Three reasons Western outreach is tough Rishikesh

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
I’m grateful to be here with all of you today. And it’s been a joy seeing how things in Rishikesh have taken off over the last six months or so.
And I’ll share a few points about communication based on the 17th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, 15th verse. This talks about austerity of speech. So, it says, Anudvegakaram Vakyam.
Anudvegakaram Vakyam. Don’t speak in a way that is agitating to others. Satyam.
Speak truthfully. Priyam. Speak that which is pleasing.
Hitam. Speak that which is beneficial. Hitam jayat.
And svadhyaya abhyasinam jaya. Recite scripture. Vanmayam tapah uchyate.
Vanmaya is related with speech. Tapah is discipline, austerity. So, this is called austerity of speech.
So, broadly we could say that there are these four elements in this. Anudvegakaram Vakyam. So, disciplined speech.
There are four elements which could be put into two categories. One is basically Krishna says don’t be non- agitating. And be pleasing.
So, we could say this is like a funnel. At the very least try to be non-agitating. If we can be pleasing that’s even better.
But if we can’t be pleasing at least be non-agitating. And then Krishna says be truthful, satyam and be beneficial. Now, there is much truth that can be spoken but we need to consider what aspect of the truth is beneficial.
Not that we don’t we speak lies. But that education means there is incremental disclosure of the truth. It’s not that kid who is just learning 3 plus 5, we start teaching that kid triple integral calculus.
Kid will get overwhelmed. So, be truthful and beneficial. So, we could call these two categories as be sensitive and be sensible.
So, sensitive refers to the emotional side. We need to connect with people’s heart. What we speak should not be agitating or troubling people.
So, we need to be sensitive. So, that’s non-agitating and pleasing. And this addresses the emotional and sensible addresses the rational side.
That we don’t just want to be so in the name of being touchy-feely and soft we don’t speak the truth at all. We can go in political correctness nowadays towards an extreme where people just in the name of not hurting people are ready to entertain and propagate even blatant falsehood sometimes. So, we want to avoid both these things.
So, another way to understand this balance of being sensitive and sensible is that while we are being sensitive so, it’s interesting when Krishna is speaking this in the Bhagavad Gita he’s saying that both require it’s an austerity. It’s not that this will happen automatically. So, normally whenever we use the word austerity austerity involves to some extent regulation of inclination.
You can use the word impulse or whatever. There is a certain tendency that okay, by the way, sorry I forgot do you have any grain or something? I had to bring the Ekadasi fast at 10.30. One particle of rice or something like that. I don’t need to eat anything.
Just one particle of rice. So, I’ll give you the example of Ekadasi so I remember. All of you have broken your fast? None of you? Okay.
So, at 10.30 it is the fast breaking time. I took water yesterday. That’s alright.
Just some grain. So, it ends at 10.30? It ends. Okay.
So, we have a natural tendency to eat but say austerity like fasting so we have a natural tendency to eat but when we are fasting we regulate the eating. So, nowadays in national economies sometimes the government announces austerity measures where they say that certain things people should not spend more money or people have to budgetary constraints. So, there is a natural tendency to live at a particular level of comfort and we may have to decrease that.
So, there is a regulation of inclination. So, we have a natural tendency to speak and Krishna says this speaking tendency is to be regulated. That’s why he is calling it as austerity.
Austerity or discipline. So, when we are speaking we try to moderate our speech so that we can, in other words moderate has two different meanings. Moderate at one level means to supervise.
Like we have a moderator. Like who is a moderator for exam? The supervise. But moderate also means to keep regulated.
To regulate. That to keep in balance. Eat in a moderate quantity for example when we say.
So, moderate means avoid extremes. So, both things are required with respect to the moderation of speech. So, austerity is basically we keep moderate.
And in this case the moderate is we can go to the same thing. The sensitive and sensible. We could be understanding this in terms of that we want to be gentle but not fickle.
So, gentle we want to be polite and courteous in the way we function. The way we talk and conduct ourselves. But fickle means we become like a chameleon.
That we just change our colors, change our stripes. We are with whichever person we are we become like them. So that then we, do we have any convictions ourselves.
So, we don’t want to go in that direction. So, with respect to so if we are so if we are we go towards one extreme is that we become harsh and hard. So, harsh is generally with respect to the speech and hard is with respect to the conduct in general.
Somebody is very hard in enforcing rules. Somebody is very harsh in disciplining and punishing people. So, when we do that then this can come off as insensitive.
So, we would like to avoid this. On the other hand we could go and we can become fickle. Now fickle can be at various levels where a person just in the name of being soft and sensitive that person has no convictions.
You know what do you believe, what do you stand for? That person has no clear determination or intentions. What is it that what is it you believe, what are you trying to pursue in your life? Is there anything like that at all? And sometimes in between a person may not even have steady attention. So, like you do one thing for one time and then move to another thing and move to another thing.
So, now whenever we are trying to do outreach we try to reach different audiences and we need to be, what will come, what will be gentle, what will be sensitive, that audience will vary. But so the balance would be more in terms of its we are firm in our principles and practices and we are flexible with others. That means based on what level they are at that what they can take up.
So, okay we may wake up at a particular time in the morning everyday and that’s a part of our sadhana but if we are guiding some people, training some people and they are not yet ready to do that they are not whatever reason they are not, then okay it’s not a one zero thing, if you can’t do this get out. It’s not that we guilt or shame people or condemn people for not doing something up to the standards. So, while to some extent this kind of discipline of speech is required for anyone who is trying to do outreach.
It becomes especially important when we are dealing with people who have certain sensitivities. Send me the document about your vision. So, in your wisdom talks, it is mentioned that when you give the presentations, you should avoid triggering statements.
So, it is that people get triggered by certain things and say if we know if we tap somebody on the shoulder, they scream, what happened? Actually, I have a sore shoulder over here. If we know that then we will not deliberately go and tap on the shoulder. We will consciously try to avoid tapping on the shoulder.
One time in 2003 to 5 for almost 2 years, I was continuously sick and they just couldn’t, nobody could diagnose what was wrong. So, I had done many blood tests and still nobody could find anything. So, at one time I was in a hospital and the blood test was to be done and the nurse came and the nurse had to spend almost 5 minutes to point, to find a place where the nerve was not where the vein was not already pierced.
Now, she would have said, my job is just to take the blood sample. So, if your body has been pierced so many times, that’s not my problem. If somewhere it’s already been pierced, it might be more painful over there.
But she was sensitive. She saw that there have been these piercing on the body before to take the blood. So, we should not do it again.
So, in general, it is just basic human decency that even when we even when sometimes some pain is to be caused, we try to minimize the pain. If we can avoid it, that’s even better. Completely.
At the same time, we cannot if we are trying to teach something if we are trying to educate someone it’s like our goal cannot be simply to make everyone happy. If our goal were simply to make everyone happy, we should start an ice cream distribution charity. So, we are sharing a tradition and some aspects of that tradition, some teachings are not going to sit well with some people.
And that’s because they may have certain conceptions which may be misaligned with reality. They may be having some behavioral patterns which may not be healthy for them, which may not be aligned with moral or spiritual standards. And at some time or the other we do need to talk about it.
