How scripture comes alive – The Monk’s Podcast 105 with Shyamananda

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. Thank you very much for joining today once again.
Today I thought we could discuss on how scripture comes to life. And that means for many people, scripture sometimes is uninteresting. It seems too remote and irrelevant.
So how to regain realisation and to share scripture knowledge with realisation. That is a topic I was trying to discuss. And maybe we could start with a striking purport of Sri Prabhupada.
I can do a screen share of that and then we can discuss based on that. Is that OK? All right. This is Srimad Bhagavatam 141.
Personal realisation does not mean that one should out of vanity attempt to show one’s learning by trying to surpass the previous Acharya. He must have full confidence in previous Acharya. And at the same time, he must realise the spiritual subject matter so nicely that he can present the matter for the particular circumstances in a suitable manner.
The original purpose of the text must be maintained. No obscure meaning should be screwed out of it. Yet it should be presented in an interesting manner for the understanding of the audience.
This is called realisation. So broadly, I see here two distinct points that keep the original purpose in mind. But at the same time, make it interesting.
According to time, place, circumstance, make it interesting for the audience. This is a very, you could say, interesting, again, very insightful and very practical definition of realisation. It’s not like some high level vision of some reality, some other reality.
So I thought of breaking this down into three parts and then maybe you could elaborate. Basically, every speaker, every teacher or every practitioner is like, if you consider this to be the tradition and this to be the contemporary landscape. So every teacher, every practitioner or teacher has to link with the tradition.
And has to link with the audience. So this would have three parts in it. First is that we need to understand the foundational values of our tradition.
That is the original purpose. Keep the real purpose in mind. Then we need to understand the where the audience comes from.
I need to understand. We need to we need to we could say assimilate. If I want to put three words, assimilate the values of the of the tradition, then appreciate the needs, interests and concerns of the audience.
And then present, present in appropriate, appropriately present in appropriate language, appropriate concepts. So these three parts assimilate, appreciate and then assimilate, assimilate values, appreciate needs and appropriately present. So these three parts are broadly, if we want to make scripture relevant, we would need to do these three parts.
Any thoughts on this? Yeah. What we will do is you keep on giving the classical textual matter. And I will see if I can give some anecdotes or something which has kind of either impressed me or I appreciate them.
So one of the one of the most succinct and kind of heartwarming way in which I understood what preaching is. The purpose, coal miners town example. Yes.
Pastor comes and says that because of your filthy habits, you’re all going to hell. And then people don’t know what hell is. So then he has to tell the next Sunday sermon.
He says hell is a dark, dank place. People are miserable, abusing each other and always fighting angry people. To his surprise, the audience doesn’t move at all.
And then he asked someone who said that, well, this is what life is about. So then he puts some application. He tries to understand their way of life, knows that they are addicted to solving those cheap word games or crossword puzzles, which gives some small trinkets as gifts.
And that next Sunday, he says hell is a place where there are no newspapers. So people are shocked. And then they are able to relate to what he’s saying.
And he didn’t understand that unless I give. Unless I understand people. Till that time, I may not be able to relate to them.
And just to end with a small quote, this is a Native American saying that it is used for many purposes, but I’m just using it now in the reaching context, outreach context, that unless I walk a mile in my brother’s shoes, I don’t open my mouth, which means I understand where my audience stands, where they are. Only when I do that, then I can relate to them. So, of course.
So what I’m doing is I’m broadly dividing the whole thing into external and internal. The internal thing is where the values come. The preacher is dedicated to his particular sampradaya.
And he’s committed to fulfilling the desires of his authorities. That is, preaching is not something you do as a profession or a vocation or a hobby. You do it because you get the power of atoning from like in the Gaudiya Sampradaya, we have Bhaktivinoda Thakur praying in the Kabe Habe Bolo prayers that Kabe Nithyananda mori kori daya, chharaeva mori vishneramaya that when Nithyananda Prabhu relieves me from material suffering.
And then he says, Sri aagya tahala koribo prachara. Only when I get the power of atoning from you, will I be able to relay the message. So there is an internal preparation of the picture and there is a external manifestation of that.
So certainly this minor story comes in the external manifestation. So maybe you can take the points further. Yeah, beautiful.
So the story is at one level humorous, but it’s also instructive. And so let’s look at both the parts. What the story talks about is understanding what the audience needs.
So for some people, sometimes teaching scripture simply means that what is there, I just present it or I just repeat it. Now, repetition is important. And Prabhupada said, I simply repeated the message of my spiritual master.
At the same time, if we read Srila Prabhupada’s books and we read Srila Bhaktisanta Thakur’s books, we do see a striking difference, not in the message, but in the presentation, in the stress on certain points, in the analysis. So repetition is not at all like a rote repetition. It is like what Prabhupada says, the original purpose has to be maintained.
So let’s talk about two incidents like Hayagriva Prabhu and Kirtananand Swami, the whole group, before they were introduced to Prabhupada, they came to India in search of a guru. And when they came in search, they went to, they landed in Delhi, then they went to Rishikesh and other places. And they said, we basically met two kinds of people.
