Pariprashnena — Q&A Archive

Could try these addresses:

Bhaktivedanta.Archives.Forum@pamho.net

"Ranjit (das) ACBSP (Archives)" <Ranjit.ACBSP@pamho.net>

Ranjit Prabhu is no longer with the Archives. Right now it is essentially just two devotees: Ekanatha dasa and Parama-rupa dasa. They are underfunded and understaffed for the mission, at least IMO. You can check some of the general information here: http://www.prabhupada.com/

It is funny that we use the words "staff" and "funded" where it should read non motivated enthusiastic devotional service. Are there no devotees available for that or the "staff" is so busy procuring "funds" that the projects are not done, all the way blaming others for not giving money. Is money the answer to our problem? Or exclusivism from a few handicapped vaishya prabhus?

prabhu, there are so called "devotees" who steal copy-righted Bhaktivedanta Archives material that BA developed with great pains and sell it to other devotees right there in Iskcon temples - it is actually a criminal enterprise... The GBC does absolutely nothing to stop that. This undercuts the financial side of BA. It takes a lot of money just to operate the storage vaults that house all the archival materials. And it takes highly trained staff to develop new presentations of the stored data. BA get very little financial support from the BBT. If it was not for the ingeniuty and dedication of the BA devotees who made it their lifes mission - there would be no Archives. The idea of "unmotivated service" read "free labor" is very nice, but may I ask you, how do you pay your bills?

I can pay my bills and do some service.
Can you pay my bills so that I do full time service? Unlikely and not needed.
There are so many talented and partially free devotees all over the world, that to claim that cannot be done just takes us to the real bottleneck: a couple persons that stick to their "exclusivity" in BA service.
I heard it many times as an excuse to keep the chair: "there are no devotees that can do it". Plain false.
Sankirtan means all together, if you instead want "funded staff", that is a corporate idea and has nothing to do with what Srila Prabhupad wanted.
One time SP opposed very firmly to give wages to BBT devotees, The in charge at that time insisted many times and still SP did not relent. In fact they took some devotees out of the payroll but the main stayed.
BBT belongs to Srila Prabhupad not to a couple devotees that happen to be there now.
You praise their service, but I only see "projects" that have to be "funded" in order to start and that means wages. I would praise if the results were nice but look at all this material still to be digitalized. That can be done by a worlwide group in a few months time for free and it does not requiere more than a regular normal pc machine.
Again, no need that you pay my bills, but surely I and many like me can help, only if BA could reach out and organize it, forgetting the wages scheme against Srila Prabhupada will.

regarding the "BA developed with great pains" just talk to any sankirtan devotee and tell him to get some retirement payment or some form of copyright against their hard work. Pathetic.
Either BA act as business people or as surrendered devotees, mix that and you get the Molotov we are sitting now.
In the internet digital world there is only one rule: do it better and people will flock. If you sale Vedabase for 600 dollars and the other for 90, guess to who the people will go.
If BA would put affordable price and quality guess to who the devotees will purchase? Do not blame the pirates, digital world has other rules.

[quote][cite] peterjiu:[/cite]regarding the "BA developed with great pains" just talk to any sankirtan devotee and tell him to get some retirement payment or some form of copyright against their hard work. Pathetic.
Either BA act as business people or as surrendered devotees, mix that and you get the Molotov we are sitting now.
In the internet digital world there is only one rule: do it better and people will flock. If you sale Vedabase for 600 dollars and the other for 90, guess to who the people will go.
If BA would put affordable price and quality guess to who the devotees will purchase? Do not blame the pirates, digital world has other rules.[/quote]

a thief is a thief, even if he claims to be a Vaishnava.
BBT was always run as a business, from day one. do you think stealing books from BBT is OK? ever paid your bills to BBT?
and the crook can sell stolen goods very cheap because he STOLE it. he did not MAKE it. get it? if you cant understand that, we are wasting time.

There is a big difference between "doing some service" and working fulltime for an organisation. Not to put down the nice volunteer work many devotees are doing in their spare time, it is important and all of the same value in Krishnas eyes. But the brutal fact is that if you want things done you need people who work fulltime and with dedication! And know what they are doing.

You all go on about these wages. I wonder how big these wages even are? I suspect its more like maintanance allowances to enable these devotees to work fulltime.

Apart from the help you so readily offer much more is needed. Much more!

