Associating with Devotees, Caring for Devotees——with Mauritian Devotees

Giriraj Swami: The Nectar of Devotion or Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu enumerates five most potent forms of devotional service and one of them is sādhu-saṅga. Srila Rupa Gosvami gives the definition of sādhu-saṅga: sajātīyāśaye snigdhe, sādhau saṅgaḥ svato vare, which means that one should associate with devotees who are sa-jātīya, likeminded, or who have a similar affection for the Lord. That is one of the ways it has been translated. Snigdhe means those who are affectionate towards you, and svato vare, and who are more advanced than you. Of course sometimes we are with people who are considered peers—ordinarily they are considered peers—but the mood of a devotee is that he sees the other as more advanced than he is and therefore one can have sādhu-saṅga. 

I will relate one story. When His Holiness Sacinandana Swami was performing a very strong nāma-vrata during Kartika at Radha-kunda some years ago, almost his whole time was engaged in his vrata, but still we wanted to spend some time together and he made some time for us to meet. We discussed the point of sādhu-saṅga that one should associate with a devotee who is more advanced than oneself. And he made the same point that from a certain point of view someone would say that, “Giriraj Swami and Sacinandana Swami are peers or equals,” but internally Sacinandana Swami is thinking, “Giriraj Swami is more advanced than I am. I can learn from him,” and Giriraj Swami is thinking, “Sacinandana Swami is more advanced than I am. I can learn from him.” And “learn from a more advanced devotee” means a combination of hearing from him and also serving him. Otherwise we will think, “A more advanced devotee, we have a find someone from another generation or someone who is outwardly in a different category.” But if one is in the mood that Srila Prabhupada wanted us to be in which is the mood that devotees naturally are in, we can get sādhu-saṅga even from people who are in a way peers, who are in the same generation of disciples, more the same cultural background. We don’t have to look for someone who is eighty years old and who knows Sanskrit or whatever the criteria that people might think distinguishes someone as more advanced, but we can have it even with our peers if we are in the proper mood.

So Mauritius is such a place that people can very easily participate in Krishna consciousness, at least the population who are from Hindu backgrounds, they can very easily come to the association of devotees and take up the practices of Krishna consciousness, but to go deeper, they need sādhu-saṅga—-everyone needs sādhu-saṅga. Every devotee needs sādhu-saṅga—-and to facilitate that process of sādhu-saṅga, I wanted to introduce a system of regular association again because it is so easy for people in Mauritius to come to the association of devotees and take up the practices; it is very easy for a preacher to have many new people to deal with. But for us to really mature in Krishna consciousness and progress we need sādhu-saṅga, we need to associate with people whom we consider more advanced or more matured, more experienced, more devoted, and that will really nourish our devotional creepers. 

In Mumbai I established a program called Mitra program. Mitra is a Sanskrit word that means “friend” or “well-wisher.” In one place Srila Prabhupada translates it as “munificent benefactor.” So we all need mitras. n Mumbai one couple, Sridhama and Kishore who are disciples of His Holiness Radhanath Swami, they have travelled to many parts of the world and helped establish the counselor system or some variety of the counselor system that His Holiness Radhanath Swami developed with the devotees in Chowpatty, they have been working with my disciples in Mumbai to establish the Mitra program there and the program has been very helpful. It’s helpful to the mitras because they associate with the other mitras and they are nourished in their spiritual lives and they also have other devotees for whom they are mitras, sort of like older brothers or older sisters, and they take care of them, but the group of mitras together is responsible for everyone. Although one particular mitra may be working with one particular devotee but ultimately the group of mitras is responsible for all the devotees.

Because Mauritius is a little isolated, we can’t really at least immediately replicate what we did in Mumbai in Mauritius because to really be a mitra, as the role has been defined in Mumbai, one needs to be trained. It’s not a small thing. But even then there are naturally more senior devotees, more mature devotees, and they will naturally give guidance to the less senior or less experienced devotees. So just to make a beginning I identified some of the senior disciples who I have had personal experience with and who I felt could take on the service of being a mitra but more like as I said an older brother or older sister. So the idea is that everyone should have a friend in Krishna consciousness, someone that he or she can reveal his or her mind to. 