We met people who were priests in temples. So they could speak English, but they seem to be as materialistic as everyone else. They were interested in donations and funds and we didn’t feel anything spiritual about them.
And then there were some yogis who were living in caves and we felt they were spiritual, but they didn’t speak English. So there was, there was something which was accessible, but it was not transcendental and something just transcendental, but it was not accessible. So they said, when we came back to, Hayagriva writes in his Hare Krishna explosion, that when they came back to America and they met Prabhupada, here they found a person who was accessible and transcendental both.
So that’s what is very much required. You know how it is summarised? Those who spoke, they did not know. And those who know, they did not speak.
So Prabhupada did both. He knew and he spoke. And another similar point with respect to, I’m just trying to say how this has been a part of our tradition itself.
But during the time of Bhaktivinoda Thakur, it was that he faced a, he was born at a time when the Bengal Renaissance was taking place and he was a part of the Bhadraloka, the Bhadraloka, the elite, the educated elite of his times. And it’s just stunning that although he was born in Bengal and Bengali culture was steeped in the worship of Gauranatai. There are reports of people, of Britishers who came there and they say that practically in every house in Bengal, there were images and chants of Gauranatai.
But even at that time, he had to spend over a decade, more than a decade to find a copy of Chaitanya Charitamruta to study. And then he appreciated Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. So again, what happened at that time was that the priests, they were too caught in ritualistic worship and they, the Bhadraloka couldn’t relate with them at all.
And so those who were educated in English, so it happened that for many of the scholars, it happened that when the British came to India, they wanted to critique Hinduism so that they could convert people to Christianity. And these critiques were in English and either they were the ritual priests who were not at all philosophical and they were not interested in defending the tradition also. They were interested only in money.
And there were great scholars, but those scholars would only speak and teach in Sanskrit. And they considered anything written in what they condemned as the Mleccha Bhasha English, language of the Mlecchas, they said unworthy of discussion. So what happened was they were having their own polemical discussions in Sanskrit, but that was irrelevant for most people.
So when Bhaktivinoda Thakur read Chaitanya Charitamruta and then he presented the message of Lord Chaitanya and the message of Bhakti to the Bhadraloka, that’s how, although in some ways he was an outsider, he was not born in the Gaudiya tradition. He was in some ways an outsider to the Gaudiya or at least he was not an official authority in the Gaudiya tradition. But within a short while, he became the prominent spokesperson of the Gaudiya tradition and he brought respectability to the tradition.
That was because he was, so it was because he was relevant. So he established a connection with the tradition, but he had a connection with the contemporary audience and that’s how he was able to reach out. So any thoughts on this? I think this week we are commemorating the disappearance anniversary of Srila Bhakti Kirtha Swami Maharaj.
So one of my fondest memories was I was fortunate to once go to his room and discuss something. It was just about 15-20 minutes and out of his own volition, he told that these are the two things which I keep in my mind whenever I devise a programme or whenever I think about how do we present the subject matter. So he said, I merit upon, I merit deeply upon these two things.
Number one, say if my audience is the startup CEOs of Silicon Valley and I’m going to concentrate only on this audience. So then my understanding of how to present our subject matter is compartmentalised under these two headings. What is their view of ISKCON or Gaudiya, Vaishnav theology or the Hare Krishna movement or Vaishnavism? How do they see us? What particular, what are the ways in which they see us? Like somebody could see us as a cult, somebody could see us as too powerful or as Entropaths times CIA agents or these people are only after money or they are just interested in selling a book or they are a brainwashed cult, whatever it could be.
So first is what is the way in which they see us? Second is what are their specific roadblocks which prevent them from approaching us? So when I see that connection with I walk in somebody’s shoes. So when I see a particular group of people, like you mentioned startup CEOs, it could be they are highly successful, they may or may not be college graduates, some of them are high school dropouts, but they are very confident about their material success. And they may feel I don’t need spirituality or I don’t need, I am happy and good enough.
That could come in the first part. What is the second thing? What prevents them? That they may be after my money, they may be cheating me or could be so many things. So, and he said, use this for anything.
You could be targeting the rickshaw-vallas of Mayapur. Again, two things, how do they see us and what prevents them from coming to us? It could be interfaith, how they see us, what prevents them. So I found that there is so much of wisdom in this.
These two things can be used for practically any approach, anytime. That’s wonderful. In some ways, it’s like Gyanendriyas and Karmendriyas.
How we pursue something, that’s the role of the Gyanendriyas. And how we act in that within interaction, that is the Karmendriyas. So, yeah, now, in some ways, Prabhupada also, if you see, if you read the Lila Amrit, in the first few months, Prabhupada spent quite a bit of time with Sally Agarwal and Gopal Agarwal.
And he was basically understanding how the people function in the West. And he wrote that Swamiji was interested in everything, how the vacuum cleaner worked and how this worked, that worked. So Prabhupada was interested in learning.
