namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

by Sita-pati das

I was restoring a back up of my machine today and found a couple of articles that I wrote about Bhakti-vriksha. Phanisvara could tell me about when they were written if he can remember the event that I describe in it about namahatta.org, but it think it's a couple of years ago. Not sure if I published them previously, but here they are:

[Sorry, I can't find this article on our site, and don't remember publishing it earlier. I do remember the forum discussion mentioned, but that has been taken offline long ago.]

[The second part of Sita-pati's Bhakti-vriksha criticism is linked to this one as a book page; here is the direct link.] --phani.

I spent a couple of years working in technical support for a Linux operating system software vendor, supporting my family in between trying to do some missionary work. All too frequently in my job I would have a similar exchange to the the following with a customer:

Me: "Could you please try XYZ."
Customer: "It didn't work."
Me: "It didn't work... anything more specific than that?"
Customer: "It's just sitting there blinking."
Me: "O...K... but after you typed in the command, what did it say?"
Customer: "Oh, it said 'Error something something' and then a whole bunch of stuff."
Me: "Right... Do you think you could you read that error message to me please..."

This frank admission of the challenges faced by the Bhakti-vriksha program is a breath of fresh air.

Here are a few of my observations:

1. Lack of Leadership Support

One of the issues explained in this article is a lack of widespread support for the initiative by the leadership of ISKCON.

One of the qualities of an effective manager or leader is realism. Leaders need to be able to make a realistic assessment of the situation, in order to calculate a course from where they are now to where they want to go. "Know yourself and know your enemy and you need not fear defeat in any battle."

This article from Kaunteya Prabhu has originally been published on 1 June, 2007. Finding that the contents is relevant to his present work, he's re-published it on his blog now. Since some interesting comments have been made to the original article, I'm pulling that one up again.

This is something I wrote a couple of years ago. I re-read it today and I found it still relevant; perhaps more relevant today (we are closer to the future today than two years ago, right?). As I keep working on the curriculum for "Building Vibrant Vaisnava Communities," these issues keep coming up and force themselves as fundamental for the consideration of our next generation of leaders.

by Devaki dd

Chowpatty is becoming more and more an example for ideal community development within ISKCON. However, sometimes it is not easy to convince senior devotees of the value of the much discussed and glorified Counselor System. And without full and active support from senior devotees it is rather difficult to put into practise. Often we hear the opinion, "the Bhakti-vriksha Program does the same thing." Some devotees conclude, therefore: "No need for any new systems!"

There are basic differences between these two programs; it is not that one is better than the other. If we analyze them more deeply we discover that they have fundamentally different goals, and that there is plenty of room for both programs to run side by side in a yatra.

Sita-pati Prabhu comments in his blog atmayogi.com on Prema Padmini Mataji's last diary-issue, where she writes about devotees during a seminar near Moscow:

The temple presidents and the heads of the brahmacari ashrams all have the same loving, humble mood as do the congregation. We did not perceive any bureaucratic attitude—fatal to the Bhakti-vriksha mood.

This "bureaucratic attitude" is an expression of the organizational structure prevalent in much of today's ISKCON, as analyzed by Sita-pati in his e-book On Leadership. It's fatal for the "Bhakti-vriksha mood," and very limitedly useful for a growing organization based on volunteer service and contributions.

This is a skeleton for an article that I am working on for the Congregational Preaching Journal. I bring it up because Phanisvara commented on my last post about my dig at the word "congregation".

These ideas are presented here in a rough fashion, and I'd like people to start thinking about them and discussing them. I will be refining these concepts and my presentation of them further and invite discussion and dialog on this topic.

Executive summary:

"Congregation", as a division of society, has arisen as an attempt to come to grips with the perception of the passing of the balance of power out of buildings that have acted as incubators of Vedic culture into a wider community that surrounds them. The division has passed beyond its usefulness as an organizational paradigm and we should drop it in favor of terms that more accurately describe the situation.

By Kaunteya Das

In a recent private exchange about the Bhakti-vriksha approach, Sita-pati Prabhu wrote, “Here are some thoughts that I have in mind right now,” and then listed nine points. I consider Sita-pati Prabhu a bold visionary and a rare blend of a man of action and of thoughts, and I have high regard for his thoughts (and he knows that).

At the end he wrote, “Kaunteya prabhu, could you please give your comments on these points?” Yes, I shall attempt to do it now. Will I do justice to them? Probably not, because at least some of them involve fundamental, complex socio-historical dynamics, and I don’t think a single entry can properly explore and illuminate them, but here my comments go.

By Kaunteya Das

Yesterday we had a meeting with Vanamali Nrisimha Prabhu, the webmaster of two main Vaisnava sites in Russian language, www.nama-hatta.ru and www.krishna.ru. His wife Tarini Caitanya Mataji was also there; Abhyarci Mataji translated for us. The theme was how to make sure that Russian-speaking devotees could get the articles we publish at namahatta.org.

In the course of the dialogue it became apparent that many devotees in Russia have come to equate the Congregational Development Ministry with “Bhakti-vriksha Ministry,” believing that that’s the only method of community building the Ministry really promotes. The idea is certainly inaccurate, both theoretically and practically; even a cursory view of the articles on our web site or in the Congregational Development Journal would reveal that our range of interests and approaches goes well beyond pushing one single system.