Hodge-Podge/Importation
BY: B. RADHA-GOVINDA
Jul 06, 2010 — USA (SUN) — To Gurudas in a September 29, 1968 letter, Srila Prabhupada wrote the following:
"I am concerned to preach this gospel amongst the Europeans and Americans, and I am not at all interested to preach amongst the Indians, because they have now become hodge-podge, due to so many years of subjugation by foreigners, and having lost their own culture."
So why is it that now, in the North American (including Canadian) temples, our primary focus of attention is on Indian people (and getting their money), "Hinduising" things -- even doing puju to demigods, as well as Hindu weddings -- and why are we not preaching to the indigenous people?
I might add, that in the so many North American ISKCON temples we have "imported" devotees from Eastern Europe and India. This includes our "importing" devotees to be presidents in some of the North American temples.
Funny how for years, Srila Prabhupada was sending devotees from North America to the other countries to preach, open up temples, and THEN, after cultivating to a certain level of maturity in Krsna consciousness, these devotees indigenous to those places were established as temple presidents in that particular country of their birth.
Now in North American ISKCON temples, we are importing rather than preaching.
Hmmm; it seems something is wrong somewhere...
