Cultural Learnings of USA

Its seems that religion is not immune to evolutionary pressures...

If people are straying from the church, he says, it’s the church’s fault for not doing a “better job.”

“There’s a lot to be done to make worship more vibrant and to make the preaching more relevant for people,” he says. “Religion is not just ideas, it’s the bonds of community, and if you get so [insular] that you don’t hold people, you have a problem.”

- Why some Americans mix Christianity, Eastern religions, Christian Science Monitor

Another great quote from the article:

Others, though, argue that religious purity is a non sequitur.

“The thing that is forgotten in these discussions is that any single religious tradition is itself already a composite,” says Harvey Cox, a professor at the Harvard Divinity School whose 1965 book, “The Secular City,” is considered a theology classic. He considers the idea of isolated religious traditions to be “a big myth.”

“What we have are streams that have been fed by other streams and have fed other streams all along,” he says. “Even what is advertised by clerical leaders as the kind of ‘pure package’ is already the result of the collage.”

Dr Harvey Cox was a contributor to "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna: Five Distinguished Scholars on the Krishna Movement in the West".

Vasu Murti has an article by Dr Cox on his site: “A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION”: Krishna Consciousness and the Judeo-Christian Tradition -
A Guide to Interfaith Discussion.

This is the fifth post in my series on Building a Krishna Conscious "Mega Church". See also the previously published Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.

Note: Since I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, I've been thinking about various programs that we are doing here in different venues. In the case of the temple I think Children is Function 2 after sound. In the case of the Sunday Feast and Krishnafest at our house I think that Presentations is Function 2. This doesn't mean that one is more important than the other, it's just the order of implementation. In the case of the Sunday Feast, for example, Presentations is a low-hanging fruit. On the other hand there are not facilities for easily spinning up a Children's Program there. In the case of the temple, there are plenty of children, and potential facilities for a Children's Program, so there it's both easier, and a greater imperative.

Also, someone mentioned a kitchen in response to an earlier post, the one about Sound. I have put a kitchen in a separate category of functions, and we'll come back to it later. OK, on with today's show...

Function 2 - Children

I'm going to go out on a limb here and put Children as function 2, rather than Presentations. In places like Gaura Yoga [website] and the Loft [website] in New Zealand they focus on Sound and Presentations, and have no facility for children. That works fine as center for young, single people. But eventually those young, single people are going to become married couples with children, so they will need some facility.

That doesn't mean that Gaura Yoga and the Loft will have to transform, but the organization will have to build out its capability to service those needs in some facility.

Personally, in working within an existing community, I'm focusing on sound first, then children second, rather than presentations.

My friend Krishnapada put it like this: "If McDonalds have facilities for children I think we should too".

Think about this. Let's say that you have a facility to which 400 adults and youths will come at a time. Let's say that half of them are married couples. So that's 200 people, or 100 couples. Let's say that on average they have 1 child - some will have none, some will have two or three. That's 100 children for 400 people.

Of course you could have a facility that is not child-friendly, but that's hardly making it easy, is it?

Here are two other points:

1. People sometimes ask me why I am so enthusiastic in Krishna Consciousness. It's simple. When I was a kid my mother raised me reading the Bible, and then sent me every weekend and every school holiday to a Bible camp, school holiday program, or youth group event, where they poured resources, attention, and intention into the program and the children on it. If you want to influence the value structure of a generation of devotees then you have to look after the kids. If you want to keep recruiting first generation devotees who were raised as atheists, then don't worry about them.

2. If you want parents to come back, then you provide something for their kids. McDonalds understand this. Krishnapada told me that his 4 year old son Shyam points to McDonalds and says: "I want to go there", just from seeing it from the outside - he's never been in. It's so attractive. McDonalds understands: get the kids, and you get the parents. Now, if you can give the children a valuable formative experience based on solid moral principles and values, what parent is going to say no to that?

For children's facilities you actually need more personnel, energy, money, and planning than you do for the adults. Children require more diversity of activities and facilities. You cannot put 400 children together in a big room for an hour and deliver one experience for them all. They need to be segregated and provided with an age-appropriate experience.

At Buckhead Community Church, which has facility for 3000 adults, they have one auditorium for the adults, and four floors of facilities for the children.

Each of those floors contains age-appropriate facilities for children from toddlers through to teenagers. On the first floor for the younger children they have a small stage/auditorium area where they do a Wiggles-type presentation [wikipedia article on the Wiggles], before splitting the children into groups in rooms where they play with toys and do other activities. In this way they have both a large group experience and a small group experience each week.

You can see a bunch of pictures and a video that I took of the young children's facilities when I visited this church in 2007 here.

