​Why are ISKCON programs in the West attended mostly by Indians?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you The very reason Indians come for our programs is the same reason why western people don’t come for our programs and that reason is that Indian among all the various spiritual organizations that went from India to that started by Indian gurus going to America say whatever the organizations are among them ISKCON is the most culturally Indian some organizations don’t have DTEs, some organizations don’t have Sanskrit chanting of Mantras some organizations don’t, they have only meditation not Kirtans so Prabhupada has ISKCON we have traditional Indian food traditional Indian dress DTEs, Kirtans the whole setting is such that people feel that they have entered into India so thus for Indians abroad ISKCON serves as a cultural home in that country and especially when Indians go abroad even if they are interested in material and financial improvement they also realize that the cultural gap between Indians and Americans is so much that they can’t become like Americans they also want to have some connection with their culture some cultural roots you know no one is celebrating Diwali over there or on Janmashtami or Ram Navami, nothing is happening so they want a cultural home and among all the organizations there ISKCON is most culturally Indian and that’s why many Indians any NRIs they come to India they come to ISKCON because it serves as a cultural home for them but the very same reason makes Americans or western people from whichever country they are hesitate to come because they feel that by coming here if a western person comes there and he or she sees that oh there are 99.9% people who are simply Indians but they feel it’s an Indian group what am I doing over here so they feel alienated, they feel lost over there and when Prabhupada went to America that was a time when that was a period of what is called the counter culture the young people in America and in general in the western world they were disappointed, even frustrated with their culture with their education with their government with their everything and they were actively looking for alternatives they were looking for alternative lifestyles and when Prabhupada presented Krishna Consciousness it it was very attractive and adventurous for them but even just by the by the end of 1970s itself the counter culture phase ended and now also there are many western people who are interested in spirituality they are interested in alternative thought systems but they are interested more in experiences not in lifestyle changes so they want to go there and go somewhere and explore and have a nice experience I experienced something new but they are not so much interested in the radical lifestyle changes so because of that they are Americans, they want to explore Indian spirituality but they don’t want to become Indians for exploring Indian spirituality and that’s why when they see something like something that seems like an Indian cultural group they are not interested and so because of both these reasons because of ISKCON appearing very Indian and because of Americans wanting spiritual experiences more than spiritual lifestyle changes these are two main reasons there are other reasons also but these are the two main reasons because of which most of our programs are attended by NRIs so of course there are devotees who have devised different measures to deal with these issues and the main measure is separating the Indian and the western outreach sometimes separating means just having two separate centers or sometimes it means having two separate programs they have two Sunday programs or one program on Saturday, one on Sunday and then in the programs for western people the cultural Indianness is toned down for example in the west if somebody publicly offers obeisances to someone else that is considered that is considered abominable why abominable? because in the past slaves were there and slaves were expected to offer obeisances to their masters so this reminds them of slavery so in all western outreach programs people are told, don’t offer obeisances so like that some of the cultural things are toned down and that’s how people are able to slowly come towards Krishna even from the western groups but it’s a big challenge