NOI 4 – Srimad Bhagavatam 7.5.12 – How to Keep Devotees Together and Bring Them Closer to Krishna

Anuradha dasi: Hare Krishna. Welcome to the GBC SPT Facebook page, where we are hosting, an event celebrating the incorporation day of ISKCON, by honoring the seven purposes as laid out by Srila Prabhupada and today, we are going to be discussing the third purpose with His Holiness Giriraj Swami.

Thank you so much for joining us Maharaja. We are very honored to have you. So many of our viewers know, know your biography Maharaja but for those who are new, I’m just going to share a little bit about you. This morning we were very fortunate to have hosted His Holiness Radhanath Swami, who was also discussing the third purpose. So, this is a wonderful opportunity to have you as well.

So, the third purpose of ISKCON is to bring the members of the society together with each other and nearer to Krishna-the Prime Entity, thus developing the idea within the members and humanity at large that each soul is part and parcel of the quality of Godhead, Krishna. So, a little bit about Giriraj Swami.

Giriraj Swami actually met Srila Prabhupada, when he was a student at Brandeis University and it is said, that he says, that he learned more in one brief conversation or exchange than his many years of academic education. And after his initiation he was given the opportunity to go to India, where he helped Srila Prabhupada establish his mission there. Now in terms of the third purpose of bringing members closer and nearer to Krishna, we all were unanimous in choosing His Holiness Giriraj Swami. Of course, there are so many devotees who have imbibed this particular purpose but Giriraj Swami was instrumental in the acquisition and development of the Bhaktivedanta ashram in Govardhana and also led the development of the Kirtan Ashram in Vrindavan for women. The Bhaktivedanta Hospice and the Vrindavan Institute of Palliative Care. And through his efforts he has become renowned for his austerities, loyalty, and dedication to Srila Prabhupada’s mission, his ability to raise funds and cultivate important members of society, and his care and concern for devotees around the world.

So, presently Maharaja is based in California, where he is now focusing on writing which was one of his main personal instructions that he received from Srila Prabhupada.

So to all of our viewers out there, if you are watching, please be sure to share this presentation on your personal Facebook pages and follow the GBC SPT page, where you can get notifications, on future events and with that I’m honored to ask Giriraj Swami to begin his presentation today. Thank you so much Maharaja.

Giriraj Swami: Thank you. To begin, I will sing the maṅgala-ācaraṇa prayers and lead a short kirtan and then speak. All glories to the assembled devotees. All glories, All glories to Sri Guru and Sri Gauranga. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

Hare Krishna. So, we are discussing, bringing the members of the society closer together. And an important section of the members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, especially in India, where I spent most of my time during Srila Prabhupada’s presence, were the life members. The Life Membership Program was introduced by Srila Prabhupada, soon after he and the devotees arrived in India in 1970, and the program was that, the life members would donate a certain amount- the first figure was 1,111 rupees and we would give them all of Srila Prabhupada’s books that existed at the time, all of Srila Prabhupada’s books in the future, a lifetime subscription to Back to Godhead magazine and the-the right to stay free of charge in all of ISKCON’s temples and guest houses. It was a very brilliant arrangement that Srila Prabhupada made, and at one stage Srila Prabhupada said that, if we have 20,000 life members in India, our mission will be a success. And at that time 20,000 seemed unimaginable but now we have way more than twenty thousand.

So, Tamal Krishna Goswami had a concern that the values of the books we gave the members would eventually exceed the one thousand one hundred eleven rupees, the members were committed to pay, and Srila Prabhupada replied the devotees will keep going back to them and in their lifetimes they will give five or ten times more than the membership subscription. We would continue to make new members, he said, and thus we would always keep ahead and he said that he had devised the program as a way to distribute his books. If we just piled them on a prospective member’s desk, he told us, the person would agree to become a member.

So, the reason I’m discussing the life members now, is because we are discussing this third purpose of ISKCON—which is to bring the members closer together. And the life members were really very important part of Srila Prabhupada’s spiritual family.

