namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

I thought I was in for a quiet time in Mayapur, with the Gaura Purnima Festival over and even Jananivasa Prabhu and Pankajangari Prabhu off to Jagannath Puri with Bhakti Purusottama Maharaja and the sankirtana brahmacaris. But that was before I entered the Congregational Preaching office. It was there that I learned about Skypecast and how it operates. I was told that today we are going to speak on "the art of loving God" and we have to start in a few minutes. I was handed a small mike and earphones and told that now we have an audience.

By Sri Radha Govinda dasi

“It’s been a very illuminating, enlightening, and adventurous preaching on Skype,” says Rahul, an intelligent devotee residing in Mumbai who holds an M.Phil. in Labor Studies. Rahul has been working on organizing these Skype programs with me, which he enjoys, and also feels that it’s his duty to spread awareness of Krishna consciousness. He has been a backbone in organizing regular Skypecasts. He is a very organized person who is also experienced and expert in dealing with people.

In one of our previous Skypecasts our topic was “Mantra Meditation,” and fortune brought us to meet H.G. Radha-Syamasundar Prabhu from Cebu, Philippines.

On the 15th I suggested that we feature the topic “Krishna, the Supreme God,” which brought in 45 seeking souls to participate. We had Lehel share his maha-mantra tune for us, and I was surprised to learn that he came up with it in just a few hours. (A few weeks ago I met Lehel on Skype. He’s a computer-game animator who also plays music. We had several discussions, and he then decided to try chanting the maha-mantra.)

By Sri Radha Govinda dasi

Making 250 contacts of potential devotees in a few weeks? Finding people to whom you can preach freely? Making connections without physical effort? Identifying people who are open to listen to you about Krishna consciousness? Talking and chanting online with people? All this is just a Skype-cast away!

Let me tell you about my experience with Skype. Skype is a free program (download at www.skype.com) that lets you chat, talk, share files, and have voice and video conferencing—all for free—with any individual or group among the many millions of Skype users.

And of course Skype is also very useful for communicating among devotees.

Two months ago I was chatting with a friend on Skype. I switched to the ”Skype me” mode, in which you become “visible” to whoever is online (as I write this there are more than eight million Skype users online). Dozens of people started to send messages and call. I realized that there are thousands of people who are open for talks and discussions. I didn’t have to find them—they would find me. I started holding regular chats with some contacts, especially those who wanted to know more about Vedic psychology or even directly about Krishna. In less than three weeks I made hundred contacts with interested people.

By Kaunteya Das

Yes, I was chatting with a Dr. Mohammed, apparently a devout Muslim but also an intellectually inquisitive individual. At the beginning he had trouble accepting the idea of God having a form and being a person (and I understand him: in my dictionary the main definitions of “person” are: 1) a human being; 2) a human body).

What happened is that my wife, Sri Radha Govinda Dasi, was doing her skype preaching as usual, in the “skype me” mode, open for anyone who wanted to contact her and chat. She had already introduced Dr. Mohammed to different Vaisnava sites. On mayapur.com he saw the photos of Sri Sri Radha-Madhava and went into a mild crisis. He wasn’t able to adjust his conception of God with … well, God Himself. So an educated argument ensued. Prompted by my wife I also jumped into the dialogue.