By Chaitanya Charan das
For the world, America is the land of Hollywood, Disneyland, Wall Street and the arena for fulfilling “the American dream.” For Americans, it’s the “Land for the free and the home for the brave.” However, for me, like many Indians, it had been for years the land of higher studies. Some twenty years ago, I had desired, as do many Indians, to go to the US for higher studies. And I had been well on course to going there, having done well in GRE (Graduate Record Examination), the exam for getting admissions in US colleges. But by Krishna’s merciful intervention, I had been introduced to the wisdom of the Bhagavad-gita. Being attracted by its bhakti-centered message, I had ended up staying back in India for “the highest studies,” as my spiritual master HH Radhanath Maharaja had referred to my decision to dedicate my life for studying the Gita.
And yet here I was on my way to America as my flight took off on 16 Sep, 2015, from Mumbai to Orlando, USA. Of course, I was going as a teacher of the Gita. Coincidentally, I happened to arrive in America on exactly the same day as Srila Prabhupada had arrived there fifty years ago. I prayed for his blessings so that I could do my small part for serving his mission.
Learning while teaching
During the next month, I found myself learning how the Gita was being lived in a culture distinct from its native culture and how its wisdom could be best communicated in such a culture. At the start of my trip, I had made a resolution to not repeat any class that I had spoken earlier. This resolution had two purposes: to ensure that I generated fresh content for my hearers on thespiriutalscientist.com and to mitigate the physical rigor of traveling by intensifying the intellectual adventure of speaking. For me, speaking becomes exciting when it doesn’t have to conform to predefined content. And speaking during my American tour did turn out to be an adventure: during the course of the talks and question-answers, I came up with over a hundred ideas for articles to add to the over five thousand ideas in my ideas file.
But sticking to the resolution of always speaking fresh content turned out to be much more difficult than what I had expected. I soon became aware that I didn’t know too many ways of making the Gita’s message intersect with the needs, interests and concerns of new people. So, I found myself repeating some, even many, points in my classes to new people, though I ensured that the content of my classes to devotees was mostly new.
Over the some forty classes I gave during my month long trip, I managed to stick to the resolution of not repeating a class. Even when I was scheduled to speak on a topic that I had spoken earlier, I managed to generate largely new content on that topic. While speaking at San Jose on rasa in Krishna-bhakti – a topic I had spoken twice and differently in Chowpatty and Pune – I came up with an impromptu acronym RASA (Redirection, Adaptation, Spiritualization, Appreciation) and took the class in a new direction. I was also scheduled to speak twice on “God Proposes, Man Disposes – Understanding Krishna’s Peace Mission” – a topic I had spoken on at a Sunday feast in Chowpatty. There, I had spoken on the pastime itself in detail, whereas in Seattle I focused on its context – both within the Mahabharata and within the bhakti philosophy – and in New Jersey I structured the talk around an acronym GOD (Grants free will, Offers counsel, Delivers Consequence).
I was somewhat intimidated while speaking at Alachua because it was filled with Prabhupada disciples, but their humility and kindness was humbling and inspiring. Speaking to them on the occasion of Radhashtami was an even greater challenge. By Radharani’s mercy, I spoke on “Appreciating Radharani’s position and devotion” and acquitted myself reasonably, if the sustained applause after the class was any indicator.
I started my last talk in Alachua by saying, “Today I will share a formula that I hope you will never use – it’s the formula for ruining relationships. The formula is: Judging without understanding.” After the class on “Judgmental mentality ruins relationships,” Brahma Tirtha Prabhu, one of the prime movers of ISKCON Resolve (an initiative for resolving conflicts within the devotee community), commented that the class was ISKCON Resolve in action.
