By Nrsimhananda das (ITV)
I was quoted as a Krishna conscious spiritual authority regarding the question of the nagging homeless problem prevalent in the US. The author of the article, veteran writer Sam Slovik, said that Nrsimhananda’s comments changed the entire way in which he viewed the problem. Sam has been writing articles about homeless people for the past four years, and he has been published in numerous magazines and newspapers. Omitted from the article was the fact that homelessness is a desired condition in the vanaprastha and sannyas stages of life in India where an itinerant life devoted to God is revered.
Srila Prabhupada speaks threw his disclip Nrsimhananda Prabhu this is what is meant as “trasperent via medium”
well actually Srila Prabhupada had compassion for the poor and homeless, and actually it has little to do with Nrsimhananda Prabhus humerous comment “homelessness of the sannyasis and Varnaparasthas”. In USA there is less concern in all the western world for the poor and homeless, here in Washington DC ,we daily give some prasadam and some small donation to an elderly homeless man that lives on the steps of the IRS building (Internal recenue service) where trillions of US dollars are colelcted yearly and no pity is shown.In Mayapure Srila Prabhupada stated that there should be no person going hungry in a radius of 10 miles, this still has to be implemented by many temples in ISKCON.Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Prabhupada once chastised some grhasthas for not helping some homeless persons with food and donation- personally after that I keep the words of Bhaktisiddhanta Prabhupada to heart- I try to give at least some prasadam to every homeless person I meet- or if I have no prasadam -some small donation-we have done some prasadam distribution here in Washington DC , but there is so much need-ISKCON as a society needs to do much more in this regard- and for the US goverment, they should be ashamed of themselves for letting a major part of the population going without food and health care- there is a movie by Michael Moore “Sickho” that may seem a bit mundane to a devotee, but it shows the lack of health care in USA, in Europe there is a much better system for the homeless and the sick, “the land of the free and the home of the brave” , USA has much to learn- and ISKCON needs to fill in where the US goverment has failed to act for the most downtrotten in soceity, luckely there is Food for life in many temples, and many individual devotees have non profit organizations to serve the poor, we are also doing something in that field, but wish it could be much bigger.Harinama, prasadam distribution and book distribution is our 3 weapons against maya- we should use them all as much a possible.In Scandinavia for example there is no homeless person ever on any streets- what to speak of vedic culture where there is a desire to see everyone happy-Sarve Sukino bhavantu-let everyone be happy in KC