Part 3/4 Markine Bhagavad Dharma Series – Chaitanya Charan

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

Hare Krishna. Thank you for coming today morning after a busy yesterday. I believe you had a all of you had a program in the morning also at that evening procession.

So I think the Indian government, our economy has grown but somehow Indian government has not been able to create sufficient employment. I think with Laland Prabhu there is no problem on employment for anyone. He keeps everyone adequately abundantly employed.

He will be forgiven for asking forgiveness. So we have been discussing about how Shri Prabhupada is contemplating his mission and in yesterday's session, not yesterday's, Friday's session we discussed about how, why Prabhupada is saying that people are acknowledging the challenge, the difficulty, even the impossibility in giving Krishna consciousness to the audience that he is trying to reach out to. He does not use any single value judgmental word.

They are fallen, they are degraded, they are sinful. So we discussed the difference between say Prabhupada's personal vocabulary, personality and his purpose. So as followers we need to focus on the purpose of Shri Prabhupada and that purpose is to awaken the spiritual spark.

So the audience with which Prabhupada started, they were materially highly degraded. But Prabhupada saw that they had a spiritual spark and he focused on that. And we were discussing how when there is a difficult audience based on 7.15 in the Bhagavad Gita, different four categories of people who may not turn towards God.

So essentially if you can say what happens is, we put those four categories in a different way. I used, I talked about the spiritually unthinking, that is through the namam dushkrutinam mudha, they just don't think about spirituality at all. Naradhama, they are materially addicted.

Then there is the maya, apaharita jnana, they have intelligence but the intelligence comes to false conclusions. And asurambhavamashrita is those who are completely demoniac. So basically if the soul is here and Krishna is on top, these four mentalities run a spectrum.

The first is that they just don't have the consciousness to look upward. They just don't, they look materially only. Nobody has really been able to break through to them that there is more to life.

They only look at material things. Now this is the mudha. They just look at material things.

Some sense object would be here. The naradhama is slightly lower. It's not just that they look at material things, they are addicted to material things.

That means the material things bind them. So one is almost like more than ignorant they are just unaware. But here by their own actions they are so caught in material things like asha, paashi, shatair, baddha, they are bound.

Now again these people may not be anti-god but it's more like they have no time for God, no interest in God because other things have caught them so much. Now naradhama, that is naradhama. Now if you move to maya, apaharita jnana, it is they are themselves, it's like they are looking for, they are looking for alternatives to God but more not just at the level of desire, at an intellectual level.

So ultimately the whole material world is for souls seeking substitutes for God. But at one level there are people who have just forgotten God, don't know about him. The others who already think that XYZ is an alternative.

But this is more at the level of desires. Some desire has caught them. But here maya, apaharita jnana, you could also put it in a similar way only.

But here how it is, there is some object which has, some conception has caught them and now this is not so much a matter of desire but a matter of conceptions. That's from the mind come desires, from the intelligence comes conceptions. The conceptions can be misconceptions also.

So it is not that people with desires don't have conceptions and it's not that people with conceptions don't have desires. But when people are caught with some conceptions then it's that, that is the primary thing keeping them away from God. So there was an atheist who was reacting to Christianity and asked why don't you believe in God.

So he was basically, he said that how has your science, study of science affected your belief in God. He said science has revealed how grand the universe is. And as compared to the grandness of universe, the God of the Bible is so petty that such a grand universe, that God is not worth such a grand universe.

So the idea is one has come up with intellectual conceptions by which one substitutes God. That is mayaya apahrita jnana. And the asuram bhavamashruta is basically that person is like aggressively attacking God to try to destroy God.

So the other three are basically in one sense concerned about something other than God. But here it's like attacking God. The purpose of their life is, nobody can attack God.

Bhakta Saraswati Thakur would give the example that criticizing or condemning God, attacking God is like spitting at the sky. What happens? The spit comes back on your own face. But it's asuram bhavamashruta.

So the idea is, I don't even think about God. I desire something else much more. I have my own ideas of what I want to do.

I want to destroy God intellectually, not physically. So the idea is, these are ways, Vishwa says, these are dushkrtina. So this is 7.15. Now after this, in 7.16. So now among these people, how do we actually help them? It's quite difficult to help them.

Like yesterday we said that, that they explain that sometimes we just have to give people time. That through their time, through the passage of time, they learn through experience. So now generally, when a person turns towards God, that is the next verse.

That, let's recite the verse. Many of you, I'll just get it. So Krishna is talking about four categories over here.

I would like to simplify this into two broad categories. And then we'll put this. The world is in front of us and God is above us.

So most people, their vision is caught in the world. So when will their vision rise upwards? There are two reasons for it. One is, I am not good enough for the world.

That means in the past it was that, oh, I don't have enough food. I may not get harvest for my crops. Now it could be that I feel insecure.

I have a lot of stress. I am not good enough for the world. That's one way people may turn towards God.

And the other way somebody may turn towards God is, the world is not good enough for me. The world is not good enough for me. That means, this can be in an arrogant sense, but not exactly an arrogant sense.

It's that what the world promises, it doesn't live up to its promise. There needs to be something more beyond this world. So broadly, the fourth category, the Jnani falls in this category.

And Artho and Artharthi. Jnani is the person in knowledge. What is the knowledge over here? That there has to be something higher in life.

So Artho and Artharthi, basically, in our life, there are two things. There are, we have desires which we want to fulfill and there are problems or troubles we want to avoid. So Artho are people who are in trouble.

They feel, I can't deal with this trouble. I'm not good enough for facing this problem. Therefore, let me go to God.

So Artho, that is people who turn towards God. Artharthi is people who have desires that they are not able to fulfill. So generally, Shraddha talks about being equipoised in happiness and distress.

So if the trouble is unbearable, then they turn towards God. If the trouble feels unbearable, maybe God, you please help me. And if the desire feels unattainable, then they turn towards God.

Now, the Jijnasu can fall in either category. It depends on what is the nature of their Jijnasa. So Jijnasa is that maybe there is something more to life.

And Prabhupada uses the word Jijnasu in this context. He says that it is more like favourable curiosity. So Jijnasu can be, generally they would be also here only.

But OK, I want to know more about life. So I want some, maybe there are some more resources out there which can help me face life better. Jijnasu will mostly be here, but some of the Jijnasu can be here also.