But so we want to avoid both extremes of being too sensitive to caring too much for the emotions and feelings of people and caring only for the logic and standard that we would talk about, just speak the truth but not care for how it is impacting people. So, finding that balance is a challenge. Always.
So, I was introduced to Krishna Foundation in 1996 in Pune and Pune is in India as well as across the world to a large extent. It’s a pioneer in youth outreach. And it is from Pune that now many other places in India youth outreach has started.
The leaders from Pune are also going to America to do some youth outreach. So, Pune also had a very conservative Brahmacharya ashram and quite strict standards and when I started going abroad so from 2014 I started traveling abroad. In 2004-05 when His Holiness Radhanath Maharaj was finalizing the Journey Home which he then after had published soon.
So, he had given me a copy of that book before because I had written a few books before that and I had shown I had given my books to him. So, Maharaj probably had glanced at the books. He knew me as an author.
So, he said you read this book and tell me what you think about it. So, then I told Maharaj the stories are exciting. But what struck me the most was the tone of the book.
You are not speaking in this book as a guru or as a teacher speaking to students or disciples. The tone is of a friend of a person, a human being almost like a friend sharing one’s experiences and one’s insights from those experiences. So, Maharaj told me I appreciate your appreciation.
he said that yes, this is the tone required for western outreach and India is also becoming westernized now and if you learn this tone then you can also reach a significant number of people. So, from that time I started exploring what is this western outreach, what does it require and why is this tone required for that. So, in one sense I was reading books written by say Christian preachers or prominent Christian pastors or Buddhists mainly for western audiences where they are presenting their tradition, their spirituality.
I read books written by devotees also of course and what tone they were using. So, I learned a few things and then I started, so in one sense 10 years I was mentally preparing myself. It’s not that I had a conscious plan to go to the west but from 2014 I started traveling and till the pandemic almost 8-9 months a year I was outside India and after that also 6-7 months in a year I am in the west, not just outside India but in the western world.
So, I have focused more on English speaking countries because I find that people find it difficult to translate what I am speaking into other languages whether it is Indian languages or whether it is non-Indian languages. So, I went to South America and there in Panama they had to translate. I found it very difficult to Spanish or whatever.
So, that’s why I have not been to most of Europe. I have been to UK many times, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and mostly North America mostly United States and Canada to some extent. So, even now 3-4 months in a year I go to, 3 months at least I go to North America, 1 month to UK about 1.5-2 months to Oceania, Australia and New Zealand.
So, over the years I have interacted and I try to understand what are the challenges that Western outreach is encountering and to what extent we have been successful and to what extent we have not been successful and what can be done about it. So, I came to Rishikesh about 4 years ago for the first time. We have some devotees from Chicago who bring a tour of to India of Western yogis and other seekers.
So, with that group I used to be a part of and I used to lead that group as tour guide. So, we used to go to Vrindavan and Rishikesh and Jaipur and other places. So, at that time I noticed for the first time, because in the ISKCON sacred places map, Jaipur is not there at all.
Sorry, Rishikesh is not there at all. So, I had not come to Rishikesh, but that was the first time it struck me that there is so much happening in Rishikesh. And since then it has been on my radar.
Indra Dundu Maharaj told me about about I met Indra Dundu Maharaj in North America. So, he told me about what he is doing and he says in one sense currently the biggest potential for western outreach at any place in the entire world is in Rishikesh. Because, of course, we can be in New York, we can be in London, we can be in other places.
There are so many westerners. But among all the westerners to find out spiritual seekers is difficult. So, Dhanudhar Swami had also told me something similar.
He said that his maximum western outreach happens in Vrindavan. He said, I sit in Vrindavan and people who are already seekers come there and I spend time with them. So, there is a difference.
Vrindavan is more bhakti seekers come. Here, more generic spiritual seekers, yoga seekers come. So, I am grateful to have the opportunity to be here and that’s why I started by saying I appreciate what all of you are attending to do here.
So, I’ll talk about three main things with respect to the sensitivity, what I have observed and what are the challenges with respect to western outreach for those of us who have been trained in the ISKCON culture of both practice and outreach and what are the ways in which those can be addressed. And after that we can have an interactive discussion. You can share your thoughts and concerns or any other questions you might have.
So, the first biggest problem is hierarchy. ISKCON is a very authority subordinate kind of organization. The authority is at the top and the way I was trained the essence of spiritual life is following the instructions of your authorities.
Now, that is important. We all need guidance. But is that the essence of spiritual life, essence of bhakti? So, traditionally we as a movement have worked like that.
In the first generation, Manjula Prabhupada went to the west. Devotees who took up the practice of bhakti, basically moved into the temple and left the way they were living before. And that meant practically for almost everything in their life, because their whole culture and lifestyle was altered.
They were turning to the devotee authority, whether it was Prabhupada or the representative of Prabhupada, to ask for guidance. And the idea is the spiritual master gives instructions and the disciple is ready to rearrange their entire life to follow the instructions. And yes, there is that principle, but there are also nuances.
Braj Bihari Prabhu showed me a letter of Prabhupada, 1975, writing to one of his, he says now that you are a senior man, now that you are senior, I cannot give you instructions. I can only give you suggestions. So, one challenge we had is that we didn’t have Prabhupada with us for a very long time.
And how would Prabhupada guide devotees who were 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 30 years in bhakti. So, that hierarchy with respect to devotees guiding other devotees and also new people when we approach. So, our outreach is being fairly successful in eastern culture where the hierarchical structure is still present in society.
In India, still fairly hierarchical. So, when I was staying in America, I was hosted by an American family in Florida and devotee family. And I saw the interactions, the way the kids would talk with the parents.
I couldn’t imagine ever talking with my father like that. It was shocking. And they have not been disrespectful and they didn’t take it.
The parents were also not really disrespectful. This is just not the way we function in India. So, in general, the western is much more.
There is authority, no doubt. But it’s a much more horizontal relationship than a vertical relationship. And whether so, wherever this traditional culture is hierarchical, we have been successful.
We were quite successful in Russia. We were quite successful in Ukraine. And although Hinduism is still illegal in China, we are fairly successful underground.
In China also. So, when people grow up in a hierarchical culture, they take it up. Bhakti as we present it.
But in the west, where the culture is much more egalitarian, it becomes much more challenging for people. So, how much… Sorry. What was not the case you are saying? The hierarchical society I mean, it doesn’t make in a way you say, in these cultures was most successful, but actually, it was most successful in America.
Okay. So, I am talking about the present situation. So, now, regarding that time, I think three factors played a role.
First was Prabhupada’s own charisma and saintliness because of which devotees could accept that what Prabhupada told them to do. Second is that there was also a lot of adventurousness that Prabhupada infused. Prabhupada gave instructions but it was like in 1968 when he came back to America from India when he was sick.
He told his leading disciples, he had a globe in front of him and he said, each of you pick up one country and go and deliver that country. And then Jadurani Mataji asked, she said, what about us girls? He said, we are not girls or boys, we are souls. You also pick up one country.
So, and yes, sometimes devotees did radically reorganize their life to follow Prabhupada’s instructions. But it’s one thing to radically reorganize the life that devotees went to London, three couples went there. But then there they had, it was not that Prabhupada was micro-controlling them.
