The Monk’s Podcast 54 with Navina Nirada Prabhu – Harmony in a multi-guru movement

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

Sure. Welcome to the Monks Podcast. Thank you very much for joining today.

Very happy to be with you today. You know, my first interaction with you was through your books. I was in Pune, a new Brahmachari, and somehow I never was very good at book distribution.

Physically, I couldn't go out much. And even if I went, I was not very good. So I thought I should get some inspiration.

And then I started reading Nectar of Book Distribution. And I was so inspired by this many, many anecdotes. Now, we always hear many things in classes, but that was a, it was a systematic development of thought of how through book distribution, we can actually bring about reformation in the whole world.

And somehow, based on that book, I gave a lot of Brahmachari classes about book distribution. And my book distribution scores didn't improve, but other devotees' scores improved by that inspiration, apparently. So since then, I had a desire to meet you and talk with you.

And I think over the last five, six years, since I started spending more time in the West, we have interacted a few times and I always found your insights about our movement, the challenges and the opportunities that we have. It's very perspective-expanding. So I'm grateful that you could come here today for this podcast.

Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna Chaitanya Charan Prabhu. I'm very happy to be with you here today.

I offer my respects to His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, all my spiritual masters, and to you. Thank you. It was always memorable to meet you.

I honestly have to say that I can't remember you from the Pune days, but there was a lot of Brahmacharis there at that time. But we did meet in recent times and had heart-to-heart discussions, which were very enlivening and encouraging for me. So today I thought we could discuss on a topic that is becoming of increasing importance as our movement's leadership is moving from the first generation to the second generation, that how to have harmony within a multi-guru movement, that within the same temple, there are disciples of different gurus that we all interact with.

Sometimes the management is led by a particular guru's disciples. Major devotees are maybe from some other guru. So I have talked with many leaders in our movement, especially temple presidents.

I meet and talk with them when I am traveling. And often they feel that this is a great cause of dissension, that if this problem could be avoided, then we could have so much more energy to spread the movement and to share Krishna consciousness, even to relish Krishna consciousness. And even from the devotees perspective, they also feel that this causes tensions and we come to Krishna for relieving ourselves of anxieties and not just this anxiety entirely, but we don't want unnecessary anxiety in the devotee community.

So I thought we could discuss on this topic. So what are your thoughts about it? You say you have traveled quite extensively also. So maybe you can share your experiences somewhat.

Yes. Thank you for allowing me to address this most important topic of the day. In a couple of days is Nandotsava, first Jamastami and then Nandotsava, Srila Prabhupada's appearance day.

And on the day of Vyasa Puja, the disciples and grand disciples and followers of the guru are asking themselves, how can I actually glorify my spiritual teacher adequately? So this is a very important and also a very humbling experience because we go deeper in our hearts and we try to think what will actually glorify my spiritual master. Now in recent days, with the passing of His Divine Grace Bhakticharu Swami Maharaj, I re-read his book and one passage stood out when he pushed the recording button in Rishikesh and the industrialist, and his friend asked Srila Prabhupada, who will be your successor? And Srila Prabhupada mentioned that whoever follows my instructions will be my successor. Srila Prabhupada also mentioned that your love for me will be shown in as much as you cooperate after I'm gone.

Now as you have mentioned, I have traveled the world extensively and unfortunately I have noticed in many places that even though most of our spiritual masters are still here, the fighting is already going on. Usually the culture is you wait until the guru leaves and then you start fighting. You don't fight while the guru is still there for the spiritual master.

You are saying that there is a conflict between disciples of the same guru also? Are you saying that or? Okay. Yes, yes and even more so conflicts amongst different types of disciples of different gurus who feel that oh my guru has his mood and your guru has his mood so you do your thing, I do my thing. Now I'm not here to criticize, I'm not here to teach, I'm just here to share some of the things that I have noticed in my travels and in my studies of the Shastras, of the Vaishnava scriptures.

So in the mood of Gopakumar who traveled the universe and admired different personalities and so I was in Udupi and I got off at the wrong bus stop so I was just on the street wandering and then one jeep stopped and it was the chief of police of Udupi and Manipal. So they both took me in their jeep and they said wherever you want to go we'll drive you there. So we had a very lively discussion.

They were so happy to have this western what they thought was a sadhu in their company while they were going to office. It was early morning and so we talked and they asked who I was, where I was from, what I was doing and then at the end they said you know we really like you ISKCON guys but we have one question to you. Why here in this small area of Udupi and Manipal are there four different ISKCON groups? For us it's very confusing because we're the police and we're working together even though we have so many different stations and so many different commanders.

So why do you have four different groups in such a small place? And I just laughed and I said it's complicated. We're a very young movement and we're working on it. But just to give you another story that shows how it can be done in a different way.

When I was in Uzbekistan in the city of Tashkent which is just a little bit north of India we had a temple, huge huge temple for the worship of Suryadev which is now of course abandoned and derelict. So the devotees there they took me to a shrine of a Sufi saint and we were both in plain clothes and there was one Muslim person there one Sufi praying and as he got up he he told us that today is a very fortunate day. I see that you have come here to this tomb of this saint and I know you're devotees of Krishna and you're chanting God's names and I very much appreciate that.

So today by Allah's grace I'd like to invite you to my home to share a meal with me and I pray that all your spiritual desires will be fulfilled. So I was very touched because I was in a different country with a follower of a different religion and he didn't know me but he made me feel very welcome. He made me feel very accepted and very much loved.

Whereas in other times, just to give you another example, being in a certain temple and a senior citizen walked up to me and because I start looking a little bit older so he asks me are you disciple of Srila Prabhupada and I say no. So he just turned around and walked away from me and I felt like did I say something wrong? Like in these days racism is a big topic but oftentimes we're not aware of how this tribalism and racism and territorialism is a very strong underlying current because of whatever conditioning that we may identify ourselves with. So when we read Chaitanya Charita Amrita and Chaitanya Bhagavad we see what you have described as a multi-guru environment where people of different spiritual masters are living together and I just like to mention two very striking points which is in the Ratha Yatra at Puri where there are seven different groups performing kirtan with their own leaders with their own instruments.

But Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is actually present in all the seven groups and he's encouraging them all equally. So I found that very striking and very encouraging how ISKCON is expanding and we have literally devotees in all continents and in all countries and that Srila Prabhupada would be very pleased if as he noticed that it was Bhaktivinoda Thakur's dream that the Bengalis together with the Russians and the Prussians the Germans and the Americans and all the other devotees would chant Jai Satchinandana Gaurahari. So that was his vision that was his dream that was his aspiration and so as humble servants and aspiring followers of our previous Acharyas we should try to see what can we do in order to actually get to that point where there is no insecurity, there is no restrictions.

Okay. You know this is a very moving comparison. Sometimes points come out very powerfully when you are drawing out contrast.

Like you're welcomed by a member of a group religion that is considered sometimes to be quite extremist and then we are given a cold shoulder by somebody from our own movement. So now sectarianism is a universal human problem. It could be sectarianism because of race, it can be because of nationality, it can be because of even regionality.

Even in India there can be regional consciousness. India is such a big place and it's not just in India. Even I've seen when I've interacted with people in America, the people in the middle part of America, they have a very different view from those in the coastal parts of America.

Or say a person in Florida or Texas, they think very differently from say those who are in New York or LA. So there are different, it is almost a universal human weakness to be sectarian, to find some reasons by which we form our own groups and we differentiate. So now there are two points over here.

That one aspect is that somehow the relationship with the spiritual master is seen in our tradition as not just a spiritual relationship, but the central or the defining spiritual relationship. And then that seems based on the spiritual masters, based on our relationship with the spiritual master, we often see that as a defining part of our spiritual identity. So to somehow, to see, so naturally if I'm connected with a particular spiritual master, I connect with that spiritual master and then connect with the God family of that around that spiritual master.

So because that is seen so central to our spiritual identity, that to consider that as a sectarianism, similar to other kinds of sectarianism, that seems a little jarring. That somehow we think that, no, this is natural. This is desirable.

This is spiritual. I belong over here. So, another point is that I agree with you that in a Chaitanya Charita Amrit, we have many, many devotees living together.

But in fact, we don't even know who their spiritual masters are. So mostly, maybe all of them were initiated by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, but some of them were his seniors, some of them his juniors. So that was, we could say, historically unusual period that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, God himself, he was like the one central authority over there.

We could say within ISKCON's history when Prabhupada was there, that is a historically distinctive phase. But should Prabhupada himself emphasize the spiritual master and the relationship with the spiritual master as the central defining relationship? If we consider the previous traditions, so I'm making this a long question and I will summarize it what I'm going at. So the first part, the first part I wanted to say is that it is a defining identity.

It is seen as spiritual and somehow based on that, we don't see it as sectarian normally. Second is this emphasis on the relationship with the spiritual master seems to come from Prabhupada's books and Prabhupada's works itself because he emphasizes the spiritual enormously. And third is that overall in the tradition, if you go to the Mahabharata, it's 110,000 verses and Vyasadeva doesn't even spend half a verse to tell us who is the spiritual master of the Pandavas.

They have Drona as their martial teacher, they have Dhaumya as their priest and they learn from many, many gurus. So they are rather they learn from many, many teachers. So we don't see this focus on the spiritual master, on one, the spiritual master at all.

There, what we see is a general respect for Brahmanical culture and learn from many spiritual teachers. So, so the point I'm making is that these three things, so we are in a very distinctive position. I got your point.

I got your point. Can I comment? Yeah, please. Thank you.

Yes. So to me, it boils down to culture. In the Mahabharata, we have our culture.

In a similar way, it's quite astounding. If you watch and read the appreciations of Bhakticharu Swami Maharaj, did you notice how everybody said the same thing? He was my best friend. Did you notice that? Hmm.

Did you find it striking? I found it very striking. Even people who I knew who were at odds with him managerially would say he was my best friend. And that's, you know, he had no enemies.

I remember he came to Switzerland in 85, I was a young bhakta, and he came where the Sankirtan devotees was staying. It was not even a temple. It was a small little farmhouse.

And he cooked chow mein for us. He cooked Chinese noodles for us. And we were not his disciples.

It was not his zone. But he came there because he wanted to show his appreciation for the Sankirtan devotees. So sometimes in the name of service, it's very easy to do this service.

And that comes because of a lack of culture. Just like in cultured society, you revere your parents, you respect your parents, but you do not flaunt your parents' greatness amongst other people. Because it's not considered cultured, and it's not considered that it will do a service to your parents.

So in a similar way, it is stated that we should not publicly flaunt the glories of our spiritual master, because there are people who may not be able to appreciate that. In fact, it will create a reverse, an opposite effect. Just to give you a small example, when Kamalakanta Biswas, who was the assistant of Advaita Acharya, glorified Advaita Acharya as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Chaitanya was very pleased.

But when he, in the same course, went on to say that Advaita Acharya owes a debt of 300 rupees, then Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said, no, no, no, no, this is wrong. And he chastised him severely, and he called him a baul. He said that he's a Sahajiya follower of an Appasampradaya, and he did not want to see him.

He rejected him. And Advaita Acharya felt that he had been slighted because Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was giving his love in the form of punishment to Kamalakanta Biswas, where he was praising Advaita Acharya. So we have this story.

So if we want to know what culture is, then we have to read Prabhupada's books. You know, I have done surveys around the world, and unfortunately, less than 10% of our congregation and our members own a set of Prabhupada's books, and also less than 10% of our members have read all of Prabhupada's books. Otherwise, if you would study Bhagavatam and Caitanya-caritamrita, you could see these examples, just like… Okay, just a pause.

The point that you're making about not confusing worship of spiritual master and personality cult. Like Guru Parampara is a system. It's Krishna's system, the system that has been established.

