How can we attract people who are connected with other spiritual organizations?

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any other questions? sometimes people go to various organizations and those may not focus on the ultimate siddhanta so how can these people who are following this how can we know that their choice is wrong or how can we tell them, explain to them that their choice is wrong firstly when people join some organization the philosophy is only one part of the reasons why they join many people join because it gives them a sense of community it gives them a sense of cultural continuity it gives them a sense of connection with something higher even if it is not the highest so the philosophy plays one aspect in it is one aspect of that decision so as devotees when we try to share Krishna consciousness we should focus on building bridges not on breaking walls what that means is say we are on a particular mountain we are practicing Gaudiya Vaishnavism somebody else is practicing something else they are somewhere else so initially if somebody is committed with some other organization rather than trying to justify how they are wrong and we are right we focus on getting them to at some level appreciate spirituality as it is presented in the Gaudiya Vaishnav tradition and we can appreciate somebody going to a spiritual organization that is actually good because how many people have spiritual information in today’s world there are not many so we can appreciate them and then we can share with them how there is a systematic structure for practicing spirituality there are young people practicing spirituality we have to see what is it about Krishna consciousness that they may be attracted to and try to give that in the presentation so that at the very least they are there and we are here we build a bridge between them and then after we build a bridge gradually they start climbing across the bridge and they come to Krishna now you know after they come to Krishna later on as they slowly become committed they have to make a choice should I choose Krishna or should I choose to follow this particular Bhava or whatever it is and if they have got enough experience of Krishna then they will become committed to Krishna they have some taste of Krishna consciousness, they have understanding of the philosophy they will commit themselves so at that time the bridge that has been built that can be broken which they won’t go there but you know just when the bridge is built and they are not even started off that time you break the bridge and they will stay there only so what does it mean by we have to build a bridge see if somebody is going to some organization they already have some level of faith in that organization in its teachers, its principles whatever so our challenge is not so much to break their faith there it is to build their faith in Krishna in Krishna’s devotees and when this faith in Krishna’s devotees becomes strong enough then the faith can challenge that faith when it is required right but if they are in the middle of the bridge and that time you break the bridge and they will just fall down and somebody is worshipping Ganesh and then we have a big fight with him, no Ganesh is not supreme, Krishna is supreme and that person will start thinking this is all so confusing, different Puranas say different things better not get in this business with me and that person becomes an atheist our purpose is to alleviate people’s faith it is not to destroy people’s faith so we have to be sensitive so people have different kinds of faith and Krishna also accommodates different kinds of faith in the 7th chapter some people’s faith may be goodness, some may be passion, some may be ignorance wherever they are we try to elevate them gradually so basically find out within Krishna consciousness what is it that may attract them and even if they don’t become attracted to Krishna if they are appreciative about Krishna that itself is Ajnana Sukrti and that will prepare them for coming towards Krishna but if you want to look from an objective point of view why should their path be considered not correct and our path be considered correct it is not our path, it is Krishna’s path and we have a Parampara in which the knowledge is coming we have extensive coating of Shastra to establish what we are teaching before coming to ISKCON I also went to a few organizations and their books when I read my search was not so much physically going to organizations it was more of reading books of various organizations I found there was good wisdom there and there were some inspiring quotes and some nice points there but they were very little based on scripture so the potency of such organizations is based primarily on the charisma of their leaders so it is not based so much on scripture there are traditional mathas and panthas that are there that is different but many of the modern those which are prominent in today’s world as spiritual organizations they don’t quote much Shastra at all they are primarily focused on some sort of self-help message, some inspirational message motivational message and feel good just be peaceful and joyful things like that and people get attracted because they want it they want to be joyful because Rajoguna tries out people and they want some relief so if something offers them Satoguna they will be attracted to that so our focus should be on if we want to present Siddhanta at appropriate forum we can present Siddhanta but it should not be in a confrontational way first we have to build their faith in Krishna then gradually their faith in Krishnetara will be challenged and it will be transcended or it will be connected with the ultimate faith in Krishna that will happen gradually so there is one devotee the prominent congregation leader over here so he was, his whole family was a follower of a particular very famous and respected Baba in India, respected in the sense that he was also he also talked about some like-minded principles he was a relatively good follower as Satoguna at least and then there was so he started coming to Krishna Consciousness, to the temple also and then he was in the dual mode, should I go there or should I go here it was not just that he was a spiritual person the whole family was connected with him so his parents, grandparents they were all connected with him and he was also talking about Bhagavatam, talking about this so at one time, at that time there was some accusation made against him about some scandal so now when, so this was the days when Maharaja Pradhan Maharaj was also there, very easily available to