So 70-80% of them would be here. Some people are just, they are inquisitive about many things. And then they are inquisitive about God also.

Some people will be specifically inquisitive about God. But the idea is these two broad modalities. Say, lot of people, in the Bible, for example, there is this phrase that, O father, thou art in heaven.

Hallowed be thy name. Give us our daily bread. So the idea was that God is like a cosmic supplier.

That in the past, when people were mostly in the agrarian community, for example, then if rains don't come, if there are no crops, there is no food. So the most immediate way people felt the need or the presence of some higher power was through rains, through crops, through nature. So now, as most people live relatively comfortably, not everybody, but say in the first world is quite developed, most people do not feel the need for bread.

There is no shortage of bread. They may feel the need for butter. So it's not that you have got bread and you are happy.

You always want something more. But the idea is that, oh, give me my daily bread. Now Christians may give some more theological explanation of bread means whatever sustains us and all that.

But literally if you look in the context, it's a straightforward prayer. So that prayer may not resonate with people today. Give us our daily bread.

So the idea is that now many people turn towards God not because they want outer food, but they want more of inner peace. So when I was starting Western Outreach in 2014-2015, one devotee from America had sent me an article from New York Times. This is how Christianity has rebranded God.

So basically there were, this particular author is a professor of religion or something like that, religious studies. So he had gone online or gone somewhere and in the top 50 churches in America, what were the typical topics of the sermons that were there in those top mega churches? So all of them were about the mind, about emotions, about relationships, about don't be fearful, don't be insecure, be forgiving, things like that. So he said that basically Christianity has rebranded God as a cosmic therapist.

As a cosmic therapist. So the idea of God as a cosmic supplier is no longer relevant in today's world. But it is not that God has become irrelevant for people.

It's just that what God provides. Now of course even the supplies are ultimately coming from God only. But we don't so immediately feel the need for it.

Because it's relatively easily available. But what is lacking is that when I say, oh I am not good enough for the world, it's more in today's world for inner insecurities or inner troubles. So from that perspective, here when Prabhupada is saying that ki bhave bhuja le tara bhuja se ye rasa, in one sense Krishna consciousness is far above just talking about the existence of God.

Far above we are talking about the need for God. It is talking about love of God. It is not about bringing God into our life.

It is more like we entering into God's life. We becoming a part of God's plan. So like Krishna descends to this world and Krishna plays his flute.

And what is Krishna's purpose? Krishna is inviting us all. Join me in my pastimes. So for most people, even pious people, their idea is I want to perform pastimes here, God you join me in my pastimes.

You help me in what I want to do. I want to do spectacular things. So basically we could say, be a part of my leela.

So this is my life and I want God to be a part of my life. And God to play a supportive role. No, I'll be the hero, but you be the support cast.

Now the idea is that mamaivamsho jeevaloke. That means there is God's life and then I become a part of God's life. So this is actually Krishna consciousness.

So it is in one sense a very lofty level of consciousness. So, now, of course, there is a progressive stage and that's why akamah sarvakamauva mokshakamau dharati. That whatever desires we have, we may come to Krishna.

So it's Krishna consciousness. That we want to become conscious of Krishna so much that we realize that I am already within Krishna. It is Krishna who is sustaining this world.

Krishna is this world ultimately in one sense. So from this perspective, when Prabhupada is talking, Prabhupada is contemplating, how will people understand all this? So ki bhave bhujale tara, bhuje sahi ras. How will they come to understand the taste of your love so deep, so grand? See, for most people, God's love is seen primarily in terms of this world.

That if things are going right for me, then God is good to me. God exists and God is kind and God is loving. And things are going wrong, then where is God? Why is God so cruel? Or at least why is God so indifferent? So then people move towards rejecting God or at least neglecting God.

So when we talk about Krishna consciousness, it is about focusing on a dimension completely beyond this world. So the idea is that rather than if we consider, let's say this world is a place of duality. Now in the duality, when we turn towards God, many people turn towards God so that the negative duality is not so bad and the positive duality becomes better.

Now ultimately for everyone the world is still a place of duality. That is going to be there. But eventually if we see, the focus of bhakti, especially serious bhakti is not so much what we get in the world, but what we get something beyond the world.

And that's why there are great saints who renounce everything in the world. We have the, what is, Tattvaturnam asesha mandala patim. It is described by the Goswamis that they gave up everything.

They were big ministers and Tattvaturnam asesha mandala patim. So they gave it. It is a thing as straw.

They are great saints for whom the world with everything is not good enough. I need something more. So what happened for in Krishna consciousness, this is a significant switch and I'll talk about that.

See there are these two different demographics. The world is, I am not good enough for the world and the world is not good enough for me. And they are very different and it's very difficult to cater to both of them simultaneously.

Because the first, I am not good enough for the world. For them what happens? That they want to succeed in the world and they are struggling with that and for that they come to God. And the second is, they just have no interest in the world.

They just want to know something beyond. So what happened was, with respect to Prabhupada, let's look at his prayer now with this understanding. So you can repeat after me if you like.

My dear Lord, lift me from material infatuation to spiritual dedication. Yes, who would like to read the paragraph? My dear Lord, Srila Prabhupada highlights the vast gap between the materially infatuated and the spiritually dedicated. Those who are constantly seeking, seeking, seeking and dreaming of sensual pleasure often have no inner space left to perceive spiritual joy.

Yes, so bhogaishvaya pasaktanam, that was basically. Consciousness completely captivated. Then what happens? There is no inner space for God in their life.

These are the materially infatuated people. So from that, from the materially infatuated to take somebody to the level of the spiritually dedicated. It's a huge journey.

The vast gulf is there between. So how will people relish the taste of spiritual happiness? Who would like to read here? Yes, namo akinchana-vittaya. The saints are, for their property, Krishna is the property of the impoverished.

So now what happens? Sense pleasures are gross. They are gross in form. It's visible directly and it's for feel.

It's very sensory. That's the meaning of sense pleasure. But most of the sense pleasures, it's about very aggressive, very intrusive.

Many of the billboards, they want to catch the attention. So it's as blatant, as explicit, as will be legally allowed. That's what is there.

So now when the, see somebody has been eating a very spicy food. Then what happens is there are even natural food has its taste. Say, if you take some salads, then even the raw salads, if you take, there are different varieties of spinach, there are different varieties of lettuce and even vegetables have their own taste.

