19920312 Nāmahaṭṭa Seminar - Day 1

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The following is a lecture on “Nāmahaṭṭa Seminar - Day 1” given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on March 12, 1992 – in Śrī Māyāpur, India.

Sa. Shakti. First I need to go there. So you can kind of move over here. They’re placing the. Don’t black out. I am going to walk over there. So stay. There’s a place that gopīs all the GBCs and final placing. Here’s a quote. There’s a discussion from Śrīla Prabhupāda. There was a devotee talking with Prabhupāda, saying that Śrīla Prabhupāda india there are 500,000 villages. So we need so many for going. Prabhupāda said, yes, and we want that all these village people may come daily and hear and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. The devotee was saying that one of our traveling parties went to Assam, and there we saw that in one Gauḍīya mat temple there were three or four brahmacharis in the village. And they had the whole village actually engaged. They saw some of the activities.

So they were engaged in making the village Kṛṣṇa conscious in their way. So similarly, we can do the same. Śrīla Prabhupāda. Yes. A Prabhupāda said, yes. Then devotee said, just like Govinda, he is bringing many villagers here. Prabhupāda said, oh, yes, he’s a good preacher. So then there’s 500,000 such villages all over India, and there are more pious. Some of our devotees went to the Sundar Bond jungle and they had a tremendous reception. Prabhupāda said, just see. Then Hari Suri said, very good reception. Prabhupāda said, everywhere. Then Gargamuni said, yet there is no roads, there’s no lights there. Nothing is there. Prabhupāda said, india is a good field. Yes, India is a good field. Gargamuni said, we can have 100 jeeps and send them all over India. 100 Jeeps.

Prabhupāda said, now you are seeing that there is possibility of preaching, and even if he cannot speak local language, still he will be received. Also. Śrīla Prabhupāda had mentioned initially that he wanted to just preach in the cities of India. But later on he said that since he’d established centers in all the cities, but his godbrothers were not covering the villages. So then he also said to spread the preaching to the villages all over India. So in 1977, our temple was attacked by. Some political instigation, members of another community attacked us. So after that, the Hindu villagers gathered together and we had a very big procession and about 25,000 people marched in that procession. And everyone was chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa and they marched from our temple up to the Chankazi Samadhi to just show solidarity that they won’t tolerate another attack on our temple.

And it was very peaceful. And after that everything also became very peaceful because the people from the other community saw that they couldn’t attack us. When that happened, we approached Prabhupāda and asked him whether we should try to utilize india, especially in Bengal or ESA Assam, there’s a very big. Base of devotees of Lord Caitanya Mahprabhu. So whether we should somehow try to engage them. Prabhupāda he replied that we should train them up to chant in the way we are doing and to preach properly, bring them to our temple and let them stay for some time and then send them out and then have preachers go there. So with that instruction, then different devotees here, they began this type of congregational preaching.

Subsequently we found in 1978 that while Prabhupāda was the editor of the Gauḍīya Patrika when he was a Vanaprastha staying in the Devananda Gauḍīya Mutt, he was the president of the magazine of their regular magazine called Gauḍīya Patrika. So in one of those issues, His Holiness Bhakti Churumar showed me there was. An excerpt from a book by Bhaktavino Thakur called Gautam Kalpatavi. Five different issues were published there. We have not been able to locate any other issues here. Maybe in the future, Maybe in the future we will be able to locate more. But from those five then we found that what Prabhupāda had said about preaching to the villagers, Bhaktived Thakur had already been doing and he called it as the Nāmahaṭṭa. So at that time we thought that we should also keep the same name as the previous cryas had given and iskconized it.

So we called it the Hare Kṛṣṇa Nāmahaṭṭa. Since we’re the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, then we continue to implement with Prabhupāda asked us to do. Now, the first day here, I’d just like to give a little background about the Nav Hatha ideas and then how it’s going on india. In previous years, we had different volunteers from different parts of the world who talked about the congregational preaching. So I am hoping that I will get some volunteers that can tell about congregational preaching in different countries for two days. And then the fourth day I was going to go over the results that I got so far as a monitor of congregational preaching. We took a Survey from the different temples. So this is a general idea. We have how to go forward. Last year we had South Africa representative give nice presentation. Someone from Eastern Europe.

Do we have anyone here this year that in future days give a presentation on congregational preaching in their area? I will find out about it. Have to recruit somebody. So. In the time of Bhakti Vinod Thakur, there was a lot of problem india because of caste system. The caste system was separating the people. Unless you’re born in a. Put this. What are you doing? You’re making hodgepodge. Put the salesman. You’re putting. Put that down. Keep it to one salesman. Take one that one out. So don’t duplication. Try to see what you’re doing. That should go on the bottom. There was a lot of difficulty due to the caste system. And people were not able to approach Kṛṣṇa consciousness very easily because of the various limitations.