Artha Program – Sacramento
My most action-filled speaking engagement was a talk in San Jose for Artha Forum on Leadership and Bhagavad Gita. The Artha Forum is an initiative for sharing spiritual wisdom to cultivate and channelize social responsibility among corporate leaders. The Forum had organized a panel discussion with three panelists scheduled to speak on “Spirituality and Leadership” and I was to give the keynote address. The panelists were Ron Pitamber, CEO, Heritage Hotels Group; Eason Katir, Former Finance Commissioner for the City of Davis, and Upendra Kulkarni, D-GM for Intel. During his talk, Mr. Kulkarni said, “Though I am a panelist and am expected to answer questions, I would like to ask Swamiji a question: Spirituality is about compassion, whereas business is about competition. How can the two go together?” During my talk, I started with a Powerpoint presentation as planned, but then took an impromptu detour to answer the question. I explained the Gita concept of the three modes and analyzed how competition can be in three modes. Competition in ignorance is about succeeding by destroying one’s competitors, whereas competition in goodness is about using the presence of competitors to bring out the best in oneself. When I explained the different types of competition and how spiritual wisdom can foster a culture of healthy competition, Mr Kulkarni as well as others in the audience clapped in applause. While speaking this point, I was thinking of Novak Djokovic’s statement after winning the US Open that his rivalry with Federer and Nadal had made him a better player than what he would otherwise have been. But not being sure how the audience would respond to a monk talking about sports players, I desisted from speaking that example. Soon I realized that I had misassessed my audience because after my talk one of the attendees quoted that very example for constructive competition.
Talk Highlights
My first talk to largely American students was at the University of South Florida, where an American devotee, Amrta Keli Mataji, is a chaplain and runs a yoga club. As soon as I entered the classroom, I noticed the warm, informal, friendly mood among the students and devotees. So, when we were all introducing each other and it was my turn to introduce myself, I felt inspired to confess, “As this is my first visit to America and my first talk to a largely American audience, I am a bit nervous.” The students laughed and one girl while introducing herself added, “Welcome to America. Relax – we don’t eat human beings here.” We all laughed and my class on the topic of “Love is the highest reality” took off lightheartedly and concluded with a lively QA.
After I spoke to students of the University of Florida on “How spirituality increases our social contributions,” an Indian student said that he had been an atheist till six months ago, but due to some experiences, had started looking for God. He had been watching the videos of Zakir Naik and had been attending the talks of a Christian pastor, and he compared those talks with my talk: “I felt they were trying to convert me to their belief system, whereas I felt you were trying to help me tackle my problems without trying to convert me.” I felt edified by his insightful appreciation, remembering one of the last messages of Bhakti Tirtha Maharaj: “We are not the propagators of a sectarian organization – we are the sharers of the non-sectarian wisdom for raising global consciousness.” That message had especially resonated with me and I felt grateful that it had permeated into my heart so that it became evident in my speech without any conscious effort on my part.
Kalakantha Prabhu, a senior Prabhupada disciple and author who has rendered the Gita and the Bhagavatam tenth canto into English poetry, invited me to speak at Krishna House, Gainesville. Krishna House is a spiritual hostel next to the University of Florida. Students – boys and girls, most of them Americans – stay there, attend the morning program, study the bhakti philosophy through daily Bhagavatam classes on selected verses and take prasad. The verse I had to speak on explained how Parikshit Maharaj prepared for his death by hearing. I spoke on “Death and the search for meaning” and several students, including Kalakantha Prabhu himself who attended the talk, appreciated the point that “Within the atheistic worldview, everything is meaningless – so atheists’ criticism of religion that its rituals are meaningless is meaningless.”
At Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO at a program arranged by Sanatana Priya Prabhu and other Denver devotees, I spoke on “Managing the mind through introspection and meditation.” While introducing the concept of the mind, I started by confiding, “Right now, a voice inside me is telling me that you are going to forget what you plan to speak, thus making a fool of yourself.” As the students laughed at my self-deprecating candor, I added, “That voice is the voice of the mind,” thereby attracting their full attention to the topic.
At Ohio State University, I spoke at the vegetarian club, which is run primarily by Naveen Krishna Prabhu and which is the only program I saw where an Indian is attracting a substantial Western audience. I spoke on “To manage the mind, regulate the mind’s diet” to an audience of largely American students. They come every week for a light, non-didactic vegetarian cooking class, but they all sobered and heard attentively when I explained that an unhealthy mental diet of negative thoughts and conceptions can be so dangerous as to make one million people commit suicide every year. After the talk, one boy told me privately that he had been contemplating suicide, but my talk had given him new direction and confidence.
I spoke on “IDEA – Four insights for facing adversities” to students of California State University, Channel Islands, at a program organized by Nandini Radha Mataji who is a Professor at that University. I used the acronym IDEA (Identity, Destiny, Eternity and Activity) to explain how spirituality can help us go through and grow through life’s adversities. An Indian girl asked how one could be detached without becoming hardhearted. I explained that detachment is not hardheartedness, but is clear-headedness – it enables us to step away from actions, situations and relationships that are detrimental to our growth.