The membership program was a practical application of the fourth verse of Srila Rupa Gosvami’s Upadeśāmṛta for reciprocating with the members in exchanges of love;

NOI 4

dadāti pratigṛhṇāti

guhyam ākhyāti pṛcchati

bhuṅkte bhojayate caiva

ṣaḍ-vidhaṁ prīti-lakṣaṇam

TRANSLATION

Offering gifts in charity, accepting charitable gifts, revealing one’s mind in confidence, inquiring confidentially, accepting prasāda and offering prasāda are the six symptoms of love shared by one devotee and another.

COMMENT

In his purport, Srila Prabhupada applied the verse directly to Life Membership.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

The International Society for Krishna Consciousness has been established to facilitate these six kinds of loving exchanges between devotees. This Society was started single-handedly, but because people are coming forward and dealing with the give-and-take policy, the Society is now expanding all over the world. We are glad that people are donating very liberally to the development of the Society’s activities, and people are also eagerly accepting whatever humble contribution we are giving them in the shape of books and magazines dealing strictly with the subject matter of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

COMMENT

So that is dadāti pratigṛhṇāti-giving and taking. So, the life members would give their donations and we would give them books and magazines and other paraphernalia to facilitate their development in Krishna consciousness. Sometimes we hold Hare Krishna Festivals and invite life members and friends to participate in the feasting by accepting prasāda. Although most of our members come from the higher realms of society, they nonetheless come and take whatever little prasāda we have to offer them. So, that is bhuṅkte bhojayate, we would invite them to our festivals of Sunday programs, and offer them prasāda and often they would invite us to their homes, and offer us prasāda and we would accept. Sometimes the members and supporters inquire very confidentially about the methods of performing devotional service and we try to explain this. In this way our society is successfully spreading all over the world and the intelligentsia of all countries is gradually appreciating our Krishna conscious activities. The life of the Krishna conscious society is nourished by six types of loving exchange among the members. Therefore, people must be given the chance to associate with the devotees of ISKCON because simply by reciprocating in the six ways mentioned above, an ordinary man can fully revive his dormant Krishna consciousness.

So, the first of the six kinds of loving exchanges is dadati- giving gifts. The greatest gift is the holy name—which at first many people were unable to accept but we also gave them other more tangible gifts. I would carry mahā-prasāda sweets of tulasi leaves in a silver box and I would always bring a Krishna conscious book, cassette tape, or picture. Back to Godhead, BTG subscriptions also served to both enliven and impress our members. And Prabhupada said, that the whole purpose of the magazine, was to get people to chant Hare Krishna. In Bombay he also instructed us to send a monthly newsletter to the magazine to the members informing them of developments in the movement-“so they don’t think we are dead” and so we developed a regular local publication called the Hare Krishna monthly with news announcements, advertisements, and our yearly audited accounts. So, yeah this is, this is how we come closer together in loving exchanges. So, yeah we began with this general explanation by Srila Prabhupada, and then we discuss dadāti—giving gifts.

The next exchange is pratigṛhṇāti—accepting gifts. When I engaged in dadāti (giving gifts). I tried not to be too anxious about pratigrhnati—accepting gifts in return. I was convinced that if we help people advance spiritually, Krishna would be pleased, and that if Krishna would be pleased, others would also be pleased and our mission would be successful. Pratigṛhṇāti would follow automatically when the relationship was sufficiently developed along the other five principles of loving exchanges. As a rule, after giving someone a gift. I would never accept any payment or donation on the spot, even if the person offered. Only later would I ask when we needed substantial help for some major project. And by then most people were already eager and glad to help.

The next exchange is bhojayate—giving prasāda. Prabhupada taught us to hold feasts on Sundays and other special days and to make a special effort to invite our friends and members. He personally organized the first Life Member feast in Juhu and had us, his disciples, who are acting as hosts, perform all the services for the members, whom he treated as honored guests. Later whenever Prabhupada received special guests, he would insist that they take full prasāda. Sometimes the guest protested, “we cannot take prasāda in front of you, Srila Prabhupada” but he always insisted, “no, I will be happy to see you take prasāda.” If you give a man full prasāda, he once said, he will do anything for you.

The next two exchanges are guhyam ākhyāti pṛcchati—inquiring about and explaining confidential topics. While giving gifts and prasāda, I always tried to explain the confidential science of Krishna consciousness, and give donors a solid philosophical background for further devotional service. And when the time came to engage a person in some particular service, I would present the rationale for the service on the basis of reason and philosophy and disclose the request in a straightforward manner. I would endeavor to present our philosophy intelligently, without compromise but keeping in mind the understanding of the individual to whom I was addressing.