But who that particular guru is, is not the point. That is not so important, as long as you are in Parampara. So if we're doing this service in the name of service, then what kind of a disciple are we? If we're not able to actually serve our spiritual master, because of our own conditioning or our own ignorance.

So just to give you another short story, when Prabhupada was a John Lennon's… Yes. So I'm just trying to understand. So when you make the point that everybody felt Bhakti Shahru Maharaj was their friend.

So you are giving that as an example of a cultured Vaishnava being able to see beyond the my disciples or the guru grouping kind of mentality. Is that the example you're making to that? Absolutely. Okay.

And he was never… No, no, I got that. Then Kamalakant Vishwas and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Aditya Acharya. How is that related with the guru point? What is the point over there exactly? That sometimes in the name of doing service, we're actually doing disservice.

Kamalakant Vishwas was thinking that he was actually glorifying Advaita Acharya as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. But then he was disclosing something that was not supposed to be in there. Which was his own insecurity.

He was his secretary, his assistants. He knew about the financial dealings of Advaita Acharya. And he knew that there was a debt of 300 rupees.

But bringing that out in public created a disservice to Advaita Acharya. So in a similar way, if we're not broad-minded and sensitive and cultured to the environment that we're in, we can create a disservice to our spiritual masters. And I had to notice this very early when I started traveling.

Because I became the Minister of Book Distribution in the 1990s. And I kind of told myself that even if the Taliban would start selling Prabhupada's books, I would go there today to Afghanistan to train them to distribute Prabhupada's books. Because it's my mission.

And honestly speaking, I've been to many places in ISKCON which have a very closed-minded, a very narrow type of understanding. And it was quite shocking to see how Krishna Consciousness is being practiced and preached amidst very big… I mean, they call it, you know, good fences make good neighbors. But then you also see that like, you know, in the truck here it says, my India is great.

And next door it says, my Pakistan is great. And next door it says, my Bangladesh is great. So everybody thinks they're great because it's the place of their birth.

But when we read Chaitanya Charita Amrita, why did Chaitanya Mahaprabhu speak this verse? And in a purport Prabhupada and Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur mentions twice that irregardless of your caste, of your background, of your cultural conditioning, if you know the science of Krishna, you can become a spiritual master. Now I was on the GVC in the 1990s and it was wild times. And if you would have mentioned that a non-Prabhupada disciple could be a sanyasi guru or GVC, people would be seriously disturbed and seriously object to that.

Because there was just the beginning of a new era, so to speak. So education is the way forward. Education is really the way of how we can overcome these insecurities.

Just like now there is an ISKCON disciples course and there's also a course for ISKCON gurus. Unfortunately we see that oftentimes people do either not take the ISKCON disciple course or they just take it before initiation instead of taking it before choosing a guru. Which is kind of counterproductive.

Like Prabhupada at one time mentioned when he saw a wedding ceremony and there was a baby there. Prabhupada said, what is that? Usually wedding is first and then baby comes second, you know. There has to be a sequence.

So the connection is that we have to learn the culture by actually studying our own tradition, our own siddhanta and seeing what is giving glory to Prabhupada. What is actually making Prabhupada happy. In a similar way like Kamalakanta Vishwas, there are many who were very strong advocates of propounding Prabhupada as a Shaktivesh avatar.

I don't know if you remember but that has been something that has been, you know, pushed as a Mahavakya. And then the same group of people, interestingly enough, in the very short time after said, and nobody can become a spiritual master. Only Prabhupada could be a spiritual master.

So in one sentence you say Prabhupada is a Shaktivesh avatar. He is an empowered incarnation. And in the second sentence you say, but he was incapable of leaving even one disciple behind who was qualified to give initiation.

And it's such a contradiction, you know. But people are able to reconcile that because the mind, and that is coming back to your point of human nature, of human conditioning, that we are very comfortable with the way we think the world is supposed to be. But unfortunately that is not reality.

And that's why it's important that we study history. And Prabhupada encouraged us. He said, you study other religious movements and you see what went right, what went wrong, and what can we learn from it.

What can we do better. And oftentimes he gave the painful example of the Gaudiya Math where he grew up in. And he mentioned that some of his godbrothers called him a pacha grihasta, a rotten grihasta, that he was not feeling welcomed in some places.

Whereas with other godbrothers he felt very welcomed and encouraged. Prabhupada personally wrote letters and invited his godbrothers to come to America. He said, I'll organize the mission.

You be the acharya. I'll do all the management. And nobody came.

And nobody helped him. And then later on he said to Harisori, look with the binoculars over to the Gaudiya Math and tell me what's going on over there. And Harisori said, nothing's going on over there.

And Prabhupada said, exactly. That's what's going on. Nothing is going on over there.

Because they have not actually understood the message of Guru Maharaj. I was in Rishikesh and there are many, many ashrams in Rishikesh. Just one minute.

If you don't mind, just one minute. There's a lot of points you're making. So see, definitely Prabhupada was very distressed by what happened to the Gaudiya Math after Bhakti Santhrako's departure.

No doubt about that. And he really didn't want that to happen to our movement or to his movement. So there was one point which you mentioned that before that, that the connection with the Guru Parampara is important.

The specific person who is the Guru is not that important. So now this is something which many devotees may find it very difficult to accept, not just at an emotional level, but also at a scriptural level. Because Prabhupada himself emphasizes the spiritual master inordinately in his books.

And he doesn't talk about the spiritual master as a figurehead or as a symbol of a connection. He talks about the spiritual master as a living, loving person whom we should please. So now in one sense, we could say that while Prabhupada's books are eternal, they are also written at a particular context.

So Prabhupada wrote those books when there's only one spiritual master. And now we have multiple spiritual masters. So this, now this point that the spiritual master, there is, the spiritual master is a tattva and is also a person, both.

So this is something which maybe we can analyze this a little bit more and discuss this point because we're talking about, you know, say, for example, that devotees are not reading Prabhupada's books or the Gaudiya Mahatma went wrong. That is true. But there is a particular reason for this.

