ISKCON - A New Charity Outreach Organization?

BY: SATYA GOVINDA DASA

Dec 25, 2014 — BINGHAMTON, NEW YORK (SUN) —

Earlier this week, I was browsing the Web and found two outreach programs connected to ISKCON - the ISKCON Tribal Care Initiative and the ISKCON Food Relief Foundation (IFRF). The former, according to an article on ISKCON News entitled "ISKCON's Tribal Care Initiative Reaches Out to Tribal People of India," is:

    "reaching out to the numerous tribal communities located in forests and remote areas of East and Northeast India." The article also states that: "it [the ISKCON Tribal Care Initiative] is also visiting tribal people…with a long term goal to provide them not only spiritual, but also emotional, health and educational care."

The latter website stated on its homepage that: "IFRF believes in providing children with the right nutrition to support their education. IFRF's annamrita program is based on the belief that 'you are what you eat.' Therefore one nutritious meal a day brings thousands of children to school."

One might read these two websites and think, "Well, what's so bad about that? Isn't it good that people are receiving aid and being helped?"

The answer is that such mundane charity work is not the focus of Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada's mission.

First and foremost, Srila Prabhupada very clearly notes the purpose of Kṛṣṇa consciousness in Chapter 1 of the Science of Self Realization when he writes that: "This very important Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is meant to save human society from spiritual death."

Observe that in the above quote, He does not mention material death but rather spiritual death. Furthermore, in His books, Prabhupada repeatedly condemns all mundane philanthropy as futile. In the purport of Sri Caitanya-caritāmṛita Ādi 10.51, Prabhupada states that: "There are many hospitals and medical clinics to cure bodily diseases, but there are no such hospitals to cure the material disease of the spirit soul. The centers of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement are the only established hospitals that can cure man of birth, death, old age and disease."

Moreover, in the purport of Srimad-Bhāgavatam 3.27.3 Prabhupada states that: "The foolish conditioned soul may think that he is offering charity by opening hospitals for material benefit or by opening an educational institution for material education, but he does not know that all such work is also faulty because it will not give him relief from the process of transmigration from one body to another."

Taking these quotes into consideration, one might determine that rather than devoting time and energy to improve the material condition of the masses (which can never truly be solved due to the potency of maha-māya), why not offer a spiritual solution?

In Chapter Six of Science of Self Realization, Srila Prabhupada offers one all-encompassing spiritual solution to mundane problems: saṅkīrtana or congregational chanting of the Holy Names of Śri Kṛṣṇa.

Regrettably, the one thing (saṅkīrtana) that could actually help the masses is not being embraced by ISKCON's leadership but rather (as far as the West is concerned) has nearly fizzled out into extinction.

Only by the grace of a select few dedicated devotees has saṅkīrtana persisted in large cities like San Francisco, London, New York, Paris and so forth.

Indeed, instead of embracing and propagating the sublime yuga-dharma of our fallen epoch, modern ISKCON has turned to a never-ending list of "personal growth" seminars, hatha yoga sessions, hospital & school building, vegetarian cooking classes, henna tattooing, traditional Indian dances and food charities - all in a vain attempt to gain the admiration of the (already) deluded and misguided general public.

Perhaps ISKCON leadership has guided the organization in this direction (and away from saṅkīrtana and book distribution) because the former transcendental activities are not as lucrative or public-relations friendly as charity outreach.

Or perhaps such activities do not fit the "new image" of ISKCON (i.e. a non-fringe religious group that conforms to the social norms of Western civilization) that the leadership has envisioned by dint of their fertile imaginations.

At any rate, if modern ISKCON in the West is to regain the potency and efficacy it once had during Prabhupada's lifetime on Earth, it must return to the foundation of saṅkīrtana and book distribution.

Only by embracing these two cornerstones of Kṛṣṇa consciousness can the movement be restored to its former glory and have the power to effect true change in our dismal and unpromising Age of Iron.


Homepage


| The Sun | News | Editorials | Features | Sun Blogs | Classifieds | Events | Recipes | PodCasts |

| About | Submit an Article | Contact Us | Advertise | HareKrsna.com |

Copyright 2005, 2014, HareKrsna.com. All rights reserved.