From my seniors I learned to detect prospective supporters’ doubts—even without their expressing them, and then speak in such a way as to remove their doubts. During my initial training in Bombay, I went with Madhudvisa Prabhu to meet a wealthy businessman who had become a life member. But when we were in the man’s office he negated. I had expected Madhudvisa to say, “you promise to give, you can’t refuse now” but instead he just talked with the man for about twenty minutes and then almost mystically to me, the man opened his desk drawer, and wrote out his check because Madhudvisa had understood what was holding him back, and spoke in such a way that all of his doubts and reservations were removed.

When I first went out on my own and approached an industrialist to become a life member, the man said, “first I have to ask my brothers.” When I reported this to Shyamasundara Prabhu, who had given me the industrialist’s name and sent me. He told me, “that’s just an excuse. You have to be intelligent enough to understand the person’s doubts and address them, without him even bringing them up.”

After visiting someone many times with gifts and inviting him to Juhu for prasāda, which naturally involved his or her seeing Hare Krishna Land, I might feel that the time had come to engage them in some particular substantial service. Whenever I did make a request, I would keep in mind Srila Prabhupada’s instructions on how ISKCON’s supporters could be engaged in dadāti. 

During one of our first meetings with life members in Bombay, he quoted Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.22.35.

etāvaj janma-sāphalyaṁ
dehinām iha dehiṣu
prāṇair arthair dhiyā vācā
śreya-ācaraṇaṁ sadā

“It is the duty of every living being to perform welfare activities for the benefit of others with his life, wealth, intelligence and words.”

So, this is one section of members—of the life members, and another section of members, of course, is our own devotees. So, with our own devotees, the same six-fold reciprocations of love apply. But with devotees, there are other more subtle considerations involved in our dealings with one another. And in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Seventh Canto, Srila Prabhupada has a very beautiful purport, in which he describes how devotees should relate with one another and if we follow this then, definitely we, members of the society, will come closer together on the spiritual platform. So, I will read from this purport.

Its Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto Seven, Chapter Five, “Prahlāda Mahārāja, the Saintly Son of Hiraṇyakaśipu,” Text Twelve.

TEXT 12

sa yadānuvrataḥ puṁsāṁ
paśu-buddhir vibhidyate
anya eṣa tathānyo ’ham
iti bheda-gatāsatī

TRANSLATION

When the Supreme Personality of Godhead is pleased with the living entity because of his devotional service, one becomes a paṇḍita and does not make distinctions between enemies, friends and himself. Intelligently, he then thinks, “Every one of us is an eternal servant of God, and therefore we are not different from one another.”

COMMENT

So, it’s a long purport but I will come to the point that really applies to devotees. Of course, it all does, but this particular paragraph explicitly explains how devotees should relate with one another.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

Everyone is a servant of the Lord, as confirmed in Caitanya-caritāmṛta by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu (jīvera ‘svarūpa’ haya — kṛṣṇera ‘nitya-dāsa’). As servants of the Lord, we are one, and there can be no questions of enmity or friendship. If one actually understands that every one of us is a servant of the Lord, where is the question of enemy or friend?

COMMENT

And here is Srila Prabhupada’s beautiful explanation for us. “Everyone should be friendly for the service of the Lord.” I repeat.

PURPORT (continued)

Everyone should be friendly for the service of the Lord. Everyone should praise another’s service to the Lord and not be proud of his own service. This is the way of Vaiṣṇava thinking, Vaikuṇṭha thinking. There may be rivalries and apparent competition between servants in performing service, but in the Vaikuṇṭha planets the service of another servant is appreciated, not condemned. This is Vaikuṇṭha competition.

COMMENT

So, Srila Prabhupada has explained the difference between transcendental competition and mundane competition or envy. In transcendental competition, one appreciates the good qualities or the good service of the other person but still to please guru and Krishna, one wants to excel the other person. So, that is transcendental competition, in which we acknowledge the other person’s good qualities and services. Mundane competition which is really, based on envy. In mundane competition one does not acknowledge the good qualities or the good service of the other person. Just a second, yes, so in transcendental competition the person acknowledges the good qualities in service of the other and in mundane competition or envy one does not do so.

