Hari Nam Sankirtan
BY: SATYAHIT DASA
Aug 17, ALACHUA, FLORIDA (SUN) — August 16th, 2008, full moon, Lord Balarama Ki jai!
Have just completed a review of all the BTG publications since 1944, so far into 1977, from within the DVD, 60 Years of Back to Godhead. One thing stands out for me the most, and that is the all-blissful, meditative, and simply very happy faces of the devotees on hari nam sankirtan, which used to be the hallmark of the Hare Krsna movement. Nothing compares to the joyfulness exhibited by the sankirtan devotees, worldwide. Indradyumna Swami, in his latest article entitled "Times have Changed", which is now posted on Dandavats.com, wrote:
"Yes, the times have definitely changed, and the reason is the devotee's enthusiasm for chanting the holy names. Because we chant for long hours every day, the devotee's are always in a joyful mood. I sometimes lament that, for whatever reason, there is not as much kirtan in our movement on a daily basis as there used to be. Kirtan is central to happiness in every devotee's life."
Money (laksmi) was not a part of the formula in the early '70's. Back then there were absolutely no other considerations besides focusing on the chanting of the Holy Names of the Lord by way of serving the instructions of our Spiritual Master. If someone was interested to take a BTG or a book, that was very nice. Srila Prabhupada's mood of unalloyed devotional service was all-pervading amongst the devotees. There were no big drives for purchasing and or constructing buildings. Yes, we wanted to expand the number of devotees, the movement, and Krsna Consciousness in general to all the world governments for the benefit of all mankind. Srila Prabhupada's divine presence exhibited that purity is the force, and so George Harrison gave Srila Prabhupada the Manor in England, and Ambarish prabhu gave Srila Prabhupada the property on Oahu, quite close to the central downtown of Honolulu. These truly wonderful large properties complete with buildings and all facility were freely given. Purity is the force.
The innocent exuberance of the devotees saw no bounds. With Srila Prabhupada present, they all actually felt that Krsna Consciousness was taking over worldwide. Srila Prabhupada did say that if only one percent of the world's population was Krsna Conscious, the world could be taken over in 18 days, which is also the duration of the battle of Kurukshetra.
In 1975 through 1976, BTG magazine showed a newly acquired temple photograph with all the devotees out in front of the temple building, or pictured was a hari nam sankirtan photo. Either photo had eight statements about Krsna Consciousness underneath, entitled "A Short Statement of Krsna Consciousness", for example.
"By sincerely cultivating a bonafied spiritual science, we can be free from anxiety and come to a state of pure, unending, blissful consciousness in this lifetime".
That's quite a statement, quite an accomplishment, "in this lifetime", considering the many challenges people face in their lives on a daily basis. Of course, we did understand that when an individual's miseries are too great, it is not possible to cultivate a spiritual science under the stress of famine, war, and various disasters. Too much misery of the material body is a complete distraction from adopting the peaceful life of a practicing yogi, chanter, or meditator.
So what did happen, or as Indradyumna Swami put it, "for what ever reason", did the daily hari nam parties cease to be in our Hare Krsna movement? Personally, from Gerard Street, Toronto temple, I would go out daily, although only new bhaktas would come. The President, along with all the other devotees would not come. They would only all go out on those seldom but large ones held every once in a while. Jagadisa prabhu came out once with our small party, and that was wonderful.
As you may see Ugresha prabhu holding a book in regular clothes, with even a tir on, 1978, Toronto temple, the trend had become doing books without the hari nam party. This was an individual effort, although book distributors may have left and returned to the temples together.
When emphasis was later placed on candle, then oil painting sales for the collection of laksmi, the hari nam parties took a back seat on Saturdays only, and then only sometimes. Book distributors also found that by various methods (some of which gave the Hare Krsna movement a poor name in some people's minds), they could distribute large quantities of books while collecting a fair amount of cash. Thus, the pure and simple focus of chanting the Hare Krsna mantra in public for the sake of chanting the Hare Krsna mantra, so as to please the pure unalloyed devotee, Srila Prabhupada and Lord Krsna, became altered over 35 years ago. The emphasis became the number of books distributed
And still is. The famous Jayananda prabhu, on the other hand, when he distributed a book or a magazine, he apparently actually made friends with that person for life, and that person became Krsna Conscious by Jayananda's sincere, friendly, heart warming approach and explanations of what he was doing in Srila Prabhupada's service. jayananda's nature and focus was to actually make a new friend for Krsna. His mood was not on quantity of books distributed, but on the quality of the personal encounter.
Similarly, just yesterday here around Gainesville Florida, Jai Hari prabhu told me how when the person does not appear rushed to leave, he takes the time to show them a picture of Srila Prabhupada in the book and introduce Srila Prabhupada to them, which he said is most enlivening because he is receiving Srila Prabhupada's ever present mercy in this way.
So, book distribution became a competitive challenge, along with the competition of who collected the most amount of laksmi, or cold cash, which of course was most pleasing to all Temple Presidents, and which unfortunately took precedence over the pure and simple public chanting of the Holy Names of the Lord for the sake of perfoming hari nam sankirtan. So, historically, the competition of the number of books distributed, along with the cash collected (laksmi score) became the foremost occupation of all the sankirtan devotees.
It was so important that every morning after mangal arotik, rounds chanted, and before or after the Srimad Bhagavatam class, the book scores were announced so that all the devotees in the temple could hear. Then each day the devotees would go out to try to increase their scores. Basically all available temple devotees went out on book distribution, leaving just the bare essential staff at the temple. Then we had many marathon events (all this had become sankirtan), covering several months time period wherein the devotee with the highest laksmi points score won a prize. I won a set of Gaura Nitai deities after one such marathon held at the Montreal temple. I was determined to win, being very competitive by nature. We went to bars, restaurants and just anywhere and everywhere up till 2am selling candles.
Obviously, to put it simply, money collection, earning cash, had become the most important activity. This activity took the most part of each day. It took many more hours than classes and chanting rounds, which may have been done while driving here & there. It's not hard for money collecting to become most important to a conditioned soul. Just see the world in general, even the most wealthy, the oil barons, the oil corporations, they know not when to stop. They stop at nothing, including the decimation of the entire environment, including the sky, animals, plants, birds and fish. People's living conditions may become sub-human, they could care less. Money collection, stocks, funds, power… these things are most important to the gross materialist. Just see how the world follows this trend, becoming daily more degraded, stark, fast paced, greedy, uncaring, impatient, and disease ridden. I stopped the list short because the list is endless now.
Presently, as today is Lord Balarama's Appearance Day, the emphasis is on temple activities, activities confined to the temple building and grounds. Now devotees work for a living, and visit their church on holidays and holy days. Temple schools are expanding, various temple programs are expanding, and devotees are becoming more integrated into the general society.