So Lord Nithyananda, in his original preaching, anybody could take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness irregardless of what caste or background they were. Just like Haridas Thakur was born in a Mohammedan family and he became the Namacharya. So similarly, Bhakti Vinod Thakur, he presented the Naamahata as. A way that everybody can have access. Hatha means market and Na means the Holy name so that we can purchase the Holy Name. Just like you go in the market. Whatever caste, color, creed, anybody can buy anything if they have the money. So in the market of the Holy Name you can buy anything if you have the currency. But the currency is not material desire or material money. But the currency is transcendental currency. You want to put this on the board. You can draw it here. First put down, put in the bottom the one sentence.

The idea is that just whatever is there, just write on. Idea is that you can get the Holy Name if you have devotion. This is very interesting in our preaching all over the world. Because many people, they may think that, well, if I am not an Indian, then why should I take to this? Or this doesn’t apply to me. But the principle is that anybody who has faith, they can start to purchase the Holy Name. Faith in the beginning stage means they’re willing to come and listen. They’re at least receptive enough to hear you that much faith. So that Bhakti Vinod Thakur called Srādhā was worth one century. Then there’s three other stages which are association with devotees or Sadhusanga. Then there’s Bhajana Kriya or devotional service and an art of Nirvritti getting rid of our bad habits.

So Those are like $0.03, $0.06 and $0.09. Nine cents. Well, he call it anna so I am dividing it in cents. He said he compared this all to one silver coin. That when we get up to ecstatic love of Kṛṣṇa that’s like a silver coin. So 100th part of the silver coin is like having faith enough to listen then taking association. He considered to be these three levels which he’s. I don’t know if you can see what he’s writing. Right Is big. Stay to one side when you write so they can see you have Satsanga Bhajana Kriya and Arta Nivruti. Yeah. He said when you get up to mishtah, it’s worth two annas. Two annas is 12 parts of a silver coin. Mishtah is where you’re fixed.

And 25 cents or 25% of a silver coin is Ruchi 51 half of a silver coin is Shakti. Ruchi means taste. Mishta means fixed devotion. Ruchi means taste. Shakti means attachment. And ecstatic love is a silver coin or 100%. When you get Kṛṣṇa Prem then it’s like a gold coin. So that goes to another dimension. So the idea being is that anybody whether you’re living in a temple or living in your house, they all have a certain buying power. And according to their buying power they can get the holy name. If somebody is living outside the temple. But they’re very. They have a great attachment for reached on the holy name, they may have a higher buying power. Someone may be a Nubakta in the temple is still challenging. Every time hears and doesn’t really accept.

Although he’s living in the temple, he may still be on the level of just learning how to take Satsanga or Bhajana Kriya. He’s just getting rid of his Anartas. So actually in ISKCON the system was that if you lived in the temple then you’re considered to be a devotee. And if you’re outside the temple, you were considered to be a demon. But before Bhakti Siddhānta, Sarasoti Thakur, there were not very many temples that people lived in. Up to the time of Bhakti Vino Thakur, most people lived in their homes and very few sadhus lived in holy places. There wasn’t this. Preaching temples is a relatively new occurrence. Before even the Grihastas were preaching, wife would stay at home and run the house and husband would go out and preach. Of course, now both husband and wife both go out and preach.

And a new thing. Prabhupāda said, this is new because now Kali Yuga, things have changed. The Western women are able to go out and preach along with their husbands. Somewhere here I got a quote to that effect. He was commenting how it was a new development, but he thought it was a positive development. Now people are appreciating in the in Iskcon that we need to develop our congregation. So initially, if we see that a congregation, a person can be Kṛṣṇa conscious even though he’s in his house. The advantage of living in the temple is that we can concentrate all our effort in preaching. And because the atmosphere sometimes outside is not so conducive. But like Prabhupāda here, he said, explain. It is not that we have to open different centers all over the world.

Whoever cares for the Kṛṣṇa Consciousness movement can install deities at home and under superior guidance, worship the deity regularly. Chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa Mahā Mantra and discussing Bhagavad Gītā and Rmad Bhāgavatam. We are actually teaching in our classes how to go about this. One who feels that he is not yet ready to live in a temple or undergo strict regulatory principles in the temple. Especially householders who live with wife and children can start a center at home by installing the deity, worshipping the Lord morning and evening, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa and discussing Bhagavad Gītā and Rmad Bhāgavatam. Anyone can do this at home without difficulty. And R. Caitanya Mahāprabhu requested all the devotees present there to do so. This is the quote. Gauri Dao Korosada Kṛṣṇa Sankirtan Kṛṣṇama, Kṛṣṇa Kathakṛṣṇa.

Lord Caitanya Mahava requested them all to return home and begin chanting the holy name congregationally. He also requested them to worship Kṛṣṇa, chant His holy name and discuss his holy pastimes. So it is a Lord Chaitanya’s principle that people can practice Kṛṣṇa Consciousness from their house. And that was the original basis. The prophet said, under superior guidance, what we say in the long run that the preachers in the temple, they had to be dedicated, to guide, to become experts, to guide all the people who are practicing in their home. Because of their being not having any other preoccupation, they can concentrate all their time on being very expensive and being able to give better guidance to those who are doing other occupations and worshiping Kṛṣṇa in their home.

