The Monk’s Podcast 49 with Bhakti Vinoda Swami – Analyzing Indian outreach

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

Hare Krishna, Maharaj. Welcome back again to the Amongst Podcast. Hari bol, Hare Krishna.

So happy to be here back with you again. It's a pleasure to have you again. And I thought that we could review the last time's discussion and then we could take it forward from there.

Okay. So last time we discussed broadly about the history of Indian outreach. And we discussed how during Prabhupada's times, people became life members, but not really committed devotees.

And we discussed what all factors may have caused the shift. So three, four factors. The one is that we also started focusing on cultivating a massive class of people by having educational programs.

In urban India also became, came to a certain level of social level where people got a particular economic prosperity and they started looking for spirituality, the way we presented. And we also learned how to be not that confrontational in our outreach. And overall, we discussed also the significance of temples.

And for our outreach, the temples are very important, but then it's important that temples don't become educational centers, don't become simply tourist centers. That we need to be, if there are tools, you mentioned how we should be able to use them for helping people come close to Krishna. Then you talked about a pyramid that wherever people are, we should be able to raise them one level higher.

So if they are not connected with Krishna, at least connect them at some level. If they're connected, then make them engage them at some level. If they engage, then they can move higher towards becoming devoted.

So, and then we discussed about how sometimes the confrontational approach can cause more problems than it solves. And then we also discussed about how we are moving more towards a community-based ethos from a temple-based ethos. You mentioned that when you joined the temple, when you were introduced to ISKCON, they said that no need to get initiated if you are not moving to the temple.

But now there's a radical expansion of our understanding of Krishna consciousness. And then I think we concluded by talking about how we need to consider value-added aspects of whatever we are doing. Then how can we do it in such a way that, how is it, the word you use is conversion rate.

Conversion ratio, which I think you're not very comfortable with. I thought of some other word, I thought a more positive word might be a transformation ratio. Conversion has a certain connotation to it.

And we also discussed about how somehow we are attracting intelligent, even in our university programs, we are attracting intelligent people, but not really intellectual people. So, in a sense, you made a beautiful point that even within, we are actually going for the low-hanging fruit, even in India. Not only in Western outreach, we are going towards Indians, but Indians also, India also low-hanging fruit.

So, I think that was a broad overview. Would you like to add anything in this? Well, I think you more or less summarized that very well. I was just speaking about the, you know, the class preaching outburst that we had.

Simultaneously, actually, mass preaching also was taking a good turn. In fact, there's a big explosion in terms of all these congregational preaching that was initiated by Jaypathak Swami Maharaj and his congregational preaching team by Gurudev. So, he had a completely out-of-the-box type of a methodology wherein everybody can have their own household Krishna conscious centers and have programs from there.

And that took on also a pretty good turn, because you were talking about life members and them not being able to go beyond their donations and their life memberships into actually becoming greater members of ISKCON or deeper members of ISKCON. So, I think this congregational preaching has also done quite a bit of inroads, made quite some inroads into the larger community of Krishna consciousness or the larger Hindu community within India. That's a whole ballgame by itself.

There's lots happening in that direction. In fact, it caught on to the rest of the world and in many places in the world, you have Krishna consciousness spreading maybe irrespective of the presence of a temple or not outside. And that's, I think, a wonderful step.

Because what I heard from His Holiness Jaypathak Maharaj that Prabhupada had asked him that just to expand unlimitedly, you think that everybody whom you preach to is going to come and stay with you. And I mean, if they did, where do we have the space? And that way our preaching will be completely limited if you think only in terms of people staying with us. So, unlimited preaching would be to take it outside of the boundaries of your temple and have everybody do that.

And I think he explored the Christian missionary doing that in a great way outside. And I think that caught on very nicely, both in India and then in the rest of the world. And that has helped a great deal in increasing the numbers of the Krishna conscious followers.

That's one aspect of mass preaching and, you know, that type of evolution. Yes, maybe I should add that. Then added to that is even the class preaching and the mass preaching.

Sorry to interrupt you, but this congregation outreach has been phenomenal all over the world. And I was most astounded when I went to the Middle East. Middle East is mostly the Indians.

Yeah, Indians, of course, but still it's a huge number. Yeah, very huge. And I think among all the states in India, my, I could say, surmise is that in Bengal, we might have spread the most.

From what I've observed, there are three areas where our congregation outreach has also expanded. Bengal, Mumbai and Delhi in a significant way. Mumbai, say in the Radha Gopinath temple, there are almost 1000-2000 devotees come for the Sunday feast.

Delhi, there are almost 13 temples, 11-12 temples now already. And all temples are having a good number of devotees, not just temples. So I think the Bengal, around Mayapur was the first.

And from there onward, the congregation. Now, each of these places have somewhat different strategies. But one common thing is all of them are having vibrant congregations.

That has been a significant, you could say, change in the demographic of our movement. Earlier it was like 90% of people were in the temples. Now 90% of the people are outside.

More than 90% are outside. More than 90, yeah, that's true. The first time I went to… It's nice that you mentioned that.

But there's a little difference also in the type of mass preaching that's done in Bengal. In Bengali, they have this Namhat directorate and under them they preach through the Namhat in the villages. And in all the rural areas too, which is pretty huge.

Also in Orissa to some great extent. Now getting into other places also. And that's a different type of flavor too.

Although it's congregational preaching. But it's a different type of flavor. Bengal, of course, is Lord Chaitanya's area and people are familiar with Lord Chaitanya's movement to some extent.

So you could say that they take it like a fish takes to water. Pretty fast. But that's a different flavor.

And the one that you have in Chowpatty among the class of people spreading into the congregations. That's also a different flavor. In the Middle East, it's like the Indians who are locked up inside a different type of a situation in the desert.

Meeting together and having a very successful expansion. That's also a different flavor. So it's amazing.

It's happening in different ways. Expansion. And that's interesting.

That's true. I think the way we have penetrated into the heartland, like in the rural areas in Bengal, I don't think we have penetrated like that anywhere else in the country. Yes.

That's something that we can model and utilize in other places too in India. That's appreciated by many that we have spread like this in Bengal. And a systematic way of doing it.

And there is a document how to go about doing it. There's a whole document written word for word. And there's a whole process to it.

And that's being followed. And I think that's the reason why it is well structured and strategic. That's what I mean by saying that if we strategize and study, like the other Christian missionaries do a lot of that, especially in India.

In Kerala, I have churches that sing Sanskrit prayers. Churches that have like a Garuda Stambha in front of the temple. They have Garuda Stambha and a cross on top.

They have so many things that they would do. They go to any extent to actually attract people of the majority in India. It's a minority operating in a place and attracting the majority religion to them.

And that's very interesting because the methodologies that they would use and the strategies that they would use would be nice to study and understand from. Right? So, to preach and to actually convey this. I don't want to too much use the word preach because in the Western sense, they don't use the word preach and proselytize much.