There they had, they were using their intelligence, their initiative. They had their autonomy. So, because the movement was not so developed.
So, it was not that people were coming in the ashram structure and living and following the rigid rules. And while that was definitely there, the morning program was there, but then traveling, book distribution, there was a lot of element of adventure. So, the discipline and the hierarchy didn’t inhibit people or didn’t pinch people so much because the element of adventure was very much there.
And the third was that, at that time, many of those, American society also in the 1960s was not as egalitarian as it was now. So, those who came to Srila Prabhupada in 1960, you know, they were what they call flower children. In the 1940s they were born.
So, still a certain level of hierarchy was there. But there was this counter-culture, there was challenge of authority, challenging of authority and rejection of authority, not because the principle of authority was rejected. It was more that the particular authorities at that time were seen as untrustworthy or corrupted or self-serving.
In the Vietnam War, it was just for political purposes rather than actually any real American interests that soldiers were being sent. So, many of those people had grown up accepting the principle of authority. But they were rebelling because the authorities were not being trustworthy.
So, when they met Prabhupada, who was definitely of incorruptible moral character, they were able to find an authority whom they could trust. But the current generations, they have not grown up even much in a society where there is a lot of emphasis on authority. So, to what extent is the hierarchical structure integral to bhakti and how much is it just one historical and incidental element of bhakti that became prominent at a particular time.
So, my interactions for Western outreach have been primarily with Radhanath Maharaj. I have interacted with others also to some extent and I will bring that in a little bit. So, Radhanath Maharaj told me that when he came to India because he was in America in Vrindavan first and then he was in doing youth outreach in America and from 84-85 roughly he started coming.
89 onwards he was primarily leading the Chowpatty project. So, he said, when I was asked to look after the community here, I had no experience in community building. So, that time I started trying to get my hands on everything I could about Prabhupada’s interactions with Indians and he found that, he said, when Prabhupada would interact with Indians, many of them became life members.
So, with them Prabhupada hardly gave any instructions to them. It was more of inspiration. We are building this temple.
Can you contribute something? Can you help us in legal issues? So, with them, Prabhupada’s relationship was much more horizontal. It was not vertical. Many of them were already well-established and respected in society and many of them were also, this is especially relevant for us.
Many of them were also following some other spiritual path and Prabhupada generally engaged them in Bhakti. So, engage them means there is hardly any incident where Prabhupada was asking them, are you following the 16 rounds, are you coming for the morning program, this, that. No.
Prabhupada encouraged and engaged them in whatever way they could. So, in Prabhupada’s example itself, we have if you see Prabhupada’s outreach, we have his full-time disciples who have actually carried forward the movement and then we had the life members. Now, in many ways this demographic has almost been wiped out of the historical memory of ISKCON in most of the biographies of Shri Prabhupada and other places with the disciples talking about their life.
Now, two reasons for this. Many of the life members didn’t really become dedicated followers and because they didn’t become very dedicated followers so they didn’t play a significant role in ISKCON’s managerial structure or generational succession or anything like that. So, that’s how they got lost and that particular mode of outreach also has ISKCON and next generation have not really continued the life membership program too much for various reasons.
But with the life members, Prabhupada was much more horizontal than vertical. Now, interestingly, if you consider the current demographic mostly we have congregation members and that means these are people who often have their careers, their families and they have their social life and bhakti is also an important part of their life. They are definitely much more dedicated than life members.
But at the same time, they are not full time devotees. So, we are in uncharted territory right now with respect to our institution’s history. And various community leaders are also learning how much can they instruct the congregation members.
So, across India, each temple that I go to, I find that some congregations are with leaders who are much more giving autonomy and the congregation do varieties of activities. There are many temples where the leaders don’t give much autonomy. So, it’s like in this particular range, this congregation is quite flexible.
The point I am making here through this is that hierarchy doesn’t seem to be integral or foundational to bhakti. So, we can have more horizontal modes of outreach also. And that is what is going to be required for reaching out to western people who have grown up with a suspicion of hierarchy.
And suspicion, aversion or at least reservation. So, it can go through various levels. The western attitude towards hierarchy.
It can be downright aversion. Where there is hierarchy, I will not go anywhere near that. Or it could be reservation.
Oh, this is too much authority. In between could be suspicion. Preservation is I just want to be cautious.
Suspicion means I already doubt whether this is there or not. So, it’s interesting that with such an attitude we are trying to do western outreach. In many places, because ISKCON was founded by Srila Prabhupada and it was founded with certain values and certain ways of functioning.
So, conventional ISKCON temples have been spectacularly unsuccessful in doing western outreach. Even the Manor if we consider, it’s probably one of the most successful temples in the west. But Manor has far more Indians than non-Indians.
I would say Manor is still trying to cultivate and they are trying to cultivate and slowly I think the India, Indian western demarcation is also decreasing because what do you call Indians who are born in the west? Like we met this yesterday that girl, Samantha had come. So, she says that she is an Indian-German or German-Indian. She doesn’t know even Hindi.
So, in India we call such people as coconuts. You know why coconuts? They are brown on the outside but white on the inside. So, I know in New York there is one family, devotee family.
So, the father is actually the vice-president of a temple in that broad New York area and his son is born and brought up in America. So, as his son has grown up, he started becoming reserved about the temple where his father is going to. And now although his father is in charge of the temple, he actually started going to the Bhakti center because he felt Bhakti center was much more horizontal and not so much vertical.
And after going to the Bhakti center for 3-4 years, he became more comfortable and now he has come back to his father’s temple and his father also understood. His father’s concern was that my son will give up Bhakti completely. But then he wants to practice Bhakti on his terms.
And once his father saw that his son is interested in Bhakti, then the father also stopped pushing him too much. And now he is participating in the temple itself. So, the point is that there is a challenge.
And in general, it seems that the conventional Iskcon temples, it is difficult for them to do western outreach. So, that brings me to the next aspect, that is hierarchy itself is one aspect, other is organized religion. Or religious organizations, whatever you want to use it.
Word we use it for that. People are, in general, some amount of reservation about hierarchy. Now, my observations are largely based on America.
So, I don’t know how much they apply to Europe specifically. So, you can talk about that. Should I go to next point? Should I complete all the three points? Or would you like to have reflections before that? So, with organized religion, there is lot of reservation.
So, I often say, people ask me, we belong to an organized religion. Spend some time with us, you will realize we are not very organized. Of course, that is just a dodge of the question.
Hierarchy is one aspect of it. So, hierarchy generally refers more to the institutional structure. That is an organized religion.
But in organized religion, two other things come up also. There is strict dogmas. This is right, this is wrong.
And there are strict rituals. This is the way to do things. This is not the way to do things.
So, organized religion also has what you could say, a third thing, that is the institutional authority structure. And we could say, but institutional managerial structure, you can say. So, now, you could say that the institutional structure also imposes the dogmas.
Institutional structure also imposes the rituals. But when we are talking about hierarchy, it’s more in terms of the day-to-day functioning. If you have to do this particular service, you have to take this permission, this permission, this permission, without that you cannot do this.
