20201105 Zoom Session with ISKCON Youth India Conference

The following is a Zoom Session with ISKCON Youth India Conference by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on November 5th, 2020 in Śrī Dhāma Māyāpur, India.

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānandaṁ mādhavaṁ śrī caitanya iśvaram

Hariḥ oṁ tat sat!

Jayapatākā Swami: I was just expressing to Śrīvatsa Śyāmasundara dāsa after I recently visited the South Indian gośālās, that I would like to visit all the BACEs in South India, east India, to see the BACEs, why just the gośālās? I was thinking also maybe the pujārīs, I will visit. But then I got a phone call, someone suggested that I should visit the pujārīs. Anyway, my first idea was to visit the BACEs. Because I thought it was very important and I would like to see what is going on. Now that we have this internet connection, I am able to actually be more mobile! Although I am physically challenged, I am virtually mobile! In one hour or two I could see many BACEs. But normally I would only be able to see one or two a day. And I would like to be more in touch with what is going on.

I was talking to Rādhe Śyāma dāsa about some of the PowerPoints and videos they have and he said that he would make them available to me. So I don’t know if you are having them, I would like to see those. Right now, there is no exact ministry for youth preaching. In the US there is one youth minister, but he mainly deals with the children of devotees. And that is Manu dāsa. But in India, we do the college preaching and that is our main focus. So it is very interesting and we see that our future lies in having good educated youths, being part of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. And so, they are part of our congregation, I am co-minister of the Congregational Development Ministry. We have for children, we have for gṛhasthas, why not youth? So, if there is some way we can help with our ministry, we would also like to do that. Recently, I have been making a lot of videos. Maybe there are some videos which they are using in the youth program. Actually, we have various programs like Bhakti-vṛkṣa, Nāmahaṭṭa. Bhakti-vṛkṣa can be adapted to the youth. It is fairly active. Nāmahaṭṭa is more like a class, question and answer, and prasāda. But the Bhakti-vṛkṣa is much more interactive. There is chanting of course, but there is also icebreaker. The discussion has three phases – discovery, understanding and application. Then outreach strategy, arcana and then prasāda. So that can be adapted to the youth. Many old people, they don’t like the Bhakti-vṛkṣa system so much because they are not so active. So, Bhakti-vṛkṣa we found it very useful for the youth. They can discuss, they can apply. So, I am interested, Śrīla Prabhupāda told me once one instruction, he told me to expand the Kṛṣṇa consciousness preaching unlimitedly. So that is an unlimited instruction. So youth outreach is definitely an area of great importance. I thank all of you for your efforts in this regard. I will give 15 minutes for questions.

Rādhe Śyāma dāsa: I have a question about discover, understand a few minutes ago. One of the challenges we face while going to the college youth is getting the suitable time between the teacher and the student. The teachers are ready to give lectures, we are brahmacārīs, we have lot of time. The students are not ready to come and sit for two or three hours like in those days. When I was in IIT, they would come for the class at 9.30 or 10 O’clock in the morning and we would go back to our room by 2 O’clock. We had enough time for one and half hour’s class and questions-and-answers, chanting one or two rounds, hanging around the preacher and talking to him. But modern students are very much hard pressed for time. And to get them to come to the center itself is becoming very challenging nowadays. And I tried applying this discovery, understanding and application, just take one paragraph from Śrīla Prabhupāda’s purports and then do the discussion. Only thing is that the amount of spiritual content we are able to give them is minimized because of the time and they are not available every week also. So therefore, I made lessons which are 8 pages with multiple choice questions and one hour we finish about 8 pages along with the questions and answers. Because once they get a substantial spiritual content, they think about it and then start giving more time for Kṛṣṇa and less time for māyā. If enough substance doesn’t go in, then practically māyā takes them away. I wanted to know from you in the very little time available, what do you suggest will make it very impactful, association impactful?

Jayapatākā Swami: Caitanya Avatārī dāsa in Bengaluru is working on this. Instead of having discovery and reading of some verse, he is putting the verse in the video format, like a 3-minute short video, snippet. Then he shows that and have people go directly to the understanding. What are the two or three most important points? And then have people discuss, go around the room, and how you apply this knowledge in daily life. Like six different ways it could be applied. So, in this way, you don’t need to read eight pages, one page is enough. We have more knowledge than they can absorb. So, this aspect of discussion could be completed in 45 minutes’ time. Maybe less, I don’t know, I did not try but also like in the beginning some kind of icebreaker may be good. Something less philosophical, some variety of ice breakers. What do you like to eat or something, there is a whole book on icebreakers. So that will let them loosen up in the classroom So a ten-minute icebreaker, five minutes chanting and half hour discussion. A full Bhakti-vṛkṣa takes about two hours. But they have also like they call mañjarīs which takes like an hour. If you can see how much time they can tolerate. Whether we should have a mañjarī or a Bhakti-vṛkṣa.