And I was talking with Mukunda Maharaj when I was in the farm near Brisbane. So he said that when Prabhupada came to America, it was almost like Prabhupada, we handed ourselves spiritually to Prabhupada and Prabhupada handed himself practically to us. That means, I suggested to Prabhupada, Prabhupada go to San Francisco.
Let’s go to San Francisco and there’ll be a lot of preaching over there. And then somebody would have suggested, let’s go here, let’s go there. So most of the initiatives for outreach in America, it was the devotees themselves suggested it to Prabhupada.
So, of course, Prabhupada, for example, had a desire to go to different, make sure that the spiritual conscience went to different countries and he’s very strongly wanted devotees to go to London. So there are, of course, those, but to some extent it was that the same point that they knew where people would be interested. So Prabhupada went along with them.
So they knew where it would be accessible, where it would be, where there would be interest, there would not be interest. So Prabhupada, we often see Prabhupada as a teacher and he’s, of course, great for transcendental teacher, but Prabhupada is also about how to share. He wanted to learn and he was open to suggestions from people about that.
I’d just like to add that those who joined Prabhupada, they could appreciate how he would rely on their information. That is, somebody would say, Prabhupada, this would be a good idea, better than this. And Prabhupada would never say that, don’t you dare teach your spiritual master.
Never he has said anything like that. Case in point is the Avalon ballroom programme where Prabhupada went. They got something like maybe 150-200 dollars, which was a big help towards the monthly rent.
So they were happy with that. And in the car, Prabhupada remarked that this is no place for a brahmachari. So there are various aspects.
He knew that brahmachari is going there with pre-mingling and narcotics being taken, drugs being taken. So that was certainly not our programme. But the fact is that he did take the risk.
He went there and he made them chant Hare Krishna and that too was at the behest of… He didn’t claim to be an authority on western preaching just because he is a pure devotee. Whenever somebody would say something, Prabhupada would appreciate the fact that there is somebody using his own volition, using his intelligence or her intelligence and telling me to do something. And he always appreciated that.
So in this kind of thing, there are always cases where something may work, something may not work. The whole 70s practically till Prabhupada’s disappearance was the decade of the boom in book distribution. We don’t find Prabhupada giving a proper blueprint that 1, 2, 3, 4, this is how you do it.
He just said tax your brains. So one important aspect of realisation is as ISKCON grows from 50 to the next 50 years to its centenary and beyond, 300 years from now or 3,000 years from now because we are here for 10,000 years, there will be preachers who will be hearing, reading of these stories and at the same time depending on their brain substance to find out, in Prabhupada’s words, novel means of injecting Krishna consciousness in society. So this process will continue.
And as I think I mentioned, one of my role models here is Narada Muni who never seems to have repeated a trick in preaching. Whether it is Prahlad, Dhruva, the snake, Bhrigali, Prachin Bharishad or Ratnakar, the dacoit who became Valmiki. Everybody is a unique case but the person giving them the message is the same.
So how much is this thing important of not polluting the conclusion. I think this statement, I think I read in one small pamphlet produced by Bhakti Rakshak Siddhar Maharaj, Prabhupada’s godbrother and friend. So he was fond of saying that whatever you are doing, if it is an innovative thing, if it is a new thing, make sure it doesn’t pollute the conclusion.
So if the conclusion is Krishna eka sharanam, the only personality whom we surrender in the utmost, the ultimate sense is Krishna, if that is not vishiyated, that is not polluted, then at least it is a good beginning. This is amazing. I remember you mentioned this example.
I would like to explore Narada Muni’s example more. And it is significant that Prabhupada makes this statement about realisation in the chapter, in the Bhagavatam which is called the appearance of Narada Muni. So that’s also striking.
So you could say that there is one purpose for Narada Muni, but the means by which he’s achieving that purpose, it’s different. And as you say, he doesn’t repeat it at all. And so, for example, if we consider, say with Valmiki, he speaks in his language.
Why don’t we kill him fully? So in some ways you could say that he speaks the unexpected. So many times people have a stereotype of how a spiritual teacher will be. And as long as the teacher behaves within the spirit stereotype, then it’s easy to neglect that person for those who want to neglect.
But he just breaks the stereotype. If you want to kill the animal, why don’t you kill them full? He’s probably expecting a lecture on don’t, you shouldn’t kill animals. So that is very, so I would say that that particular example is a breaking out of stereotypes, isn’t it? So Prabhupada also in many ways, when he talked about, I would say he did that with respect to hippies when they wanted to take drugs.
And rather than telling them, don’t take drugs, he said that, you know, drugs will take you high, but Krishna consciousness will take you high forever, stay high forever. So he didn’t, he didn’t deny the principle of going high, but he offered a better way of going high. Also telling them that Vaikuntha is a place where there is no draft board.
Because the Vietnam draft board made them realise that they didn’t want to go there. It’s like, you know, draft board. And he also said that it’s like Vaikuntha is like an ocean of LSD.
So, so let’s look at this. Maybe if, unless you have something else, let’s explore. I would like just to share some, we’ll come to Naramani.
Parrot like repetition. So the parrot is praised in the case of Shukadeva Goswami. Shuka being a parrot.