So, that’s more like generic autonomy, whether it is there or not. And here it’s specifically with respect to what you believe and what you practice. when there is too much imposition on this, this, both when there are dogmas and rituals, that often leads to sectarianism.
It doesn’t have to, but it leads to. This is the right belief. And by implication, anyone who has a different belief is wrong.
And there can be different degrees of wrongness. So, this is where in sectarianism, we often get fanaticism. Now, fanaticism or the more common word nowadays is extremism.
So, not everybody who is a sectarian is necessarily a fanatic person. But, so, sectarian means we are right and you are wrong. There is some amount of groupism is there.
But within that, you can have exclusivists. So, exclusivist is more in thought. That is, ok, actually let’s put it, let’s keep this fanatics only over here.
There are different terms over here. So, exclusivist is, it’s almost like we have exclusive rights to God. That our path is the exclusive path to God.
If you are not following our path, not only are you not going to God, you are going to go to hell. So, that is the exclusivist. Much of people’s perception of religion in the west is exclusivist.
So, Christianity, whether it is evangelical, whether it is protestant or catholic, they do believe in exclusivism. Jesus is the only way. Now, beyond that, there are extremists.
So, what exclusivists do in thought, extremists do in action. So, extremists, so exclusivists say that if you don’t believe, you don’t worship our God, you are going to go to hell. Extremists are actually much kinder.
They say, anyway you are going to go to hell, why delay it? We will help you get there faster. Now, organized religion itself does not necessarily lead to extremism, but it is like a slippery slope. When there is organized religion which imposes certain dogmas and certain rituals, then things can become problematic.
Now, within ISKCON, actually Prabhupada did emphasize the saddhanta quite a bit. This is the philosophical truth. So, Prabhupada does spend a lot of time and energy in his reports refuting Mayavad.
Prabhupada even is not very appreciative of mundane humanitarian work. And, Prabhupada does seem to have certain, we don’t use the word dogmas, we use the philosophical saddhanta, but that is there. And that can come off as sectarian for people.
And then with respect to rituals also, no, it’s like we as a, in many ways, ISKCON or Shila Prabhupada was among the pioneers who introduced kirtan in the western world. But in the larger kirtan seen in the west, now we are almost a cipher, we are a non-entity. Within our movement, kirtans, there are many devotees who are big kirtaniers and some of the really big kirtaniers are treated like celebrities.
But, in the broader kirtan circles, none of the devotees are very significant. And one of the reasons, many reasons, but one of the reasons for that is we are very specific, only Hare Krishna mantra. And, in general, people like kirtans to be a little more eclectic.
You know, different gods and goddesses or different mantras, mix it all together. So, our kirtans are also, for many people, they are a bit too noisy. So, Radhanath Maharaj started the Shayan kirtan in Radha Gopinath temple.
Shayan is when the Lord takes rest. So, 8.50 to 9.00, 10 minutes only to the kirtan. But he would insist that this kirtan should be soft and soothing.
You know, it shouldn’t be noisy is a wrong word for it or rather noisy is not the appropriate word. It’s ecstatic. But what devotees think as ecstatic, outside people think as intrusive, quite often.
So, for westerners especially, kirtan is more of a meditation. So, soft, gentle, soothing, the kind of kirtans which you had over here. They are different from the kind of kirtans we may have in the temple guru puja or the temple.
Sometimes we have these huge vampers. You know. So, somehow, my point is that the way we practice certain rituals has alienated some people from us.
So, I know in one western outreach center, they have kirtans and devotee kirtans. So, devotee kirtans are only Hare Krishna mantra. And for kirtans, they have created 10-11 mantras and they have Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudeva also they sing.
And then they say Om Namo Narayana they sing. And then they do, they don’t go into Om Namah Shiva and all those things. They stay to the Vishnu Tattva.
But they also sing Om Purnamada Purnamidam. So, not everybody can follow, but people like that. There are variety of, they have a kirtan sheet which they give to the audience.
And then, okay, we are going to have this, this is kirtan, this is a sequence. So, I am not recommending this. I am just saying that when there are specific rituals which are very strongly emphasized, then that puts off certain people.
So, the ISKCON for many people comes off as sectarian. That we are the only way or we are the best way. And that just doesn’t work for many people who are more eclectic and people who are much more open spiritual seekers.
So, that is one big challenge. And now, so going back, continuing with Prabhupada’s approach, we often hear of Prabhupada saying, I never compromised, my Guru Maharaj never compromised, you should never compromise. Those kind of confrontational statements of Prabhupada.
But Prabhupada is not always like that. So, there were two life members who helped Prabhupada a lot in building the Juhu temple. And I have talked with Radhanath Maharaj and with Giriraj Maharaj about this.
So, both of these life members were actually initiated disciples of prominent Mayavadi Gurus in India. And not just initiated disciples, they were leading disciples of those Gurus. And in their homes, they would have prominent pictures of those Gurus.
So, I asked Giriraj Maharaj, he says, I don’t remember a single time when Prabhupada would go to anyone’s home. And Prabhupada would criticize what was on their altar. Many times, Hindus, if you go to their home, their altar is like a religious museum.
You know, any and every deity is there. There is Krishna, there is a demigod, there are semi-gods. You know what is semi-god? Semi-god is Se-mi-god.
So, there are Gurus who claim to be God and there are people who put their pictures on their altar. So, Prabhupada did not criticize them. so then, so these two life members, Prabhupada practically never talked with them about their affiliation with their Guru.
That was already there, but just because they were affiliated to their Guru does not mean that they were not open to Prabhupada. They were appreciative of Prabhupada and they were ready to contribute to Srila Prabhupada. And Prabhupada engaged them.
So, being Bhavagrahi, not everybody may have commitment to like exclusive or total commitment to Krishna Bhakti, but still they may have some service attitude. They may have some openness and that can be tabbed. So, you know what happens? In ISKCON, we have a now I am using the word ISKCON, I am a part of ISKCON, but we have to have a certain level of self-criticality if we are to learn and grow.
So, we expect a very sudden leap from curiosity to commitment. It’s like a very steep climb. That means, we meet somebody, we are doing street kirtan and we meet somebody and that person also is very happy, singing dancing and the talk with him.
And, oh you know this kirtan is so nice. Oh, we have kirtan every morning at 4.30 am. Come tomorrow and come everyday also.
So, from experiencing kirtan as nice on the streets, from curiosity to commitment, we expect a very rapid leap and that is a very steep incline up, but that doesn’t happen. So, there is a lot of cultural curiosity. There are some devotees who feel that Indian culture itself is an obstacle and India itself like ISKCON is very ethnically Indian and because of that people are not ready to take up bhakti.
There may be some valid to that, but that is not the major obstacle. It’s like people have a lot of curiosity about Indian culture. Generally, people are very culturally curious and they want to know about things.
They want to explore things. So, Indirudha Maharaj told me that once in that Polish festival, they started introducing these gopi dots and sarees. That’s probably the most popular thing.
Among the most popular things. So, people want to try out different things. It’s like, okay, one day I want to wear a saree and try it out.
Not that everyday I want to wear a saree. So, you like wearing a saree, start wearing it everyday. That doesn’t work like that.
