VAD - Vanara Ashrama Dharma
Laksmana agra ja Das
To:
HpS (HHR)
Tue, Sep 8 at 5:31 AM
Dear gurudeva, and devoted regular readers of this blog.
Please accept my respectful obeisances.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
This time I am going to present my humble perspective on the issue of administration at ISKCON. Of course it is a vision limited only to my experience in the Andean zone. I have taken ideas from HH Hanumatpresaka swami and the advice received by great devotees who accompanied me in my experience in administration, and my few studies of the sastra. I do not intend to cover all the issues, they are just some topics of my concern and interest. They are just like headlines that I will expand at some point. Perhaps I am wrong in many of the ideas. Anyway, here they go.
1.- The administrator is a ksatriya?
In this age there are no pure ksatriyas. We all have a sudric dimension and we are actually a combination of several things. My spiritual master says that he is Brahmana-brahmana-brahmana-sudra. I consider myself brahmana-brahmana- (a little bit) ksatriya-sudra. And so we all have our combination. Therefore, we cannot expect perfection, to have an M. Pariksit in management. There will always be shortcomings.
2.- What is their qualification?
Srila Prabhupada says that if one has a good spiritual life, the administration will handle it with the tip of the finger. This does not mean that you should believe that everything will be done by magic. You must, at least, follow some administration course like the one given by ISKCON. An administrator must be an expert in satra to solve problems with a sastra saksu vision, but should not be a teacher. Ideally, you should have some systematic course like bhakti sastri. However, the most important thing is that you should be rendered to Srila Prabhupada instructions and be empathetic, interested in the welfare of the devotees.
3.- Protection and care of the devotees
The administrator's first duty is to protect those under his command. The word ksatriya literally means "wound" and "avoid," that is, to protect the devotees from adversity. Protection means first protecting the spiritual life of the devotees. Make sure they chant their rounds, that they follow the principles, attend the programas, etc. And if possible, especially those who perform dedicated service, make sure they have a roof, prasadam, some kind of insurance, an allowance if possible. Then the devotee will do voluntary service and will not be distressed because they do not have time to work and do dedicated service at the same time.
HpS - AGTSP!! Paoho. These are very nice!!! We are so tired. Headache. So we will stop reading here, now, 2020 sep 9, 8.12PM and come back to the rest later. Very nice. Looking forward as you may go into more detail, but such a nice foundation.
4.- Surrender vs Protection
The problem is that administrators often demand surrender, service, obedience without sufficient protection. Then they complain that the devotees do not cooperate and the devotees are not very encouraged to do service because of their many obligations. They often demand blind obedience. “Because yes, because it is. Because I say so ”. Many devotees do service out of inspiration rather than instruction. "…both blind following and absurd inquiries are condemned." BG 4.34
5.- The authority as inspiration
Devotees will be very cooperative when inspired by authority. The administrator must be at the foot of the canyon. We say in Spanish. Be present, inspiring, motivating, encouraging. Sometimes they believe that unmotivated and unflinching service is something that comes out of the blue. Something that is given for obvious and they do not see the human dimension of the person. Sometimes they are like absent parents. Not all devotees are self motivated. A leader is someone who is capable of seeing people's gifts and helping them to put them at the service of the institution. Look for talents in various areas so that a climate of cooperation is created. Often times talented devotees put their talents in other institutions because they do not feel welcomed in ISKCON.
6.- Leader vs administrator
In my opinion, they are not the same. An administrator in ISKCON has to earn his leadership. Leadership is not something that comes automatically with position. The characteristics of a leader are diverse. And you generally see administrators-managers in ISKCON, very few leaders. A leader has the ability to summon naturally. The capacity to nuclear efforts, to know the needs, interests and concerns and to address them intelligently by working with the community. Among other things.
7.- The administration in ISKCON, an ideal place to express our propensity to be the controller
This was said by HH HDG at a conference. If we are not careful, an administrative position can confuse us and develop undesirable things like pride, arrogance, roughness. We become authoritarian and eventually abuse and take advantage of our position. Then nepotism arises, a mafia mentality, and we turn in to the dark side. "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" We begin to distrust critical and intelligent devotees and try to get rid of them. We see ghosts and plots everywhere. Fear arises because we believe our position is threatened. We polarize opinion and stances, "You are with me or against me" We work with our loyal followers, who also benefit. Therefore, the administrator must be very careful in his sadhana, his spiritual life, Srila Prabhupada reading, principles, take advice from qualified brahmanas, etc.
8.- The urgent vs the important
Many times administrators are rushing to meet immediate schedules, to pay bills, and do not take time to organize important things. And they may not have much time, but they must manage well what little they do have. Someone said that administrative meetings have to be 70% preaching and 30% problems, temporary things. We see that in reality it is not fulfilled. Why?