And a fruit is something like a mango, but it is a sweet fruit. If that fruit is touched by the beaks of a parrot, it becomes even sweeter. This is a Sanskrit poetry analogy, alankar, an ornament.
And so here we see that Shukadeva Goswami, I mean, why would Vyasadev who taught Shukadeva Goswami, Naramani who is a student of Vyasadev, why would they also eagerly hear for seven days, seven nights Bhagavatam? Practically they are living Bhagavatam, they know everything. So there is an element of freshness in someone’s presentation. And that is the added, not just a nuance, it is not, it may not be a subtle thing.
It could be like a Krishna Katha coming from an authority could be a forceful realisation. It is not just that somebody, like to give a very mundane example, somebody has sung some song or some ghazals or kavali or whatever, and that is sung by one master and somebody else also sings it. So they kind of remind people, oh that was such a good time, managed to hear it from this particular person.
But this rendition of this person also is good. Here we have Shukadeva Goswami giving his own personal realisations. So here the parrot analogy is glorified.
And then we find Prabhupada condemning that realisation doesn’t mean mere parrot-like repetition. You cannot say that because Prabhupada said fools and rascals, therefore I am also saying fools and rascals. Things might backfire.
Today’s, like this is a serious point. Today we have atheists who are very subtle, very elegant in their presentation. And some theistic, theological or religious preachers, they come as hell, fire and brimstone kind of preachers.
And then people are thinking that how come these religious people are so angry? And how come these so-called atheists, they look so calm and composed. So although this is an outer change and this could be like a marketing tactic, but here parrot-like repetition is discouraged. So would you like to highlight on this too? Like once in one sense a parrot is brave and then parrot-like repetition is actually discouraged.
Yeah. Now let’s consider Shukadeva Goswami’s example himself. Now Shukadeva Goswami, from what we see, he also quotes, I think there is a passage when Vidura is saying, yatha shruti yatha mati, as I have heard and as I have understood.
Accordingly I am explaining it. The Maitreya says this to Vidura. So when Shukadeva Goswami is explaining, now he is also taking various stories from different times, different ages and he is presenting them in a way that is relevant for Parikshit Maharaj.
So I think there were two words, like Prabhupada said, the original purpose should be maintained. And what you talked about from Sridhar Maharaj was the conclusion should not be polluted. So if we consider where parrot-like repetition is to be accepted is in the sense that the essential conclusion is to be maintained.
So, but within that, how to present that conclusion? So the idea is that, okay, this is where we need to go. Like say Krishna eka sharanam. Now exactly, I might push from here for you to go there.
But the audience for them from here to there, there is a big mountain. So they can, if I keep pushing them from here, they cannot go from here. So maybe I have to push them this way and then create, find a path from some other side.
So one person might be able to go from this side, but another person might need some other place to go. So the idea is that truth needs to be spoken in a way that people are attracted to the truth. And not alienated from the truth.
Sometimes we have the idea just speak the truth. But if you consider the austerity of speech that Krishna talks about in the Bhagavad Gita, the first thing he says is Anudvigakaram Vakyam, that speak in a way that does not agitate people’s minds. So parrot-like repetition, so in a positive sense, it means that the purpose should be fulfilled.
But in the negative sense, what it means is that we can’t just repeat the same lines and expect that that will serve the purpose. In fact, I think there’s a whole anecdote of Prabhupada where some devotees who are very good book distributors, they told that, they said that Prabhupada, we have learned these lines. If you speak these lines, then people take a lot of books.
So we are thinking of going to temples, various temples and teaching people these lines. And Prabhupada became very great when he said that Krishna consciousness is voluntary, spontaneous and individual. He says when a soul is inspired to serve Krishna, then service is performed.
So he says don’t tell people what to speak, inspire them to serve Krishna and then Krishna will guide them what to speak. So there are many places where Prabhupada, especially I saw this in Tamas Krishna Maharaj’s book Servant of the Servant, where he says that there are many places Prabhupada appreciates Tamas Krishna Maharaj’s resourcefulness in creating new initiatives for outreach. He says because you’re so sincere, so Krishna is guiding you from within.
So in that sense, we want people, we want to take people to Krishna. We want to bring people to Krishna. That’s our purpose.
But exactly how we go about doing that, there could be a lot of variability or flexibility in that so that the audience is appropriately reached. Any thoughts on this? Okay. So, you know, how Prabhupada himself was very resourceful.
For example, in Prabhupada says in the I think 7th canto, Jeevahaiktho achyutvikarsithi maa vitrupta, where Prahlad is saying that my tongue is attracted to one thing and my eyes are attracted to another thing and my ears are attracted to another thing. And there Prabhupada says the ears are attracted to radio songs. So radio now, there is no radio at the time of Dhruva, of the time of Prahlad.
But Prabhupada is making it relevant. So in that sense, Prabhupada is not simply parroting it. Prabhupada is actually assimilating and presenting it in the language that people can relate with.
So to some extent, now, what would not be parrot-like repetition is that we don’t just think that these are the lines I have to repeat. We understand the essential mood, the essential mission, and then we try to present that. So that’s one aspect is understanding what is the essential purpose.
