Book distribution, kīrtan, or why not both and why?

Dear prabhus,

I seldom, if ever, feel compelled to enter into the arena of preaching politics, as I more often than not prefer to simply go on with my humble attempt to cry out the Holy Name with a deepening sense of the need for much self-improvement, hoping against hope that someone up there will condescend to show unprecedented mercy upon my withering and feeble insignificance. One of our 24-hour kīrtana party members, however, brought your worthy dialogue to my attention, which has somehow prompted me to offer my two cents' worth into the discussion. I hope you don’t mind. Here, as a matter of food for thought, are a few excerpted lines from something I had previously written along with a few end-notes. As it exceeds the per-post character limit, I am posting it as two consecutive posts. Much more could, and perhaps should, be said from different angles of vision, but I am a very slow writer and so would hence much prefer to discuss at length when you will next trouble yourselves to come to Śrī Dhāma Vṛndāvana and personally sit with me.

It is an incontestable matter of fact that the mass distribution of transcendental literatures unfolding the principles of bhāgavata-dharma for the propagation of rāga-bhakti throughout the world is the number one missionary “business” of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. Only a dull-headed ecclesial anthropoid would speciously conclude otherwise. Still, it should be borne in mind that there is really no mundane dichotomy between the essential message of the scriptures so proliferated and the application of the primary methodology promoted by the scriptures themselves, the congregational chanting of the Holy Name. In fact, the main function of any scripture propagated by the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava sampradāya is to convincingly induce the fallen souls to take up the practice of the yuga-dharma, hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana, without doing which, one could hardly expect to make much tangible spiritual progress in this present age. We should always remember that Veda Vyāsa compiled and wrote down the scriptures with a view to facilitate the less intelligent, fallen people of this Age of Kali, who have relatively short memories and therefore require books as reference material. In previous yugas, there was no pressing need for the written word. The śruti-dharas, upon hearing only once, could immediately memorize for life the knowledge disseminated through guru-paramparā, which specifically emphasized the appropriate process of self-realization appurtenant to the respective yuga circumstantially in progress. Given that scriptural texts were presented specifically for this present Age of Kali, it would be ludicrous to surmise that Vyāsadeva’s ultimate conclusion would be in any way divergent from the interest of the kali-yuga-avatāra, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, in the matter of widespread propagation of the currently appropriate yuga-dharma, the congregational singing of the Holy Name. One who, with great effort, obsequiously goes out to bear the task of transcendental book distribution without recognizing this essential intention of the scriptures is like an ass that, lacking much good sense, simply carries the burden of heavy loads of paper and ink.

Distribute books. Distribute books. Distribute books. But who is reading the books? Read books. Read books. Read books – but not to be book-wormish. Book-worms go through page after page of a book (or perhaps many books), but to what avail? They superficially ingest mouthfuls only to witlessly defecate upon the very pages so ingested, remaining totally oblivious to the essential rasa-maya import of the śāstras. Without practically implementing by sensibly dedicating a substantial portion of life’s time and energy to the direct performance of yuga-dharma hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana with a view to achieving the pinnacle of rūpānuga-bhajana, what individual or group of individuals can claim to have rightly comprehended and applied the devotional science enunciated in the scriptures proliferated by the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava ācāryas through disciplic succession?