9.- Administrators are also human beings
It is very common for us to complain about the shortcomings of the administrators, but they also have challenges in maintaining their own homes and pushing Srila Prabhupada's mission. We are very unfair to them. And as a former administrator said. “This service is very thankless. They criticize you, they call you a thief, an opportunist, an incompetent. And when you no longer serve they get rid of you, and you end up skinny, sick, old, full of debts in your home and no one thanks you. " On the other hand, because they are fallible human beings, there is no such thing as papal infallibility in authority. They should be self-critical, accept mistakes, and ask for advice.
10.- The administration must know how to ask for help
Management many times, almost always, does not have enough time to get things done. Instead of getting entangled in it, they should know how to ask devotees for help and incorporate them into some secondary administrative position. In charge of books, preaching and other aspects. So that everything can run properly. The bad tendency is to monopolize the management, that results in inefficiency.
11.- Internal institutional communication
Communication is not incidental, it must be constant. The authorities must communicate what they do to encourage others to support them. They have to launch projects all the time. Inspire, encourage devotees through the use of social media or any other means. They should not only publish festivals and formal things. Worse still, sometimes only negative things are communicated such as sanction for a devotee. So they complain when devotees say that the authorities do nothing. May be they do many things, but since the devotees do not find out, they are not inspired to participate, they are not informed, then authorities lose their credibility.
12.- Round trip communication
In the daily affairs there must be a fluid communication between the authorities and the devotees in general. They should ask for opinions, encourage initiative. Make the devotees feel that they are an important part of the temple. If they do not do that, devotees have the impression that the temple is of this or that authority, they do not feel part of it. But something more important still is that communication has to start from authority, create a cycle of exchanges. But if they are in their offices, busy with their own affairs, waiting for the devotees to take the initiative, it does not go much further. The authority has to be proactive in this regard.
13.- The organization will never be completely organized
A few years ago GBC representatives came to Peru to help with the administration. His idea was to fix the administration and then devote to the affairs of preaching. After all we are Lord Caitanya's Sankirtan movement. My spiritual master suggested that the two situations should be faced simultaneously, administration and preaching. After a couple of years, neither the administration nor the preaching was fixed. We should not expect perfection in this area. Let's develop all areas simultaneously.
14.- We are the Sankirtan movement of Lord Caitanya
Like an army, all areas have to be articulated to achieve the objectives. But apparently each area does its job without much coordination between them. The authority has to be able to amalgamate the different areas, articulate them. For example, the educational area can do a lot, but if it is not properly assembled with the administration, it will not be as effective as it should, etc. And the devotees in particular do what they can. That is why what I call “the sniper syndrome” arises. Each one does what they can, without being articulated. And the authority not only does not encourage initiatives but is dedicated to pointing out those who have any initiative as "independent", capricious, rebellious, not authorized, and so on. Instead of looking for them, chatting, restoring trust with them, and bringing them into the system for the benefit of all. A war is not won with snipers, but with a properly assembled army.
15.- Cooperation and unity in diversity
I always put these two concepts together. We all cooperate with the ISKCON mission, but I do my service with my friends, with people who have a natural empathy, who agree on details, etc. I do my best to develop patience and humility with everyone, but naturally I hang out with people who have the same inclinations. Pujari team, book distribution team, education team, etc. Working in a coordinated way. Both concepts simultaneously.
16.-The temple is a project of the whole community
Managers need to be visionary, not just keep what's out there. You must have a strategic plan that involves everyone. A strategy can be to write a document to take it to a general assembly to collect the ideas of the devotees, suggestions, etc. In this way the devotees will be involved, included, therefore the success of the plan is practically assured. But if administrators with a backward and outdated understanding of the verticality of authority are locked in their office deciding for everyone there will never be progress. Devotees should feel like real ISKCON members, important, indispensable members. Otherwise the devotees will believe that ISKCON is the administration and when things do not go well, they will say ISKCON is not doing well.
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These are just some ideas, some suggestions, from my limited vision.
I was in the administration and surely I made many mistakes. But I learned and that is why I dare to put these ideas. Like brain storm. It is not a document based on theory, I have not even properly quoted Srila Prabhupada, things that you already know better than I do.
I was inspired to write this little document due to an article by HH HpS on the topic, and because I recently was involved and finally I resigned as secretary of the legal board of ISKCON Peru. I wrote a letter to the GBC where I simply and honestly stated that in reality the administration is not my best contribution to Srila Prabhupada's mission. I considered that something I can help in education, that I have been trained for that. I am finishing facilitation course 3 with Param padam Prabhu and I am also working on my master's thesis in education. All to improve my service as a teacher at ISKCON and with other people who work outside ISKCON.
(Edit this, please: To my surprise, unofficially, a friend told me that some authorities are spreading the idea that I resigned, in collusion with other authorities, to take the position of president. When I heard that theory, I couldn't believe it, it was surreal and completely crazy. I just had to laugh at that bad joke. Maybe it's not true, but I found it funny and it's not worth finding out who did it or take it seriously. Anyway, that reinforced my idea to dedicate myself to other area)
Of course, there are also many dedicated administrators with great vision, but sadly there are few. I am in education because I want to help devotees to train not to keep making the same mistakes but to properly honor Srila Prabhupada's legacy.
Thank you very much.
Your servant,
Laksmana-agraja das