Rādhe Śyāma dāsa: Thank you Mahārāja. I had a question in this connection. Actually, nowadays as you rightly said whether they are college youth or working youth, they are looking for light program, light engagement, many of them are for breathing exercise and yoga, relaxing music and meditation. These kind of things people are looking for. And if we provide them that, people actually come for relief, stress relief. And they get relieved from the stress, they say bye, bye, and go away. And in the congregation, we observe that if the husband or wife becomes a devotee the whole family becomes a devotee. So amongst the youth we find that they are very much stooped in extracurricular activities and when they come to the center if they get a live thing this is actually a stress relieving center, they come and relieve themselves and push off. So we will try to what you said, in some of the places we will give a try and have a lighter program and see if the youth stick around. One of the pressing problems of the youth is that they come with a lot of lusty propensities. They face a lot of challenges with dealing with the opposite sex. They are very volatile.

Jayapatākā Swami: As far as light activities, the thing is that chanting, singing is very light. Actually, that is much more effective and much more purifying than these breathing exercises. Art of Living all that, they promote this breathing exercise. But if we get the people to chant and sign, dance, that can loosen them up. That way, they actually get more purified and because people are seeing themselves as the body, they think that the body, the senses have to be satisfied. Therefore, lusty desires are very prominent. And so how to engage their energy in such a way that their energy would be better utilized. That is why we see that many people they may not be interested in being brahmacārīs. And like in the West, somehow the ladies they are actively preaching and therefore many men are attracted. And if the men are preaching, the ladies are attracted. Now, I heard that in the Indian universities it is quite open. Maybe more than the West. So it could be a big challenge.

Rādhe Śyāma dāsa: Thank you Mahārāja, very nice directions you gave us. How did Śrīla Prabhupāda instill a very strong sambandha-jñāna in all of you and your generation and disciples of Śrīla Prabhupāda? We see a strong sense of identity which Śrīla Prabhupāda had with Kṛṣṇa, what did you think happened in Śrīla Prabhupāda’s preaching to all of you? And now we find it very difficult in modern times. How you all feel such a strong sense of belonging to Śrīla Prabhupāda and to Kṛṣṇa?

Jayapatākā Swami: As I said, I was looking what is the purpose of life and a visiting professor from Harvard had told, about the life of Lord Buddha. And that inspired me, he told, about reincarnation and so many things. Being in the West, we had no access to. I don’t know how much Indian students have. But it lit a spark in me, to find a guru, to find a teacher. Of course, Śrīla Prabhupāda said that in my previous life I was a devotee. Maybe there are some people who were devotees in their previous life, I don’t know, and some people may be coming new. So one has to be ready for different kinds of situations. Now when I came to the temple nobody had any time for me. They were all busy. And then I was sent to Jayānanda Prabhu. He was building a ratha cart. He asked me if I knew how to hold a nail. I held it. Then he got it into the wood, and I took my hand away. He said, very good! Because that is the whole trick, how you hold the nail! You should leave space so that you don’t get your thumb smashed. And he said, “Do you know how to hit a nail?” “Sure” I said, because my uncle had a wood shop in his basement. And then I hammered some nails, and he said, “Okay!”, I passed the preliminary exam and then he engaged me in service. That service was something I liked to do, it was nice. So, I think that is the trick for the youth. Whether it is prasāda distribution or something but engage them in something. And with doing service, they hear from more senior devotees and that way they get purified. I was engaged in a lot of different services.

Rādhe Śyāma dāsa: Thank you very much Mahārāja. Other devotees can ask questions.

Question: Since youth nowadays boys are addicted to various bad habits, and that is why to preach to them directly Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they do not appreciate. So to preach to them some topics are required so that we bond with them and then we are able to speak pure Kṛṣṇa consciousness. When we speak other topics we may feel we are not doing loyalty to guru-paramparā. We take say anger management and stress management and all that. How to strike a balance

Jayapatākā Swami: I mean somehow, there was a presentation how to be happy. That was very interesting because I was not happy. I had sense gratification but it wasn’t satisfying. So somehow if we want to tell those people that by practicing Kṛṣṇa consciousness they can become happy. The bridging programs can somehow bring them to Kṛṣṇa consciousness then that would be ideal. If anger management can include some aspect of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, some practices that they could do. Some ways they can control their anger by dovetailing it. So bridge is to take us over the bridge to the other side of the river. That means, take us to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So at the end of the bridge there should be something Kṛṣṇa conscious. Although the attraction is okay, anger management for instance, we learn that we can practice, we can control anger through bhakti-yoga. So the bridge program actually does that, it bridges us to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. At least to some extent. Like you are saying people have many lusty desires and bad habits, I saw today on the Tv that in some states 3 or 5 states in the USA, they do a referendum and made marijuana smoking for recreation legal. It was previously legal for medicinal use. But now it is legal for recreation in some states. So, all kinds of bad habits people have – not only drinking, smoking, illicit sex. Actually, we know that none of these things give one satisfaction. But we cannot directly attack these things. Rather, we try to present the positive thing of chanting, meditation, and then when they are more ready, when they ask appropriate questions, we may reveal that bad habits should be controlled. That is a gradual process. That is what Śrīla Prabhupāda said that it takes buckets of blood, not easy to make a devotee. Do you think only people now are addicted to bad habits? Ha! I think before I was 12-I had already broken all the regulative principles!!

We have a Jayapatākā Swami App, anyone who wants can download it.It is on Android and Apple. I give daily messages and I will message about this program on the App. Thank you. Thank you IYF! Thank you for having me!

Thank you. Thank you IYF! Thank you for having me!