But, you know, the more safer politically correct word would be outreach. But still, to actually reach out to people and communicate to them this wonderful philosophy of Krishna Consciousness. We should not leave any stone unturned.

We can learn from all these successful missionaries and employ it according to the time, place and circumstance. That's what I would mean as a strategy. Yes, Maharaj.

That's true. You know, maybe we could discuss a little more about what you spoke just now and share your experiences in South India, the challenges and other things. So what you mentioned, I read about this maybe six, seven years ago, that how they even Christians have, they have Jesus Sahasranam.

They have composed, they have taken many of the cultural symbols of the Hindu tradition and Sanatana tradition, Sanatana Dharma. But in Orissa, they have, they have composed bhajans for Mari Amma. And Mari Amma is basically Virgin Mary.

Meri Amma. Meri Amma, yeah. Made it Mari Amma.

So initially, I thought that this is, this is outrageous. But then when I started, started focusing more on Western outreach, I also was looking at how prominent Christians in the West do their outreach. So one prominent Christian mainstream preacher in the West is Timothy Keller.

He wrote a book called The Reason for God. And he says there in his book that the reason why Christianity has spread across the world is that it is that the Bible is not culturally specific. The Bible only says you should sing, sing for glorifying God.

It doesn't say what kind of hymns, what language. So in that, in the sense that they are saying that this is the natural strength of Christianity. So it's not cultural misappropriation.

They say that Christianity, in a sense, it transcends culture and it can fit into any culture. And that is one of the key, but they said this is one of the main reasons why we have spread across the world. And I saw Pope John Paul II's address to, when he had come to India, he had said that the church should become more Christian in spirit and more Indian in form.

So this is lower the, lower the, you could say the cultural barriers or cultural hostility that is triggered. Now, in some ways there are nowadays, I think when they convert to Christianity, they don't even give a Christian name. People sometimes continue to have a traditional Indian tradition sounding name.

So I don't know how much this is relevant for us in India about our, we could say our cultural malleability. That's one issue we could discuss since you brought that up. You would like to discuss this or you would like to discuss, I basically thought we could discuss about South Indian experience and challenges.

Well, this is a very, very, very important aspect, although I may not be having enough experience to make forays into it to a great depth. But I can definitely say that, like I mentioned, that the strategies that a minority religion, apparently as it is titled, utilizes in a major area like India, that's known for being a Hindu country and makes tremendous progress in terms of spreading their tenets and changing people's faith from one to the other. That thing is something that is worth noting.

It has several reasons. Why would in a majority Hindu place that people change their faith, change their religion, I would use the word. In one place Prabhupada uses the word faith changes.

We are all categorized as faith based organizations. But Prabhupada's definition was faith may change, but religion does not. So he uses this.

So people change their faith from Hindu to Christianity would mean that they never knew Hinduism fully enough. And they were maybe superficially placed without plummeting the depths of the wonderful philosophy that we were talking about. And therefore they are changing in their faith.

As much faith as they had in Hinduism, which was shallow, is the same faith that they could again play with in the next religion that they get converted to. But when they go deep into this wonderful philosophy of Krishna consciousness, I don't think it's easy for that type of a change, which means they touch upon true religion. I was talking about, you know, how this relationship, tripartite relationship with man, nature and God, to put it in very secular parlance.

If that is understood very well, that defines real religion. And I think Hindus, when they get to know the real depth of the Bhagavad Gita, the Srimad Bhagavatam and get into it, I don't think it change will occur so easily because their faith becomes nicely fixed in real religion. So whatever methodologies are employed by the Christians and others are effective because a lot of the Hindus are not deeply rooted, both in their own cultures and on the philosophy of their religion.

That's where I think ISKCON makes a very stunning contribution. If people were made to be a little patient and examine religion the way Prabhupada has presented it through the Bhagavad Gita, the Bhagavat and the chanting of the holy names, give them an experience of it and they sink into it a little bit, they quickly awaken to what real religion is. So I'm not very much afraid about people getting converted to Christianity or other religions because I think that they get prepared a little bit from that side in a different way.

We can always present Krishna Consciousness to them because faith based in my terminology and in the parlance that I'm talking about would really mean that you're changing because anyway it's superficial. Anytime I present to you the real stuff, the real religion, you will have to take cognizance and it's because it's a challenge to your intelligence because it's about understanding the absolute truth. It's about understanding reality, which nobody can refuse the way Prabhupada has presented it, especially if you're from the moorings of Indian culture and you are just, you know, maybe moving here and there a little bit because of a lack of a proper grounding.

Right. So I think we still don't have to be too worried about these type of conversions. Krishna Consciousness is still attractive.

The proof of it is the fact that people of Christian faith in the Western world have appreciated Krishna Consciousness as being a much better experience of religion that they've had or rather a deeper experience of religion they've had. Right. So I think our strategy should be something like that.

We should not bother about the external superficial conversions. The spirit soul will definitely get attracted to Krishna, the absolute truth. You know, this is a very mature or holistic perspective you are giving because I have seen within the devotee community, conversion has had two polarizing, two extremes, the view toward conversion.

Several years ago, now I'm a part of the editorial team of Back to God in India as well as international. So BTG India had done an issue on conversion, basically on Christianity and Krishna Consciousness and in that we had an essay on conversions. So I did a bit of research on that and I had created like a fictional dialogue between a person who is very concerned about conversion and the other is a devotee who is focused more on transcendental presenting of Krishna Consciousness.

So what you said is entirely right that Krishna Consciousness is so attractive. The real problem is not that Christians are converting. The real problem we could say that we are not reaching out to people.

If we reached out to people, then there was so much opportunity for them to grow. One challenge, however, I noticed is that when people convert, quite often they break away from their traditions, especially this happens in rural or even little more cloistered areas of the cities, that because they have a break away from their family tradition and culture, they often become quite hostile. And then for them to take up, although they can conceivably take up, so from a transcendental perspective, you could say that somebody was a Hindu materialist and they became a Christian materialist.

In some ways, actually they get a license to do many things which maybe Hinduism doesn't approve like eat meat and drink and things like that. So they feel it's better off. So both are materialist itself.

But the challenge could be that they may become hostile toward, they might be at least receptive nominally toward Bhakti, Yoga and Krishna Consciousness when they were Hindus. But when they become Christians, they may become more hostile to it. So have you noticed any obstacles because of conversion in our outreach in South India? Well, it depends on what type and what social strata do these people belong to when they're being converted.

The other missions have also studied these things very well. They mostly do a lot of these things in the lowest strata of society wherein people are, you know, in need of a lot of material facilities, a house, food to eat, some education, some security. And looks like the Hindu community has got a big gaping hole there and it allows people to, especially missionaries of this site, enter.

