Let Local Devotees Take Over Full Management
BY: BHAKTA TORBEN
Jul 24, 2019 — DENMARK
TRAIN THEM FOR ADMINISTERING LOCALLY
GRADUALLY LET THEM TAKE OVER FULL MANAGEMENT
"Learning Spanish is a difficult job. How can you learn? I am very much enthusiastic about expansion of our branches, but if it is dependent upon learning of Spanish language, don't take this adventure. We should serve Krishna in whatever talents we have already got.
However if you are still very much anxious to go there, and you think that you shall be able to get along without knowing Spanish language, then you may go there immediately and push on this Movement. The idea is to recruit active speakers who also speak English to translate and be trained for administering things locally—you simply organize everything and instruct them, and gradually they will take over full management."
(Srila Prabhupada Letter to Nandakisora, 15th November, 1971)
PADA: This is great! Torben is now agreeing with the identical method "the Prabhupadanugas" are using for organizing their local programs, i.e. using local people. Yep, there is no need for a big expensive GBC "Jet Set Guru" to temporary fly in for an annual, or maybe bi-annual "initiation" program.
A GBC guru will maybe fly in every 12 months to initiate a few people, take some guru daksine, ask the temple to pay for his airfare, and then leave -- without really helping the initiates with much of their day to day inspiration or managing afterwards. Sorry, this requires a local managing structure.
The GBC has mentioned this problem themselves, there are billions of people, but only a small number of GBC, thus they are simply spread out WAY too thin to manage many people, even if they wanted to. Of course this also explains why there are so many problems. The problematic issues are simply way too many, and in way too many places -- for the GBC's to even start to handle. And they evidently do not allow many local junior subordinates to really take charge, so that leaves us without a really "hands on" management process.
That is why we have had some of the followers of various "gurus" like Svarupa Damodar, Bhagavan, Gaura Govinda maharaja, Narayan Maharaja and others become sort of like little cultish programs of pot smoking and deteriorated devotee standards. Their leadership has been located far, far away from the local field, perhaps in India -- and so forth. Thus the local people have not been getting much "local guidance" from their far away guru, and so they had a tendency to slide down in their practices.
Of course, this local emphasis idea makes a lot of sense even for a large church or corporation, they have had to use the "local people" to manage the local programs mainly, while the big leaders are simply supposed to help coordinate the various local program's into unified national or international programs -- like for example mass book printing, making large pilgrimage temples in different places, and assisting coordinating other larger projects such as schools, Bible colleges and so forth.
In the church, the local leader is called the priest, also called a ritvik, and we are glad Torben agrees this is the best managing idea. Yes, most of the "day to day" functions should be done on the local level.
Rocana's apparent idea of having 45 gurus to manage a temple with 10 people makes no sense at all, too many chiefs, not enough workers? This is why his local Vancouver ISKCON temple is having so many problems. Rocana's plan gives them a pile of gurus, but not enough workers, so the common day to day issues are not being done properly. Yes, local churches have a local priest who manages the local program, then there is the "council of churches" or "governing body" that helps with printing Bibles, making the Bible colleges and so forth. That is a great system and we should also have something similar. And that is what the Prabhupadanugas are doing here in Sunnyvale and in Edison NJ, there is a local management process mainly, and its working nicely. ys pd
BY: BHAKTA TORBEN
Jul 24, 2019 — DENMARK
TRAIN THEM FOR ADMINISTERING LOCALLY
GRADUALLY LET THEM TAKE OVER FULL MANAGEMENT
"Learning Spanish is a difficult job. How can you learn? I am very much enthusiastic about expansion of our branches, but if it is dependent upon learning of Spanish language, don't take this adventure. We should serve Krishna in whatever talents we have already got.
However if you are still very much anxious to go there, and you think that you shall be able to get along without knowing Spanish language, then you may go there immediately and push on this Movement. The idea is to recruit active speakers who also speak English to translate and be trained for administering things locally—you simply organize everything and instruct them, and gradually they will take over full management."
(Srila Prabhupada Letter to Nandakisora, 15th November, 1971)
PADA: This is great! Torben is now agreeing with the identical method "the Prabhupadanugas" are using for organizing their local programs, i.e. using local people. Yep, there is no need for a big expensive GBC "Jet Set Guru" to temporary fly in for an annual, or maybe bi-annual "initiation" program.
A GBC guru will maybe fly in every 12 months to initiate a few people, take some guru daksine, ask the temple to pay for his airfare, and then leave -- without really helping the initiates with much of their day to day inspiration or managing afterwards. Sorry, this requires a local managing structure.
The GBC has mentioned this problem themselves, there are billions of people, but only a small number of GBC, thus they are simply spread out WAY too thin to manage many people, even if they wanted to. Of course this also explains why there are so many problems. The problematic issues are simply way too many, and in way too many places -- for the GBC's to even start to handle. And they evidently do not allow many local junior subordinates to really take charge, so that leaves us without a really "hands on" management process.
That is why we have had some of the followers of various "gurus" like Svarupa Damodar, Bhagavan, Gaura Govinda maharaja, Narayan Maharaja and others become sort of like little cultish programs of pot smoking and deteriorated devotee standards. Their leadership has been located far, far away from the local field, perhaps in India -- and so forth. Thus the local people have not been getting much "local guidance" from their far away guru, and so they had a tendency to slide down in their practices.
Of course, this local emphasis idea makes a lot of sense even for a large church or corporation, they have had to use the "local people" to manage the local programs mainly, while the big leaders are simply supposed to help coordinate the various local program's into unified national or international programs -- like for example mass book printing, making large pilgrimage temples in different places, and assisting coordinating other larger projects such as schools, Bible colleges and so forth.
In the church, the local leader is called the priest, also called a ritvik, and we are glad Torben agrees this is the best managing idea. Yes, most of the "day to day" functions should be done on the local level.
Rocana's apparent idea of having 45 gurus to manage a temple with 10 people makes no sense at all, too many chiefs, not enough workers? This is why his local Vancouver ISKCON temple is having so many problems. Rocana's plan gives them a pile of gurus, but not enough workers, so the common day to day issues are not being done properly. Yes, local churches have a local priest who manages the local program, then there is the "council of churches" or "governing body" that helps with printing Bibles, making the Bible colleges and so forth. That is a great system and we should also have something similar. And that is what the Prabhupadanugas are doing here in Sunnyvale and in Edison NJ, there is a local management process mainly, and its working nicely. ys pd
Yes, Torben seems to be a little confused. On the one hand he cites Rocana's ideas as his authority, which means -- they basically want to have maybe 45 gurus for a temple of 10 people. And then they cannot even manage the basic process. And so they have in Rocana's Vancouver ISKCON temple, a run down deteriorated problem, such as the sign in front of the temple is in disarray because there is no one to fix it. Then Torben says nope, he is not with Rocana, rather he is with us -- the Prabhupadanugas, and thus we should have a local managed program like Prabhupadanugas are doing with their grass roots local programs. Or even the church is doing something like that (with a priest or ritvik managing system). So he has to decide which is better, having Jet Set gurus flying in every year to collect up some disciples, but not have any practical hands on managing, or to have our idea, manage the programs locally, using local brahmanas / priests / ritviks. ys pd
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