So then, Bhakti Vinod Thakur, after establishing that, okay, anybody can be Kṛṣṇa conscious, you have to use this as the money. If you use material money, it will be rejected as counterfeit and you will be arrested by Yamurats for trying to use counterfeit money. So then he explained that there are different kinds of branches of the greater marketplace of the holy name. Firstly the left hand corner you can see is a little picture called bazaar. There are several temples in that bazaar. It’s like a holy damage, is like a spiritual bazaar. There are many temples. Like went on Navaji Parikram we saw dozens of temples, holy places. So there are so many different activities going on here in Māyāpur. There’s like Goshala, there’s Gurukul, there’s deity worship, there’s bbt. There’s like dozens of different things going on.

So when you have many different devotees and many activities, this is like a spiritual market, a big bazaar. So that’s the first level he considered was the holy Dham where people can go like people go to the big cities because sometimes we go shopping because you can get anything you want there. So the ideas in the holy dam you can find the guru. You can find so many things like may not be a guru in every temple but probably in the holy Dhams there will be several gurus, several sannyasis and devotees, senior devotees to preach. Then like in a. What we call nowadays they have a supermarket. This is added by our Śrīla Bhakti, Siddhānta, Saraswi Ṭhākura and rla Prabhupāda is establishing like mini doms or a big supermarket. Actually the supermarket should have temple.

It’s like one thing is you go into a big commercial area, like a downtown area. Next thing is you go and there’s like a supermarket. It’s one store but it’s got quite a bit of things on it. That’s the temple even made it look more like some kind of masjid or something. You could write temple there. You can write temple. A little bit Islamic architecture. This is a bazaar. Supermarket is like New York, London, Los Angeles, Melbourne, those big temples, you can go there, you can find so many devotees. There’s books, there’s a big deity worship going on. You can get the Mah Prashad from the deities. So that way it’s like a more. You can get more variety there. But then temples, many temples. No, one temple is a supermarket. Don’t write it any smaller. Then you have your navhat group.

The navhat group is. He compared it to like a shop or a store. You have One little shop, like a corner grocery store or something, like a 7 11. They have different type of stores. You have a little shop. Some devotees gather together in someone’s house or they have a little small. They have some temple or hall. So they use that to gather together. So we know that to maintain a temple. Nowadays in iskcon, there’s a lot of overheads, especially in the west, you buy the land on mortgage payment. Here india, usually there’s no mortgage system, so you just have to buy outright or get it donated, which is a saving in one sense. You don’t have to go on paying mortgage. But in the west, say you buy land, you get a bank loan, you have to pay mortgage.

You have so many recurring expenses, you have to maintain Pujaris. So it’s a very big overhead. But you get benefit from that. You have the deities and you have many nice programs. So many people can go and get. They have big festivals. They can go and get a lot of spiritual inspiration. That’s the upper side. Downside is that cost a lot. Now, namhat group, like a little shop, doesn’t have so much overhead. People gather together, they chant, they read the shastra, they give each other association. So it’s virtually unlimited how many Nāmahaṭṭa groups you can make, how many temples you can make is a limit. Depending on what temples you have should be established. It takes a certain number of people, you have to have a certain cash flow to make a temple work.

But you can start an amhat group if you have five, 10 people willing to gather together. You have got a group and they can meet in someone’s living room. They can meet in a hall. They can meet in a church, a temple, anywhere. Then gradually, these namhat groups can grow and eventually they can also turn into temples. Just like many businessmen, they start off with a small shop and later on they get more capital. It becomes a supermarket. They expand their shop and they get bigger. They come wholesalers. So a temple is a bigger version of Nāmahaṭṭa. Established Nāmahaṭṭa doesn’t necessarily have to be formal. Then you have your individual preachers. So Bhakti Vinod Thakur considered them salesmen or brokers. The difference is that, say, someone is able to actually explain the good and bad qualities of the product and convince someone to buy.

He’s called a salesman. And a broker means that he’s not actually selling the goods. He’s bringing you to the person who has the goods. And he’s like a commission agent. So these are all like, he used all these Terms they all have significance. Like Prabhupāda said, even if you don’t know how to preach, but you can sell my books. So in one sense, if someone doesn’t know how to preach but if he can just repeat what he reads in the books or bring someone to a preacher, then he’s considered like a broker. But if he can himself explain the subject matter, then he’s a salesman. In any case, both are individual preachers. Can I have a tissue here? So we can say that in Iskcon we have also we had the holy dams. The first Prabhupāda started the temples.

Then he established our temples here in the holy dam, the big bazaars. Bringing all the devotees here for the Gor Pūrṇimā festival. And he had individual book distributors and preachers. But we didn’t have shops or stored naamhat groups so much. But Śrīla Prabhupāda had in many places requested that people should practice Kṛṣṇa consciousness in their home and then from the home they should preach. Śrīmad Bhgavatam First Canto Vishma Dev’s teachings it says the last item taught by Bhishma Deva was the process of pleasing the Lord. We are all eternal servants of the Lord and when we forget this essential part of our nature, we are put into material conditions of life. The simple process of pleasing the Lord for the householders especially is to install the deity of the Lord at home.