At Bhakti Center, New York, I spoke on how Bhagavatam faces the problem of evil squarely in the eye by narrating Parikshit’s death – something that could well be misunderstood as God’s failure to protect his devotee. After my talk on “Appreciate the depth and length of your existence to appreciate Krishna’s love,” some attendees said that they liked the point that just as a baby needs to grow up to connect the comforting warmth of a blanket with her mother’s love, so too we need to spiritually grow up to connect the relief coming from devotional activities with Krishna’s love. I added that whereas the baby grows up naturally, we need to consciously strive for our spiritual growth by philosophical education and devotional cultivation.
At Seattle, I had a corporate program for employees of Microsoft and other software giants, where I spoke on, “How work becomes workload.” I explained the four self-sabotaging strategies of the mind using the acronym LOAD (Limitation, Obsession, Aversion and Dystopia). After the class, many attendees told that these were the very things happening in their minds and lives – and to counter it, they felt inspired to take to meditation earnestly.
In Los Angeles, I was given the service of speaking the Sunday feast class during the festival commemorating the 50th anniversary of Prabhupada’s arrival in America. Several devotees appreciated the point that, reciprocating with Srila Prabhupada’s determination, Krishna transformed mission impossible into mission unstoppable.
At my talk in Farmington Hills, Detroit, which happened to be my last talk in America, I spoke on “Our longing for love is perfectly fulfilled in Krishna.” As my family members were also present there, I tried to incorporate something personal to help them better connect with my talk and understand what had inspired me to become a monk. Speaking about my personal life was not a well-thought strategy, and when I spoke about my mother’s sudden death to leukemia some twenty-five years ago and how it had shattered me, I found myself emotionally overwhelmed and had to struggle to check my tears and continue speaking. I dared not look at my family members, lest their tears increase mine, and I spoke for a few minutes with closed eyes till I regained my composure.
Illuminating Association
During my visit to Denver, I had the association of Keshava Bharati Maharaja on the morning before and after I gave the Bhagavatam class. Maharaja heard my class from his room and when I returned to meet him, he appreciated the class and blessed me with a tight, long embrace. Our meeting of minds was instant – when Maharaja with endearing humility stated that he was just a fool living on a hill, referring to his staying at the Govardhan ashrama, I felt inspired to play on the word “fool” which in Hindi means flower and replied, “Yes, Maharaja, you are a flower adorning Govardhana.” When I commented that many people reduce scriptural scholarship to the capacity for memorizing and quoting verses, he spontaneously moved forward and shook hands with me in agreement. When I asked Maharaja how he maintained warm relationships with devotees who held antipodal positions on various sensitive social issues, he quoted the Gita 6.9 about being equipoised towards all. In fact, he quoted it thrice during our hour-long talk. I consider the verses of the Gita to be among my best friends. And just as discovering a new facet of a friend thickens our bond with them, so too did the repeated and relevant usage of this verse by Maharaja thicken my friendship with it.
At the Bhakti Center in New York, I met Satyaraja Prabhu, one of our movement’s most prolific authors. He is one of my writing heroes and we are both Back to Godhead co-editors. While reviewing articles, we often have jovial and serious email exchanges. Appreciating my consistent writing, he had a couple of years ago lovingly deemed me “the Indian Satyaraja.” During our meeting, I reminded him of that and he joked, “Given how well you are writing now, maybe I should be called the American Chaitanya Charan.” When I protested that my writing was nowhere near his, he replied endearingly, “Ok, you be the Indian Satyaraja, I will be the American Chaitanya Charan. And we will be spiritual brothers.” He had attended my class at the Bhakti Center and he appreciated my quoting Woody Allen (“I am not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens”). He told me that he is planning to imbibe Allen’s humorous style in his upcoming autobiographical book. We discussed various styles of writing and I marveled at his genius when he told me that he could envision in his mind a full article with its layout before he got down to writing it.
