By Akruranatha dasa
“And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance. Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long, that they have come to esteem the religious, learned, and civil institutions as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, because they feel them to be assaults on property.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self Reliance” (1841)
The 19th century American philosopher and essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson, is probably best known among devotees for having read Bhagavad-gita and corresponded with Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur. His essay “Self-Reliance” admonishes us not to merely mimic or idolize the ideas of others, but to cultivate and express our own genuine truth. In some ways it reminds me of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur Prabhupada’s famous essay on “Organized Religion”, in which the acarya compares the formal institutionalization of churches and priestly offices to demons like Kamsa and Putana, who want to kill baby Krishna immediately, before He has a chance to grow and threaten their possessions.
That is not to say that the Krishna consciousness movement can or should try to do without organized preaching institutions such as the Gaudiya Math, which Srila Bhaktisiddhanta took great pains to establish, or the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, which his foremost disciple Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada has spread all over the world with unprecedented success. But we should always remember that the purpose of these institutions is to disseminate genuine Krishna consciousness through the fellowship and cooperation of pure devotees, rather than merely to increase the wealth and influence of yet another church or charitable society in the world.
At first blush, “self-reliance” may seem contradictory to our Vaisnava ethos of surrender to the spiritual master and regulation by the edicts of sastra. However, Emerson’s doctrine of “self-reliance” should not be seen in that way. Emerson did not reject the Bible, or fail to appreciate and honor the achievements of saints, sages and artists of the past, but rather called us to recognize that the genius of all great personalities is that they do not merely mimic and parrot the thoughts and words of others, but display the authentic realizations of their own inner being, “body and soul”, as they say. We might further observe that such originality and authenticity can only be displayed in its purest and most complete form by Vaisnava devotees, because the real, original and genuine consciousness of the soul is pure devotion to Krishna.
Once again, as it often does, Krishna consciousness here unites two seemingly contradictory ideals: genuine surrender to guru, sastra and sadhu is not an absence of self-reliance, but the only true path to perfect understanding and realization of the essential truth, “Vasudeva sarvam iti”.
A similar resolution of superficially contradictory ideas is found in the Vedic system of mandatory performance of prescribed duties according to one’s social and economic situation in terms of occupational caste (varna) and spiritual order (asrama). The whole system is arranged so that all members of society can fulfil their particular physical and emotional needs for dharma, artha and kama, while gradually coming to realize more and more their total dependence on the mercy of Lord Krishna, who is truly the owner and controller of everything (isavasyam idam sarvam).
In an online discussion Blog about Bhagavad-gita (https://www.facebook.com/BhagavadGitaDiscussion), we recently discussed verse 6.4: “”A person is said to be elevated in yoga when, having renounced all material desires, he neither acts for sense gratification nor engages in fruitive activities.”
Someone asked:
“How is that possible? I need money to eat, have a house etc, I need to fulfill my obligations to my family etc, …”
Krishna inspired me to answer:
“I would not advise you to quit what you are doing for your livelihood. Rather, I would advise to go on doing those things, but at the same time find some time to chant Hare Krishna, associate with devotees, worship the Deity.
“As you add more Krishna consciousness in your life, you will begin to see how it is actually Krishna who is maintaining your family, while you are merely carrying out your prescribed duties.
“When I joined ISKCON (1976), we encouraged people to move into the asrama and spend their time full time in sadhana and seva. We discouraged men from marriage, trying to make some young sannyasis. Of course, many of these young sannyasis were not mature enough to stay successfully in that asrama, and at times Srila Prabhupada got upset and declared he would make no more young sannyasis.
“He also told us we should learn more about varnasrama-dharma.
“Nowadays, although many temples still do provide facilities for enthusiastic young devotees to live a life of full time sadhana and seva as I did when I was a teenager, we realize that this is not a sustainable program for everyone, and most people will become householders and have ‘outside’ duties to earn a living, get the children educated, and so on.
