Culture Matters, What is ISKCON? - Incompatibility with

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Reply below:

 

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 21:39 +0100, Giri-nayaka (das) BVS (Ljubljana -

SLO) <Giri-nayaka.BVS (AT) pamho (DOT) net>

wrote:

>

> Dear Krishna Kirti Prabhu.

> Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

>

> I carefully read your text about how majority of conflicts within

> ISKCON may have more to do with culture. And as you present it, manners

> are

> connected to culture. Also you mention example of Japanese workers as

> being

> well mannered and cultured.

>

> I have a question. Would you say, that culture and manners grow out of

> tradition? Because of ISKCON inventions, tradition is replaced with

> westernization, and vedic tradition norms (including culture and manners)

> are replaced with western norms.

>

 

Tradition is not always a good basis for establishing manners, because bad

behavior itself can become a tradition. Just like now the American and

European people are used to easy divorce and contraception, what used to be

called dysfunctional family life can now, in many places, be called

"tradtional". And it is, in many cases, a tradition. In India also, there

are some traditional practices in some communities which are, from a Krishna

conscious point of view, objectionable. For example, it is a widespread

tradition in India that caste is determined by birth. The need to

reestablish religion implies that the good, supportive tradition has

deteriorated, or replaced with a bad tradition. From the point of view of

ISKCON's mission to reestablish Krishna consciousness around the world, it

is our business to preserve those traditions which are favorable to Krishna

consciousness and suppress those traditions which are unfavorable.

 

It is my experience that the best traditions that are favorable to Krishna

consciousness are to be found within the present-day Hindu civilization.

Not everything that is a tradition in the Hindu civilization is worth

preserving, but there is more in it that is favorable to Krishna

consciousness than in any other civilization on the planet.

 

I believe japanese are still strongly

> connected to their tradition of subordination and self control. Maybe

> thats

> where their culture and manners are coming from? And could one also say,

> that efficient law enforcement and efficient legal systems, when used with

> purpose of enforcing valid tradition, actually give rise to culture and

> manners? Couldn't western law enforcement and legal systems resulting in

> even more crime and conflicts, be actually result of law enforcement and

> legal systems being used with purpose to enforce non-traditional western

> values?

 

 

I would say that the need for law enforcement where law enforcement was

formerly unnecessary is a symptom of the culture breaking down. The history

of contraception in America provides an excellent, illustrative example of

this.

 

In his book "Governing the Hearth: Law and the Family in Nineteenth-Century

America," Michael Grossberg notes that "there were few explicit restrictions

on contraception until the 1870s." (Grossberg 175) Grossberg also mentions

that at the onset of adopting tough and wide-ranging anti-contraceptive

legislation, it was widely acknowledged that the use of contraception had

become "so universal that it may well be termed a national vice, so common

that it is unblushingly acknowledged by its perpetrator, for the commission

of which the husband is even eulogized by his wife and applauded by her

friends, a vice which is the scourge and desolation of marriage. . . ."

(William Wallings qtd. in Grossberg 176).

 

What Grossberg does not mention in his account but which is nevertheless

relevant in explaining why contraception became so widespread is that the

timeline he gives is consistent with two important cultural changes: the

Industrial Revolution and the rise of empirical science. For many people,

particularly for people who lived in cities, the Industrial Revolution

changed the way people earned a living, which in turn changed children from

economic assets to economic liabilities. In an agrarian economy, children

helped with farm work or other family-based means of earning a livelihood.

But when the means of production moved out of homes and into factories,

children gradually lost their economic value because they no longer

contributed to the family income, even though they still consumed as much of

the family resources as they had always consumed. This in turn created a

disincentive to have children but did not reduce the urge for sex. People

still wanted sex as much as ever but children were now something to avoid

having. Hence, the Industrial Revolution, with its resultant industrial

economy, created a strong economic disincentive to have children, which in

turn created a strong demand for contraception.