While in Los Angeles, I went to Santa Barbara to meet HH Giriraja Maharaja. As a disarmingly courteous host, Maharaja himself came out to receive us, then took me to his altar room and blessed me with his association for over 3 hours, 2 hours exclusively and 1 hour during a group lunch. I have served Maharaj as an editor for several years. During the course of the service, our candid and deep interactions, many over email and some in person, have made him one of my closest spiritual uncles. After talking about various contemporary issues, we focused on the book that Prabhupada had asked him to write: the history of ISKCON’s Juhu temple. We discussed how to diversify into new genres of writing, how to overcome writers’ block and how to synergize speaking and writing. I explained my idea for a new book called “The yoga of journaling” wherein I plan to channelize the New Age interest in journaling towards helping readers use their intelligence as the counselor of their mind, thus subtly conveying the Gita’s insights about our inner landscape. Maharaja liked the idea and gave his blessings for the book. When our meeting concluded, Maharaja offered his best wishes for the rest of my US trip. I thanked him and responded, “Maharaja, the best of my US trip has already come now that I have got your association.”
Monkish missteps
CCD with American students
Whenever I travel by flight, I ask for a wheelchair. At Indian airports, the wheelchair assistant had always been a male. When I had gone to Australia six months ago, I was escorted for the first time by a female assistant. Initially, I was taken aback, but over time, I have got used to female wheelchair assistants – they are usually middle-aged with a matronly air. But at Seattle, I was escorted by a young female wheelchair assistant who was iPhone-toting, gum-chewing and endearment-uttering. Every other sentence she spoke to me was filled with “honey”, “darling” and “dear.” Maybe it was a part of her normal behavior or maybe it was a front for getting a bigger tip, but her familiar manner left me discomfited. Still, seeing the whole situation as a test, I endured it.
While traveling, I usually don’t talk with neighbors except for an initial courtesy greeting. Departure from any place is usually preceded by some intense socializing. By the time such socializing ends, my introvert nature is screaming for oxygen, and I need to attend to it by tuning out the rest of the world and focusing on some intensely introspective activity such as praying or reciting verses or chanting or journaling. And my travel-neighbors, respecting my preoccupation, don’t usually initiate any conversation. But not always.
When I was going on a flight from Columbus to Charlotte en route to Boston, the middle-aged lady sitting next to me greeted me with a bright smile. As I returned her greeting and settled into my seat, she peered at me and then asked excitedly, “By any chance, are you a monk?” I nodded, feeling apprehensive at her excitement. On my affirmative response, she moved towards me, as if to embrace me. Maybe it was just my imagination or maybe she checked herself on seeing the alarm on my face. Anyway, she squeezed my shoulder and said, “During my last three trips, I have found myself sitting next to an Indian – and we had such interesting talks. I am so delighted to have an Indian monk sitting next to me now.” She had read the Gita and was very interested when I told her about gitadaily. We had a nice talk, though my cold prevented it from going on for too long. When she got off, she suddenly turned around, put her hand on my chest, smiled and told me, “Hope you recover from your cold.” We monks refer to women as mothers (mataji). I hadn’t addressed her thus, thinking that she as an American would find that form of address unfamiliar, even odd. Yet I couldn’t but be touched by her maternal concern.
On another occasion, I gave a talk at the Oregon State University (OSU) on the topic, “The Search for Happiness – Collecting the material or recollecting the spiritual?” A girl, who was studying environmental science and had come for the first time to the yoga club, was very interested throughout the class and asked a good question. When the class ended, she came forward with a bright smile to shake hands with me. If she had been an Indian woman, I would have folded my hands in Namaste, but she probably had no idea what that meant. Did I have a right to reject her courteous expression of appreciation, which was meant for the deliverer of Krishna’s message, just because it was offered in a cultural form incompatible with a monk’s code of avoiding physical contact with women? A few days ago, a senior devotee had told me that during his morning walks Prabhupada always greeted people with “Good morning” – not “Hare Krishna.”
Deciding that my role as a spiritual teacher was more important than my role as a monk, I shook hands with her for just a moment. It was after twenty years that I shook hands with a woman. Actually, I don’t remember shaking hands with any woman ever, but I must have received some congratulatory handshakes from my female co-students after I had cracked GRE in college some two decades ago.
I had hoped that shaking hands would be the end of it. But far from it, she asked whether she could have a photo clicked with me. Where I come from, the idea of a monk posing for a photo with a girl was unacceptable. I looked around for the organizers to intervene, as they would probably have in India, but they seemed to have gone missing in action. I had known for long that my social reflexes were much duller than my intellectual reflexes, but just how dull they were I came to know in the next few moments. As I was trying to wrap my head around her request and think of a courteous way of declining, I saw her giving her phone to a friend and coming to stand next to me. Maybe I shook my head in amazement at the bizarre idea and she took that as an assent. And before I could do anything to stop it, the photo had been clicked. Alarm bells started ringing in my head as it filled with the specter of someone googling me and finding my picture with her. Jolted into action, I tried to salvage the situation by asking all the other students there to come for a group photo and requested her that if she planned to put any photo on Facebook, she put the group photo and not the photo of just the two of us.