The purpose is not just to repeat the exact word like some inflammatory word like fools and rascals or whatever. But the purpose is to attract people to Krishna. And the second story of a physician, a veterinary physician who sees a donkey who has a swollen neck and takes a stick and beats on the neck.
And the owner comes and says that, thank you because yesterday you gave that, you beat my donkey, but the donkey is recovered now. And then the apprentice, he thinks that this is all that there is to know. That whenever there is a problem, you just beat the animal.
And then comes the report that your apprentice has now killed so many people in the area. So he calls his apprentice and said, why are you doing that? He said, because I saw you doing that. He said, what did you see me doing? He said, this person came with a sick donkey and I saw you beat the donkey.
He said, is that all? What else did you see? He said, no, I just saw that you went there, you gave a sound beating and next day the person came and thanked you. He said, fool, because I saw pieces of watermelon, I could surmise that the donkey must have ate them and they have got stuck in his throat. Therefore, I bet on his neck.
It doesn’t mean that any animal having any other problem, you just beat them and they become ill and healthy. So again, this is a very humorous story. But in terms of its implications, it can be it’s it can be catastrophic in terms of how we can actually ruin people’s spiritual lives.
Yesterday I was talking with one devotee and he made this point that in our outreach, we only hear about the successful sales stories. Say, for example, how somebody got a book and then they became a devotee or how somebody they heard something spoken strongly. And still that shook that jolted them and then they came to Krishna.
But there are so many there could be lots of people who get alienated and they don’t come to us. So we don’t even know about them to a large extent. And I would say that to say on places like Quora, that sometimes there are negative state.
There are some people who are right about negative experiences about our movement, that those are places where rather than simply thinking that, you know, these people are criticising us. We need to see that this is that we have done something wrong. And we need to we need to amend that.
So self-criticism is actually the capacity for self-criticism is is a sign of maturity. Yeah. Just want to add here that sometimes people feel that there are seven and a half billion people.
And what if some seven people get angry with my way of preaching or my way of outreach or seven hundred or seven thousand or even seven million? Seven million also is like this one thousand part of the population today. The point is not that it’s like a habit which won’t stop on its own and it may grow. Of course, Prabhupada said that if somebody is unfortunate to not pick up the process, or they give them a book and they may throw it in the garbage or they may take home and not read it.
So that’s their luck. There is also a story of Harishchari Prabhu writing in his own diary that he said something to someone, a visitor to Krishnamataram temple and Rupa seeing the sensitivity of the matter, he told him to go and find him and give his apologies. Now he said, how do I find someone in the whole of Vrindavan town or going to Mathura? So what had happened? This guest had come to the temple.
The temple was just inaugurated or something like that. And due to the behaviour of a devotee, he got offended. And Prabhupada came to know and that devotee, Harishchari Prabhu himself or some other devotee, took it like, well, that’s his problem if he doesn’t like what I said or something like that.
Prabhupada said, no, find him and offer your tender your apologies. So there are two ways in which we can see if we want to become sensitive, like this is now human psychology. If you go to someone, say a scorned creature, and they just give their realisation.
And that means what we discussed just like repetition. They may not take it. The recipient may not like it.
This could become a habit. A person can go on doing the same thing for many, many years. And many would not even kind of correct him or tell him that you are alienating people because of your presentation.
Everything else is nice. But your presentation is kind of alienating people. And then we have like the whole series of things like, why are we not relevant to people today? Or why are we having dysfunctional individuals who feel that they are presenting things which were just, they are just repeating what was repeated before.
Prabhupada also said, I do as I did. All of you should do as I did. But that along with Prabhupada’s daredevilry and all his calling people fool and rascals and whatever, there are also other sides where he is ultra sensitive.
So if at all we have to follow Prabhupada, then we have to also follow Prabhupada who is showing the sensitivity. Yes. I just qualify that a little bit that Prabhupada was definitely hard at times and he spoke strongly.
Now, the point is that we may also speak strongly, but there are two distinct things. One is that it is not that only the confrontational following. We cannot say that the confrontational Prabhupada is the real Prabhupada.
That there is a confrontational Prabhupada and there is also the, we could say the non-confrontational Prabhupada. And more than confrontational non-confrontational, Prabhupada was more concerned about the purpose, the purpose of getting people to Krishna and whichever way they came to Krishna. So if because of confrontation, people, when people were going away, then I don’t think that’s what that that’s what Prabhupada came for.
That was not Prabhupada’s purpose. So now. OK, I think.
We’ve discussed elaborately for in from our traditions perspective, for example, how Prabhupada was concerned about the receptivity of the message or about that, about how the message was received. And so that make sure that was received properly. So how important do you think is it for devotees of those who are trying to do outreach to actually spend time in understanding the contemporary culture, the contemporary mindset, the needs, interests, concerns of the audience? Yeah, this is a very good question.
