Using Social Media in Preaching service

Vrajendra Kumar Das: Absolute necessity for devotees to use social media for preaching
“Preaching is the essence” of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness and its founder-acarya did say that his books are “brihat mrdanga”, the sound of a drum may be heard for half a mile, but books can be heard around the world. (“Books are the basis”)
With the raise of internet , and the usage of social media sites have increased exponentially over the past 5-8 years, the social media has emerged as a new instrument for the age of kali. The opinion of the masses is not only influenced by the media, but even the media is able to create new opinions of the masses by just repeated information (true or false, as it wishes). Kali yuga agents like Newspapers, TV, Ads, Billboards, Magazines, Movies, Internet and now the social media gallery like facebook, whatsapp, youtube, instagram, twitter, discus and et all is filled with junk dealing with all mundane and useless endeavors that bring only destruction for the (in)human society. (SB 1.5.10: Those words which do not describe the glories of the Lord, who alone can sanctify the atmosphere of the whole universe, are considered by saintly persons to be like unto a place of pilgrimage for crows. Since the all-perfect persons are inhabitants of the transcendental abode, they do not derive any pleasure there.)
All these above mentioned agents of kali have wider audience and reach among public. So it is essential for all devotees to use them for propagating Krishna consciousness as “Utility is the principle”. Of course there are already many devotees doing that. As Srila Prabhupada envisioned ISKCON is meant for total restructuring of the existing social structure. As of now, the masses are not even convinced that they are on the wrong path. First of all it is the duty of every devotee in ISKCON to convince the public that they are on the wrong path of materialism. And it becomes difficult to do with the influence of the above kali yuga agents and the current demoncrazic rule controlled by valueless vaisyas. And moreover all the above kali yuga agents except one is largely controlled by people who want to destroy vedic culture for various reasons… All forms of media are managed by “modern” thinkers, Atheistic scientists, Materialistic capitalists, Anti-vedic other religionists, etc… “modern” thinkers who promote illicit sex, intoxication, meat eating, gambling consider not only vedic but all forms of religion as suppressive and promote such illicit sex, intoxic, etc ideas as cool and great. Then we have anti-vedic religions who have ulterior motives for destroying vedic culture. The vedic systems like caste,sati,dowry have taken demoniac forms because of lack of spiritual education and basis. Usually these points remain a soft corner for attacking the vedic culture. Also we have superstitious practices which are criticized by Abrahamic religions. Problem with abrahamic religions is they are exclusivist. Their way is THE ONLY WAY to God and rest all will go to hell. Once people get converted to their religion, they violently start hating vedic religions like breaking deities, burning pictures of gods etc. And guess what; most of the indian media is largely controlled by these “pseudo secular” people. Just a glimpse of their pseudo secularism: On the eve of Diwali, all these papers where publishing how Diwali crackers contribute to pollution, as if Diwali is one of the top 10 reasons for pollution. But New Year celebrations were also with crackers, and more boozing, unnecessary driving causing wastage of fuel and cause of pollution. But we didn’t see a single article from single newspaper criticizing New Year celebrations. Though for devotees, Diwali is not about bursting crackers, this point is just to expose the pseudo secular nature of Indian media. Then the regular atheistic scientists, who superstitiously believe there is no god and spread that nonsensical ideas to the masses, then we have materialistic capitalists whose sole aim is to make money by exploiting public… all these kind of people publish articles,videos,posts, etc that destroy the faith and also practice of the masses.
The one ray of hope we have is the social media…unlike other forms of media, Social media has the advantage of user friendliness and we can propagate our own ideas rather than remain as a victim of manipulation.
My friend created a blog(www.themonkwhogothismurari.blogspot.com ) which addressed the issues which were important news headlines in india in the past 5 months like corruption, population growth, rape ,Vedic maths, vedic astronomy, etc and gave a solution to them using Krishna conscious view points. And propagated this blog and relevant articles in the social media site facebook. There are different forums in facebook like “thelogicalindian”,”beingindian”,”youthconnect” ,”Thehindu”,”indianexpress”,”indiatoday” and so many such, which are followed by lakhs of people. All these forums in some form or other discuss problems for which KC can give solutions. He took part in all those forums and gave a KC solution to it. In the last 5 months he was able to generate 8000+ hits in his blog with majority from US and India and also reasonable hits from other countries like Australia, Pakistan,UAE, Canada, france,Germany etc. He used articles from various devotees website like www.thespiritualscientist.com, www.jswami.info, www.krishna.com, www.iskcondesiretree.info etc… Thanks to all those websites!!
As devotees, if we want to influence the masses idea about life and its purpose, it is essential to use social media for spreading Krishna consciousness among educated public as it has such a massive appeal. I find lot of devotees unconcerned about influence of media or shun it as it can water down their personal practice of Krishna Consciousness. But if devotees are not going to use it, who else are qualified to use it? Should we tolerate all the subtle and gross, direct and indirect attacks on vedic culture? Because of these kali yuga agents, we are losing a lot of innocent people who are potential devotees.
This article is a wake up call for devotees to use social media at least 10 % in their preaching effort and time. If every devotee can influence their immediate and distant friends (school,college,office,etc), family circle with KC stuff, we can create a huge market for KC. And for that to happen the individual practice of KC should be up to the mark as “Purity is the force”. The only intention of the article is devotees should not say social media reduces their purity of KC practice, rather use it for propagating KC. And it is up to the individual to draw the line when, what and where.
One more aspect of this service is KC content creation. Short videos, animated videos, minimal graphic designs conveying KC points, articles presenting KC in different angles all are needed. Not only devotees need to bombard internet with varieties of articles and but also market those articles effectively to reach the masses. If at least some % of devotees start using the social media effectively, we can find overall increase in number of books distributed, no.of visitors, no.of people practicing KC and in longer course of time KC governments.
Forgive any offenses to any devotees. Thank you.