prasada to poor people

[Guest guest]

On 30 Dec 2001, Bhakti Vikasa Swami wrote:

 

> which Hari-sauri Prabhu has reconciled thus:

>

> > The danger Srila Prabhupada saw of prasada distribution being done only to

> > the poor is that it might then be taken by the givers as well as the

> > recipients as some kind of mundane altruism.

 

And we have answered the quote in question. You keep advertising one side, the

extreme and anti-social approach. We are saying that both can be used in

Krsna's service. Sometimes Hari Sauri says "good points" meaning he agrees

with you and sometimes he says both can be used? We have no problem with your

thinking, but we don't understand Hari Sauri.

[Guest guest]

On 30 Dec 2001, Madhusudani Radha wrote:

 

> "Less productive"? I hope you're not saying that it's less "productive" to

> turn a poor person into a bhakta than it is a rich one.

 

In that case, he means that neo-liberalism can certainly also be used in

Krsna's service.

[Guest guest]

At 06:34 AM 12/30/2001 -1000, Madhusudani Radha (dd) JPS (Mill Valley, CA -

USA) wrote:

>At 10:59 AM 12/30/01 +0400, you wrote:

> >The whole idea of distributing prasadam to the poor is not bad.But, the

> >point was if the labour is invested for the rich , the Poor is automatically

> >taken care of.

>

>Sounds like an ISKCON version of Reagan's "trickle-down" economoc theory.

>Unfortunately, it didn't work because the rich were too greedy to trickle

>and just considered everything they received to be their good fortune,

>without feeling obliged to help (or even to pay decent wages to) the poor.

 

And, to those of us with nothing to trickle, it felt more like

"tinkle-down" economics. (If you don't get it, take consolation in your

good fortune.)

 

 

> >The devotees don't waste valuable time at less productive output.

 

Like Srila Prabhupada's struggle to establish his mission in Jhansi? How is

any endeavor in service to Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu a waste? And what about

his hare-brained idea of taking a freighter to New York at the advanced age

of 70? Anyone with any sense could have (and in fact did) seen that it was

a foolish thing to try. No one in America was interested in real spiritual

life. (Never mind that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada sometimes

said that if he had another 10 years, he would go preach in America.)

 

In a private meeting in 1973, Srila Prabhupada told a Godbrother, my wife,

and me that devotees and devotional service cannot be stereotyped. There is

nothing that cannot be used in Krishna's service. The only trick is that we

require guidance form the expert spiritual master how to engage everything

in Krishna's service. Whether such activities as are being discussed here

are mundane depends on the motivation and mentality of the devotees engaged

in those activities.

 

Babhru das