Even fruits also have their own taste. But what happens is these tastes are subtle. And for many people, without a lot of spice, without a lot of addition, the tongue has got conditioned to eating, to tasting, then subtle taste, there is no taste only.

It's so bland it feels. So now, like that, what happens? When the mind is caught in gross pleasures, say somebody is very grown up hearing say rock and roll, loud music, and they come to some Shastriya Sangeet. Nothing seems to be happening.

Something should be shaking, something should be banging. So, like that, spiritual, sensual pleasures are especially very gross. And Prabhupada is saying, how will they? Ki bhave bhujale tara, bhuje se hi rasa.

Go ahead. Who would like to read? In stark contrast, spiritual pleasures are subtle and indivisible to the materially conditioned eye. During this tumultuous journey to America, while still recovering from two heart attacks, Srila Prabhupada was nourished by eating your pastries.

The tender ways you love your devotees and the countless ways they love you are nearly impossible to grasp without saintly association. Yes. So, the reciprocation with the Lord and the devotees, some of them, like say Krishna protecting Draupadi, that is something which we can also sense at our level.

But if we look at some of the exchanges between great saints and the Lord, they are so otherworldly and for a materialistic person, you know, what is it? What happened over here? It doesn't make any sense at all. So, Prabhupada himself, Prabhupada says in his diary that the nectarine of Chaitanya Charita Amrut was what sustained my life. So, this is what this bodhayantaha parasparam kathayantasya mam nityam tu shanti cha ramananti cha.

This hearing about the Lord and appreciating His glories, what a loving exchange between the Lord and the devotee. This is what nourishes a devotee. So, Prabhupada is thinking this is what ultimately I have to convey to people.

How are they ever going to understand this? Who would like to read the last paragraph? O merciful Lord, through the words and lives of saints such as Srila Prabhupada, their inaccessible taste of devotion becomes not just accessible but irresistible. Bless me, O Lord, to taste that devotion myself and let its sweetness flow through me to awaken others. Yes.

So, something becomes accessible initially by the association of saints. But then, accessible is okay. I can figure out what it is.

I want, it's reachable for me. But it doesn't become accessible. Yadrasamrutraptasya nanyatrasyadrati kochit.

Eventually, once we start hearing the Bhagavatam, we get such taste that no other taste matters after that. So, for somebody whom it is incomprehensible to make it irresistible for them. That is a huge journey.

So, Prabhupada is contemplating, how will I take people on this journey? So, now this, based on this broadly, how do we explain Krishna Consciousness to people? So, as I said, talk about these two different categories of people for whom I am not good enough for the world and the world is not good enough for me. So, when Prabhupada went to America, he had his full-time disciples, his western disciples, they became full-time. And most of these people were from the second category.

The world is not good enough for me. Now, they had got into drugs because for them drugs was the idea you would go to a higher level of reality. And then many of them, once they got into drugs, they got caught in drugs and they became addicted.

That's why the counterculture, not only Prabhupada's disciples, but the people of the counterculture, that's why the counterculture, Prabhupada, it was arranged by Krishna, Prabhupada went at least from that sociocultural perspective at the exact time. So, by 1970s, the counterculture had become mostly less of, very less of spiritual seekers and more of drug addicts. So, George Harrison himself, initially in 1964, 65, 66, he had written, he had spoken about how wonderful it is that the youth is awakening and he had spoken in glowing terms about the Haight-Ashbury area in LA and then the Bowery in New York, not in LA, in San Francisco, that he had basically said that this is how youth are awakening to something higher.

But in 68, 69, 70, in that period, when he actually came to that area for the first time, and he saw it is filled with people who were just completely consumed in drugs. And then there was no, very little spirituality left. So, around 1970s, Prabhupada started writing letters saying, you know, we should not be identified with the hippies.

That we should, our movement should not be identified with the hippie movement. So, Prabhupada, because that particular demographic, which is a very rich demographic at a particular time, that started itself drying up and it started being, it was already negatively seen, but it was seen much much more negatively in the mainstream cultural mind. Now, the fallout of that was in India, it was, there were movies like Dhamma Ro Dhamma and others where devotees were seen as drug addicts.

But the point is, the western disciples were, the world is not good enough for me. So, basically you could say that it is, it is almost like world rejection. Now, world rejection is what the people were doing and after you reject the world, what do you do? Is there something more in life? Now, when Prabhupada came back to India, it was not that suddenly India had changed.

See, when Prabhupada came back to India, he was in one sense extraordinarily successful and another way he was very disappointingly not successful. What was it? Prabhupada's strategy of bringing western people back to India was sensationally eyeball-popping for people. That it is, there many other gurus had gone to the west before Prabhupada's time.

They also had got some applause and some following. But none of them had focused on a cultural change. So, what caught people's eye in India was western people wearing loti kurta and saris.

And now when people, when Prabhupada, when people came back, what happened was, when Prabhupada came back, people came to him. But they were appreciating Prabhupada more out of feeling of cultural national pride. And they saw Swamiji as a symbol of how great our India is.

That the foreigners, they had ruled us, but now they are adopting our culture. So, for them it was less of, their attraction was more to what Prabhupada represented than who Prabhupada was. Specifically as a spiritual leader.

So, Prabhupada was strategic. Prabhupada was very practical also. He said, okay, this is how people are getting attracted.

So, in one sense, if you read his letters in 1966, 67, 68, letters or for that matter his activities, there is practically no mention of building temples. But from 1970 when he started focusing on India, it was all about building temples. Because what happened was that, now many reasons, we don't know the exact, what was going on in Prabhupada's heart, but it was a drastic shift in focus.

So, I would say two reasons for it. It was that for Indian leaders, for Indian people, Swamiji was extraordinary and his western followers, they were again more symbols of cultural curiosity and cultural superiority. They didn't see these western followers as potential spiritual teachers for them.

They are like specimens of how great our culture is. Not that you are going to teach us what our culture is. Isn't it? So, at that time, Prabhupada wanted to, in one sense, create an infrastructure which would nourish his western disciples when they came to India and which would show Indians that there is real authentic spirituality over here.

And of course, it would engage Indians because building temples is a very pious activity and many Indians, many Hindus especially, they want to contribute to that. So, Prabhupada focused on that in India. So, but we could say the followers of Prabhupada in India, they were definitely not in the category of world rejection.