“Srila Prabhupada wanted us to set up ISKCON as an almost self-contained, devotional society, with our own schools, farms, economy, and social system. So far we have not completely realized that ambition, though there are some very good schools and options for those who want to live a life of ‘full-time’ engagement in ISKCON.
“But we also have large ‘outside congregations’ of devotee (like myself) who have our own jobs, careers, and community engagements. Now there is even a member of the U.S. Congress who is a Hare Krishna devotee.
“My local temple does not have a regular asrama for full time members to reside in while working around the clock in Krishna’s service. Such asramas are very good training facilities, but Krishna consciousness can be practiced by congregational members, too.”
I was reading this morning Srimad-Bhagavatam, Canto Five, and came across the following in the Purport to Chapter 12, verse 16:
“… The Krishna consciousness movement is giving this chance to everyone. We are giving shelter to everyone who is serious about progressing in Krishna consciousness. We arrange for their lodging and board so that they can peacefully cultivate Krishna consciousness and return home, back to Godhead, even in this life.”
The quotation reminds us that ISKCON should maintain asramas for training full-time devotees, at least for those who meet the threshold requirement of being “serious about progressing in Krishna consciousness.”
But several pages later, in the Purport to 5.13.6, I read the following:
“To become dependent on another’s maintenance is very degrading: therefore, according to the Vedic system, everyone should live independently. Only the sudras are unable to live independently. They are obliged to serve someone for maintenance.”
Yet we know that it is the duty of independent householders to give charity for maintaining spiritual asramas where qualified brahmanas and sannyasis train our young and new members in austerity, sense control and Vaisnava philosophy and culture, so they may later become healthy and sane, “self-reliant” pillars of our Vaisnava communities.
First of all, let me pray for the well-being of Sriman Akruranath das…may Krishna bless you.
The apparently contradictory concepts of self-reliance or self-containment and full dependence upon the Supreme Lord, Krishna, is described in the invocation of the Sri Isopanishad.
Om purnam adah purnam idam…Everything and every one is perfect and complete, but the full realization of that self-completeness in only realized when there is full connection and consciousness of the Lord, Who is the Purnam, the complete whole by virtue of His creativity and control of His innumerable energies. It is common for people to become disappointed by interacting with the world. The material principle of bhoga-tyaga is a recognition of the alternating attempts to enjoy or lord over the world, and then out of frustration there is rejection or renunciation of the world. This is the microcosm that usually dominates our material life and clouded consciousness. Dedication is the principle that we must embrace, rather than exploitation. Dedication will lead us out of the duality of material life, bringing about the unifying principle described by the sloka, Om Purnam adah purnam idam. There is necessity to deepen one’s faith, even beyond the desire for mukti or liberation. That desire can interfere with a mood of devotion to please Sri Krishna. Krishna can easily save each of his devotees. That is one of Krishna’s pleasures, His lila, as Mukunda, the grantor of liberation.
I think that in emphasizing the ideal of a “self-contained” Srila Prabhupad was trying to create a tangible example of a devotional Krishna-centric society. Others might try to emulate this, just as an acharya offers an example for his disciples and students. Naturally, we all breath the same air, drink the same water, etc., so self-containment is not “physical independence from the environment”. It is freedom from a delusional lifestyle and consciousness. The drudgery of material life can be happily replaced by a Krishna centric ideal of activities for the pleasure of the Proprietor of everything…ishyavasyam idam sarvam.
We must remember that no one originally approaches Krishna to love Him. This Krishna Himself recognizes, being all-knowing. Chatur viddhi bhajante mam janasukritino arjuna. Sri Gurudeva can inspire devotional service through the art of progressive devotional life. Pusta Krishna das
“To become dependent on another’s maintenance is very degrading: therefore, according to the Vedic system, everyone should live independently. Only the sudras are unable to live independently. They are obliged to serve someone for maintenance.”
i’m not very clear what this quote means. more than 60% of vedic culture must have been sudra, and in our culture, we are all sudras. anybody who is employed in a job and takes direction from somebody else is a sudra by definition. this is not “independence.” it is dependence on a paycheck.
