ISKCON: More Gurus Needed!

Whether you like it or not, Jehovah’s Witnesses are always ready to do two things (1) Distribute books (2) Sit down and talk with you, and help you to understand. ISKCON has many book distributors, but we need more gurus.

After people have read one of Srila Prabhupada’s books, and if they want to know more, their first question is often something like this: “How can I find out more about all this? Do you have any meetings in my town?” or “Are there any other Krishna people living near me?” That was my first eager question at the age of 16 when I received a Back to Godhead magazine in the streets of Nottingham, England.

If you’re not English, the answer is yes, the city still has a sheriff, although the Sheriff of Nottingham these days is largely a ceremonial functionary – and no, there’s not much of a forest today for Robin Hood and his merry men to hide away in.

But such things didn’t concern me when I was 16. I wanted to know where I could find out more, and if there were any other Krishna people living in Nottingham. I’d already had some sort of introduction to Krishna the previous year, although quite a mysterious one. My father worked for an office machine company and had brought home an old spirit duplicator. By using carbon paper to create a typewriter original, and fluid to transfer the purple print to a fresh sheet of paper, you could, by cranking a handle, produce any number of duplicates. I’m sure there were Xerox photocopiers already in existence, but I was 15, it was 1972 and I didn’t know anyone who had one.

My friends had formed a band and wanted to put on a show. So they asked me if I could design and print a flyer for the event. “What sort of design do you want?” I asked them, happy to oblige. “Well, it’s going to be called the Ananta Disco,” they replied. “How do you spell that word,” I asked, “and what does it mean?”

My two musician friends looked at each other, as if it was some kind of secret they didn’t want to reveal, then burst out laughing. “Ananta is a snake,” said one. “Kind of like a cosmic snake somewhere in the universe.”

“We met some Krishna people a few weeks ago,” said the other, “they had a flat up the hill on Mansfield Road. We had some of their food – it was yellow.`”

I duly designed the ‘cosmic snake’ so that the curves of the snake’s body spelled out ‘Ananta’ with the head on the final letter. When I brought over the batch of printed flyers my friends were happy, but I was intrigued. I wanted to know more but they couldn’t tell me anything, they had no books, and the Krishnas had ‘gone to London to sing along Oxford Street.’

So when I met a devotee on the street in Nottingham in the summer of the following year I really wanted to know where he lived and whether I could come over and ask questions. “We’re traveling” he replied, “and the nearest place is London.” I was disappointed, and the devotee seemed not to want to talk, and moved away to approach another person. “What’s your address in London?” He fumbled in his shoulder bag and gave me a small spirit-duplicated flyer with an image of a long-haired girl in a dress with her hands raised in the air, together with some words repeated down one side. And then he was gone.

So that was how I missed Srila Prabhupada at the Manor in 1973 when he stayed with the devotees for many weeks; an unusual length of time for him to remain in one place. Had the devotee actually invited me to come – which he didn’t – I would have come. Had he taken my address and written to me, I certainly would have made the effort to travel down to London. As it was, I thought that ‘here are George Harrison’s personal friends, and they don’t want anyone to disturb them by visiting them.’ So it wasn’t until the year after that I was actually invited.

But this blog is not about the personal warmth and after-sales communication skills of Krishna book distributors. Rather, its to stress the fact that spiritual movements like ours need to be prepared to help people whenever their spiritual needs are most urgent. And we need to be able to help them wherever they live. It is not good enough to direct people to the nearest city where there is a temple. Our work is enhanced by temples, but cannot be dependent on them. Medical care is enhanced by a hospital but can never be limited by it. People hurt themselves in the most unlikely of places and often the paramedics must come to them. Help must be given when and where it is needed, otherwise people perish.

Spiritual workers must be available in every village. That’s the request of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the incarnation of Krishna who came in the form of a saintly teacher. He demonstrated his concern by walking village to village in India for six years, teaching the message wherever he went.