He had life members. Now, life members, most of them were financially well-to-do people, socially well-established. Many of them were also spiritually well-established.

They had their own guru from their family history or whatever. But they appreciated Prabhupada. So, this was a huge disconnect between these two groups of people.

Now, these groups of people were not exactly at, I am not good enough for the world also. But they were not at the world is not good enough for me. That's why I said when you have categories, not everything fits in those categories.

But it's good to start with those categories and then we can see how things work out. So, for them, what was that? Yeah, life has many good parts. Spirituality is also a good part.

It's an important part and they wanted it to be a part, not the whole. So, Prabhupada accommodated them. So, now today in ISKCON, we have most devotees are congregation devotees.

So, western disciples were, they were full-time basically. They were in the temple. I am using full-time in the sense that they were in the temple.

The most congregation devotees, they have their jobs, they have their careers, they are somewhere in between. So, now, broadly speaking, apart from the world rejection model, there are two other models. Let's put it this way.

That model or approach, one is that is of complementation. Complementation is that material life is important but is not sufficient. Spiritual life is also important.

So, we could say that most of the life members, they fell somewhere in this category only. That material life is important but spiritual life is also important. And beyond that, the third category is improvement.

Improvement is where your spiritual life will improve your material life. Now, how is that? You do some puja, you give some donation, your business will flourish by that. That is karmakandi version of improvement.

Now, what is today, like I started by talking about cosmic supplier and cosmic therapist. Most people, there are significant number of say pious people who may donate to God and who may give some cause, hoping for material prosperity. But most people who turn towards God today and turn towards spiritual practices, not most, a significant number of educated people, educated, well-established professional people, they turn towards God, not because they think that okay by worshipping God my material prosperity will increase.

It is more that in the self-help genre there is a devotional self-help kind of thing. So that I turn towards God so that I will be able to manage my emotions better, so that I can perform better, so that I can succeed in my life. So, one day what do you call this? Psychological karmakanda.

So, that is at the level of I want material gains only but it is not so much at a physical level, at a psychological level. So, broadly speaking, one of the challenges in our preaching today is that who are we catering to? Are we catering to the rejection audience? Are we catering to the complimentation audience? Are we catering to the improvement audience? So, conventionally ISKCON focused only on the rejection audience, traditionally. And that's why in the early years, in America also, ISKCON was not very successful attracting Indians in America.

In 1980-85, Dr. Arundhath Swarup writes in one article, he said that we noticed that Indians would come regularly to the temples. And initially we preached to them. ISKCON started an opening centre, he was talking about his experience in Philadelphia but other places also.

We would preach to them but within a short while we recognized that these are not going to become devotees. Now at that time becoming devotee meant moving into the temple. That was the idea of becoming a devotee.

And Indians had gone there for greener pastures, for greater economic success and they had no interest in renouncing the world. That's why from the devotee's perspective he said, these are not going to become devotees. But they would come week after week after week and they would give some donations, they would support the temple.

But then what happened was, he used this curious paradox that if anybody had asked these Indians on the streets that which religious group do you belong to, which spiritual group do you belong to, they would have said the Hare Krishnas. But if somebody had asked us, are they the Hare Krishnas? No, they are not Hare Krishnas. So it was only when in 1980s basically our movement ran into a lot of financial trouble.

Many reasons but America was much more open to book distribution and then because of various things, because of anti-cult fears, because of our own devotees sometimes misusing Prabhupada's statement about by hook or crook, misusing that statement and distributing books by less than ethical ways. So basically in America what happens is somebody is not able to keep a job. Then the government provides some support for them.

Maybe they are drug addicts, they are recovering from drug addiction. The government provides them money for every 15 days or every one month at a social welfare office they will get money. They will get money and then just outside the social welfare office nearby there are drug peddlers.

So they get the money and they take drugs. Now after people take drugs they have gone high. They are not having any sense.

So what happened? Some devotees went there to distribute books. And they gave a book, see in India normally although there is no price, there is a particular price we quote for the book. In the West it is that you give whatever donation you want.

So what happened? There was one person high on drugs and a devotee gave him a book and he gave 100 dollars for that book. Now 100 dollars was supposed to sustain him for the next 15 days. And the devotee thought hey we got such a good amount.

We got so much Lakshmi for Krishna. And all the devotees in many parts of America they start going around the social welfare offices to distribute books over there. So they would actually wait when the person comes out, when does the person go to a drug peddler, when does the person take drugs and then you go and give the books.

And then now we could say the devotees were well intentioned. But what happened? Many of these people who, devotees thought oh we are getting so much Lakshmi for Krishna. But what happened many of these people, they died of starvation afterwards.

Because they had no money and especially if you take drugs and don't take food, the overdose effect can be much faster. Then the government started doing investigation. What happened? Why are these people dying so much suddenly? And then it came out that these Hare Krishnas are taking all their money.

Now we were not stealing the money, they were themselves giving up. But the idea is that when they are high on drugs, they are mentally a bit incapacitated. So this was one reason, major reason that basically sometimes good intentions can lead to terrible consequences.

So after that the backlash against book distribution was so much that many places book distribution became almost impossible. And book distribution was the main source of money for the temples. And in many ways in 1980s ISKCON could have shut down at that time.

But it did not shut down because at that time Indians came forward. And Indians started contributing, Indians started donating and ISKCON started valuing the Indians. Because as long as we had other sources of income, we didn't value them so much.

They are not devotees, they are not going to become devotees. Sorry to put it so bluntly. There is a very European thinker, he said that when it comes to money, everyone belongs to the same religion.

So of course there is Artha and Artha should be used for Parmartha. But Artha is required in this world. So anyway what happened? That's the time ISKCON started valuing Indians.

And then slowly the ethos, okay these Indians, they are never going to move into the temple. But still they are serious devotees. They want to be devotees.

So then how do we redefine being a devotee in one sense? Because being a devotee was moving into the temple. If you are not moving into the temple, you are a second class devotee, third class devotee, like that. Just some kind of devotee might be there, but not a serious devotee.

So that's when the whole approach of congregation preaching started. So it started in America and slowly started in India. So it is in, if you see the history of ISKCON, it was late 1980s that ISKCON actually started growing in India.

