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Bhaktivedanta Leadership Newsletter

 

Bhaktivedanta Coaching interview by Bhakta Uros Colja with Akrura dasa

at ISKCON Ljubljana, Slovenia, on 15 May 2006

 

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In short, What is Bhaktivedanta Coaching?

 

Bhakitvedanta coaching is service to ISKCON devotees helping them to learn

well Srila Prabhupada's instruction's and apply them into their lives.

 

What are the benefits of Bhaktivedanta Coaching?

 

Benefits are manyfold, I can describe the main ones. Devotees that are

aproching coaching can improve their sadhana, japa, relationships with other

devotees, they can improve their faith in Krishna, their intuition, they can

be more disciplined, more determined, they can become more productive and

more learned. All these things, depending on what someone wants to achieve.

Coaching facilitates all the processes of devotional service that have been

given to us, that we should practice and that we should improve and perfect.

 

Who is a coach in Bhaktivedanta Coaching?

 

Choach is a servant. Servant of devotees and is something like a fellow

traveler. He is not an expert, he is not a senior, he is not a preacher, not

a guru, but someone who tries to serve devotees by facilitating achievement

of their goals and helping them suceed in their chosen areas. And he tries

to create conversations and also systems, structures and tools, specificaly

customized for each individual, because every devotee is different. So every

devotee is different and in the same time every devotee is amazing.

 

Everyone who aproched Krishna is amazing and this is also our moto, 'Every

soul is amazing'. Especialy every devotee is amazing and is a special soul.

So with this vision we try to help them release their potential. They have

amazing potential to serve Krishna, they can do wanders. If that potential

is somehow covered or blocked, they cannot bring it out, so coaching is

facilitating that their potencial can come out in wonderfull ways.

 

Are you applying for new coaches?

 

At the moment I am mainly doing coaching and I have inclination to enagage

those who would be interested. Coaching skills are useful for leaders and

managers, so even if someone is not inspired to be a coach but is, for

example, interested to be a leader, it's good for him to develop coaching

skills, because most of the coaching skills are so caled soft skills -

people skills. And to be a coach one has to have or strive to develop

braminical qualities.

 

 

 

 

Who can be a coach - What are the qualifications for being a coach?

 

To be a Bhaktivedanta coach one has to follow the four regulative

principles, chant 16 rounds daily, at least, this is minimum, than to know

Bhagavad Gita to quite a good extent, to know basics of the philosophy of

Krishna consciousness and he must have a sincere desire to help other

devotees suceed in devotional service and other areas that are needed to

support their devotional service.

 

How do you know if a person is appropriate to be a coach?

 

In the beginnig we have a small desire, we may think this could be a good

service or have an inclination to work with people, to help people.

 

There is a Vedic principle, that Srila Prabhupada mentions in regard to

leaders. He says that leaders should make people happy. Leader means one who

makes people happy: sarva sukhino bhavantu. This Vedic principle means 'let

everyone become happy' and this is only possible through spiritual life,

through

Krishna consciousness.

 

So, we want to follow in the footsteps of previous acaryas by helping people

become happy spiritualy and also materialy if possible. If someone has even

a small desire to serve like this, this is good, and it can be improved.

 

So potential coach with a trainer-coach, can increase his desire to help

people. He can see how coaching is good for him and also how this changes

and transforms peoples' lives.

 

We are all naturaly envious of each other because we are envious of Krishna

and therefore we are envious of His parts and parcels. Some devotees

develope a taste for helping others, for preaching, for supporting or

guiding others. In short, for making others happy.

 

So they can increase that, get more into that, they can increase their taste

for helping others.

 

Does life coach work only in the spiritual area of life?

 

We help not only in spiritual life, but also in other aspects of devotees'

lives. Becaue this other aspects also help spiritual life.

 

Idealy speaking we will help people to attain bhakti and vedanta. Pure

devotion and highest knowledge. And in the process of helping others, we

also expect to grow oursevels. We are not perfect, we don't say we have

attained bhakti and vedanta. We strive to please Krishna by helping others

and that He will be merciful to us and help us to attain these things. And

sometimes we also take coaching from other people.

 

We also help devotees in other areas. Let's say devotee has dificulties in

area of finance and we can help them to save money, to spend more carefully,

maybe to find ways to support their needs and their lives.

 

We can help with relationships. Sometimes these relationships are not

spiritual. Devotee' s relationships in a family of nondevotees can be a

great source of stress for a devotee. For example, if parents are against

practicing bhakti yoga. Sometimes we can help someone with health problems

not as a doctor but we can just help them to define what is it that they

have to change in their lives in order to be more healthy and fit for their

spiritual developement.

 

Is there a lot of personal change involved in coaching?

 

I would say so. Change of thinking, change of seing. Especialy changing how

we see ourselfs and how we see others. Important for a coach is to try to

see people in terms of their potential not in terms of their present

behaviour or performance. In other words, Bhaktivedanta coach tries to see

people as a soul who is amazing.

 

Is the coach really interested in the success of his clients or students?

 

Yes, coach is interested in helping devotees suceed.

 

Spiritual life coach or devotional life coach actually finds great pleasure

in seeing others grow or develop, become better devotees, have better

sadhana, have better japa, have more taste for hearing and chanting, serving

devotees, developing relationships, exchanging love between devotees,

gradualy getting spiritualy promoted, getting spiritualy initiated and

advancing in many areas.

 

What can a coach get from his service?

 

This is reward for him, because he knows that Krishna is pleased. Krishna

actually rewards a coach for this service. Just like Krishna says that one

who preaches is most dear to Him. Coaching may be described as kind of

preaching because it helps people grow spiritualy and become strong.

 

Why someone would trust this Bhaktivedanta Coaching, why is it special?

 

I think it is special because of the ultimate goal. It's definitely not

special because of me. It's special because of the goal and the goal is

bhakti, pure bhakti, that is the highest goal.

 

But coaching starts with very basic problems, like devotees have difficulty

being organised, completing their rounds, getting up in the morning, they

are overeating, they are eating late in the night, they are dreaming of

havenly planets or hellish planets. So all kinds of problems are there, we

start at very low level but then gradualy they become stronger and they

start to become organized, more together, and that is very nice. They become

more happy and coach becomes more happy

 

 

 

 

Do you have any testimonials for your coaching?

 

We have few succes stories on our website, from several senior and younger

devotees from different areas. Devotees whom we coach actually say that it

benefits them and want to continue and I see good results. Results are very

obvious, not something imaginary.

 

Who would be your perfect clients, whom you would most like to coach?

 

My perfect clients, people whom I would be most entusiastic to coach are

those who want to help others. And my most cherrished, my favorite coaching

is helping them do that, helping them develop the abillity to help others

and therefore besides coaching devotees I like traning devotees to be

coaches or mentors.

 

That is why we had a seminar in the Bhaktivedanta College Radhadesh with 25

devotees. We provided tree days of a coaching seminar and some of them liked

it and started coaching others. They have several coaches now. They are

coaching students in a college. Sometimes teachers coach each other and in

that way we have a very nice chain of assistance, a very specific assistance

in the form of coaching. I believe effective one-to-one assistance can bring

about a lot of positive change in ISKCON.

 

Your final message?

 

If you continue doing what you are doing, you will continue getting what you

are getting. Don't wait too long to start to change, don't wait too long to

start to improve, because it can be too late. Get all assistance that you

need and achieve maximum spiritual success in this lifetime. Hare Krishna.