ISKCON has been way ahead of most other spiritual groups in its enthusiasm and competence for initial outreach. In the matter of getting out there and boldly going where no man has gone before we’re bold pioneers. Our book distributors have been everywhere: northern Alaska, Siberia, outer Mongolia, Cambodia and even Timbuktu, and we’ve given millions of people the chance to read about Krishna consciousness. It is nothing less than astonishing. We are still raising eyebrows in the publishing world where a ‘runaway bestseller’ is 20,000 copies, but the Hare Krishnas will only ever print 100,000 copies of a book.

Unfortunately, we haven’t done as well – so far – as other comparable groups in our geographic spread. You’ll find us in the major cities but we fade out in the smaller towns. And we’re not really known for our pastoral care either. Where the Jehovah’s Witnesses will sit down with you to study the Bible, we often can’t find the time to talk with people. But people do require the ongoing tuition, support, guidance and a sense of progress that should naturally follow the initial outreach.

If the devotees of Krishna do not provide these spiritual supports as a corollary of their book distribution, then other organisations certainly will. In the past 40 years everyone with something spiritual to say has set up shop pretty much locally. ‘Alternative Lifestyle and Philosophy’ has gone mainstream and is now available in every book store. And you’ll find some kind of guru or master in every local copy of the Yellow Pages. The disparity between our book distribution and our follow-up is such that, over the years, we’ve helped millions to become familiar with the basic concepts of eastern philosophy, then watched as they went to learn more from local teachers who didn’t tell them anything about Krishna. And those local teachers are quite happy with us and think us to be very helpful for their own private missions.

But as Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami said: “Krishna consciousness is so important, so exclusively important,” that it does not make logical sense for the Krishna consciousness movement to become sidelined into a movement for initial outreach and book distribution only. And highly decorated temples in major cities. We need more gurus. Not remote, world-travelling, highly qualified gurus, but locally accessible, less qualified gurus. Thousands of them.

By guru I mean someone who is prepared to personally roll up their sleeves and accept responsibility for the spiritual welfare of a number of named individuals. No wide broadcasting of messages; no generic teaching to anonymous masses; but teaching, guidance, support to named people in a local area. Only with thousands of men and women doing this will we be able to do what this great mission was set up to do.

My experience of the Alpha Course

About eight years ago I attended a twelve-week ‘Alpha Course’ a Christian outreach programme designed by the preacher Nicky Gumbel of the Holy Trinity Church in Brompton, London. There was lots of publicity at the time and there were courses springing up all over the place, as churches throughout Great Britain discovered that good results came from taking a new approach with an old message.

I decided to attend all 12 weeks to see what the entire experience would be like. The people behind the Alpha Course had spent almost £4 million on the project and this was going to be their big effort before the Millenium came and they reached the symbolic juncture of Christ’s 2,000th birthday. It was important they got it right.

The advertising campaign was good yet very simple, and addressed the disatisfaction that almost everyone feels when their material affluence is not helping them with their spiritual needs. “Is there more to life than this?” was the general lead-in theme, displayed from many billboards. The next pitch was to the curiosity of those who found themselves nagged by spiritual needs: “The Alpha Course. Come and Explore the Meaning of Life”

Since within ISKCON we also invite those with spiritual questions to come and check us, I decided to see how the Alpha Course would bring me through a logical progression of ideas to accept the Christian path. Perhaps there were techniques they’d developed which we could learn. I gave them 12 weeks to prove themselves. Some things I discovered were good and reassuring, some were disappointing. Here’s a few points I can remember:

1. Advertising – good, with great coverage, ad-agency designed hooks, prominent placement, and sufficiently non-Christian to make people feel at ease.

2. Alpha Course – the name is unthreatening, as is the notion of ‘exploring the meaning of life.’

3. Weekly meetings began with a meal at a six-person table. Tablecloth, candles, flowers. Each table had a host, and your table then became your regular spot each week. Every week, I found my chair was left empty – even on the week I couldn’t make it, nobody sat there. Nice personal touch. Vegetarian option always available (this is an example of Christians really making an effort) and absolutely no philosophical or theological conversation at the meal time, only light conversation about family, job, and so on.

