This Sunday, 29th July 2008, is the second annual Yoga fest in Brisbane.

Jonathan Murphy from Radiant Light Yoga has worked really hard to pull off this event, which brings together Brisbane's entire yoga community once a year.

by Vijay Venugopal dasa and Prema Padmini dd

Everyone got their turn to pour different coloured ingredients on their Lordships: milk, ghee, curds, and all sorts of juices. Then, as They were being dried and dressed, my husband narrated the story of the pastimes at Panihati, which everyone heard with great enthusiasm and joy, resolving to think of the lake as the river Ganga, hoping Their Lordships would bless them.

Once dressed, Caitanya Avatari and I in turn led a rousing kirtana, going round and round the deities with the devotees. Offerings were made, and we finally enjoyed the delicious mahaprasadam—chipped rice separately, and all the other items mixed together. The other visitors to the lake, as well as some locals, also got their share.

by Kaunteya Das

No, it's not my daughter—nor the daughter of any of my friends. It's the name of the new youth Nama-hatta group inaugurated in Mexico City.

On 21 May 2008, at around 4:00 pm, His Holiness Bhakti-bhusana Swami (GBC and initiating guru), accompanied by fifteen to twenty devotees (including yours truly) from the local temple, went to officially, and joyously, start the new congregational group coordinated and hosted by Bhaktin Carla. The devotees' happiness and enthusiasm was obvious.

by Devaki dd

The highlight of my visit to Mayapur this year was Anuttama Prabhu's seminar on leadership and management—an extremely valuable course, which teaches so many important skills and principles of effective leadership and management.

Taking this course confirmed my realization that there is another reason why we have lost so many devotees worldwide over the past years besides the fact that we have failed to create a supportive spiritual culture which would give nourishment and shelter to each and every devotee joining this movement. We have also failed to educate and train our leaders systematically and equip them with the necessary skills in order to become true servant-leaders, who lead with affection and detachment. Rather we have so often allowed that dangerous weed to grow and flourish: the attachment to power, position and facilities...

Of course, for a movement like ours to grow, we need the book distributors to also become interested in the people who actually read the books as well as those who buy them. We also need them to be interested in someone who, after reading one of Srila Prabhupada's books, decides to take up the practises of bhakti-yoga such as chanting the Hare Krishna mantra and offering food on their home altar.

Whilst it is tempting for any of us to simply be a book distributor, it defies logic if, after a person reads the book you gave them, for us to then not be interested in that newcomer's welfare. It defies logic but it does happen sometimes. Unfortunately, there are not enough devotees for some of us to 'only' be book distributors. Each of us must also be well-rounded teachers and encouragers to everyone who takes up our Vaishnava path.

Tucked in the upper northwestern corner of Mexico, between the Pacific Ocean and the U.S. border, Tijuana—said to be the most-crossed frontier point in the world—is a nondescript urban metastasis, born from countless people’s dream of crossing the line from poverty (their birthplaces in Latin America) to prosperity (Yankee land).

No imposing cathedrals or picturesque old-town here; on the other hand, plenty of drugs and other Kali-yuga specialties are easily available. Yet even here, Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s devotees actively engage in reawakening their consciousnesses and kindling bhakti. This outpost is some three thousand kilometers away from the capital and the main temple in the country, but otherwise is close to San Diego and Los Angeles. As a result, they have received the visit of such luminaries as Radhanatha Maharaja and Devamrita Maharaja.

Recently the GBC has been considering multiple ISKCON centers in one city. It's an inevitable historical development that is currently being groked. One center cannot be all things to all people. The reality is that a cutting-edge urban preaching center reaching out to a western population has radically different priorities to an established ISKCON temple serving Deities and an established congregation including many ex-pat Indians. You can't effectively do both in the same place at the same time.

In order to have these two centers functioning at their optimum we've discovered that you need to have separation and cooperation between the two—they need to be interdependent. Each can remain focused on its core values and identity. There needs to be a constant process of communication and negotiation between the two. One cannot be subservient to the agenda of the other. In this way they can coexist in a symbiotic relationship.

Over the weekend I went to visit the Gaura Yoga centre in Wellington. It was very inspirational to see what they've done there. In my travels within ISKCON, I have seen nothing quite like it. Although there are many places trying to learn from its model, there is no substitute for the original. There are three aspects to what they do there which I think make it so special.

From this list we can see that the ISKCON of the 21st century has more than enough information to conduct its preaching activities. Most things we do will never change; how we do them might. Information technology has given us access to digitisation and rapid transit of the message of Krishna, to film, satellite television, and to the Internet. But it also means that atheism uses the same techniques. Ultimately, it will not be our means of transmitting information that will help the mission in the 21st century, but the oldest technique of all: making friends.

The current demographics of ISKCON tell the story that we now have many more people and many more centres in countries where ISKCON’s presence would have been unimaginable before. But out of the quarter million more people that ISKCON has since the day that Srila Prabhupada stood under a tree in a New York park, hardly 5% of them live in the communal way that he envisaged as being most helpful for spiritual life.