For example, someone might say, Oh, such and such devotee has such and such good qualities. And out of envy we say, “oh I don’t think that devotee has such good qualities.” You may not know that the devotee that well, I know the devotee that devotee does not have such good qualities or does not do such good service.

So, that envy must be cleansed from the heart. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is meant for devotees who are free from envy; nirmatsarāṇāṁ satām. And yes for us to really come together as a society and be happy in Krishna consciousness, we need to cleanse our hearts of envy and that can be done by the general process of purification, chanting, and hearing ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanaḿ—saṅkīrtana, chanting of the holy names, cleanses the dirty things from the heart. And as Srila Prabhupada says, “the dirty things begin with thinking, I am this body and all envy and mundane competition stem from false identification with the body.”

So, we want to cleanse that ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanaṁ and then we’ll be able to come close to each other in a very harmonious way. And, of course when we keep Krishna in the center, which is the whole point of Krishna consciousness and the whole point of this verse and purport, naturally our relationships become harmonious.

In the in the verse Prahlada Maharaja uses the phrase paśu-buddhir—animalistic mentality and in the synonyms Srila Prabhupada renders paśu-buddhir, to mean thinking, that I am God. And although we may not, of course I did, before I met Srila Prabhupada but we may not consciously think that we are God but our psychology is that we are, that we are the center and everyone else should support us.

His Grace Bhurijana dasa, our dear godbrother, said that, it’s as if everyone is going around with the mentality, “Excuse me, I would like to make an important announcement. I am the centre of the universe and everyone is meant to support my pleasure.” That’s the psychology paśu-buddhir. He said that generally people envision life as a movie or a drama, in which they are the heroes, and everyone else is the supporting cast.

So, you can imagine everyone is walking around thinking—I’m the hero or heroine of this movie, and all of you are the supporting cast. You are supposed to support me in my exploits, and so there is conflict, I’m thinking, wait a minute here it is “I’m the hero you are supposed to be supporting me” and you are saying, “no no, I’m the hero you are supposed to be supporting me.” So naturally there will be lots of conflicts. But when we understand that Krishna is the center. He is the hero and we are all the supporting cast. Then we can cooperate with each other in the service of Krishna, for the pleasure of Krishna.

There may be rivalries and apparent competition between servants and performing service but in the Vaikuntha planets, the service of another servant is appreciated not condemned. This is Vaikuntha competition- there is no question of enmity between servants. Everyone should be allowed to render service to the Lord to the best of his ability and everyone should appreciate the service of others. Such are the activities of Vaikuntha. Since everyone is a servant, everyone is on the same platform and is allowed to serve the Lord according to his ability.

So yeah, this is real oneness. We are one because we are all servants of Krishna, and so there is no question of enmity. As confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā 15.15; sarvasya cāhaṁ hṛdi sanniviṣto,mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaṁ ca; the Lord is situated in every one’s heart, giving dictation according to the attitude of the servant. So, we are all servants of Krishna and as devotees, we understand our identities, as Krishna’s eternal servants. And in that sense, we are all one-we are Krishna’s servants but we are also individuals and we may have our own individual natures and our own individual desires. How we want to serve Krishna or how we think we can please Krishna more. And that variegatedness is pleasing to Krishna. If there is a vase full of flowers—if all the flowers are the same, even as something as beautiful as a red rose. But if the vases are composed of only red roses it won’t be as appealing or attractive as if there are different kinds of flowers, of different colors. So, Krishna is pleased by that variegatedness. They are all flowers but they are different kinds of flowers and combined together they make a very attractive offering. So, in the same way, we are all servants of Krishna but we are individual and our service is individual and each of our services have their own colors, their own fragrance, their own attractive qualities. Since everyone is a servant, everyone is on the same platform, and is allowed to serve the Lord according to his ability as confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā 15.15; sarvasya cāhaṁ hṛdi sanniviṣṭo,mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaṁ ca; the Lord is situated in everyone’s heart-giving dictation according to the attitude of the servant.

