Dear Kaunteya Prabhu,

I have tried to answer your queries in response to my queries as best as I can...

I said : Can we do this with an existing nama hatta group ? What are your thoughts on this ?"

Kaunteya PR. said : "Before saying yes or not or maybe, I would like to know better the situation of the Nama-hatta group and also what aspects of the G-12 approach are you thinking to apply. I am not in the position to really saying much before I am aware of more details."

Nama hatta group meets weekly in a house for a two hour session which includes arati, japa and lecture followed by prasadam. As I already said, the place has no temple so the only sat-sanga is this meeting. - This is the situation. Aspects of G-12 to applied - I have not thought of it in detail - I found the concept appealing in a general way. More thought and research needs to be done on that.

I also wrote:
"We have tried the Bhakti Vrksa groups but somehow could not get it off the ground."

Kaunteya Prabhu asked : Well, this comment prompts me to request you for more details:
What did not work in the implementation?
Answer - the BV groups folded up - literally...
What were the major obstacles?
Answer - finding new people to join the original group and also existing people leaving...
Why do you think the Bhakti-vriksha method did not produce satisfactory results in your place?
Answer - Obivously, its my own failure, I consider it as such - somehow I feel this type of prepared texts (the spiritual edification part) to work with - seemed artificial to me. Let me explain further. For instance, at the end of every chapter of Bhagavad Gita, I initiate a discussion on the chapter -verse-wise and in total. It seems natural and devotees very enthusiastically taking part - We split the whole group into smaller groups of 5-6 who discuss among themselves - summarise points and answer questions from the other groups on what they present. This works well for me somehow.

My idea of splitting the existing nama hatta into smaller group is born out of another idea. HG Vaikuntapati Pr. who was our yatra leader (left here for good and now in India) developed a system of communication - each one communicating with 4 people. He designed it very meticulously with a lot of thought. The idea was to have effective communication channels inspired by the words of HH Jayapataka Maharaja who once told us "Communication is the key to co-operation". Each person should keep in touch with 4 persons and it will develop like a pyramid - with the yatra leader on top with 4 people he has to communicate with and they in turn will communicate with 16 and so on and so forth. Actually everything can be included in this channel of communication - viz; training, encouragement, problem-solving, devotee care - the idea is to work within our limitations. We cannot have 50 close friends - we can have only a few with whom we can speak freely - so this idea was to put this into practice.

This, in a nutshell is what I am working with.

Lets keep this discussion going so that I can benefit from the experience of someone like you.

Dasanudasa,

Govardhan Giri Dasa