How do we deal with people’s fear that ISKCON preachers will make ours sons into brahmacharis?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
When we do preaching in the villages, often people become fearful if they see Brahmacharis and all the more so if they see that their own sons or family members will become Brahmacharis.
And they do a lot of anti-preaching because of that. So isn’t it better if the village preaching is done more by congregation devotees than by Brahmacharis? Answer? Yes. Actually the fear that devotees, that if people come to Iskcon, they will become Brahmacharis, that is there not just in villages, it is also there in cities.
But often in villages because the people are more close-knit and the news spreads very fast, so often by word of mouth and by gossip and by rumors, the fears get blown out of proportion also. So actually speaking, in the Indian tradition there have always been sadhus, and sadhus have been respected. And there has always been the fear also within Indian society that if some people become serious spiritualists, serious about God and bhakti, then they will renounce the world.
So that is something which has always been there in Indian society. And the way that has been balanced is by knowing that the number of people who do it will be relatively small. So in Iskcon’s history, if we see the first generation, they were largely people who had already left their homes.
They were put to… Actually in the West, the culture of sons taking care of their parents is not there itself. So the parents save and they have their own life, and the sons have their own life. So in that sense, that was not a major issue.
And because the people, at least in the initial days, had no connection with their family, so naturally when they joined Iskcon, they became renunciates. And they had a sort of gung-ho approach towards the practice of spiritual life, where one renounces everything. And then they brought that approach to India also.
So Iskcon, at least in some of the early days, has been over-aggressive in terms of canvassing for brahmacharya rather than for bhakti. Of course, it’s too broad a statement to make and say that Iskcon is doing it. Some preachers have done it.
But over a period of time, as the devotee leaders matured, they recognized that ultimately even in the Vedic times, the number of brahmacharis were very less. Just a few percent, 2-3% of the whole society. And most people would become grahasthas.
The difference was, in the traditional system, people would get the training of the samskaras and the training of serious spiritual practice, dharmic practice in their early years. And so thereafter when they would do other things, it would not distract them too much. But that sort of training is not there now.
So 2-3 things can be done. We cannot avoid having brahmacharis in preaching because grahasthas themselves, it’s difficult for them to spare quality time for preaching. Especially if they are living in cities, then for them to travel itself and to spend time in quality, it’s difficult.
But certainly, over a period of time, there has to be a significant prominence given to grahasthas also. That means, the brahmacharis can be more like teachers who give the philosophical message. But the grahasthas are the exemplars in terms of how you can become.
So generally, in all outreach programs, if grahasthas can themselves lead the program, that is excellent. But even if that is not possible because of difficulty in practical ability, then still, soon grahasthas also need to be introduced. And then the people can see that this is not… It’s not that we have to become brahmacharis.
We can become like these grahasthas. So introducing grahasthas in the preaching as soon as possible is important. Whether the grahasthas can entirely take over the preaching or not, that is something which will depend on the logistics.
So if they can, excellent. But if they can’t, that is also okay. But certainly, if brahmacharis remain the only face of ISKCON for a group of people for too long a time, then that is going to create problems.
So practically speaking, if it is not possible in certain projects for people to be… If there are only brahmacharis involved in preaching in a particular project and grahasthas are not available, then it is important that those people who become serious or those people who are connected, they be taken on yatras or tours to places where there are vibrant devotee communities. And where people can see temples which are filled with grahasthas. So in general, in most good temples where there is a good devotee community, if some boys are becoming serious devotees, they want to become brahmacharis, they become brahmacharis.
Many times when the anti-preaching happens, if the parents or the relatives are brought to a temple and they are introduced to the grahastha devotees of the temple and they have one-to-one talks, then they see that it is not that my son has been brainwashed or my son has lost to the world completely. So if some anti-preaching is happening, by practically exposing those who are doing anti-preaching to the grahastha community, that can also help a lot in countering that kind of anti-preaching. And of course, over a period of time, those who want to become brahmacharis also have to be more sensitive in terms of how they deal with their parents and often they need to complete their responsibilities if there are any financial or social responsibilities that are pressing.
You cannot leave the parents in the lurch for the sake of bhakti. So that is also gradually happening in the west initially. In the past, you see Chaitanya Mahaprabhu may have renounced when there was no main member in his family.
But at that time there was a whole supportive community which took care of his family members. And at that time there was an overall spiritual culture where this was respected and supported. So that may not happen today.
So that’s why overall neither the preachers who are actually preaching nor those who are… none of them can be insensitive in the name of being transcendental. So that means, we are practicing Krishna bhakti, we don’t have to bother about anything else or what people think. We can’t be insensitive in the name of being transcendental.
We have to be sensitive and address people’s concerns. And actually, one of the biggest problems which people face in general is that often they have certain stereotype notions of what a brahmachari is. And if we… people basically think that if somebody becomes a brahmachari that person will become good for nothing.
But when they come to see… come to meet some Brahmacharis, see the devotee community and see that actually there is still something constructive. Of course, with all that also there should be an exception. So in general, it is important right from the beginning of our preaching itself to make clear that our goal is not to make people into brahmacharis.
Our goal is to make people devotees. And devotion can be practiced in various ways. So if some people want to practice devotion as brahmachari, that is fine.
That is up to them. But if we give unnecessary emphasis on brahmachari in our preaching, we will be doing a disservice not just to the people by alienating them, but we will be doing a disservice to our tradition also, misrepresenting what is the requirement for the tradition to continue. So… It doesn’t matter whether one is a sanyasi or a brahasta or a brahmachari or a vaishya or a brahmana or a shudra whatever one is, one just has to practice Krishna Bhakti.
So both from the point of properly representing the tradition and for being properly sensitive to the audience, we should need to focus our preaching on the practice of devotion. And brahmacharis are known to be teachers. It’s not that brahmacharis are role models for what everybody has to become.
That way if we do proper balanced presentation, then that fear of anti-preaching can be balanced.