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European Leaders Day 1<\/p>\n
After a short kirtan, reading and blessing the Chairman held a brief ‘getting to know each other better’ session. With over 80 attendees and 30 or so different languages the exercise was intended to see how the native English speakers might be able to help others who may struggle with english during at one point or other over the 2 days. However, as the native English speakers came bottom of the class with the exercise, we swiftly moved on!<\/p>\n
The first presentation and discussion was on the subject of ISKCON membership. In ISKCON we have been a little befuddled and challenged for sometime regarding how to categorise membership. Should it be something for the people to aspire to or should it be more easy and simple to be counted among ISKCON’s membership?Should it be based on initiation or is that too guru centric? Should we do so on the same basis as the Catholic Church and introduce the equivalent of their baptism? Whatever we proceed with it must give people a sense of identify with, and pride in, being a member of ISKCON. We then invited Kaunteya prabhu to give a presentation based on the work of the constitution committee and their deliberations on the topic of membership. Following that we had an additional presentation by Sivarama Swami on the same subject reflecting the work that the Hungarian yatra has done on this subject over the last number of years. Following both presentations we had a number of break out groups who fed back to the presenters what they felt were the positive, the not so positive as well as any interesting points they had with regard to both presentations.
\nIn the afternoon we had a presentation on why devotees should be allowed to initiate in the presence of their guru by Yadunandana Swami. After that presentation and discussion the opinion of the vast majority of European Leaders was to submit a formal proposal to the Euro RGB requesting them to do all they can to remove the 2002 GBC resolution which prevents disciples of living gurus from serving as diksa gurus in ISKCON.Our first day ended with a fantastic movie about all the activities of the Czech yatra.<\/p>\n
Day 2<\/p>\n
After listening to an inspiring quote from Srila Prabhupada about preaching, the second day started with a presentation from Krsna Ksetra Swami on the subject of Bridge Preaching.<\/p>\n
This presentation elaborated on the meaning of bridge preaching, direct versus indirect, and many examples were cited of indirect preaching from our tradition. During the ensuing discussion devotees concluded that we need a clear vision for preaching in its totality and agreed that any preaching which ultimately can lead to pure devotional service should be fully embraced. The main measurement of success being people engaging in sravanam\/kirtanam without compromising our core principles. The session concluded with these words of Srila Prabhupada:
\n\u201cWe should not compromise in any way just to accommodate the public idea, but we can so tastefully present the real thing that we will change the people to accommodate us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The afternoon session focused on yatra presentations from Germany, Austria, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Finland and Denmark. <\/p>\n
As a part of our ELM tradition we then had our annual auction which further elevated the atmosphere of friendship, support and cooperation, and as well as raising some much needed funds, was great fun too.
\nThe ELM concluded in a super positive mood with announcement of this years ISKCON Europe Excellence Awards.The desired outcome of the meeting, to exchange experiences, enthuse the leaders for more effective preaching and to deepen our understanding of the current concerns in our society in order to strengthen our cooperation were well and truly met. <\/p>\n
In an atmosphere of vaisnava exchange & love gifts were presented to all the participants who then left beautiful New Vraja dham to return to their prabhu datta desh.<\/p>\n
Here are some links to a few short videos of the ELM too:<\/p>\n
https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/13csfhbwZwHnUC8JkyLNIOapUIAjVW-jN\/view?ts=5bb87ce4<\/a><\/p>\n https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1n3JkB1-Ufy5eqSFRog3xBPiipkmoB9lF\/view?ts=5bb87cbe<\/a><\/p>\n https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1FLoF2kQfL1SJl33-vHZxwv82XS2194_K\/view?ts=5bb87d34<\/a><\/p>\n https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1IncLp-m664Vbr5R4UL5748Z1m9_ayExd\/view?ts=5bb87ca0<\/a><\/p>\n
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By ELM staff<\/strong><\/p>\n