Finding new and innovative ways to spread Krsna Consciousness – a polemical post

One may think that the bar being set so high is a reason for not distributing Prabhupada’s books, but it is precisely the opposite. There is another side to it, however.

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This may end up becoming a polemical post, but let’s give it a try...

One of my first services when I started practicing Krsna Consciousness was distributing books, back in 1992. Later, I did book distribution intensively from 2012 until the pandemic.

Something I learned during this time is that Srila Prabhupada’s books contain the highest spiritual knowledge, and studying them in detail is vital for all devotees. Without understanding the philosophy that Prabhupada explains in his books, it is highly improbable that we will go back to Godhead in this lifetime. There are many who think they understand Vaiṣnava philosophy, but Prabhupada is the one who really did. If we want the real thing, we need to learn from him.

However, something else I learned is that they are not the best tool to spread Krsna Consciousness in all circumstances.

Let me explain. Srila Prabhupada is a strikingly honest person. He shoots straight. He tells the bitter truth. He goes to the point, he hits the ball, without beating around the bush. This honesty is what brought most of the sincere devotees who have been in this movement, people who were honestly seeking spiritual knowledge and became attracted because they finally saw someone who was boldly saying the truth.

However, my perception is that most of the people who came after reading Srila Prabhupada’s books are people who were practicing devotional service in their previous lives. These are the ones who have sukṛti to appreciate the straightforward and honest theistic presentation Srila Prabhupada gives in his books. Yes, we are not this body. Yes, material life is miserable, and one who is attached to it is a crazy person. Yes, capitalism, communism, and women’s liberation are nonsense. Gandhi was a politician, most people are actually two-legged animals, most of the heroes people worship in modern times were actually rascals. This is the truth that Prabhupada presents in his books, but what percentage of the population is ready to accept these truths?

Krsna says in the Bhagavad-Gita: “Amongst thousands of persons, hardly one strives for perfection; and amongst those who have achieved perfection, hardly one knows Me in truth”. The books from Srila Prabhupada are for these few amongst thousands who are striving for perfection. We can see that the bar is so high that even inside our own movement, not everyone can appreciate the value of these books. These are persons who are still in the process of accumulating enough sukṛti to do so, even after chanting Hare Krsna for decades.

One may think that the bar being set so high is a reason for not distributing Prabhupada’s books, but it is precisely the opposite. Attracting advanced persons who were practicing in their previous lives, or who have exhausted other processes of self-realization, is probably Prabhupada’s goal in asking us to mass distribute his books. These are the people who will continue our movement, and the truth Prabhupada reveals in his books is the best way to reach them.

There is another side, however, that goes on simultaneously.

In his transcendental diary, Hari Sauri Prabhu tells a particular story that tells us something we may want to reflect on. Once, in India, in the 1970s, Srila Prabhupada received the news that a group of Gaudiya Matha devotees was distributing books from Srila Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī. However, instead of becoming happy with that, Srila Prabhupada made a point: 40 years after the disappearance of his guru-maharaja, they were still distributing his books; they could not create anything new.

One could interpret this story in different ways. The way I understand it is that we should not become accommodated to the idea that Srila Prabhupada will continue doing everything through his books and that we don’t need to do anything apart from distributing them. We should also try to give our contribution, finding ways to explain the process of Krsna Consciousness that are adequate for the times we live. We need to create a bridge between the degraded way of thinking of modern times and the books from Srila Prabhupada.

We should be able to present the message in ways that can be understood and appreciated by the people we are in contact with. Prabhupada was encouraging his disciples and followers to write articles and present Krsna Consciousness in their own words; he himself directed the Back to Godhead to be a vehicle for these new writings. That was what inspired me to also publish books, trying to explain Prabhupada’s teachings.

However, somehow we ended up creating a culture in our movement that discourages devotees from writing and explaining Krsna Consciousness in new ways, which is the precise opposite.

Devotees who write books are frequently viewed with disdain. If a devotee publishes a book for new people and starts to distribute it, he will be seen as a heretic by many. At the same time, some want to change the books from Srila Prabhupada because the originals don’t fit well with the mentality of the people they are trying to reach. Many want to change the language he uses, censor certain parts, correct supposedly incorrect statements, add footnotes, etc., etc. We don’t publish new books that can fit into these niches, and then we want to change Prabhupada’s books to fit into people’s mentality.

We can see examples of disciples of Srila Prabhupada who had great success in their ministry and could open whole new countries to Krsna Consciousness by thinking out of the box, explaining Krsna Consciousness in innovative ways, in ways that would make people interested. One powerful example is Srila Bhakti Thirta Swami, who was able to attract thousands of sincere persons through his books, many of whom became leaders of our movement. Many severely criticized him at the time, but the practical result was that people would start with his books and become encouraged to practice, and as they would accumulate sufficient sukṛti, they would naturally start to appreciate the books from Srila Prabhupada and study them. Many people who could at first not appreciate the books from Srila Prabhupada would end up reading all of them after starting with the books from Srila Bhakti Thirta Swami.

Our role as grand-disciples and followers of Srila Prabhupada is not just to keep repeating the same formulas devotees were using in the past, but to use our intelligence to present Krsna Consciousness in ways that are suitable for the audience we are speaking to. If we are speaking to people who are too much into impersonalism, or into women’s liberation, for example, it’s more productive to write new books explaining things in a way they can understand than to try to change Prabhupada’s books to fit into it. Later, when the same people become purified enough, they will be able to appreciate the books from Srila Prabhupada in their pristine form. Everything needs to come at its own time.

The point is that we should be able to change the presentation without changing the message. Srila Prabhupada gives us a masterclass of how to do that on SB 1.4.1:

“Personal realization does not mean that one should, out of vanity, attempt to show one’s own learning by trying to surpass the previous ācārya. He must have full confidence in the previous ācārya, and at the same time he must realize the subject matter so nicely that he can present the matter for the particular circumstances in a suitable manner. The original purpose of the text must be maintained. No obscure meaning should be screwed out of it, yet it should be presented in an interesting manner for the understanding of the audience. This is called realization.”

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