Thank you Pusta Krishna Prabhu for your good wishes and prayers. (In February I was diagnosed with cancer and have been undergoing chemotherapy treatments. As it turns out, I caught it early, and the treatments have been very effective on this type of lymphoma. I had a PET scan in July that showed me cancer-free, but I have continued to take the treatments for preventative purposes. Tomorrow is my last “infusion” of the poisonous chemotherapy agents known as R-CHOP. It makes me feel a little bad, but it seems to have totally killed off the cancer.)
Also thank you for your very nice and insightful comment.
Yes, the “purnasya purnam adaya purnam evavasisyate” verse, which we learned as “invocation” to Isopanisad, is amazing.
In some kinds of non-Euclidian geometry, parallel lines may meet.
Similarly, in spiritual science, one minus one may equal one. God is everything but not everything is God. To understand how this is so is the essence of Bhaktivedanta philosophy.
The poet Ida Fox Berkowitz, a friend of my father’s, once wrote me a “note” in which she said “the mystery of the whole, whole, hole… is halo.” (It was longer than that) I told Jayananda about it when we were near her house in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington D.C. (on some errand for the Radha-Damodar bus), and he said, “Let’s go see her”. I was embarrassed to visit Ida and her husband Leon (a prominent abstract artist) in my new robes and shaved head, but I always have regretted not taking Jayananda Prabhu up on his offer.
Okay, here is Ida’s “note” (she refused to call it a poem), from memory:
If you let me
I might tell you
That blue is the color
So let, so let, so let
The light
Come through, through, “threw”?
The mystery of the whole, whole, “hole”
Is halo
So let it
I told Jayananda it meant that if I was receptive to the instructions of parampara, Guru could reveal Krishna to me (who is “blue” in color). The mystery of the whole halo is that everything is resting on Krishna’s nondifferentiated energy, nondual brahman (sarva khalv idam brahma), but that this impersonal brahmajyoti, pervading everything, is emanating as the effulgent rays of Krishna’s personal bodily form, which is completely transcendental.
The fact that she “might” tell me shows the proper guru-discilpe relationship. She was telling, but it was still her prerogative whether to reveal or not to a receptive student.
“i’m not very clear what this quote means. more than 60% of vedic culture must have been sudra…”
Yes, cha108, I am not very clear about what it means, either. In fact, I am afraid my whole article is not very clear, but I am hoping to discuss.
It seems to mean that the other 40% should not be dependent on another’s mercy for material necessities. A vivid example is Canakya Pandit, who reportedly simply disappeared when the Emperor suggested he was dependent on the Emperor for his maintenance.
Even a modern laborer who works for a paycheck demands more dignity than a servile butler or valet. This may be example of modern sudras not following sudra dharma.
A real sudra should try to please his master, but modern egalitarianism seeks to do away with such hierarchical roles as “master” and “servant.” In “Homage to Catalonia”, George Orwell reminisces about how in Barcelona during the leftist Spanish Republic, the waiters in the restaurants “looked you in the eye”. Orwell hated the class system and the idea of servility that went along with it. (He probably never dined in some of our New York establishments where waiters get annoyed with you if you need something).
Communist novelist B. Traven also extols the “glories” of the Spanish Republic in his novel “The Death Ship”, but he makes it sound like a fool’s paradise in which everyone is highly sensual and devoid of spiritual life. The narrator of the tale is a “donkey”, a coal shoveling sailor in the boiler room of a doomed tramp steam ship. Maybe Spaniards were rebelling from “organized religion”, a church known for the Spanish Inquisition, an enforcer of unjustiified class relations, a “guard of property” (see, S.B. 5.25.7, Purport: “In Kali yuga, monarchy is abolished because the kings themselves are subjected to the influence of Kali-yuga”)
I guess in the article I was questioning the “old-ISKCON” model that a “real devotee” must live in the temple, and the economic relations that sometimed developed from that conception. Devotees could get the idea that our temples have a duty to provide them with material necessities (food, shelter, clothing, medicine, education for their kids), but this is kind of an inversion of the Vedic model where the people in general give charity to the temple and brahmanas.