The proliferation of transcendental literature is certainly the best advertising front of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. The idea is to canvass in such a way as to persuade human society’s literate intelligentsia to join the fold of Lord Caitanya’s saṅkīrtana movement on the basis of convincingly sound reason and philosophy. If there is an Absolute Truth, and that Absolute Truth is an eternal, all-sentient, all-blissful, all-attractive Person possessed of infinite transcendental forms, qualities, and pastimes exhibiting His unlimited beauty, knowledge, wealth, power, fame, and supreme independence, as can be glimpsed through the scriptures – then certainly His absolute, self-same Holy Names should be deemed most sublime, venerable, and worthy of our individual and congregational total deference and loving surrender. Transcendental book distribution can be compared to a sakhī’s campaign to enlist new girls to become dedicated followers of Mahā-bhāva-svarūpiṇī, Śrī Rādhikā. Certainly, no book distributor in the line of Rūpa Gosvāmī would be caught dead canvassing on behalf of Candrāvalī! Rāga Mañjarī is perhaps the Lord’s best and most reliable messenger, having opted to become His vaṁśī flute. Knowing the purposes of her svāminī’s inner heart, Rāga Mañjarī serves, in the form of the flute, to mercifully break the resolve of Radha’s māna, or jealous pouting, forcefully facilitating the fruition of her mistress’s deepest desires to intimately satisfy Her beloved Śyāma. She similarly serves to satisfy Radha’s cupidity for expanding the sweet empire of Śyāma’s amorous diversions, by artfully calling all the new sādhana-siddha-gopīs for mahā-rāsa at Vaṁśīvaṭa, near the Yamunā’s shore. The sādhana-siddha-gopīs, possessed of their fully actuated sac-cid-ānanda-siddha-deha and the adhikāra for directly participating in Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa’s prakaṭa-līlās, having risen from the status of ordinary human beings, for the first time enter the sacrificial arena of confidential love dalliances with their beloved Lord through the Vaṁśīvaṭa “gateway” at the time of mahā-rāsa. It is said that Kṛṣṇa’s flute, feeling acute pangs of separation from the Lord, manifested in Kali-yuga as Śrī Mṛdaṅga to participate in the Lord’s audārya-līlās. The mṛdaṅga principle has expanded its influence by way of appearing as the bṛhat-mṛdaṅga printing press, which facilitates mass production and proliferation of Vaiṣṇava scriptures. Broadcasted bhāgavata-kathā by means of transcendental book distribution could, therefore, be suitably likened to the call of Kṛṣṇa’s flute, which purposely serves to arouse intensified pūrva-rāga, or preliminary attraction, in the hearts of the damsels of Vraja. The mercifully extended flute-call (book distribution) magnetically allures the vraja-sundarīs (fortunate souls) away from their so-called husbands (all superficially binding mundane considerations) to excitedly dash off to join the rāsa dance festivities (hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana). Hence, they become progressively more and more qualified and inspired to enter deeply into the intimate nikuñja-sevās of the Divine Couple (nāma-japa). Again and again, they anxiously hearken to the overtures of the flute (bhāgavata-kathāmṛta) and become ever-more-irresistibly enchanted. Again and again, they skillfully shake the shackles of household encumbrances to exuberantly sing and dance in rāsa-līlā delight (hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana) in order to transcendentally enrapture the Lord of all supra-mundane conjugal beatitude. Again and again, they blissfully receive and personally serve the Divine Couple at their private pleasure groves within the all-enchanting forest of Vraja (hari-nāma-japa).

What a disappointment! What a let-down! What a treachery! What a sham! If after so much canvassing, if after answering to so much flute-calling (transcendental book distribution), the excited vraja-sundarīs (bhakta-gaṇa) find, to their disillusionment, upon arriving at the rāsa-maṇḍala (the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement), no rāsa-līlā festival (invigorating, publicly demonstrated hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana)! If, upon reading the advertisements (Vaiṣṇava śāstras) and expectantly joining Lord Caitanya’s hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana movement, having been philosophically persuaded [by reading the books] to faithfully surrender to the idea of prosecuting the yuga-dharma, hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana, one chances to notice a pitiful dearth of hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana painfully persisting among the vast majority of the movement’s members in most corners of the world, would one not wonder as to whether one had, in fact, actually found Lord Caitanya’s saṅkīrtana movement of the Holy Name? Was it false advertising, or what? The vraja-gopīs were not satiated by rāsa dancing for the duration of an entire night of Brahmā. Similarly, anyone who has gained a grain of regard for kali-yuga-dharma hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana would not very much appreciate the extent to which hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana has been side-lined and so irresponsibly de-emphasized over the years in Lord Caitanya’s hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana movement. Advertising and advertising . . . but what in the name of God are we advertising? Do we have any idea? Have we actually understood? Chanting, dancing, feasting, and philosophy. The philosophy in the books is basically to convince us to chant and dance. Feasting is to energize our chanting and dancing. Chanting and dancing is required for getting a taste for chanting and dancing. Chanting and dancing with a taste for chanting and dancing is actually required to progress to the position of ecstatically chanting and dancing on the stage of preliminary love of Godhead, bhāva-siddhi. And chanting and dancing in spontaneous devotional ecstasy on the stage of bhāva-siddhi is an absolute prerequisite for chanting and dancing in Lord Caitanya’s eternal prema-saṅkīrtana-līlās in the spiritual sky.

