Emergency Relief Work: Yes or No?

[Guest guest]

Madhavananda Prabhu wrote:

 

> I doubt that it

> would have been pleasing to Srila Prabhupada or Srila Bhaktisiddhanta if

> here in Orissa we directly imitated this story and collected money for

> food relief then refused to give it, in preference to "more direct

> preaching". I think that would have been anukara. And I think it would

> have brought nothing but trouble and a bad name to Srila Prabhupada and

> his ISKCON movement.

 

No one is saying that one should deliberately collect in the name of

something and use the money for something else. Prabhupada strictly warned

us against this.

 

Though Madhavananda Prabhu's reply puts forward some good points and I

appreciate that in a short time he has put together quite a lot of good

stuff but the main point has been missed in the reply. As per my humble

opinion why Bhaktisiddhanta deliberately took this extreme step of using the

money collected for flood relief for his theistic exhibition which brought

so much bad publicity for Gaudiya Math because he wanted to specifically

show that the Gaudiya Math was not going to act like a mundane relief

organization. And thus he wanted to attract basically those sincere people

who are seeking genuine spiritual upliftment to the Gaudiya Math.

 

Both Bhaktisiddhanta & Prabhupada were great proponents of massive prasadam

distribution. This is very clear and nobody can deny this. But the whole

discussion is about these emergency relief kind of activities. Like

Prabhupada encouraged us to do massive prasadam distribution but he also

told us how to do it.

 

"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, 28 September 1976

 

I would say that even though we are distributing Krsna prasadam it makes us

look like a relief organization if we go to the emergency spots.

 

And even though this kind of prasadam distribution in emergency situations

may not be a very serious kind of deviation or something but still the

devotees from all over the world get involved in this, the congregation

members get involved and the real mission of book distribution & direct

preaching gets diluted in a very subtle way. Also if you collect money from

outsiders for this purpose, most of them don't know what is the difference

between prasadam and ordinary food, so they see no difference in donating to

the Times of India Relief Fund or the ISKCON Relief Fund and again they get

the subtle impression that ISKCON is also a kind of relief organization.

Also when the non-devotee donors get a taste for giving these kind of

emergency relief donations they kind of loose the taste for donating for

book distribution (Vidya Dan), Janmashthami etc. We may get some cheap

popularity by doing emergency relief work but there is a chance that we may

weaken the faith of some of our sincere followers who are more valuable than

anything else. So all these activities are interlinked and have deep

implications.

 

Ofcourse the plans for mass prasadam distribution should go on in a big way

but they should go on throughout the year from the temples & our sankirtan

parties and not through these emergency relief activities which should be

avoided at all costs.

 

This is what I feel Srila Bhaktisiddhanta is teaching us through the

Midnapur incidents and what Prabhupada meant by sending the message quoted

above to Jayapataka Swami.

 

Your servant,

Nayana-rañjana d€sa