namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

Kripamoya Prabhu explains history and development of book distribution follow-up strategies in the UK. This online-book contains the following articles:

• Book Distribution Follow Up Strategies: The Mail Order Miracle
• Book Distribution Follow Up Strategies: Meet the Monks!
• Book Distribution Follow Up Strategies: Market Place Festivals

The articles have been posted originally on his blog, The Vaishnava Voice. If and when Kripamoya Prabhu writes more on this subject, I'll include it here.

You can download the whole series as a pdf-file, too.

Such lack of integration between preaching styles inevitably leads to organisational snobbishness, the consequent erosion of team spirit, and can lead to the complete disintegration of a temple or centre. At the very least, it means that the right hand of the movement doesn't know what the left hand is doing—and any interested people lose their way in the confusion.

So the idea was quite simply to bring the different types of preaching together into a seamless programme that more or less resembled Srila Prabhupada's idea of 1973. We wanted to keep the cost down, so we made sure that we paid for everything we did with the proceeds of book distribution. We also wanted the programme to be reproducible for any sankirtan team.

Energetic book distribution, Back to Godhead subscription, a good mail-order and personal correspondence service were, at one time, a very important part of ISKCON's outreach.

There's been a lot of Srila Prabhupada's books sold in our little country over the years - perhaps some 100 million pieces of literature over almost 40 years. No exagerration. During that time we've come up with various methods of staging our follow-up to book distribution so that people who wanted to know more could gradually get to know the devotees, learn more of our philosophy and life, and find a place for themselves in the wonderful Hare Krishna movement.

By Karuna Dharini Devi Dasi

Atma Yoga began as the dream of Atmananda when he was still Bhakta Dirk.

His desire was to create a bridge to bhakti that would serve the burgeoning hatha yoga community. While accepting Srila Prabhupada's declaration that mechanical yoga (hatha yoga, raja yoga, kundalini yoga, etc…) will not lead to liberation, he considered that the many persons getting involved in yoga nowadays might not accept that declaration quite so readily.

What these ambitious yoga participants would need is something that would give them a positive and healthy yoga experience and at the same time an opportunity to experience the potential of Krishna consciousness.

The goal was to give people a transformative experience with mechanical yoga while slowly and lovingly cultivate in them an appreciation for the beauty and magic of bhakti.

Our temples, it is so very important that we learn the science of properly giving and receiving the association of devotees. Actually every guest that comes is Krishna’s specially invited guest. And it is our duty to give them every possible opportunity to make spiritual advancement. It is the first priority.

by Kaunteya das

A guide how to improve ISKCON's traditional Sunday Love Feast, which has been published as a series of essays in our printed publication Congregational Development Journal. (At that time it was still called Congregational Preaching Journal.)

On Sita-pati prabhu's web site there is a whole category of articles dedicated to this subject. Namahatta.org subscribes to the RSS-feed and you find his latest posts on this topic here.

Anakadundubhi Prabhu, a disciple of His Holiness Bhakti Caru Swami, is one of the most famous sankirtan devotees in ISKCON. Prabhu frequently tops the sankirtan list, ranking as the number one book distributor in the world. He lives with his wife Caitanya-lila in Villaggio Hare Krishna temple in northern Italy. Both devotees have dedicated their lives to full-time sankirtan service for more than 10 years. Their shining faces, gentle smiles and determined spirit of show the nature of genuine preachers. These devotees have started a specific type of follow-up program for people who have bought Srila Prabhupada’s books from sankirtan preachers. Although these fortunate people are not yet designated as congregational members, still they potentially can become a part of the congregational demographic. The way Anakadundubhi Prabhu deals with them sets an example for all preachers who want to improve their ability to care for others.