Our mood should always be service to Vaisnavas and the mission, never demanding (as devotees sometimes do), “the temple should give me more money.”
“Dedication is the principle that we must embrace, rather than exploitation.”
Yes, and our ideal is that complete dedication demonstrated by paramahamsas who have absolutely no dependence on any material circumstances whatsoever.
The life of bhakti is renunciation of the materialistic drive to control and possess material things, of the fear that without such control we will be lose something we need. Attachment to Krishna entails detachment from matter.
But not everyone can jump to the paramahamsa platform. One who restrains the working senses but mentally contemplates enjoying sense objects is a pretender who deludes himself. (B.G. 3.6)
There is a gradual process of purification recommended for ordinary people, because they are not capable of acting as paramahamsas, and would only be pretenders. They should not be induced to stop working according to the regulations of varnasrama, but through working in devotion according to the regulations prescribed for them in their various walks of life, they should gradually be promoted to the stage of pure devotion. (See B.G. 3.26)
Even those, like Arjuna, who are already capable of a renounced life, should set a proper example by responsible performance of duties as a householder, for the sake of leading others on the right path. (B.G. 3.25) Even Krishna sets such an example, although no work is prescribed for Him, nor is He in want of any economic development; if He just acted independently, being God, the common people would follow Him and have children out of wedlock, ruining society. (B.G. 3.21-24)
So the impulse to “surrender” and “move in” to a temple and engage full time in service, not caring about building a nest-egg for retirement or even about arrangements for eating and sleeping, is the true mood of pure devotional service. The gopis ran to meet Krishna when they heard His flute, without considering that their reputation and social and family standing would be ruined. That is complete dedication.
But we may not be pure enough to actually live a life of full-time surrender without care for our material necessities. And even if we are that pure, Krishna may want us to show an example of how ordinary people can live a whlesome, successful life of regulation and measured dedication, gradually leading to more renunciation in old age. Full surrender may entail playing the role Krishna asks of us. For Arjuna it was fighting a battle and being a king.
I used to think the Billie Holiday song, “God Bless the Child Whose Got His Own”, was only about money. Maybe that was the author’s intention. I don’t know. But nowadays I think it applies to everything and anything we may need, including spiritual realization (our greatest necessity).
It is one thing to have a good spiritual master or religious tradition, and that makes one very fortunate. But unless one has really pleased that spiritual master and Krishna gotten full command of all the imports of the Vedic literatures by revelation in one’s heart (yasya deve para bhaktir yatha deva tatha guro…), something is still missing.
A pure devotee may please Krishna even if he is very poor. Anyone can get a little water and a flower, leaf or fruit to offer Him. Bhakti is the essential ingredient to make the offering successful, and no matter how rich one is or how opulent the offering, without the bhakti it cannot please Krishna.
However, we are performing service here in the material world, and to do so, to do the service required of us by our superiors, we need to have the proper facilities. What is that verse in Brahma-Samhita about how men imbued with devotion sing the mantra-suktas of the Vedas by gaining their appropriate beauty, greatness, thrones, conveyances and ornaments?
We all have different roles to play, as parents and children, teachers and students, providers and dependents, husbands and wives, bestowers and recipients of blessings.
Of course any real teacher or blesser worth his salt will know that Krishna is the ultimate parent, teacher, provider and giver of blessings, and that as parents or demigods or holy men we are only servants and representatives of Krishna. But we still need to get the knowledge and holiness to be able to fulfill that role in society.
And likewise we need to get the money in order to fulfill our duties to give charity in the proper time and place and with the proper motive. Not from a feeling of possessiveness and false ego, but from a sense that we should accept and fulfill the duties and social roles that Krishna has assigned to us.
