Does A Hindu Preach?

[suchandra 1]

Since there're lots of articles lately about the development that Hindu Indians having accepted office to manage the temples in the West and Westerners not even living anymore in the temples, the question might be asked if Indians are actually able to preach? Westerners want to be convinced, listen to lectures and only accept things when presented with logic and reason.

This was never the case in Hindu culture, since thousands of years Hindus never felt the necessity to preach or present philosophy to newcomers.

And this is what many guests after visiting a temple are saying, Indians cannot preach.

 

 

Professor Burke Rochford: Estimates indicate that in 2005 a considerable majority of ISKCON's approximately 50,000-member North American congregation was of Indian descent. Only a small portion however, can be considered committed ISKCON devotees. Most are patrons whose involvement is limited to intermittent temple worship and financial contributions supporting local ISKCON temples.

Below Purujit das says something similiar, to preach is nowhere to be found in Hindu tradition. However, Westerners won't change their materialistic lifestyle unless things are presented with logic and reason.

 

 

posted by Purujit, Wednesday, October 08, 2008 - 10:02

 

This would be of course a great relieve - this to come true what you're saying. The Indian/Hindus/Asians finally waking up and spreading the Holy Name to save the hell bent Western nations. But we cannot automatically conclude that as soon a temple is run by Indians that there is actual preaching of bhagavat dharma in the center.

 

Prabhupada and the previous acaryas presented clear parameters how conditioned souls are step by step being elevated to become God consciousness, Krishna consciousness.

But are present Indians trained for this task?

 

There's also this phenomenon of Hindus/Indians coming to the West in order to advance materially - to use the temple's facilities for increasing materialism. For example I listened quite often when Indians give a lecture and found they cannot preach. Indians/Hindus are NOT preachers. They never preached for thousands of years, this is NOT their spirit and cultural background of India.

 

Since they always lived embedded in Hindu society there was never any need to preach. Here in the West people want to be convinced, they want to hear lectures, want everything presented with logic and reason.

To preach like this fully contradicts Indian mentality and way of thinking.

Next, in order to preach to Americans and Europeans you must know their roots, their past, their history, their present situation. Prabhupada studied all this carefully, he could tell Americans and Europeans things about their own cultural/religious background they never heard of and actualy convince people with their own weapons so to speak.

Presently you find Indian preachers very helpless and unable to connect people's mind with Vaishnavism.

One example, Prabhupada dovetailed the hippie movement with Vaishnavism, not by rejecting it but by explaining them that all the goals of the hippie movement would be attained by joining a temple.

Whenever you get the opportunity to listen to a lecture for newcomers given by an Indian Vaishnava you see that they're unable to connect the Western people's mentality with bhakti-yoga but rather behave like to indoctrinate and to inculcate their audience with something new, something what is foreign to them.

In sum, this is far, far away from what to call first class preaching.

It is therefore wrong to presently entrust preaching bhagavat-dharma to the Indians/Hindus/Asians. And as seen in many temples, they quickly change the whole temple from Vaishnava to Hindu social center, Westerners no more visiting those Hindu family clan meetings. Not one single Westerner visiting such Hinduized temples anymore.

Not because they are Indians, but because they don't know the art how to present bhagavat-dharma to other nationalities and when among themselves behave like Hindus and not like bhaktas.

[theist 1]

A Hindu may or may not preach but it is not important either way. If one still considers himself as part of a religion instead of being part and parcel of the Supreme Lord any preaching will be mostly a disturbace anyway, intende to increase the number in group he miss identies with to make himself bigger in his own delude eyes. Same for all these people promoting their various religions.

 

The Vaisnava does not preach, teach or share from such a platform. The Vaisnava sees the real picture. All are equally spiritsoul and parts of God and because the Vaisnava loves Krishna he also loves all other living beings also and thus he cannot tolerate their suffering. The Vaisnava knows the heart of Krishna. Krishna wants all His children to be happily united with Him in blissful love and The Vaisnava is eternally dedicated to fullfilling the desires of the Lord.

 

Love is the Vaisnava's only motivation.

 

Everyone that considers himself a preacher must ask himself this question..."What is my true motivation?"

[Svarupa 0]

Quote: suchandra

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Well, not that much in Melbourne, in fact even when they do, it is only to other Indians. I have to say that ISKCON is 'surviving' under a false sense of expansionism, a big lie. I was at the Sunday feast today at Melbourne Temple and if no Indians were there, there would have been eight of us (out of 250 people)

 

Thei llusion of ISKCON getting bigger put forward by even many of my friends, is actually not true, it's a lie. Westerners are just not interested anymore and frankly either are most of the Indians who just treat ISKCON as a Sunday Church

 

But I supose there is nothing wrong with that.