And and I would like to add one more thing. How important is it and how do you go about doing it? How is it? How can actually become more alert or aware of the audience needs, interests, concerns? OK, I’ll share my thoughts and then you can also add yours. OK, just to cut it down to the bare bones, as they say, how much should we dance to the public tune? How much should the public want something? How much should we dance to the public’s tune? OK.
So so I will take the approach of not doing that first, where Prabhupada is telling the BKG editorial team that I want this magazine to present Krishna and do not do it so much as to cater to public taste, because in one sense, the public can demand anything and everything. And how long are you going to compromise? So there is a fear. And here is a straight dictate from Prabhupada that do not do something just because that is popular.
For example, people have suggested that why don’t you have crossword puzzles in BKG magazine? They have suggested why don’t you have recipes? It was there, Prabhupada didn’t have recipes. But after that, we had recipes in the BKG magazine. One person seriously suggested you start a matrimonial column and see how your subscription zooms up.
OK. Yeah, because that is a sociological thing, which is maybe it was important for him to get his son or daughter married. So as ISKCON grows and becomes a worldwide institution and we need to learn again, we need to learn from, say, multinational giants who are there in all corners of the globe.
How do they manage to keep their outlook global but focus local? Their outlook is global and their tactics and strategies are all different. And they keep their best people and they circulate them throughout the world and then they keep them. And so somebody who’s from South America has visited at least Asia and Europe and Africa and then is settled in South America because that’s his specialisation.
But his outlook has to be global. If he’s a top leader, if he’s a country head, his outlook has to be global. So this is a common sense kind of understanding.
There is nothing theological about it. So Prabhupada has warned us, don’t dance to the public’s tune too much, don’t cater to public taste too much, don’t pander to them. That’s a very heavy kind of word.
And then we have the counterbalance saying that, well, we have to understand where people are, what their background is, how difficult it is to make them come towards us. I have a small mental scenario in my own mind. I’m just sharing it with you.
It’s like a preaching outreach outpost is in a particular place. And then with their big loudspeakers, they encourage people to come. Come, we are serving free food.
Come, we are having a concert. Come, we are having literature. We are having class.
We are having whatever. And when people hear their message, people come. Now suddenly there is a natural shift and there is a small river now between the outpost and the villages.
So now people cannot come just because they want to come. They have to cross the river. So the question is, should the temple arrange for boats or not? If they look at their historical records, there is never a incident where they have purchased boats and they have plied the boats and taken people and brought them to the temple.
So there is no historical precedent. So those who are saying that we should just do as our previous Acharyas have done, for them, end of discussion. But there is another point that, that time there was no river.
Now because of nature’s shifts, there is a river and as such people are not interested or if they are interested, they are not financially resourceful. So it is the interest of preaching that we should have a series of or we have a fleet of boats. We go there, tell people to come and sit free of charge, whatever, and then it goes business as usual.
So sometimes your particular challenge may not have a historical precedent and at that time you have to take some bold decisions. It’s a beautiful example and again this river reminded me of another example which we had discussed earlier about I think Bhaktishanthi Thakur said that if somebody’s family has shifted. Yeah.
You want to repeat that example? Yeah, because I heard this, Mahatma Prabhu’s Gandhavats video where he said that Bhaktishanthi Thakur was telling someone that if you insist on taking a bath in the Ganga where you took bath a few months ago or weeks ago, today the Ganga has shifted and now there is just a river bed there. So to satisfy the condition, you can go there. But I need to take bath in this particular spot because this spot is considered holy, historical or whatever.
But in order to fulfil the condition of taking a bath, you need water over there and there is no water. So Ganga has not kind of been depleted or Ganga has not ended. The facility of taking bath in this particular spot is what has ended.
So when we make a distinction between that I am trying to follow as much as possible the parampara now things are such that there is no possibility of following the parampara. There is a letter where Prabhupada says airport Sankirtan has to go on no matter what. Airport Harinam Sankirtan has to go on.
So today at Mumbai airport about 3-4th of a kilometre away you have to show whether you have a boarding pass or not otherwise you are not allowed inside. So there is a question of distributing books or Kukki Prasadam or chanting at the airport. So because of terrorism, because of global economic, political changes and everything the prospects of going to a prominent airport are nil.
But that doesn’t mean that public chanting has to be stopped. So Prabhupada’s letters can be read as if you have to do chanting at the airport. Now they are not allowing you.
So there is no question of chanting now. Finished. Or you can use your intelligence and say that, Prabhupada is saying, chanting at a prominent public spot has to go on.
So now you try to understand with your intelligence which are the prominent public spots in your city, town, county whatever. Beautiful. In an earlier session we had discussed about the ladder of abstraction.
So we could apply that to Prabhupada. So at the bottom of the ladder of abstraction is airport Sankirtan. But the top of the ladder of abstraction could be that, you know, share Krishna Bhakti at important places or places where people congregate.
And then we might do it in public squares. We might have Rath Yatras. We might do various other things which are possible for us today.
So, yeah. So in some ways, as times change, we need to. So what you know, earlier you made a statement about we should we don’t we should want to dance to the people’s tunes, of course.