We should not hanker for material benedictions, but when they come our way we should readily accept them and use them properly in Krishna’s service. Yukta vairagya.
God bless the child whose got his own. The ultimate blessing is bhakti, but our bodies and senses and ingredients with which we perform the activities of bhakti are also blessings.
It is always appropriate to try to see through the shastra. It is a good beginning, middle, and end when using our limited intellect to understand the Absolute Truth. We will always fail to understand God if we consider that “He is out there” and we are over here. He, Krishna, is everywhere. It is thus not simply the that everything is existing in the Brahma-jyoti and is therefore within Krishna. Krishna has mystically expanded Himself Personally within every atom. Hence, when he says in the Bhagavad Gita that everything is resting upon Him like pearls on a thread…then He, Personally, is present in His expanded forms. While we understand from Lord Chaitanya’s instructions to Srila Sanatan Goswami in the Chaitanya Charitamrita that Krishna first expands Himself as Sankarsana, etc. Krishna is the Supreme Enjoyer, and He creates and maintains through His expansions. Even the Vishnu-tattva are serving Krishna, just as the Pancatattva also helps us to realize that both Vishna-tattva and jiva-tattva are serving the Center. The ultimate destiny for the jiva-souls is to engage in loving transcendental service to Krishna and His unlimited family of servants.
Mamaivamso jiva loke….the jiva souls belong to Krishna, they also live within Him. This is materially inconceivable. Just wait for the realization that will make all of this clear. We have been created for the expansion of Krishna’s pleasure, and He takes us along in His eternal lila, bringing so much ecstasy for us, and providing us so much opportunity to offer this love back to Krishna. Supercharged by Srimati Radharani, our love for Krishna takes on unlimited dimensions. Jnana-sunya-bhakti…every shread of calculated knowledge will be overwhelmed by that loving relationship with Krishna. Achintya bheda-bheda tattva is by its very definition “inconceivable” to us at present, but is an eternal fact.
Please also understand that “blue color light” was also mentioned by Paramahansa Yogananda in his book, “Autobiography of a Yogi.” It was the highest realization that he had experienced. But, there is so much more beyond any light whether white or blue. The Personality of Godhead is real. His form is real, His ecstasy and love are real, and most importantly for us, His sweet friendship for all the jiva-souls is real.
Pusta Krishna das
I do not want to leave the impression that I thought Ida Fox Berkowitz was a Gaudiya Vaisnava or even that she had ever read Srimad Bhagavatam. (I am sure she must have read Bhagavad-gita at some time, because I remember the walls of her house were stacked with books from all kinds of religious traditions).
I do know she was a theist in the devotional tradition, because my father and her wrote some poems “debating” with one another, she taking the devotional side (“How should I praise?”) and my father taking the demonic, mayavadi side (“I damn heaven; I am heaven!”)
She was not a follower of regulative principles or, as far as I know, any particular religious tradition. She tended to see God in nature. I once told her (I must have been 14), looking at a fantastic seashell, that when we admire artists who make wonderful paintings, how much more should we admire the artist who made these shells, birds, butterflies and the world. She approved, “I never heard it said any better than that.”
But in interpreting her poem to refer to Krishna, I am taking a little license. She was an intuitive poet who may or may not have known exactly what she meant. She was more interested in getting the right words in a state of poetic inspiration. She wrote me that “note” when she was up all night with shingles and could not sleep, after our conversation about the seashell. (I may have gotten the word order wrong. I now think she the mystery of the “whole, hole, whole”.)
One way to interpret texts is to be less interested in the author’s conscious intention and more in what the words convey to the reader. In his essay “Kafka and His Precursors”, Jorge Luis Borges cites T.S. Eliot, saying: “The fact is the every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.”