 

The other important cultural change, the rise of empirical science, resulted

in a weakening of traditional morality. At the start of the timeline given

by Grossberg (around the 1820s), Protestants and Catholics from the upper

clergy down to the laity, unanimously agreed (with some exceptions) that

contraception was against Christian teaching. Yet because an industrial

economy required a class of people skilled in science and technology, the

emphasis of education shifted from classics, language, and theology to

science and technology. Advances in science and technology during this time

were increasingly used to understand biology and human nature--two important

areas of understanding which had been, up until that time, the sole domain

of religion. (In 1859 Darwin produced his *Origin of Species.*) The

alternative for these two areas of knowledge, as offered by science,

resulted in the eventual disestablishment of religion as the common and

respectable means of understanding our own selves. With the religious

account of biology, and later its account of human behavior, discredited or

significantly weakend (as in the case of human behavior), the Biblical

commandment to "be fruitful and multiply" consequently began to lose its

moral authority.

 

The rapid industrialization produced an economy which created strong

disincentives for bearing children, and the disestablishment of religion by

empirical science, which broke society's moral compass and never quite

replaced it, created in society at large a demand for contraception that

proved impossible to resist. (Indeed, as we shall see, all but a few

religious establishments eventually caved into the demand of its members for

contraception and developed sophisticated theological justification for the

moral fitness of contraception.)

 

Returning to Grossberg's account of the history of contraception legislation

in America, around the 1870s arose the first "self-appointed purity

campaingers [who] led the drive against contraception." (Grossberg 176).

The rest of Grossberg's account I will quote in full:

 

############### BEGIN QUOTE ###############

 

New Yorkers created the first purity society in 1872, the New York Society

for the Suppression of Vice. Though founded and funded by elite city

residents such as banker Morris K. Jessup, who also headed the YMCA, the

society's point man for purity reform was a little known exdry goods

salesman, Anthony Comstock. The son of devout Connecticut parents, he tried

unsuccessfully to make his fortune as a businessman in New York City. The

flagrant vices he encountered in the city shocked him into a highly

publicized vigilante campaign. It culminated in his appointment as the

antivice society's chief agent, thus launching his career as late

nineteenth-century America's self-avowed savior of public morals.

 

Comstock regarded the feeble statutes then on the books as the weakest link

in his war on vice. The legislation at his disposal consisted of the 1868

New York act prohibiting the circulation of obscene materials and a similar

federal ban. He termed both toothless. After federal judge Samuel Blatchford

failed to convict Frank Leslie, editor of Day's Doings, for advertising

"fancy" books, gaming materials, and contraceptives on the grounds that

federal law did not apply to newspapers, Comstock began to lobby for tougher

laws. In 1872 he convinced the antivice society to send him to Washington to

press for a rigorous national statute. 48

 

In Washington the vice crusader succeeded beyond his wildest expectations.

Armed with a display case of vice paraphernalia and vivid tales of his

fights with the panderers of obscenity, Comstock enlisted the aid of Vice

President Henry Wilson and Supreme Court Justice William Strong to draft a

new obscenity law. The bill passed with little debate and became law on 1

March 1873. Its swift enactment may indicate the difficulties of defending

practices so at odds with popular values. Resistance would come in the law's

implementation, not its passage.

 

The act's primary purpose was to ban the circulation and importation of

obscene materials through the national mails. Specifically included on the

list of banned goods was every article designed, adapted, or intended "for

preventing conception or producing abortion, or for indecent or immoral use;

and every article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is

advertised or described in a manner calcu

 

lated to lead another to use or apply it for preventing conception or

producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral purpose. . . ." The act

set punishment at a $5,000 fine, one to ten years at hard labor, or both.

Federal authorities capped the statute's passage by appointing Comstock a

special postal agent charged with enforcing the law. 49

 

The federal act, quickly dubbed the Comstock Law, was the centerpiece of the

drive against obscenity, but purity crusaders also prodded state legislators

into action. Antivice societies, and after 1885 the Social Purity Alliance,

succeeded in persuading twenty-two legislatures to enact general obscenity

laws and another twenty-four to specifically ban birth control and abortion.