The Purposes

1. To help devotees feel accepted, appreciated, and recognized for their efforts in spiritualizing their environment and life.
2. To encourage devotees to raise their home standards.
3. To inspire devotees to take more responsibility in the missionary activities of ISKCON.
4. To ensure devotees that their local temple leadership cares for them.
5. To build better, more productive relationships with every active member of the community.
6. To consider every Bhakti Home as a potential center for expanding Krishna consciousness, a reference point for seekers and other devotees alike.

The idea is also to gradually focus the leadership’s attention toward giving advice and guidance on crucial matters, relevant for congregational devotees: children’s education, stability of marriages, reciprocal support between temple-based and home-based devotees. The leadership and community can then create a harmonious atmosphere of cooperation and symbiosis.

Join the growing number of Bhakti Homes!
Have your place recognized as a

Sraddha-kutir

An Abode of Faith and Spirituality

Srila Prabhupada Wished to See All Homes Transformed into a Center of Spiritual Cultivation

"Everyone can establish a small temple in his house, and he can begin family-wise—himself, his wife, his children. That is wanted. This Krishna consciousness movement wants to see that every house has become a temple of Krishna. That is our program."

(Lecture, 13 December 1972)

In ISKCON, this aspect of nurturing every single family into a “center of Krishna conscious faith” has not yet developed to its fullness, although it is a central and core strategy for the respiritualization of the world. This Sraddha-kutir initiative (Sraddha-kutir is the original term used by Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura) aims at acknowledging the residences of practicing devotees as places of spiritual cultivation. It’s an invitation to every family, couple, or single to be formally recognized as an “ISKCON-followers unit.”

Saturday marked the finale of the grand ten day out-reach festival, "inSpirit" organized by couple of the local Toronto Devotees as a forum to do active preaching to the Yoga and the Student Community.

His Holiness Devamrita Swami was the guest speaker for this festival and it was organized by the Bhakti Yoga Club and the Urban Edge Yoga, two outreach projects undertaken by the Toronto temple devotees.

Needle less to say, I am yet to come down for the whirlwind of the past ten days. It was an amazing experience, watching how powerful the Holy name and the teachings from Srila Prabhupad's books and see it being understoon and experienced by a completely different audience.

by Kaunteya das,
19 April 2008, Sridham Mayapur

Indian ISKCON leaders appear thrilled at the opportunities offered by the Sraddha-kutir and Damodar programs

About eighty ISKCON leaders from all over India—including GBCs, regional secretaries, temple presidents, and other administrators and preachers—converged on Mayapur for the Indian Continental Committee meetings of April 19–20. These meetings offer leaders the chance to discuss and share on relevant topics and breakthroughs.

The Congregational Development Ministry introduced two initiatives, which are becoming its focus for this year. The first is the Sraddha-kutir campaign: the recognition of singles, couples, or families that successfully obtain a certain standard of spirituality in their home. The program aims at building a better, deeper relationship between the temple and its community members by acknowledging the latter’s efforts in purifying their life and living environment. HH Jayapataka Maharaja showed a PowerPoint presentation that highlighted the purposes of the initiative, the means for putting it into practice, and the benefits that temples and communities would accrue by implementing it.

by Partha Sarathi das,
Iraq, 17 April 2008

Jump on the Godhead Express!

I'm back on missions, which means long days. But I am still continuing with programs. We were having a program when all of a sudden, we heard the incoming alerting system. The rocket impacted a 100 feet from the ashram. I directed everyone to run to the bunker. When everyone was out the door, I grabbed my Silas and my mrdanga and ran to the bunker. For those that have never experienced the bliss of going through a mortar or rocket attack, it is a waiting game. You sit in this little bunker waiting, sometimes it is only one rocket, sometimes five or six. So you're there for some time.

by Devaki dd

After arriving in Australia, I was eagerly anticipating the first Sunday Feast, hoping to meet well-known faces. However, to my surprise and disappointment I could hardly discover any. I thought to myself, "Let's wait until visiting sannyasis and gurus will come—surely devotees would then attend the temple programs." But I was to be disappointed again. My last hope was for Janmastami and Srila Prabhupada's Vyasa-puja, but again, not many of the older devotees turned up.

The situation made me wonder; I couldn't stop contemplating why it was so difficult in the Western world to keep devotees active in their spiritual life. I had been truly shocked how few of the "old faces" were still coming to the temple. It seemed that many devotees had stopped chanting, and quite a few marriages had broken up. This was not just a phenomenon in Australia, but all over the Western world—something which indeed pained me. As we are always proclaiming, "Srila Prabhupada has built a house in which the whole world can live." With pain in the heart we have to admit that although so many conditioned souls do enter the front door of this house very eagerly, many also leave again through the back door.

Mumbai–Friday, 25 May 2007

by Vijaya Venugopala das and Prema Padmini dd

On our way to Russia we stopped at the Juhu temple. We met Braja Hari Prabhu, Mukunda Madhava Prabhu, and other senior devotees. We were happy and excited to learn that they had heard from other Indian temples, during a Regional Governing Body meeting at Ujjain, about the great impact Bhakti-vriksha preaching had on their activities. Among others, the temples in New Delhi, Hyderabad, Tirupati, and Kolkata where mentioned–places where we had conducted seminars earlier and where Bhakti-vriksha groups were developing nicely.

One temple president had described how book distribution tripled within one year after starting Bhakti-vriksha preaching! At Juhu temple it was decided to involve the congregation to a larger extent than had been done in the past. We had explained how to do this by structuring all activities around Bhakti-vriksha. Convinced, they requested us to visit on our return from Russia, so we could meet the most active congregation and Youth Forum members.

Here are a couple of video from our most recently Monthly Sankirtan Festival. [YouTube videos inside]

The Monthly Sankirtan Festival is a program pioneered by Vaisesika Prabhu, the idea is to get everyone in the congregation out on sankirtana, hitting the streets to distribute Srila Prabhupada's books. The MSF kicks off on Friday night with everyone dancing and chanting together chanting the holy names in the streets. Then all day Saturday and Sunday everyone splits up into teams and goes all around the bay area. This program has been so successful that last year Iskcon Silicon Valley came in third in all of North America, with no full time book distributors.

This is the account of an email exchange, starting in 2004, between Kaunteya Prabhu and Dayananda Prabhu about the organized and successful way Jehovah's Witnesses engage their congregation in book distribution and contact preaching. Through the PAMHO conference "Nama Hatta (Congregational Dev.) Forum," Caitanya Mahaprabhu Prabhu from ISKCON Vallabh Vidyanagar, Gujarat, finally picked up the idea and implemented it successfully in his preaching area:

Inspired by this email I started Bhagvad Darshan in Gujarati. I used congregation devotees for all kinds of management, all voluntary service. We started BTG with 2,000 subscriptions; then, the next year 6,000, and now, in 2008, we have 17,000 subscriptions. You mentioned one point, that we were behind because our leaders didn't know the potential power of our congregation.

[I'm sorry: there was a configuration mistake and the Overview of the Discussion didn't show the important comments. Now it's fixed, so please try again.]

There is a lively discussion going on at www.iskconconstitution.com, a website dedicated to the discussion of ISKCON's emerging constitution—an important topic for devotees considering themselves part of our ISKCON community. One discussion in particular, Local Brahminical Councils, is relevant to our main subject, development of devotee communities, also called congregations.

Krishna-kirti Prabhu and Sita-pati Prabhu are discussing many important questions in comments to this article, looking at different ways to develop communities based on and aimed at Vedic principles in today's different cultural environments. This is an essential subject, not only in the context of ISKCON's constitution, but for the development of devotee communities in general, a must-read for all who are concerned about ISKCON's development in general, and congregational or community development in particular.

Click here to see an overview of the whole discussion, or here for a printable view (one long page) of everything. I'm planning to add other articles relevant to this subject, and you are most welcome to offer your insights, comments, and suggestions.

The launch of the ‘Year of the Congregation’ went well last weekend. Around 75 of our congregational leaders and preachers came to the event, held at a conference centre run by local Catholic nuns. We chose a venue outside the temple because the Manor is bursting at the seams on a Sunday, and this particular spot has proven to be a good, quiet space that helps the devotees to think.

by Akrura das

You can learn from the past--but don’t get stuck in it. Don’t cling to it, don’t dwell on it, and don’t grieve over it. For example, the old way of leadership of command and control doesn’t work anymore. Both in spiritual and material organizations you experience the same. You can’t lead people as you used to. There has to be a new style, a new type of leadership. I think that right now our leaders are staggering between the old and the new style.

I had a good experience of what I call the new style of leadership in ISKCON. I had a conversation with our GBC secretary about an important question. During the conversation he took notes. When I finished he said:  ”Let me see if I understood everything correctly.” He read his notes for me. He asked a couple of questions to be sure that he had understood everything correctly. You can imagine how I felt. I felt completely understood and very inspired over the fact that this leader was interested in what I had to say. I spoke 95 percent of the time.

by Vasu Murti

In an ISKCON newsletter back in 1989, when the Robin George case was taking place, ISKCON San Diego temple president, Badri Narayana Prabhu, endorsed Krishnafest. Krishnafest was a preaching program led by Danavir Maharaja and Gunagrahi Maharaja. Badri Narayana Prabhju endorsed it, saying that Krishnafest makes devotees and, referring to the George case, that offense is usually the best defense.

It was under these circumstances that my friend and godbrother in the San Diego FOLK (Friends of Lord Krishna) program, Rankin Fisher, and I wrote a paper on temple congregations, and we were hoping to make my roommate Greg a FOLK member. "Anti-cult" accusations can hardly apply if the majority of worshipers in a religious institution serve in its laity and are no different from secular people.