And there is a particular conception of the spiritual master that is there. And if that conception itself needs to be reconceptualized, then we need to, we need to look at that root rather than looking at what has grown from that root. I hear you.

Yes. So we have to see how can we get to where, to where we want to go? You know, what's the, what's the, what's the root? How can we, how can we arrive there? And it is only through education. Yes.

If you, if you analyze history, it is only movements that have instituted education that are still alive today. And all the others who have subscribed to personality cults, they have not. Srila Prabhupada in 1956, in the Gita Nagari prophecy, in, he was mentioning Gandhi and he brought up the point that it's not in building brick monuments and making great speeches and eulogies that we will actually please our founding fathers, but in creating communities that are built on the principles which they have left us.

So as you have mentioned, Guru Parampara and Guru Tattva is our theology. And there is also the personality, the individual as a guru. And there has to be a balance between the two.

It's not that we say, okay, this is our law and it doesn't matter from whom you take initiation. Because for us, it certainly matters very much because that's our connection. But in the bigger scheme of things, who is your exact Diksha Guru is not that important in a bigger scheme of things.

Just like you see in Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami, he always says Guru, always in plural. Oftentimes you don't even know. So who is his Diksha Guru now? Because he's mentioning so many personalities from whom he learned and under whom he studied.

Because that is the emphasis. And in the very same purport of Yaredeke Tarikaha, Prabhupada makes the point that Varmapradarshika, Shiksha Guru and Diksha Guru are equally important and they should be equally respected and equally worshipped. And unfortunately, out of neophyte Atibhakti, too much devotion and Utsahamayi being very enthusiastic to glorify our Guru, we have created a personality cult where people have started printing t-shirts and bumper stickers and posters and go out to canvas about their Guru.

And I mean, you're in India, you know better than me, how many times have you sat in a rickshaw and there was a bumper sticker of some Guru or some Sadhu or some Babaji or some… And you ask yourself, is this what the movement has become? Is this what was meant by this person's legacy? So how can we prevent this through education? Yes, just a minute. I agree with you that education is important. Now, the word personality cult has a very strong negative connotation.

And we definitely are not and we don't want to become a personality cult. At the same time, it could very well be said that in some ways, we are a personality cult centered on Prabhupada. So, in fact, there are many traditional Hindus who come to our temples and they say that in most Hindu temples, you don't have the image of the Guru prominently in the temple.

In most Sri Vaishnava temples, Ramanujacharya's deity will be somewhere else. In fact, usually at the entrance, we either have Garuda or we have Ganesha. So, in fact, they say that you have brought a centrality to your Guru, which is not according to either the Hindu tradition or the Vedic tradition.

So, we can say that we don't want a personality cult. And that's definitely true. But isn't the origin of personality cult coming from our own books and our own systems? So then, are we saying that we can have a personality cult around Prabhupada but not around his disciples? Then there is that differentiation which we'll have to make.

So, that would be hypocrisy. I mean, Prabhupada is our founder Acharya. And every founder Acharya has a very unique, distinct category.

He's not just a Guru. He is the founder Acharya. And Prabhupada insisted on that position to make it clear.

And so, that's a historic precedent. And you have the same amongst the Madhavites, that they all revere Madhavacharya. Amongst the Ramanujis, that they all revere Ramanujacharya.

Even thousands of years later, because he is their founder Acharya. So, Prabhupada has a very unique position. So, personality, there's nothing wrong with personality.

We are people and we can only relate to people. That is natural and that is understood. But to turn it into a cult means that we actually separate the person from the teachings of the person or what the person stands for.

And we are just instrumentalizing the person. Just like Prabhupada was criticized that he did not get out of the car to pay respects to his Guru Maharaj's samadhi. And he said, they do not see what I am doing.

I am following the instructions of my spiritual master. I'm preaching. I am developing Mayapur.

That is his desire. And my Guru Maharaj is always present with me. Otherwise, it becomes about building bigger monuments.

So, then you have bigger samadhis and more lavish praise and decorations, but that is counterproductive. That is really not in the spirit of what our teachers expected of us. Yes.

So, I got this and it's a good, good central point. A personality cult is when you separate the person from their teachings and emphasize the person to such an extent that the teachings get obscured. So, attraction to the person or even attraction to the personality of the person, that is fine.

That's a part of one's relationship, but that attraction should lead us to follow the teachings. And those teachings, if you come to Prabhupada, as you said, he asked us to cooperate. So, is that how you would say differentiating personality cult and say worship of the Guru? Worship of the Guru means we may be attracted to the person of the Guru, but that leads to us inspired to follow the teachings.

Whereas personality cult means we become so centered on the Guru that we focus more on just talking about the Guru and just proclaiming the Guru rather than following the teachings of the Guru. Is that how you differentiate? Yes, absolutely. That's a good point.

And that is a core point because oftentimes when Vaishnavas depart, then everyone cries and sometimes we feel remorseful because we did not take enough of their association and we did not connect enough to their teachings. And sometimes that is also enhanced by the sectarianism of their disciples who make it almost impossible to access the Guru or the teachings of the Guru. Like, you have traveled extensively in America and have you ever met a born again Christian? Yeah, I was going for a walk and you saw this person was in a car and he got out of the car and he wanted to sell me a Bible and wanted to invite me to come for a program.

It was quite funny. It was quite funny, isn't it? So, have you ever met a born again Hare Krishna? That's a good way of looking at it. So, very aggressive, very intrusive.

Is that what you're saying? Yes. And my Guru is the only Guru and anyone who does not follow my Guru and worship my Guru cannot go back to Godhead and does not understand what's actually going on. And so, in the name of service to Gurudev, they're actually doing disservice to Guru.

That's why like when we're serving our spiritual masters, we have to be very careful that we do not fall into that trap because otherwise we would actually cause pain and disservice. Prabhupada gave the example of the sons massaging the body of the father and then they're pinching on the other side to make it look like the other son is not doing a good job. You know that story, that example.