Whether it was Bengal, whether it was here, whether it was Mumbai, whether it was Delhi, the main places where we started growing. So basically slowly ISKCON has started moving towards the complementation approach. Not the rejection, but the complementation approach.

That yes, your material life is important. And, but your spiritual life is also important. Now, if you see most of the, not all again I would say, most of the devotees who were old time, 1970s, 1980s, they, if you see their talks, there will always be an underlying thread of rejection of the world, condemnation of the world.

Say for example, one thing which is constantly there is a condemnation of Grahastha life and a glorification of Brahmacharya Sanyas life. Now that is almost irrelevant for most people today. Isn't it? It is, Grahastha ashram is also an ashram.

It's a respectable ashram. It's a necessary ashram. But making somebody constantly feel insecure or guilty or inadequate, when I grew up in Bhakti, it was, it was taught that Grahastha ashram is a consolation prize.

Now, I never saw any Prabhupada quote like that. But the way it was propagated, it is like a given truth. Obviously.

Now, that is, it is such a, it is, like in football there is a term called self-goal. Self-goal means, you know, instead of hitting a goal with the other party, you pick a goal in your own thing. So, it's like we as a movement are making our own dedicated devotees feel discouraged and insecure and guilty.

And it doesn't serve any purpose at all. So, slowly we have started shifting towards the complementation approach. And you could say the most successful preachers today are those who are more or less, the most successful within this corner in the complementation approach.

Better life is important, but spiritual life is also important. Now, this rejection model, I'll make one last point and then we can have question and answers, or two points rather. This rejection model, where it hit us the most was in terms of our children.

What happened is, material life is temporary. So, the husband-wife relationship also, it's all temporary. It's all attachment.

Then the parent-child relationship also attachment. So, what has happened was, okay, you don't have to waste your time taking care of children, just send them to gurukul. And the way the mood over there was that, if you did not send your child to a gurukul, that means you are an attached grahamedhi.

It is a terrible thing. Now, Prabhupada started a gurukul, but Prabhupada never put a pressure like that, that you have to send your children to gurukul. And even when, if the children were there in the temple, the idea is that you will have one person who cannot do good distribution, who cannot do preaching, who cannot do pujari services, that person will take care of all the other children, all the children, and all of you go for distribution, all of you go for pujari service, all of you go for other things.

So, what happened was, in the first generation, very, very few devotee children became devotees. So, see, the rejection model doesn't work, where commitment is required. There is attachment, there is detachment, and in between there is commitment.

So, commitment is required, especially in parenting. So, slowly that dynamic has been changing. But, so, okay.

So, very few of our first generation devotees, children, now many of them are still favorable to bhakti in different ways. But they have, many of them have quite unpleasant experiences to tell about their life in school. So, now, as we are moving towards the complementation model, that is the idea as material life and spiritual life, both are important.

Now, we don't have to tell people material life is important. Actually, their own society will tell that it's important for them. But spiritual life is also important.

But not at the cost of condemning material life. So, now, of course, infatuation, material life has to be condemned. But that is, material life and materialistic life, they are two different things.

So, like there is grahastha and grahamedhi. Now, there are some devotees who have also moved towards the improvement approach. And this is still debatable in ISKCON.

Now, there are some devotees who still consider the whole complementation approach to be a compromise. They say that it is Prabhupad gave, make people devotees. And anybody who is not a full time devotee, like they are compromise devotees.

That is their attitude. So, their idea is that you should focus on rejection of material life constantly. Rejection of sense gratification, rejection of this, rejection of that.

But more or less, the rest of the movement has settled at least at the complementation model. Now, the improvement model is where by your spiritual life, your material life will improve. At the psychological level primarily.

Now, most spiritual teachers in the mainstream society who are successful are in this area. Those who are like Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hanh or they are Buddhist teachers or if we say Ravi Shankar or Sadguru or whoever, they offer people insights and ideas and practices by which, okay, you can become more peaceful. And the idea is there is practically no condemnation of material life.

And you can become more and more successful. So, now, Christians started, were the first to have this psychological, that self-help and psychological level and religiosity. Bring it together.

Now, among Hinduism, Ramakrishna Mishra was the first to start pursuing it. But somehow they were not very successful in pursuing it. And there are some other groups who have taken it up also.

But the thing is, this improvement approach, there are few devotees who are doing it here and there. But in general, that approach is still frowned upon in this country. And within India, at this stage, India is such a huge population that whatever you have to sell, you will find some buyers.

So, there is a market for rejection model also. It's not a huge market, but it is there. There is a market for the complementation model also.

I am using the very commercial language over here. But the idea over here is that we are talking about where is the audience. So, there is a market for the complementation model also.

And there is a market for the improvement model. So, in general, when people take to a spiritual path, they want it to be as less expensive as possible. Expensive, not just in terms of finances.

That's a small part. It's more in terms of how many cultural conceptions they have to change or how many conceptions they have to change and how much of their lifestyle they need to change. So, if somebody is at the complementation level, we present them the rejection model.

Then even if they think this is good, it's too expensive for them. And if it's too expensive, they won't take it up. So, for us, and Prabhupada said, ki bhave bhujale tara bhuje se erasa.

So, within the complementation model, are we able to give sufficient Krishna consciousness? Are we able to take people from this point where God is a part of my life to my life is a part of God? So, in many places, it is happening successfully. And in some places, it is becoming very ritualistic, very strict following of rules and rituals. But that broadness of spirit that is not coming.

So, this is where our movement is at right now. And for all of us, you know, we, when we are trying to share Krishna Bhakti, we are inspired by like-minded devotees. So, we find like-minded devotees and then we share Krishna Bhakti and we attract like-minded souls.

So, I'll summarize what I discussed today. We're talking about the challenge of outreach, the challenge of preaching in terms of the level of the audience. So, I had mentioned three main points.

First was that where we talked about the four categories of people who come to Krishna and those who don't come. Don't come, I had already talked earlier. So, the two broad categories are people for whom I am not good enough for the world.

So, I not good enough and the other is the world not good enough. So, what happens is these are very different, even opposite categories and they need to be reached out differently. The second part we discussed is how? During Prabhupada's times, he had these two distinct demographics.

There were the people who were, we could say, the rejection model, that is Western disciples. And there were the Indian people at that time. India was definitely not at the rejection level.