However, the Lord gives different dictation to the non-devotees and devotees. The non-devotees challenge the authority of the Supreme Lord and therefore the Lord dictates in such a way that the non-devotees forget the Lord’s service life after life and are punished by the laws of nature. But when a devotee, very sincerely, wants to render service to the Lord, the Lord dictates in a different way. As the Lord says in Bhagavad-gītā 10.10.

teṣāṁ satata-yuktānāṁ
bhajatāṁ prīti-pūrvakam
dadāmi buddhi-yogaṁ taṁ
yena mām upayānti te

“To those who are constantly devoted and worship Me with love, I give the understanding by which they can come to Me. “

PURPORT (continued)

Everyone is actually a servant not an enemy or friend and everyone is working under different directions from the Lord, who directs each living entity according to his mentality.

COMMENT

So, we are all simultaneously one and different. Now one other point about Vaikuntha thinking, which I learned from Srila Prabhupada when I first joined the Boston temple—Is that, well first of all, he said that if one person in the temple is doing well that will affect the whole temple in a positive way, and if one person in the temple is having difficulty—struggling, that will also affect the temple in a negative way. So, Srila Prabhupada said, that the mundane attitude is- “Oh this devotee is in maya, and I won’t have anything to do with that devotee.” And the Vaikuntha attitude is- “Oh that devotee is having difficulty, let me help that devotee.”

So, that should be our mood, to help others. Not only devotees, of course, we want to help innocent people, who are not envious—prema-maitrī-kṛpopekṣā. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam says that, prema; we should give our love to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, maitrī; we should make friendship with devotees. kṛpa; we should show mercy to the innocent by preaching to them and upekṣāḥ-we should neglect the envious. Because if we approach the envious, they’ll probably just become more inimical. So, it’s better not to approach them. Although Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura says, that as a matter of sadachar, by our good behavior, we can pray for them. We don’t approach them but we can pray for them.

So these are some reflections on the third purpose of ISKCON, on the occasion of the anniversary of the incorporation of ISKCON, and yeah I hope that we can be united and friendly, and close to each other in Krishna consciousness by the grace of our Founder Acharya, His Divine Grace, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. And to realize our potential as devotees, we should maintain our vows very carefully. Srila Prabhupada has written that in one purport in Caitanya-caritāmṛta that of all the instructions of the spiritual master, the spiritual master’s instruction to chant at least sixteen rounds daily is most essential. So, we should be very careful to chant our at least minimum sixteen rounds and of course follow the four regulative principles and that will give us the spiritual strength, to be everything that we should be, as devotees and servants of His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada.

So, I believe we have two minutes left. Anuradha devi dasi, would you like to say anything or would you like me to say anything in this last minute or two.

Anuradadha devi dasi: If you’d like to see anything in the last minute

Giriraj Swami: sorry

Anuradadha devi dasi: If you’d like to say something more Maharaja, we would be happy.

Giriraj Swami: well I take this opportunity to remember our dear departed godbrother, His Holiness Bhakti Charu Swami Maharaja, who was such an exemplary devotee and he really, I mean, of course, his loss is immeasurable but yeah he was really wonderful and very inclusive. He made everyone feel welcome and, so in the service of Srila Prabhupada and ISKCON, thinking of this purpose of ISKCON, to bring members of the society closer together, I believe that His Holiness Bhakti Charu Swami Maharaja’s example and instructions, will be a wonderful guidance for us, to help us fulfill that aim of ISKCON. Hare Krishna.

Anuradha devi dasi: Thank you so much Maharaja for joining us today. We really appreciate, especially the part, for bringing devotees together and creating a community based on the service and association with Srila Prabhupada. In addition to sharing this idea of variegatedness as well as how everyone should be friendly in their service to the Lord and praise another’s service to the Lord, this being the way of Vaishnava thinking. We really appreciate, how you mentioned the example of His Holiness Bhakti Charu Swami’s inclusive nature and an exemplary behavior.

So thank you so much and to all of our viewers thank you so much for joining us today. Please go ahead and share this important purpose of ISKCON by His Holiness Giriraj Swami and be sure to join us tomorrow for a presentation by His Holiness Lokanath Swami and Her Grace Narayani Mataji. So with that, I’m just going to go ahead and put the seven purposes of ISKCON and thank HH Giriraj Swami for joining us here today. Thank you so much Maharaja.

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna