Thakura Bhaktivinoda, the humble servant of the Lord, says, “The holy name of Krishna has fulfilled all my desires by vibrating on everyone’s tongue.” Bhaktivinoda therefore prays at the feet of Sri Rupa Goswami that the chanting of harinam may continue like this always. (Translation, verse 5)

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Nārada Muni Bājāy Vīṇā | HG Vaiśeṣika Dāsa | ISV | 5 Dec 2018

I started noticing at our community that there where kids, and my first notice of them would be that they would trump through the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam class while we were conducting it, without a care in the world, or noticing that they were walking through a group of devotees who were hearing Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Then I started noticing that they were exceptional. Little by little, I noticed that, and I got fascinated with how they were born into families where the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa, where the devotees were chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. And I saw they must be some special souls. Then I started realizing more and more that they were, and then I started realizing more and more that they were one of the main pillars of the community.

So I gave more and more attention to the young people, partly because they were non-judgmental, and it was really easy to be around them and have programs. And then I started doing more research about how to give more facility to young people. I wanted to know what they thought when they were growing up, and what it felt like to be an adolescent in the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement. In fact, I called some devotees who were already grown up, but they had been through that, like Jhanavi Harrison, that I talked to for some time, and she told me how she had met Jamunā and had been deeply inspired by her. And when she was leaving her home and driving away, she thought, "Yeah, I'm going to be a devotee." Then I got together a group of young people who were my godbrothers and godsisters who had been initiated at a young age—some of them at 12, Prabhupāda gave initiation to—and I wanted to know from them what inspired them and what was a hindrance in their progress. After some conferences, they came up with these two mantras. One of them was in the middle of this pentagon that you see there. What helped them the most was seeing peers doing great, and the thing that held them back the most, they said, was not having upward mobility they felt at the time there. There wasn't any opening for them for taking on service or management or anything like that.

Then I started noticing that young people gravitated, oftentimes and in many places around ISKCON, to kīrtana. And I started some interaction with the kids, where we had not just kīrtana, but also some of the other things you see here: ślokas, śravaṇam (hearing from Prabhupāda's books), then of course kīrtanam, and then visits to the Deities' rooms, and also learning book distribution. I saw those as five points that could be really helpful, and we started several programs like Youth Jam, Śāstra Jam, Japa Jolt, and Youth Yatra. Why am I bringing this up regarding community? Because people care about their kids right? now, really say, "Yes, yeah." I mean, and when the kids are becoming Kṛṣṇa conscious and well-rounded, and they actually cross that threshold where they say, "No, I want to be a devotee. It's not that I was a devotee. Now I'm growing up, and I'm going to move on and do something else." They feel part of the mission, and they start taking responsibilities like initiation and also wanting to do service. And they're really smart, too, and they bring in everybody else. They bring in the rest of the community. It enlivens them.

So I made these two pentagons. One of them is a reminder that it all comes back to śravaṇam-kīrtanam. There's no point to coming together for niceties if there's no transcendental sound vibration, and the community is all based on hearing and chanting and then distributing to as many people as possible. If we have those as a center point, and if we feel that we're flagging in one way or another, we can always remember that the antidote to that is to hear and chant more and increase the transcendental sound vibration. That's helpful to know. And it's the verdict of the śāstra that that's our main process.




Community Building In Bhakti Tradition | HG Vaisesika Dasa & HG Gauranga Dasa | 17 Apr 2025

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Community Building In Bhakti Tradition | HG Vaisesika Dasa & HG Gauranga Dasa | 17 Apr 2025

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