“Every Member is a Messenger”
Way back in 1973, Srila Prabhupada wrote a letter to the the sankirtan devotees in England, thanking them for their preaching efforts and suggesting six ways in which they could give the message of Krishna consciousness to the public. His advice stands as a six-point preaching strategy in itself, all in one letter.
One year later, after he had emphasised book distribution, an English disciple asked him whether the other five activities should be given up in favour of book distribution alone. “No, everything should be done, side-by-side,” he replied.
Here’s Srila Prabhupada’s letter:
3rd January 1973 Bombay
“My dear Prabha Vishnu,
Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated January 1, 1973, and I am very glad to hear from you the wonderful news of travelling party in England. I think the people of that place are becoming more and more inclined for this Krishna Consciousness movement, they are inviting you to stay at their houses, they are taking books, becoming sometimes devotees – all of these are very encouraging signs to me. If you simply go on in this way, stopping in every village and city of England-Scotland, or if there are other places like Ireland, simply stop for some time, distribute books and hold Sankirtan procession, answer their questions, give some leaflets or small informations freely, distribute prasadam wherever possible, at least some small thing, and if there is genuine interest being shown, then request the townspeople to arrange some engagements for speaking in their schools, or in someone’s home, or a hall, like that. In this way remain always without anxiety for destination and comfortable situations, always relying only on the mercy of Krishna for your plan, just go on preaching His message and selling His books, wherever there is interest. We shall not waste time if there is no interest of if the people are unfriendly; there are so many places to go. But I understand from your letter that practically everyone is taking some interest. That means you are presenting the thing in a very nice manner, they can detect that here are some persons who are actually sincere and nice, let me hear them, let me purchase one book.”
Srila Prabhupada’s six-point plan for spreading the mission of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is quite simple, but really works well when you do all the six things together – at the same time.
When book distribution is accompanied by street chanting and a gathering for interested people, very rapidly the movement is established on a firm foundation at a local level. Split up those six activities and you’ll still get good results, but it all works really well when its all done together.
Srila Prabhupada said that the ‘encouraging signs’ of the preaching being done well is that people are inviting devotees to stay at their houses, taking books, and becoming devotees.
I was one of those people who became devotees. In my first few meetings with devotees I took part in kirtan, bought a book, watched a play, had my questions answered, went with the devotees on sankirtan, and tasted prasadam. They didn’t stay at my house – but I ended up staying at theirs!
These days – more than thirty years later – there is sometimes the misconception voiced by our members that: ‘the preaching will be done by the temple devotees; and I will do the practising.’
But if our Hare Krishna movement is indeed composed of 90% members who do not live in temples – and if the above conception were true – it would mean that 90% of the modern movement of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu is not involved in sharing the message with others in any structured way. That’s 9 out of 10 members, and consequently a movement operating at only 10% of its strength. That wouldn’t really get us very far at all – nowhere near being a ’spiritual revolution.’ Srila Prabhupada indicated his own preferences in a purport of the Caitanya Caritamrita where he says: ”All classes of devotees should combine to distribute the Hare Krishna mantra…”
When all members operate together as a combination of diverse talents and skills then the preaching can be so much more successful.
Our ‘Preach’ emphasis this year, throughout 2008, is to help our members think of themselves more as messengers of Krishna consciousness, and to help them find enjoyable and practical ways of taking part in any of the six activities Srila Prabhupada wrote about. We’re inviting every one of around 40 groups in the London and the South to reach out to neighbours and their local area, and we’re discussing with other members who occasionally have home gatherings if they’d like to invite some newcomers more regularly for kirtan and prasadam. Meanwhile our young professionals have started regular dinner parties to which friends and colleagues can come for a Friday night meal and discussion.
2 Comments
January 23, 2008 at 8:28 am
Hare Krishna Kripamoya prabhu, Your online class this morning,Wed.23rd.Jan, was certainly impressive. As now I read this above article of six points of preaching Krishna consciousness – is it similar that what is in the third page of BACK TO GODHEAD magazine?
Ramatirtha das
January 25, 2008 at 8:52 pm
No, those are the seven purposes of ISKCON, the seven things that ISKCON was set up to do. The above six practises help towards realising those seven purposes.