So, that's why history is there to learn from it and if we see how the Goswamis would work on each other's books, how they would edit each other's books, they would write commentaries to each other's books and in this way they would actually assist each other in their preaching. So, in such an environment a great abundance of preaching and of Vaishnava Sangha can happen and I remember very fondly in the 80s and early 90s when all the ISKCON Gurus and Sanyasis and their disciples would participate in Navadvip Mandal Parikrama and together as a loving family they would actually perform this function of Parikrama whereas the tendency nowadays is more individual small groups of Gurus with their disciples go to certain places but it's not seen as an activity that is actually open towards others. So, in the name of inclusive in the name of exclusiveness sometimes we can become sectarian and that is a great danger that we have to safeguard against individually and also collectively.

That's why this moment in history of our movement is very crucial that there was a Guru Systems Reform back in the 80s and Guru Reform 2.0 is is in the works that the people actually sit together and think very deeply what is the legacy, what are we leaving behind, what is the future. Just to give you a practical example right now we have about 1 million dedicated members of this institution. Out of the 100 Gurus that we have less than half are still actively initiating which means that 50 Gurus for a million disciples you do the math you're a scientist that would mean 20 000 disciples per Guru.

Now would you like to take your new 300 disciples before or after breakfast? I mean it just doesn't work practically speaking otherwise we end up being like certain movements where they just throw some holy water into the crowd and say okay now everybody's initiated and I was in Rishikesh there's so many ashrams and except Guru Purnima nobody shows up. So people only come once a year for Vyasa Puja or Guru Puja but they have not really understood what is the mission of their spiritual master. Prabhupada was criticizing a certain Swami or Sadhu who came and sold mantras for 35 dollars now the rate has gone up it's probably 500 dollars from different groups what they charge for their mantras.