So, it’s like from curiosity to commitment. So, people who have curiosity, let them have that curiosity and if we can make it much more gradual. Okay, explore your curiosity and let your commitment come gradually.
So, we start So, this doesn’t work. This is what is required. So, in the eco-village, when we started the eco-village, Radhana Maharaj had to tell the brahmacharis over there that don’t tell these western people who are coming here to chant.
Just let them observe. Let them experience. Chant means, take a japa mala and chant japa.
And when he saw some westerners chanting with japa mala, he asked them, who told you to chant? He said, no, we just saw everyone. We asked and we thought we also want to try it out. So, Maharaj was very happy with that.
So, that non-pushiness, in fact, pushiness, is pushing people upwards. Some people, in India, those who already have a pious nature, they, if they are pushed, they come closer to Krishna. But most western people, if they are pushed, they go away from Krishna.
So, we are quite infamous for being pushy. Our book distribution is also quite pushy. So, that’s the second aspect.
Thank you for coming. So, and the last part, which I find in my observation, you sort of hear that. So, say, we have hierarchy, we have organized religion, especially sectarianism, which involves especially having very quick expectations of commitment from people.
But the third thing that I find which people are put off by with respect to our outreach is criticism. Now, in one sense, it is related with the previous point, but specific, we come off as, it comes off as judgmentality. We say that bhakti is about giving up all labels.
But then, we have labels for everyone. This is a demigod worshipper, this is a mayavadi, this is this, this is that. So, we put a lot of, we are very good at labeling people.
And most people actually are too complex to fit into some, one particular box. So, for example, somebody may talk somebody about something about impersonalism, oneness. That doesn’t make them a mayavadi.
That’s just okay, they have that conception. Somebody loves walking in nature more than chanting. Oh, you know, you are impersonalist, you are not a devotee, you should love chanting.
It’s like, we come off as very judgmental. And because of that, we, it’s like, you know, people are complex. I conclude this point.
If you consider an individual, an individual can have their, their gender is there, their nationality is there, their, their analytical or, they may be intellectual, they may be, how intellectual they are. They may have their particular ritual or whatever you call it, they may have their particular practices. They may have their particular social values.
They may have their, like that, people have many different aspects. You know, people may have a, they come from a particular income level. They may have a particular intellectual, they have a particular ideology.
So, all these, we can go on with further, these are all parts of who they are. But what we do is, we take one of these and make that as the entire person. And then we close, because we label the person in a particular way, then we lose out on that person.
So, this is especially I’ve seen with respect to gender, it becomes a problem. There is, this is also related to the hierarchy itself that, say, in ISKCON conventionally, men-women had particular roles to play. Now there is a historical debate about whether the roles of men-women came from Sri Prabhupada’s way he addressed ISKCON or it came from Indian culture when devotees started coming to India and observing how things were in India.
There is no debate about that. But then Prabhupada has made certain statements about women in his books. So, that can be quite triggering for people.
this, so this judgmentality is there and that’s why one has to be a little bit restrained in, we look at certain attributes of people and based on that we immediately give them a label. So, it’s like, a person has a particular ideology, like somebody chants Om instead of Hare Krishna. Oh, that means you don’t have bhakti.
We take that and their particular practice, oh, this is the day we got worshipped. That’s what we may do in India. Or somebody might be doing mayavadi.
So, in the past, I would say in the last 15-20 years, ISKCON’s attitude towards yoga has changed radically. In the past, we would just say yoga is mundane and yoga is, people are just interested in bodily improvement and yoga is, yoga essentially means meditating on Krishna. That’s what Prabhupada says.
So, there’s a lot of dismissive attitude towards yoga. But, we have now found that people who are practicing yoga, even if they are practicing it for say, just improving their health, improving their looks, maybe finding a more attractive partner thereafter, even if those are their motives, still they are looking for something Rajasic. Even if they are practicing in the mode of passion, but they are doing it in a sattvic way.
They could just be pumping chemicals in their body, applying Botox and stuff like that to improve themselves, improve their looks, but they are not doing that. And, to a large extent, the yoga audience is actually among the most receptive, or not most receptive, most potential demographic for us in our moment, for our western outreach. And, we are opening ourselves to them more and more.
So, I’ll conclude to this point. Maharaj, Radha Maharaj told me that, what the counterculture was in the 1960s when Sri Prabhupada went to the west, the yoga audience is now today. But, there are two advantages.
The counterculture was not regulated at all. They were heavily into drugs. The yoga audience is actually, to some extent, just the practice of yoga brings them some level of discipline.
They may not be disciplined with their sexuality and other things, but there is a certain level of discipline that comes because of yoga. Yoga practice itself brings certain levels of yoga. And, secondly, yoga also opens them to appreciation of India.
And, so the counterculture, maybe the drugs, the idea of taking drugs for becoming spiritual, it becomes spiritual, came from India, where Shaivites take Bhang and other things. But, the Indian connection of drugs was not so much. It was more of LSD, which was certainly not Indian.
So, in that sense, the yoga audience is similar to the counterculture. And, what Srila Prabhupada was able to do with the counterculture audience, the two positives are, they are somewhat sattvic. Sattvic because they are following discipline.
And, second positive is that they appreciate India because of yoga practices. So, there is a huge potential and we have here Rishikesh as the world capital of yoga. So, this is the audience which we all can try to reach according to our capacities, according to our whatever opportunities we get.
So, all of you, I would say, the team that is here is the pioneer of the front line of what Western outreach is possible for our moment. And, I am happy to be of some service in whatever way I can. So, I will just quickly summarize what I discussed.
So, I talked about primarily four points. So, our theme was Western outreach. And, in that connection, I started by talking about speech.
How we need to be sensitive and sensible. Or, we could put it such a way that we need to be gentle, not fickle. So, in the name of being gentle, we don’t want to be harsh or hard.
But, in the name of being fickle, we don’t want to be no convictions or determination or commitment or whatever. So, we, it’s like we are firm in our practice with ourselves. And, we are flexible with others.
So, how do we go about doing this? This firm with ourselves, flexible with others. This particular theme, I talked about three things. One is hierarchy.
How we need to be much more horizontal rather than vertical. With respect to authority and subordinate. And, I discussed how the authority-subordinate structure, it is non-essential or non-foundational to bhakti.
Because, we discussed how Prabhupada engaged with the life members. And, how Prabhupada engaged with senior disciples also, to some extent. Then, I talked about organized religion.
And, especially with respect to organized religion, sectarianism that comes in. Now, we may not be extremists in terms of violence, but I talked about how sectarianism, specifically in terms of the dogmas, the beliefs and the rituals. So, how we lost out in the kirtan circle because of emphasis on particular things.
Now, I talked about Srila Prabhupada with life members, to indicate how we don’t have to impose our beliefs on others. The challenge is that sometimes the journey from curiosity, we expect a very rapid leap from curiosity to commitment for people. But, this doesn’t work.
We need it to be much more gradual. So, let people explore at their pace and then take it up at their pace. And, the last point I talked about was about judgmentality or labeling.
That, because we quickly label people based on some beliefs or some practices and we put people into boxes, put them in boxes and that’s why people feel judged and strongly judged and alienated. So, if we can be more open and let people explore at their pace. So, what yoga is, yoga is today similar to the counterculture.