 

Regardless of all ISKCON's past problems,the movement was far better off and way more genuine 35 years ago - It is not the same ISKCON today, not even close!! Not the one Prabhupada started

[thehat 0]

Some of the best preachers I've heard from ISKCON are indian and some of the worst have been white bodied or european bodied - whatever the correct term is..

In saying that, outside of ISKCON temples in India hearing an Indian preach within an ISKCON temple is a rarity I've found- but when they do speak I've found their lectures to be quite good. Most of the preachers in ISCKON centres I've heard have been white inexperienced male brahmacaris. But there have been some really good speakers too. Seeing as how the majority of the speakers are white as opposed to Indian, couldn't you say that the white bodied preachers are more inexperienced as they're greater in number.. at least in ISKCON?

I guess that is my own personal reasoning as the few ISKCON Indians i've heard have been quite good. But out of a large number of white ISKCON males who preach that i've heard, many of them have been quite bad.

 

Anyhow, seems like a silly article to me - very controversial though. I've heard heaps of amazing indian preachers, but they weren't part of ISKCON movement. Maybe it's just the indians within ISKCON that are actually bad?

 

On a final note though - I quite like the Indian preachers from ISKCON mumbai.

[Amlesh 1]

All the Iskcon in this world need a good re-engineering in terms of Truth and proper understanding of Vaishnavism. All the Iskcon are like strawberries from the same basket.

 

They themselves don't know what Vaishnavism is and they set to preach.

Iskcon is an industry like the rest with its annual profit and loss and balance sheet; and there is the possibility of getting fired if no return on investment.

So employees, I mean Bhaktas take care.

[suchandra 1]

 

Some of the best preachers I've heard from ISKCON are indian and some of the worst have been white bodied or european bodied - whatever the correct term is..

In saying that, outside of ISKCON temples in India hearing an Indian preach within an ISKCON temple is a rarity I've found- but when they do speak I've found their lectures to be quite good. Most of the preachers in ISCKON centres I've heard have been white inexperienced male brahmacaris. But there have been some really good speakers too. Seeing as how the majority of the speakers are white as opposed to Indian, couldn't you say that the white bodied preachers are more inexperienced as they're greater in number.. at least in ISKCON?

I guess that is my own personal reasoning as the few ISKCON Indians i've heard have been quite good. But out of a large number of white ISKCON males who preach that i've heard, many of them have been quite bad.

 

Anyhow, seems like a silly article to me - very controversial though. I've heard heaps of amazing indian preachers, but they weren't part of ISKCON movement. Maybe it's just the indians within ISKCON that are actually bad?

 

On a final note though - I quite like the Indian preachers from ISKCON mumbai.

Preaching basically means not to eradicate but to dovetail. I saw many Indians who just don't know anything about Western history, so how someone possibly can dovetail anything if he doesn't know interrelations?

 

Prabhupada always studied all this, like he knew about Sigmund Freud; Thomas of Aquin; Jean-Paul Sartre; Carl Gustav Jung; Friedrich Nietzsche; Socrates,; Plato; Pythagora; Newton; Aristotle; Descartes; Leibniz; Spinoza; Einstein; Heisenberg, et. ect.

 

Modern Indians say these are all mlecchas, to be rejected. Might be true, all mlecchas but this is not preaching. Preaching also means to go to Universities. How someone can preach at Western Universities by telling, your Western civilization is all bogus - everything has to be eradicated?

 

But this is basically how Indians preach, to indoctrinate instead of dovetailing. Therefore you find nobody adopting the chanting of the Holy Name when Indians preach, at least that's what's happening here since 20 years and like Theist is saying, preaching is annoyance. Reason is, people are confused about the meaning of preaching.

 

It is not to eradicate but to dovetail what is already there. But if you don't know what is already there or even reject what is already there then you are not a preacher.

 

Better then you say you're an uttama-adikari and that you don't need to preach because you see all living entities as eternal parts of Krsna.

 

But we understand from Srila Prabhupada that just in order to preach, an uttama adhikari will act on the madhyama platform.

 

Since we are in the line of Lord Caitanya's Sankirtan movement what does nothing else but to distribute and to preach, someone who claims that he doesn't preach because he's an uttama adikari should be considered as not in the line of the yuga-avatar's Sankirtan movement.