So, Prabhupada created a life membership program to accommodate them. So, that rejection model is at one level. Then there is the complementation model, complementation model and then there is the improvement model.

So, for most people, I gave a little bit of the ISKCON history of how we actually moved from the rejection model to the complementation model. And from within the history perspective, now we are at a particular place where there is a lot of audience potentially, say, for us at the rejection level, there is a small audience and it's very difficult to sustain organizations and communities which focus only on rejection. Now, complementation, this is our most potential at present for us.

We are able to attract a lot of people at the present and then improvement, whether we can reach those people, that is small. Maybe it is possible, but that's not our focus right now. So, for us, the challenge that was there at Prabhupada's times, the chain challenge of attracting people is there.

But for all of us, the way Krishna attracts us, we can most authentically present Krishna that way and then we can attract people towards Krishna. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.

A few questions, if you can. Yeah, please. So, the question that I have is, the aspect of full-time devotee is still non-existent in India.

If you just keep a strong side, you know, if I typically think about my childhood, I go into a temple, there is only one puja in that temple, and everybody goes to the temple. The second time, evening or morning, they attend something, or some ritual is done, they all go back home. This aspect of becoming a full-time devotee is close to non-existent, to my knowledge, in India.

And when Prabhupada comes from India, and he is going to the US, and Prabhupada implemented a full-time devotee, you know, kind of culture, which, I don't know, if we saw it in India, maybe in Gaudiya Mati Sahib, or, you know, which Prabhupada might know, that this is not something that people can sustain, you know, a full-time thing. Which also became a problematic thing as later, as you said, you know, some people don't have to be full-time, they can still do a lot, you know, outside, out there in India. So why did Prabhupada start with such a full-time model, and till when did he think it should continue? Okay.

So why did Prabhupada focus on a full-time model when that's not at all common within Hinduism? And till when did he continue to emphasize that? I think different devotees will have different opinions about this. I'll tell you my understanding that in the history of our tradition, if you look at the Gaudiya Sampradaya specifically, we'll look at broader Hinduism later, that broadly there were two kinds of gurus. There were the travelling sannyasis who were gurus.

And then there were local priests who were also gurus. So the Jati Goswamis who continued on, they were like the local temple priests. So when you have to get the name-giving ceremony for your child, you want to get married, you go to the local priest.

And they were more into rituals but they also shared some wisdom. And then the sannyasis were travelling. So like Advaitacharya was initiated by Madhavendra Puri.

But as far as the records go, they met only once. And then it was not that there was follow-up and continuously cultivation or anything like that. So Madhavendra Puri went on and the local devotee community, Advaitacharya continued his bhakti and he grew.

So both of these were there. Now Bhaktivinod Thakur himself was a grahastha. And Bhaktivinod Thakur, he in one sense brought Gaudiya Vaishnavism to the modern world.

He revived Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Now Bhaktisiddhansa Thakur was the first person who sort of created a mission, an organization, a formal organization, Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Bhaktivinod Thakur was a grahastha.

Bhaktivinod Thakur gave the vision for the Nama Hadda. But he himself, he was writing books and doing other things. It was not so much implemented during his times.

Now when Bhaktisiddhansa Thakur implemented it, at that time there were a good number of brahmacharis that came and Prabhupada continued that. So now where did that come from? We could say that was historical at a particular time. Bengal Christianity was quite influential.

Christians were quite well organized. They had their, not the protestants, but the Catholics had their priests, monks and nuns. The Ramakrishna Mission had brahmacharis and sannyasis.

So it's possible, Bhaktisiddhansa, that that particular, the principle of renunciation is very much there in the Vedic tradition. But there is a principle of preaching renunciation. That is somewhat different.

Now Bhaktisiddhansa Thakur was a missionary. He attracted a lot of missionary people. And those 1910, 1920, 1930, that was a missionary period also in the sense that Indians were rising.

Some became freedom fighters. The freedom fighters also left their homes and went. So it was that period.

Now when Prabhupada went to America, the American culture was so utterly different from the culture that Prabhupada wanted to teach that there was no option at that time. So in that sense, the only way people could be devotees was by being full time devotees. So being full time was almost a natural way.

I met one Prabhupada disciple, Mataji. She was in a temple and then she's been serving in a book distributor and a pujari in the temple for many years. And then suddenly the temple, this was in America, they had a financial crisis.

And the temple told her that, you know, we cannot maintain you in the temple now. So she tells me that I am staying with my, she's a 70 year old Mataji. And then she was saying that she's driving Uber and earning a living by that.

And she said, I am staying with my son. And he said that my son is a Satan worshipper. Like in America there is a whole, you worship God and you worship Satan.

And my son, my daughter-in-law, his wife, she is a vikkan vich. So vikkan is a particular group of people, they do black magic. So he said in that atmosphere where Satan worshipper vikkan vichri is going on, I have my Tulsi and I am chanting Hare Krishna.

So now, of course, after that I talk with some devotees and then, now many Indian devotees are coming forward and are trying to create like a corpus for Prabhupada disciples who are not, who are not so financially well off. Many of them move to Florida because Florida is a relatively tax free state. It's considered retirement state.

But your point is that this is an example of how the original culture is not at all favorable for bhakti. So in that sense, their becoming a devotee meant being full time. Now, I wouldn't say it's only Prabhupada talking about it at that time or adopting it only at that time because in the West it was not possible.

But it is Prabhupada in India also would say to families, give one son to me. You have two children. Give one son to me for a missionary work.

So that way that missionary spirit was there in Prabhupada very much. And the problem came not with having the missionary spirits. Throughout history, there will always be souls who will be attracted to the rejection model and they will be attracted only to the rejection model.

They will not be attracted to the complementation model also. Maybe they are more evolved from their previous life or whatever. And every spiritual tradition needs those people.

But the problem became when that started being presented as a norm. That this is the standard. Anything less than this is not the standard.

It's below standard. So I think whether Prabhupada wanted that, I am not sure about that. But somehow that became perpetuated.

See, Prabhupada was not there with us for a very long time also. He was there for 10 years. And it was what I talked about the children getting neglected.

Would Prabhupada supported that? How many devotees had children? See, that way, or how old were their children? Like the first devotee was initiated in 67, 68. 67, I believe. And then, so they had children.

None of them were married when they got initiated. So their child was 5, 6, 7, 8 years old. So we didn't really have Prabhupada at that time and how to guide your teenage children, how to help them in their career and things like that.

