Sometimes some devotees revolt against the use of hatha-yoga as a tool in spreading Krishna Consciousness. This is usually due to ignorance about Prabhupada’s views on the matter. Devotees who do not read much in Prabhupada’s letters and listen to his lectures are often left with the few things Prabhupada said about hatha-yoga and astanga-yoga in books like the Bhagavad-gita, As It Is and his smaller introductory books. So to clear the fog of ignorance here’s a few quotes from Prabhupada on the matter of using hatha-yoga as a tool for spreading Krishna Consciousness:
Anyway I know the people of Tehran they like hatha yoga very much. I understand Parivrajakacarya Swami is teaching a course combining both hatha and bhakti yoga to attract the people. This is a very good idea. Somehow or other inject the bhakti yoga. That will save them from the degradations of sense gratification.
>>> Ref. VedaBase => Letter to: Atreya Rsi: – Bombay 4 December, 1974
Prabhupada: Two things. Visaya chariya. Material motive should be
given up, and everything should be engaged for Krsna’s…, whatever
favorable. Then it will… [break] … Rsi is doing nice. Who is that
Maharaja?
Tamala Krsna: Parivrajakacarya Swami.
Prabhupada: Very nice. Good combination.
Tamala Krsna: He’s been there now, Parivrajakacarya Swami, he’s been
there now for, I think, two or three years now. He’s worked pretty
faithfully there. He tricks them. In the guise of teaching a little
hatha-yoga, then he teaches bhakti.
Prabhupada: That is preaching.
Brahmananda: You also tricked us, Srila Prabhupada, when you came to
New York. You were just chanting Hare Krsna and speaking on
Bhagavad-gita, and we came and we listened, and then you took
everything. You took our lives, took all of our money… (devotees
chuckle) We left our families.
Prabhupada: There is a Bengali word, “Enter like a needle and come out
like a plow.” (laughter)
Hari-sauri: “Enter like a needle and come out like a plow.”
Prabhupada: If you say in the beginning, “I am a plow,” he’ll not
allow you to enter. Say “I am needle.” Let us try to serve Krsna.
He’ll give all intelligence. Buddhi-yogam dadami tam. Now go on. Take
rest.
Hari-sauri: Jaya Srila Prabhupada.
Prabhupada: Jaya-ho.
>>> Ref. VedaBase => Room Conversation — October 9, 1977, Vrndavana
And here are some other relevant sources of information on Prabhupada’s views on the subject:
The devotees have been preaching here since mid-1973 when Atreya Rsi, who is Iranian, and Navayauvana prabhus came here to start a center. Srila Prabhupada originally advised them to preach to the upper class sections of society. Now that instruction is being wonderfully fulfilled by Parivrajakacarya Swami (who at the moment is suffering from a burst ear drum and is quite sick). A former hatha-yoga teacher, he developed a good connection to the royal family by teaching yoga to one of their distant relatives who was recovering from a drug dependency. He then began teaching the Shah’s nephew’s wife, Shanaz. This woman is close to the Shah’s wife, and through her he also came to know the queen. In fact, he is the first Westerner ever to enter the inner chambers of the royal palace. Now he preaches to the royal family’s friends and relatives, using his hatha-yoga expertise to
attract them to the process of bhakti-yoga. Prabhupada is extremely
pleased with his efforts.
>>> Ref. VedaBase => TD 4-1: Teheran, Iran
And
Atreya Rsi and Parivrajakacarya Swami began to chant, Parivrajakacarya
led. Prabhupada sat and listened from his bed. He asked for
Parivrajakacarya Swami to come forward to the bed. As soon as he
knelt in front of him, Prabhupada stroked his head.
Prabhupada: Thank you so much. You are a great rajarsi. Do it very
nicely. Don’t commit mistake. Present the philosophy. Make them
rajarsis.
Parivrajakacarya Maharaja: These people knew every royal family in the world, and they are the richest of all of them. They can change the whole world if we give the philosophy.
Prabhupada: Yes, raja, and if you turn them to rsi, then our mission
is a success. Very good service. (To Atreya Rsi) Now you have started
your own business.
Atreya Rsi: Jaya, Prabhupada. Business is not important, but it is a
medium for Krsna consciousness. My secretary is already a devotee and the other people are becoming interested. The goal is to have a Krsna conscious group working in society.
