{"id":5762,"date":"2008-05-10T06:51:55","date_gmt":"2008-05-10T05:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=5762"},"modified":"2012-03-28T12:57:50","modified_gmt":"2012-03-28T11:57:50","slug":"monthly-sankirtana-festivals-turn-little-into-lots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=5762","title":{"rendered":"Monthly Sankirtana Festivals Turn Little into Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img src='http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/bk_table2.gif'  align=\"left\" alt='' \/><strong>Friends of the BBT Newsletter \u2013 May 08<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Click <a href=\"http:\/\/friendsofthebbt.org\/newsletter\/May08.html\">here<\/a> for the rest of the newsletter<\/p>\n<p><strong>Monthly Sankirtana Festivals Turn Little into Lots<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>By Madhava Smullen<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In Silicon Valley\u2019s Hare Krishna community, a new book distribution effort is turning into a juggernaut that could be the future of ISKCON\u2019s outreach. When the predominantly householder community decided in 2004 to find a new way to fit book distribution into their nine-to-five lives, they created a \u201cMonthly Sankirtana Festival.\u201d Their motto? \u201cMany people doing a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The program grew gradually, but attracted more and more devotees with its unique approach. No one was overburdened, and everyone had a service that made them feel involved. \u201cSankirtana creates jobs,\u201d says US sankirtana strategist Vaisesika Dasa. \u201cWe want jobs for all our citizens. And if elected I guarantee, jobs, jobs, jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He may be quipping, but he\u2019s not joking. Every month, there are postcard reminders to mail, permits to be obtained, and scheduling to be detailed for one hundred devotees. Lunch packs must be prepared for everyone, cookies must be made to hand out, and thousands of books must be stamped with the temple\u2019s address and website.<\/p>\n<p>Then there\u2019s a fulfillment director to order books and send scores to the BBT, a communications director to spread news to the local and outside Vaishnava community, and a database team to store customer details and make sure they\u2019re followed through. And that\u2019s not counting all the book distributors, the twenty-four team leaders, and the overall sankirtana leader.<\/p>\n<p>The high level of cooperation isn\u2019t the only unique thing about Monthly Sankirtana Festivals at ISKCON Silicon Valley (ISV), however. \u201cWe focus on book distribution as a spiritual practice, rather than a numbers game,\u201d Vaisesika says. \u201cWe want devotees to get a greater taste for hearing and chanting through it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To this end, the community gathers every Wednesday for Bhagavad-gita class, and every Saturday for three hours of group chanting, reading and interactive discussion. \u201cIt\u2019s important for all the devotees to feel that they\u2019re in a safe environment and that their service is valued,\u201d says Vaisesika. \u201cOne of our mottos is \u201cEncourage the heck out of everybody.\u201d Nothing\u2019s too small. We go out of our way to notice whatever service anybody does, and acknowledge it.\u201d More&#8230;&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Click <a href=\"http:\/\/friendsofthebbt.org\/monthly-sankirtana-festival\">here<\/a> to read the rest of the article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/bk_tabecle2.jpg\" alt=\"Hare Krishna\" \/><strong>By Madhava Smullen<\/strong><\/p>\n<p> Friends of the BBT Newsletter \u2013 May 08. In Silicon Valley\u2019s Hare Krishna community, a new book distribution effort is turning into a juggernaut that could be the future of ISKCON\u2019s outreach. <!--more--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-distribution","category-newsletters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5762","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5762\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}