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Highlights from a class and other notes from the diary of a travelling sadhaka. Highlights from a class and other notes from the diary of a travelling sadhaka.
\nKripamoya Prabhu: One disciple asked Srila Prabhupada, \u201cI am right in assuming that although your first organization was called \u2018League of Devotees\u2019 that you in fact were the only member?\u201d
\nSrila Prabhupada laughed, and said, \u201cYou are right. I was the only one.\u201d
\nIf I fainted from the heat in Delhi, if I were gored by a bull, and if no one joined the institution I created, I would have given up, but not Srila Prabhupada. If I got two heart attacks on the ship, I would have given up.
\nIt is not that Srila Prabhupada did not suffer. The glory of Srila Prabhupada that he did what he did despite the difficulties.
\nNo one really came to Krishna consciousness because they like institutions.
\nMany people like Srila Prabhupada, but fewer like Srila Prabhupada\u2019s organization.
\nThe village, the company, and the extended family are natural divisions. Cities are an invention by wealthy capitalists.
\nWhen I joined ISKCON there were about forty people. Yet for six years, my world was four people traveling in a van and selling books.
\nI was at a meeting of about eighteen people, and Prabhupada was talking about book distribution. He began by looking at everyone in the room and then said, \u201cThank you very much for helping me spread my mission.\u201d
\nI would say that 95% of our members are nice devotees, and let us say, the multi-colored patchwork history we have had, are due to other 5%.
\nPrabhupada made Kirtanananda a swami and sent him to preach in London, and instead of going to London, he went to New York and preached his own brand of Krishna consciousness without sikhas and without robes.
\nSrila Prabhupada considered, \u201cIf ISKCON fails, I want my books always in print, so that it can be recreated by those who read my books.\u201d Thus Bhaktivedanta Book Trust was separately incorporated.
\nThe British aristocracy was the object of the preaching of the Gaudiya Matha whereas Srila Prabhupada preached to confused young people.
\nSrila Prabhupada encouraged everyone to practice bhakti \u2013 men, women, everyone.
\nIggy Pop was one of the first people to buy a set of Srimad-Bhagavatams directly from Srila Prabhupada\u2019s hands.
\nSrila Prabhupada was attractive to all kinds of people, although he remained unchanged. [He did not have to present himself differently to attract a variety of people.]\nMany devotees say that they felt that Srila Prabhupada had all the time in the world for them. We should at least try to make people feel we have all the time in the world for them. One reason is Srila Prabhupada realized we should not lose people.
\nIf Prabhupada was angry with someone, when he was finished dealing with that person, and he dealt with someone else, he was free from anger and dealt with that next person according to his relationship with him.
\nWhen Srila Prabhupada came to the Manor for the last time, he treated his disciples with great affection instead of being the stern founder-acarya.
\nIn 1992 we set up a Sannyasa Ministry to analyze the chance of devotees remaining celibate for life. Since then we have had only one or two minor issues with sannyasis.
\nIn communist times about 28 devotees were lost to the communists, who tortured and killed them.
\nThe devotees have the land permissions and the money to build a temple in Moscow, but the Church and Mafia are in cahoots to keep them from building a temple for twenty years. Still, in Russia we have festivals with 14,000 people.
\nWe have our first Eskimo devotee now in Yellowknife in Northern Canada from getting a book and reading it.
\nIn the early days in Dublin, the magistrate charged the devotees with two things:
\n1. Making noise in public.
\n2. Being dressed in such a way as to frighten the public.
\nIn Australia someone from Time-Life joined ISKCON. He said, \u201cI can change your image overnight.\u201d He created a magazine showing the best of Hare Krishna with happy children and kangaroos, and we printed 1.5 million and we inserted them into Sunday papers, etc. And it did change our image overnight. We ended up having a preaching center for every million people, fourteen million people and fourteen preaching centers.
\nIn ISKCON, there has been a great influx of people but there is also an outflux of people. Why? We have not done two things that Srila Prabhupada wanted us to do:
\n1. Look after people.
\n2. Develop living situations where people can live.
\nOur success depends on how we can retain our members.
\nBe real. Keep track of the people you meet. One vicar told me that he spends most of his time looking after his members. There is one lady I looked after for twenty-two years before she took initiation.
\nI have left ISKCON many times. But then I would wake up the next morning and decide to carry on. The reasons I am staying now are different from those when I was seventeen.
\nYou will be judged by how many people you looked after in your life.
\nTry and look after people, about twenty. Have a few friends. Do not tell them what to do. Just be their friends. Have two or three people looking after you.