Now, if Prabhupada had been judgmental, Prabhupada could have found 100 reasons to dismiss the counterculture people and the hippies. They were unclean, their regularity principle was to break all regularity principles. That’s what they were doing regularly.
But, Prabhupada, with the counterculture was non-judgmental. Now, that does not mean Prabhupada didn’t have standards but that was not the prism through which Prabhupada saw everyone. Similarly, we with the yoga audience should also be non-judgmental and we can be at the forefront of outreach if we can do this.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. So, any comments, questions? Do we have time also? Yes, of course.
Raghuram had some appointment. So, he will tell you. Some people are coming to do something.
I was so happy to see how you present in a very organized way all of these topics logically. It’s really wonderful. I’m just wondering one thing that I also noticed by observing different preaching outreaches.
There are those who are more conservative. They try to do it in an organized way using dogmas, rituals and trying to have this indoctrination of people in that direction. And then there is the other extreme usually that people are just very gentle and then go into that over-sensitive and not even inspiring people to start up some practices at all.
They don’t even mention it. People always stay on the edge. They never move from that direction.
And both of those approaches I consider a little bit extreme. How to marry those two things to be able to make that gradual? It is a challenge. I think every devotee using outreach and we can use the word outreacher and the rest of you don’t use the word preacher so much.
So every outreacher if there is a word like that will eventually find the audience that works, that gels with their particular mood. So I think there is if somebody is very horizontal sorry very vertical and they also find some audience in western outreach. It’s not that they don’t find.
The problem is two-fold. First is that initially some people come as an act of rebellion. They join the particular organized religion and they just want to completely adopt a different lifestyle.
And they do it very enthusiastically initially. But whether they can sustain it lifelong, that’s the question. So time will tell.
There is a disenfranchised or disillusioned demographic in the western world who just doesn’t care for the mainstream way of living. And they adopt that kind of thing. So there are many Europeans who actually joined ISIS.
Islamic states. Extremist Islamic organizations which are violent also. So there are some interviews of those people and what inspired them to join.
They say the world is so confusing. It’s just that we what Islam, at least that version of Islam gave them is this is right, this is wrong. I don’t have to think anymore in my life.
If somebody is joining because of that reason, that’s a dangerous reason to join actually. If I say I don’t want to think anymore, then such people will become very ready tools for cultish leaders or for extremist leaders. So that’s one challenge.
We might get some people like that. Which was very conservative. Maybe liberal approaches also will get some people.
But as I said, they will not become very committed. So now there is serious discussion going on that maybe we need to have some level of affiliation before 16 rounds. Because 16 rounds as a precondition for initiation is a lot for most people.
Two hours of sadhana is not easy. So there are some devotees who have started something called Namakaran. Somebody starts chanting four rounds, just give them a spiritual name.
Not like a formal initiation, but just a spiritual name. So it’s not become mainstream. It’s definitely not accepted by the GBC.
But we may need something like that. the way I see it is that so first principle is different preachers will find their particular demographic. So we need to see what inspires us.
Some people are just inspired by the fact that so many people are appreciating Bhagavad Gita. Some people are appreciating Kirtan. Some people may feel what is the use of all this appreciation unless people become initiated.
People start becoming committed and start practicing and some people that’s what inspires them. Now in the seven purposes of ISKCON, Prabhupada has not mentioned initiation as one of the purposes. So now initiation has become a very important functionally a purpose of ISKCON.
The way we conduct ourselves. Social acceptance of people. They want to be somehow accepted.
Exactly. So it’s like in western outreach what would be our definition of success. I talked this with Maharaj.
Maharaj is you know like through Journey Home and other things he has reached a lot of people who were who would never have considered Krishna Consciousness, ISKCON before that. Maybe Krishna Consciousness if they experience it through some other group but not through ISKCON. So they have become open to it.
And the Govardhan Eco-Village and the sheer number of westerners who come to the Eco-Village in December Jan that’s one sign of success. But Maharaj’s western outreach also has not translated into success in terms of ISKCON’s definition of success. Like it’s not a large number of western devotees who have become initiated disciples.
There are significant number no doubt. But it’s not a large number. So the way I see it is that we give people the practices it’s not that we conceal them.
Appropriately at the appropriate forum there are different ways in which when we communicate there are broadly three ways. It is prescriptive that is you should do this. You should stop eating meat.
You should chant the Hare Krishna mantra everyday. Then the other is descriptive. That this is what I do.
And this is why I do it. So I don’t eat meat because of XYZ. Because I came to know how much pain and violence is inflicted against the animals while they are in the whole meat processing industry.
So meat packing industry as they call it. So descriptive. So prescriptive works for some people but is descriptive that works for westerners.
So the whole journey home tone is descriptive. This is what I did. This is why I was doing it.
This is what I learnt from it. So sometimes if we don’t even describe our practices then it becomes a problem. So we do need to be descriptive but then after being descriptive do we become prescriptive at a particular time or do we just leave it at that and let those who take it up organically come forward.
So it may happen that a much larger demographic will appreciate and a few will adopt. So definitely we need to describe our practices. Otherwise what are we doing? Some very thoughtful devotees were doing western outreach.
They gave me this feedback that I focus a lot on psychology and the mind and I try to present bhakti bhakti tradition through that. So a couple of devotees told me that at the end of the day if I have come to a bhakti yoga class, what am I getting here that I wouldn’t get in a Buddhist Vipassana class? What are you giving me that is distinctive from your tradition? So it is a good question and in trying to make things accessible to people are we losing out on what our tradition has to strictly offer. So like in our retreat I would say 90% of it was generic spirituality.
There was very little direct bhakti in the retreat that I spoke. But towards the end when I introduced chanting and I talked about that the rituals and how kirtan works at frequency, intensity the intensity with which we chant mantras there I brought in some bhakti. So that was an introductory retreat.
But I think there has to be a place where we do start being clearly descriptive. This is what we do, this is why we do it and this is what we get out of it or these are the benefits of this. And then we give more time to people who become more committed.
So that principle of reciprocity that you know those who those who commit more we give more time to them, those who commit less we don’t give that much time to them. Okay. Yes.
It’s really nice what you said about praising and this way. I’m just wondering Can I have some water please? Of course. I’m just wondering like we were observing in a I’ve mentioned it that this retreat was great for people who came to your talks like on Thursday, Friday.
I think that was like really nice way for them to go more in depth because then they feel that you give them some value even though 90% of them you were speaking about something that they could learn in some sector or role or some other tradition you know. Because they were interested in Bhakti. But like when we were hosting like cooking workshops here, everyday cooking workshops, people who came just outside for the workshop because it’s very attractive they were not so interested afterwards to come to Bhakti to wisdom talks or even to some other like more direct approaches.