There is one account, the Mahakrishna Maharaj writes that when Vrindavan, there was Prabhupada's son who came to meet him. And he told that we are having a lot of financial troubles. So Prabhupada told him that you should take more responsibility.

You should earn a living. Prabhupada gave him ideas of how he could, how could build his business, what all he could do. So that career part, Prabhupada didn't really dismiss that completely.

Although that was certainly not the focus of his mission. So now, the problem comes when, two ways problems come. That those who are not ready for renunciation, they are pushed into renunciation.

And those who are, if they don't get pushed, they are made to feel guilty and inadequate. So then we just lose people that way. The things are changing that I think, Grahastha Ashram is also being organized and respected and the devotees are doing lots of services, normal and very serious devotees practicing bhakti.

So would Prabhupada have, if we are to have a mass movement, would we expect to have a large number of renunciates, full-time devotees? Not to my knowledge, because we have Bhaktivinoda Thakur's example, which Prabhupada also quoted that. When will be the time when, Bhaktivinoda Thakur had two basic predictions. One was, when will people from all over the world come and chant, Gauri Taiga, Gaurahari, Bajaj Sachinandan in Mayapur.

The other he said is that, when will there be a time when the high court judges will be wearing Vaishno Tilak. So now what does that mean? That means that devotees become so competent and so successful in their careers, that they can be in respectable positions and Vaishnavism is so respected that, a devotee wearing a tilak is not a problem. It's seen that you are part of a respected spiritual group and you are also in a respected professional circle.

So in some ways that is also a definition of success. Does that answer your question? One more thing I want to ask is, when we say Krishna Consciousness, we are trying to make people Krishna Conscious. So what is that measurement, how do we measure that somebody has become Krishna Conscious and not become particular about his experiments? You know, so that as a teacher we are doing tests to this category.

May be it's a bit wider question, but you know, it's very important because as a teacher sometimes you are judged for how many people are committed towards it yourself. For how many people are wearing tilak. Yes, it is needed.

It is the way to express that I am convinced. But is it the only way to express that you are convinced? And if you are convinced in a different way, how do I know that you are convinced? How do I know that you are Krishna Conscious? What is the guiding factor for anybody who is preaching? So what are the criteria by which you can know that somebody is becoming Krishna Conscious and that our outreach is successful? Yeah, it's not easy because there are certain visible criteria. Let's say somebody wearing a particular dress, particular religious markings, and they are important in their own way.

But let's say somebody, for example, somebody is taking care of our devotee children. Now cosmetically somebody can say that I start a program and I am doing something. But even it requires a lot of time and attention.

For example, what Govind Prabhu did in Radha Gopinath temple. Spending hours and hours with kids. That is, at least doing something cosmetic is good.

But, you know, doing outreach for our devotee children, that is definitely not a glamorous thing. That is not going to be reported in our Sankirtan letters or something like that. But it is vital.

You know, it's a most spiritual organizations, how much they can carry on to the next generation that determines their longevity. So like that, there are many definitions of success which cannot be in tangible terms. So in one sense, if you consider the journey home book, at one level it has been enormously successful in opening people's minds to Krishna consciousness, to bhakti and getting them to appreciate it.

But in terms of say, how many people became initiated devotee chanting 16 rounds by reading that book? Well, there are significant number of people, but it's not a huge number. But the whole way that book is written, it is not for that purpose. It is more to open people's minds to Krishna bhakti, open minds of people who are spiritual seekers, who may see as a sectarian or whatever.

So I would say that many areas like that are where you cannot have a tangible definition of success like that. Not tangible, like a measurable definition of success. So Bhakti Shastri, for example, we are doing Bhakti Shastri, Bhakti Vaibhav.

We can have, okay, these many students graduated from it. But unfortunately, now what has happened, that in many places, people, people actually, I was in one institute where they have lots of students, it's called institute only, where they come, where they have lots of people coming and doing Bhakti Shastri degree. I was quite impressed by the numbers.

But when I went there, I was supposed to teach the Bhagavad Gita. And they told me, if you, I gave one class and my analysis was quite deep and they said, you know, the organizer came to me and said, people are finding your class very difficult to understand. So I'll tell you who are our best teachers.

The best teachers are, we start with the open book questions. And we directly teach the answers to the open book questions. And you just read only those purports, I'll point out this answer in this purport, this answer in this purport, explain the answer.

And they are the most loved teachers. Now this is, are you really studying the Bhagavad Gita or are you passing an exam? Isn't it? So what happens is, now Bhakti Shastri is a good metric. But then again, everything can become so externalized.

So now what do we do about it? It's like an institution, there has to be some tangible numbers which are important. But the intangible also has to be valued. Now intangible also can be made tangible.

Okay, attending the morning program every day. That's important, at least for people who are sensitive. But is that the only metric again? So I think the intangible aspect is something which is more, more like implicitly understood.

And that's why like-minded association is required. That each devotee, when it's a like-minded association, one simple way to understand it is that devotees who have a similar definition of success, who is like-minded, somebody for whom book distribution is the main definition of success, then they will naturally gravitate towards other book distribution. But somebody who is building a community, for example.

Now, when we scale it up too much and too fast, then we have more of a crowd than a community. Isn't it? So now can we upscale while also maintaining the community spirit? Or at what pace can we upscale? So there are temples which have huge crowds. But then what happens? There are fights in between the crowds and people in the crowd and it becomes quite messy.

So I would say that it's very difficult to have one tangible measure. The best way to do it is, what is it that I am inspired about Krishna Consciousness, I share with others. And then some people will be inspired by numbers and they will attract people who are inspired by numbers.

Some people will be attracted by intangibles. Now I'm not devaluing the numbers also. Because sometimes numbers also motivate us.

And it's good to have numbers. But the problem would be if that is the only metric. So it's like Achintya Veda.

There is the intangible and the tangible. So the tangible aspect is important. But we cannot reduce Krishna Consciousness to tangible measurable alone.

Thank you, Prabhu. You have touched a very good point about complementation, the way it's called right now. So my question is, what is the plan of ISKCON going forward? Is ISKCON thinking about being a self-sufficient community? Because most of us who are dependent on jobs outside, why can't they do within ISKCON? We have to do jobs externally, even though they may not like it, we have to do to support our families.