How far apart were the cultural universes that we monks have to navigate became clear to me that evening when I came to the Seattle temple for a program. While entering the temple building, my crutches slid on the somewhat slippery floor and I fell forward. For me, such falls are not uncommon, but for onlookers, they are often causes of alarm. The devotee who was escorting me to the temple hall immediately picked me up from the left shoulder and a mataji who had been watching me enter sprang forward to help me rise from the right. Maybe someone glanced disapprovingly at her, but for whatever reason, as soon as I rose, she shrank back, apologizing for having touched me. I reassured her that she had done nothing wrong, thanked her for her help and moved on, thinking about the radical contrast in cultural expectations between the afternoon handshake and the evening shoulder-lift. I realized how the culture in India protected monks, and I appreciated more those who were striving to be monks outside that protective culture. If faced with shaking hands with a woman again, I will probably err on the side of caution and politely refuse, explaining my culture’s way of greeting with folded hands.
Practicing monkhood in a non-devotional culture doesn’t come with a clear-cut instruction manual. We have to use our intelligence, pray for pure intention and do our best. Sometimes we get it right and sometimes we don’t. That’s life.
Shelter amidst trouble
In the last leg of my trip, I was supposed to be in New York for 2-3 days and in Detroit for 2-3 days before returning, but somehow the New York stay didn’t work out and I also got too many other invitations. So during the last 5 days, I ended up visiting 6 cities in 6 different states. My last stop was at Detroit, where my brother Harshal has settled along with his wife Priyanka and where my father and my brother’s parents-in-law had come. During our subsequent family re-union, my brother’s father-in-law, who runs a travel agency among several other businesses and who along with his wife flew back to India with me, helped me navigate the many legal intricacies associated with international travel. My maternal uncle who has settled in Detroit, America, shared many photos of my infancy and childhood – even his and my mother’s childhood – thus taking us all down nostalgia lane. Seeing that world of loving relationships reminded me that I needed to recommit myself to my monkhood. After all, I had hurt so many of my relatives by my decision to become a monk, and the least I could do to mitigate that hurt was to become a committed devotee, thereby sharing with them whatever spiritual credits I might accrue by Krishna’s grace.
My father playfully reminded me that some ten years ago, I had said, “America was a terrible country filled with materialism and I would never go there.” And yet here I was in America. I acknowledged this change as another example of time tempering the judgmentality of a new convert. Harshal pointed out that during the last twenty days I had traveled through 12 American states: Florida (Alachua, Orlando, Jacksonville), Colorado (Denver), Arizona (Phoenix), California (Los Angeles, San Jose), Oregon (Portland, Corvallis), Washington (Seattle), New York (New York City), New Jersey (Plainfield), Ohio (Columbus), Massachusetts (Boston), Michigan (Detroit) and Illinois (Chicago).
Actually, I had had no intention of traveling so much during my US trip, but I don’t know how it happened – my dumb social reflexes coupled with my difficulty in saying no, I guess. Predictably, my body couldn’t maintain the pace and during the last 5 days, I had acute cough and cold during the day. Thankfully though, it would subside enough in the mornings and evenings for me to be able to speak as expected. Still, I have learnt my lesson and won’t be traveling at such a pace again.
In comparison, my US tour started sedately, with I being in Alachua for the first ten days, including two weekends. My trip had been arranged by Hari Parayana Prabhu who is conducting a vibrant Gita study program for University of Florida students. I stayed at his place and he and his family made me feel at home by their informal hospitality. And Hari Parayana Prabhu and I had many stimulating discussions interspersed with bantering repartees. I also had many enlivening discussions with several senior devotees there including Shesha Prabhu, the Director of the ISKCON Board of Education and the current chairman of the GBC-EC (Governing Body Commission – Executive Committee). He lavishly appreciated my classes and later wrote to me saying that he was hearing my “Value Education and Spirituality” lectures on Youtube and encouraged me to transform that content into a book.