Prabhupada: Go very slowly. Never mind. You are young man. Hmm. All right. Go on chanting. (After a few minutes to Parivrajakacarya) And you take care of your health.
>>> Ref. VedaBase => TKG: October 11
Regarding teaching other kinds of yoga. so that we may advertise an 8 or 9 day course for tourists, Prabhupada liked the idea. He said, “That will be very attractive. Other types of yoga are mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita. We can adopt that. Three or four men I can teach how to do it. Then you’ll be able to attract them. I can teach how to sit down, posture, asana, pranayama, without any difficulty. The yoga system as mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita we can take up , that will be bhakti-yoga, Use one. or two of the big rooms in the Gurukula building. I can teach the teachers how to practice.” You, Sarvabhavana, Dhananjaya and Mahavira were mentioned by Prabhupada as prospective teachers.
Ref. VedaBase => From: Jagadisha – SL_761222_A1
It is widely known throughout India that Hatha Yoga is not a method of spiritual practice the general populace should take up. That is why we see that going to temples and having satsangs, where participants chant the Lord’s holy names, is characteristic of Indian Hindu spiritual practice. They aren’t doing aasanas for spiritual realization.
A case in point: Not so long ago, a reception was being held for a teacher of Kundalini Yoga who was visiting where I live in the United States. (My wife and I both attended, because the teacher, an elderly Indian man who was a sannyasi, happened to be the guru of my Sanskrit teacher.) During the lecture he gave, he said to the audience, “In the West, people give aasana class, but they do not give yoga class.”
This is not to say that Hatha Yoga could be used in places where the local culture and religion would be very hostile to devotees, such as in Islamic countries. And some places, like Hong Kong, for example, have for a long time used Hatha Yoga instruction as a means for recruiting devotees. Now that Hong Kong is under Communist Chinese control, they will probably have to gradually rely more and more on clandestine methods of recruitment.
But the interest among devotees in teaching Hatha Yoga is most apparent in countries that have a tradition of religious tolerance, that allow us to be open about our practices and to proselytize. And it is to these devotees in particular, who typically reside in affluent Western countries, that Srila Prabhupada’s instructions against its practice were directed.
For devotees who have the opportunity to openly practice and preach their religion, without substantial fear of retribution from their governments or members of their host culture, Hatha Yoga is a distraction, usually pursued for their own sense gratification.
Dear Krishna Kirti Prabhu! Dandavat pranam! Jaya Srila Prabhupada!
I agree that the actual yoga-system can’t be taught or practiced correctly. We know that from sastra and Prabhupada. But it seems to me from the above verses that elements of this can be used to attract people and while the teaching goes on bhakti can be gradually added. Prabhupada does’nt say that it is only in countries hostile to devotees that we can use hatha yoga. He uses the argument that hatha yoga can be used in Teheran because yoga is very much popular there. I guess that if people are hostile towards devotees, they will be hostile to hatha yoga also, since they really can’t tell the difference. To them it’s all hinduism. Also in the west we have many people are are averse to bhakti-yoga in the beginning, but who can be changed by the use of elements from new age and hatha yoga. It requires intelligence to do this without watering down the bhakti process.
I will here provide a part of a text I wrote today (an e-mail):
We (our company Govinda Consult)
don’t teach yoga as such, but we have included yoga exercises in our
courses.The idea with our use of some yoga is to make people
understand that hatha and astanga-yoga is impossible to practice in
todays world. We also use it to show people how far away they are from
a serious spiritual practice and a pure consciousness. When people
come to us, they normally think they are a lot more advanced than they
actually are, but when they are finished we have demolished that idea
completely and we have explained what the original yoga and new age
stuff actually is and why chanting Hare Krishna is the only means of
deliverance in kali-yuga. We usually have people chanting and reading
Prabhupada’s books after a few times here and we have a handful of
people now chanting 16 rounds and reading in Prabhupada’s books. One new bhaktin has gone through 23 of Prabhupada’s books 3 times each in less than 8 months and also Bhakti Vikasa Maharaja’s Brahmacarya in KC (which she recorded herself for later listening, including the last part of SP quotes). She has also read half way into 2. canto of SB. Another girl has started her own preaching program and has a handful of people chating – two of them 16 rounds.
We judge our preaching on its results and we are very happy so far. If
you and I can agree that everything we do is good I do not know. We
are simply trying our best to preach and “make” new devotees that are
up to standard and preferably above that also. I pray to Prabhupada
and Krishna if something is wrong we may be be guided to correct it.
