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Hare Krsna Gurudeva, agtSP, pamho.
after reading your letter, i think 7 purposes of ISKCON are defining, what is sankirtana ?
we think before Sankirtana comes Sadhana--aas you said
for us, local temple begins with mangala arati, kirtan and srimad bhagavatam as mentioned in NoI.
the community that regularly attends and builds those programs is our 'local temple'.
Well, seem you gave new definition of local temple, which is free from geography , yet practical.
Again took help of AI to understand your message-- AI's answer
He's showing that ISKCON's "local temple" was never purely a building you could walk to. From day one, it was a network held together by media and periodic gathering — because devotees were scattered and isolated, with no existing geographic devotee neighborhoods to rely on. The "local temple" was wherever the connection reached, not wherever the address was.
He's saying the sense of belonging to a temple/community doesn't have to come from physical nearness — it can come from the channels of communication that connect a person to Krishna consciousness and to other devotees. Those channels become the temple, functionally, even without shared geography.
Just sharing a residential area doesn't automatically produce sanga. People living on the same street may work in different places, keep different schedules, have no built-in reason to interact daily, and may not even share the same spiritual practice. Proximity of address doesn't guarantee proximity of association.
nice question:
If devotees wanted to all live together in one colony (one geographic location), would that force them to travel far for work — because their jobs are scattered in different places, not near that colony?
---our own reflection----
our current geographical local temple SEEMS to be focusing to get people together on sunday programmes and donation.. not much talk about sadhana is done it seems..
we have to follow our sadhana then Krsna will send people to make a local temple.
HpS - Yes. First is service attitude. If Local Temple is not going in the right direction in all aspects, then see how you can contribute some leadership, example. In a very loud Kirtan that we see has many faults, but is still with good qualities, even though our voice is not loud enough to be heard over the roaring drums and PA system, we chant from our heart.
Bhur, Bhuvah, Sva.
We are contributing on the Bhuvah level. It changes the reality and often we see that within is few Mantras the leader has changed, improved, according to our tastes, the Kirtan.
Better rhythm, more meaning...