At Buckhead, which is one of Andy Stanley's churches, along with Northpoint Community Church, they understand that people have different needs at each phase of life, for example, as a child, as a new believer, as a newly-wed, as an adult, as a father, etc. They distill this down to three essential messages that they repeat the these people over and over again in a variety of ways. For the youngest children it boils down to: "God Loves Me. God Made Me. Jesus Wants to Be My Friend For Ever".

Taking a cue from this, each year since he turned 5, I've taught Prahlad an additional prayer that we recite each night before sleeping. We now recite four prayers together (actually 5, because I also taught him Our Lord's Prayer from the Bible). In these prayers I have encapsulated what I discern as the essential devotional philosophical underpinnings that are most appropriate for him to imbibe at that time.

The Maha Kirtan for Kids program [poster | program] here on September 13 is the beginning of this. We've got the sound system to a certain level now, and it's time to put some energy into our program for the children.

The current temple design that we are working with has zero, as in no facility for children. It's based on a design for a bunch of single people to cram into an ashram and go out until they flame out.

A purpose-designed facility has sufficient spaces to facilitate age-appropriate programs for the number of children who come based on the number of adults who are facilitated. The program that goes on in that facility needs to dedicate sufficient resources as in personnel and money to that program to make it work.

For the older youths there is a section upstairs, as mentioned previously, with their own sound system and stage, and also break out rooms for small group discussions. It's an expanded version of a Loft preaching center, like Gaura Yoga or the Loft in New Zealand.

Conclusion: Invest heavily in children's facilities and programming.

Next: Function 3 - Presentations.

This is the fifth post in my series on Building a Krishna Conscious "Mega Church". See also the previously published Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Function 1 - Sound

The first function that the facility has to facilitate (that's why it's called a facility - it's a form that makes a particular function easy) is the chanting of the Holy Name.

The environment must be designed around sound vibration - after all, this movement is meant to be all about sound. Forget about turning to India for state-of-the-art sound design. You can get your subject matter from there, but delivery is a Western contribution.

The main space has to be acoustically designed. This is a science, but it's not rocket science. Auditoriums are tuned for sound. The space needs to be designed from the get go for acoustics, or it needs to be repurposed with acoustic materials, such as baffles and acoustic panels.

Next, it needs to be wired for sound. The model here is any environment which is purposed for sound, such as an auditorium, a concert hall, a nightclub, etc. There needs to be a multicore running down the length of the facility, either under the floor on in the wall. A multicore is a huge snake cable with thirty or forty cables inside it.

You need a massive mixing desk, multi-band graphic eq for the room, compressors and multi-effects units, and a number of wireless rigs. Sound is what it's all about.

The thing about technology, and this is from years of personal experience, is that there is a sweet spot that you have to reach to take advantage of it. Before you get to that sweet spot the technology creates as much interference as it does benefit. Let me give you some examples: When your microphones keep feeding back, or the cable malfunctions unless it's held at an angle, or the output of your power amp doesn't scale sufficiently, your technology gets in the way as much as facilitates. When you lay down the bucks and have a graphic eq, noise gate, a compressor, and a wireless hypercardioid mic, all that goes away, and all you get is the crisp, clear sound of the message, with no distraction by the medium. When your singers can't hear themselves and strain to sing and miss notes, when your mrdanga player can't hear what's going on and misses a change, when there is too much treble in the sound reinforcement and not enough power (bass), when the sound distribution is uneven (loud at the front and inaudible at the back), when there are speakers or ugly stands between the people and the kirtan party, technology is not helping you. When you lay down the bucks and mount speakers out of line of sight at front and back with a 180 degree phase difference, with distributed subwoofers, and provide foldback for the performers with in-ear monitors with dedicated mixes, then all that goes away and all you get is the experience of the kirtan, with no distraction by the medium.

You have to spend big on this to make it happen, and when you do, the results are awesome. No-one but the most observant goes away saying: "Wow, did you see that they were using in-ear monitors?" The technology has reached the sweet spot and become transparent. They just go away saying: "That was the best kirtan ever!" If you introduce a low level of technology then people will notice it. They'll go away complaining about the microphone or the sound.

The facility needs a dedicated sound mixing area and sound engineers. I visited Buckhead Community Church in Atlanta, Georgia, where I participated in their morning worship service (you can check out my photos and videos of the opening service here). They had two engineers working a desk halfway back in the auditorium. Basically the design there was like any number of dedicated auditoriums that I played in in bands as a teenager. In a tour of the facility afterwards I was shown an area on the third floor where the youth have their own worship service with their own band. They had their own stage, own PA system with mixing console (all smaller than the main one, but much more developed than ISKCON temple I've seeen), and their own lighting rig.