In this same vein, our acaryas often demonstrate how a demon like Sisupal, trying to blaspheme Krishna, is actually praising Him. In spite of the intended meaning, Krishna cannot actually be blasphemed. The words themselves are His servants!
I attended a lecture on European Medeival History in which the professor (a former Greek orthodox seminarian) said, “As the world became more Christian, Christianity became more worldly.”
One might well be concerned that as Hare Krishna devotees become more involved in worldly and academic careers, the tendency might be for them to water down the purity and urgent mood of the early days of ISKCON in the west.
My optimism leads me to believe, however, that in this age of Lord Caitanya, if His followers remain strict in the matter of chanting Hare Krishna and following the principles, as they branch out and infiltrate the various occupational fields and learned professions, the tendency will be for them to Krsna-ize everything.
“The fact is that every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.”
Devotee writers of today, creating their own precursors, will eventually transform all the arts and sciences, the political and business institutions, into a Krishna-centered, Vaikuntha-like hegemony. With Lord Caitanya such things are possible.
I hope J.L. Borges will not mind my humble effort to make him my precursor in this way.
Bhadrasrava, the ruler of Bhadrasva-varsa, and his intimate associates, prayed to the Lord’s expansion known as Hayasirsa, as follows:
“O Lord, although you are completely detached from the creation, maintenance and annihilation of this material world and are not directly affected by these activities, they are all attributed to You. We do not wonder at this, for Your inconceivable energies perfectly qualify You to be the case of all causes. You are the active principle in everything, although You are separate from everything. Thus we can realize that everything is happening because of Your inconceivable energy.” (S.B. 5.18.5)
Lord Vasudeva is so amazing and wonderful! He is not affected by any material cause, and although He remains aloof from the causes and effects of this material world, He is still the active principle in every moving and non-moving thing, inconceivably. Only He can be truly self-reliant or independent (“svarat”, see SB 1.1.1).
And yet He is always eager to satisfy His pure devotees, for whom He serves as message carrier or chariot driver. Although He is the cause of all causes, His love for His pure causes Him to do many wonderful things. Therefore the ultimate self-reliance is pure devotion to Krishna, which is inconceivable and is on a par with Krishna’s own self-reliance.
Since Akruranath Prabhu brought up that the world may be Krishna-ized as bhaktas pursue work in the world according to their karma, I want to share my own experience in this regard. It is definitely open to criticism but it was cultivated during my years of life in the ashrams, preaching in new frontiers on behalf of Srila Prabhupad in order to open up new places to the Hare Krishna Movement, etc.
It is my understanding that seekers of the Truth are very, very rare, and vaishnavas are even much more rare. Manushanam sahasresu…(BG). When we endeavour to interact with the world, we must not become attached to the result. We interact with the world because of the order of Sri Gurudeva, as a matter of duty. If there is success in our work, whether preaching or otherwise, we offer that glory to God. Ideally, it is all for the service of Sri Gurudeva.
We must protect the treasure which is Krishna consciousness. That is the most important element in our life. It is not such an easy thing to realize or incorporate into one’s life. Certainly, even sometimes in the association of other aspiring vaishnavas, there can come so many disturbances, but we still must protect the bhakti-lata so carefully. It must not be sacrificed for anything. That is a great miscalculation!
So, when one has the opportunity to council others in this matter, it is important to emphasize the importance of preserving and developing the treasure of Krishna consciousness. Whether one is chanting japa, or in congregational chanting, in preaching, in book distribution, or any other service opportunity, the focus is on Krishna consciousness…and do not sacrifice Krishna consciousness for any other perceived result or goal that may diminish or risk Krishna consciousness. Sometimes one may be desperate for a result or outcome, but it is really in the hand of Krishna, all the time. All of the manifestations of this world will come to pass, just as the many warriors on the battlefield of Kuruksetra were devoured by the Virata Purusha.