The culture of hari-nāma-japa-yajña is said to be a disciple’s first and foremost essential obligation at the feet of Śrī Guru. Though apparently bearing a relatively small radius of para-upakāra audibility, a disciple’s offenseless chanting of at least a fixed minimum number of Holy Names daily unquestionably constitutes the top-priority, most substantial service to Śrī Guru and his institution. In fact, the guru imposes no more imperative order than to regularly complete one’s prescribed personal japa-vrata. Such is the incontrovertible status of nāma-japa’s enormous significance. Personal absorption in nāma-bhajana is well ascertained to be a far more weighty devotional responsibility than a devotee’s transcendental book distribution of any amount. Qualitative and quantitative increments in the chanting of nāma-japa appreciably augments one’s personal purity. Moreover, śuddha-nāma-japa dynamically establishes one’s internal spiritual link with Kṛṣṇa’s antaraṅga-śaktis, through which alone one can ever hope to receive the empowerment required to effectually broadcast the Holy Name. In the same way, one should properly assess the collective value of congregational chanting. One must not witlessly underestimate, discount, or ignore the individual and communal spiritual worth and weightiness of earnestly executed prema-dharma hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana. It is not that because kīrtana performances done with khol and karatāla can be heard for only a relatively short distance (as is even more so the case with nāma-japa), śrī-hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana should be viewed dismissively or its concerted community performance should be in any way slighted or abandoned as if it were in some way outmoded. If such were the intention behind the instructions of any institutional founder in deference to the avail of the printing press, then perhaps, referring to the very scriptures so globally proliferated, we should, by and large, incisively question or even prudently decline the validity of such advice. Nāma-japa is the vital force and invigorator for the Vaiṣṇava individual. In the same way, hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana is the spiritual strength, sustenance, and inspiration for the collective Vaiṣṇava community. Transcendental book distribution certainly boasts the capability of heroically broadcasting knowledge of pure devotional principles to the remotest corners of the world. It makes for a better mousetrap, so to speak, only in terms of the amplitude of the word’s propagability. This, however, does not in any way pose to overshadow or diminish the greater relative importance of community-stimulating nāma-saṅkīrtana in terms of the latter’s in-house value, any more than it would overshadow or diminish the spiritual worth and paramount consequence of the responsible completion of one’s individually honored nāma-japa-vrata. Thus, when we say book distribution is “better” in terms of propagability, we should not misconstrue that to mean “better” or more important in terms of a clearly dissimilar reference point, namely the in-house value of communal saṅkīrtana.

No doubt, the dissemination of Vaiṣṇava philosophy via the medium of transcendental book distribution is for the classes (intelligentsia). Nonetheless, readily accessible Kṛṣṇa-conscious involvement and direct spiritual experience by way of purely and powerfully performed congregational hearing and chanting of the Holy Name is markedly elevating and enlivening for both the classes and the masses. It is not that because hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana is said to be “for the masses” it is not also meant for the classes. If anything, those who are intellectually fit to discuss the values of life should be able to gain a more profound philosophical grasp of the saṅkīrtana principle and quickly achieve niṣṭhā for its sublime application. Beyond that, the advanced inner circle, the rasika relishers of līlā-kathā, will most ably value the thing in the deepest manner. Direct, localized saṅkīrtana performances with khol and karatāla may not be so extensively audible in the world, having less potential global mobility than proliferated literatures. Still, on account of its special inspirational efficacy, far greater importance should be attached to the nourishing cultivation and maintenance of a strong individual and collective relishment and appreciation of eternally nectarous śuddha-nāma-saṅkīrtana-rasa within the Vaiṣṇava community (and beyond) than to the “business” of transcendental book distribution (bṛhat-kīrtana), notwithstanding the latter’s useful, temporarily manifest, far-extendable outreach. Hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana is not to be taken as a curiously quaint holiday novelty, a blast from the annals of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava history, something we anthropologically study about in the books. Saṅkīrtana (the congregational chanting of the Holy Name) is forever the life and soul of Lord Caitanya’s saṅkīrtana movement. Faith in the process of hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana is the fundamental root of the tree of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the strength of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement – its essential foundation. If the foundation is weak – if the root is starved or rotten – then what outcome could we expect from the whole affair? The philosophy of half the hen . . . We want the golden eggs, but it’s more economical if we don’t have to feed the thing. And anyhow, hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana don’t make no money! We have our huge establishments with their enormous attendant overhead expenditures to agonize about. $o . . . just pick it to the bone and bring it on home!

Kindly see the thing from a slightly different angle. Kṛṣṇa is undoubtedly the cause of all causes, the ultimate doer. So, it is He, the Supreme Autocrat, who is behind the call of His flute (transcendental book distribution). Picture this scenario and just try to grasp its absurdity: Kṛṣṇa (as His [Gaurāṅga’s] representative) is standing at Vaṁśīvaṭa (a designated distribution point) playing on His flute (distributing books) to call all the gopīs (fortunate fallen souls) to come quickly to dance with Him in the rāsa dance (hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana) festival. However, when the gopīs (fortunate fallen souls) enthusiastically arrive at the rāsa-maṇḍala (the Hare Kṛṣṇa Movement) with the hopes of actually dancing with Him, Kṛṣṇa totally disheartens them by pontificating, “Oh no! I have no time to bother myself with such unimportant affairs as rāsa dance (hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana) festivities; I have more important flute-playing (book distribution) business at hand. I only have time to lure the gopīs (fortunate fallen souls) to join the rāsa dance (hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana) festival by my flute-calling (transcendental book distribution). Please go back home."

