At 23:24 -0800 6/1/99, COM: Gunamani (dd) ARD (Arhus - DK) wrote:

> I could continue but then it will be too long, the point is: simply
>thinking and acting as a devotee, aware of peoples stand, not fanatical, is
>preaching/bhakti-yoga? in itself, of course with qualitative differences, in
>the long run it might prove quite substantial. We will see.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. This is definitely what I missed when
I first "joined" ISKCON. There were no models, so I felt like I was making
it up as I went along.

> I would like to hear more about how others handle their situations as
>devotees, while living in a material society.
> Can you see any future in it?

Since I never lived in a temple and never have any full time ISKCON
service, this has been exactly what I have done too. Although I wish I
could serve in more substantial ways some day, I agree with you that simply
living openly as devotees, showing others that you can be a devotee of
Krsna and still function in regular society can make an impact. And it
definitely goes beyond simply wearing beads and having people ask about
that (which they inevitably do, at teh grocery store, post office etc.)

My children have always gone to non-devotee schools (both public schools
and private Montessori schools). All their friends know they are Vaisnavas.
It's given my children the opportunity to talk with their friends about
vegetarianism, bring in prasadam, share their holidays and history (we
bring their friends to Ratha Yatra, lend the schools various videotapes,
e.g. on the Ramayana etc). Both my children are good students, good
athletes and have served on their student councils (elevråd in Swedish).
To their friends and teachers, this has "normalized" ISKCON and ISKCON
devotees and they have learned that we're no more odd than practitioners of
other faiths and can be successful by their standards too.

In terms of my circle of friends and colleagues, I'm also very open about
being a devotee. I have a huge poster of Lord Jagannatha over my desk,
other pictures in my office too and sometimes I play devotional music on my
computer while reading. Some people ask about this and about ISKCON and I
always answer their questions as honestly as I can. I've been very vocal
about the need to have vegetarian options at all work functions (99% of the
time, people do it naturally here, but on a couple of occasions they've
slipped up and I had to let them know). I've also invited friends and
co-workers to festivals and about 20 people from my job came to my fire
sacrifice wedding and danced, chanted Hare krsna, and threw grains into
the fire.

I've been working at the same place for 13 years now and I don't want to
make it sound like I did all of this from day one. It probably took about
2 years of gradually becoming more open. People's first reactions were
usually: "What, *you're* a Hare Krishna? I thought you were all in the
streets and airports." Then they'd become interested and wanted to know
if there were many of us who had regular jobs and who lived out in society.
In all of these years, I have never had a direct negative reaction from
anyone. In fact,people who know me have been surprisingly supportive at
times. E.g. when I decided to become initiated, I told a few of my closest
co-workers. At first, they were puzzled and asked lots of questions,
especially about "no illicit sex". Once I had explained it and said that
this was something I wanted to do, one very sweet (gay) man asked: "So
would you mind if I threw you a "celibacy party" to celebrate this
important step?"

:-)

How about others out there in cyberspace? Looks like "the fringe" has
become mainstream!

Ys,
Madhusudani dasi