By concentrating on the deity, one may progressively go on with the daily routine worked. Worshipping the deity at home, serving the devotee, hearing the Rmad Bhāgavatam residing in the holy place and chanting the holy name of the Lord are all inexpensive items which can please the Lord. The subject matter was explained by grandfather Bhishma to his grandchildren. Then Prabhupāda also explains that a Sannyāsī or one who is in the renounced order of life should wander from door to door, village to village, town town and country to country, all over the world. As as far as he is able to travel and enlighten the householders about Kṛṣṇa consciousness. A person who is a householder but is initiated by a sannyāsī has the duty to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness at home as far as possible.

He should call his friends and neighbors to his house and hold classes in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Holding a class means chanting the holy name of Kṛṣṇa and speaking from Bhagavad Gītā Śrīmad Bhāgavatam. There are immense literatures for spreading Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. It is a duty of each and every household holder to Learn about Kṛṣṇa from his sannyāsī spiritual master. There is a division of labor in the Lord’s service. The householder’s duty is to earn money because the sannyāsī is not supposed to earn money, but it’s completely dependent on the householder. The householder should earn money by business or by profession and spend at least 50% of his income to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness. 25% He can spend for his family and 25 he should save to meet emergencies. This example was shown by Rūpa Goswami, so devotees should follow it.

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, Chapter 21, Canto 3, Verse 31. So Śrīla Prabhupāda has already very clearly given instruction in his books and his letters for grihastas to preach from their house, to invite friends to chant. So basically when that happens, Nadvar turns into a nauhad group. What we found was that Bhakti Vinod Thakur, he had developed this into a very organized system. Prabhupāda was a scholar and a businessman before he became a sannyāsī. So he set up ISKCON to be very financially sound. Bhakti Vinod Thakur was of course, a scholar and he was a government officer under the British. He was a judicial and executive magistrate. So he set up the Nāmahaṭṭa to be very organized administratively that when we started the Nāmahaṭṭa, we got many people signing up. In fact, right now, what’s the number when people sign up? What serial number they get? 1,800.

So they get 1,800 have signed up. But what happened was we found that it was very difficult to supervise so many groups. We’re talking about the last sentence that we took. The estimate I got is there’s 15,000 active people in the Nāmahaṭṭa. And out of the 1800, we have been able to maintain a very close contact with 650. But even 650 groups with 15,000 people is a massive kind of job. If only the. If it was supposed to be done only by devotees in the temple, then you can imagine that one devotee could supervise how many. If you were supervising 10 groups each, you need 65 devotees. And no devotee would want to travel alone. He’d want to go in pairs. That means 130 devotees. So that becomes, you know, very big over, you know, very big overhead to maintain.

So what did he know, Thakur? He set up a system kind of like the British government system, Which is in each group there will be one like temple president, there will be one group leader and a group leader should be respected like older brother. So then over so many groups there will be. They will be formed together as a circle and there will be one circle. Sena pati. The word sena pati is Sanskrit. Senda means soldier and pati means protector or leader. So sena pati in colloquial Bengali, Hindi, Sanskrit means general. It’s a word for general sena bhakti. But he used it in a different sense. He said sena is the devotees and bhakti is the protector who is more spiritually advanced. He can protect the younger devotees from getting misled, from confusion, from frustration. So he’s who’s ever able to protect the other devotees.

He should be the leader. So then we try to. Come up with a system to keep working the node copper system intact. So we came up with four of our approximately four groups formed into a semicircle. This person, he should visit each one of these NHATs once a month and see that they’re going on properly. And then. There’d be three such semicircles. Which total 12, subtly. And that becomes a circle of nam hatra. So that circle has a senapati. He’s usually initiated devotee. Wherever we have been able to organize circles, they’re usually initiated devotees. So he has to Visit the different groups, 12 groups in his area, once in every two to three months. So Avantsev congregational members, we have them do the supervising. And then we have a district supervisor who goes over, who is a devotee living in the temple.

The district supervisor, He says all these are going on and it. If he gets it organized, they have these circles and ab. Then his job becomes easier. So right now this is not up to date. This is 88. According to 89. There was 1609 registered notices in 1800. Reward strict non registered. At that time they had 20 chakras organized, 95 chakras. Some of the sons have guru schools, some have chartered suns, some have rath yatras. Each of the districts here, sometimes two, three districts together, we have supervisors. How many supervisors do you have in West Bengal or total? 7 Supervisors. It’s 15 districts. So it’s like two districts each and an Orissa one. So that’s the basic organization. That’s the structure that we’re working under. It’s a structure given by Vakili Nod Thakur and the congregational groups. It should be so expansive.

You can imagine. Prabhupāda said 500,000 villages india. In West Bengal. There’s 60,000 villages in Orissa I think it’s 20,000, something like that. So that’s 80,000 villages. And then you got other states with the. In the eastern region we have at least 100,000 villages. So we want to have one Hare Kṛṣṇa Nal Hatha group in each village. And we’re discussing now with Śrīdhar Maharaj and Naveen Kṛṣṇa how to integrate that into the overall picture so that in the rest of the world we can have a formula that can be applied everywhere and use integrate Nāmahaṭṭa with the membership program. Also we’re just in the discussion stages. In India the Nāmahaṭṭa people are 10% rich and 90% poor. So it’s financially not very. We haven’t figured out how to make it financially so viable yet. But also it’s pretty much self sustaining.