4. Having the meal before as opposed to after – as we do – had certain benefits. Like getting people there on time in the evening. 7.00 as it happened.

5. Lecture – each week a visiting speaker gave a 20-30 minute talk on a variety of themes. Concluding with a prayer or song/music. Rather generic songs/prayers at first then progressing, as the weeks went by, to a lot more devotional. The subject matter of the first few talks was my first major disappointment. Rather than go for a logical approach and address ‘spiritual hunger’ or ‘the existence of the soul’ as we would, the first talk was on the relevance of the crucifixion. Yes, I do realise that its the very heart of Christian theology, but it could have waited a week or three.

6. Hot drinks – nice touch after the half-hour talk was the tea break. Its Britain after all.

7. Questions and Answers / Discussion – This was organised well. Two important principles. Firstly, you don’t get to ask your questions of the visiting speaker. Why should they risk everything by having you spout atheistic nonsense at their speaker? The 20 in attendance were split into two groups in separate rooms and a facilitator invited questions. Questions ranged from innocent enquiries to downright insults (which did not provoke even the bat of an eyelid from the facilitator) Rather neatly, questions were offered up to the rest of the group to answer and a vigorous discussion ensued. The main principle – I discovered much later – was that all doubts are to be invited at this point.

8. Punctuality – 40 minutes discussion only, then the meeting finished promptly.

9. A Workbook – a simple but attractive workbook was provided for all participants with bulletpoints of each of the sessions. Space for notes, a few cartoons, and the theology in an abbreviated form.

10. Follow-up – Brilliant! I missed one of the sessions, and a tape of the talk was promptly put through my letter box. Impressive.

11. Weekend Away – After six weeks, halfway through the course, there was a weekend at a local large house (in some parts of the country you can stay overnight) where longer sessions and more meals, prayers and songs, deeper discussions, short films, all formed part of a deeper experience.

12. After the course – There was the regular home-based small group to join where you get to join a group of people in your age range.

13. Even more follow-up – In my case, although I was as receptive – quite genuine – as I could be, they knew that I was the local Hare Krishna man so the follow-up was by no means exhaustive. But they did try.

Book Distribution Follow Up Strategies: Meet the Monks!

 

Meet the Monks comes to town: This is in the town of Winchester. King Alfred looks on in approval

Way back in 1973 Srila Prabhupada told us what our preaching strategy should be for the British Isles. He wanted us to do six things: 1. Distribute books 2. Perform Harinam Sankirtan 3. Answer people’s questions 4. Give out some free information 5. Distribute prasadam – “..at least some small thing.” 6. Hold a programme in a hall or someone’s home.

When one devotee heard that he had stressed book distribution, seemingly to the exclusion of all else, he enquired as to whether we should stop everything else and simply concentrate on book distribution. “No, continue everything, side-by-side” Srila Prabhupada said.

However, creatures of the mode of passion that we are, and therefore not very good at focusing on more than one service at a time, the six-point strategy gradually gave way to single-pointed book distribution and its concomitant and much welcomed raising of funds. So it came as something of a novel proposal to some young brahmacaris several years ago when we decided to hold harinams and mini-festivals as an integral part of their preaching.

We’d developed an unhealthy and competitive separation between the various strands of preaching, resulting in something approaching a caste system. Some book distributors privately considered any other service as maya, and an artistic festival team regarded the intensity of the book distributors as unengaging for the public, and at times a touch vulgar. Then there were devotees who worked in communications, for whom anything other than conversing with academics, faith leaders, media, politicians and celebrities was a quaint continuation of the Hare Krishna movement’s vintage years but relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Finally there were the temple managers who looked favourably on any kind of preaching as long as it paid for itself and perhaps generated a little profit.