But we do have to dance to tunes that people understand. Isn’t it? We don’t we don’t want to follow people’s commands. But if people think that what we are doing is simply noise and they don’t appreciate it at all.
Then it’s going to be it has to be intelligible. That’s to be presented in a way that is at least intelligible and then it will become appreciable for audiences. So there is a in some ways, the living tradition is kept alive by it being relevant.
So it’s it’s like I talk about these two things, you know, connecting with the audience and connecting with the past. So if we if we don’t connect with the audience, the tradition soon becomes like a museum piece. Just artefact in the museum.
On the other hand, if you connect only with the contemporary and don’t connect with the tradition, then it becomes like just another part of the contemporary landscape. There’s nothing traditional left about it. So going back to that point about understanding the audience.
So how do we how do we as devotees who are trying to do outreach understand about our audience? One way could be that. What I found helpful is that after we give a class of your talk, spend time hearing from them. What did they like? What what what they appreciated? So I remember when we had gone on our first trip to offer these Western devotees to our Western Yogi seekers, we had taken them to Vrindavan.
There’s one session toward the end where we asked all of them for their experiences and their feedback, their realisations. And that was quite illuminating for us. So that could be one way.
And just hear from people to see what they appreciate, what they don’t appreciate. Any other things could be done? A simple trick, not a trick exactly, but common sense. Outside marketing experts say that the repeat customer is on the way of becoming a loyal customer.
So, OK, when somebody comes again and again and again, then you know for sure that at least your transmission of the message has struck a chord in that person’s heart. And these loyal people, they will be able to tell you in a lot more sympathetic, sympathetic way that why sometimes your message doesn’t make a connect. And if we listen to them, that is your more value.
So step one is you have already won the heart of someone. Now, that person also now has a stake, so to say, in Prabhupada’s mission. And he or she tells you that, Abu, I am a committed Hare Krishna.
But when we do things like this, many people don’t like it. So without someone telling you what exactly is wrong with your message, you already get the idea. And then now it’s up to you.
I saw a book title many, many years ago. It was called A Complaint is a Gift. And I like that language.
Beautiful. That when somebody complains about, oh, I went to this temple and I asked for this information and nobody gave me. Or I called and nobody responded.
Or I had some difficulty in understanding something from Prabhupada’s books. And nobody gave me a proper explanation. This is a complaint.
So you need not say that. You know how many books we have sold of this particular title? Sixty thousand. Not a single complaint.
Something’s wrong with you. You can say that statistically yours is the first complaint about this book. So your problem.
Now, there are very few people who will choose to become vocal about something. So this could be like the rice, one grain of rice in a rice pot, for example. Oh, this person is feeling that this is something which people don’t comprehend.
We better come up with some proper explanation. That’s all they want. So this is another way of getting feedback.
Yes. The complaint is a gift. It’s like a profound thought.
Sometimes you feel I’m getting too many gifts now. But yeah, we revisit our paragraph to see whether we are following that flowchart. Yes.
Yes. Let’s go visit once again. So personalisation does not mean that one should, out of vanity, attempt to show one’s own learning by trying to surpass the previous acharya.
So this we discussed that by doing something new, you are not taking credit for kind of reinventing something or you’re not a person who has created something new, especially Prabhupada’s word is vanity. He must have full confidence in the previous acharya. At the same time, he must realise the subject matter so nicely that he can present the matter for the particular circumstances in a suitable manner.
So this means that almost every generation they say things change. Sometimes within a generation, many, many changes. Material nature is called Jagat.
It’s always mutating. And then Prabhupada is saying that there is a stress on it by making it italicised. The original purpose of the text must be maintained that I share that thing that do not pollute the conclusion as long as that is kept intact.
No obscure meaning should be screwed out of it. It should be presented in an interesting manner for the understanding of the audience. This is called realisation.
So this we saw how Prabhupada using a very simple word in an interesting manner, how he preached to all the great souls. We saw how certainly it was interesting, but it was more like a customised way of presenting Krishna to them. In fact, one of my favourite thing is how Narada Muni actually discouraged Dhruva Maharaj from pursuing the path of yoga.
He said, this is just a child. Now, why would a guru actively discourage a disciple and that to a disciple like Dhruva Maharaj? But Narada Muni was just testing his mettle. And after that, he praises the Kshatriya spirit.
He said, my God, this Kshatriya is just a five-year-old boy and he’s so much adamant about achieving something. And he said, my boy, I’m very happy with your determined desire. Please do this and you will achieve your goal.
So, yeah, something like that. Yes. So this is called realisation.
So maybe I’ll try to summarise. We had a lot. I think we had a wealth of examples in today’s talks.
I don’t maybe I’ll skip out a few. You can add those. So we started by talking about basically three things connecting with the tradition.
So we assimilate the fundamental values, not just repeat the words, and then talk about we appreciate the needs, interests, concerns of the audience or appreciate what is the effect that our words are having on the audience and then speak appropriately so that the words have the desired effect of bringing people to Krishna. And in the first part, we talked about, it’s not just parrot-like repetition means. What is good about a parrot is that we do want to repeat, but what is the purpose of the repetition? It’s not just literal repetition, but it is the purpose that is to be served.