This is a map of West Bengal. Each of these districts we have other maps that show how many there are in each district. So this. There’s a good scope to make it financially viable. If were discussing because we just took a 90 day tour throughout the whole West Bengal, Orissa and Assad and each day we put on a festival. Each festival cost the local village somewhere between 10,000 to maybe 25,000 rupees to put on. They collected the money, built a panel, fed the devotees, did the publicity, did the announcing and everything with each program. They. So it’s a known fact that if you can collect $50 locally, Śrīdhar Maharaj said you can collect $5 nationally. People always like to give for the local program. So that proves that although that there are actually somewhat solid people in each one of these places.

So he thinks that there’s a way we can bring in the now hot into the membership program. Tapping those people we discussed last night for a few hours. But that way they will be more enthused when they can give for their own local project like local festival, local temple. Anyway, this is a heritage we inherited from our previous Acharyas. Our goal is that in whole of India 500,000 villages, we want to have 500,000 groups. And these boys here, they’re from East India. They’re doing the Eastern India region. The rest of India are trying to get them into it. But so far they haven’t taken it out fully. But hopefully very soon they will take it up. We have Gaurana Prem das vermachari and Dr. Charlie das. They’re organizing the Navad here at Eastern India. There are many other individuals.

These some of the district supervisors, Juga Kishore who’s in charge of which District. He’s in charge of this area here. Then which area? These two areas. Anyone else? Which area you are in charge of supervising? Is here? Someone else is doing this one. Down here. Here, up here. North. Chicken sh. He’s in the very south of Orissa here. That North Arisa. We have many groups also. Who’s doing that? Any questions? Did the non pot program. Were they responsible for getting. Getting the crowds of. I think it was like 20,000. Sometimes up to different programs related to that publicity. How do they get crowds like that? What’s their publicity checks? Would it work in the West? I mean, India is also land of Dharma. So people do come. They’re very attracted to dharma. Just like in Kumbamela. There’s no advertising, but 31 million people come.

So you do have. India has a really good feeling. But part of it is that our devotees here, they have a very nice drama group. And this drama has become very famous. We showed on a break ground so that for watching the drama, for seeing the cinema, for meeting devotees to different countries. Mostly they wanted to come to meet devotees from different countries. Some of the devotees went on the tour, came from Māyāpur. You went one of the tours, right? He came and there was one Bhakta Lucy or something. She came with two little kids. Dhananjaya Prabhu, Kala Prabhu. Number of devotees here. They went along and spoke to the people. And that was one of the big demands. They want to meet the devotees of different countries and they want to see the drama. All these things combined was what they advertised.

So the basic principle is present people what they want something which is attractive for them. In the West, Prabhupāda said, conquered by culture. If you have dance, you have music, you have a little more cultural presentation. It’s more attractive for the people. Western people, they flock to see the Manipur dancers when Sir Gomana Maharaj brought them overseas. So here india, people like drama, they like cinema and they like to see foreign Vaishnavas. If you have those three things, you can speak. Another thing is that even if you have no drama, no cinema and no harinam, if you just say.

(Side B of the Cassette)

It.

Hello. Yeah. What is their normal daily program when they meet together.

So at least.

Once in our summary.

That once in a week the group must meet. It does not meet once in a week, that it is not known as normal. It is a inactive or invalid number. So once in a week, in a particular day and in a particular time, maybe in a particular place or in conventional basis, at least once a week, at least five persons on a particular person they must meet. If there are less than 5, then there is not enough. So what they do is in the beginning they come and they have Vajrava pranam. Then they do tushibuja, Then they do gorati and they do. They chant Hare Kṛṣṇa Mahā Mantra. Then there are other Mādhava, they read Prabhupāda’s books like Bhagavad Gītā or Kṛṣṇa Bhoga, whatever it is.

Then if they have some prasadam, they stood prasadam and figured they had feast most of the blessings every week. So with the Namata devotees, we survive on that particular. And we go and this is the minimum thing. And once in a month we tell them to do harinam. So that is the minimum standard. Once in a week they must meet.

But.

But in the beginning they may not be knowing how to do prusi pūjā, how to do sanjayharati. Because everyone is not habituated to the tune we sing or the song we sing. Maybe in Bengal it is easy, but for Orisha it is difficult. So we tell them to at least chant Panjadattva Mantra and Hare Kṛṣṇa Mahā Mantra. And gradually the devotees, they go and visit them and they come to the temple. So we have practically every day we get about 20 people as our guest here. 10 To 20 every day, practically. So we have three guest rooms. And most of the time our baranta is full. There are guests where we are staying and they come and learn in the temple. We go and teach them also how to do bhajans and aarati, things like that.