If we really want to grow, our whole organization that is, we should stop chopping off each others legs. Many comments on this site seem to be colored with different shades of green. Green as in envy.

You are exactly putting down the service of the volunteers, "working full time", "knowing what they are doing" as if volonteers are stupid or "less" in some way.

And things are not "getting done" by your claimed better method, they are horribly worse! Judge by results. And you want more of the same?

Srila Prabhupada did not approve wages for BBT very forcefully, but you of course have another idea,. Go and found your movement and then implement your nice and "productive" new methods and show us the light.

You are trying to color the whole site and devotees who participate on it with your comments, which are grey, grey for comptemp.
Who are you to make such a big, general judgement?

Your general mood is fanatical so you do not approve of commenting on anything that is why you resent this exchanges. Envy it is, but from which side?
If you do not approve this site, then what are you doing here? Just making your 2 cents of disapproval? Hardly a contribution.

my original question is not controversial, I just want to know who are BA and their relationship with BBT(i), anyone?

if BBT and BA had inplemented correct digital content copyright as in Creative Commons license, they could "protect" our works. Making it a commercial good just makes room for pirating (meaning copy for profit).
Pirates will be, what is the surprise! But pirate is one that sales for profit not one that shares digital content for personal use without charge.

Mishra: BA is funded by BBT. BBTI as well. Dont know details.

> I would praise if the results were nice but look at all this material still to be digitalized. That can be done by a worlwide group in a few months time for free and it does not requiere more than a regular normal pc machine.

First you have to have a physical access to materials to be digitized. So you have to be there in Archives.

> But the brutal fact is that if you want things done you need people who work fulltime and with dedication! And know what they are doing.

And dont forget professionality and endurance. Ive seen many devotees who simply couldnt stay in the BBT service for more than a month or so.

Re volunteers: BBTs Krishna.com has, aside a small paid staff, a team of volunteers.
As per words of one of its members, to get and manage volunteers is very difficult and to get volunteers who keep getting their work done as required for a longer period of time is even more difficult. So heres your chance:

http://www.krishna.com/en/taxonomy/term/71

(Some positions may be already taken.)

> You all go on about these wages. I wonder how big these wages even are? I suspect its more like maintanance allowances to enable these devotees to work fulltime.

As far as BBT goes, theyre allowances. In my case its about half of a local average salary. As a professional karmi translator I could earn several times more.

> Apart from the help you so readily offer much more is needed. Much more!

Exactly.

I know at least one professional with time that was scared away by the money minded tactics of the in charge.
So, you are saying, Srila Prabhupada was mistaken when strongly opposed to BBT wages or "allowances" as you euphemistically call them? It is not the amount, is the principle.
Of course even when Prabhupada was present, and with direct orders from him the leaders DID NOT STOP the wages thing. What to speak of now, they have carte blanche.
Wouldnt be nice if you work on outside translation, get 3 times more money and engage when you can in the BBT along with others?. You could use part of the extra money to print the books you translate. Better for everybody.
Problem is the preaching is stopped, no more devotees joining and countless people that could be doing the service are not attracted, precisely by the scheme and the vaishya unpure paradigm. Catch 22.
First change the organization as Srila Prabhupada wanted, then devotees will be made and come forward to help, more than sufficiently. In the midtime stop blaming others,
Now you are asking for a help that you do not really want. (hey, nobody wants to loose their "job").

peterjiu, are you reacting to my text?

I dont know how it was done during SPs presence. Did BBT devotees have to go with every bill to their superiors to get it paid? Looks impractical.

> Wouldnt be nice if you work on outside translation, get 3 times more money and engage when you can in the BBT along with others?. You could use part of the extra money to print the books you translate. Better for everybody.

There is a huge difference in doing devotional and karmi translation.

Printing the books is one thing, distribution is another.

If all BBT devotees would work part-time, BBT would produce much less and the management would be much harder. SP knew why he founded BBT as a corporate thing independent of ISKCON.

> Now you are asking for a help that you do not really want. (hey, nobody wants to loose their "job").

Me? No, BBT.

let me see... do you need wage/allowance or not?
If you dont problem solved, if you do, SP instruction is to go and get a job and then help BBT in your capacity.