Such lack of integration between preaching styles inevitably leads to organisational snobbishness, the consequent erosion of team spirit, and can lead to the complete disintegration of a temple or centre. At the very least, it means that the right hand of the movement doesn’t know what the left hand is doing – and any interested people lose their way in the confusion.

So the idea was quite simply to bring the different types of preaching together into a seamless programme that more or less resembled Srila Prabhupada’s idea of 1973. We wanted to keep the cost down, so we made sure that we paid for everything we did with the proceeds of book distribution. We also wanted the programme to be reproducible for any sankirtan team.

We decided that we wanted to find the most interested people of every town where we frequently went for book distribution. And we knew which towns they were because the people greeted the sankirtan devotees very favourably, bought more books, and asked the most questions. (Isn’t it a strange phenomenon that people in towns seem to share Karma? The population of one town can largely appear very entrenched in materialism, while the entire population of another can all appear to be spiritual seekers)

We also wanted to change the ‘giving the conditioned souls the absolute truth’ mode of presentation that often occurs when young devotees are trained at public speaking by watching and listening to Srimad Bhagavatam class speakers. So we opted for short, personal stories from each monk in which a sequence of philosophical points would be contained. It worked out to be engaging for the audience, broke down many barriers, proved humorous, and stimulated much animated conversation afterwards during the discussion session.

Jivadoya Das, the first of four speakers for the evening, tells the audience: ‘How I was saved from Communism.’ This is in the town of Truro

So the programme – which we named ‘‘Meet the Monks’ and took to 14 towns – ended up like this:

• Select the towns for the year and organise the sequence of events.

• Book the halls, checking them to see whether they are suitable for a diverse audience of 30-50 people

• Distribute books in the first town for 3-5 days before the programme

• While distributing books hand out invitations to the event

• Take names and addresses or email addresses of the most interested

• Hold Harinama sankirtan, handing out more invitations

• Place an ad in the local newspaper

• Put up posters – especially in the places where active spiritual seekers visit

• Contact everyone who has ever given their name from that town

The idea of the Meet the Monks was to use the novelty of the brahmacaris in their saffron robes to attract people to a spiritual evening where they’d get a chance to meet with them and talk to them, as well as taking part in kirtan, short classes and prasadam. We wanted to avoid the performance mode that we often get into on these evenings, as if we were an Indian cultural presentation. So the evening was convivial and presented along the lines of an experiment with various philosophical ideas and meditational techniques.

The monks move into four places in the hall and the audience divide up to come to speak with them. Small groups break the ‘performance mode’ of the presentation. This is in the town of Salisbury

Later on, when we organised some Meet the Monks events in London, we discovered that the attraction of actually meeting monks in their saffron robes only really worked outside London, where we are still a novelty.

Mostly I dressed in a dhoti as well, sometimes not. I tried various approaches in presentation and dress. The prasadam was light but satisfying and relatively easy to prepare. The ide was this was a light, introductory evening that would be the first in a series of seven meetings. Here’s what the evening looked like:

• Devotees assisted guests in finding the correct room if it was a large venue.

• Drinks served to guests as they arrived, toilets indicated.

• Asking guests what they’d like to hear about or see that evening – that helped to adjust our content

• Introduction by the host

• Meditative kirtan by the monks

• Explanation of the musical instruments used

• Short presentation of the coming west of the mantra

• ‘How I came to Krishna’ by first monk, including how he came to understand the nature of the soul

• Short but lively presentation by second monk on karma, reincarnation

• Third monk speaks on how he discovered the transformational power of yoga and mantra meditation

• Host describes how japa is done, then hands out beads to all guests

• Japa session lasting half a round

• Final lively kirtan

• Monks go to different parts of the room, all guests invited to sit with their favourite monk to chat

• Prasadam served while conversations continue

• Names and addresses taken while conversations are concluding

The follow-up to this follow-up was a series of six meetings where different themes were explored, quite relaxed and conversational in style.