 

How important preaching is can be studied how rarely Krsna appears in this world.

 

October 7, 1968

Seattle, Washington

Letter to Tosana Krishna

 

Regarding your question about this planet and Krishna's coming here, you may note that Krishna comes within this universe once in one day of Brahma. Duration of Brahma's day is very very long, it is stated in the Bhagavad-gita--432 crores of years( 4,320,000 x 1000) forms the duration of 12 hours of Brahma's day. And similarly, there are 12 hours of night, so after 864 crores of years, Krishna comes in this universe, and whenever He comes, He of course, appears on this planet, that is the fortune of the people of this planet. We should know very clearly that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

 

He is neither Indian nor American, as much as the sun is neither Indian nor American. The original name of this planet is called Bharatavarsa, and before that it was known as Ilavrtavarsa. Now since the day of Emperor Bharata, this planet is know as Bharatavarsa, but in course of time, the human race divided, therefore we find so many other names. But the original name of this planet is Bharatavarsa, and in the Vedic literature, it is stated that anyone who takes birth on this planet, they are very fortunate. Because it is the special planet where Krishna descends when He comes.

[thehat 0]

Alright, I can accept and appreciate what you're saying Suchandra.

I still think there are some really good indian preachers out there who excell western white body preachers..

But I can accept that maybe where you're living the Indian preachers are quite bad and are not good at preaching.

 

One thing I'd like to add though, whether it be Indians or white people preaching or indoctrinating - most people are not picking up the chanting of the holy name. At least I have observed where I live.

When wonderful devotees go out on the street for harinam they mostly get harassed by the public. This to I have observed.

 

One person had said to me last weekend in fact "You know why people hate those Hare Krishnas, because they walk up to people on the street and just start telling them they're wrong, everyone gets so pissed off".

 

The majority of these book distributors where I live are white bodied ISKCON people, so surely it's not just the Indians who are lacking knowledge in how to preach if the white bodied book distributors are causing such problems to the public.

 

Perhaps both the ISKCON indians and white bodied westerners need training in how to preach in order to get people adopting the chanting of the holy names.

 

I don't know?

[suchandra 1]

 

Alright, I can accept and appreciate what you're saying Suchandra.

I still think there are some really good indian preachers out there who excell western white body preachers..

But I can accept that maybe where you're living the Indian preachers are quite bad and are not good at preaching.

 

One thing I'd like to add though, whether it be Indians or white people preaching or indoctrinating - most people are not picking up the chanting of the holy name. At least I have observed where I live.

When wonderful devotees go out on the street for harinam they mostly get harassed by the public. This to I have observed.

 

One person had said to me last weekend in fact "You know why people hate those Hare Krishnas, because they walk up to people on the street and just start telling them they're wrong, everyone gets so pissed off".

 

The majority of these book distributors where I live are white bodied ISKCON people, so surely it's not just the Indians who are lacking knowledge in how to preach if the white bodied book distributors are causing such problems to the public.

 

Perhaps both the ISKCON indians and white bodied westerners need training in how to preach in order to get people adopting the chanting of the holy names.

 

I don't know?

Thanks Thehat, yes this is correctly analyzed. According desire and quality of work the conditioned soul receives a material body from material nature like a prisoner receives a prison uniform.

 

Meanwhile his normal dress is kept in custody and when having served his time in prison and is released he gets his original dress delivered. Now, trying to communicate with prisoners is always a difficult job, some are traumatized, some are revengeful, some are unteachable, some are violent, so many illusions.

 

As soon you enter the prison let's say as a jail psychologist, you need a whole university studies in order to properly deal with all those inmates. And still it so happens that sometimes a jail psychologist is being killed or injured for having wrongly assessed someone's character.

 

And this is the situation when God consciousness is being spread, the preachers have to carefully study the specific situation in order to expertly present spiritual knowledge so people can accept.

 

A common mistake is to immitate - what works in one place might not work somewhere else. Best thing would be to have someone who knows that science. I tried to make the point that when telling people to chant on beads, you can recount for example how this is nothing new in their cultural background but that ancient monks also used to chant on beads.

 

And when getting informed about more details, when the monks used to rise from bed etc people might not find it so much outlandishly when being told to chant Hare Krishna.

 

Whereas a preacher who doesn't know anything about a nations culture might behave like to indoctrinate and people react with refusal upon indoctrination.