Building ISKCON out

A friend who works for Microsoft [which proves devotees are transcendental to mundane divisions like "conservative" and "liberal" ;-)] writes me:

Prabhu I was reading the post off your blog . In which you have invited everyone to the Saturday Harinam. You said that it’s another day wasted if we don’t use our energy for the Lord’s mission. Prabhu ….. now when you to use the energy in Lord’s mission everyday what does that mean? Now my understanding to it is something like this

Devotees chant Hare Krsna mantra everyday in this way they are using there energy in Lord’s mission.. is that right?

Devotees going out and preaching and doing harinam, this way using energy in Lord’s mission…is that right?

One is for personal KC and second one is for other benefit and own too. I would put it as internal KC and external KC.

My reply:

Dear Prabhu, thanks for your question and sharing your realization. What you have described is a good start.

Then it should go further to become all consuming, not just of our lives, but of the entirety of human endeavour.

By following his qualities of work, every man can become perfect. Now please hear from Me how this can be done. By worship of the Lord, who is the source of all beings and who is all-pervading, a man can attain perfection through performing his own work.

- Bhagavad-gita 18.45-46

I work. I get paid. I spend the money. That's energy. The rent I pay on my house is used for Krishna's service in one aspect because I live there, do sadhana, and preach.

However, if i could apply that rent money to a capital purchase by a Vaisnava, either by having a devotee landlord or else by buying it myself, then more of that energy is used in the Lord's service. If I then go on to use the capital gain to buy or contribute to a rural project, even more so. If I help other devotees to do the same thing, even better.

There are always more and more ways that we can make the society stronger on the economic and social platform (which require a solid spiritual basis) and channel more energy into the sankirtan movement.

All the energy that the two of us are giving to the respective technology companies we work for is being taken by them and stewarded to further materialistic aims. Our aims might be more in the mode of goodness than yours ;-), but nonetheless, we know that both are material. We contribute, and we do feel enlivened by the progress that the company makes. We do not begrudge our participation there, because we are part of a winning team (and we're getting paid, which enables our preaching). At the same time, as devotees, we see the futility and the spiritually fruitless expenditure of energy that is going on there. We admire the efficiency, but lament the effect. I feel that energy loss acutely, but there is currently no full-time engagement for me in ISKCON. I'm a conditioned soul, a grhasta with a wife and child. ISKCON doesn't yet cater to my situation in a way that can utilize my energy and provide me with the economic and social support that I require.

We should construct a more fully blown human society which can harness more of the energy of the participants. This will take ksatriyas and vaisyas acting under the guidance and advice of brahmanas. At the moment we have only a narrow band brahminical organization that cannot accommodate or engage large numbers of a wide diversity of persons in different phases of life.

As His Holiness Bhakti Caru Swami has been recently vision casting, we need to build out a more complete platform for human life. Krishna consciousness must spread to all areas of human existence. All human endeavour must be linked to the sankirtan yajña. This is the 50% of his work that Srila Prabhupada left for us - the establishment of a fully-blown human society: varnasrama-dharma.

It is not that we are vaisyas or ksatriyas. We are not in the business of being landlords or executives of organizations. We are in the business of fulfilling Srila Prabhupada's instructions, and he has given us the order to do it. So do it we will.

your servant in Brisbane,
Sita-pati das