So we have to safeguard to not fall into this trap that we make it a very exclusive elitist type of a thing that is not acceptable not accessible to other people because Prabhupada really said he had a disease he could not think small he could only think big he said I want to spread Krishna consciousness everywhere at once. So how does he do that? By empowering people you remember the story when he was in Delhi on a train and he told his disciples you you and you you get off you start a temple here and he said I'll give you 50 rupee as a loan 50 rupee as a loan to start a center in Delhi huh and now we have over a dozen temples in Delhi so so Prabhupada empowered people but nowadays we have to analyze and see are we empowering people are we making it appealing and interesting and exciting and do people want to take part in this movement ISKCON has almost a thousand centers now and there is at least another thousand or two thousand ISKCON friendly affiliates so many devotees went out and opened their own non-profits their own you know societies and companies and incorporations and can be a topic for a different discussion unity and diversity if that is the way forward but but we have to see what is their interaction with ISKCON so is it actually pleasing to Prabhupada and is there continuity if you see nowadays the movements that have lasted amongst all these different groups that came in Prabhupada's time very few of them have actually lasted very very few of them have actually lasted and those who lasted are the ones who understood empowerment just like Swami Narayan group Pramukh Swami he came to New Vrindavan in 1980 he saw palaces of gold and he decided I'm gonna build what they have done and he built over a thousand of such temples a thousand palaces of gold why because he understood the principle of empowerment and the Swami that builds the temple is not the Swami who is the Mahant who is going to manage the temple he has to move on it's another guy who comes who has to manage the temple so nobody has the feeling that this is my temple this is my disciple this is my zone because that's a new party that's a designation nobody's owned we're all here to do seva we're all supposed to become Nishkinshana devotees and unless we understand that we'll fall into this trap of insecurity that we think this is my property I can control it I have ownership now and then it becomes an anapa sampradaya where they just show the deity or they just show the samadhi of the guru in order to make money but they do not actually preach the message of the spiritual master and that is a great danger. Thank you a lot of points there so I think we'll have to go back one by one so non-possessiveness I'll go back to the empowerment I think that could be an entirely different subject if we have so many spiritual if you have so many aspiring devotees and so few spiritual masters that probably we need to have more and more devotees initiating and then then probably if there are probably yes that is the big idea no that could be one thing so Prabhupada said in 1975 that I want all my disciples to earn this degree of bhaktivedanta and to become initiating disciples that was yes Prabhupada said that I know that the thing is that okay so that's 45 years ago yeah and so we have to see is it happening yeah dozens of proper disciples who are passed away but their disciples are not initiating so what can we do to further that that's true I think you know empowerment if we have many spiritual masters initiating then that itself would in one sense diffuse the focus from the spiritual masters because if in one temple there are maybe 25 gurus disciples then the focus on my guru and your guru will naturally go down so in one sense that could be one way where the spiritual master is something someone we connect with individually and they're individually inspired by but then if there are many different devotees inspired by different spiritual masters then that will become more a matter of personal inspiration personal devotion that will not necessarily overshadow our social interactions within the devotee community absolutely just to give you a personal example I'm here in the Bay Area of California and because of the tech industry there is over half a million Indians here in the Bay Area so in the it's kind of Silicon Valley ISV we have disciples of several dozens of gurus here and they work together very nicely in in cooperate in in preaching and in outreach and there is usually 10,000 people and although it's a small temple building small church and it works and I talk regularly to the recruiters in the tech industry because there's people from every nationality here in the Bay Area who work for these big tech corporations and I asked them what are the criterias under which you recruit people and they say it's not skill it's ability to work in a team and to put your own ego down and to actually pass the ball to be a team player that is the primary number one quality for recruitment you can be a smart nerd and can be in your lab and develop something but if you want to be management if you want to be on the board of something you have to be a team player you have to pass the ball you cannot be a ball hog like for instance you're in India so if you if you score a century but your team loses 150 to 300 are you going to be very happy I scored a century baba your team lost so in a similar way right now we are so trigger happy that we want to score we want to have our own individual achievements but if we're not seeing that our institution is actually moving forward that we're actually delivering the goods right now the product is not available on the market we cannot sell something that's not available in stock you know oh pre-ordered you know you can pre-order you can pre-order your guru maybe you'll get initiation in five or ten years maybe maybe hey I have news for you there are other groups out there we do not have a monopoly on bhakti there are other groups out there who are ready to give you initiation today or yesterday well this is one solution okay I mean I appreciate your point but you know this is one solution which is not really in the hands of individual devotees that is there is that could be a whole different subject of empowering more and more more of our first generation and second generation leaders to initiate that's one solution which is at an institutional level and maybe we could discuss this with the institutional leaders let's look at it more from a individual devotee perspective right now so I want to go back to an earlier point when you talked about yatras now say now quite often each spiritual master takes their own yatras so if we just consider now in the past all maybe all gurus would come together for a vrindavan parikrama or mayapur parikrama so there are two three different things over here first is that our the number in our movement has become so big that I don't think if the whole movement came to mayapur at a particular time mayapur or vrindavan could accommodate them here are thousands and thousands is there a million devotees we have practically it's not possible and even more important bhakti is about relationships so I don't just want to belong to a diffuse movement of millions I want to connect with people I want to connect with people so you know that when somebody goes with a yatra with their spiritual master that is an opportunity for devotees to connect with each other so if our movement is to move forward at one level we want to avoid sectarianism but on other level we want to have connections and connections have to be on some basis so sometimes it could be like one temple does activity together sometimes it could be that one devotees with one service say recently I heard that there was a conference of all devotee attorneys in Florida so that was their service and how they could come together for that service and the guru it is my spiritual master through whom I come together so I feel that we need relationships and we have grown beyond a particular point where we can't expect the whole movement to be united the whole movement coming to Mayapur is impractical now so now okay I just let me complete let me complete this point yeah let me complete this point that what we need is for like-minded devotees to come together and that like-minded devote that like-minded devotees coming together can happen in various ways it can happen through people at a particular place people in a particular service people initiated by a particular spiritual master people attracted by a particular holy place or a particular manifestation of Krishna so we can't so that kind of coming together for a closer bonding that is not I don't see that as sectarian because we cannot get inspiration in a group we get inspiration through individual connections so the same this is I just draw a parallel with the caste system in India the caste system is often thought as a sense of this as a cause of discrimination can you hear me I hear you very well yeah so the caste system is often seen as a source of discrimination but historically speaking the caste system is distorted now but it also brought greater connection so all people belonging to a particular varna they bonded closer to each other now there should the unfortunate part was there was like a big like wall of china or some big wall between the varnas which is undesirable so we need to provide devotees mechanisms for coming closer to each other at the same time we don't want walls between different groups of devotees so just devotees coming together is not unhealthy but no I'm not saying that my point is that bringing closer doesn't mean closed-minded you know you can be close but you don't have to be closed-minded otherwise it's contradictory so in a similar way we're one movement and there is many flavors and many teachers and many you know preferences everybody can find their svajatiya and that is available but unless we understand the shiksha because we're a shiksha sampradaya and so unless we actually understand the teachings it will become contraproductive and it will fragment and it will fizzle so we have to be aware of that and safeguard against that so you were saying on an individual level what we what we can do we can do for instance that we make people feel welcome we make people feel uh comfortable in our association we do not discriminate against