​How can we attract people who don’t find ISKCON adequately traditional in its cultural aspect?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so, some people feel that especially some Hindus feel that we are not adequately culturally Hindu we don’t have bells in our temples we don’t have some conventional practices which happen in Hindu temples and that’s why, even in America people prefer to go to other temples where they feel more of the Hindu culture is there here they see non-Indians and that’s why they don’t feel culturally so much at home so what can we do to attract such people it’s said one man’s food is another man’s poison so, am I audible? so actually one of the main reasons why Americans don’t come to our temples is because they feel that we are too Hindu and we have Hindus who feel that we are not adequately Hindu in India also, in Pune when they were having programs in English to attract young educated people but in India also there is now a resurgence of nationalism and not just nationalism, you could even say regionalism so for example, in Mumbai if you go to a some bureaucratic office for getting some permissions actually, they expect us to talk in Marathi if you are living in Maharashtra you should learn the Marathi language and speak in that language and if you speak in Marathi, they will do the work faster if you speak in Hindi, they see that as a proof that you are not actually Maharashtrian and they will make such people wait longer or go through more, jump more hoops like that so, there is this rising of regional consciousness which is there and that’s why when we have programs in English people feel, you are doing nice work but you are not really a religious person you are not a Hindu organization you should be speaking in Hindi or Marathi but if you have an Indian Marathi there are other people who are more educated more upper middle class or working in software they can’t connect with it they identify more with English so basically, in every situation there will be conflict some level of conflict between the various we could say stakeholders to use commercial language or the various target audiences more precisely so, if we look at the way Prabhupada presented Krishna Bhakti Prabhupada did emphasize the culture quite a bit if you consider many other organizations some of them have almost in order to become universal they quite often remove almost all the cultural aspects but Prabhupada kept many cultural things quite strongly in the movement at the same time, Prabhupada did give a lot of emphasis on philosophy also and in many ways our philosophy is our strength actually if we try to compete with other organizations on the cultural front we have devotees, even our top devotee leaders top spiritual leaders, how many of them really know Sanskrit how many of them can pronounce Sanskrit mantras precisely if we go into that front and if we start competing there we really can’t do all that there may be some devotees who can do it but not many we will always be on weak territory on foreign territory if we try to make ourselves culturally as competitors to other organizations which are much more traditionally Indian these organizations actually speaking they are culturally, there is this whole notion which comes from Smartha Brahmanism that spiritual advancement is seen more in ritual ritual specialization than in all round dedication that means if somebody can pronounce Sanskrit mantras in a very traditional resonant kind of way people feel there is something spiritual happening over here somebody else might be actually living those verses in their lives but they are not pronouncing it they think this is ok that Smartha Brahman mentality where externals are given a lot of emphasis that often comes in such situations now if we see these organizations they may be specialized in their ritual practices but they are not having very high standards of personal practice they may not have regular principles like the way we have so actually they are not practicing their culture that much seriously but specific rituals they may do much more than what we are doing that’s why people may feel more culturally at home so our strength is our philosophy Prabhupada did spend substantial time writing his books and he wanted devotees to present Krishna Bhakti philosophically he wanted us to distribute books also so I would say that if we can make our philosophical presentations more appealing we will attract people who are thoughtful people who are intellectually minded and they may not be very large in number but they will be people who can do a lot in the long run because they will be intellectual leaders more of Brahminical kind of people and others may also be attracted but if it is regional cultural consciousness that is bringing people to a temple then that temple will never have a trans-regional or trans-cultural appeal and that will be a limitation Prabhupada wanted this to be an international society for Krishna consciousness there are some organizations which are very big and very influential but they are based of members from only one particular part some organizations are mostly Gujaratis over there some organizations are mostly Telugu people or something like that so Prabhupada wanted this to be an international movement and that’s why more than the cultural aspect the cultural aspect is there but we also stress the intellectual aspect, the philosophical aspect who will find Krishna consciousness actually satisfying having said that if a particular group from a particular with a particular mentality or a particular expectation is large in a community or in a locality then creating something special to cater to their needs is not wrong so suppose there are large number of people from a particular area and they have certain cultural practices so to do those cultural practices in the temple may not necessarily be wrong we have to adopt them or stress them not stress them but adopt them and do them on some occasion, that’s also ok we have to consult the other devotee leaders may be the local, these Kon authorities and then make a decision but that amount of adaptation should be ok as long as it does not make us distracted from primary purpose that means say if there are large number of Telugu people and then we decide to have a separate program in Telugu and there in that program not in the temple but some other program and there in the Telugu program there are some Telugu bhakti saints we quote from them also and create a connection that’s not only fine, that’s actually desirable so there is a famous Marathi saint Tukaram and there are devotees who are preaching in the Marathi heartland they often quote Tukaram verses and they conduct programs in Marathi which is perfectly fine so adapting the language and drawing from that language literary tradition to present the bhakti, that’s perfectly fine now if there are some regional festivals which is not devotional then performing them in the temple might be a little questionable so Bhaktsinoda Thakur says in Chaitanya Shikshamrut that actually a Vaishnava can participate in three kinds of festivals so this is the festivals that devotees organize and wholeheartedly participate in they are the festivals devoted to Vishnu but then he says that sometimes there may be certain festivals associated with the Devatas and if it is required for the sake of social perception or something like that devotees can participate in that also and have an appropriately respectful understanding of the Devatas with that understanding they can even participate in prayer also over there and third he says there are devotional Vaishnava festivals there are other religious festivals and there can be simply social gatherings like say there can be independence day or some other day like labor day or whatever and there might be some celebrations happening so he says one can participate in those celebrations also but a devotee’s heart is in the Vaishnava celebrations so in some situations we may have to do other things to cater to a particular target audience and how far we can go in that and where the limit is that is something which we may have to take guidance for specifically and also learn by our own experience so language itself should not be a problem using the local language to connect with local people that is perfectly ok and quoting from the local saints local language saints that is also fine and about doing some non-Vaishnava festival or something like that that is something which will have to be carefully thought about but that that customization is essential the extent of the customization will have to be discussed but customization is required it’s like when we do college preaching we adapt our programs according to the schedule of the colleges there is no point in doing a program when the students have all gone home to the hostel or at times students’ exams are going on it’s difficult for people to come sometimes if a particular audience’s needs or expectations or circumstances are such that some things are required for reaching out to them then we adapt those things we adapt ourselves according to those things and if we see Prabhupada in his books often we see that he criticizes yoga that yoga is not a means for self-realization people who do ashtanga yoga and things like that they are actually doing it simply for health and the recommended method is chanting the holy names but then in South America when Prabhupada was born and the devotees said here people are interested in yoga and Prabhupada actually spoke quite positively about yoga and then he added that actually real yoga is meant to raise our consciousness towards Krishna it’s meant to focus on Vishnu so Prabhupada did not just condemn that yoga as mundane he went along with that, their conception and he elevated their conception that’s how we may also need to adapt certain things according to time and place