\nFrom a lecture called \u201cThe Reluctant Preacher\u201d:
\nIf no one speaks to strangers, then the movement will not move.
\nI was absolutely convinced that the world would be saved by 1979. But it did not happen, so I postponed it to 1985.
\nThe Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses would predict the end of the world, and then, when it would not come, without any embarrassment, they would update it.
\nWe are good at broadcasting our message through book distribution and harinama.
\nA farmer has to cultivate and have scarecrows to scare away those who nibble away the seedlings. We are lacking in these.
\nMany a slip twixt cup and lip.
\nWe have remote gurus and disciples, and people are lacking in systematic education.
\nOften we lose devotees three or four years after initiation. We are so used to people coming and going, we are not too concerned about it.
\nAnyone committed to this movement should take a vow to let no one drift away.
\nOne follower of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura drifted away. Bhaktisiddhanta inquired about that devotee. The other devotees said he had disappeared. They were planning to open a temple, but Bhaktisiddhanta refused to open the temple until they found that devotee. They looked all over Madras and found him in the back of a watchmaker\u2019s shop. They explained that Bhaktisiddhanta did not want to open the temple until he returned. The devotee was so touched by his guru\u2019s concern that he never again left.
\nPreaching is to exhort someone to a higher level of spiritual and moral behavior.
\nThe ritualization of spiritual emotion should keep pace with our actual development of real spiritual emotions, otherwise it seems artificial and people are only willing to do it for so long.
\nOne lady wrote a book about compassion and how to develop it because it is there in all religions and this society does not teach it but just the opposite.
\nThe sannyasa danda is an emblem of compassion and is just the opposite of the selfie stick, which increases ego.
\nThe glue that keeps society together is compassion.
\nI did not join the Hare Krishna movement but began living with some ex-hippies on a Beatles estate.
\nEven if we are \u201cfaking it till we make it,\u201d if we allow ourselves to used as instruments of compassion, the Lord will work through us.
\nWe are a religion that requires a high commitment of faith. This has to be developed gradually.
\nKrishna consciousness is beyond all religious designations. We are coming with a transcendental message, that we are transcendental and our transcendental nature can be experienced through transcendental sound vibration.
\nI had a friend who had a Ph.D. in physics and a spiritual urge. He took the train from England to Japan, and spent months in three Buddhists monasteries which all left him dissatisfied. He returned to London, but despondent. He prayed to God, \u201cYou know that I do not think you exist, but if do you exist, give me a sign.\u201d The next day, he met the devotees, and he was attracted. They said he could come stay in their temple. He had great conviction because the Lord fulfilled his prayer, and he convinced many people to become devotees.
\nWhether you feel it or not, you do it because it is the guru\u2019s order.
\nIt takes a long time to bring one to Krishna consciousness.
\nOne person encountered Hare Krishna when she was working at \u201cTop of the Pops\u201d when the devotees were on the show in 1969. Just recently she became a devotee.
\nWe must become willing to extend ourselves to at least ten people. Write their names down and never forget them.
\nThe individual reaching out with compassion is the Krishna consciousness movement.
\nWe have to establish connection with people so they become new members.
\nWe have to care for the people who become new members.
\nQ (by Radhika Nagara Prabhu): So many of our members have left. Should we do something to help them?
\nA: Srila Prabhupada would always want us to make some endeavor to bring them back. There is an attrition rate because people have different needs, and we are not always expert in meeting people\u2019s needs as they go through their stages of life. Krishna recognizes the changing needs and created varnasrama. Prabhupada found that people would come and eat in our restaurants, but not our temples. Then we had 100 temples, and he said we had enough temples, and he said we should start doing more restaurants.
\nAbout 50% of interested people actually come to meetings. Some people just do not like meetings, but they like the practice.
\nIn 1934, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura set up a system with 18 sannyasis, then some maha-upadesikas, looking after upadesikas, and each of those looking after group of devotees.
\nThe real question is \u201cWho is helping you in your spiritual life?\u201d It is not \u201cWho is your guru?\u201d Everyone should have someone looking after his spiritual welfare. Without guidance, there is no impetus for movement.
\nPeople join groups because they get something they need, and they leave groups because do not get what they need.
\nWhen ISKCON meets the needs of a family man, such as residence and education for children, we will retain many more people.