One of our top congregational book distributors came from these programmes, as did the entire Cambridge, Norwich and Ipswich groups, as did the ‘temple-commander’ and the website designer of the London temple.

Below: But it wasn’t only monks. Here’s Avadhuta-priya dasi with two happy guests, the gentleman is a musician, a member of The Troggs, and composer of the popular song ‘Love is All Around’, a nice ditty for when the monks come to town. Check out Avadhuta’s blog here

Book Distribution Follow Up Strategies: The Mail Order Miracle

Energetic book distribution, Back to Godhead subscription, a good mail-order and personal correspondence service were, at one time, a very important part of ISKCON’s outreach.

There’s been a lot of Srila Prabhupada’s books sold in our little country over the years – perhaps some 100 million pieces of literature over almost 40 years. No exagerration. During that time we’ve come up with various methods of staging our follow-up to book distribution so that people who wanted to know more could gradually get to know the devotees, learn more of our philosophy and life, and find a place for themselves in the wonderful Hare Krishna movement.

1985 was a good year. It was the year I bought my first computer, for the now astronomical sum of £3,500. Ouch! But we put it to good use, and had a devotee write a database for us. That was before I knew what a database was. We had a simple formula for processing all the names and addresses coming from street sankirtan which these days will sound blindingly obvious, but back then it was looked upon as brilliant, a stroke of pure genius direct from God.

The thing is, in 1985 we still imagined that people came to Krishna consciousness just like we did. They got a book, read it from cover to cover in a week, then thought to themselves: “This is just the most wonderful thing I have ever read in my life. I just have to join their movement, give my life completely, and in this one life go back to home, back to Godhead.”

Unfortunately, most people are not quite as interested as that, and are actually moving in spiritual slow-motion compared to the bright souls who gave them their first book about Krishna. So whilst a few people will always come to Krishna with the slightest whisper of sacred sound, others take quite some time,many more take even longer, and for all of them we have to be prepared to allow them that time.

Back in 1985 our time, like today, was limited. We couldn’t possibly talk to every person who we’d sold a book to – we were far too busy selling more books. But we knew that we’d ultimately have to actually talk to people to get them to come and stay in the temple for a while – otherwise we’d have a lot of people with a lot of books, but no new devotees.

So we wanted to be able to distinguish those who were most interested in taking up Krishna consciousness from those who needed much more time to think about it. We also wanted to help the most enthusiastic people to move forward in their spiritual life if they wanted to. Although we distributed books in every town throughout the country we didn’t really stop too much in each town to get to know the people and to talk to them. We did write to people though, and answered their questions through the mail. There was also an active mail-order service for supplying more books and exotic Indian devotional items.

1985, and I’m the proud owner of a – computer

We’d already had an active correspondence and mail-order department running for a few years. It was started by Amita Das, a devotee from New Zealand who was always thinking outside the box. His chief letter-writer was Shastra-Chaksus Das from Australia, a mild-mannered scribe with infinite patience for carefully penning thoughtful and helpful letters, then painstakingly filing all the carbon copies of each letter, clipping them to the enquirer’s letter, then depositing them into numerous cumbersome volumes. (How times have changed!) Later on they were joined by Gangamayi Dasi and Anada Dasi who gave an added dimension to the service by sending out little pieces of mangala-burfi. Even though it inevitably arrived completely flattened by the Post Office, it was a very popular feature of the outreach!

Of course, Srila Prabhupada was the origin of this programme too. Way back in the late 1940s he’d been writing to many leaders and sending them copies of his Back to Godhead newspaper. He’d also been bulk-mailing copies of his newspaper to libraries and institutions, eliciting responses from them, then beginning an exchange of correspondence. In the mid 1950s he set up his League of Devotees, a membership scheme whereby interested people could form an affiliation with him and his new organisation.

In 1973 or maybe 1974 – I forget which – his disciples at the Los Angeles branch of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust asked him to write a standard response letter which they could send to everyone who wrote to them after reading one of his books. He wrote a two-page letter that was then sent out in the thousands.