Again, Rupa Gosvami in Sri Upadeśāmṛta discusses the prīti-lakṣaṇam, the symptoms of love shared between devotees and Srila Prabhupada says that these exchanges nourish the lives of the members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. So you know the verse and if you don’t you should learn it, at least the meaning of it: dadāti pratigṛhṇāti guhyam ākhyāti pṛcchati bhuṅkte bhojayate caiva ṣaḍ-vidhaṁ prīti-lakṣaṇam. There are three pairs of exchanges: dadati pratigrhnati, it means giving gifts in charity and accepting charitable gifts; and bhuṅkte bhojayate caiva means offering someone prasāda and the other side is accepting prasāda; and the middle two which are very crucial are guhyam ākhyāti pṛcchati. That means revealing one’s mind in confidence and enquiring confidentially. Srila Prabhupada explains that a less mature devotee enquires and a more mature devotee answers. So this type of relationship, this type of exchange is essential for our progress in Krishna consciousness, for nourishing our devotional creepers. 

And so I as mentioned, I identified some devotees who I thought to begin with could play that role. It is just a service that they are taking up to help all of you and to help themselves. I remember one year when I was in Mauritius and Mahatma Prabhu was there he was talking about our function as devotees that our function as devotees is to give mercy and he mentioned an experiment that was done with cows that if cows had milk and they were not able to give that milk to their calves or anyone, if they just held the milk inside, they became sick. So Mahatma Prabhu was making the point that we have Krishna consciousness inside of us, we have spiritual understanding inside of us, and it is our duty to give it to others and share it with others and if we don’t do that we get sick. So that is the idea of this program. And it is often like that between friends, one time one friend will inquire of the other. He will be more like the student and the other friend will be the teacher. And then the next day or the next hour, the next week the one who was the teacher will have a question and he becomes the student and the other friend who began as the student, he becomes the teacher. It is just a sort of natural reciprocation. It is not that these relationships are fixed or regimented or stereotyped.

So to begin with, I did identify some disciples who I thought could do this service and ideally, because a lot of devotees are householders and they may have questions related to gṛhastha-āśrama, they may need help related to gṛhastha-āśrama, so ideally we will have some mitras that are husband and wife and they work together. Say if there is a couple that has some difficulty or needs some help, so they could work together to help the couple.

In alphabetical order, without any other significance, we thought of Devaki-nandana Prabhu and his wife, Giridhari Prabhu and his wife, Guru-carana Padma dasi—of course her husband is away most of the time but there is also certainly a role for men without wives or women without husbands—Krsna-candra Prabhu and his wife, Raghunatha dasa and his wife, and Satyabhama dasi. There are two others that I haven’t even spoken with yet but I’ll mention their names now because they are also quite senior and capable. One is Radha-Goloka Nanda dasi and the other is Sudama Prabhu and his wife. 

There is a lot that could be said on this subject of association. There are instructions from Narada Muni from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam about how a senior should relate to a junior, how a junior should relate to a senior, and how equals should relate with each other. So we have all these relationships, every single one of us has someone who’s more senior than he or she is, someone who is more junior than he or she is, and someone who is more or less equal. And so Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam tells us how we should relate in those relationships. Someone who is more senior, he should be affectionate to someone who is more junior and try to help the person with appropriate instructions and practical help. And someone who is more junior should try to learn from the more senior devotee and serve the more senior devotee and please him or her. And those who are equal should have genuine friendship with each other and be able to share their confidential thoughts with each other and ask intimate questions to each other. 

But there is also a contaminated version of each of these relationships which Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam also describes. So in the contaminated relationship or mundane relationship the superior wants to exploit the junior and in the perverted version of the relationship the junior is envious of the superior and wants to bring him down. And the contaminated version of the relationship between peers is that together they both think they are better than others and they boast to each other about what they’ve done and how qualified they are. Because they are not completely pure, there will be some tendency for contamination to enter our relationships, but still the relationships are essential. We cannot live in Krishna consciousness without these relationships. So while engaging in these relationships we have to work on purifying ourselves and purifying the relationships so that the relationships are not affected by the types of contaminations that we just mentioned, that Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam mentions.

So there are many details but the basic idea is that we have to associate and we have to set aside time to associate, otherwise we can just be very busy with our own affairs—our work, our family, or even our sadhana, our service—but we really do need this type of association in order to develop properly and progressively. So that is the basic idea.

Now do any of you have any questions or comments?