Gradually they do spruceati, they do sadhyarati, they chant other bhajans like Gurudev in Vidya or Nadia Gurdhur Mei. Many bhajans, they learn gradually. And they send the report every month they are supposed to send. Not that everyone is sending, but some of them are sending. And fortunately we are publishing our newspaper, Pari Kṛṣṇa Sangatam Samaja. So in that newspaper, generally they get the information. Where are their pictures? Suppose it’s not possible for a preacher to go all the time. But they are looking for the preacher but if they at least can know what a preacher is doing, you know. Okay, Mr. Sachin sir, Das Prabhachary he went to Sajan Sachs district and get very well lectures in such and such places. They are saying yes, our preacher is very nice. He is doing something somewhere.

What we try to do is make the program goal oriented to give little goals for people to achieve. So we start off with the Sun Goddess he mentioned or a group that meets at least once a week, one day a week. Then we want to encourage them to be more enthusiastic, meet more times so they can move up to becoming a center, an Arhat center where they will meet daily or seven times a week.

Every.

Day or at least five to seven times, maybe a couple days off more or less every day, then it becomes a center. So how many centers we have out of all the Namhatras, meaning David,.

How.

Many groups are they named daily? Your district? In his district he has 15 to 20. Out of how many groups total. He’s overseeing 400 and some out of which 20 are meeting daily. So that’s 5%. 5%. So that way try to get them incorrect. Some are meeting. We found more are meeting twice a week than once. Equal are meeting twice a week, is once a week then daily is a very big step. It’s more like a temple. Then we’re also encouraging to come up and dedicate some land in the village and actually build the temple. And for that maybe we can help them to get life members or something. So when they actually have a temple then that comes up to another level. We may recognize them as ISKCON temples. That’s to be seen if it will.

Right now the way it’s set up is that it’s all ISKCON approved. They’re all approved by iskcon but they’re legally just like ISKCON informal program which we approve and they can go on. They’re not separately legally registered. It’s just part of iskcon but not legally. They’re not discussing. They are legally a program sponsored by iskcon. They are not themselves able to collect money on behalf of ISKCON or to take liabilities. So who would own the land? Is it a separate organization they form? If they want to donate the land, then they donate it the name of ISKCON and then ISKCON will help. Or they make a put in the name of an Indian, put it in the name of the deity.

And then.

You make work out some legal documents so that the trustees for the deity are all devotees. And it’s approved according to ISKCON system. So when they actually give the land, then we have a procedure. Right now they’re mainly giving it to iskcon. They build the land on it. They see that, they don’t. Does it go anywhere? Any other questions? Okay. Baki Bino Thakur gave a basic structure. We filled it in a little bit. He said there were circles, circle Singaparti, district Singaparti and the state Senga party. This is what we found. We found. We didn’t know. We never. We couldn’t find anywhere how big a circle was.

So where we came to our decision on how big a circle was, seeing how other organizations, rotaries, Lions, they have district governors and they have regional vice governors and things like that, we saw that what their size was. We compared different things and we finally came to the conclusion that all these people like Mihasis who are working in their business that how much time can they actually give?

So that.

Everybody should be able to give one night a week. That’s not too much dance. So one night a week, that means he could visit in a month. One night a week he goes this one, then this one, this one. He may be living saying this one, but he visits the others the other days. Sometimes geographically it turns out he has five or has three. Because of only a certain number in that proximity. We try to make it very practical. So say this person, he’s also giving one night a week. Then if he has three of these groups, three means total 12. That means he can visit each one of the groups once in three months or four times a year.

So if he will report to his district supervisor once every three months, if they have a detailed meeting, then he would know what’s going on in all these 12 groups from someone who firstly went there. He’s an initiated devotee. So if there’s one initiated devotee out of 12 and an average of 20 and each 12 is like 12 times 20 or 250. 250 People are involved in this whole area. Say average 200 to 300 devotees usually. Now there’s more than one initiative right now even these are initiated more or less. I know that answer your question. Is it? You have a question.

When they talk.

About.

And one book. It’s called multi level marketing of a.

Known name and.

The material consciousness. Multi level marketing. The person who initiates it and gets their downline or gets their upa chakras set up, non party set up. Always benefits financially on an ongoing basis from all the activity that’s going on. I am just wondering, spiritually, as the people that engage these creatures and get a tiny downline, do they make spiritual advancement?

What do you think, Dr. Dekman? Because it says that in the material world, who has money can purchase the commodities. But there’s a secret. The goods sold in the market. Let’s see, I remember, I can’t find it right now. But what he said is normally people say they have some goods, you sell it, then you lose. Say I have 10 things, I sell five, I got the money, but I only have five left. But this is spiritual, it’s not material. You have so much knowledge, you give it to other people. So your knowledge, your devotional asset increases. You get a commission on everyone you’re giving your shantasa to. So down the line, like multi level, you’re spiritually benefiting. If you start one namhatra and then they start the other nam hatras and that forms upa chakra.

And then from there the teacher goes and starts. You’re getting the spiritual benefit all the way down the line. The difference is in multi level marketing, the people that end up later, they don’t get as much profit. But since it’s spiritual, everybody keeps on making profit as it goes on. You don’t lose. Nobody gets holding the basket that you give. There’s enough fallen souls out there that it’s a seller’s market right now. Also, it says here women who are pure devotees that become traveling women salesmen for distributing the holy name. Of course, in Bhagavinod’s time, which was over a hundred years ago, there he said that india they should preach amongst other women. But they can also preach to men according to time, place and circumstance, where they should be very mature. But nowadays it’s a little bit different.