\nSrila Prabhupada said in a purport in Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, \u201cRight now the future devotees of the Krishna consciousness movement are living in every town and village, and it is up to the present members to find them.\u201d
\nTo read the entire article click here: http:\/\/goo.gl\/hFzl2n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![](\"http:\/\/66.media.tumblr.com\/fc5e331b396888ceec0989de36af8f7a\/tumblr_o8i2bmXZtg1sbj0vuo1_500.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nKripamoya Prabhu: One disciple asked Srila Prabhupada, “I am right in assuming that although your first organization was called ‘League of Devotees’ that you in fact were the only member?”
\nSrila Prabhupada laughed, and said, “You are right. I was the only one.”
\nIf I fainted from the heat in Delhi, if I were gored by a bull, and if no one joined the institution I created, I would have given up, but not Srila Prabhupada. If I got two heart attacks on the ship, I would have given up.
\nIt is not that Srila Prabhupada did not suffer. The glory of Srila Prabhupada that he did what he did despite the difficulties.
\nNo one really came to Krishna consciousness because they like institutions.
\nMany people like Srila Prabhupada, but fewer like Srila Prabhupada’s organization.
\nThe village, the company, and the extended family are natural divisions. Cities are an invention by wealthy capitalists.
\nWhen I joined ISKCON there were about forty people. Yet for six years, my world was four people traveling in a van and selling books.
\nI was at a meeting of about eighteen people, and Prabhupada was talking about book distribution. He began by looking at everyone in the room and then said, “Thank you very much for helping me spread my mission.”
\nI would say that 95% of our members are nice devotees, and let us say, the multi-colored patchwork history we have had, are due to other 5%.
\nPrabhupada made Kirtanananda a swami and sent him to preach in London, and instead of going to London, he went to New York and preached his own brand of Krishna consciousness without sikhas and without robes.
\nSrila Prabhupada considered, “If ISKCON fails, I want my books always in print, so that it can be recreated by those who read my books.” Thus Bhaktivedanta Book Trust was separately incorporated.
\nThe British aristocracy was the object of the preaching of the Gaudiya Matha whereas Srila Prabhupada preached to confused young people.
\nSrila Prabhupada encouraged everyone to practice bhakti – men, women, everyone.
\nIggy Pop was one of the first people to buy a set of Srimad-Bhagavatams directly from Srila Prabhupada’s hands.
\nSrila Prabhupada was attractive to all kinds of people, although he remained unchanged. [He did not have to present himself differently to attract a variety of people.]
\nMany devotees say that they felt that Srila Prabhupada had all the time in the world for them. We should at least try to make people feel we have all the time in the world for them. One reason is Srila Prabhupada realized we should not lose people.
\nIf Prabhupada was angry with someone, when he was finished dealing with that person, and he dealt with someone else, he was free from anger and dealt with that next person according to his relationship with him.
\nWhen Srila Prabhupada came to the Manor for the last time, he treated his disciples with great affection instead of being the stern founder-acarya.
\nIn 1992 we set up a Sannyasa Ministry to analyze the chance of devotees remaining celibate for life. Since then we have had only one or two minor issues with sannyasis.
\nIn communist times about 28 devotees were lost to the communists, who tortured and killed them.
\nThe devotees have the land permissions and the money to build a temple in Moscow, but the Church and Mafia are in cahoots to keep them from building a temple for twenty years. Still, in Russia we have festivals with 14,000 people.
\nWe have our first Eskimo devotee now in Yellowknife in Northern Canada from getting a book and reading it.
\nIn the early days in Dublin, the magistrate charged the devotees with two things:
\n1. Making noise in public.
\n2. Being dressed in such a way as to frighten the public.
\nIn Australia someone from Time-Life joined ISKCON. He said, “I can change your image overnight.” He created a magazine showing the best of Hare Krishna with happy children and kangaroos, and we printed 1.5 million and we inserted them into Sunday papers, etc. And it did change our image overnight. We ended up having a preaching center for every million people, fourteen million people and fourteen preaching centers.
\nIn ISKCON, there has been a great influx of people but there is also an outflux of people. Why? We have not done two things that Srila Prabhupada wanted us to do:
\n1. Look after people.
\n2. Develop living situations where people can live.
\nOur success depends on how we can retain our members.
\nBe real. Keep track of the people you meet. One vicar told me that he spends most of his time looking after his members. There is one lady I looked after for twenty-two years before she took initiation.
\nI have left ISKCON many times. But then I would wake up the next morning and decide to carry on. The reasons I am staying now are different from those when I was seventeen.
\nYou will be judged by how many people you looked after in your life.
\nTry and look after people, about twenty. Have a few friends. Do not tell them what to do. Just be their friends. Have two or three people looking after you.
