His Holiness Bhakti Raghava Swami visited the Hawaiian islands on December 16-18 as part of a nationwide tour of temples and farm projects.
His purpose was to educate and enlighten everyone on the significance of understanding as well as the vital need for implementing daiva varnashram and creating Vrindavan villages as instructed clearly by His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada.
Bhakti Raghava Swami shared a little known and not so widely circulated, but compelling revelation, that His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada wrote about as early as 1949, strategically outlining the phases or ‘waves’ of spreading the sankirtan movement to every town and village in the world.
In a nutshell, this is what our Founder Acharya set out to accomplish by coming to the West in 1965, until his departure in 1977:
1st Wave of Lord Chaitanya’s Sankirtan Movement -Chanting & Book Distribution.
Books are the basis.
2nd Wave of the Movement- Deity worship & establishing temples.
Purity is the force.
3rd Wave is Spiritual Initiation Movement and Congregational Development
Preaching is the Essence.
4th Wave is Classless Society Movement
The 4 Varnas & 4 Ashramas centered around the cow, land and Krsna. In essence, the creation of Vrindavan Villages.
Utility is the principal.
Imagine the enormous benefits to a temple when a yatra makes creating Krishna conscious Vedic farm villages a priority and practically establishing the Varnashram model:
-Will significantly reduce the bhoga and flower bill
-Will provide pure ahimsa milk and milk products to the Deities and devotees, certainly the health and longevity of our devotees will increase
-Will provide more housing for devotees, who can then live together instead of separately from our society
-create innovative soft technologies and cottage industries that could engage temple members both spiritually and simultaneously provide a simple and healthy livelihood
-Will also serve to engage hundreds if not thousands even millions of people from all walks of life and get them started on their path back to Godhead in practical devotional service
-Ultimately and most importantly please Srila Prabhupada who told us 50% of his preaching work was unfinished, and therefore he has given us a great opportunity for working hard
for the rest of our lives to complete this chapter.
Our devotees in Hawaii so much appreciated the talks and are most fortunate to have been enlightened about the broad vision and goals of ISKCON’s Global Daiva Varnashram Ministry as presented by such an inspiring and qualified leader as His Holiness Bhakti Raghava Swami. He is indeed a champion surfer riding this huge wave which has been predicted to ultimately have all souls drowning in it’s ecstatic waves! Iskcon Daiva Varnashram Ministry is in good hands!
One such appreciation came from a Hawaii-based devotee who is very new to Krishna consciousness.
“Maharaj acknowledged the sacredness of all life, he placed massive emphasis on cows. He mentioned that Krishna too prays to cows, how Vedic society owed their very existence to cows, and how cows today are not treated in the West as they ought to be. The video did a good job at displaying this final view from the cows perspective as well”. Bhakta Colton, 19, University Hawaii business student
It is incumbent upon all of us, especially direct disciples of Srila Prabhupada to take up this cause in whatever way we can. All of us have given and continue to give our much needed attention to the first 3 waves faithfully year after year since we joined. The time has come to give equal attention to the all important 4th wave, which Prabhupada said would be the biggest wave. Are we willing to get our toes wet, wade in the tide, or perhaps will we just admire from the shoreline? Or will we take to the call of Mahaprabhu and learn to ride this 4th wave expertly? Surf’s up, let’s jump in and join the ecstatic inundation!
Daiva das
Thank you for a very inspiring report, Daiva Dasa Prabhu.