When our acharyas wanted an institution, how can we deal with people’s aversion to religious institutions?

Transcript

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Can I continue? People are averse to institutions, and Bhakti Sankar Thakur has wanted an institution, Prabhupada has established it. So, how can their aversion be overcome? So, Prabhupada sometimes said that this con is my body.
And Prabhupada also taught that we are not our bodies. What I mean by that is, not to minimize in any way, but to understand that there is an institution and there is a purpose. So, people are not people are not against a spiritual purpose.
So, if we present the spiritual process, if we present Bhakti Yoga as a process for personal transformation, and then this con is a facility where we can do it. So, in my early home, Maharaj never says that I joined ISKCON. The word ISKCON comes only once.
Can you guess where it is? It is when Maharaj was introducing Prabhupada. He founded the International Society for Krishna Pursuit. That is the only time.
He said that actually after that I went to Vrindavan, I went to West Virginia and I lived a life similar to the way Ghanshyam Baba was living How many times did he talk about ISKCON pursuit? He was associating with devotees, chanting the holy name, cultivating the mood of servant of servant and trying to be angels of compassion. So, we focus on the wisdom and the process. And then the institution is meant for sharing the wisdom and for providing facility for applying the process.
But we don’t have to overemphasize the institution. So, when people say this wisdom makes sense, this process transforms, they will take it. So, what we need is not that we have to reject the institution, not that we have to downplay the institution, but that is not what we have to thrust in the face.
To present that, what do you stand for? What are you all people about? Bhakti Swamiji Thakur also recognized at times that towards the end he said, instead of building these temples, to take all the marble from the temples and distribute books. One of the last instructions, one of my friends has done his PhD in Bhakti Swamiji Thakur and he said that one of the last conversations Bhakti Swamiji Thakur had, he said, instead of building all these temples, if I had just trained a group of 100 devotees to become teachers of Godavari Shankar, that would have had a far greater effect. Of course, he didn’t do that, Prabhupada did that also, but the point which I am making is that institution is important, but it always has its challenges.
Because there are people, once a structure comes up, once power comes up, once position comes in, once wealth comes in, people can get misdirected. So, rather than, we are also not blind to the fact that institutions have problems. There is a lecture of Bhakti Swamiji Thakur also about how he talks of Putana.
He says, Putana tried to, she came to nourish Krishna, apparently, but she was actually poisoning Krishna. Similarly, he says that the institution has to be like a nurse for the Bhakti. But sometimes the institution gets corrupted, then it can become like Putana which poisons the Bhakti.
So, he was also aware of the dangers. And Prabhupada himself was also aware. The purpose of the institution, there was one time when devotees, they just decided, without consulting Prabhupada, to centralize the whole management of ISKCON.
They said all, for example, Lakshmi collected in America, all Lakshmi collected by all American temples will come to one central body. And that body will decide which temple should get how much money. And when they did this, Prabhupada sent a letter to all the temple presidents saying that I have suspended the GBC.
I have suspended the GBC and I will, you just directly correspond with me. And he said, this kind of bureaucracy is not going to work. Prabhupada wrote a very beautiful letter at that time.
He said, the purpose of the institution is to inspire the individual to practice Bhakti. And the purpose of the institution is to facilitate, to ensure that the individuals are practicing Bhakti. But it is to inspire the spirit of service among devotees.
So, Prabhupada was also aware of the dangers. The institution is necessary because that is where the community is formed. That is where the people come together.
So, and people also recognize this. There are always, even when there are some people who reject all, say the hippies. They rejected all institutions.
But the hippies themselves were a movement. That also became a movement. So, basically, my example which I like for this is that if there is a drop of water at the mountain top and has to go to the ocean.
For one drop of water, to reach the ocean is very difficult. But if a hundred drops come together, that becomes a tributary. If a thousand drops come together, it becomes a river.
And that river can overcome obstacles and then it can reach the ocean very easily. So, for all of us, we have some spiritual interest. But that is like a trickle.
It is like a small trickle. If we all alone have to practice Bhakti, it is going to be very difficult. But when we come together in the devotee community, then it becomes like a forceful river.
And we all move towards Krishna. Sometimes, when there is a lot of water, there are people who come up, they want the water for their own purpose. They build a dam over there.
They block the water. They want to take the water elsewhere. So, like that, whenever there is an institution, there are some people who will be power hungry, some people who will be interested in ulterior motives.
They will come. So, we have to make sure that the water keeps moving towards Krishna. Water keeps moving towards the ocean.
So, the institution is like the bed of the river. And the Bhakti is like the river itself. When the bed is there, the river will move faster.
But, the point is, the river should be moving forward towards Krishna. So, we have international society. That is the organization.
But, for Krishna consciousness. So, Krishna consciousness is the flow of the river. And international society is like the river bed.
So, we make sure that we keep moving towards Krishna. And encourage others to move towards Krishna. And people see that they are moving towards Krishna.
That there is a transformation that is happening. Then, the aversion to institutions will gradually go away. Does this answer your question?