In outreach what needs to come first – knowledge and inspiration or facilities?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, what comes first? Knowledge and inspiration come first or facilities come first? I’d say it’s the preacher’s desire to share Krishna Bhakti which comes first.
And there have to be some people who want to receive it. So, generally facilities are second. So, without the… Like, as I said, in India, there are so many temples which are just empty.
Nothing is happening in those temples. Because there is a facility for coming closer to God. But then people are not interested.
Because nobody is giving knowledge, nobody is setting an example. Many of the priests in India are not just in India, I would say. It’s just all over the world.
My experience is more in India. Sometimes the priests are so materialistic that they are interested just in asking for money. Then people feel not inspired at all over there.
So, even in our movement also the experience is that if you have a big temple but you don’t have devotees, it becomes a problem. So, sometimes we may be ready to provide knowledge and inspiration. But then we have to test the pulse to see whether there are adequate interested people.
So, if there are interested people, then somehow the facility will emerge gradually. And Prabhupada was very pragmatic about the facilities. When Prabhupada wanted, he improvised 26th Second Avenue as a temple.
He said, just a room we can convert. What is a temple essentially? It’s a place where Krishna is glorified. But then when Prabhupada had some sponsors in India, they said, no, no, we want to build a proper temple with a spire and with proper deities and everything.
Prabhupada said, we can do that later. He said, no, no, that’s what they wanted to do. So, sometimes in creating big facilities, so much resources, so much time and energy goes, that we can’t actually move forward.
So, just working facility is also enough. Just have some facility, just basically work and move on. But generally, it’s always best to start with knowledge and inspiration.
At least some amount of receptivity must be there for people in knowledge and inspiration. Otherwise, say somebody at some particular place donates their place to us. You can come and build something over here.
You can start. But if there’s no people interested over there, that place cannot be of so much use. So, in that sense, facility is very important, but more of it’s the transmission of knowledge and inspiration and it’s the reception of knowledge and inspiration.
That’s what is important. So, any other questions? Shall we move on?