By Akruranatha das
In case you have not heard the news, ISKCON of Silicon Valley in San Jose, California (ISV) distributed over 23,500 books for its December 2009 Monthly Sankirtan Festival, doubling last year’s ISV record, and putting ISV in third place for the month in North America. ISV also finished third for the year in North American book distribution.
Especially noteworthy is that ISV is a small temple with no full-time devotees at all, and no one (except for one pujari couple) who lives on the premises. The devotees who distributed those books were all “weekend warriors,” members of the congregation who have jobs or school during the week, many of whom also have young children.
This model for the Monthly Sankirtan Festival (MSF), spearheaded by ISV President and North American Sankirtan Strategist Vaisesika Das, can and should be reproduced at temples throughout North America and around the world. Here’s how it works:
Every year in January, an MSF organizing committee meets to select one or two weekends each month to be the MSF weekends for that year, usually with a theme based on the Vaisnava calendar, thus dividing the year into 12 Monthly Sankirtan Festivals. Volunteers then design postcards and posters to advertise each MSF. As each MSF approaches, organizers make sure we have sufficient books on hand and legal spots for the distributors, and coordinate who will be going to which place.
The organizers establish goals for numbers of books, collections, and participants for each MSF that are “stretch” goals, but are always within the range of what is actually possible without putting too much pressure on the distributors. We take the goals very seriously, so we do not want to disappoint devotees by selecting goals we cannot meet, or to burn distributors out by making them work harder and longer than they comfortably can.
We started modestly four years ago, and have been able to gradually increase our month-over-month goals each year as participation and enthusiasm have steadily grown. I do not think we have ever failed to reach any of our goals.
December of 2009 was dubbed “The Festival of 20,000”, because the goal of 20,000 books was much higher than we had ever done, but with lots of enthusiasm and a great sense of camaraderie and esprit de corps, we easily smashed through that daunting goal, in spite of uncooperative weather.
Typically the MSF begins with a big Friday night harinama sankirtan performance, starting around 7 p.m., which gives everyone time to get there after work. Then, following our regular Saturday morning temple program, devotees fan out in different teams to their prearranged book distribution spots, either on public streets, in front of stores that give permission, or (increasingly) going door to door in large apartment complexes. The book distribution is repeated on Sunday to round out the weekend.
Posters about the MSF are displayed in the temple, and each MSF very naturally becomes the center of temple activities and life, connected to and enhancing the celebration of holidays like Gaura Purnima, Nrsimha Caturdasi, Bhaktivinoda’s Disappearance Day, and Govardhana-puja.
The MSF is where we put into practice what we talk about in Bhagavad-gita and Srimad Bhagavatam classes, that every living entity is a part and parcel of Krishna whose highest best interest is to reawaken the divine, loving service to Krishna dormant in his or her heart. Sankirtan is never about taking, but about sharing and giving. It is not a way for us to collect money, but is the best way to put to use whatever money we do collect. Sankirtan is our temple’s true reason for existence, and announcing each month’s scores is our main offering to our beloved temple Deities.
But of course we do collect money from those who are happy to meet devotees and get wonderful transcendental literature. The collections are more than sufficient to always keep the temple BBT bill paid up. Because we are giving Krsna, Laksmi flows in naturally, and as we have increased our distribution, the collections have increased proportionately. Book distribution is not only viable, but it is vital, proving Srila Prabhupada right yet again, that book distribution is ISKCON’s “family business.” And sankirtana brings success in all areas. It brings in more than just money. It makes the devotees feel very clean and happy and united in an understanding of our movement’s real purpose. As we increase our pure preaching activity, automatically the temple becomes more and more successful in every way. Once again, this was Srila Prabhupada’s formula, and we see practically that it really works.
Enthusiasm for sankirtan is so high that devotees regularly donate to sponsor cases of books for distribution. Thus, distributors here never have to worry about covering the cost of the books. They can honestly tell people, “Please, take this book and give whatever donation you like.” Of course most people give good donations, but we also distribute some books for free each month, just to keep pace with the donations we are collecting. Devotees have also begun placing books in local libraries and are always looking for other venues to increase the distribution. A “smart box” team keeps expanding and servicing a number of “honor system” boxes around town. Some devotees keep display racks at work and distribute books to their colleagues as well.
One of the wonderful aspects of the MSFs is that we set goals not just for books distributed or money collected. We also have goals for numbers of contacts made, and numbers of devotees who participate. We are always happy to increase the size of the sankirtan party. It does not take much reflection to realize that by inspiring more devotees to go out, we can distribute a lot more books than by making herculean individual efforts. One of Vaisesika’s many inspirational slogans is, “A lot of devotees each doing a little bit.” It is important that new distributors are encouraged and have positive experiences, so they too will “catch the fever” and bring their friends and family out. Our goal for the Festival of 20,000 was to have 151 devotees going out, and when the dust settled we were able to count 186 participants.