I agree there’s a lot of nonsense going on in ISKCON (also in regard
to the use of yoga), and we should be careful and concerned. In my
opinion devotees need to have a deep understanding of Prabhupada’s
teaching before experimenting too much with yoga and new age elements in preaching. I have personally gone through (by both reading and listening) most of Prabhupada’s books at least 10 times each (not SB, CC and KB 10 times yet, but a few times) and I’m also in the process
of going through all letters and lectures. My conclusion is that most
devotees don’t care about reading and if they read it is mostly not
Prabhupada’s books, but some other guru’s books. This will destroy
everything and devotees of that caliber using yoga and new age stuff
are sure to create problems.
We do actually
tell people that a little yoga and pranayama is healthy for the mind
and body. But we tell them it’s not spiritual but 100% material – that
they will not get any spiritual result from it. We don’t push them to
use yoga or pranayama at home (except for a short period where we
recommend it to make them relax and get their minds away from their
everyday life). Usually people are somewhat attached to these things
and in order to not take too much away from them in the beginning we
gradually teach that it’s not spiritual, but that they can keep on
doing it to some degree if they so desire.
For example, a few days back a very new devotee who has been coming to
our temple for around 6 months called me to tell me that he had to
give up KC. He was still attached to doing some pranayama and some
yoga. Somehow he thought he could not be a devotee if he did that. So
instead of telling him to just give it up or leave, I explained there
was no harm in using this to some degree. I told him how Sanatana
Goswami mentions pranayama before chanting and how Prabhupada saw a
possibility for devotees to use yoga as a hobby or for preaching. He
had decided to leave ISKCON, but he is still around because I told him
this. Gradually he will come to his senses if he stick around.
Especially if he comes here. So this is how I see we sometimes have to
dovetail some knowledge about yoga and some yoga skills in preaching.
There are so much yoga around and so many misconceptions about it.
What we do is that we attract people interested in yoga, personal
development, new age stuff and then when we have people in our house
we start to break their illusions down. It’s a very sensitive thing
and it’s individual how fast people can let go of their attachments.
But our preaching is quite heavy and very much based on fundamental
things such the impossibility of sense enjoyment, why sex can not make
us happy. To be honest I have never heard any center or temple in
ISKCON where these things are presented in such a elaborate and
straight to the point manner as they are here. I might sound arrogant,
but I just never saw it.
Any objections to my views?
Ys, AKD
Here’s another quote from Prabhupada:
“The devotees asked Srila Prabhupada questions about preaching. Since so many people they met were practicing hatha-yoga, they asked how to change the people’s minds. Prabhupada said, “Let them do it. Engage them in service also, and they will become purified.”
>>> Ref. VedaBase => SPL 7-8: Latin America
This is from Latin America which I don’t were hostile to devotees as they were in Muslim countries. Again, here the argument is that since they are interested let them do it and gradually they will become pure. So it’s not that we as devotees should just hammer on the point that astanga-yoga is useless and foolish etc. We should make people detached from it gradually and my experience is that this can be done by providing the correct information about astanga-yoga in the right dose at the right time. To do this my experience tells me that it’s useful to make courses where it is included, because then we get the people here. Otherwise they will go to the mayavadis. Also many of these people know more about the subtle body, chakras, kundalini than we do and we lose authority if we don’t know anything about it. We should be experts and able to tell them everything to break their illusions. Knowledge about chakras, kundalini, nadis etc. are there in the upanisads. Why should they know more about these things then we know? All dovotees might not be experts in this, but I think ISKCON should have experts on it.
All for now,
Ys, AKD
Dear Ajit Krishna Prabhu, please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srils Prabhupada.
While I am never against any sincere attempt to spread Krishna consciousness, your professed belief in the efficacy (and therefore, moral rightness) of hatha yoga as a preaching platform is unwarranted. Here are two reasons that strongly suggest that your results (however gratifying some of the stories are) do not lend the support to your program you think they do:
1) Statistically, the anecdotes are too good to be true.
2) Unrealistic view of human nature
Firstly, the anecdotes of the two fine bhaktins tell us nothing about the true results of your program over the long term. By “true”, what is meant is that over a long enough stretch of time, an event occurs enough such that you have a reliable expectation of the event’s true frequency.