Sri Govinda Datta Prabhu, an IIT post-graduate and an Intel software engineer, coordinated my trip from Alachua onwards. He has resourcefully carved a niche for himself from which he is doing important innovative outreach. He drove me to many of my programs in San Jose, Los Angeles and Seattle – and got me to programs in time even when the GPS predicted that we would be late. When he got me in time from Portland to Seattle for the evening program, I told the devotees there, “Today, I have realized a modified version of a traditional saying: Where there is Sri Govinda Datta Prabhu, there is a way.” Laughing, we agreed that during our future travels we had better find a better way.
Because of my negligence in looking closely at my schedule, I ended up having to travel to three cities on Ekadashi on Oct 8. I have been fasting on water on Ekadashi for over a decade now, so fasting itself was not a problem. But never before had I traveled so much while fasting. I had a morning Bhagavatam class in Corvallis, which was some two hours away from Portland, where I had stayed on after an evening program the previous day. At noon, I had a university program in the nearby Oregon University, after which I had to travel for nearly 5 hrs by car to reach Seattle for an evening program. On Ekadashis, I tend to drink a lot of water and that meant stopping frequently to visit restrooms. When we couldn’t find a rest area along the way, we had to look for a restroom in some store and found a Macdonald’s. I couldn’t but smile at the irony that the only time in my life I entered a Macdonald’s was to use their restroom. Anyway, exasperated by the repeated breaks and the attendant delays, I decided to stop drinking water for the rest of the journey. As my throat and stomach started getting parched, I started reciting verses from the Bhagavad-gita. Soon I found myself transported to a higher level of consciousness, far beyond the irritation of thirst and the congestion of the traffic. And I was peaceful, even blissful, by the time we reached Seattle for the evening program. I usually don’t prepare the content of my classes, but I do prepare my consciousness by prayerfully reciting verses. That’s what I had circumstantially done more intensely than usual that evening. And during my subsequent class I found myself more absorbed in Krishna than during any other class in the whole US tour. The lesson that evening reinforced for me is life’s highest teaching, one I hope to cherish throughout my life: “Remembrance of Krishna is my ultimate shelter amidst problems, be they self-created such as careless planning or world-created such as traffic jams.”
How work becomes workload – Seattle
Choosing fiddles while Rome burnt?
A spiritual highlight of my travels in the East Coast was my visit to the Tompkins Square Park and the Matchless Gift storefront center. My visit to Tompkins Square Park was the only time I went outside of the ISKCON world into America proper. Though I had traveled through one-fifth of America’s fifty states, most of the time I was in temples, devotees’ homes or cars, or in flights. In the Park, near the very tree under which Prabhupada had done public kirtan for the first time some five decades ago, now a free concert was going on and people were relaxing all around. The music was there, but the mantra was missing.
Visiting the inconspicuous Matchless Gift storefront that at first glance had nothing spiritual to recommend itself drove home like never before Srila Prabhupada’s pragmatism. As I contemplated how the surroundings had been squalid and sordid during the days of the counterculture, it struck me how revolutionary Prabhupada had been. Starting amidst the most impure of circumstances, he had by the potency of bhakti not only purified many people here, but had also made this place the starting point for a global movement that had purified millions all over the world.
We need to share bhakti where we are amidst whatever cultural setting we find ourselves in; we can’t wait for the utopia of a more conducive setting. Just as a surgeon can’t demand ideal hygienic conditions while treating people on a battlefield, we can’t demand ideal cultural conditions while sharing bhakti with the world. Commitment means doing what we can with what we have – now.
Contemplating how Srila Prabhupada started with what was available and pressed on by doing what was doable – and achieved something so massive and magnificent – drove home the reality of Krishna’s mystical potency. Prabhupada came to America not merely to conform to some ritualistic formula; he came to transform people, providing them spiritual solace, doing whatever it took. Many of the controversies that had recently consumed my mental energy were akin to Nero worrying about which fiddle to play while Rome was burning. The legend is that the Roman emperor Nero was playing a fiddle while half of Rome burned down. Adapting the legend, I felt like Nero being conflicted about which fiddle to play. That is, I risked the danger of becoming so consumed by conflicts over relatively minor issues as to neglect the all-important work of dousing the fire of material existence by sharing the shower of Krishna’s merciful message. No doubt, being faithful to the tradition is important, but equally, if not more, important is being faithful to the purpose of the tradition: making its message of spiritual love accessible to everyone.