I got my start in audio engineering at the Sandringham Baptist Church on end of my block on Mt Albert Rd in Auckland, New Zealand. The church sound man, Clem, gave a number of training sessions for interested persons in the congregation, to develop a sustained sound engineering capability for the church. When you see me rolling cables using that particular technique, that's his training.

Now you can say: well, there is no way that we can do all that. But guess what: it can be done, and I'm going to prove it.

A Culture of Music

Above I mentioned getting the subject matter for the sound. Of course, any sound system is going to be worthless without something to put through it. A zero amplified even a million times is still zero. Something out of time and out of tune just sounds worse when it's miked up.

In order to field a powerful experience for people, it's necessary to have a vibrant culture of music. This takes investment of resources - time, energy, and money.

Where you spend your money and time is where you will see growth. Creating a long-term culture of music takes short to medium term investment with no immediate return.

Quality instruments need to be purchased and maintained. Events and artists need to be sponsored. Cultural exchange needs to take place. Seminars need to be held.

Australia's biggest Christian megachurch, Hillsong [website], started life in 1983 as Hills Christian Life Centre. In 1986 they started an annual music conference, called Hillsong. By the early 90s this music conference had reached a stage of momentum where CDs were released. These CDs became wildly popular and the church rebranded itself as "Hillsong", since that was what they were known for.

When I visited Buckhead Community Church in Atlanta, Georgia in 2007 I met with the music director, a hip young guy in jeans carrying an electric guitar. When I told him I was visiting from Australia he revealed that he and three other members of the church band had just returned from a visit to Hillsong.

Conclusion: Invest in sound.

Tomorrow: Function 2 - Children.

This is the fourth post in my series on Building a Krishna Conscious "Mega Church". Part 1 can be found here, Part 2 can be found here, and Part 3 can be found here.

Functions of a Krishna Consciousness Facility

I'm going to add a note in here, in response to the feedback that has been coming in about this series so far.

I mentioned earlier that I had let part of this series escape via Twitter. What I said there was: "I don't want a building that looks Indian. I'll take one designed for sound, kids, parking, and presentations, thanks".

I followed that up shortly afterward, after a bit more thought, with: "of course, if it has all that, I don't really mind what it looks like #functionbeforeform"

The point is not to say that "making something look or feel Indian" is wrong. The point is that this is not the exclusive, or even primary consideration; and if this if this is the only or primary conception of function, and other functions are neglected, then don't be surprised by the outcome that such a design produces.

It's important to remember that this is a discussion about function, and thence emergent form. Merely discussing form without a deep consideration of function will lead to a superficial analysis, and an inability to make any real difference.

That's my note. Thanks for the feedback, keep it coming in. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

I'm not going to go into a deep discussion about the different factors that lead me to these conclusions. Many people have their opinion, and they are welcome to them. Mainly these have been inspired by studying deep, multi-year success stories, so if you want to change my opinion, have some of those ready, or be prepared to hold you opinion strongly enough to make one.

Function 0: Parking

The zeroth function (in the sense of a precondition for the first) that the facility has to facilitate (you see where that word comes from now?) is parking. If you are expecting/want people to come, then you have to facilitate that. Take a look at any shopping center, any amusement park, any concert venue. They want people to come, they facilitate that - they make it easy.

You can get away without parking facilities, but really you want to make it easy, right? That's why you're building a facility - to facilitate certain functions. The most basic one is for people to come.

Tomorrow: Function 1 - Sound.

This is the third post in my series on Building a Krishna Conscious "Mega Church". Part 1 can be found here, and Part 2 can be found here.

A Brief Analysis of ISKCON Temple Design

Let's look now at ISKCON temple design.

Any discussion of the form of a temple design obviously requires a discussion of the function of an ISKCON temple, because one implies the other.

Let me just do two things here.

First of all, if you read anything on the Internet, you'll have read people complaining that ISKCON temples today are filled with expatriate and descendent Indian congregations, and have very few people from the native population of the host country. True? Anecdotally, and from my observation also.

Part of this may be due to the design of the temple. Allow me a flight of fantasy here. The envisioned functionality of the temple is: "Let's make something that looks really Vedic", where Vedic means Indian. In the 70s, when teenagers and youths were looking for something exotic and Indian, having the most authentic Indian-looking temple was the most effective way to attract them. In the 21st century when authentic Indian is no longer such a strong draw card, that form remains attractive to expatriate and culturally Indian persons.