And when they dole out all these things to the people, the people really, really don't care because they've been cared for and they don't care about the so-called faith which has not given them the basic material facility that they're seeking so much. The government may not be giving it, their religion may not be giving it or they take care to hoots for it. So they moved into that gaping hole and give people those material facilities that are required.

And in return, they place their faith in them. So that's why in the lowest strata of society, that's happened very widely and much easier and a little more difficult with the higher level society and they employ different strategies there. It's not that they employ the same strategies everywhere.

With the educated class of people also, they have their own strategy. In the educated class of people, I studied in a Christian missionary convent throughout my life. So I have a lot of practical experience.

I remember that in my younger days, Mother Superior in my LKG, first grade, second grade, Mother Superior would come and embrace you, kiss you and say, my son, and give me a toffee. And then the others, you know, I always felt that so nice, so nice feeling that Mother Superior is so closely relating with me. And they would show pictures of Jesus Christ with a halo around his head and looking very bright.

And they'd show a picture of Mother Kali with her tongue hanging out and blood splattered all over her and the trishula and everything and say, which of them do you feel related to? And everybody pointed out to Jesus Christ. And this way, in a subliminal way, they will just get to the small kids. And also that, you know, the kids are from good classes of society studying in the convents because these schools were very good schools.

The Hindus didn't run those very good schools. So good students, intelligent students would like to be admitted in these schools. And there, they would be exposed to this type of a treatment and atmosphere.

And unbeknownst to them, they have a deep respect for the Christian mission, because they gave me this education and they became… And then gradually when they step out into the other world and they are groping with their faith and their Hinduism, you know, whole plethora of stuff that they have, different types of worship of so many demigods and that happening, this happening with no possible proper explanation of, you know, who is God, etc., has become like not very relatable. But they make it very relatable to you, relevant and relatable within a very small bandwidth of your own existence. So many people start relating with it because after all, I had an education from them and I find that they are pretty well organized and they don't speak about so many gods.

Most of the time, the accusation coming from the Christian missionaries or their main card that they play with is that you have so many gods whom you worship. The polytheistic type of frame that we have always gets smashed in front of them. Just, you know, we worship one God, no confusion.

This polytheistic type of, you know, many demigods we worship and we say everything leads to one and you can go through anyone and all that is not really convincing to many Hindus themselves deep inside themselves. When we speak about a monotheistic religion that they profess, Christianity and the Muslims, somewhere along the line, it's relatable and relevant. You know, it happens very deep inside and even to the other classes of people, they make it relatable and relevant.

So that's where the Krishna Conscious Movement which we define in Western parlance as a monotheistic religion may be floated pretty well within the Indian diaspora also to relate, to make people relate easily with an easy philosophy and we just have to join up with the cultural roots, make a very good, you know, combination of these. I think it will be successful. I'm just giving a very broad, but we can discuss details and pin it down.

Yes. So, the type of inroads that they make should be studied. Now the, you know, the whole Hindu, what do you call, fervor has risen a lot because of the government, ruling government being also from that type of a section of society and people are all gung-ho about this thing.

But this is the time for ISKCON to maybe step in and take that momentum forward and also be part of it as the, what do you call, become the engine of that big goods train carrying a lot of carriages and take this forward. It's like an engine-less goods train and I think ISKCON can very well with the philosophy, practice and everything that we have and a very clean explanation, we can take it forward in a different way and that I think will make even the converted Hindus and, you know, make them understand something very deeply. You see, in Kerala, we have a lot of these Christians and Muslims and they all grow up together and I see they are very good friends also, but when it comes to their religion, they are very firmly entrenched into their particular religion and we have a mix of them everywhere.

But you can see very clearly that the Hindus were forced to set up a Hindu economic forum which has become very important because the Hindus are losing hold of all the businesses and the economy is thriving mostly because of the Christians and the Muslims in Kerala. So the Hindus are forced to float this together and pump in some funding and everything to help many Hindus to become economically stable and take up positions on the economic front. So that's all happened because of the same Hindus who got converted.

See, in Kerala, the history is that the Brahmins got converted into being Muslims. I heard this from Nambudri that his ancestors were telling him that the Muslims were spitting on water and throwing it on the Brahmins and saying that now you're converted. And then in the villages and other places in the Brahmin community, they had this very rigid caste stance which made them think that, oh, you're contaminated, you're converted and you can't be accepted back into the Brahmin community.

And that person was, you know, wondering what I should do. I mean, he just sprinkled some water on me. But they took that so seriously.

And then the Muslims actually said, we give you everything that you need. And he was forced to become a Muslim. And in this way, the Muslim population got the intelligent Brahmins converted into Muslims.

And then over a generation of time, they became more intelligently oriented towards preaching the Muslim faith to the Hindus. So they have a whole history, how they've been able to do that much better and make inroads, even in the intellectual class of people. So I think all this points to some things that we need to learn, strategize.

Just reflect on a few thoughts, if you don't mind. There is in the churches, where they have the seminaries, they have a separate subject called missiology, where they study missionary work. And basically, when the Christians came to India, from the 18th century onwards, primarily.

So initially, basically Christians have had historical three approaches toward other religions. Condemnation, irrelevance and fulfillment. Condemnation means this is a religion of the devil.

Any God other than the one true God of Christianity is a false God. And they tried that approach, but it just didn't work much. Because no matter how vehemently they condemned the Hindu faith, basically Hindu thinkers reformulated and presented their faith.

And that's why we had many Hindu leaders who arose, especially from Bengal, actually the Christians which we started. So now they use the approach of condemnation, but not that much. Like you said, they won't say this is a Kali is horrible, how can you worship? But they say, which do you relate with more? So that condemnation, they're toned down.

The second approach is irrelevance. Okay, this might have been true in the past, might have been believable in the past. But now how can you believe in so many gods? How can you believe in mountains which are so big and so many stuff like that? But the major approach they use is fulfillment.

That means whatever is in your religion, that's good, but it will attain fulfillment when you come to our religion. So in fact, I was invited one time to speak in a seminary in Pune. And it seems it's the second biggest seminary in all of India.

And they had all South Indian boys, almost like hundreds of South Indian boys were there. And they had called their school as the Gyanadeep school of theology. And their slogan was the Bhagavad Gita was Gyanadeep in a Bhaswata.

So they try to use Sanskrit name. So their imagery was what all the Hindu gods are like in a flame. There's a Gyanadeep, all the Hindu gods are a part of the flame.

The topmost among the gods is Krishna. But from the flame, the light that is coming out is Jesus. So basically, they try to not so much violently condemn the parent faith, but say that this will lead you upward.

So what do you say the mission, especially when talking with educated people, like in my missionaries, in my convent school, also, I was, I never encountered any criticism of Hinduism. But there was a lot of positive sentiment associated with Christianity. And that's what makes it a subconscious level.

So basically, when they found that they couldn't convert Hindu simply by criticizing, so they branched into two main areas, education and humanitarian work. And through this, they have had a lot of effect in the long run. And I was at an interfaith meeting in America in Washington, DC.