So if we do what we like, can we maintain ourselves also? And mostly now with all these layoffs and everything, we are confused. I mean, what should be our plan? And also you didn't talk about the Dai Nihuan Ashram. Will that be a self-sustaining community? If ISKCON is planning to do that within ISKCON, Dai Nihuan Ashram? This is an important question.

Is ISKCON thinking of becoming self-sufficient in the sense of, say, our devotees instead of having to work outside, can work in some ISKCON related setup and then they can earn their livelihood. And now the outside world has so much insecurity. Then Radha Gopinath community, Bhaktivanta Hospital is a model of that.

I'd say there are three kinds of models you could have. One is where ISKCON itself starts a project and that employs a lot of people. So now it will always be limited and we can't really pay a lot in that.

Say if we have a magazine and we have magazine editors. Now our magazines are never going to sell like outside magazines. And how much can we pay the magazine editors or the magazine marketers or whatever.

So we may have Govindas. In Govindas we can pay people a decent amount. But so one is, there are some things directly in ISKCON.

ISKCON Gift Shop, ISKCON Govindas, ISKCON Yog Shala, ISKCON, I don't know, call centres or whatever where we are connected with people, cultivating people. Now these are very limited professions. So within ISKCON I think it's going to be always there but it's going to be a niche.

It's going to be, not niche, narrow I would say, not niche, narrow. It's going to be a very narrow range of professions. So now, right now I've seen among, I've talked with many senior leaders about this.

What they said is that full time grahastha devotees, our experience with that has not been very good. Overall. Because say what happens is that, this happened in some temples that the devotees who stay in the temple and they serve throughout their life in the temple.

And then in future their child wants to study. They want a loan for it. And then the temple can give a loan for it.

But then the child wants to go to America. And for that they need a loan. Now how much can the temple give? So it's like total financial dependence on the temple.

It's not, they are not helped. What are they going to do? Where else are they going to go? If the temple doesn't help them, they are going to go and ask in the community. And if people give in the community, then the management is not very happy that you are giving something.

It becomes messy. So full time financial dependency on the temple is not really something which we have had a good experience with. And there are statements of Prabhupada saying that we should not be paying people or whatever.

Now I would not say that those statements are absolute. But there are times when Prabhupada also hired people, no doubt. So now we put that aside.

The second could be that there are ISKCON associated projects. So now Govinda is to some extent under ISKCON. But there are some people who start a restaurant chain.

Now, especially outside India, it is going to be a very big business. And so there devotees can be selling sattvic food or whatever. And so there are a variety of industries that could, a variety of professions that could work like that.

And there is some inspiration from devotees and from spiritual leaders and the spiritual principles and then they are implemented. So Bhakti Gandha Hospital would fall in that model. And then devotees, there are doctors who were there.

The doctors have come together and started a hospital. There was one spiritual master who wanted to start like a very popular food chain. And he worked very hard for it.

But somehow cracking that market is not easy on a mass scale. So it has to see how it can work out. So this would be more like, if you consider ISKCON is one circle.

Around ISKCON there is the Krishna Consciousness Movement. So probably within that it is more possible. And this is what we are saying is, within whatever professions are there in the material world, and within whatever professions people have trained themselves for, they create some collective forums where they work together.

So that's the second. Some models have worked out like that. Many devotees have started tuition academies.

And in some places and I think in Baramati they were very successful tuition academy. Then they tried to replicate that in Kolkata and other places. But they didn't work out so well.

So you need also talented people, people who are inclined like that. So devotees, so like that there are professions which could work out. The third is what you are talking about Varnashram.

Now Varnashram is almost as if, I would say that, there are as many opinions about what Varnashram is as there are leaders in ISKCON. So what exactly does it mean? How is it to be implemented? So are there working models of that? Well different devotees have tried. Many have tried very earnestly.

But something which is significantly successful and something that can be replicated, that is still, it's not been really happened. So I would say as of now the Varnashram model where it is implemented is more for people in the rejection category. Not in the complementation category.

That is somebody is fed up with city life and I will go in a farm and I will live in a farm and I will raise. Now there are people who can do that. But not everybody can do that.

And even if say Agraastha Kapal does that. I know what has happened. Agraastha Kapal did that but the children didn't want to do that.

And for the children's education they had to leave from there. So it's not easy. So Varnashram should definitely be explored.

But I think saying that the XYZ is the only way to do Varnashram and because we want to do Varnashram XYZ should never be done. That's where problems come up. So now relatively speaking the churches, even the Muslims, Zakir Naik was a prominent Muslim preacher.

So they give very good salaries for their preachers. Like a typical church pastor salary is like a starting level software engineer salary. It's not a top level but starting level.

So now they get funds from abroad and they use those funds. Now I don't think ISKCON will ever go in that direction of having paid preachers. But they can upscale that way.

They can train and they can upscale. So some ways having full time devotees without that is the era of where we would be able to run our mission with full time devotees. That era is more or less behind us now.

Maybe few places it may happen but otherwise it's not going to happen. And versatility of Krishna consciousness is probably seen in the Middle East. Now generally what was associated with ISKCON? Full time devotees, deities, book distribution at Harinam Sankirtan and public festivals.

None of these three are possible in the Middle East. There are no full time devotees, there are no temples and you cannot do any public distribution of religion. And still we have one of the most vibrant communities in the Middle East.

In Dubai, in Bahrain, in Oman also. So how has that happened? We have congregational devotees in different homes, in some halls. They take up their practice and they are just vigorously growing.

So I would say rather than being attached, that this is how, this is what we need to do for, I'll be answering your question only that, that rather than be attached, this is how this has to be done. We have to see how things organically evolve. But the financial aspect, I don't think ISKCON, at least in the near future, it's possible.

There are some leaders who are thinking about it and what all we could create. But then how much will the temple control that? If the temple is going to control that, the temple needs to have a really professional person who can understand. Because if your hotel is to be run, restaurant has to be run professionally.

And so it's possible, but right now there are not too many working models for that. So of course, one thing I would say is that in Krishna Consciousness, there is a lot of autonomy, especially for somebody who is a Grahastha. If we feel inspired to do something, we can try to explore that and create an example of that.

It requires a lot of effort, but it's definitely possible to do it. Should we stop Prabhu? Tomorrow we can have more questions if you want. Thank you so much.