In support of this idea, my second thing. Let me tell a story. It comes from, by memory, Srila Prabhupada Lilamrita. Someone may be able to provide the reference.

The devotees bought Watseka Ave, the site of the LA temple. Previously it was a church. Srila Prabhupada told the devotees to leave the chairs in to allow visitors to sit comfortably and hear lectures on Krishna Consciousness. After this he left and continued travelling. When he next returned to Watseka Ave he found the devotees had actually ripped out all the chairs and laid down a marble floor, to make a bona-fide "Vedic" (read: Indian) temple. Srila Prabhupada was very displeased with this.

The relationship between the two? A disparity in envisioned functionality of the facility, and hence emergent form. The devotees wanted the facility to fulfill the function of "bona-fide Indian experience". Srila Prabhupada wanted it to perform the function of "effective outreach facility".

The replication of this approach to functionality and form, that the form of the temple should serve the functionality of being more authentically Indian, has lead to the standard ISKCON temple form... which functions today to attract large Indian congregations and not many Westerners.

Rather than catalog a list of "all the things that are wrong" with ISKCON temple designs, I am going to go back to basics, and examine functionality first, then work forward to envision the form that follows that functionality.

Tomorrow: Functions of a Krishna Consciousness Facility.

This is the second post in my series on Building a Krishna Conscious "Mega Church". Part 1 can be found here.

Function Follows Form Influences Function

When we look at any purpose-built structure we find that the form of the structure is dictated by the function that it will perform.

Take a look at a service station (a "servo" in Australia, a "petrol station" in en-UK speaking countries). The whole layout of the facility is purely to facilitate its functionality: driveways - entry and exit; fuel pumps; underground tanks with access for petrol tankers; a shop and till.

Take a look at a supermarket: a huge parking lot; a specific layout with aisles and signs, laid out to guide shoppers through in a specific order; lanes and tills, with express lanes and regular lanes.

Take a look at an office building: multi-level with office spaces; toilets on or between floors; a kitchenette facility; elevators and stairs.

Take a look at a stadium: probably extensive parking near-by; huge entrances and corridors; extensive bathroom facilites; changing rooms; tiered seating; commercial facilites for caterers; sound system; video system.

Whatever the function that will be performed there, the building is designed and constructed to facilitate that.

Important Point:

• A "facility" (from Latin facilis - easy) is a particular form that makes a particular function easy.

In this way Form follows Function.

Form, in turn, influences function. For example: we leased a space for our yoga center downtown in Brisbane. We were unable to put a kitchen in there, although we had hoped that we would be able to. Due to this limitation, or particular characteristic of the form of the space our functionality was similarly limited, or shaped. So the form of the building supports certain functionality, and impedes other functionalities.

In this way Form influences Function.

Function Precedes Form

Another way of stating that Form follows Function is to say that Function precedes Form. In the case of our yoga center we already had our function. However, the form that we obtained did not support that function. Function precedes form. When you are designing a building you have in mind the function that it will support and facilitate. When you buy or rent an existing building, unless the function you wish to perform is a common use case (which yoga classes + dinner is not) then you may have to adapt the form (something that was easy to do in New Zealand, but very difficult in Nazi Australia), or restrict or adapt the functionality (which is what we ended up doing for a strained three years).

I would like to write a digressionary note about form and formlessness, but I don't have the energy or time right now. Suffice it to say:

Anyway, form has its use, its misuse, and its abuse.

Tomorrow: A Brief Analysis of ISKCON Temple Design

I've started this blog post many times over. The most recent time was on the plane flying back from Sydney after this year's Janmastami festival. I let a small snippet of it escape via Twitter and it ignited such interest that I realized that it's a winner as a topic. I can never get it just right, so I'm just going to bang it out now as it is, half digested though it may be. I'm going to publish it in parts over the next week, so stay tuned and collect the whole set!

A rather lengthy preamble

First of all, let me frame this somewhat. There is really no way to write about this without ruffling feathers. It's going to be difficult for my local audience (in Brisbane, Australia) to read this blog post without thinking about the local ISKCON temple project, and assuming that everything that I am writing is somehow either inspired by or aimed at that project. My national audience (in Australia) may be left thinking that I'm talking about their temple. International audiences will probably find it applicable, but unless I mention your temple by name or you've seen me there, you're probably going to appreciate this more as a general analysis.

I have been thinking about these themes for over a decade now, and these thoughts and observations are a synthesis of my reading, thinking, observing, and experimenting.