So I talked about two examples. One of Haigiri Prabhu and Krishna Maharaj coming to India. And those who knew did not speak.
Those who spoke did not know, as you put it aptly. And then Bhaktivinoda Thakur in Bhadraloka. So he couldn’t get a copy of Chetan Charitamruta.
And the priest didn’t speak philosophy and the scholars didn’t speak in English. So it was not relevant. And then you give two examples.
One was of the there are no newspapers in hell. And and then I think it’s a couple of several other examples. But one more example later on was of hitting the neck of the animal and the apprentice doing the same thing again and again.
So that was counterproductive. It was destructive. And then about Bhaktivedanta Maharaj’s two points, you mentioned that, you know, how do they see us and what stops them from coming to us? So the Gyanendriya and the Karmendriya.
And then two examples about a river that people if people are coming to a temple. But now there is a river in between the village and the temple. So should the temple arrange for a boat? At least you have to consider that.
And second is that if we are going to bathe in a river in Ganga, Ganga’s path has changed. So we have to consider whether we are actually reaching, whether the purpose is being served or not. And then we discussed also about how Prabhupada had from Harishori Prabhu’s book example that Prabhupada had a person who was offended by devotees behaviour that go and apologise to that person.
And then he talked about how Prabhupada also learned in the West. Prabhupada was a transcendental authority, but Prabhupada did not claim that because he was a pure devotee that he was authority on Western preaching. So the devotees gave themselves to Prabhupada spiritually and Prabhupada gave himself to the devotees practically, especially in terms of outreach in America.
And you mentioned Narada Muni had completely different strategy for each person in his outreach. And so the idea is one purpose, but appropriate process for fulfilling that purpose. And the best way to how we can learn about our audience is to hear from them.
Complaint is a gift. So a repeat customer is a law is on the way to becoming a loyal customer. And then if a customer is if somebody is giving us some negative feedback, we see that as a way we can improve.
So we need to hear what people are hearing and then we can speak appropriately. Any other point? Could you just briefly briefly summarise your three A’s? You made A’s that is. OK.
So assimilate foundational values of the tradition. That should be done by the preacher. Yeah, of course.
Yes. So all three A’s are for the preacher only. OK, OK.
So it’s like, say, if how do I put it? So this is the tradition and this is the contemporary landscape. So the the the teacher is at the intersection of the two. So that the with respect to the tradition is to assimilate the foundational values of the tradition.
So in Prabhupada’s terms, assimilate what is the purpose of the tradition. Then appreciate and then the second is appreciate the needs, interests, concerns of the audience. The tradition is here.
The audience is here. And then then third is appropriately present the tradition to the audience. So.
Is there any other word for present, which could also be starting from A? OK, there is a mental model which came in my mind just now. OK. Assimilation is the root, which is not visible.
OK. Needs, interests and concerns and being appreciative. Is it appreciate or what is the needs, interests, concerns? Yeah.
Either we appreciate them or at least analyse them, understand them. OK. That is the main trunk.
That is the main trunk. And then appropriate ways in which you present is the way in which the leaves, flowers and twigs are arranged. So trunk below that is the root.
And above that is the presentation of a tree. Just give it my mind. It’s a very good example.
Now, if I may just expand this example. That if you could say presentation is more like the leaves, leaves and flowers, but then the result is the fruit. So.
We want. Could we expand this example, say that sometimes the as long as the fruit is edible. The fruit is relishable.
So the exact colour of the colour of the leaves, exact colour of the branches, that’s not as important as making sure that the fruit comes. So, you know, this is a very good example of the tree because there is there is the whole idea of transplantation. In fact, what Prabhupada did was he transplanted the Bhakti culture from India to the West.
And transplanting is never simply a process of simply taking. It is not a process of simply taking a tree from here and putting it there and expecting it to grow. Just to appreciate Govinda Dasi that she successfully had Tulsi trees growing in the Western world.
Prabhupada appreciated this disciple with a purport saying that our heroine Govinda Dasi. We appreciate her efforts in having Shri Mataji Tulsi Maharani grow in the West. So from one point of view, it’s a very simple thing, but Prabhupada’s heart really appreciated her efforts.
So wonderful. I think so that I just repeat this, assimilation is the root and quite often how well somebody is assimilated. We may not be able to see the root, but then how steady the tree stays, how resilient it is in the storms.
That will show how good the roots are. So if the roots are flimsy, then the cyclones and hurricanes of this material world may actually topple the tree. Yes.
So we need to be strongly rooted in the tradition through our assimilation of the purpose of the tradition. At the same time, we don’t want just the roots to be there. We want also the tree to grow.
So for the trunk to grow, there has to be an understanding of the environment that is there and how the, how the tree will grow in that environment. So that that is understanding, appreciate or appreciating the needs, interests, concerns of the audience. And then the fruits, the outgrowth of the tree comes out.
Yes. So that’s a beautiful metaphor. Thank you very much for a wonderful discussion.
Krishna.