\nFrom a lecture called “The Reluctant Preacher”:
\nIf no one speaks to strangers, then the movement will not move.
\nI was absolutely convinced that the world would be saved by 1979. But it did not happen, so I postponed it to 1985.
\nThe Jehovah’s Witnesses would predict the end of the world, and then, when it would not come, without any embarrassment, they would update it.
\nWe are good at broadcasting our message through book distribution and harinama.
\nA farmer has to cultivate and have scarecrows to scare away those who nibble away the seedlings. We are lacking in these.
\nMany a slip twixt cup and lip.
\nWe have remote gurus and disciples, and people are lacking in systematic education.
\nOften we lose devotees three or four years after initiation. We are so used to people coming and going, we are not too concerned about it.
\nAnyone committed to this movement should take a vow to let no one drift away.
\nOne follower of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura drifted away. Bhaktisiddhanta inquired about that devotee. The other devotees said he had disappeared. They were planning to open a temple, but Bhaktisiddhanta refused to open the temple until they found that devotee. They looked all over Madras and found him in the back of a watchmaker’s shop. They explained that Bhaktisiddhanta did not want to open the temple until he returned. The devotee was so touched by his guru’s concern that he never again left.
\nPreaching is to exhort someone to a higher level of spiritual and moral behavior.
\nThe ritualization of spiritual emotion should keep pace with our actual development of real spiritual emotions, otherwise it seems artificial and people are only willing to do it for so long.
\nOne lady wrote a book about compassion and how to develop it because it is there in all religions and this society does not teach it but just the opposite.
\nThe sannyasa danda is an emblem of compassion and is just the opposite of the selfie stick, which increases ego.
\nThe glue that keeps society together is compassion.
\nI did not join the Hare Krishna movement but began living with some ex-hippies on a Beatles estate.
\nEven if we are “faking it till we make it,” if we allow ourselves to used as instruments of compassion, the Lord will work through us.
\nWe are a religion that requires a high commitment of faith. This has to be developed gradually.
\nKrishna consciousness is beyond all religious designations. We are coming with a transcendental message, that we are transcendental and our transcendental nature can be experienced through transcendental sound vibration.
\nI had a friend who had a Ph.D. in physics and a spiritual urge. He took the train from England to Japan, and spent months in three Buddhists monasteries which all left him dissatisfied. He returned to London, but despondent. He prayed to God, “You know that I do not think you exist, but if do you exist, give me a sign.” The next day, he met the devotees, and he was attracted. They said he could come stay in their temple. He had great conviction because the Lord fulfilled his prayer, and he convinced many people to become devotees.
\nWhether you feel it or not, you do it because it is the guru’s order.
\nIt takes a long time to bring one to Krishna consciousness.
\nOne person encountered Hare Krishna when she was working at “Top of the Pops” when the devotees were on the show in 1969. Just recently she became a devotee.
\nWe must become willing to extend ourselves to at least ten people. Write their names down and never forget them.
\nThe individual reaching out with compassion is the Krishna consciousness movement.
\nWe have to establish connection with people so they become new members.
\nWe have to care for the people who become new members.
\nQ (by Radhika Nagara Prabhu): So many of our members have left. Should we do something to help them?
\nA: Srila Prabhupada would always want us to make some endeavor to bring them back. There is an attrition rate because people have different needs, and we are not always expert in meeting people’s needs as they go through their stages of life. Krishna recognizes the changing needs and created varnasrama. Prabhupada found that people would come and eat in our restaurants, but not our temples. Then we had 100 temples, and he said we had enough temples, and he said we should start doing more restaurants.
\nAbout 50% of interested people actually come to meetings. Some people just do not like meetings, but they like the practice.
\nIn 1934, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura set up a system with 18 sannyasis, then some maha-upadesikas, looking after upadesikas, and each of those looking after group of devotees.
\nThe real question is “Who is helping you in your spiritual life?” It is not “Who is your guru?” Everyone should have someone looking after his spiritual welfare. Without guidance, there is no impetus for movement.
\nPeople join groups because they get something they need, and they leave groups because do not get what they need.
\nWhen ISKCON meets the needs of a family man, such as residence and education for children, we will retain many more people.
\nSrila Prabhupada said in a purport in Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, “Right now the future devotees of the Krishna consciousness movement are living in every town and village, and it is up to the present members to find them.”
\nTo read the entire article click here: http:\/\/goo.gl\/hFzl2n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10650,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recent-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10650"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28415"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39019,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28415\/revisions\/39019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}