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.

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 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.

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 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.

Many, many moons ago—way back in the last century—when the ISKCON movement was just becoming established as "a confederation of centers, farms, schools, and restaurants" and anybody who was anybody lived in a temple, the temple president was the natural person to care for the spiritual lives of the devotees.

The president was the appointed head of the community, the spiritual supervisor of standards of worship and practice, and often also the chief inspiration behind the preaching. It was a very responsible position—and still is. Along with the "temple commander," the president engaged the members of local ISKCON in all the activities necessary to support a spiritual community and to prosper in their own spiritual lives.

by Vijaya Venugopal dasa and Prema Padmini dd

My husband explained that Bhakti-vriksha groups were the base units of the Vaisnava community we are trying to create according to Srila Prabhupada's vision. This is Lord Caitanya's Golden Age, and the creation of such communities all over the world has to take place as predicted. All activities of a yatra are part of the Bhakti-vriksha program—not just the weekly sessions, but also study classes, Bhakti-sastri courses, Sunday programs, deity worship, outreach programs, festivals, book distribution, and temple construction. Only if there is a complete set of activities to engage all devotees will the Vaishnava community really be alive. Srila Prabhupada said everything was already there, and that only time was separating us from this perfect situation.

In the first two of the seven purposes of ISKCON the word propagate is used twice: "systematically propagate" and "propagate a consciousness of Krishna." Srila Prabhupada seemed to like this word, and used it quite a bit in his writings. It comes, of course, from the Latin propagare, meaning "to multiply from shoots," and the derived meaning is "to spread an idea." That ideas should be spread like plants into the fertile soil of enquiring minds is a natural analogy that creates a picture of the preacher as a gardener—a caring, gentle-fingered nurturer of something quite small and delicate.

But one thing gardeners must do is to count how many plants have actually begun to grow, and how many have failed. The very work of gardening carries with it the task of counting. Those who sow the seedlings but fail to count if they are growing, will never be able to determine whether their gardening is successful or not.

Way back in 1973, Srila Prabhupada wrote a letter to the sankirtana devotees in England, thanking them for their preaching efforts and suggesting six ways in which they could give the message of Krishna consciousness to the public. His advice stands as a six-point preaching strategy in itself, all in one letter.

One year later, after he had emphasized book distribution, an English disciple asked him whether the other five activities should be given up in favor of book distribution alone. “No, everything should be done side-by-side,” he replied.

We have an eight-petalled lotus symbol for this year's theme, as it neatly fits as an emblem for the eight projects comprising the campaign. OK, so lotuses have many more petals than eight—but by the end of the year so will we.

It started many months ago when I interviewed all the long-serving leaders of both London temples as to what the words "congregational development" means to them. We all have visions of what an expanded and improved Krishna consciousness movement looks like—based upon Srila Prabhupada’s criteria—and it does no harm, and perhaps a lot of good, to sometimes use our long-distance imagination.

by Sita-pati das

Krpamoya Prabhu flirts with heresy in his recent post "ISKCON's Second-class Citizens."

He wants us to do away with the cult membership dynamic that has been the basis of our success up to this point. Sure it's not perfect, but it's worked for us thus far— right?

I recently completed an article for the upcoming "Cultivation"-focused issue of ISKCON's Congregational Development Journal. It's sometimes hard to target articles for the journal, because it feels that it is in a schizophrenic transitional state (or maybe that the aggregate of the diverse audience is), vacillating between "ISKCON Cult Recruiting Journal" and ISKCON Community Development Journal. Which one am I writing for? I'm happy to write for either one—after all, I'm a card-carrying cult member living in the community.