Secondly, and to frame it further: I have a bunch of favorite sayings. One I recently stumbled across is: "Understand your problems, but give your energy to solutions". Here are a couple of my own that are also applicable here: "The only valid critique is a superior result"; and "Opinions are many, success stories are few". What I mean to say by this is that there are a million people out there who are arm chair generals, arm chair coaches, arm chair strategists, arm chair GBCs, and arm chair temple presidents. Once you actually get on the field and face the limitations of the circumstances you are working with, including the people, the existing structures, and the reality of your own mortality, you gain an appreciation for why it's not as simple as your off-the-cuff plan makes it sound.

I've come to deal with this by no longer talking about what other people should do, but rather talking about what I think I should do. So that's what I'm talking about here. I'm not talking about what Tirtharaj should do with the Brisbane temple. I'm not talking about what Aniruddha should do with the Melbourne temple. I'm not talking about what Varanayaka should do with the Sydney temple, nor what Svavasa should do with the LA temple.

This is not about what everyone else is doing right or wrong. People are doing the best they can given the circumstances they are working in, and there are many people who are doing a great job. That doesn't rule out improvement, nor does looking at ways to do things differently depreciate what is going on. Anyone who has taken responsibility in ISKCON for starting or maintaining a facility knows first hand the challenges involved, and nothing is stopping anyone who thinks it is "not being done right" or that they could do something better from taking responsibility for something themselves.

What I'm talking about here is my own vision about what I will do in the future, what my son will do in the future, and what we will continue to do moving forward into the future, life after life. At this point I think the vision, while it continues to evolve, has stablised to the point where future changes will be of the details rather than the overall scope and direction.

Thirdly, and the final piece of framing: why am I writing this down? For a number of reasons:

• To record my own observations for posterity, so that I can look back on them and review how things have changed, or panned out
• To share them and contribute to a conversation about these topics
• To participate in a conversation about them to further refine them
• To learn from the experience and observations of others

So to summarise. This is not about what I think X person should be doing, except where X = me in the future. So don't read it any other way. It's not a veiled attack or subversive revolutionary manifesto.

So here we go.

Tomorrow: Function Follows Form Influences Function

My first political cartoon.

First of all watch Peter Schiff predict the 2008 economic meltdown with crystal clarity in August 2006:

And then check out his recent economic analysis of President-elect Obama:

From within the US it might look like Obama advocates and represents change. I mean after all, the guy's skin is black, right? That's a different color from the last guy...

However, from outside it's clear that what Americans are actually clamoring for is not change, but a return to the status quo - to consumption unfettered by consequences. A return to a privileged place in the world where the US does what it wants and leaves the world to deal with the negative effects, while expecting global gratitude for whatever scraps fall from the table in a global economic trickledown.

Obama's sketchy foreign policy indications are more of the same. More troops to Afghanistan to continue to prosecute the war for geostrategic dominance in the Middle East. Continued consumption of cattle and use of fossil fuels, which increase greenhouse gases. [Reference: What Barack Obama's win in the US election means for Australia]

There is nothing new here, no fundamental challenge to or change in the paradigm. As long as the economic basis remains fiat currency and not a healthy relationship between humans, cows, and the land, nothing changes - except that the demonic system furthers its agenda.

If you want to see a reframing of Obama's presidency that really casts it in the light of "a change of style but not substance", then take a look at this:

Today at lunch I talked with Sista Shree. I apologised for not being able to find the kirtan last night at My Health Yoga, and promised to be there next week - now that I know that the entrance is around the back.

We got to talking about Obama. My mate Samson at work is from Kenya and we managed to convince him that it was his duty to buy the office sweets to celebrate (ha!).

Sista Shree told me that "if they gone and stolen this election like the last two, I was only going to go back to the States to visit my family - that's it."

I felt sorry to have to tell her that I had heard that of course "they" realized that they couldn't get away with it a third time in a row, so they replaced Obama with a Manchurian-candidate programmed clone last year.

Actually, I just made that up - but remember, you heard it here first.

Anyway, the problems are systemic, not personality-driven, in spite of the dramatic spectacle of celebrity frontmanship on the stage.

As soon as Obama gets to the systemic causes, like the lack of gold-standard backing the currency and private ownership of the Federal Reserve, he can sell out, or go out like JFK.

As Srila Prabhupada said: "As soon as you get on their stage, you have to dance to their tune."

You can rearrange the deck chairs all you like on the Titanic, but it's still sinking. You can strap a new figurehead to the front of the boat, but it won't change its course. In the same way, there is no hope that by replacing the person who fronts the complex economic and political system that you can stop the inevitable "progress" of history.

Without a massive widespread transformation of the populace through grassroots performance of sankirtan en masse, there is insufficient momentum to remove entrenched power.

Sankirtan yajna is the only hope.