them like right now there's so much conflict about race and and gender and color of skin and nationality etc it's an ongoing you know story formerly was tribalism now there are subgroups and subgroups of the subgroups you know like you can be in a certain place and even amongst the disciples of a certain guru there are many many different camps who may not necessarily get along with each other just because of a lack of a brother understanding doesn't mean that we have to get lost in the crowd you know you can be very connected in a crowd and you can be lonely in a crowd or you can be alone by yourself and you're fully connected prapa was by himself but he never felt separated from his spiritual master or from vrindavan or from his dear god brothers so it's not a you know krishna consciousness is not a zip code or or a t-shirt it's not just a yeah a certain specific brilliant a certain specific location so it's important that we remind ourselves of that otherwise we get stuck in that paradigm so he made sure that people could relate to him like in one of your former interviews i really like that story somebody said that proper took out the trash uh in new york to to to to bond with rubens the owner of 26 second avenue yeah so yeah he didn't say hey i'm a swami i'm a guru you know like i can't touch this you know this is untouchable but he knew how to bond with that person and he talked with john lennon's gardener about british sports cars and he bonded with john lennon's gardener who got very great appreciation for prabhat and krishna consciousness because prabhat made that step to make him feel comfortable bhaktisiddhana saraswati thakur had meat served to the british governor who came to mayapur and they build a post office and build bhaktisiddhanta road because they were very appreciative of bhaktisiddhanta saraswati thakur's achievement i think eventually they didn't even have the meat but but bhaktisiddhanta saraswati thakur was challenged by his disciples and he said a thousand lifetimes ago i was thinking exactly like you but i have decided that there is nothing i will not do to spread chaitanya mahaprabhu's mission so if we are mission centered and we are centered on siddhanta on tatva and at the same time we develop personal relationships and there is flavors and there is likes and sometimes also seemingly dislikes or aversions that can be there at the same time we have to make sure that those do not take the upper hand and they make close closeness into close-mindedness and then we become sectarian and it becomes unattractive and unappealing why right now there's so much conversion going on in india there's one minute one minute before we move forward i like this contrast just because you brought it up one major factor is because because because of the abuse and the neglect and the exploitation and in a similar way people vote with their feet you know the world is a global village nowadays and if your center is not attractive and if your way of dealing with your guests is not appealing people will go somewhere else and that is just the way of the world so those places who have learned to incorporate that they're flourishing and other places they will become obsolete that is just the way of the world that's true you know bro this is a good thought i mean this could be we can develop this as a concluding part that how to have closeness without close-mindedness so i thought of one thing that now if i look at my own life and maybe you can share from your life that i don't i mean for me for all of us we have different layers of identity to ourselves ultimately we are souls who are parts of krishna but say you may you have identity the book distributor i may identify as a traveling speaker as a writer or as a brahmachari so quite often and of course i have identity as a disciple of a particular spiritual master so as we if devotees develop their individuality in bhakti that means okay what is my contribution to krishna's service what is my contribution to prabhupada's mission and then that will naturally lead to a like-minded a gravitation toward like-minded association and if i develop a healthy respect for my individuality then i will also develop a healthy respect for somebody else's individuality so their individuality will not be a threat for my individuality so if a devotee is defining identity become centered on offering their individuality to krishna then they will naturally gravitate towards like-minded aso devotees and they will let others devotees gravitate toward like-minded devotees so you know for example that i i am more of we could say a thinker writers so even my some of my best friends are those who are thinkers and thinkers that way now when i interact with them what to speak of whose disciples they are but even which ashram they belong to which nation they belong to even what culture they were born and brought up in this doesn't matter because we are united in the purpose of serving krishna so instead of simply saying that we should be united in the purpose of serving krishna if we can create within each devotee that purpose of serving krishna then there will be a healthy unity that will come but if a devotee instead of having that purpose of serving krishna the devotee is defining identity is or that i am a disciple of the spiritual master and glorifying the spiritual master is the basis of my identity then that that purpose is so if the individuality is properly dovetailed in bhakti then that kind of we can have closeness but no close-mindedness however if a devotee's identity is based on primarily belonging to a group the primary identity is that i am a disciple of the spiritual master or i am a i belong to this temple then that will have you might have a closeness within the god family or closeness with the temple but that could lead to close-mindedness so if you are centered on service then we can have closeness without close mind i agree thank you for that yes so yes and unfortunately sometimes the experience is even amongst our own kind that you may be in a group of your god brothers and and you experience close-mindedness and you might be in a group of disciples of other gurus and you encounter more acceptance and more inclusiveness so that runs across all the bars yes as a concluding point in one of his last classes but bhakti charu swami was mentioning that is khan is constipated and i can see that nobody wants to be the enema nobody wants to be the the person who takes it upon themselves to actually bring about change because change is always painful it's always painful to change things because it means we have to have a change of mindset a change of paradigm and it's not so comfortable for those of us who had to travel and had to encounter different challenges in their lives like you were mentioning earlier in our talk about my history and i went through the zonal acharya days where wherever you joined that was your guru and and it was a disproportionate worship of an individual even over prabhupada in many places to to a more broad-minded and inclusive understanding of krishna consciousness where you can see that you have friendships across the world not just according to service but just according to what is your heart how do you how do you share your how do you share krishna consciousness how do you appreciate krishna consciousness so there is individuality there is variety and at the same time there is an institution and there is cohesiveness so my humble prayer and request is that we contemplate these points deeply and we assist in the uh in carrying the message forward in a way that it's actually appealing and attractive and accessible for the people because that was the mood of our parampara that is why shila prabhupada stayed up and wrote these books otherwise if we tell him you know people don't really read nowadays you know you you you you wasted your time you know staying up all night that would not really please prabhupada of course we have to go and use all the other mediums that are available now also to put krishna consciousness there but we should make sure that people are actually reading and understanding the siddhanta otherwise we'll end up with personality cults that that are very short-lived and that are that are very you know actually unimportant so to speak so in the name of doing service to our guru we should be mindful not to do disservice and to inconvenience others because it's easy to step on others in order to try to get higher to where you want to go but then bhakti is not really about you know you can't really impress krishna by by your great achievements he's not so easily impressionable why is srimad radharani shirade why is she so much revered and worshiped why has she captured krishna's heart there is two billion gopis because she's happy to bring all others to krishna she is happy to serve all others in their service and i find that was an outstanding quality of bhakti true mirage that he encouraged everybody i remember he he went out of his way to to to accommodate people and to encourage them and to support them even though they were not his disciples even though there is nothing in it for him except service so and that is the mood and the spirit in which we can actually grow as individuals and we can grow as an institution coming back to our initial point it's about culture and culture is not something you can legislate i'm not interested in the policies i'm not interested in the laws i'm also not interested in the people behind the policies i want to know whether you care i'm speaking to chaitanya charan prabhu because because i feel you're my friend i feel you took interest in me even though i'm not a scientist i'm not a scholar i'm not a writer but you care about me and that's why we bond even though we come from different stratospheres from different parts of the galaxy and and that's what makes it interesting that's what makes it appealing you know because because it's not only likes and likes that attract each other it's also opposites that attract each other so so we have to see how if you want to be more creative otherwise it's like you have a brahmachari ashram and you keep on piling more and more brahmacharis into it and at some point it becomes a little crowded and then it becomes a little overcrowded and then it becomes claustrophobic like the example was given by you know if there is nobody who