And it seems there in the West, in America, it's a matter of great pride and almost heroism for young people. They say, I did mission work in Africa or India for one or two years. And young people come and they go to villages and they do work.

And that actually, so they don't see so much of the Christian aspect. What they attract people is by the humanitarian aspect. But the Christian aspect and humanitarian aspect comes together.

Somehow, this is what I have found is that if we consider the Jews, they are very small in number, but they are very big in influence, relatively speaking. Hindus are not small in number, but it seems Hindus mostly have gone towards areas or professions of individual prosperity, not of social influence. So whether it is journalism or it's law or other fields like that, we don't have that many Indians or that many Hindus, we could say.

So we may have, but not that many, not that good. And many who are there, they also become more leftist. And they may be Hindus in name, but they are actually criticizing Hinduism rather than explaining anything.

So that's why both at the front of education and at the front of humanitarian work, we do fall short in many ways. And unfortunately, we have the caste system, which seems to be quite, which we explain that it is not by birth. And that is true.

But the way it is functioning, it is very much by birth. And it has led to a lot of problems. So this particular thing which you mentioned, that is sprinkle water and then you lose the caste.

I did some research on this. Actually in the Manu Samhita, there is one verse which can mean like this, but it's not like a rigid meaning. I was a little astounded or even appalled, you can say that somebody could lose their caste just by somebody sprinkling water.

It seems there is a lot of, you could say, holes in our own side because of which we became vulnerable. Yeah, this is from the Muslim side. It's their understanding and this is how we convert.

But to kowtow to them and to actually say yes, yes, from our side, which has got a much rich explanation of these things, which means that we have been caught in our very superficial stance in terms of our understanding. And therefore we have responded in that way. And that's how the situation is.

But the one thing, good thing about Krishna consciousness is that all these religions, both Christians and Muslims, in India at least, don't look upon ISKCON in that way at all. They have a quite a friendly relationship. At least they have respect for ISKCON because they don't lump us in in some way.

They know that we are a little different and we have a reach that they can be comfortable with also. That's maybe to our advantage. And like you said, I also attended one comment I want to make on.

I also attended a faith, an international faith visiting commune that was happening in Tirupati, I think. Was it the Sri Vaishnava dialogue? Yeah, Anantama Prabhu was also there and we had called in some Sri Vaishnavas and very prominent Christian heads from India, from Bombay and from Kerala and all that. And also recently I was in Bahrain in an international faith conference.

And there were, you know, the rabbi, the topmost rabbi from Jerusalem had come and there was a topmost Christian representative from, who was actually from Kerala but came from a different place. And I had the opportunity to speak to all of them. The one that we had in Tirupati at that time, there was also the Harvard chair of religion who was very friendly to all the devotees.

He was also there. Dr. Sruni? Yes, Dr. Francis Sruni. Okay.

He was also there and he's like, you know, he's made inroads into Sri Vaishnava philosophy a lot. So at that point of time, we had a discussion, one of our devotees, Radhika Raman Prabhu, who was there and also presented a paper on love of God. The paper was very highly appreciated by them.

And it's very strange that they were trying to keep it at an understandable level and make them feel comfortable. And in our presentations, there were not much of Sanskrit shlokas and everything, thinking that it will make them feel a little alienated. But amazingly, their compositions and their comments and papers all had Sanskrit shlokas and references from the Vedas.

It was so funny. And one of them commented that you're reinforcing our understanding. But the main comment that was made by a lot of them after reading the paper is, well, we love to read this paper because the understanding about God is so deep.

And one of them even went ahead and said, if I remember right, they said that we don't have such a deeper understanding of a personal God and everything. Jesus Christ, more or less, has given us instruction to love human beings like I have done to you and look after them. And that seems to be our main focus.

That's where we are into humanitarian work. And we look after people and we do all these type of things. That's our main focus.

That's what they said. And they made this point that our understanding of God is not so deep. So for them, it was very fascinating to read that paper on love of God.

So I understood at that time that Krishna conscious philosophy, having a very deep understanding of the personalistic idea of the absolute truth, Krishna, God. We have a lot that we can plug in, in terms of the, what do you call, shortcomings that many of them would feel, especially those who want to have these things in this other religions and have a very good dialogue. Last time I was thinking about, so people who are converted, like, you know, it's very difficult for them to come back.

In fact, they are rationalizing how to save themselves from that situation. If they rediscover that Krishna consciousness is really the understanding of Hinduism or the real understanding of the Vedic philosophy. And I was once upon a time Hindu.

It puts them in a very awkward situation. This is a discussion we had. Of course, the government had things like Garvapasi and all the type of stuff.

To certain levels of society, it's okay. But certain other levels of society, it makes it difficult for them because they are seen as persons who have, you know, switched. And it's difficult for them to switch back.

So understanding the awkward nature of some of these converted Hindus or Christians, will have to, you know, have a dialogue and offer to them a greater understanding of God, which if necessary, they can practice from their own position. You don't have to reconvert. You can chant Hare Krishna, read Bhagavad Gita and appreciate the philosophy, which I think may work with some of these intellectual personalities or persons who have, you know, are thoughtful and can understand certain things.

So this way we will get very good support. And I think this is the reason why they know that Krishna consciousness people are a monotheistic religion. And they have a very deep understanding of God.

That respect is there and we can actually cash in on that and reach out. And we are not interested in really converting everybody in that sense. We're happy if people actually recognize God, recognize this, you know, understanding of who God is, and they could chant Hare Krishna or join us in chanting Hare Krishna.

We shouldn't be, you know, too forceful because I don't think we need to be bothered about external numbers. Like I mentioned to you that our real wealth is in the heart, what faith they have in Krishna consciousness or in Krishna. When I mean to say that our wealth is really the devotees, I said that earlier that it's not the buildings, it's not the properties, it's not the institution.

It's not the number of books we have sold. It's actually the amount of faith we have convened in the hearts of people towards Krishna. That's a very subtle thing we're talking about.

And it's highly subjective to put it in material parlance and not measurable. So I call it creating servants of God genuinely, Dasas. I call it the Das Kapital.

The Das Kapital of Iskcon. How much of service attitude towards the supreme absolute truth have you awakened in a person? He can profess himself to be a Hindu. He can profess himself to be a Christian.

Also doesn't matter. But the Krishna conscious philosophy affords that you can awaken the person's dormant love for God irrespective of the faith. That is the reach.

Speaking of outreach, this is the in-reach that Krishna consciousness affords. So our Das Kapital should actually be something that we can't so easily measure. The amount of people who are influenced even subtly, very deeply intellectually is, you know, huge.

They carry it home, but they know that this is something to reckon with. But they don't know how to actually go about it. But I'm happy if we have these dialogues and we can plant genuine understanding about God, absolute truth in their hearts.