So in England we’d been trying to follow his lead. The Back to Godhead magazine was an important part of that strategy as was a membership scheme that became known as FOLK, the Friends of Lord Krishna. A husband and wife team, Madhavendra Puri and Mandakini, created the FOLK magazine which had very daring articles about people who were trying to chant their four rounds and who didn’t shave their heads.

Anyway, the brilliant strategy that emerged from all of this – and which actually created many new devotees – was as follows:

Step 1 – Devotees go to every town and village and distribute books

Step 2 – The same devotees ask the most interested people they meet for their name and postal address

Step 3 – The entire sankirtan party hand in their names and addresses at the end of each week

Step 4 – Names and addresses entered into the very expensive, top of the range 1985 computer

Step 5 – Each person sent complimentary copy of the Back to Godhead magazine, and invited to receive two further monthly copies, entirely free

Step 6 – At the end of three months free subscription, each person invited to become annual subscriber

Step 7 – All annual subscribers invited to join FOLK

Step 8 – All FOLK members invited to form local groups or to join the temple

Now, the amazing statistics for this exceeded everyone’s expectations: 10% of all those offered a 3-month free trial subscription took it up; 10% of those who took it up paid for an annual subscription; and 50% of the annual subscribers – when the programme was running at its peak – joined the temple. Even today, one of those who came to Krishna through this process is a temple president, another is about to enter the sannyasa order of life.

Preaching to the Anglo-Saxons of Ipswich

On Sunday I was in Ipswich, the oldest continually inhabited Anglo-Saxon town in the UK. It goes back to around 400 AD, when those Angles, Saxons and Jutes first came over here to take our jobs and marry our women. Because they called themselves Englisch they gave our country and people the name. They lasted in power until the Norman French invaded in 1066 and stayed for quite some time.

The region is still known as East Anglia and its been a favourite travelling area of mine for several years. I distributed books there for many years, and have taken festivals and follow-up meetings to many towns in the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk which make up the region. On the map you’ll see the famous 13th century university town of Cambridge where we have a thriving Hare Krishna group, Ipswich, where we have a lively group of newcomers, and Norwich, where we have many friends and supporters. St. Albans, at the bottom of the map, is very close to Bhaktivedanta Manor.

Maps show where those foreigners invaded, and what the region looks like now

So Saturday it was the turn of the descendants of all those Anglo-Saxons to experience Rathayatra for the first time. The parade was held in conjunction with an Indian Mela, a local celebration of Indian arts and performance as part of the Ipswich Arts Week. Its an event that’s grown over the past six years and attracts a few thousand people from the region who are interested in all things Indian. So a good place for us to demonstrate the best of India’s spiritual culture.

Antardwipa das came down from Leicester with his mini-chariot, and the new preachers for the area, two young married couples, Kishor-murti and Dhunya, Karuna-Sindhu and Hana, came with their combined kirtan enthusiasm. Local coordination was provided by Lila Patel and Sejal Patel, with support from Vinay who hosts the local meetings at his home. Pictures taken by Vaibhav.

The procession through the streets of Ipswich begins. Karuna on accordion and singing, Kishor on mridanga drum, Karuna’s wife Hana on hand cymbals

Dhunya and Hana, two happy bhakti-yogis

Through the park, more devotees joining us as we walk

Mastermind of the Mini-Rathayatra phenomenon and architect of the online virtual temple: http://www.iskconlife.com – Antardwipa das

How an idea turns into a movement. Just do it – and the people will come

Karuna and Kishor created some strong and melodic kirtan

The police drop by to see what all the music and flags are about…

…and give Lord Jagannatha a police escort to the Mela

A good-sized crowd of Anglo-Saxons, all interested in things Indian

The Holy Name arrives, together with the Rathayatra. Later, many people stop by to speak with us.