Vice versa, those who came for like wisdom talks and different things when they came to cooking workshop they got great value but they were more motivated to continue with you know like in the process of Bhakti. So I’m just like wondering like because we have all limited capacity and this is also what I experienced being in Croatia, I was trying to obviously broaden my outreach very much but as much as you broaden even a little bit it consumes a lot of your energy because you need to put a lot of endeavour to facilitate that. So I was just wondering like how much should we like how do you say broaden our first outreach approach second approach of care is great to deepen that but you know like yeah hmm so outreach can be broadly two things one is you know get people interested that means we trigger the interest of people the other is get interested people hmm so now now to get people interested often we have to initially use them something which interests them already like we give them cocaine and from there we get them to Bhakti.
So some devotees are really good at this but it doesn’t work very well get people interested this is good for broad appreciation oh these Hare Krishna’s are good people they also do some good things they also have something valuable like how many people from the Govindas have become devotees hmm we don’t know but it has done sort of lot of good purposes but does it serve the purpose of making people devotees no but here what happens is once you get interested people then we address their multiple interests not just their devotional interests what this means is that like say the way Radha Gopinath community started was we were clearly Radha Gopinath was preaching Bhakti but after they started preaching Bhakti then as a community started coming up then we had devotees who had children, the children needed to go to school, then they started a school then devotees would get young, their marriageable age had to get married so then they created some marriage board or some marriage forums or whatever marital counselling and things like that so do we create support systems that people are interested in and then get them interested in Bhakti or do we create support systems for people who are already interested in Bhakti so in general it is this way we get we get like steady commitment steady dedication it’s much more narrow narrow audience in the sense that because we are already looking for interested people but we do get steady dedication so where have I seen the first approach lead to success I can’t really say lot of good reputation has come people appreciating people appreciating like the Govardhan Eco village lot of people appreciate the eco friendliness of the place but I don’t know whether any environmentalists have come there and become devotees because of that so people in general appreciate that we are eco friendly and they love the proximity to nature and everything so so do you feel you have enough people who are interested in Bhakti directly here or get explore my only concern is like strategically like if you just focus on Bhakti itself and not being spread like maybe how do you say from the Rishikesh community itself because it’s very strong community in Rishikesh so people talk between each other so we have enough people who are interested in Bhakti who we can dedicate more time to but if we just do that the only side effect of that would be people would start thinking in a way so I think the key thing would be there is a difference between being specific and being sectarian being specific is like we target a niche audience this is the product that we offer that is good but when we criticise other products that becomes a problem so what what I talk with Maharaj about the transition from Yoga to Bhakti so he said most people they like Kirtans but all that they know about Bhakti is it involves singing and it’s about love but beyond that the philosophy, the specific practices the sadhana many of these things they don’t know at all so he wanted his book Journey Within to become like a textbook for Bhakti Yoga seekers where people read that book and they discuss and they learn the concepts of Bhakti so that’s where I think there is a broad appreciation for Bhakti, now I haven’t observed Rishikesh a lot like apart from whatever travels we have done and interactions with a few people but considering the number of people who are coming for Kirtan and then from number of people who come for Wisdom Talks Wisdom Talks is not large but it’s not small also so it does seem that so you could say the interest in the cultural aspect of Bhakti or Kirtan in Yoga we have this many people Kirtan we have this many people and then Wisdom we have this many people so it does seem that you have number of people who are interested so it could possibly work so we could be specific without necessarily being sectarian if we don’t criticize Yoga per say and especially if we offer Yoga in Ashram like the people who come to the Ashram who come to our experience because I am not saying that like what I was mentioning we should offer all these things to support their journey and to give them that strength they don’t need to search elsewhere they can have those things with us and we keep it like further down the line so that we are not outreaching general public that we are reaching general public in Kirtan, Wisdom Talks and those things so if we get those who are interested then give them the support we have Yoga, we have Psychology we have the cooking, we have all these other aspects so that you know they don’t go to the other places because people tend to go to the other places to experience some other things and that’s fair enough if we can give them here itself in many ways if we can create as many opportunities for people to associate with devotees in non-preachy settings then we of course serve Wisdom Talks but apart from that also like there is vertical in terms of giving knowledge but there is horizontal also people just hang out with devotees and they find that they are nice they grow by that do you have any comment? were there any comments about the overall talk or anything or some questions yeah I was just thinking in terms of Prabhupada when he came to preach he was completely there was nothing like a hierarchy he was cooking for them they didn’t even notice after a few days they realized who is washing the plates and then realized Prabhupada was washing the plates he was serving them as a friend everything was nice he was completely like when he came he didn’t establish something like this so this first always approach to people should be very friendly and then the after automatically hierarchy comes you know even if you have whatever you want to know hierarchy is like you have something to give it’s automatically but the thing is these persons who are the host of hierarchy this is what is missing in our movement they are not trained properly so they misuse this position instead of remaining this mentality of being a friend and giving other people that they can continue their journey they misuse this and they become identified with this material position and that’s why we have now misconception in our movement that is hierarchy otherwise Krishna has defined spiritual master as the best friend of disciple so this spiritual master he is always helping he doesn’t see himself as hierarchy but disciple he has to have this vision ok this is a person whom I can get in my life so these are both ways we have to be educated in our movement now less and less is in the spiritual education of devotees like Prabhupada was saying we have to boil the milk and now the movement is becoming bigger there are positions, there is money structure, religion and this is a problem that we have from inside so if we can educate devotees to go from Kanishka to Mahayana so many things will be changed because devotee can be in movement for many years and he can get according to his conditional nature some position but he is still in mentality he is not on this level then I see so many problems are coming up so if we change this in our movement education of devotees their consciousness then everything will be much better we will not see this coming as religion as it is to give spiritual knowledge but you need to have a structure you need to have a hierarchy but we will not identify it as a religion or a post we will see it as religion thank you any last questions or comments? do you have any answer for me? if you have any more questions to ask I have some questions like what are your actions here in Rishikesh when you go back to some other western places for example Croatia Serbia in Belgrade there was a very nice contemporary bhakti hut which was built by swamis and disciples it had really good like based on what are you thinking but the problem was that devotees and the part of the community that was not that open to be flexible because like you said a lot of cultural differences changing with the history with the measure of time and now let’s say they are not up to date so I don’t go deeper into cultural differences from now in 60s and 90s and 80s especially in the ex-Western regions they are feeling like the community is separated so how is there a way to just you do you and forget about half of the community or how many parts of the people who are actually already initiated and you just have a really strict place but don’t do anything or how to find some common ground to actually because in all those countries there is not a lot of devotees and like you said people who are interested now into bhakti yoga are more like people who are generally more open to experience and not take conservative background because Christianity has deep roots in all those countries so people who have a tendency to be really traditional they just keep to their religion and find some other way what to do in that sense inside of community how to approach the time and circumstances are asking for more flexible approach and part of community is not like ready to make those yeah it’s become very clear that conventional ISKCON communities or conventional ISKCON temples will not be able to do western outreach so just too much cultural imposition comes in sooner or later and I was talking with one American devotee, very intelligent devotee he said he came to a temple with his girlfriend, his girlfriend brought him to the temple and he came in the same car but when he came to the temple we were told to sit separately and he said I was sitting separately and I just couldn’t make head or tail of what is going on I couldn’t ask anyone