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In a human society aligned with fundamental universal principles (a “Vedic civilization”) spiritual and seminal family structure are aligned. The husband and father of the family is the natural leader and is the spiritual authority or guru. Making sure that the spiritual and seminal families remain synchronized is the dynamic function of the spiritual preceptors of society, the brahmanas.

The Sanskrit term gotra refers to both family and disciplic succession (ref: gotra).

The family is the institution of socialization, education, and spiritual formation. It’s a naturally occurring sociological construct which is built up from obvious biological principles. The aggregation of individuals into families and then families into larger agrupations gives rises to human society and human social structure.

Children of families from the ksatriya and vaisya sections of society would send their male children to live in their youth for some time as part of a brahmana family. This is referred to as gurukula, the family of the guru (kula means family).

It wasn’t like today’s industrialized mass-production education system. The basic building block of society was the family. It was the unit of socialization for young people, and the social welfare system for the invalid and the elderly.

This is an organic, decentralized system.

We’re winding back the clock to get to the past, to see what the future will look like. A lesson from “mid-history”.

From Back to Godhead Magazine Vol. 28, No. 2, 1994.

Excerpts from “The Return of the One-Room Schoolhouse”
by Urmila devi dasi

When most people lived in villages, each school had so few children that students couldn’t be divided by age. So teaching them together was a convenience. But parents, students, and communities also understood that the main curriculum was the teacher rather than the syllabus or the textbook. The teacher’s personality permeated the school. The teacher gave each student personal attention. And the students were expected to learn character and behavior by working under a moral and self-controlled teacher, rather than by attending a “values clarification” course.

The question “what is the basic building block of ISKCON?” is an interesting one.

Most people pause when I ask them the question. They don’t have a “prepared answer” floating around in their consciousness. It’s not something that many people think about.

When they start to think about it, oftentimes they don’t find a clear answer. Especially after the first question: “What is the basic building block of human society?” they can feel the contrast of clarity.

The answer to the second question is of course, in theory, the same as the first. Family is the basis of human society. “Society for Krishna Consciousness” means “Authentic Human Community”.

What’s the basic building block of human society?

It shouldn’t take you too long to answer “the family”, at least in theory. We can see that in today’s society it is increasingly becoming “the individual consumer”, as relationships are increasingly defined as economic relations, however, we understand that the basic building block of human society is the family.

Now another question:

What’s the basic building block of ISKCON, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness?

to be continued…

Leadership in organic systems (such as a network) is not the kind of leadership that one person can do. It is leadership that requires many people – a “leader-full” organization. In a network, one person cannot control the system, nor can one person fully understand it. Therefore models of collaborative, shared, or multi-level leadership become more important and critical. Developing the capacities of others becomes essential in building a “leader-full” organization.

- excerpted from “What makes a network a learning network?” (available at NCSL’s Introduction to Network Learning page.)