Strategic Sanga: every member counts in the final success

Its good for devotees to get together for some strategic planning, and assessment of strengths and weaknesses. Here’s a wartime picture of an RAF operations room where the strategy depended on the newly invented radar. Our Vaishnava weekend gathering was near Bawdsey, where the first radar was developed.

We had a little get together/ spiritual retreat last weekend. My wife Padma, son Mali and myself went up to Bawdsey Manor, a remote place on the coast of Suffolk, not too far from Ipswich. The place is quite historic in that for a few years – 1936 to 1939 – it was home to a top secret research and development team. Robert Watson-Watt and his team were working on the idea that through the use of measured electromagnetic waves someone might be able to detect the position, speed and location of enemy airplanes.

Luckily for Britain they were right. The team developed the first radar and Britain had a technological advantage at the outset of the war, despite having fewer planes.

Our team of 20 devotees were there for a distinctly non-military purpose, yet no less strategic. We’d decided to have a gathering so that all the devotees from around the region known as East Anglia could get to meet each other. The towns of Norwich, Ipswich and Cambridge are the main places where devotees gather either monthly or bi-weekly. They all lead busy lives and so its good for them all to meet each other and discuss their mutual experiences and challenges.

Organisation and prasadam was generously provided by Michelle from Cambridge, cooking in a rented seaside cottage over in Aldeburgh. Sejal and Dipti offered their hospitality and some excellent bhajias at their home the following day. Later still, Vinay welcomed us all to his home, which is also the venue for the Ipswich group.

Small groups such as these only happen by each member contributing something essential to the groups healthy survival. Each member is therefore very important for the establishment of Krishna consciousness in that particular town.

When two or three groups get together we call that a Maha-Sanga and it serves to broaden everyone’s understanding of the scope of the devotee population in a particular region and how we are all prospering.

Of course, for a movement like ours to grow, we need the book distributors to also become interested in the people who actually read the books as well as those who buy them. We also need them to be interested in someone who, after reading one of Srila Prabhupada’s books, decides to take up the practises of bhakti-yoga such as chanting the Hare Krishna mantra and offering food on their home altar.

Whilst it is tempting for any of us to simply be a book distributor, it defies logic if, after a person reads the book you gave them, for us to then not be interested in that newcomer’s welfare. It defies logic but it does happen sometimes. Unfortunately, there are not enough devotees for some of us to ‘only’ be book distributors. Each of us must also be well-rounded teachers and encouragers to everyone who takes up our Vaishnava path.

And for those of us who do a lot more teaching and encouraging than others, well, the same logic applies. We must also distribute books.

Just like in war time, we may all have our specialities, but each of us must be prepared to be well-rounded members in the great effort to take Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s mission to every town and village. And if that effort can be compared – as Srila Prabhupada did sometimes – to a ‘war on maya,’ then the war is not over yet. In fact, its only just begun.

Argument in Krishna Consciousness

Buddhist monks engaged in mock debate at the Seda Monastery

Last night I spoke to some of our brahmacaris and youth on the subject of argument and debate in Krishna consciousness. It was not a scheduled talk but I was a rather inferior substitute for Jayadvaita Swami, who was sick and still recuperating in Sweden.

I began by explaining that although spiritual life can help one to attain inner tranquility and personal peace, still we should not mistakenly reject verbal argument as a technique in offering spiritual logic to others.

If we’re overly concerned with popularity, with people liking us, then our preaching style may slowly drift towards accommodating the ideas of those around us. Our potency will be reduced, and we’ll effectively have nothing to contribute. Eventually we’ll end up unpopular.

And if we’re overly concerned with impressing others as to how right we are, how superior our ideas are, without listening to others first, then we may drift towards intolerance and fail equally miserably as communicators.

Yet, even if we strive for a delicate balance between those two extremes, verbal preaching to the newcomer usually involves some kind of confrontation between firmly-held ideas.