For example, let us say that you are in a casino playing black jack, and you have a winning streak. As you start out the evening, you get black jack 5 times in a row. You feel this is your lucky night, and instead of playing a few hands and retiring for the evening you empty your wallet on the table and spend the rest of the evening playing black jack. But by the end of the night, you leave the casino broke. Things didn’t work out the way you thought they would. What happened?
The “what happened” is not knowing enough about what statisticians call the weak law of large numbers. According to this law, as n (the size of your population sample) grows large, your samples’ statistics approach the values of the true statistics in your population. So while it is very pleasing to hear about the two (or three or five) nice bhaktins made from your program, their existence does not tell us the true, long-term results of your program. For all you know, your initial successes are like getting black-jack 5 times in your first five hands. Statisticians call those events outliers, or extreme outliers.
So what do the true, long-term statistics for a devotee-run hatha yoga studio preaching program look like? There is statistical information that does give us some insight. Some time ago I bought from the magazine rack of my local organic grocer a yoga journal. What caught my eye was an article that reported some statistics about yoga practitioners. Two statistics in particular are, for our purposes here, interesting: one statistic reported that 16% of yoga practitioners have some interest in yoga’s spiritual aspect, and the other statistic reported that 85% of yoga practitioners are women.
So if you are running a commercially viable yoga studio (i.e. it is self-funding, you aren’t taking money from any other program to fund it), then over the long term, the demographics of your yoga studio are going to look like the demographics of most other commercial studios. For every 100 students you have, approximately 16 will be interested in the spiritual aspects of yoga, and in the same class about 85 out of the hundred students will be women–irregardless of their interest in spirituality.
This is why I was not surprised that your success anecdotes featured women and not men. This is not to say that there aren’t any male success stories, but over the long term it is much more likely that your success stories will feature women rather than men.
Thus, a commercially viable yoga studio necessarily has to cater to the needs and predilections of women. Otherwise, it won’t remain commercially viable. The first true characteristic of the devotee-run yoga studio is that the great majority of its students are women. It will be female-oriented.
Its being female oriented is not a problem in and of itself. Yet I strongly suspect that the ratio of male-to-female instructors for a devotee-run hatha yoga studio will most likely feature more men. After all, men tend to take the in all sorts of areas–even in female dominated ones like cooking. And the men cannot avoid teaching classes in which the overwhelming majority of students are women. So, what we have here are male devotees with Tarzan physiques strutting around sweaty, perfumed women who are mostly there to improve their sex lives.
The true characteristic of the devotee-run yoga studio is that it is a naturally overripe, ongoing circumstance for instructor and instructed to fall in love–especially where an instructor is male.
Secondly, this brings us to what I termed above as an “unrealistic view of human nature.” To be clear, we are talking about a view in which, as you describe, one thinks one’s self more spiritually advanced than he really is.
You are likely thinking that because you are well aware of the dark side of conditioned human nature, you will take extra precautions that will sufficiently protect you. But this is like saying that one will be extra cautious about not hitting children while driving at 40 or 50 miles per hour (55 or 70 kmh) through a residential neighborhood. Putting your cell phone away while driving might help you avoid hitting kids while driving fast, but so would reducing your speed. And yes, you might be one of a majority who regularly speed through neighborhoods without hitting children. But as time goes on the true statistics will eventually come to light.
In the same way, men who are (hatha) yoga instructors are always at heightened risk for fallilng down. Your extra precautions are something like putting away your cell phone while driving, but you are still speeding. This is what it means to think one’s self more advanced than he really is. The teachers and the students both have that problem.
As regards to the long-term efficacy of a devotee-run hatha yoga studio, Gita verse 7.3 (manushyanam sasreshu) predicts that “out of many thousands among men, only one may endeavor for perfection, and out of those who have achieved perfection, hardly one knows Me in truth”, this is an abstract statistical description of the rareity of truth seekers. This tells us that a substantial portion of the 16% who are spiritual seekers coming to your yoga studio are not actually all that interested in the spiritual aspect of yoga. And even if you do somehow spiritually engage them, the vast majority of those will eventually go away.
The results you are left with, in terms of recruitment, will likely be outliers or extreme outliers (like your two star bhaktins). In other words, your description of how you demolish the egos of your students is hyperbole. It’s hype. I don’t buy an inch of it. The egos of the vast majority of your students aren’t all that diminished, if at all, despite your best efforts. It goes against what Gita verse 7.3 predicts to be the true value of the statistic over the long term.