In those days, women were under poor da. They keep their head covered. It was very much rigid separation between women. But even then he had such a vision. He could see that women would be preachers, go out and preach. Now, of course, society has different rules. Even india, women don’t cover their head. Most of the places just in the village. Employees in Nalhaja carry on the preaching mode of pure devotion. Anyway, one of the things we do every year is we have annual Nal Hatas festival where we invite all the Nam Hathas to come and they come together. Last year we had almost a thousand. And this year we’re going to have it two days after the Dwarpurima festival. 21St 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 21st, all 20 arrival. 22Nd, 23rd and 24th. Is the festival this month, March?

Yes.

You’re coming?

Yes.

So that time we had different seminars. Last year, His Holiness Hari Gift Swami gave a seminar book distribution. Bhakti Churumar spoke about ISKCON gurus. Sometimes people speak about Bihasta life or we talk about organizational systems. We have different seminars. And then they go on and take a brick route somewhere. And then in the end we have usually have some pride ceremony or some initiation ceremony. I don’t want to be in the shape. So they come every year and they enjoy quite a bit the big festival. Any other question.

Place to ask this question? But since you mentioned that women, if women that are pure devotees can preach, can travel in the creek, I was just wondering if there was if you’re familiar with any of the pastimes of Jhonva Mata or Lord Nichinanda when they traveled and how. Just more inspiration from that end. Or any of the pastimes of Jaguar Mata.

Off another topic, when she paid, she would go with a whole group of. She went with a whole. Group. She had her own female assistants and she had other men who were organizing the programs for her. One of the points he made is that there shouldn’t be any arguments. What we tried to do is create a structure and a system for running the whole thing. Some people say, why is it a separate constitution? We have no separate constitution. We have a Rāma called the rules, aims and methods of administration. Because india, people tend to speculate a lot. So if we have everything written down, how it works, then they just accept that. And if you don’t write it down, then naturally what do you do? Necessity is the mother of invention. So we don’t want them to invent things which are not bona fide.

So instead we’re trying to write everything down. The basic structure, how everything will work. So that way they can just get into the program and not sit and speculate and create things which may not be proper. So we have a book called the Rāma. It’s also available in English. It says Rāma and bylaws, but it’s not true. There’s no bylaws. Bylaws are separate rules. The Rāma means the rules, aims and methods of associates of Administration. Then we have the Nava emblem. This is for kids to memorize. And as a focus, it includes various things on it. It’s a whole description of the emblem. Following in the footsteps of Bhairava Bharti Siddhānta Thakur’s emblem and then trying to incorporate the different teachings of Prabhupāda so that the navhat members have something to meditate on.

If anybody’s interested in what the navhat emerald is, you can have. Then there’s also. Here’s a naamhat weekly meeting. It’s manual. This little thing tells what they should do. Someone asks what you ask what the daily programs were, Tells them what the prayers are, what are the different mantras they have to chant. And there’s also little books. These are in English. We have other a lot of things in Bengali. This is what a senapati has to do. This is a checklist, what a senapati has to do. It’s in Bengali because most of our senapatis read Bengali. This is what a leader of a navhata group has to do. This is the details. So you make it like, okay, you want to become a navhat root. All right, this is what you have to do. Here’s your thing. Sign here.

You have to subscribe to the Godhead. We have just got a world review in Bengali. Here’s what you do. Somebody wants to become a commander of a number of malhadas supervisor. Then they’re given one of these. Okay, here’s what you have to do. So the whole thing, pretty easy to fit right into it. Just like in isca, everybody knows what a temple president is supposed to do even if you don’t have it written down. But it’s like kind of become common knowledge. If you’re president you have to do these things and you’re a treasurer, Sankirta leader. So nalhad people, they don’t know what they have to do. So writing it down makes it easier. Like now iskcon, they want to have a guidebook for the presidents because in some countries there’s no other presidents.

Like in Soviet, what was the Soviet Union, there’s 60 new temples. There’s no other temples to see how they’re doing. So that’s why Harikesh Mah wrote a management book on how to be a temple president which has gone up to GBC and they have been editing it. And we’re going to have a system now having little books out for people how to do their services better, little guidebooks. So we have that in the Namhat in the local languages. So that’s if we get time. We don’t get enough foreign speakers and we will try to show some videos or something later on about some of the programs that we did. In the Namhat. So you can organize that from some of the programs. A video edit down. It’s not edited. Huh?

It’s not edited.

If you can get it. If we could get you have a piece of paper, write. Who’s been here? Is there someone that’s doing congregational preaching in other parts of the world? I’d like to make a presentation in the next coming days. Here we’re doing. It’s not. So you’re Mauritius. I heard last year that Narahari, I believe his name is the president of Urban. He gave a presentation very nice. About the Namhat in South Africa. Would you like to make your presentation meditation. Whatever’s going on, you have always liked to hear. I have one question. I was your. From what I understand, your nhat are working without having a leader there at every meeting. Is that right? They have a local leader, so not a devotee leader. Devotee leader, like once a month. So Mauritius, when the devotee doesn’t come, it’s really difficult.