 

 

One year after their victory in Washington, Comstock and the New York

antivice society rewrote their state code along the lines of the federal

statute. An assemblyman, who later became a member of the purity

organization, shepherded the bill through the legislature, aided by

Comstock's vigorous lobbying. The act defined abortion-inducing drugs as

immoral and indecent, and prohibited their sale. In 1881 a legislative

revision banned the sale and manufacture of contraceptives as well. However,

the law included a vague physicians' exemption for reasons of health.

Finally, in 1887 the prohibitions were extended to advertising. Under

Comstock's prodding, New York had enacted some of the nation's most

stringent legal curbs on the transmission of information and services to

control reproduction. 50

 

Comstock also enlisted the citizenry of Massachusetts in the cause. In 1878

he helped form the New England Society for the Suppression of Vice. This

organization, which later became the Watch and Ward Society, included

representatives from New England educational and religious institutions. It

pushed the state legislature into enacting an 1879 act "Concerning Offenses

against Chastity, Morality, and Decency." Passed with little dissent or

debate, the law also banned the distribution and sale of family limitation

information and devices. 51

 

Connecticut legislators took the most drastic action the same year. Promoter

Phineas T. Barnum, chairman of the Joint Standing Committee on Temperance,

drafted the obscenity statute. Comstock and the antivice societies do not

appear to have played a major role in the deliberation on the bill, but

Barnum and his allies held comparable views. In fact, they obtained a

provision banning the use as well as the sale of contraceptives. This was

the first instance of such a prohibition, which paralleled the state's

attempt to penalize women seeking abortions. Though the 1879 ban had been

part of a general obscenity statute, the lawmakers detached it in 1887 and

made it a separate offense. 52

 

The federal act was the most important weapon in the purity crusade against

contraception. But the Little Comstock Laws, as they came to be called,

reveal the depth of determination to close every possible avenue for traders

in obscene materials. The opposition to banning the free flow of such

information and devices was meagre. Only religious liberals and advocates of

freedom of the press voiced dissent, and they were a small, unheeded

minority. The author of Chastity, Dio Lewis, expressed the prevalent view.

He recognized the pressures compelling many couples to practice

contraception: "[W]hen the health of the mother is doubtful, the family

cash-box empty, or a predisposition to some grave malady inherited, they

will ask how conception may be prevented or the next baby postponed."

Nevertheless Lewis applauded Comstock's effort to stop the purveyors of such

services: "We need a thousand such young men to hunt up these wretches, in

all parts of the country. Under the [ Comstock Law], which is now in force,

and under state laws which happily are now moving forward to enforce the

national act, any friend of virtue, male or female, may quickly bring to

justice these whelps of sin. It seems hard that decent men are not allowed

to shoot them on sight as they would shoot a mad dog." 53 These strident

calls for a vigilante citizenry drowned opponents of the obscenity

legislation. Though the anticontraception drive lacked some of the fervor of

the antiabortion crusade, by the end of the century both practices were

banned as obscenities.

 

[Grossberg, Michael. Governing the Hearth: Law and the Family in

Nineteenth-Century America. University of North Carolina Press: 1985.

Pages 176 - 178]

 

############### END QUOTE ###############

It is important to remember that before the 1870s there was little in the

way of explicit laws on the books prohibiting contraception. Before then,

and especially before the demand for contraception became widespread, it was

understood that contraception, what to speak of abortion, was detestable.

No respectable man or woman would indulge in it.

 

What seems to have happened is that when tradition came under attack,

the reformers tried to somehow preserve the tradition and its values by

resorting to legal measures and government coercion. Yet such coercion,

which as we have seen, fails on account of attacking the wrong thing. The

reformers assume that the values on which their cherished morality rested

are still in place when in fact they are not.

 

You will note that in the account of the reform efforts, as given by

Grossberg, there is no significant attempt made by the reformers to deal

with the real causes of the rise in demand for contraception--namely the

radical changes in the economy and the disestablishment of religion in the

area of education. There may have been some attempts to deal with the real

causes, but they must have been trivial when compared to the effort put into

lobbying, legislation, and law enforcement. It can thus be said that the

rise of legislation and demands for law enforcement in the area of

regulating morality is a symptom of decaying values. As such, it is a

mistake to think that stricter laws, better vigilance, and more efficient

law enforcement will bring about desired change.

 

As this analysis was made in the context of a discussion about morality and

law within ISKCON, I must draw your attention (if you haven't noticed it

already) to an important situation within that closely parallels Grossberg's

account of the rise of anti-contraception legislation in 19th century

America: childabuse and the consequent social reaction in ISKCON.

 

All the important, corresponding elements we find in the anti-contraception

crusade of late 19th centuray America are to be found in ISKCON's

child-protection crusade: self-appointed purity campaigners; shrill purity

vigilanties who cry foul when ISKCON authorities seem to move even an inch

from purity; a semi-autonomous organization (the CPO) which investigates,

judges, and awards stinging punishments to offenders; and harsh laws that

are vigorously lobbied and pass with barely any resistance at ISKCON's

highest levels. (This past year, the GBC passed resolution 410 Zero

Tolerance Child Protection Policy.) And, throughout all of this (and like

its 19th century parallel in the matter of contraception) the focus is on

legal measures and law enforcement; barely any attention is given to values.

 

 

As to what we in ISKCON should do about values, among ourselves, newcomers

to ISKCON, and society at large, is another topic that deserves attention

all to itself. Except I will briefly mention what I think are adverse

consequences of this for ourselves and for society at large.

 

First, not only are we insufficiently (if at all) dealing with values within

our society, we have also adopted secular ways and means of enforcing

morality, which is guided by psychology. Defendents before the CPO are

adjudicated according to criteria based on psychological principles, as we

might find them in any other secular organization or the Western legal

system in general. What this means for us is that we no longer mainly rely

on principle or technique that is uniquely Krishna conscious as a means of

correcting the imbalance of values in life and in society at large.

Correcting the imbalance of values in life and in society at large happens

to be the first of the seven purposes of ISKCON. Now that we have largely

favored methods based on psychological principles instead of methods based

on Krishna consciousness (all for the sake of 'dovetailing' material things

in Krishna's service - there is always some rationalization), we should

expect to achieve results similar to those of the karmis, which have been

pretty much a failure.

 

To better illustrate the extent of this failure, a big American television

network recently ran a covert operation to expose American child molesters,

who arrange over the internet or phone meetings with minors for the sake of

sex, and there were surprised to catch on hidden cameras so many

otherwise *respectable

*people who engage in this kind of thing:

 

######## BEGIN QUOTE ############

 

And perhaps more shocking than the number of men [who are sexual child

predators] is who they are: One was a 54-year-old special education teacher,

another a 50-year-old is an emergency room doctor. When I confronted the

doctor, he said he had no intention of having sex with a 14-year-old boy and

that he only came to the house because he felt badly for the teen who was

left home alone.

 

The doctor, like most of the men who showed up at our house, maintained he

was not doing anything wrong.

 

[http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9878187/#051216a ]

 

And even tough laws don't seem to deter many of these predators.

 

[http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9927253/ ]

############ END QUOTE ###############

 

So sexual predators proliferate among the most intelligent of people who we

are supposedly preaching to, and, as noted in the same report, "tough laws

don't seem to deter many of these predators." If this is true of the

methods we are using - that law and psychology are ineffective in dealing

with the problem - then is it unreasonable to expect that we will also meet

with a similar lack of progress, or even degradation?

 

That our pool of potential, high-class recruits is so infected with lust

should tell us that the problem is not going to get better no matter how

much zero-tolerance legislation, efficient law enforcement, and

psychotherapy we throw at it. It hasn't helped the karmis--their problems

are only compounding. I therefore think it is time to reassess the

direction we are heading in terms of values and culture, rather than laws,

enforcement, and psychotherapy.

 

Your servant, Krishna-kirti das (HDG)

 

 

 

 

Also, since you commented on my letter, saying that "culture is something

> that I see as persistently missing in these discussions", I feel that you

> may be missing culture in my posts. I would like to apologize for that. I

> wish I could offer more to assembled devotees. I lack qualities and

> culture,

> but I have some enthusiasm and desire for purity, so I can offer that.

> Maybe

> somebody will find use of my posts, and mercifully tolerate my lack of

> proper culture and manners.

 

 

I think you are getting at it, but I just wanted to underscore a few points

about culture which I felt were important.

 

your servant Giri-nayaka das

>

>

> > With regard to some of Giri-nayaka Prabhu's grievances and the current

> > discussion about mediation, it should be noted that, as per the Minutes

> of

> > the 2005 GBC meetings, approximately two-thirds (2/3) of the reported

> > budget was allocated to conflict resolution and to dealing with a

> specific

> > emergency (a temple in Germany); the allocations were more or less split

> > evenly. That 2/3 of the GBC's already small budget (about US $40,000)

> was

> > allocated to emergency management means things are, overall, not in a

> good

> > way. In a spiritual society, even one where the vast majority of

> converts

> > are understood to be imperfect, this means something.

> >

> > As a cause for conflict, I think culture figures more into these issues

> > than many of us realize. About a year or two ago, in a copy of the Wall

> > Street Journal, there was a double page add advertising for businesses

> to

> > relocate themselves from America to Japan, and a selling point in the

> > advertisement was that even though Japan was expensive place to have a

> > business, it nevertheless (compared with America) had low levels of

> crime.

> > It also advertised what it believed to be a superior work

> culture. That

> > low levels of crime and low levels work place conflict are more

> functions

> > of culture than of efficient law enforcement and efficient legal systems

> > raises the question as to the causes of most conflicts within ISKCON.

> > From an ISKCON perspective, Srila Prabhupada once remarked how he liked

> > the manners of the Japanese and remarked how the young Japanese boys and

> > girls were often better behaved than even his own disciples. Perhaps

> the

> > majority of conflicts (and criminal activity for that matter) within

> > ISKCON have more to do with culture, and culture is something that I see

> > as persistently missing in these discussions.

> >

> > Your servant, Krishna-kirti das (HDG)

> >

> > On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 10:51 +0100, Giri-nayaka (das) BVS (Ljubljana - SLO)

> <

> > Giri-nayaka.BVS (AT) pamho (DOT) net> wrote:

> > >

> > > Dear Braja Bihari Prabhu.

> > > Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

> > >

> > > Thank you for your information. I have some second thoughts, if

> program

> > > of ISKCONResolve is what I can really take shelter of.

> > >

> > > I had some experience with mediation some months ago, and it didn't

> turn

> > > out

> > > well, to put it politely. Actually, it worsened situation to a large

> > > degree.

> > > I don't know if the reason was inexperienced mediator (who was

> > > sannyasi/Guru/GBC in this case), or was it the nature of problem

> itself,

> > > maybe not being most suitable for mediation. I'd rather not think

> about

> > > this

> > > specific mediator being incapable, because of his high status in

> ISKCON.

> > > So

> > > I prefer thinking, that this case was not really suitable for

> mediation.

> > > Maybe this is not the right place to describe matter in detail.

> > > Therefore let me just say, that basically it was dispute between local

> > > authorities and

> > > several other devotees, including myself, regarding perceived

> intentions

> > > of

> > > local authorities to adjust Srila Prabhupada's books for better public

>

> > > acceptance.

> > >

> > > I think Power-based decision seems the right way to go in this case.

> > > What would you suggest? You say, that proper system uses all three

> > > approaches, namely power, rights and interest based. Please let me say

>

> > > again, that I have terrible experience with mediation, and am not

> likely

> > > to engage in it in any near future. Can you please tell whom I can

> turn

> > > to for Power-based decision, in the case, where local GBC

> representative

> > > refuses to come up with such decision. What are my options, if any at

> > > all.

> > >

> > > Thank you

> > >

> > > your servant Giri-nayaka das

> > >

> > > > > I was not aware that ISKCON has Justice Ministy. This is most

> > > promising.

> > > > > Is it operating? What can one expect from it? How to propose a

> > > > > matter

> > > to

> > > > > their investigation. Any procedures? Who to contact? Can please

> > > somebody

> > > > > help with this information.

> > > >

> > > > Yes, the Justice Ministry is very active. Sesa Prabhu is the

> Minister,

> > > > while nearly all the work is being done by the ISKCONResolve office.

>

> > > >

> > > > www.ISKCONresolve.com <http://www.iskconresolve.com/>

> > > >

> > > > The website is still being developed, but the services offered are

> > > > outlined there. So far the results have been far beyond our

> > > expectations.

> > > >

> > > > A brief background: Decisions are made in three ways:

> > > >

> > > > Power-based

> > > > Rights-based

> > > > Interest-based

> > > >

> > > > Power-based is the standard system of authority in ISKCON: the line

> of

> > > > authority wherein an leader takes a decision in a conflict or

> question

> > > of

> > > > justice.

> > > >

> > > > Rights-based is when a neutral third-party (like a judge) takes a

> > > > decision. The Child Protection office runs in this way, and we are

> > > working

> > > > to establish arbitrators for taking such decisions.

> > > >

> > > > Interest-based is when two parties discuss matters (often with the

> > > > help

> > > of

> > > > a mediator) with each other and through improved communications and

> > > > empathy try to settle matters in a way that all are satisfied. It

> may

> > > > sound hard to do, but about 75% our our mediations in ISKCON end in

> an

> > > > agreement being reached by the parties.

> > > >

> > > > A proper system allows for all three approaches, though the

> > > Interest-based

> > > > one is preferred as decisions are voluntarily reached by both

> parties,

> > > and

> > > > thus (especially in a voluntary spiritual organization) there is far

> > > > better chance of compliance.

> > > >

> > > > Also, you will note that on the website there are opportunities for

> > > > all devotees to voice concerns and complaint anonoymously (if they

> > > > prefer).

> > > >

> > > > Ys, Braja Bihari dasa

> > >

> > > -----------------------

> > > To from this mailing list, send an email to:

> > > ISKCON.India-Owner (AT) pamho (DOT) net

> > >

>

[Guest guest]

Krishna-kirti prabhu wrote: "It is my experience that the best traditions

that are favorable to Krishna consciousness are to be found within the

present-day Hindy civilization." I would ask why was it that Srila

Prabhupada didn't make much progress - in spreading KC - in India? If Hindu

India was or still is the best place to preach KC, why is it that Prabhupada

had to go the West to "get the ball rolling"? Are you suggesting a

"hindunization" of ISKCON preaching strategies that are to be applied to the

world preaching field? I can understand that Hinduism may have some features

favorable to KC. But how relevant are they? Moreover, which specific

traditions are most favorable to spreading KC there?

Respectfully, Yugala Kishor dasa (Gainesville, FL)

[Guest guest]

On Tue, 27 Dec 2005 11:44 -0500, Yugala Kishor (das) (Gainesville, FL - US)<

Yugala.Kishor (AT) pamho (DOT) net> wrote:

>

> Krishna-kirti prabhu wrote: "It is my experience that the best traditions

> that are favorable to Krishna consciousness are to be found within the

> present-day Hindy civilization." I would ask why was it that Srila

> Prabhupada didn't make much progress - in spreading KC - in India? If

> Hindu

> India was or still is the best place to preach KC, why is it that

> Prabhupada

> had to go the West to "get the ball rolling"?

 

 

Because having a bad conception of something is often more problematic than

having no concept of something. People in India, because of their cultural

familiarity with Vaishnavism think they know it all. The people in the West

did not have those presumptions and so they didn't believe they knew

something that they were actually ignorant of.

 

Are you suggesting a

> "hindunization" of ISKCON preaching strategies that are to be applied to

> the

> world preaching field? I can understand that Hinduism may have some

> features

> favorable to KC. But how relevant are they?

 

 

I'm not suggesting that ISKCON be "hinduized" for the sake of preaching, nor

do I recommend its Westernization as a preaching strategy. But given that

many customs are closely related to religious precepts and ideas important

to any society, it is likely that, when the misconception in Hinduism is

superceded or replaced than a seemingly new custom reflecting that new

understanding will come into being. In that sense, ISKCON would be

"creating" new customs.

 

Moreover, which specific

> traditions are most favorable to spreading KC there?

 

 

I'll let the devotees who have lived much longer in India than I have

address that question.

 

Your servant,

 

Krishna-kirti das

[Guest guest]

It's not a secret that Srila Prabhupada spent most of his time - after he

began his preaching in the West, here in India.

 

That he wanted his disciples to spend time here to learn about the culture

is also not a secret: it is well known.

 

However, some of his disciples will use a variety of arguments to avoid that

fact. Those who spent time here with him know that those arguments are

created - or were created - so that the management of temples wouldn't lose

devotees (back in those days: the compulsion was to keep the devotees in

their respective temples).

 

In fact, it was Srila Prabhupada's desire that Western devotees spend time

in India. Personally, I came here when, upon Srila Prabhupada's

instructions, Kirtiraj Prabhu specially arranged 50 visas for devotees at

New York City at the beginning of 1974.

 

There are probably many more such stories. HH Giriraj Swami, HH Jayapataka

Swami and others who were much closer to Srila Prabhupada can testify.

Unfortunately HH Tamal Krishna Maharaj is no longer with us: but his book

"servant of the servant" probably contains much of his memories of those

days, when SP sent many of his leading disciples here to establish his

mission. It's also a fact that SP's made "special efforts" to construct

"International projects" here. He DID NOT DO SO in the West!

 

This can go on "ad infinitum". It doesn't mean preaching in the West isn't

important. But to know what you are preaching is! Some 12 years ago, Bali

Mardan Prabhu published a book of his rememberences: "Preaching KC on the

Pacific Rim" (I don't remember verbatim the title as I write this).

 

There on the back cover he wrote that he was spreading ideas that he wasn't

very familiar with in places like Australia, Malaysia and Hong Kong. So

although it's a fact that SP engaged Western youth in his mission who didn't

know much about it, he did desire that they come to India to learn both the

philosophy of vaishnavism and the culture of the land. He begged people in

his public lectures here: "please don't give up your culture".

 

Etc., etc., etc.

 

> On Tue, 27 Dec 2005 11:44 -0500, Yugala Kishor (das) (Gainesville, FL -

> US)< Yugala.Kishor (AT) pamho (DOT) net> wrote:

> >

> > Krishna-kirti prabhu wrote: "It is my experience that the best

> > traditions that are favorable to Krishna consciousness are to be found

> > within the present-day Hindy civilization." I would ask why was it that

> > Srila Prabhupada didn't make much progress - in spreading KC - in India?

> > If Hindu

> > India was or still is the best place to preach KC, why is it that

> > Prabhupada

> > had to go the West to "get the ball rolling"?

>

>

> Because having a bad conception of something is often more problematic

> than having no concept of something. People in India, because of their

> cultural familiarity with Vaishnavism think they know it all. The people

> in the West did not have those presumptions and so they didn't believe

> they knew something that they were actually ignorant of.

>

> Are you suggesting a

> > "hindunization" of ISKCON preaching strategies that are to be applied to

> > the

> > world preaching field? I can understand that Hinduism may have some

> > features

> > favorable to KC. But how relevant are they?

>

>

> I'm not suggesting that ISKCON be "hinduized" for the sake of preaching,

> nor do I recommend its Westernization as a preaching strategy. But given

> that many customs are closely related to religious precepts and ideas

> important to any society, it is likely that, when the misconception in

> Hinduism is superceded or replaced than a seemingly new custom reflecting

> that new understanding will come into being. In that sense, ISKCON would

> be "creating" new customs.

>

> Moreover, which specific

> > traditions are most favorable to spreading KC there?

>

>

> I'll let the devotees who have lived much longer in India than I have

> address that question.

>

> Your servant,

>

> Krishna-kirti das