Since pretty much the positive results that come from all preaching programs can be considered outliers, the results, which are mostly a loose collection of heart-warming anecdotes, should not be considered the primary criterion for judging whether any particular kind of preaching program should, as a matter of policy, be broadly encouraged. The primary criterion should instead be how well will a particular preaching program sustain the Krishna consciousness of the devotee preachers. After all, if a devotee becomes slack or falls down, he, or she, won’t be an effective preacher.
On this count, and as already elaborated on, devotees (particularly male devotees) teaching hatha yoga is a very risky proposition. A women-only yoga studio would be something that might work, be safe for the devotees teaching, and be commercially viable or at least self-sustaining. But over the long term, men teaching hatha yoga are at high risk of falling down.
And since realistically men will be taking the lead in this area (despite a few enterprising women), we are encouraging a program that is unnecessarily spiritually risky as compared with other programs that produce similar results. A cooking class is also female oriented yet is safer for male instructors than is a hatha yoga program. And devotees do come from cooking classes, too.
Dear Krishna Kirti Prabhu! Dandavat pranam! Jaya Srila Prabhupada!
Thanks for your lengthy and interesting comment. It’s nice to see how passionate you are about what you believe to be true.
Let me comment on your points one at a time. Excuse the grammatical errors. English is not my first language.
Maybe the weakest point of your argumentation is that you compare our preaching program to a yoga studio. It’s difficult to debate this topic when you are not sufficiently informed about our project and have not seen it. We are not a yoga studio and the courses, workshops, educations we offer are not self-funding. At least not now. We run an online shop and sell products by driving out to shops. This is to ensure a stable income, so that we can both survive and do our workshops educations etc. without watering down the philosophy. On our website we write that our courses are “not for everyone”. They are “specifically designed to only attract people who are ready for them”. We inform people that we have a high level of emotional confrontation. It is not your regular yoga studio at all. It’s not a yoga studio at all. We only include some yoga exercises. We don’t teach yoga classes. What we do is spiritual self-development and spiritual coaching based on Eastern wisdom (Krishna consciousness). This is how we frase it on our website. A few slides into our PPT Prabhupada’s BG is introduced as the spiritual success book no. 1. We are so confrontational that we use the first hour of our educations and the preliminary meeting explaining and warning about it. We do this to create a filter, so that unserious people will not take the educations. If people don’t like it we would rather see them leave. 100% of the people attending our program are spiritually interested. Most of them know beforehand that we are Krishna devotees. Our goal is to create an army of serious Krishna conscious soldiers who will die for Prabhupada’s mission. If something doesn’t work we will change it. If you have a better program tell us about it.
Your first point:
“1) Statistically, the anecdotes are too good to be true.”
To challenge your arguments I have to ask you how good your statistics on devotee hatha yoga preaching are? How have you conducted your investigations and how many hatha-yoga preaching programs are included?
I’ve seen a lot of crap in ISKCON regarding the use of yoga and new age stuff. Therefore I think some devotees need to do it properly. That’s us! Are we free from mistakes? Of course not!
But actually the worst crap I see is weak preaching by scared kanistha-adhikaris who are afraid to accept what Prabhupada said on controversial matters and preach this in sharp and strong way – like Prabhupada very often did it. Yoga or no yoga – the worst crap is softliner devotees. Anyway, that’s another debate. My point is simply that I see many devotees who appear to be “traditional” that water down everything. It is because of bad training and a lack of interest in studying our philosophy. On the other hand I also see serious devotees making new devotees using elements from yoga, new age and more. As Bhakti Vikasa Maharaja wrote me: “The proof of the pudding is in the eating”. So let’s look at the results. I used to be so much in my head reading science and philosophy, but I realized I wasted a lot of time. Prabhupada has given us sufficient knowledge to go out there and start “making” devotees NOW. People are suffering and waiting. The main point is to quickly find ways and means to save them. Prabhupada was open to new ideas to some degree. Yoga was one of them. Science and philosophy on western principles were other means.
Now, the statistic doesn’t disprove our success. If it does anything it supports it. The fact is that these positive results are there – here and now. They are measurable. Why through something away that works. How long term they are – who knows? But we have to see what the situation is now and take action to make the results permanent. There are in fact men in our results also, but you are correct that there are more women than men. Right now at least. But again, statistics are too scarse to see if this is a pattern. You also need to know the goal of our preaching. Our goal is to create quality over quantity. So for us it is not how many, but how serious. A lot of people chant their rounds, but are otherwise half crazy and lazy and do not actively engage in any serious preaching. We don’t want to work with such people. We want to create an elite.