Well, that’s what we’re facing in. That’s what we face in the beginning. Also there’s a problem that. That’s why we actually have 1,800 serial number. But actually active groups have 8,650. Because unless initially a preacher goes there, at least say for the first year or two, a lot of times they just fold. They cannot sustain the enthusiasm unless a leader is already qualified devotee and so on. So definitely it’s a real problem. So many temples, what they do is they have one devotee. Like in Vima, Peru, they have six shell hathas in the sun around the city of Lima. One devotee goes on Monday, one meets on Tuesday, another one meets one day, six nauhats, six days a week, Sunday, they all come to the big temple.

And eventually when those local people get initiated and they become stronger, then they can keep it up themselves. We found in Malaysia there’s a Namhat that the Namhat leader himself, he was doing that he was maintaining another five namhats and getting them strong enough until they were on their own feet. So initially that’s what a senapati has to do is he may actually not. He may concentrate one namhat going there every week or every other week until it becomes strong enough that it is able to maintain. And as you start initially you can, okay, you have one devotee, you have two devotees doing it. But after a while it takes so many devotees that you need the stronger members of the congregation to also do it.

Then it makes it a lot easier so that’s what the structure of Bhakti Vinoṭhākura is, to get the Namhata preachers themselves to sponsor and supervise other namhatas. That’s like further down the road, kind of in the initial stage of the devotees do it. So they’re being trained. They’re being trained just by that senapati going to that one namhata and who’s ever the most qualified, just watching him, hearing impression, preach and so on. Because the idea we had was to get those leaders together out of the namhata at regular times and just work with them. That’s also recommended by Prabhupāda. You bring them to the temple, let them stay for a few days. What we also have is we have district seminars, which are just for the leaders. Do you want to explain about that? District seminars. District training camp. Training camp. District training camp.

District training camp. They call all the leaders in a district together, and then these leaders come there for how many days in your training camp? Three days. Three days. And then, I mean, Mauritius, they could all come to the temple. But here, it’s like if people live up in Jalpai Guri in the north, it’s 50 rupees to come down to Māyāpur. So some of them can’t afford it. Takes one day to travel two days. So instead they go there and get some big man to give his house. Then everybody comes and camps out for three days, and they have an intensive program where they explain all the different aspects of Mao, how to get to them and answer their questions. And it’s a whole other aspect. You may get a lot of people coming to the programs, like five or 10,000 people.

But india, there are so many different mutts. There’s so many different kind of speculative processes and gurus and so on, that you have to deal with lots of philosophical challenges. Like, it’s much more difficult to go and do congregational preaching india than, say, to distribute books. You don’t have to get in the big debate to distribute a book, show it, explain it. They buy it. They don’t buy, go on the next person. But when they go on the village, especially if I am there, that’s another thing. Because they will be kind of awestruck, and they won’t say when they go themselves, then they will get around them. You know, why do people do this and that? And why the Hare Kṛṣṇas? And why not this thing? And why not, you know, why not Kali Nam? Why Kṛṣṇa Na? Why not Durgas Nam?

And why not Shivas, so many things like that. So then they had to actually become very expert in the philosophy to cut away all those kind of doubts of people. So it’s a very good opportunity for people to become expert in preaching india. You had to learn the philosophy very nicely. Otherwise difficult. I mean I have never. I have had many. Some Naha teachers say I had to study more. They ask so many questions, it’s hard for me to answer. So it’s not just, you know, cutting butter. It’s actually very serious preaching. One Navhat in the district of. In fact he’s here in my airport. This gentleman right here, Gopī Ghanta. He is a Brahmin by birth. He has Rada, Gopīnath, deities. When he first started in Amhad, he took initiation from me.

Then the other Brahmanas ostracized him and said, you have taken from a non Hindu guru. I am not born Hindu. So they surrounded his house and they wouldn’t let him leave. So he was like in house arrest. He couldn’t do his business, he couldn’t do anything. So then he had to send a note out by some messenger. Help I captured. So then Sanamha preacher went there with the saffron cloth and challenged all the Brahmanas. What you’re doing? Then they established that what is a Vaishnava? Vaishnava doesn’t have any caste. They had to defeat them philosophically. So then he was liberated from Hauserin. Then we arranged the next time. We took our whole traveling festival party in his village. And then we did a big program there where thousands of people came. So that time the Brahminas were like flooded over.

So now I think they joined the Navy. 60, 61 Have joined the Namhat. And the rest they said they ran away. So thank God. I want you to Ms. L. They have been DS already. Actually he’s. What he did is he’s a dentist or doctor. Doctor by profession. He personally built up his own rath Yātrā. But then his house, his doctor chamber burnt down. So now he couldn’t finish building a garage for the chariot. He built a Jagannath chariot, but. But now he’s afraid the whole chariot is going to be destroyed. So he’s here. That local Nahua people regional director is making appeal. He needs 2,500 rupees for his shed for chariot. Garage for chariot. Anybody wants to donate anything? Somebody gave. Thank you.