Bhakti-Vriksha – Caring for ISKCON devotees – the important ratio.
Kripamoya das: Many, many moons ago, way back in the last century, when the ISKCON movement was just becoming established as ‘a confederation of centres, farms, schools and restaurants’ and anybody who was anybody lived in a temple, the temple president was the natural person to care for the spiritual lives of the devotees.
The president was the appointed head of the community, the spiritual supervisor of standards of worship and practise, and often the chief inspiration behind the preaching too. It was a very responsible position – and it still is. Along with the ‘temple commander’ the president engaged the members of local ISKCON in all the activities necessary to support a spiritual community and to prosper in their own spiritual lives.
Of course, it wasn’t just the temple president who cared for the devotees, but it was he who bore the responsibility to ensure it was done. And you could always get to talk to him if you needed to.
Back then – if my memory of the 1970s serves me correctly – the average size of an ISKCON community was around 15. Older devotees sometimes refer to those days as when ‘the movement had a real family atmosphere.’ The 1-15 ratio – spiritual head to resident members – was actually a very powerful factor in the ‘family atmosphere’ that devotees still talk about.
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