Ask yourself what the long term effects of “traditional” preaching strategies are? How many percent of the people walking into a temple are actually SERIOUSLY interested in self-realization? How many people coming to ISKCON programs are actually joining? And how much are they joining? How long do they stay? Do we know? Is our preaching project supposed to be better than “traditional” preaching programs before it is accepted? How good should it be?
And how many people are MADE serious by intelligent preaching in temples, official centers? I often see a total lack of ability to preach to new people. Therefore we are doing it differently, so that we can gradually make people interested. But in a fast way. It seems to work really nicely so far.
Anyway, who knows the statistics of “traditional” preaching styles? At least I have seen many ISKCON devotees sit on the Vyasasana or distributing books or giving out prasada or going on harinam or just preaching or whatever in a terrible way that created a lot negative results (I’m all for book distribution, harinam etc.) You know how ISKCON leadership can stink even though it’s all “traditional”. You might argue that they are not really traditional, but my point is that it’s not the absence of yoga studios in our preaching that in and of itself creates good result – serious devotees doing the right thing the right way at the right time create goods results. Prabhupada condoned the use of hatha-yoga in preaching under certain circumstances, so in principle what we do can be done – if done to the pleasure of Prabhupada. So if you want to make statistics on preaching programs let us look at ALL preaching programs and evaluate how effective they are. Let us see how many percent of the people these programs get in touch with become serious devotees. Let us see if more than 16% of the people coming to their programs are spiritually interested. And let us see how they preach to both the interested and uninterested in order to make them more attached to Krishna consciousness.
Let us compare and see who is actually most traditional when it comes down to it!
This was my comments to your first point. If you like you can meditate on an answer while I answer your second comment.
Your servant,
Ajit Krishna Dasa
Dear Krishna Kirti Prabhu! Dandavat pranam! Jaya Srila Prabhupada!
Now to your second point:
2) Unrealistic view of human nature
Again, the weakest point of your arguments is that they are based on the assumption that we are running a regular yoga studio – which we are not.
First of all we know that Prabhupada said it is impossible to fully avoid male and female association in present western society. Are you ever alone with your mother or daugther or a female co-worker? If yes, is that traditional? Where do we draw the line? I was working as a school teacher for 9 years and often I was alone with a female co-worker. I could basically do that or quit my job. Let’s be realistic. I’m not saying it doesn’t matter, but let’s just be realistic about it and don’t keep a double standard. We are always two teachers on at the same time. We usually teach one or two persons at the time, so we don’t have a big crowd of women all at once. Our plan is to train matajis to be able to do the teaching and training for women, while we get prabhus to teach the men. There is always some risk when preaching. In a war some soldiers will die, said Prabhupada. Even devotees on the streets with books fall down, or in temples, in cooking classes – everywhere. Even sannyasis find opportunities to mingle with women. I’ve heard your own former guru maharaja was quite expert at that, and I congratulate you with the decision of leaving him. I was actually his aspiring disciple for 18 months, but when I visited him and saw he didn’t chant his rounds, I ran out of the door as fast as was possible. Now everyone can see and read about his “preaching” and activities on the internet. Anyway, that was a side track. Back to the point. Since the people we get in the door are ALL spiritually interested, and since we put great stress on explaining why sex life is bad, we feel the risk for us is low. We have been doing this for quite some time and we feel more and more secure in Krishna consciousness. So judging after how good a preaching program can sustain the bhakti of the teachers I find this program very strong.
Since you are a fan of statistics, then do we have any statistics of how many temple devotees fall in love with the opposite sex (or nowadays the same sex) during regular “traditional” preaching activities or service? Since most ISKCON devotees get married, and a lot later divorced, I think it will be hard to show that a yoga studio poses a greater threat to male devotees than any other preaching. Where is the statistics? Most likely a male devotee teaching in such a yoga studio has a plan on getting married anyway. Is the possibility of illicit sex greater – well, there is illicit sex all over the place. To avoid it we need good training and we need to engage people in projects that suits their conditioned nature. Since we are not a yoga studio it’s a little hard for me to relate to this and I’m not here to defend any nonsense yoga program. Just because I think our program works it doesn’t mean I like and defend all other programs. And I also don’t think all devotees should go out and try to do what we are doing without proper training.
