When we can study scripture without doing the Bhakti Shastri course why is the course needed?

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thank you so what is the purpose for which we do bhakti shastra you want to come a little closer so I would say three things first is that we all read books but just as a student who studies books somebody may read newspapers and somebody may study current affairs to get a degree in that the seriousness with which you study is much much more if you are doing a part of a course you are going to give an exam so we ourselves find that if you are a part of a course we study the books much much more seriously and the more seriously we study the more understanding also we get so one at one level you could say just seriousness in studying that always comes when there is a there is a core structure with an exam and with a systematic guided study the second purpose is that definitely systematic study will help us in our outreach if you are conducting classes or if you aspire to conduct classes the more systematic study we have the better we will be able to explain things for now even devotees who are involved in preaching may not always recognize the importance of systematic presentation systematic answering of questions we see that many devotees give classes not all classes are equally inspiring or equally informative, equally organized and I would say the real test of one’s knowledge comes out in question answers so if we have studied a subject properly we have thought about it giving a class is not all that difficult because after some time what happens is that we can just put a few points together and we can give a class and nowadays with so many devotees giving classes we can just search on its content directory, find a class just repeat that few modifications here and there but the question answers is what creates a lot of faith in people if that is done well and to do that we really need to study the subject systematically so I would say there will be different levels of preachers and the most effective preachers in terms of not just giving classes but in terms of persuading people to take up Krishna Bhakti will be those who can answer questions, not just in terms of logic analysis but who have actually taken up ownership of the philosophy by which they feel at home in the philosophy and they can answer questions so that will also happen through Shastric study systematically and thirdly there is the our classes if we see we may have daily Bhagavatam class and even we have managed to come for the class still the Bhagavatam class is not a systematic study of the Bhagavatam, it is more of a inspirational kind of study because when we have one verse being studied every day, actually we are reading the Bhagavatam but we are more connecting with that particular devotee who is speaking, that devotee’s understanding of the Bhagavatam if we take 7-8 verses in one class and we go systematically over, then we actually study the Bhagavatam so systematic Shastric study is in its own genre Aishwarya Prabhupada himself wanted it Aishwarya Prabhupada himself instituted the Bhakti Shastric courses and that is because Bhakti Shastric Shankar wanted it but he had different names similar concepts, not exactly same books he wanted more the study of Goswami’s books but the principle was there of systematic study so by there is three levels of knowledge we could say one is the competence to answer questions to view classes the second is broad familiarity with scripture and third is understanding the flow, the connection, the structure of the scriptural message so most people think that anyone who can give the first, who can do the first well who can view classes attractively they will have the second and third but it is not necessary it can be, it cannot be oratory, the ability to speak well is largely a result of past karma some people may have it a lot, some people may have it less so of course we shouldn’t assume that somebody is a good speaker, they are just having oratory lessons, we can assume that they have studied scripture but I am just talking this for analysis purpose that there can be many devotees who are able to view reasonably good classes and if you see in many classes there is a lot of entertainment that is done we tell them story from here to there which is not really connected with the theme but we have to speak it to lighten the mood or to keep the audience interested sometimes some jokes are told, it varies so I would say this is just one aspect of preaching it may be important in certain forums but if we have systematic study of scripture then we will be deeply grounded in scripture and that deep grounding makes a lot of difference in terms of the capacity to cultivate over the long run so our movement will need different kinds of teachers right now a lot of focus is on preaching to new people to get them to Krishna and that is important along with that also there is a whole genre where people are scriptural teachers they don’t so much speak to new people but they do systematic courses like Bhakti Shastri and all that where they help devotees to become more connected with the Shastra it takes people from the first level to the third level so not everybody may feel the need for it many devotees may do Bhakti Shastri simply because it’s a need for second initiation or whatever but there are a few devotees who are in this category also and they need to be nourished so we ourselves in future may be able to do this service if we can study scripture nicely this is an important service to be able to systematically teach scripture not just systematically present the basics of Krishna Consciousness so all this will how we will be best engaged in Krishna’s service that Krishna will reveal in due course but it’s difficult in general to convince people of something when they are themselves having different ideas so different devotees will have different priorities in their Krishna Consciousness so if somebody doesn’t appreciate the importance of scripture study, we just give the reasoning that we are given and if they don’t accept it they say no but we have to build temples, we have to cultivate new people we have to distribute books, it’s all fine that’s what they are inspired to do, that’s what they can do but we should be convinced that we are followers of Prabhupada we are ourselves benefiting by it and we are also becoming better instruments for our spiritual master so that we can serve better in ways so that can be our purpose