Hare Krsna!
AGTSP! Paoho.
After a 45-minute conversation with Srivasa Pandita Das from ISKCON Silicon Valley educational projects, last evening, we want to share our current views on Sastri education in ISKCON.
Of course, these are our views as one of the several blind men trying to understand the elephant. Please contribute your understanding from your point of view.
A lot of the impetus of the conversation was the SB class that we had just finished with ISKCON Boise, Idaho yesterday moring. For us it was a colossal effort involving Temple President, Ananta-rupa Das, Radhika-raman Das and many others.
It was one of the nicest experiences in our life and confirmed our idea that ISKCON Temple means a community of devotees organized around daily, morning study of Srimad Bhagavatam.
Of course, this can mean members who can physically attend the programs in the Temple Building, but with Srivasa Ji we were very much discussing (some times with great zeal and alacrity) that this can also mean Grhasthas studying the texts in their own homes in the morning and then discussing together on a weekly basis what they have studied.
From our perspective, hearing opinions of many others also, Sastric studies in the Western hemisphere, is in a very dangerous, little reliability, situation. There can be local programs promoted by local gurus that are very nice, but we feel that without a global educational network coordinating these and offering these programs to others we will always be lacking in essential features to make a healthy ISKCON educational aspect.
We need local gurus and global integration.
Our first product aim in Anjana Suta Academy, Sastric studies, is learning how to associate with teachers, fellow students and our students. Then we are concerned with didactic methods, calendars, and finally learning facts.
We feel that we are lacking in the extreme with proper association between the ISKCON Administrators and Brahmans which are the two pillars of happiness for the community in general.
This is our view and of course 60% of the problem is our fault, 20% others faults and 20% God's arrangement.
So, we propose to go ahead trying to integrate Temple President's et al with ISKCON Ministry of Education. We will go ahead with niscayena and put our heart into it but we depend 60% on your mercy.
Of course, we are certainly continuing with our own responsibility of regular, daily, SB study and how that is developing systematically you can see at our web-site, www.Jayarama.US, through our News.