You are talking about recruiting new people. It not just about recruiting, but about training. Bringing a person from a-z. This is our program. We are not just doing some gymnastics, we are transforming people’s lives, getting people off drugs and medicine, curing diseases and teaching them how to live a moral lives and such stuff. It all ends in Krishna consciousness, and of course we can’t guarantee that all will join ISKCON, but at least they will have chanted, read Prabhupada’s book and improved their lives. You might not believe we are demolishing peoples egos. Well, what can I write to convince you? It’s really out of my sphere of influence at this point in time, and frankly I don’t see why the burden of proof is on me. I know I have tools that work and instead of wasting so much time writing about it I prefer to show some practical results. Which preaching program do you have, and what are the statistics? You spend a lot of time online running oneiskcon.com and I find most of it relevant. But how many new devotees is it making or how much does it sustain and improve the Krishna consciousness of other devotees. Maybe quite a bit – I don’t know. Do you? Could you use your time better?
You say cooking classes can make devotees. That’s great. But we are only after people who will themselves be preachers and go out and make a real difference. In a cooking class people often come because they want to satisfy their lusty desires for food and to associate with the other sex. Such cooking classes should be split up also – in males and females. Ideally matajis should do the cooking for the ladies. But anyway, a cooking class with all the unserious people coming is not a job for me. To take people from being food conscious to become serious devotee preachers and teachers – wow, what a journey. It’s good, but it’s not me. We are offering a program that can train devotee ALL the way to initiation and beyond. A cooking class usually don’t offer that. But of course a cooking class has to be part of the training at one point. But alone I guess it’s quite ineffective. To make it effective have to team up with serious preachers, who will take over, when you are done. Unless you have a full pack with all training included. Do you? Then it’s good. Let the results decide.
All for now,
Hare Krishna,
Your servant,
Ajit Krishna Dasa
Just a quick note about Ajit Krishna Prabhu’s argument:
It starts off making a general argument for using hatha yoga as a method for preaching but then ends up defending only his specific program. His shift in argument follows this progression:
1) Head article’s use of the term “hatha yoga” is unqualified. Ajit Krishna (AK) writes, “here’s a few quotes from Prabhupada on the matter of using hatha yoga as a tool for spreading Krishna Consciousness.” There is no reason yet to believe that AK is talking about his own personal preaching program and not what quite a few devotees are doing now — namely opening their own yoga studios or using ISKCON temple facilities to teach it. Indeed, all those devotees who teach (or like) hatha yoga and who have ever had to justify their view to skeptics quote the same references AK has provided.
2) By his first comment, AK begins to shift away from a general argument by qualifying his terms. “it seems to me from the above verses that elements of this can be used to attract people and while the teaching goes on bhakti can be gradually added.” AK is now talking about “elements” of hatha yoga, and not “hatha yoga”. This sentence of AK’s is similarly tortured: “We (our company Govinda Consult) don’t teach yoga as such, but we have included yoga exercises in our courses.” What does it mean that you “don’t teach yoga” but “include excercises in our courses”? If I sell yoga mats or bring up hatha yoga in a conversation, it doesn’t mean I teach hatha yoga. But “including excercises”? It’s a distinction without a difference. You are teaching hatha yoga, or you aren’t.
3) By his third comment AK has abandonned his initial, general argument altogether. “Maybe the weakest point of your argumentation,” says AK, “is that you compare our preaching program to a yoga studio.” So, my argument now is weak because I am insufficiently informed about AK’s preaching program. Except that I was speaking to the general argument AK made at the start of this thread, and that we find out for certain by his fourth comment that he is no longer defending devotees who do indeed teach hatha yoga.
I think at this point it is now clear that we are talking past each other. I don’t have the time to check out the specifics of his own program to agree that it really is different from what everyone else is doing (I’m still in the midst of finals). And I think AK is probably in agreement with my most significant points regarding the general utility of spreading Krishna consciousness through hatha yoga.
ys, KKD
p.s. One last thing about the cooking classes: I know of some very nice devotee preachers who have come to Krishna consciousness through them. My point in comparing hatha yoga prachar with cooking prachar is that that they are both circumstances in which the overwhelming majority of attendees will be women, and that for any male teaching the course, all other things being equal, the male teaching the cooking class is circumstantially at less risk of falling down than the male teaching the hatha yoga class.