Again, I know that there is so much room for criticism in this approach to life in Krishna consciousness, but the alternative, to lose that treasure, to lose that connection, is such a great tragedy, and one which we have either seen or known in our lives. Pusta Krishna das
Thanks Pusta Krishna, for keeping this thread alive. Yes, I think that is what I was driving at, the fact that as devotees we should protect the treasure of our Krishna consciousness as the most important thing, and yet we can go on with our lives in different ways. We do not have to have a stereotyped idea that to be a devotee means moving into a temple.
I do not think devotees these days have such an idea, but when I joined that was a basic mode of seeing things in ISKCON. When someone became a devotee, they demonstrated their “surrender” by moving into a temple and following the temple authorities.
The unspoken (and kind of naive) idea was that as we preached, more and more people would move into our separate ISKCON temples and communities, and each would be expected to be fully “surrendered” and not engaged in pursuing money or material comforts, and that is how ISKCON would grow.
We can understand the ideal of being on the perfect paramahamsa stage much sooner than we (most of us) can act on that platform, completely neglecting bodily needs. We are not meant to pretend to be on a higher platform of renunciation and surrender than we are actually capable of sustaining. Krishna does not demand that. He does not even want that. He wants us to be good examples of happy devotees who are becoming gradually purified by chanting His holy names and remembering Him throughout our lives, day by day and step by step. It is practical. It works.
It may be that ISKCON grows by developing larger and larger ideal communities that are well-governed and well-organized for the genuine welfare of all the members. But it will also grow by influencing people from all walks of life to read Srila Prabhupada’s books, chant Hare Krishna, follow the regulative principles, even while having their own jobs, cars, houses, and bank accounts.
Meanwhile such devotees, whether living as full-time members in ISKCON communities or as congregational members, will gradually realize that everything is owned and controlled by Krishna and nothing is really ours, nor are we the doers of the activities performed by our material bodies and senses.
Such complete Krishna consciousness, whether living as a sannyasi or householder, as a full-time member or part of the outside congregation, is real “self-reliance” in the sense of genuine self-realization, that being Krishna’s eternal, spiritual servant is our real identity.
I get the sense, talking to many devotees from those old days, that for many of them, moving out of the ISKCON temple economy and getting a “karmi” job and their own residence was very traumatic.
It was for me. I moved out in stages, and Bir Krishna Maharaja was kind enough to let me stay in the temple while attending college during some of that time. But it was a kind of huge conflict for me because I had come to see “surrender to Krishna” as synonymous with living full time in an ISKCON temple. Our internal surrender was supposed to be demonstrated externally by being fully under the “government” and “economy” of ISKCON.
That is the way it was in those days for many of us. That is the way we were being taught.
It had its benefits as well as its drawbacks. Our sadhana was good, for one thing. It was required. We had to be at mangal arati every day and chant our japa in the temple room.
Many older devotees from those days seem to have never reconciled themselves with their move to become congregational devotees. Some still think (some devotees I talk to on the internet) that by moving out of the temple and becoming independent of the authority of an ISKCON temple president, they “left ISKCON”. For them the idea of membership in ISKCON entailed living in an ISKCON asrama, sort of being in the ISKCON army.
And for some of these devotees, the trauma of having left that former lifestyle has caused them to maintain a sense of separate identity, even of disagreement with or critical attitude toward ISKCON. It did not deliver for them everything it had promised.
Maybe we over promised in those days. We encouraged people to give up their “karmi” lives in mainstream society and be full-time devotees, and we at least implied that not only would they become Krishna conscious bhakti-yogis, eligible to go Back to Godhead, but they would also live in a kind of ideal society where the enlightened management authorities would help arrange their lives to be perfect and without any anxiety.
Maybe in some rare cases ISKCON lived up to all those promises. We should still try to manage our asramas for full-time devotees so perfectly. I guess we just have to recognize, however, that we cannot expect utopia and there may be reasons for people to live “outside”, and that is okay, too. It does not mean giving up on ISKCON.
Nor has ISKCON “failed” by developing a congregational model. It was natural and to be expected.