No one should feel discouraged or think that they are too shy to distribute books successfully. They may be reluctant at first, but when the team leaders and other teammates show how fun and exciting it is to meet someone who was meant to get a book, the new distributors soon get the hang of it and become very enthusiastic and happy, sharing stories about people they encountered and interesting exchanges they had throughout the day.
The sankirtan thus fosters a strong sense of community and shared purpose at ISV. We never compete amongst ourselves for getting higher or bigger individual scores. We encourage devotees to make sankirtan part of their personal sadhana, and not to be motivated to achieve individual high scores. We report scores by teams, and do not even keep individual scores. Just as on harinama, it is a team effort to bring the mercy of Srila Prabhupada’s books into the hands of deserving jivas. When we hear that someone has taken a book from another devotee, we are happy about the successful work our temple is collectively doing. Our mission is to serve all souls, and our prime directive is to “Always leave everyone with a good impression.”
As every book distributor knows, there is nothing quite as purifying for the heart and mind as spending one’s time and energy glorifying Srila Prabhupada’s books and rousing others to read and appreciate them. The MSF is a joyous celebration with teams of devotees going out together, sometimes accompanied by kirtan singers, to perform the special dharma for this age: glorifying the names, forms, pastimes, and teachings of Lord Krishna and His pure devotees. By this process of distributing books, becoming humbler than grass and as tolerant as trees, the congregation develops a deep sense of peace, happiness and fellowship or unity of purpose.
Even the children from the Sunday school go out, and in December more than a dozen children ranging from four- to 16-years old went out four consecutive weekends and distributed over 1,300 books!
Something else amazing happens here that I have never seen anywhere else. At least one Sunday of each month is a “sankirtan Sunday”, where the Sunday Feast guests, some of whom are there for the first time, are asked if they would like to participate in the book distribution effort. Those who volunteer are welcomed by team leaders, who take them out to nearby apartment complexes to join in the door-to-door book distribution before returning for the arati and prasadam! Thus the number of participants is increased, and the guests actually appreciate being engaged in some valuable service.
You might be wondering what generated the enthusiasm to do all this in the first place. Well, my observation over the years is that it comes from the eagerness of our leader, Vaisesika Prabhu, to hear and chant Srila Prabhupada’s books. And it didn’t come overnight. He has been leading Bhagavad-gita class on Wednesday evenings and Srimad-Bhagavatam class on Saturday mornings for many years. These classes are revolutionary in the sense that they are interactive. The devotees chant together the whole Brahma-samhita on one day and Sri-Isopanisad on another, always taking turns reading the verses in English and chanting together the verses in Sanskrit. And all the devotees take turns commenting and speaking on the verses, as well as listening to Vaisesika Prabhu’s inspirational lectures in which he always stresses: (1) how important it is to apply Srila Prabhupada’s teachings into our lives; and (2) how the best way to reciprocate with His Divine Grace personally is to go out and give his mercy to others.
Srila Prabhupada is most pleased when he sees the conditioned souls getting in touch with Lord Caitanya’s mercy, and when he sees his followers advancing in their own spiritual lives by eagerly glorifying Lord Krsna. In this way we can have Srila Prabhupada’s company even today, because he’s personally present in his books and instructions and service to his preaching mission. This very personal approach of Vaisesika has generated so much enthusiasm that gradually Vaisesika’s contagious eagerness for hearing and chanting, and distributing the books in order to help others less fortunate than ourselves has rubbed off on the entire congregation. And here we are!
If you would like to start organizing monthly sankirtan festivals at your own temple, please visit www.distributebooks.com
Already ISKCON temples in Toronto, Montreal, Washington D.C., and Houston have enthusiastically begun the MSF program. There is no reason why this cannot become the blueprint for successful, congregation-driven book distribution around the world. It will draw your congregation closer than ever to the temple, and it does not require a large number of highly committed organizers. All it requires is some good planning and a little enthusiasm. And the enthusiasm, as it turns out, is pretty contagious.
You can view videos of ISV’s December 2009 Monthly Sankirtan “Festival of 20,000”here: Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvSSLeLizH4
You can also view a video about ISKCON Toronto’s recent MSF here:
http://iskcontoronto.blogspot.com/2010/01/sharing-krishna-consciousness-toronto.html
Hare Krishna Prabhuji
please accept my Humble obesiences to the dust of your lotus feet and all glories to Srila Prabhupad.