devotees 80s, 80s, 80s or early 90s so when Maharaj came to know about it, one devotee told him this is the news about this particular accusation so Maharaj called all the devotees and said when he comes to the temple don’t speak about this to him at all our normal scenario would be if there is a person other guru is accused of something, see we have told you he is bogus see now you saw this don’t speak about this and this devotee later told me after that wherever he was going, he was going to office because everybody knew that he was following that Baba so he was feeling so, actually ultimately later on that accusation was proven to be false it was baseless, but he said when he came to the temple nobody mentioned it to him everybody was so nice, so polite, so gentle and what happened? he felt yes, now here people care people don’t just care for increasing their numbers they care for me so he after that became very devoted and then Radha Maharaj told him, one time this program was there in his father’s house so Radha Maharaj told him you go for that program and offer your obeisance to him and seek his blessing tell him that I feel inspired to practice bhakti in his school and I seek your blessings from you and when he saw how sincerely he was practicing, humbly he went he gave his blessings, so we don’t have to create a rupture when I was in hostel, this is one example of sensitivity other example is that when I was in the hostel a program was held in my room so I had got a very good score in GRE at that time so because of my GRE score people came to see people came to the program, what is going on so I was sort of one of the intellectual leaders of the hostel there was another student who was like a social leader a nationalistic kind of person so he came to the program, he liked the program once I asked him to come to a temple and that temple was very small and it was a big crowd for the festival so I couldn’t meet him in the temple so he met some other devotee and now in India, any young people if you ask about spirituality, there are some spiritual leaders they all know you know somebody who has gone to America become very famous over there so he asked this devotee, what do you think about so and so Swami and this brahmachari maybe he had some virya rasa excess at that time so he said, usko to narak mein jaga nahi milega he will not find a place even in hell he was so upset he went back to the hostel and told everyone in the hostel now this is what these people think now new people, what philosophy, first of all how do you know, are you a brahmachari to know that somebody has not even gone to hell how can we make a valid judgement like that and even if it is true, there is a we have to speak things so much anti preaching, for several weeks after that practically nobody came for our program and what happened by that rather than him having his faith challenged over there he lost whatever interest he had in this con and that boy was a really serious spiritual interested boy now he is a sanyasi in that same organization about which this devotee told him, usko narak mein jaga nahi milega so rather than our words attracting him towards Krishna we repelled him towards Krishna and sent him right into that very organization so he is like one of the prominent national leaders over there and I am in touch with him a little bit occasionally so he told me that now he also realized, it is not that everybody in this con is like that it is not that your people are intolerant but he said that he just lost interest in this con it took many years for him he went to Mayapur and saw what is going on in Mayapur and slowly started appreciating that what you are doing is also good but generally we say that our words are meant to attract people to Krishna we are not just meant to speak the truth we are meant to speak the truth in a way that attracts people to the truth we are meant to speak the truth in a way that attracts people to the truth if we speak the truth in a way that repels people away from the truth then what is the use of speaking the truth what service have we done? operation successful, patient dead the purpose of the surgeon the surgeon has got a heart problem he is curing the heart there is a lung surgery to be done the surgeon is doing the lung surgery and while doing the lung surgery he cuts off the heart and he says no, I cured the lungs but you cut the heart, the heart is not my fault I am a lung surgeon, I cured the lungs you cannot fragment a person like that isn’t it? so similarly, we can’t say that I spoke the truth to whatever that person took in whatever way they took, that’s their problem no, that’s not their problem, it’s our responsibility to be sensitive just like any medical any responsible medical doctor when they give treatment, when they prescribe any treatment the first thing that they do is ask for a past case history do you have any this problem, do you have any that problem do you need to do this do you have any complications from the past and they have to adapt their treatment accordingly so knowing the past case history and adapting the treatment appropriately, that is the doctor’s responsibility that is not, you cannot say that I did not know the case history, so I did this and the patient died no, that is your responsibility so we have to, we are speaking if people have certain sentiments about certain people especially when we talk about any specific spiritual teachers you know, criticizing people by name is always a very bad idea because as soon as there are persons come in, there are sentiments, there is affection and when there is sentiments and there is affection affection or respect when people don’t think rationally people think emotionally then they just don’t think in terms of what is philosophically sound, what is philosophically not sound just close down at that time so rather than passing a value judgment about any spiritual teacher what we can focus on is, what is his philosophy and then when they speak a philosophy sometimes, most of the time they don’t even know what is the philosophy so if this is a philosophical point we can say this part is right but this part is not so sound how do you think this makes sense and gradually that way we can attract them to Krishna so we don’t damage people’s faith but we elevate people’s faith elevating means, we act in such a way and we present Krishna Bhakti in such a way that their faith in Krishna is developed and as their faith in Krishna is developed more and more then their faith in Krishna Yatra can be challenged and transcended does it answer your question?