Since some of our basic messages are always popular, and some always unpopular, we will, at some stage, have to make a forceful presentation. Jiva Goswami says that a person can actually come to Krishna consciousness by the forceful arguments of a Vaishnava, and its a technique that Srila Prabhupada used to great effect.

I described some of the ways in which people offer illogical thinking in their rebuttal of Vaishnava philosophy, and how we need to learn the various types of weak argument that actually seem strong to the untrained.

We split in to groups and then had a go at debating for around 25 minutes. I asked everyone to get actively involved in vigorous, verbal argument. The result was very lively. Kirtan afterwards, followed by pizza, chips, and ice-cream. No arguments.

You can see the recording of this evening, plus a lot more films (you will have to wait for two minutes for it all to download properly) , by clicking HERE.

Weekend Warrior

Cakes, Books, Gaur-Nitai and happy devotees during the monthly sankirtan festival in London’s Harrow district

Me a sankirtan ‘weekend warrior’? Well, almost. If a mere two hours in a shopping street entitles me to the ‘warrior’ tag. I was accompanied by my wife, Guru Carana Padma – herself a sankirtan heroine of yesteryear – and my son Mali, so I suppose you could say we notched up six hours altogether.

It was the monthly ‘sankirtan festival’ in nearby Harrow, including street chanting, cake-and-book table, and book distribution. It was fun and I laughed a lot. I haven’t been out for some time with straight books but I felt all the cobwebs blow away as soon as I started. Somehow I met very friendly people and enjoyed my two hours, which passed quickly.

The devotees selling the cakes were successful, the street chanting was a festival in itself, and altogether 110 books went out. To top everything off, Nandagopa das, the organiser of the day, and co-ordinator of our ‘Preach Petal’ for this year met with no less a dignitary than the Mayor of London himself!

The Mayor of London with Nanda Gopa Das

Ken Livingstone stopped for some moments and accepted a copy of the Bhagavad-gita. He is known for extending himself to all of London’s 300 communities, and presides over the annual ‘Diwali in the Square’ a mammoth celebration of some 25,000 revellers in London’s Trafalgar Square. Its an event that was co-initiated by our congregation members eight years ago with only 40 people. Such celebrations grow, though.

As does this annual Holi Festival of Colours in Utah, USA. These are mostly Mormons, folks!

What the teams are doing this year…

So apart from a nifty logo and a successful launch, what are the congregational preaching teams actually doing this year?

I wrote some short pieces on each of our eight petals and you can visit the Manor’s website and have a look at them here

Launch of the Lotus

The launch of the ‘Year of the Congregation’ went well last weekend. Around 75 of our congregational leaders and preachers came to the event, held at a conference centre run by local Catholic nuns. We chose a venue outside the temple because the Manor is bursting at the seams on a Sunday, and this particular spot has proven to be a good, quiet space that helps the devotees to think.

The sun was shining and the mood was light, but with serious commitment expressed to improving ISKCON’s services to its growing membership. Eight teams presented their carefully thought- out goals using a combination of straight speaking skills and engaging powerpoint slideshows. I didn’t see anyone yawn.

After a great ekadasi lunch, the assembled Vaishnavas got a chance to put their questions or suggestions to the presenters, now sitting in eight different parts of the building. The networking resulted in a few extra ideas and connections between devotees with similar interests.

At one point, it became very apparent that there is a distance between the various constituencies of our community, one of the problems when a community grows to a certain size. And London and the south-east of England has been growing ever since Srila Prabhupada first set foot here on September 11th, 1969, almost 40 years ago.

For a community to actually function there must, by simple definition, be communing of some kind, and a certain amount of our goal setting for the year reflected the need to make better connections across the huge metropolis that the city and its environs has become.

Bringing experts in certain professional fields together with each other, so that they can contribute more to growth, was another theme. So too was the care of the individual lives of our devotees, and making sure that we don’t stop caring just because we get big.

We concluded with reports of recent outreach successes, and a report on the recent and very welcome growth of the brahmacari ashram. I look forward to the year ahead.