can leave the university at some point it becomes a little counterproductive so it's gone we should educate people and then they should move out into the world and be empowered to to spread this message according to their taste and and and and capacity and we should not stifle their development by our own insecurities just like if i'm envious of you at the same time i despise you i want everything that you have at the same time i hate you for whatever you stand for it's not a very good basis for a relationship that's true there has to be mutual respect just an insecurity otherwise just as a last point otherwise all of a sudden the children are in the room screaming the women are in the room screaming the old people they're they're not screaming but but they're in they're in pain we have to make sure that the different parts of our society actually are served and are heard and are validated and are accepted and appreciated so that people feel part of this greater family of iskcon otherwise we will stay very small and it will take i mean we can say all problems will be solved in a hundred years but but i mean my hope and aspiration still is that we see a little bit of sanity in our lifetime you know i mean that's my my humble my humble aspiration and and and so whoever can work towards this to bring guru systems reform 2.0 uh to our present uh scenario it would be very much welcomed a lot of the leaders and a lot of the rank and file devotees feel like that i'm personally counseling devotees and aspiring initiates on a weekly basis and i know so are you and and everyone is feeling the the pinch so what can we do to alleviate the burden of sheila prabhupada who wanted to share krishna consciousness with the world now again this i think comes back to the point of individual responsibility each of us if we take more responsibility then we all can contribute as you said to making sheila prabhupada's movement become a more transparent channel of krishna's mercy and contribute to raising human consciousness so i'll try to summarize and then you can add effects so we discussed basically on the topic of having harmony among different gurus in our movement so we started by talking about how sectarianism can be such a problem that sometimes inside our movement we are coldly received and outside our movement in some of the tradition like in your experience in kazakhstan that you were warmly received so this uzbekistan sorry so then now why now why might this happen so whether it is at one level it's a universal mentality of sectarianism comes up for this reason that reason now in our case sectarianism might come in in a spiritual seeming garb and that spiritual seeming garb is the identity of its guru centrism or guru groupism so now in that connection because the the guru is our defining relationship quite often that may not seem like sectarianism that might seem spiritual but if we look back at our broader culture so you talked about first point was i think education that if we see what prabhupada has given us in his books like the chaitancharita amrit and we look back at the greater mahabharata culture then the emphasis is on say serving lord chaitanya together no or serving the lord together being a part of the brahminical culture not so much who is my guru and sometimes in glorifying one's spiritual master one may actually be doing disservice like you give the example of ramakant biswas and aditya acharya and so now the we discussed about differentiating when does a when does worship of the spiritual master degenerate to becoming a spiritual cult or a personality cult rather that is when when venerating the personality becomes so important that we overlook the teachings so at an individual level we can connect with our spiritual master and we can venerate and worship at a social level within the community and beyond we need to focus on the teaching of the spiritual master and the teaching is to serve krishna to carry on krishna's message to give krishna's message to others so through prabhupada's books when there is an emphasis on the spiritual master we need to see that as prabhupada is our founder acharya so his position is like ramanujacharya and madhavacharya and subsequent spiritual masters they are all united in the service of shila prabhupada and one way that distinctiveness of shila prabhupada's position can become highlighted and the other guru centrism might go down is if we have more and more devotees initiating because right now itself as you said each spiritual master exists which may have initiated 20,000 disciples that's impossible to actually have personal relationships so although the opportunity for them to be empowered maybe from a that not on our control but from the individual devotee side devotee needn't have to think that i need a guru who has thousands of disciples can look at who inspires me and choose the spiritual master from that perspective and then lastly we talked about so education empowerment and then we could say individual service or individual responsibility for service so if my identity comes from my belonging to a group in which i am thrust say i belong to this group this is my guru then that group identity can very easily lead to insecurity because if i feel that hey that group is becoming bigger than my group that spiritual guru is being glorified more than my guru so that is not a group identity even centered on a guru is not necessarily a spiritual identity so if our identity is centered on our service to krishna then each devotee feels that responsible to serve krishna then those devotees will naturally bond with other like-minded devotees who have a similar inspiration to serve krishna and because there is closeness over there and we need closeness because as devotees we need relationships but if there is a healthy respect for individuality then we can have closeness among those with whom we are like-minded but we won't become close-minded because we'll respect others individuality yes they they are inspired in that way and they will move forward in their way so that way we can have closeness without close-mindedness i think in the conclusion you mentioned this point that you know we all have a responsibility for prabhupada's mission and to the extent we think how can i carry on i like those three words attractive appealing and accessible so if we do that then we all can actually become channels for prabhupada's mercy to manifest krishna's mercy to manifest any concluding points you want to say yes i was in rome thank you i admire your brilliant mind maybe one day you can give me lessons on how to develop this capacity i was in rome getting visas for west africa and i saw that there was less than 20 percent caucasians amongst the priests 80 were latinos south americans africans and asians so our movements demographics are shifting and it's very important that we understand this and we take note of this and we accommodate this otherwise history will not easily absolve us because the future generations will look at us and say you guys were a bunch i mean they won't say you're a bunch of idiots because they will be cultured so they will say it in a nice way because you did not really do your homework you did not really do what you were supposed to be doing you know why chaitanya spoke the verse in his time the current misunderstanding was you have to be a grihasta brahman otherwise you cannot be a guru and he said no it's okay that's beautiful you know there are so many statements of lord chaitanya which are so universalist and in some ways if we just go deeper into our tradition important point yeah in some ways yes even if we start reading verse a day it may take us 46 years to complete shreemadbhagavatam but you know we gotta start somewhere and and have that have that tushyanti cha ramanticha that that sharing of like-minded association so please i'd like to encourage you devotees start reading groups start sharing your realization discuss what it means in your life for you and what do you plan to do to apply it like Prabhupada was telling Vishal in Vrindavan who was chanting nice sanskrit shlokas why don't you go and do something practical you know he stopped him and said why don't you go and do something practical so Prabhupada was a very practical person now in our movement we have seen many things and i like to conclude on this point that if a manager is trying to be a sadhu it's actually a very good thing because he will start preaching bhagavatam katha and he will start study shastra and he will start doing all these things but if a sadhu is trying to manage it really compromises his credibility so if we can accommodate our senior revered members and allow them to be elders allow them to be spiritual guides allow them to be just sharing krishna consciousness and you were bringing up the yatras yes we have yatras to also invite their god brothers to also invite disciples of other gurus to their yatras and to make it a truly inclusive experience that would be very much in the spirit of bhaktivinoda thakur very much in the spirit of shila prabhupada and i think that will send a very inspiring message to the future generations otherwise i can't be a swami narayan follower why because i don't speak gujarati i can't be a catholic priest because i dropped out of ninth grade and i did not go to seminary and study you know latin so krishna consciousness is here to stay and it should be accessible attractive and relevant so that people actually feel that you are speaking to me you're speaking my language i can do this and that was the mood of jayananda prabhu who would pick people off off the street and say can you hold a nail that was his way of of qualifying people and and he made more devotees than many many others put together he was also driving a cab full time and taking out the trash and doing renovations and he was also the temple president by the way so if we can allow our senior members to actually be sadhus to be spiritual guides and not have to manage and and and deal with men and money all the time that would be a great service so we have so many qualified people in our institution i think that's a whole big subject in itself yes uh let's uh because for the conclusion another subject will be difficult let's discuss it some other time thank you very much for your association prabhu it is wonderful talking with you thank you for thank you.