namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

Sri Godruma Kalpatavi ("The Desire-tree Grove of Godruma") is an English translation of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura's newsletter collection. A very timely book release, as this year Sri Mayapur's Nama-hatta Department celebrates it's thirtieth anniversary.

Sri Godruma Kalpatavi was originally produced in Bengal one-hundred-and-twenty years ago by Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, to guide leaders and members in his preaching movement. The topics discussed are very practical issues often faced by those with families and careers who also want to fully engage in practicing and preaching Krishna consciousness.

HH Jayapataka Maharaja felt Godruma Kalpatavi to be so relevant to the lives of devotees today that he translated the text and inspired the current publication.

From HH Jayapataka Maharaja's introduction ("From the Publisher") to our Congregational Preaching Journal 12:

Holy Jail is a compilation by HH Candramauli Maharaja on the activities and stories of ISKCON's Prison Ministries (IPM). In their thirty years of operation, the lives of hundreds of inmates have changed due to the practice of Krishna consciousness and the support received by devotees.

The prisoners very beautifully with great depth express how they came to Krishna through the help of ISKCON Prison Ministries and how their lives have been changed for the better through the love and care showered upon them by IPM sevaks.

There are also wonderful memories of those great devotees who have served with ISKCON Prison Ministries and sadly left their material bodies to continue their eternal service. You'll also find anecdotes, a history of the Prison Ministries, letters, art, and poetry from prisoners, as well as their vyasa-puja offerings to Srila Prabhupada—an interesting and uplifting read.

Satya dd's Avatar: Dasi Lane

Hare Krishna!

Please accept my obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

Please come visit us in Second Life for Gaura Purnima! Within you will find an invitation to our Gaura Purnima celebration in Second Life along with the festival schedule. We can only hope that devotees find this pleasing and attend. Thank you so much for passing the word along.

If you have any questions or I can help you with anything, please feel free to contact me.

Your servant,
Satya devi dasi

Vijay Venugopal das and Prema Padmini dd

And so the festival closed. In the morning, senior devotees including Krishna dasa Kaviraja Prabhu, Acala Prabhu, Vishvamitra Prabhu, and ourselves spoke. It had been a wonderful festival and the team who made the arrangements were all young Bhakti-vriksha leaders and members—more than half of them being women, including the main coordinator. Everyone praised their efforts and service, and also spoke of the wonderful loving atmosphere among the devotees throughout the festival. Bhakti-vriksha has clearly brought immense changes to the Russian devotee community, which was in decline only a few years ago.

Most significantly, the Bhakti-vriksha leaders and members are all disciples and prospective disciples of a whole array of gurus, proving that the Bhakti-vriksha system is not linked to any particular spiritual master in ISKCON. It flourishes in an atmosphere of freedom and enthusiasm, combined with serious training and advancement. The activities of the devotees, their seriousness in following vows, their happy acceptance of heavy responsibilities, in spite of being fully involved in family life, shows that these indeed are quality devotees. And it is this high quality of purity, sincerity, and commitment, which creates the large quantity. In short quality creates quantity—it is not that we have to choose between one or the other.

by HH Bhaktiraghava Maharaja

HH Jayapataka Maharaja took upon himself many great austerities to establish and promote the Nama-hatta program, from its early inception to its present day development. I remember how he would sometimes arrive from oversees and from the airport he would have to dash to the Howrah station in Kolkata to catch a night train, which would take him to some remote village where programs had already been scheduled.

He would make his way to the local pandal, sometimes using his own small flashlight as no one had thought of getting a proper torch or lantern. In those early days, the arrangements in the village were quite simple and somewhat humble in nature. Still Maharaja was always ready to accept any and all inconveniences to hold programs and preach in the local Bengali language to the eager local listeners.

by Kripamoya das

Wouldn't it be nice if all the religions could get along? Peacemakers like to suggest an impersonal way to do it. Sometimes they even try to use the Gita to support their ideas

"Well, we can understand that all you spiritual and religious people still need something to believe in. But please listen to us—there is a difference between the God of Religion and the Ultimate Reality. The first is the figure you believe in, pray to, and have a kind of emotional faith in. The second is a slightly more abstract notion of a state of universal, cosmic light from where all the incarnations and saints, angels and prophets come from and into which they merge after their time with us is finished."

"Youth Crew" is the name we (tentatively) decided to call our Ministry's youth section, instead of "youth wing," "youth preaching department," or the like. It's a name Zak came up with, who as of a few days ago, is heading this CD Ministry effort.

Unlike me Zak is a young devotee who grew up in different parts of the world, most recently in Sridham Mayapur and London, UK. He studied at Sri Mayapur Gurukula and finished his secondary education at a college in London. Recently he returned from the UK to live in Mayapur again, accepting the service of coordinating our Ministry's youth preaching efforts.

Ask yourself,

• Do you read Srila Prabhupada's books?
• Do you use vedabase when reading or searching Srila Prabhupada's books?
• Do you have access to the internet and some basic computer skills?
• Can you spare some time each day, week or month; an hour or two?
• Would you like to serve the devotee community is a special and unique way?

If you can answer "yes" to these questions, then Vanisava is for you. You can do it anywhere and everywhere, during your lunchbreak, or even sitting in your bed at home.

by HH Bhaktiraghava Maharaja

Just a few hundred years after the manifest pastimes of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, the great acarya Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura again took up the preaching mission of the Lord and recorded the following words in reference to the Nama-hatta preaching work:

boro sukher khabor gai surabhi-kunjete
namer hao khule'che khoda nita

"I am singing news of the greatest happiness! At the place known as Surabhi Kunja in Sri Navadvipa, the Marketplace of the Holy Name has now been opened and Lord Nityananda Himself is the Proprietor."

Vaisnava-siddhanta-mala

By the mercy of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu and by the mercy of Srila Prabhupada, the same preaching spirit meant to help inundate the entire world with the Hari Nama Sankirtan Movement of Lord Caitanya has also been introduced in the form of the Nama-hatta program by the devotees serving at Sridham Mayapur under the guidance and inspiration of HH Jayapataka Maharaja.

by David Haslam

This is for me the essence, this is the crucial lesson from Srila Prabhupada: that we have the cure and we have the measure to see if it works. This is our only standardization; the rest can only be achieved by forming relationships, getting to know the person, warts and all, and helping and guiding them on a single individual basis—encouraging and ever adjusting until the ultimate goal of self realization is achieved.

Like these core care plans, we need to individualize and personalize the way we administer and give the medicine. We will never be able to make a "one size fits all" devotee society, but we can make a society that recognizes individual traits, individual weaknesses, and individual strengths.

Then we can see how each one can help others in one way or another, and we will see externally the internal changes: the rough diamond becoming the glittering, all attractive gem it really is.

Would you like to live and operate in Sridham Mayapur and simultaneously serve all ISKCON communities in the world?

Type of Service: Full-time

Location: Sridham Mayapur, India

Remuneration: As required

Direct line of report: The Ministry's Operation Team

Summary Service Description:

• Coordinating communication with the Ministry's contacts, receiving and processing reports;
• Producing interviews and articles;
• Coordinating educational campaigns;
• Coordinating the production and circulation of books, magazines, and audiovisuals;
• Organizing presentations and seminars in Mayapur, with local educational institutes and visiting groups;
• Supervising resident staff and volunteers;
• Supervising the office and its equipment;
• Managing periodical events such as festivals, award ceremonies, etc.;
• Overseeing research and analysis of congregational dynamics within ISKCON and in other organizations;

I circulated the following around the New Vrindaban community and was, unfortunately, not surprised by this response from someone who makes sure to always keep himself in what he brands as a "leadership" position.

1. To turn the whole NV complex over to the dream of Balakrishna / Prabhupada is not realistic.

Okay, Prabhupada's "dream" (though he himself termed it a vision) is not realistic, in the view of one of our "esteemed" leaders. You can see what we are up against.

A Field Trip

by Bala Krishna das

I would like to take you on a journey, and am asking you to please fasten your seat belts. We are going to time-travel a few years into the future, to a small village, to take a little tour.

by Akruranatha das

I was very happy to see Niscala dasi's comments (Srila Prabhupada is Our Martin Luther, Dec. 29) to Hare Krishna dasi's article (Waiting for Iskcon's Martin Luther, Chakra, Dec. 25).

I was sorry to see the frustration and disillusionment with the whole ISKCON project that Hare Krishna dasi seemed to be expressing. Even though I've never met Hare Krishna Prabhu face to face, my first reaction upon reading her article was to want to go visit her wherever she lives and try to reassure her and listen sympathetically to her complaints. Surely her frustration must be due to a whole series of bad experiences and not only from one suggestion about "membership" raised by H.H. Sivarama Maharaja at a European GBC meeting (see: HH Sivarama Swami on Sex by Sita-pati to listen to Maharaja's podcast), which seems to have been not very well received by many major ISKCON constituencies and probably is not likely to be adopted or enforced. Hopefully Sivarama Maharaja's proposal will spark some constructive dialogue, as it already seems to be doing.

by Prema Padmini dd & Vijay Venugopala das

Caru Candra and Prana Govinda Prabhus arranged our tour from Cox's Bazar on the Bay of Bengal in the south of Bangladesh all the way to Sylhet in the north, close to the border with Assam in India.

Tuesday, 14 April: Cox's Bazar

Cox's Bazar boasts one of the longest beaches in the world. It is lined with many hotels and Bangladeshis flock there during all holidays. The temple is in the poorer part of town where most Hindus live. Here the roads are lined with open drains, narrow and dirty. The temple is built on a small plot of land with another building and shops in front. There is a big temple room with huge and beautiful deities of Sri Sri Jagannath, Baladeva, and Subhadra, donated by Ramani Manohar Prabhu, who became a devotee in Mathuradesh.