Expanded conceptions of bhakti
The biggest difference between Indian ISKCON temples and American ISKCON temples that struck me was that almost all American temples were run by householder devotees. The time when Srila Prabhupada had preached in America was the period of the counterculture, when multitudes of young Americans were exploring alternative ways of living, including Eastern spirituality. But the counterculture phased ended over four decades ago and correspondingly the number of Americans coming to our movement decreased drastically. At the same time, many Indians found ISKCON to be a cultural home in America. Among various Indian organizations there, ISKCON has retained the most cultural elements from India: Deities, kirtan, dhoti-kurta / saree and prasad. Most of these Indians had come to America for pursuing their careers and they naturally choose to become grihasthas.
As I had lived mostly in temples with strong brahmachari ashrams, I was intrigued to see temples run largely, if not entirely, by householders. Obviously, I had known that even in India some ISKCON temples were run by congregation devotees. But seeing first-hand many temples, at various stages of development, being run by congregation devotees drove home the extraordinary dedication of these devotees. It sank into me that the grihastha-brahmachari debate, that sometimes paralyzes young devotees, is so parochial and is ultimately inconsequential. Bhakti is too universal to be restricted to any ashrama, and the need for sharing bhakti is too urgent to wait for any particular ashram to solidify itself. Christianity is spreading rapidly in India, primarily due to the evangelical efforts of missionaries, most of whom are married couples. Self-evidently, the majority of our movement is going to be grihasthas. To the extent the anti-grihastha polemic that unfortunately goes in some parts of our movement is stopped and the contributions of grihasthas are acknowledged, appreciated and channelized, to that extent the bhakti legacy can be spread rapidly.
Most American temples don’t have any brahmachari ashrams at all. Temples that have both ashrams have a blessing that needs to be cherished. By avoiding an adversarial relationship, the two ashramas can synergistically make Krishna’s message of spiritual love widely available.
During my meetings with many devotee couples, I was struck by the gravity of the responsibility of parenting – and the dedication with which many parents were embracing it. I came to know several parents who were home-schooling their children or had come together to open devotional schools, as in Alachua and Seattle, or had moved halfway across the country to have their children study in a devotee-run school. Indeed, for many parents, the desire to pass their culture to their children made them more committed to their own bhakti practices. I tried to serve all such parents by speaking at Jacksonville on “Parenting Principles from Bhagavad-gita.”
Another thing that struck me was the opposite effect of the same culture on Indians and Americans: those very cultural elements of ISKCON that attract Indians often cause reservations among Americans who fear that they are joining a Hindu religious group. So though many Americans are interested in yoga and even bhakti-yoga, especially kirtan, they frequently pursue these interests through forums other than ISKCON. Given the aversion of post-modern people to institutionalized religion in general and the specific reservation of many Americans to ISKCON because of it appearing like a Hindu sect, devotees have had to come up with various strategies for outreach. Primary among them are separating the outreach initiatives for Indians and Americans, with some places having different programs or even different centers for each group; doing yoga, sacred sound and vegetarian cooking programs where the ethnic aspects are downplayed or selectively portrayed; and having American devotees do outreach to Americans.
The US trip expanded my conceptions forcefully by reminding me to not judge others based on externals. I found that a scholarly devotee I had known through email interactions delighted in putting on an unkempt appearance and then flummoxing others with his deep insights. I also met a senior Prabhupada disciple who had a pet dog and was wearing shorts, but when he started talking, his heart’s devotion became evident. When he described how he had cried for days at the sudden demise of Tamal Krishna Maharaj and almost broke down while speaking about it, I remembered the Chaitanya Charitamrita’s narration of Gadadhara Pandita’s misjudging Pundarika Vidyanidhi based on externals. No doubt, the externals do help in fostering the internals. But the externals don’t guarantee the internals and the internals don’t need the externals.
Rudyard Kipling had said a hundred years ago:
“East is East, and West is West,
And never the twain shall meet …
But there is neither East nor West,
Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face,
Though they come from the ends of the earth!”
My US trip confirmed for me that the East and the West have many important, even irreducible, differences. And neither is likely to trump the other in the near future. Just as many in India are increasingly standing up to Western cultural imperialism, so too many in the West are likely to object to some aspects of the bhakti culture, seeing them as fronts for Indian cultural imperialism. But underlying such surface differences is the reality that we are all human beings and that our human heart longs for the love of the divine heart. By the grace of the sublimely strong acaryas, many people are becoming strong enough to rise beyond preconceptions and attain the shelter of Krishna, who forever plays his flute to invite everyone, both in the East and the West.
Source... www.dandavats.com