And that will be a very good step forward because over generations it takes to actually change certain things. You know what I mean? I think you appreciate, you're able to understand what I'm saying. That's true.

I think we have already addressed one of the questions that I was having. I was going to pose that. When people become converted to Christianity, for them to come back becomes quite difficult.

And when we were doing this issue on conversion, I was searching whether we have devotees in India who were converted and they became Krishna conscious devotees. So I didn't find many stories like that. We have devotees in Kerala who were Christians and who have become Krishna conscious.

Oh, that's wonderful. Because earlier they must have been Hindus only two, three generations back. That's true.

But the point is that it's not that common. So there are certain cultural barriers that come up and that makes it a little more difficult for them to come back. But as you said, there is a horizontal conversion and there is a vertical conversion, if you want to say.

Vertical is from, say, materialism to spirituality, from love of the world to love of God. So if you can facilitate that vertical elevation of consciousness or conversion, if you call it, that elevation, that's also one of our purposes. Very important.

Now, with respect to interfaith, there are some devotees. I was at one stage quite interested in interfaith. But then somebody told me that it's utterly unproductive because those people are never going to become devotees.

And in the Western world, I just come to this point. They said in the Western world, we are a minority religion and we were often thought of as cult. So when we are able to participate in interfaith dialogue in the mainstream media, it actually gives us credibility that we are also a member on the faith table.

I can consider a respectable enough member to join the faith table. But in India, often in the West, it is portrayed as if the Christians are being persecuted in India and churches are being attacked and things like that. So when we join an interfaith dialogue, often it puts us on the defensive.

So, but what you put is a very interesting perspective that we can give them a deeper understanding. And that way, at least their hostility, maybe from the top level itself, there is something which will come at the bottom level, which you can't really control so much. But at the top level, if there is some amiability, then that is good.

And I think what you said earlier about we being respected, that there is an increasing branch of Hinduism. They call themselves as non-Hindutva Hindus. So they say we are not associated with political ambitions and any hardline thing.

Of course, even whether the Hindutva is also hardline, that is open to question because it's not extremist, it's not exactly intolerant. But still, we are not seen as belonging to the Hindutva category. So in that sense, we do have a more refined or evolved vision or image in the mainstream society and among Christians also.

So any thoughts on this, Maharaj? Yes, I have already expressed that saying that we are actually in a good position to be able to relate with those of other faiths. Because they don't see us as anything anti their religion. And our history and our behavior has not been like this.

In the whole history of things, we are considered to be a relatively new movement, 50 years old, 50 plus years old or something. But because of Prabhupada's innovative methods of Krishna Consciousness preaching or Krishna Consciousness communication, we stand out in a different way. So that is what is the essence of Lord Chaitanya's philosophy.

We are an all-embracing religion because we are asking everybody to take part in it. Our Sankirtan movement, Bahubhir Militva Kirtayante Sankirtanam Chithi, I call that don't do Sankirtan within the Hindu society or within the India diaspora and don't become Indians. We are an international society for Krishna Consciousness.

We are Sankirtan, not Samkirtan. You know, we have to keep this in our mind, the picture of Prabhupada's vision. And we have to make ourselves available to anybody in any section of society, be it different religions, be it intellectuals, be it social activists, be it education.

Everywhere there is a solution for it in Lord Chaitanya's philosophy. And so therefore it's up to each person to communicate Krishna Consciousness very effectively without antagonizing the party that you're facing in any way. Because that's what Lord Chaitanya wanted.

He spoke to the Patans. He spoke to the Buddhists. He spoke to Muslims.

He spoke to Mayavadis like Sarvam Bhattacharya very patiently and successfully conveyed what he needs to convey. So the life of Lord Chaitanya is a brilliant example of how we should, our Krishna Conscious philosophy, we should be all-embracing. And that's what Prabhupada meant by saying, taxing your brains how to present Krishna Consciousness.

Especially in the new world, in the fast changing scenario of the outside world, many things can be done. And to me, with all the digital stuff and the social media and the internet and everything, it looks like a whole new venue has opened up for us to reach out to many more people. And people are so well informed now, especially the new generation of youngsters.

They are not somebody you can just, you know, slap with a few Bhagavad Gita shlokas till they turn blue and then speak Krishna Conscious philosophy to them, assuming that they are Hindus and they'll take it up. No, they are asking deep questions and they are oriented towards religion. But they're asking, give me a good reason for me to, you know, believe in it with the existing alternatives available to me.

Tell me how I could actually, you know, put my faith in what you're saying. So we have to really come up with the two modern Indians, youngsters who are so well connected to everything happening in the world and with the history of religion in India. How are we pitching forward to, you know, give Krishna Consciousness both to these youngsters and to the future? We definitely need to shift gears.

We definitely need to look into things very carefully, especially in India wherein I think ISKCON has got its maximum investment in terms of, you know, what we have as infrastructure and people and followers and everything together. So it's a very interesting topic, no doubt, making ourselves relevant to different faiths and not having a hostile attitude towards anybody who has on the surface assumed any type of faith, be it religious or otherwise. We simply see that as something external and that will stand the test of Krishna Consciousness being presented to them.

So I think that in Prabhupada's tours all over the world, that also became very evident in Lord Chaitanya's whole life history that became very evident. And I think we need to, as a movement, make ourselves also available to everybody and learn how to do that, present Krishna Consciousness to anybody and everybody in different cultural backgrounds, with different religions and different setups and that I think is quite a challenge sometimes. I think you… I may have been a little nebulous in my… but I have a point to make that we need to learn from these minor religions in India, who have slowly becoming majority in some places like Northeast India, you know, Mizoram and all these other places.

They're a majority. In South India and Kerala, they're fast becoming a majority. So the methodologies and the strategies that they use is something that we can learn a lot about, though we may not see ourselves as a minority, but still we can learn.

And we need to study very well and then pitch Krishna Consciousness, which will definitely be successful, but doing it nicely. So what's your idea? What do you think that… I would rather ask you, who are quite well, what do you call, have some sort of an intellectual rigor about your presentations, and also have a wide experience both in the West and in India, and have been focusing a lot on reading and writing and presenting Krishna Consciousness. With this change into digital and internet and online and all that preaching, how do you feel that we should adjust ourselves? And what are the opportunities normally? Okay, I mean, I have focused more on the West and analyzing Western mentality more, but India is also becoming Westernized.

One thing I feel that our Western outreach or our digital outreach is not very user friendly at this stage. That means that if somebody searches Bhagavad Gita or even ISKCON, there are no clear courses that people can do. Okay, I want to learn what is Bhagavad Gita.

We don't have very good courses or even any systematic courses. So if I just search for study Bible and study Bhagavad Gita online, there's a huge difference in what the resources that are available. So that one thing is with respect to digital outreach, we have individual devotees doing a good amount of work.

And some devotees are more charismatic than others and they have a good following. And that is itself important. Our strength is our philosophy and brief videos giving some basic wisdom.

They have their appeal and they may have been a mass appeal that however doesn't, that is not our unique selling point. If we have among the broad Hindu traditions are also in the broad other options, other spiritual options that people have. Our USP is our systematic philosophy.

Now other traditions may also have it, but that is not a part of their mass outreach. They may have some scholars who do it a little bit. So that one thing, if we could design more courses by which people can get what is special about us, then we can make a significant difference.

That's one thing that systematic user, we have a lot of digital outreach going on. And many devotees have, especially in the last, I would say five, seven years, it has picked up quite a bit. Hare Krishna TV and Iskcon Desire Tree were the pioneers and they have done a lot of work.

And somehow systematic education is not available that much. That's one major thing. Bhakti Purushottam Maharaj told me that they have a correspondence course for studying Bhagavad Gita in Bengal.

And we don't have anything like that at a broad level in India or in the West also. And there is a Pew Research Foundation, which does a lot of religious study research. And they said that a large number of Christians, almost something like 40% of Christians in the youth group, they define youth as below 40.

In the youth group who came to Christianity, their introduction was through online. So online they do, I don't know how much as devotees, we are able to do this relationship building. We have many devotees giving classes.

That's one thing is courses. The second is relationship building, that just being available online to talk, to answer questions. Sometimes people may not even have philosophical questions.

People are just lonely and they want someone to chat with. So they do offer that quite a bit, that just having been friends online. And the third, which I don't know, again, what, how practical this is, but for us as a movement, sometimes we, our, although we have a lot of philosophy, our religious aspect overshadows our spiritual aspect.

In the public imagination, if somebody wants to think about ISKCON, they may usually think about say big temples. They may think about we do in Harinam, we organize in Rath Yatra. Now people are aware of we also distributing books, but generally if a thoughtful person wants to get a book, which they feel will be filled with wisdom, they are not going to expect that to be distributed by somebody on the streets.

So they expect that to come from, maybe they will go to a crossword or some bookstore and there they'll get the books. So, although we have a lot of philosophy, in the public eye, we are not so much seen as a philosophical organization. We are seen more as a religious organization, somewhat different from the other religions because our temples are clean and things are relatively well organized.

But still that generally, how do people get, where do intellectuals go for looking at, for looking for the intellectual wisdom? They may go to bookstores to read books. They may read newspapers, editorial columns or spiritual columns. They may go to, they may look for academic scholars in that particular religion and what they have written.

Traditional scholars is one thing, academic scholars is another thing. They may also look for say intellectual dialogues happening. Somehow there are dialogues of science and spirituality and there are some Indian gurus who are invited, but there are not so many our ISKCON leaders being invited over there.

So basically the forums where you could say intellectuals congregate or where intellectuals seek, we are not so much present in any of those forums right now. So somehow that our religious, our perception as a religious organization obscures our intellectual side. Those three are my thoughts, courses and one-to-one availability of personal friendship and these things.

Any thoughts on this? Very interesting. Yeah, very interesting that we have not made ourselves accessible in spite of the great wealth of philosophy we have and the wonderful books that we have. Although we are doing such huge book distribution, you mean to say that it's still not reaching the people who are looking for the books or looking for that intellectual input? Somehow book distribution is very important for our temples.

Sometimes when I used to do, I was never a very good book distributor. So I shouldn't say that I didn't have much experience whatever I did. But what I felt is many times people take the book because of a sense of cultural piety rather than a spiritual curiosity.

Oh, I should have a book in my home and I have a Bhagavad Gita. I'll keep it on the altar or some sacred place. So that's why how many people read the books? That is a question.

And it's not true. Some devotees say that now people have stopped reading books. But it's not that simple because even now book publishing is going on.

I read somewhere that every day around almost 10 or 12,000 books are published every day. And these are not charity books. People are buying those books.

So there are people who are still reading. Of course. Although we are doing extensive distribution, whether there are people who are reading and we are giving books, but whether our books are reaching to people who will read the books.

That's the question. That's what I was trying to say that we should crack our heads on how to make people read our books. In other words, make our books accessible to the people.

One may possess the Bhagavad Gita, but may not read it. Yeah. So our real salesmanship or marketing should focus on how to make him open the book and actually build a bridge between the Bhagavad Gita and yourself.

Because most people when they buy the Bhagavad Gita find it to be, Wow, this is quite a job, all these Sanskrit shlokas and they don't relate with it so easily. So building that bridge between Bhagavad Gita and each one of those buyers of that great book is what I think we should focus on. Just imagine if all the books we have distributed have got read.

What a wonderful transformation there would be. Because Prabhupada's, the book distribution should focus towards covering the entire circuit. That is, you distribute the books and actually make them read it and experience Samadha Krishna Consciousness.

You see, most people who market their goods and their product would actually like you to use it. And they come back to you to make sure you're using it. They service your product for you and they have you develop faith in it.

And then they make you recommend it to others and they want to make sure that you're using it. And unless you're using it and you're satisfied with it, you will not be able to speak good about it to others, to anybody for that matter. So I think we need to do that portion, especially with the Indians and the Hindus who are maybe our real, you know, what do you call end product.

People who would take up the book and read it and maybe become devotees. So follow up, I'm saying, we are good at impact. We've got wonderful temples, like you said, great Rathiyatras and nice things happening.

It creates an impact. But I think we are very poor at following it up to meet the ultimate end. You know, so we need to focus.

I think the other religions like Christians and Muslims are very good at follow up. They really may not be so impactful sometimes, although they have mosques and they have these things, which are also pretty good. But they are very good at follow up, especially the Christians.

I know that they follow up, they'll come with you into the hospital and chant in the rosary and pray for you sitting next to you. They will, you know, call you up and see how you're feeling, really enter your life. Although they may not have so much of a philosophy and this and that.

So if we can combine, learn this portion of following it up after the impact, because our impact is pretty good. I think we'll go a long way. And that's what I mean by saying that teaching them how to read the book, somehow or the other, having them enter into the Bhagavad Gita or Krishna book or science of self-realization or something and grasp a little bit, one, two, three points.

Yeah, I think it will have them roll forward. So these are some areas that we need to focus on. And like you said, those three aspects, especially with the Internet and the type of things we have, you mentioned that educational portion is what this is about.

If you float education and people are always happy to be taught the Gita very nicely. And I tried it out this time during the COVID time and I had a thousand people registering and wanting to come and many more wanting to come. I knew that there is a great demand for a structured course in Krishna consciousness and relating with them.

Like you said, after that, following up and relating with them, being available to them. These things are very good aspects of our whole communication, finally, to get them to be believers of Krishna consciousness faith. That's true.

Thank you. That's very interesting. Yeah, we, we are able to do a, I talk with devotees who have done some book distribution and where they have had success.

Am I audible? So, yeah, yeah. So I talked with Vaisheshika Prabhu in Silicon Valley and he has a good strategy that actually they, they're not just distributing books. They are distributing books in specific localities where they go and they build relationships.

So then what happens, you have a relationship and then we, people can come and people, people, it's, it's, they're able to do a lot of distribution also, but they're also able to develop a lot of relationships also. So if that happens, then there are two ways, either the Bhagavad Gita distribution leads to some course or leads to some relationship. Then both ways, they may eventually start, come to a level of studying the Gita.

Yeah. Now, apart from maybe just one, one last, one of the last questions I wanted to ask you. So apart from the, say Christianity or other religions, how much do you see is an obstacle if people are following some other form of worship within the Hindu tradition? If somebody is worshipping Shiva or some other path, does that become a major obstacle for people to come to Krishna? Or it is, it is not that much.

Now I have just two views on this. One is that there are, there's a lot of cultural compatibility or agreement. So, for example, anybody might be following some, worshipping some other Devata or might be worshipping some other Baba or whatever also, but still they usually have some respect for cows, respect for Vedas, respect for deities.

There is a conversation of Prabhupada where Prabhupada was asked in Bengal that if somebody is worshipping a Devata and somebody is worshipping, is following Christianity, who is better? So Prabhupada said that those who are worshipping Devatas, they are in the house of the Vedas. So in that sense, they can come closer to, for them to come to Krishna is relatively easier. And I extended that metaphor and I said that those who are worshipping, I talk about people who are saying, people who worship their own Guru as God or some Baba, they may not be in the house of the Vedas, but we could say they are in the courtyard of the Vedas.

At least they have some favourable, some receptivity. They may not themselves commit, but they are not hostile. Whereas for those who convert to other religions, the cultural barriers become too big for them.

So any thoughts on say obstacles to outreach because of other expressions of Hinduism? Yes, very much. Like you said, I think the Devatas worship is something that most people find it difficult to cross, especially because they have been through it for a very long time. I know of discont devotees, you know, not many of them, but I have spotted one or two of them who have been worshipping some particular demigod for throughout their several generations.

Their father worshipped and before that somebody else was worshipping. Even after they became devotee and they were convinced and they were chanting Hare Krishna, found it necessary because there was some calling from inside that they need to yearly go to this particular shrine and, you know, do their regular stuff that they wanted to do. So this demigod, I mean, to use the word, Devata's worship is sometimes a great impediment for many people.

But if they have a little intellectual bent of mind, a philosophical bent of mind, then they are able to cross it after some time, especially when they become convinced that worshipping Krishna already caters to all worship of the Devatas. And I am comfortable with that. That's the type of thing they should be in.

Apart from that, I would say that you spoke about some Babas being worshipped who are in the courtyard and in India also you have a whole lot of very popular. I shouldn't use the word God men, but a very popular, you know, to use the exact word, very popular organizations with charismatic heads who put themselves up there and mostly than not people would even forget a God or anybody and look at them as replacing that position of God within their lives. And they are very popular and they have motivational talks and they don't directly talk about God.

And even if they do, they do it in a particular way, a strategic way. And they are very popular with the new generation, the postmodern generation of youngsters because they sort of cater to the needs, the internal mental needs or the intellectual needs of these youngsters. Some of the youngsters are also having a little problem at home with their parents and some sort of religious tradition being imposed on them and something that they are not very relatable with or not able to relate with.

And they find some sort of, you know, so-called spiritualism and religion mixed together and bundled. They feel a certain rationale works out in their head that I'm comfortable with this, with this person following because he talks the things that I want to hear. Or rather these people talk the things that people want to hear.

They don't talk the things that they should hear. That's true. In terms of religion and philosophy.

So there's a new wave of such type of people and maybe sometimes our devotees are also doing outreach of that type of being motivational and speaking. And understanding that need, this is a very important point because of them being very popular, some of these so-called personalities and a lot of the youngsters and everybody having an immediate instant good mental massage or appeasement of their immediate requirement. It's something like instant gratification and instant answer to their, like somebody was saying to me that, you know, Google, Google is God is a church.

Like Church of Google is that you can actually see they have a whole following of 1 billion and all that. They were saying that Google answers questions immediately, but God doesn't do so. And because of that, that these people have become famous because they give you an instant feeling that you have been answered and they put you comfortably.

And that is what is the motivational, religiously motivation, spiritually motivation, yoga oriented motivation as a type of thing that they're catering to. And sometimes we feel that we also need to do that in order to be recognized, in order to be relevant to a certain section of the society, especially the youngsters. And some of us are making those in robes.

And I think that's a very good thing to do. Sometimes these devotees face a lot of criticism also, because obviously, if you look at the way Prabhupada presented Krishna Consciousness, or we normally do, that may not gel very well. It's a totally new way of doing things.

And quite often devotees, especially senior devotees, feel that's a dangerous terrain. It's like, you know, skating on thin ice. If you didn't know how to do it, most probably the ice will crack and you'll be lost for good.

You know, you should know how to do that. But sometimes there are outreach strategies that we may not like to, you know, we may have our feet touching the waters, but we may not actually like to go into it fully or not. Rather, I should say we're not yet prepared to go into it fully.

And I think that's a great area. And that's the area that's increasingly popular. To such an extent that sometimes it swerves off and goes off on a tangent in the wrong direction.

I see nowadays that a lot of the youngsters attend stand-in comedy recitations, you know, stand-up comedy and whatever they call it. And they are happy to see their own culture being criticized, diminished or, you know, disparaging remarks passed about it. And they have a loud laugh at it.

And this is how it is. I've heard people talking about Draupadi and her five husbands in a very derogatory way. Talking about Kunti Devi in a derogatory way and talking about, you know, all these great culturally prominent personalities, devotees.

And it's very dangerous. But some of these people cater to that. And this is what I mean by saying that they feel comfortable hearing these things.

And obviously, we are not going to be saying those type of things. So, stepping into this domain is something that has not fully occurred for us. Maybe a few devotees have been successful in, to some extent, doing some motivation stuff.

But how much, like I would not use the word conversion ratio, but how much is the transformation ratio from that type of motivational exercises into bringing them closer? Like you, I spoke to you about the pyramid. The success is in keeping them within the pyramid and having them slowly go a few notches up as and when possible, gradually. But if we actually lose ourselves into that base of the pyramid from the apex down to the base and become somebody that may be popular, but fail to actually lift them up, then I think that that's sort of a failure.

Right? I agree. So, this is a touchy thing and I don't know what you feel about that. Yeah, I feel that you actually give a very good summary of there is a need and there are other people serving that need.

And if we serve it, then at least some people will come to us. And I see this in some way like a specialist outreach. Some devotees did scientific outreach and for that you have to read a lot of scientific books and then see how to respond to them.

So, one fear I have is that too many devotees or many other devotees who may not be qualified enough or trained enough or mature enough. So, one or two devotees may be successful in this area of motivation. But if others start imitating that because they're so successful, I'll do it.

Then that could be a problem. That's one side. And another side, as you rightly said, that how much it's when people expect something from you, you give that to them.

And then they expect more of that. Exactly. If you start giving something else, it becomes difficult.

Yeah. You can't change the menu. Yeah.

In some ways, we become like a prisoner of our success. Yeah. So, that is also a challenge, how to take people ahead from there.

But in some ways, at least having a presence in that area is something. It's good that some devotees are doing that. Yeah.

The real challenge would be that if too many devotees start doing like that or people start expecting that this is what we will get when we come to ISKCON or Krishna Conscious Devotees. Then that could be a problem. But yeah, in one sense, it's a sense of our movement's vitality that devotees are trying out various things and with varying degrees of success.

And we need to see which work in terms of not only reaching people, but also lifting people up, raising them. I think it's going to be an ongoing exploration. Till we find out what are the ways in which we can expand our outreach effectively.

So, I just wanted to speak one point. I read one academic book on ISKCON, which said very striking that ISKCON has spread widely, but thinly. So, very widely across the world, but thinly, we don't have many followers.

In India also, we have spread widely. In some places it's thick. But otherwise, as compared to the population of India, there is a lot more we can do.

Yes, Maharaj. Exactly. We are wide, but not deep.

But our USP is depth. We have philosophy and we can offer depth. Yes, actually both intellectual and spiritual depth.

Because we are also serious about sadhana and serious about attaining higher levels of consciousness. Not just good spirituality. There is depth in everything, in the culture, in the philosophy, in the sadhana, in the practice, in the end goal.

In everything there is depth, but we have to make people know about that. We have to communicate the depth. We may be good at missionary activity of spreading and making people know to some extent, but I think that we also need to learn to communicate the Krishna conscious philosophy.

It's viable. It's tenable. You can practice it.

And that's why I said communities are a very good example. When people see communities, to establish a community takes a lot of faith. If a person is a member of your community, it means he has gone through quite some amount of examination and he has settled down to a lifestyle, accepted a philosophy, adopted it, practicing it and he has settled down.

That's what it means when they see communities normally. I think that Krishna consciousness affords that type of very viable communities. Considering the situation we are in now, COVID times, pandemic, a lot of people are talking about these things.

And I think that we have a very holistic solution from Prabhupada's prescription. We can afford to teach people how to come together with simple living, high thinking, and be communally based and practice religion, practice the highest philosophy, and have great depth in your life. Have great depth in your life.

We believe in having each one transformed personally. And each unit of society is having a deep experience. And that community made out of people with depth becomes a community with depth.

We need to have that type of a prescription, have that type of a process, wherein people should know that we are offering them personal, deep development. That would be interesting. It's a very apt note to find out ways to share our depth.

It's a very apt note to conclude this discussion. Yeah. Thank you.

May I just quickly summarize and if you want to add some last words, we can do that. No, you please summarize. We talked today about the further discussion on Indian outreach and history of Indian outreach.

So you mentioned, we focus today, especially on challenges at present in our outreach. And the first half we discussed about how the challenges with respect to other religions. And with respect to Christianity, they've had different strategies for different classes of people, humanitarian, educational and other strategies.

And we can learn from them quite a bit. They have culture, the way they have adopted to the culture of India, so that to reach out in a way that doesn't trigger too much hostility, that is significant. And then you experienced, you explained your experience with interfaith outreach.

And actually for philosophies presented, that even they will realize that there is a depth which is missing. And they will realize that actually I left this depth to come somewhere else, which is they may not be able to immediately come back externally. But then even if they are able to deepen their understanding and connection with God, then that is also good.

We are not so much interested in horizontal conversion from one religion to another as vertical conversion or elevation of consciousness. And in some ways, if people convert to other religions, they sometimes may become a little more hostile to the tradition from which they converted. But our movement is not lumped with say Hindu extremism in any way.

We have a certain image and respectability by which people are open to dialogue with us and also connect with us. And then we have many strengths, but that we have a deep philosophy that often doesn't come out in our public image. So we distribute books, but we need to create systems for people to read books.

We have online presence, but it is more of individual rather than a systematic educational presence. And then we talked about how if people are worshipping devatas or people are following some other spiritual teachers within the Vedic tradition, they speak to people what people want to hear. And then that's how they are able to get a lot of followers and they feel my questions are immediately answered.

We made several good word plays. The religion of Google was it? Cult of Google or religion of Google? Church of Google. Church of Google.

And then there was Das Capital. That was clever. How much spiritual capital of the mood of service we are investing.

And you made one more phrase like that. It's quite striking. So, so overall, I felt that there's a, if we can, if we conclude by talking, if we can just share, we can help people appreciate the depth of our tradition, then there is a lot of scope for us to expand our outreach and get many more people to raise their consciousness.

Yes, I think you have covered it all. I don't need to add anything. There's one area, of course, that we didn't discuss so much.

It's a very small band of other Vaishnava Sampradayas who are very appreciative of us, whom sometimes if they don't relate with and embrace them may feel a little alienated because we can take advantage of the fact that they have respect for us. And instead of rubbing them with very small differences, the sutra should be what unites us, which I normally tell people in the outside world, what unites us is far, far more significant than what differentiates us. Right.

To put it the other way, what differences we have is far more insignificant than what commonalities that exist between us. Right. So we should go that way with the other Vaishnava Sampradayas and we should cooperate together to save humanity.

We should do everything together. I think that will be the next great phase, especially in South India, to work with the other Vaishnava Sampradayas or even the other Mayavad Sampradayas. We have a lot of commonalities, we can work on them and we should take that forward.

So that's what I would like to add. The phrase in English, it was associated with conflicts among various sects within especially Protestant Christianity. They call it as the narcissism of small differences.

Sometimes we get caught in that. Yes, that's apt. Yes.

Yes. That is wonderful. So very nice talking to you, Chaitanya Charan Prabhu.

It's been a very enlivening, rejuvenating and fresh breeze of discussion openly. Very, very interesting also. So I hope that we will be able to discuss more on these subject matters and I will be able to gather more enlightenment on outreach and how we are poised to spread Krishna Consciousness and save humanity as Prabhupada's desire was.

In this particular time in history, with this particular generation of devotees, I would be very interested in discussing those things. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time.

I very much appreciated the breadth of your vision. You are a leader of the institution in a managerial capacity. At the same time, your vision is not limited to that.

You have a breadth of vision and to be able to appreciate non-institutional or trans-institutional definitions of success and to have a zeal for that. It is very, I would say, perspective expanding for me also. Thank you very much for your time and sharing your wisdom.

I look forward to having more discussions with you in future. Hari, Hari, Hare Krishna. My pleasure.

Thank you. Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna.