emergency relief

[Guest guest]

A Vaisnava's Compassion Should be Encouraged!

 

For those adamantly opposed to any form of emergency relief within ISKCON,

shunning it as mundane humanitarianism; and who support their stance by

quoting Srila Prabhupada's letter to Jayapataka Swami, we argue that this is

yet another case of Srila Prabhupada's comments being taken out of context.

Certainly back in 1976, with the temples primarily consisting of young

brahmacaris and brahmacarinis, and resources already stretched, it would

have been both impractical and brainless to take ISKCON's focus from the

foundational activities of book distribution and Sankirtana to that of a

humanitarian agenda.

 

At that time, all of ISKCON was in the midst of a Sankirtan explosion with

book distribution expanding all over the world, and Srila Prabhupada wanted

to keep it that way, especially at the "home" of Sankirtan, Sri Dham

Mayapur.

 

It is interesting to note, however, that inevitably ISKCON Mayapur did

indeed develop a makeshift emergency relief service, called ISKCON Food

Relief and Srila Prabhupada did encourage book distribution teams in the US

to support it. Apparently, even though Srila Prabhupada was against any

official development of such a program it evolved anyway, albeit, within the

area of Mayapur dham, and he was happy to support it financially. He did

however emphasize that ISKCON was not, and was never to become a mundane

humanitarian organization and therefore stressed the importance of

distributing Krishna prasadam indiscriminately. "Our philosophy is prasada

distribution, without discrimination rich or poor" (SP Letter to Giriraja,

15 May 1972). He also said, "everyone should get a chance to take

prasadam..." (CC Antya lila 1.32 pp), and that "this activity should be

expanded universally..." (CC Mad. 4.93) He also said: "One should distribute

Visnu-prasada to everyone, including the poor man, the blind man, the

non-devotee and the non-brahmana. Knowing that Lord Visnu is very pleased

when everyone is sumptuously fed with Visnu-prasada [srimad-Bhagavatam

8.16.56]

 

So, my question to the naysayers is, why not take the opportunity to expand

prasadam distribution in areas where people are in great stress?

 

And in the purport to SB 4.14.41 Srila Prabhupada clearly supports such

(emergency relief) activity...

 

"Brahmanas, the topmost section of human society, are mostly devotees. They

are generally unaware of the happenings within the material world because

they are always busy in their activities for spiritual advancement.

Nonetheless, when there is a calamity in human society, they cannot remain

impartial. If they do not do something to relieve the distressed condition

of human society, it is said that due to such neglect their spiritual

knowledge diminishes. Almost all the sages go to the Himalayas for their

personal benefit, but Prahlada Maharaja said that he did not want liberation

alone. He decided to wait until he was able to deliver all the fallen souls

of the world." (SB 4.14.41)

 

The 2004 Asian Tsunami (a brief report)

The biggest earthquake in 40 years resulted in the greatest natural disaster

in modern history, affecting 12 countries, killing more than 200,000 and

displacing millions. ISKCON Sri Lanka, ISKCON Chennai, ISKCON Malayasia and

Dasanudas International Charities were quick to respond to the emergency

providing prasadam to survivors. Food for Life Global began reporting on

these efforts on it's web site (www.ffl.org) and within days donations and

volunteer requests began pouring in. H.H. Indradyumna Swami traveled to Sri

Lanka on behalf of Food for Life Global to help expand the prasadam

distribution. Many devotees began arriving from Russia, UK, South Africa,

Hungary, US, Poland, and Greece eager to distriute prasadam and the holy

name.

 

With relative ease, equipment and bhoga were purchased and new FFL teams

began serving prasadam in the south, north, east and west side of the

island. It soon became evident, however, that this was no ordinary emergency

situation. Typically, survivors of a natural disaster are clustered together

and it is easy to feed large sums of people in one area. The nature of

tsunami disaster was that hundreds of miles of area were obliterated,

causing the displacement of millions of people over a very wide area. The

military began setting up relief camps that could shelter 200 - 300 people.

Smaller camps made for better hygienic conditions for survivors but made it

particularly challenging for Food for Life. Devotees would cook in one camp

and then distribute to many. However, time, was not on our side. It took all

day just to feed 2000-3000 people.

 

This logistical challenge coupled with the fact that many survivors now

living in relief camps were getting supplied rice and dhal, meant that Food

for Life's efforts became more of a complimentary service to what the

government was already doing. Granted, Food for Life teams were serving a

more nutritious and balanced meal to survivors, and it was prasadam, but the

fact that people were not starving presented a philosophical challenge as

well.

 

As a result, Food for Life began identifying camps that were being

underserved and focusing its efforts more on quality and not quantity. With

a large amount of the donations not being necessary to support the prasadam

distribution, Food for Life Global decided to focus its attention and these

unused funds on helping the Bhaktivedanta Children's Home. Considered by

many to be the best orphanage in all of Sri Lanka, the Home had been caring

for 80 orphans when the tsunami hit. These children were not only receiving

Krsna prasadam, but the holy name as well.

 

Soon, more poverty-stricken and orphaned children began arriving at the Home

and it became essential to expand the facilities. Food for Life Global

established a fund raising office and quickly began setting up a child

sponsorship program. Non-devotee volunteers came from the US specifically to

assist in this endeavor. Food for Life Global managed these volunteers,

providing accommodation and prasadam while they worked full time on various

services to help the Home. The biggest realization I got from this

experience is that Food for Life, especially emergency relief projects, are

the perfect medium to engage non-devotees in devotional service. In fact,

the response to help Food for Life Global in its tsunami relief efforts was

so overwhelming that hundreds of volunteers had to be turned away. More than

500 professional men and women, including doctors, nurses, lawyers, pilots,

firefighters, TV producers, journalists, actors, business owners, soldiers,

plumbers, and even boat captains filled out an application to volunteer for

Food for Life! Now if this is not Krishna indicating to us how affective

Food for Life is, I don't know what is! The response was unprecedented in

the history of ISKCON.

 

Srila Prabhupada explains the responsibility of devotees to give sadhu sanga

to the fallen conditioned souls, and once again, the potency of prasadam:

 

.. . .all our devotees in the ISKCON community should become pure vaisnavas,

so that by their mercy all the people in the world will be transferred to

Vaikunthaloka, even without their knowledge. Everyone should be given a

chance to take prasada and thus be induced to chant the holy names of Hare

Krishna and also dance in ecstasy. By these three processes, although

performed without knowledge or education, even a dog went back to Godhead

(CC Antya lila 1.32 pp).

 

Not only is the Food for Life program a great medium for expanding prasadam

distribution "universally" (per Prabhupada's request), but it is also one of

the many ways in which devotees can give their association to the

non-devotees, especially those whom would ordinarily be difficult to

approach through other methods. In this regard there is a very nice

instruction from Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura about the power of sadhu sanga:

 

In the scriptures devotional service and pious activity are considered

fortunate. Pious activities can be divided into three categories:

 

1) Pious activities that awaken one's dormant Krishna consciousness are

called Bhakty-unmukhi sukrti.

2) Pious activities that bestow material opulence are called

Bhogonmukhi sukrti

3) Pious activities that enable the living entity to merge into the

existence of the Supreme are called Moksonmukhi sukrti

 

The last two awards of pious activity are not actually fortunate. Pious

activities are fortunate when they help one to become Krishna conscious. The

good fortune of Bhakty-unmukhi is attainable only when one comes in contact

with a devotee. By associating with a devotee willingly or UNWILLINGLY one

advances in devotional service, and thus one's dormant Krishna consciousness

is awakened. (CC Madhya lila 22.45 pp)

 

Food for Life ki jay!

 

ys Priyavrata Das

 

 

> >Regarding food distribution, they may come to take at our Temple. With

> >travelling sankirtana we can distribute wherever we go, but not to the

> >emergency spot, like that.

> > --letter to Jayapataka Swami, 09/28/76

> >

> > ("After we did local flood relief and food distribution we found it

> > to

> >be quite effective in various ways. I wrote Srila Prabhupada whether we

> >could go to similar relief to the Bay of Bengal Coast if there was a

> >cyclone (hurricane type storm) or similar crisis. Srila Prabhupada gave

> >the above reply." --letter to Priyavrata Dasa from Jayapataka Swami,

> >12/12/94)

>

>

> Dear Bhakti Vikasa Maharaja,

>

> Please accept my humble obeisances unto your lotus feet. All glories to

> Srila Prabhupada.

>

> I happened to be involved in FFL relief effort in Chechnya (that is, by

> all considerations in an emergency zone) for some 4 months out of 18

> months years.

>

> I can attest here that during that 1.5 years:

>

> - not only did we get some "cheap popularity", when both Muslims and

> Russians, armed rebels and troops, governments and international charity

> workers, reporters and local clergy -- in other words literally EVERYBODY

> swore that "Hare Krishnas" were living saints (which they really were,

> living in ruins for 18 months while feeding 3.000 people every single day

> with no sources of money and food),

>

> - not only would all local Muslims knew and loved devotees to the point of

> folding hands and saying "Hare Krsna" whenever they saw us,

>

> - not only did book distribution throughout Russia surge by leaps and

> bounds, when affluent people would get out of their limousines just to

> shake hands with a sankirtana devotee and ask him for one of those books

> "which makes people so selfless and humane",

>

> - not only did we get a tremendous amount of most positive publicity

> throughout the world extolling devotees as the only Russians who risked

> their lives to save their own brethren,

>

> - not only did other international charities start requesting us to teach

> them effective emergency relief strategies, techniques and public

> relations, and consider it an honor for themselves to give our program

> some bulk food or logistic assistance,

>

> - not only UK Overseas Development Agency, impresses with our work, offer

> us some $380.000 for six months to support prasadam distribution,

>

> - not only did UN, OSCE and other international bodies include us in their

> reports as examples of most positive impact on the war-ravaged country and

> its people, which they tried so hard to get together,

>

> - not only would our beneficiaries come begging us to please reveal to

> them the recipe of "that miracle porridge", which tasted so wonderfully --

> and which in actuality contained nothing but millet, water, hardly any

> salt, no butter or sugar, but an abundance of Lord Caitanya's mercy,

>

> - not only would local Muslim leaders protect and respect our program so

> much so that when some scoundrels took our only van away at gunpoint, they

> threatened them to immediately return the car to us or else "Allah will

> never forgive you",

>

> - not only would they come respectfully asking our view on different

> theological issues and would sit politely conversing with us about

> philosophy of the BG and the Koran,

>

> - BUT also that we -- a handful of junior devotees -- felt there so

> intensely ecstatic and blissful, so inspired and infused with the mercy of

> Lord Caitanya helping desperate people, that we were literally pleading

> with our authorities to never take us away from the dangers of the Chechen

> war back to our quite and peaceful ashrams.

>

> SB 8.7.39: "People in general, being bewildered by the illusory energy of

> the Supreme Personality of Godhead, are always engaged in animosity toward

> one another. But devotees, even at the risk of their own temporary lives,

> try to save them."

>

> Are we now to consider the above just some "mundane charity", which

> displeases Srila Prabhupada and goes against his explicit instructions and

> desires? And what else should have we done there amidst raging war save

> and except a massive and intelligent prasadam distribution at governmental

> expense?

>

> Of course, I can also fully sympathize with the apprehension that such

> charitable activity can potentially degrade to mere mundane work. But what

> possibly cannot?

>

> Even giving lectures on Srimad Bhagavatam, worshipping the deity, chanting

> Hare Krsna and distributing books, as we all know just too well from Srila

> Prabhupada's books and our own experience, can be performed for completely

> materialistic purposes.

>

> I could witness myself that in India in some ISKCON temples this has

> already started to happen -- when food for distribution, although

> nicknamed "prasadam", is not even offered, is cooked by non-devotees and

> distributed just for the sake of creating good reputation and helping to

> collect more donations. I think THIS is what we should be concerned with

> as a downright deviation from Srila Prabhupada's teachings and should try

> to change or stop it by all means.

>

> But the same vigilance applies to any other insincerely performed anga of

> devotional service, which in that case becomes no less of a mundane

> activity that mundane food distribution. So, with this danger in mind, are

> we supposed to get rid of all angas of devotional service altogether -- or

> just to perform them correctly.

>

> With your kind permission would like to conclude with a very clear and

> self-evident quote from Srila Prabhupada's purport on SB 4.12.10 -- which,

> according to Srila Jayadvaita Maharaja's brilliant essay "The VedaBase:

> What to make of what you find", hold the ultimate level of authority

> exceeding that of quotes from his letters:

>

> "Somehow or other, everyone can manage to perform such a yajna and

> distribute prasada to the people in general. That is quite sufficient for

> this age of Kali. The Krsna consciousness movement is based on this

> principle: chant the Hare Krsna mantra at every moment, as much as

> possible, both inside and outside of the temples, and, as far as possible,

> distribute prasada. ***This process can be accelerated with the

> cooperation of state administrators and those who are producing the

> country's wealth.*** Simply by liberal distribution of prasada and

> sankirtana, the whole world can become peaceful and prosperous".

>

> As we see, the quote above gives full scope for all forms of vast and

> massive prasadam distribution that can secure governmental and business

> community's support. And if we come to conclude that all we have to do to

> secure their full cooperation in our devotional service to Krsna is just

> to be organized, reliable AND socially relevant -- what's wrong with that?

>

> Please forgive me for my being so long-winded and brazen here.

>

> Begging to remain

>

> your servant,

> Madana-mohana das