Or how about this: The gopī messengers (book distributors) go out on behalf of Kṛṣṇa to invite other gopīs (fortunate fallen souls) to the wonderful rāsa dance (hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana) festival. But when the other gopīs (fortunate devotional candidates) come forward, in response to the invitation, they are politely informed by the gopī messengers, “Actually, there is no time for rāsa dancing (nāma-saṅkīrtana). It’s not really very important anyway! We should all engage ourselves exclusively as gopī messengers (book distributors) to spend our days and nights inviting newer and newer gopīs (potential book distributors) to the ‘wonderful (but not very important) rāsa dance (hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana) festival.’ ”. . . which rarely (if ever) happens to happen!

It is really a matter of spiritual common sense. Why cut off our nose in spite of our face? Yes, Śrīla Prabhupāda’s preaching through his books is certainly more powerful than what any neophyte can do by his or her two or three-minute semblance of spiritual speeches or nāmābhāsa-saṅkīrtana. Therefore, book distribution – while we get our act together. Yet, he never intended that his devotees should remain on the neophyte platform. Harboring and propagating a defeatist attitude never helped anyone advance in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. If we haven’t done so already, let us give it up. Śrīla Prabhupāda instructed that book distribution and nāma-saṅkīrtana should go on together, side by side. They go hand in hand. Nāma-saṅkīrtana is sādhana and sādhya. By practice of congregational chanting and dancing (the supreme sādhana), we perfect our congregational chanting and dancing to the highest perfection. The means and the end is the same. Yes, ultimately one’s kīrtana and speeches are considered to be pure empowered śabda-brahman when we come to the śuddha-nāma platform from the stage of ruci onward. As sādhakas, we must make every sincere effort to upgrade to that standard to become viably empowered representatives of our ācāryas. Therefore, there are regulative principles, etc., to help us advance in our spiritual practices. It is not, however, that because our chanting is not yet at the stage of śuddha-nāma we should not chant or speak. If that is our way of thinking, then perhaps it is best we don’t speak so much. What then is the meaning of ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam [Śrī Śikṣāṣṭakam 1]? I’ve got a great idea. Why don’t the members of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement just not bother to go out for public chanting and dancing from now on? Don’t we have any more important things to do? That sounds very much like Śrīla Prabhupāda’s mood and program. I’m sure he would be very pleased by our budding pragmatisms. Better still, since all of our much less than perfect chanting and dancing be far from very effective, let’s forget about chanting and dancing altogether! Why waste our time? When guests come to our Sunday feast programs as a result of all our week-long book distribution efforts, instead of the Sunday feast kīrtana, we should just engage in distributing books to each other. Or, how about during maṅgala āratrika and guru-pūjā? We could have piles of books, and while the āratrika is going on, instead of that old-fashioned, outmoded, and basically useless congregational chanting and dancing, we could engage ourselves in the more important bṛhat-kīrtana by simply passing books back and forth among our community members. Then when the āratrika is over, put them back on the pile. Never mind reading them in order to actually understand our philosophy; simply by touching them there is so much benefit! Let anyone spin the “philosophy” in whatever lopsided way they please to serve their various purposes. It does not perplex me. I, however, prefer to understand things in this way: The B.B.T. (book publication) is compared to the heart of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. Transcendental book distribution, the out-going books and in-coming funds, can be likened to the blood-pumping heart’s beating business. But why? What is the purpose of the whole affair? What are the books all about? Shall we not acknowledge the importance of all the transcendental knowledge contained in the books? Shall we not acknowledge the life of all the transcendental knowledge found in the books (hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana), the living (inspirational) force ultimately sustaining the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement along with its important heart-beating business? No one here is saying that book distribution is not important. However, if we neglect the transcendental knowledge in the books, if we neglect to practically live the life of all transcendental knowledge in the books, mulishly thinking heart-muscle and heart-beating business are the only important aspects of our life of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then our heart-muscle/beating business will remain relatively superficial and artificially sustainable at best. How sustainably can a heart beat anyway without a will to live? Saṅkīrtana of the Holy Name is life. How can one live – and think one is living – without it?

May the Lord grant you the spiritual guts to digest these few ideas, at least in principle, if not in practice.

Y. lowly S.