tradition and we need to be faithful to the flexibility of the tradition also does that answer your question?