Fantastic and fabulous to hear the news!. Its amazing and since I had been part of the MSFs during the early days, still remember the guidance, fatherly approach of H.G Vaisheshika Prabhu and of course the dedication of the congregation members.
Good to hear about the numbers and you have vividly brought out the temple activities binded with spiritual embedding .
During my association, have personally learnt a lot from ISV and owe a lot and lot to his grace and the team at ISV.
The MSF is thorough, systematic with best of (the professional folks) as devotees go out for the sangeerthan.
My Heartfelt congrats and wishes
Your Humble servant
Sri Narayan Dasa
Haribol Sri Narayan Prabhu,
Dandavats. I agree there is something special about having professionals and “regular citizens” with jobs and families out on book distribution.
There is no reason book distribution needs to remain an activity for renounced monks or members of the “clergy”. Everyone should do it.
For one thing, if book distribution were something only done by full-time temple residents, we might not have very many book distributors. The number of full-time temple residents in many places remains small these days.
But another, more important (I think) thing is that people can relate to preachers who have jobs and families and share some of the same struggles and concerns as them (i.e., those to whom we are distributing the books.)
Our old 1970s model was one of having a completely separate society, and we would recruit people to make the “leap” out of the mainstream society and into the self-contained world of ISKCON, a world that shunned contact with nondevotees except for purposes of recruiting them to make a similar “leap”.
That model still may be viable for brahmacaris, vanaprasthas and sannyasis. It may serve as an excellent training platform for young devotees, and a model of spiritual detachment and “total immersion” for the select few who have a calling to remain celibate and not go through the ordinary travails of raising a family, earning a living, and being involved in the productive outside economy of workers, entrepreneurs, administrators and scientists.
But it seemed a little artificial and “culty” to expect most devotees to remain employed exclusively in ISKCON jobs and remain dependent on the internal ISKCON economy. Outsiders could not relate to us, we could not relate well to them, and most of us could not maintain that kind of commitment, dependence and artificial separation. It was not sustainable.
It seems Krishna had other plans. For better or worse, we have moved to a congregational model. In hindsight it seems only natural that would happen.
We have to see that congregationalism does not mean the end of sankirtan but the possibility of much greater sankirtan as greater numbers of people in all walks of life take to chanting, reading and distributing Srila Prabhupada’s books.
It seems to be working well, thanks to the leadership of devotees like Vaisesika Prabhu and to the wonderful qualities of the congregational devotee book distributors at ISV and elsewhere.
The rule that Vaisnavas strictly give up association with “asat” does not mean they cannot have an “outside” job. It is more about how they relate to nondevotees, whether at the workplace or elsewhere.
Going out on book distribution teaches us how to be friendly with everyone we meet and still maintain our own identity as devotees, to “keep our heart in the tree”, so to speak.
Not that we should become that obnoxious person at work who is always proselytizing and “testifying” to co-workers who are not interested. Book distributors learn the art of determining when and to whom and how it is appropriate to discuss Krishna consciousness. We can apply those skills in the work and school environments, wherever we go.
The story of Kurma brahmana is instructive. Having met the beautiful Golden Avatar Lord Caitanya and fallen completely in love, he wanted to follow the Lord everywhere, giving up his family, his village, his profession (as a highly-elevated Vedic brahmana) and everything else. But Lord Caitanya had other plans for him. He told him he should stay home and influence those around him, and become their guru.
This is Lord Caitanya’s method for spreading Krishna consciousness. We do not have to leave off doing what ordinary people do, we just have to give up all abominable habits and do the rest as exemplary preachers, the way devotees do it.
This is a central theme of Bhagavad-gita. At first, Arjuna wanted to renounce artificially. “Let them kill me unarmed and unresisting, or let me just slink away and become a beggar. Why should I kill them?” But Krishna convinced him to do his duties — even the most ghastly, seemingly horrible duties of warfare and, what’s worse, warfare against beloved family members and against superiors like Bhisma and Drona — but to do so as a pure devotee. Devotees needn’t give up worldly duties, but they give up worldly consciousness, replacing it with Krishna consciousness.
Not everyone is going to “move in” to a Krishna commune. Fine. Not necessary. We have to show how devotees can also live and thrive as devotees outside of Krishna communes.
It reminds me of the old Stalinist-Trotskyite debates about “socialism in one country” versus “permanent revolution.” We can have separate monasteries, schools and farm communities. Good. But we should also have doctors, judges, congressman and college professors who go out on sankirtan, too. And we do. The “Hare Krishna Revolution” has become that broad.
For those with facebook, the following link to Vaisesika’s sankirtan photo album includes a lot of photos from the December MSF at ISV:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=85280&id=735776264