Keep It Real!

All this talk of brahmanas and ksatriyas is completely theoretical for you, right? You read it and you go - So what? What does this have to do with me? What am I supposed to do with my life?

All the knowledge in the world is useless to you until you know who you are. It's just like having a map of the whole city. It doesn't mean anything to you until you know where you are on the map.

So that's why I'm generally staying away from too much "Varnasrama-dharma" talk. You're a human being right? You want to know about human life.

Here's an excerpt from a great book called "The Volunteer Revolution". It's written by Bill Hybels and is in the Christian tradition. See if you can see some parallels with your own experience, and with ISKCON history as you have heard or experienced it. Remember, this human life series is really meant for people who have been chanting 16 rounds and following the four regulative principles for a number of years now, and are wondering: "Now what?", dealing with issues of self-identity and their specific purpose in life.

When Dr B taught us about servanthood back in the youth ministry days, he also taught us about spiritual gifts. So as we served together we asked each other: Who are you and what special talents and abilities do you bring to our corporate effort? Along the way we encouraged one another to move toward the areas of ministry where we felt most effective and energized.

But planting a church for adults with no money, no facilities, and no paid staff was harder than we anticipated. We believed to our toes that God had called us to start a church to reach out to unchurched people and help them become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. But we had so few people and so much to do. The overwhelming demands on our time and talents sent us scrambling back to the concept of raw servanthood. We adopted the mantra, Whatever It Takes.

If something needed to be done, we didn't ask questions. We just put on the necessary hat and did it. We considered a match between a volunteer role and a person's giftedness an appreciated bonus, but it definitely wasn't our priority.

I preached, lead the staff (all volunteers in the beginning), sang in two music groups at weekend services, discipled new believers, raised money, did strategic planning, visited people in the hospital, led a small group, and performed weddings and funerals. Everybody else in the core group served with the same intensity. When new believers joined the church, we challenged them to serve that way too - and they did. Our church wouldn't have lasted a year without that degree of commitment to doing "whatever it takes."

But after five years of serving with abandon, great people started flaming out. Men and women with pure hearts and deep devotion said, "I can't do this anymore. I'm exhausted." Others said, "I'm angry. What you're asking isn't reasonable." Some left the church so wounded that they had to get away to recover.

The way many of us had been living worked for a few years because of our youth and because we felt tremendously excited about starting a new adventure. But it was neither healthy nor sustainable.

We had all asked a single question - What needs to be done? - and we had answered enthusiastically with our actions. But we didn't ask the questions: What are you good at? What energizes you?. And conversely: What aren't you good at? What drains you?. We didn't think we had the luxury of asking such questions.

But as the decade of the 70s turned into the 80s, we realized there was more to faithful servanthood than just working harder. We had to work smarter. We had to move back toward the concept of spiritual gifts we had learned in the ministry.

I'd like to take a short break from Bill's narrative here and revisit Srila Prabhupada's Mayapura conversation. Prabhupada had the same experience, and the same realization that Bill Hybels had. After some time of getting everyone to be a pure devotee and transcend their material nature, he noticed that so many were flaming out. Before anyone starts saying that thi is "conditional devotional service" and "a lower standard" than we aspire to, let me just say that I see a lot of messed up people who are neither transcendental, nor well situated in their body and mind, so you'd need to sell me on the actual product, rather than some theoretical idea. Here is Prabhupada saying exactly what Bill just said:

Prabhupāda: Chanting will go on. That is not stopped. But at the same time the varṇāśrama-dharma must be established to make the way easy.

Hari-śauri: Well, at least my own understanding was that the chanting was introduced in the age of Kali because varṇāśrama is not possible.

Prabhupāda: Because it will cleanse the mind. Chanting will not stop.

Hari-śauri: So therefore the chanting was introduced to replace all of the systems of varṇāśrama and like that.

Prabhupāda: Yes, it can replace, but who is going to replace it? The people are not so advanced. If you imitate Haridāsa Ṭhākura to chant, it is not possible.

Satsvarūpa: We tell them go on with your job but chant also.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Thākaha āpanāra kāje, Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura. Āpanāra kāja ki. Caitanya Mahāprabhu recommended, sthāne sthitaḥ. And if they do not remain in the sthāna, then the sahajiyā’s chanting will come. Just like the sahajiyās also have got the beads and, but they have got three dozen women. This kind of chanting will go on. Just like our (name withheld). He was not fit for sannyāsa but he was given sannyāsa. And five women he was attached, and he disclosed. Therefore varṇāśrama-dharma is required. Simply show-bottle will not do. So the varṇāśrama-dharma should be introduced all over the world, and…
Satsvarūpa: Introduced starting with ISKCON community?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. Brāhmaṇa, kṣatriyas. There must be regular education.

Hari-śauri: But in our community, if the, being as we’re training up as Vaiṣṇavas

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Hari-śauri: then how will we be able to make divisions in our society?

Prabhupāda: Vaiṣṇava is not so easy. The varṇāśrama-dharma should be established to become a Vaiṣṇava. It is not so easy to become Vaiṣṇava.

Hari-śauri: No, it’s not a cheap thing.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Therefore this should be made. Vaiṣṇava, to become Vaiṣṇava, is not so easy. If Vaiṣṇava, to become Vaiṣṇava is so easy, why so many fall down, fall down? It is not easy. The sannyāsa is for the highest qualified brāhmaṇa. And simply by dressing like a Vaiṣṇava, that is fall down.
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The misconception in implementation lies in the question by Hari-sauri: " how will we be able to make divisions in our society?". It's not about "making divisions in society". It's about helping individuals to discover and develop who they are. Then as they interact on that basis, a healthy society will naturally form. It's not a top-down artificial imposition.

Now let's go back to Bill's narrative, and discover a very practical approach to this issue:

We started teaching the concept of giftedness every way we could. We developed an in-depth spiritual gift assessment course called Network, which taught throughout the year on Saturdays. We taught a nine-week series on spiritual gifts at our midweek services. We even came up with an abbreviated spiritual gift assessment that I used at our weekend services.

During the 80s, many people in our congregation discovered the exhilaration of serving in an area of perfect fit, where their personality, passions, and spiritual gifts all matched their volunteer role. But we ran into two problems.

I got this book, and others like it, after I was put in charge of an ISKCON temple. After a few weeks I realized that I didn't really know what I was doing. I thought: "Well, after thirty years someone must have written a book about leadership and management in this situation, recounting all the lessons that they learned along the way. I couldn't find such a thing in ISKCON, so I went further afield, and found this. Now, if only we could get to the point that Bill is describing here. That would be good. But let's learn from his experience of what lies beyond this, and gain even more critical insight into these issues, and hopefully gain some direction for our own lives:

First, the pendulum swung too far. An attempt to help people maximize their effectiveness without draining their energy slowly slid into an, "I can't serve until I find the perfect spot" mentality. It wasn't that people refused to serve in less-than-ideal circumstances. It was more that they thought that they weren't supposed to.; they thought they first had to "get it all figured out" so they could "do it all right". People knew their identity as servants and wanted to serve, but knowing how and where to serve had become a very complicated process.

Sound familiar? Confused about your identity after chanting and following for some years?

Second, we had mistakenly assumed that the right assessment tool would assure people of discovering their God-given gifts. For some people it did work; they took the test, determined their spiritual gifts, and immediately started using them - a simple story with a happy ending. For many people, however, taking an assessment test was not enough. We discovered that the right assessment tool can be useful if a person has past experience serving to help inform their assessment. But for a complete rookie to Kingdom life, the approach often raises more questions than it answers.

One caveat here: in my experience, people who have spent a long time serving in an unnatural way develop and live in a shell identity, disconnected from themselves. For these people it can be very hard to reconnect. They have layers of philosophical denial of themselves and fear conditioning them to conform to some idea of what they should be. If you spend more than a few years outside your zone, you basically have to develop something like this to continue, or you will flame out, like most people do.

Okay, now here we go. Get ready. Here's the practical instructions on how you can discover your identity:

We still believe that our ultimate goal is to serve in one's area of spiritual giftedness. But we have learned that spiritual gifts are less something "we figure out ahead of time" than something that God reveals to us as we serve.

So here's what we recommend to potential volunteers these days. Embrace wholeheartedly your fundamental identity as a servant of Jesus Christ. Use whatever understanding you have of your personality, passions, areas of interests, talents, and preferences to guide you in a general serving direction. Look at the needs in your church and community. Then jump in with a willing heart and an open mind. Drape your servant's towel over your arm and get busy.

As you continue on the serving pathway and experience the joys of difference-making, you can then begin to study about spiritual gifts and ask God to reveal yours to you.

The key is to look at discovering, developing, and deploying your spiritual gifts as a process. Don't worry about finding the perfect fit immediately. Give yourself permission to learn as you experiment.

Powerful stuff! I would add one more thing: Guidance. You should get good guidance. I don't mean some local organizational person who simply wants to put you on a roster or send you out with a bucket. You need to have a development plan and someone needs to be helping you with that. If you go into a brahmacari ashram, you should do it for fixed periods with a review of where you are going at those periods. Go for six months, then review with your guide. Then recommit for a year, then review, etc. It has to be a developmental process aimed at matching your capabilities with organizational needs in a way that develops you. Not simply about putting names on a roster.

Look for people who can help you to develop in a natural, healthy, and holistic way.

Okay, now if you've read this far, please leave a comment, even if it's just to let me know: "I read it". If you have some further thoughts or questions then please leave them. If you want to write a more lengthy response, then please write an article on your blog.