also because he was sitting in another place so he said I told her afterward I am never going to come back again here later on when he was taken to western outreach center where they could sit together and she was explaining to me what is going on so it’s a small thing but it’s a very big thing now if you go to the bhakti yoga Skaun Rishikesh there they will have many women sitting separately and that’s just a norm it’s not just a Skaun, any Hindu organization you go to, that’s how it is so that’s first thing that it’s not going to work there has to be some separate forum for western outreach, even in the west not the Skaun temple now there are two visions that the separate forum can eventually join with the temple that means once people become serious in bhakti then they start becoming a part of the congregation the second is that they remain separate throughout that there is separate initiation ceremonies for them that they grow and they just become their own community so Martin Luther King said that the hour of prayer is the most divided hour in America what he meant by that is that people generally like to pray with people from their own backgrounds, so there is one church in New York they have seven services and so they have a service for wasps white, anglo-saxon, caucasians whatever and they have for blacks, for latinos, they have a service for Indians they have a service for Chinese people they have a service for Irish people they have a service for like that you know they have seven different services and they have different pastors they have different music at that time so they change everything so people generally like to worship with people from a similar background so in that sense maybe the eventual joining is possible but it seems difficult so somebody with the initiative to do western outreach needs to create a separate space atleast initially they need to be facilitated to create that space so it’s a it’s a challenge no doubt, the Brooklyn temple we have in America and the bhakti center is not very far from the Brooklyn temple but the Brooklyn temple has very few non-Indians coming there and although some of the management are Indians, non-Indians but they were already there so bhakti center is actually very small infrastructure compared to Brooklyn temple bhakti center is actually much more western outreach but the problem with bhakti center which is very interesting now is that New York is a very expensive place and devotees are not able to stay there for very long so now bhakti center is also trying to do Indian outreach so they have two websites, one is a bhakti center website and the other is something like they are trying to create it like the only Hindu temple in Brooklyn in Manhattan Manhattan or Brooklyn where is it anyway in that part of New York that’s the only Hindu temple and certainly the only Krishna temple in that whole area so they are getting, I think the mayor of New York Eric Adams and few others came there for Diwali because that was the only Hindu temple in that area so they are trying to brand that way also so it’s a challenge because for steady committed people they need western people somehow they found that you couldn’t keep them they are trying to get Indians so it’s a challenge but separation definitely is initially required eventually some kind of joining might be possible so in a sense multi branding you are trying to cover the both sides I don’t know cover the both sides means more conservative way from the start but by multi branding you are covering people who are more serious or want to be more strict and the other one is maybe more like poor that’s true some level of what is the word not categorization compartmentalization, demarcation demarcation has to be there so yes I just want to make a question regarding our organization because we are mostly focusing westerners but there is also significant Indian population that are coming to our programs especially in some off season peaks even though now it’s less but still it is there so some of them are like good pilots some of them really would love to connect with us some of them are really inspired by western things so I am always questioning myself how much should we dedicate our time to them or should we forward them to ISKCON Rishikesh who understand their mentality better even though they are westernized I was thinking about it if you consider Punita and Sashi they are the two of them she is a westerner and she would not find any place in ISKCON Rishikesh so now from what I talked with Punita I felt that he has some traditional values some appreciation and some piety but he also is not exclusively committed to ISKCON so I don’t think at this stage he will be able to fit into ISKCON Rishikesh to some extent some level of exclusive commitment is to be expected so the way the Amrita Maharaj does it in New Zealand he told me is that they have like in Wellington as well as in Auckland the two main centres he has and they have ISKCON temple and he has his lounge outreach so the way when they go for distribution and they talk with people they try to get a sense of the person and if they feel that that person is like even from the accent, the speech can make out how much westernized that person is or how much indianized that person is so if they feel that the person is indianized they will give them the address of the local temple and if they are westernized they are little bit westernized even if they are Indians then they invite them to the bhakti centre to the bhakti lounge and somehow I don’t want to be sound racist over here but it does seem that the steadiness of commitment and responsibility seems to be there in Indians much more and there could be various not that western people are not committed but maybe they are still in the exploratory phase a lot more so many of the like the managers of the lounges they are Indians so in the bhakti lounge so we found that when Indians take up responsibility they do take it quite seriously when they commit themselves they see that this is they may not have very deep sense of religious piety but they have some sense you know like I am doing this for god I am doing this for some higher power purpose they take it seriously so in that sense you may have to select but if you want me to expand the team Indians could be a part of the pool if they are if they are little more modern India I feel if you go to city like Delhi or Mumbai you know there are three civilizational ethos over there there are some people who are from villages they are still in the pre-modern age where you know the wife is like very super submissive to the husband and like that so in Rishikesh you will see some family like that then there are many who are modern they are rational, they use technology and they are little more progressive then they are post-modern they are into LGBTQ and all these causes and things like that so it’s almost like three civilizational ethos exist side by side so ethos not ethos, three civilizational generations you could say or whatever generations in the rest of the world two concerns are for me in that case those who don’t want to be racist two concerns can we assist those people who are coming from Indian culture with our approach or would this condition assist them more this is one concern and the second concern is if we start dedicating our time to them more and more of them will be starting to come and then it will become more like what you are saying now different temples in the west it’s becoming more and more Indians are coming so those are two concerns I don’t know an easy answer to this but I feel if you can get some Indians who are based in Rishikesh then they can become a part of the study team if you start cultivating Indians who are from various parts of India then that will take a lot of your energy but some Indians who could be a part of the team so that could be helpful like Satya Vasudev is there in his specific case I think this Rishikesh should help him much more than we could do in his spiritual growth I talked with him he was introduced to Delhi temple through Amoghila Prabhu so I am giving him as an example of a person who is based here not he specifically so you will have to consider those people also their spiritual growth but it does seem that some people like that for your team could be helpful those who find ISKCON a little bit more regimented this is one challenge in our movement right now we don’t have a facility for graceful lateral transfer like say somebody is working in Intel and they can’t get along with their team leader they don’t have to be fired from Intel for that they can just join some other team with whom they can have so like that transferring devotees who can’t work well in one project to another project spiritual masters get involved and they do that their disciple doesn’t work very well can’t get along in one temple spiritual master will take them to another temple but within ISKCON the managers are not on their terms so you know they might get some person who might be might be more suited up to this they can send over here, you can send over there that could work so that’s something which we have not focused much energy on so but that’s one thing it could be a part of the team, how much it will help them grow that’s something which you will have to evaluate but if you start spending too much time on Indians then wherever we focus energy that there it will grow I don’t think that’s required over here especially for those who are not here living in Tamil Nadu who are just coming and going see Indian outreach in the Bhakti Centre they started for two main reasons one was financial support because Indians who settle down in New York they are obviously very wealthy well to do and anything to do in New York is very expensive so the Bhakti Centre has been supported for many years by some disciples of Maharaj who are helping him for that but they would like to make it self-sustaining at least and so that was one reason second is that now they are also looking for steady human resource those who could take up leadership positions those who could do volunteer work all those things in India so I think at this stage you don’t have a crisis of finances so that’s not an issue and second is with respect to human resources whether Indians will become that you need to explore that otherwise you can focus on westerners if those funds are not there do you want to add anything? do you want to speak something? I hope we didn’t exhaust you too much with your health issues thank you so much I will probably end up speaking again