[quote][cite] peterjiu:
So, you are saying, Srila Prabhupada was mistaken when strongly opposed to BBT wages or "allowances" as you euphemistically call them?[/quote]

At that time there were many brahmacaris with very simple needs willing to do that work for free. But - surprise, surprise! - they could not remain brahmacaris forever, so they had to be replaced by new brahmacaris after they have finally learned how to do their job right. That cycle went on for many years. Finally someone realized that in order to keep qualified people performing important jobs in the movement, you need to take care of them financially as well. There are hundreds of religious organizations which are managed ten times better than our movement, and all of them use a combination of paid specialists and unpaid volounteer helpers. The authoritarian top down management system Srila Prabhupada introduced in ISKCON has not proven itself over the years. The top managers and sannyasis personally chosen by Prabhupada to lead the movement STOLE much more money from him than was ever paid as salaries or allowances to the rank and file devotees. And that is a fact.

Judge by the results...

Woa! Ok, maybe I was a bit harsh with my shades of green. But the general tone of many on this site is also quite harsh. I fully appreciate and support the freedom of speech and its good there are forums for venting. But its not all black and white and generally only one side is presented here.

As for me putting down volonteer service, you do me great injustice by claiming that. I dont even know how you managed to get that out of my text. My point simply is that both are needed. In my experience running a productive organization based merely on volonteer service does not work. It is mostly a combination of both efforts.

You simply cannot understand how the magic of Krishna consciousness works; will never understand that to run an organization in the mode of goodness, as SP intended IS possible. Just that people in the lower modes, will never understand how it is possible.
Now you compare us with other religions because that is your goal, to become a religion.
Regarding the brahmacaries, it is not necessary. Nowadays almost all work can be done collaborate using the internet by part-time devotees that will be so happy of doing service. But you negate that, on the plea of lack of brahmacaries, lack of seriousness, etc. I can see projects that have been done by part-time non payroll devotees that excels the "corporate" style. Take for example the guys of iskcontech. Their sites like this one, are so professional and I doubt they get any money in return, at least I do not see any ad or sponsor there, and obviosly does not depend on BBT.
Now, I sadly see a symptom that is crawling on ISKCON "the authoritarian top down management system Srila Prabhupada introduced in ISKCON has not proven itself over the years" to blame SP for what went wrong and to applaud any deviating concocted scheme by the "authoritarian" managers.
That is the same documented thing that happened even in SP presence. The "in charge" though tht SP "did not know" and they choose to disregard the direct order of SP and keep the wages system.
You entered dangerous waters there. If we can speak of mad elephant offense, this is the time, not to your local nuts authority.
SP did not introduce an authoritarian system, GBC made it as it is and continues to be top down religious hierarchy. Read what SP wanted: "independent temples" "local management". You are actually blaming SP and that is very sad and dangerous, For that I am parting this conversation. Good luck with your smart schemes.
I really feel sad for you.

[quote][cite] peterjiu:[/cite]You simply cannot understand how the magic of Krishna consciousness works; will never understand that to run an organization in the mode of goodness, as SP intended IS possible. Just that people in the lower modes, will never understand how it is possible.[/quote]

Magic? now you resort to the "magic" argument? Figures... Prabhu, ANY organization, including ISKCON, runs on very real and concrete principles, identified by thoughtful people long, long time ago. All my adult life I worked as a manager, including my years of service in Iskcon. I have been observing our movement from inside for almost 30 years, and IMO our problems have nothing to do with magic or lack thereof. It is mostly an issue of very poor management system, executed by mostly unqualified people who are not held accountable for their actions.

Any time an objective analysis of the past is attempted people like you start waving the "APARADHA!!!!!" flags... yet I bet I know inside Iskcon history a lot better than you think I do, including what Srila Prabhupada did or did not sanction. I am certainly not blaming Prabhupada for the sins of his disciples - we are all fully responsible for our own actions, not our parents, even as the way we were raised may have influenced our behavior.

People who create myths of "the wonderful perfect and pure Iskcon when Prabhupada was here" simply chose to ignore the historical facts. The same deviants and deviations were there, except that Srila Prabhupadas presence and authority kept them more or less in check. Still, horrible things happened many times and in many places in that period, seriously tarnishing the image of our movement for decades to come.

That is why I question the management system and the methods of operation from that time period, because obviously they did not prevent these things from happening. These are external elements in our tradition, meant to be adjusted based of the principles of time, place and circumstances IF they are not producing proper results.

Figures,
real concrete principles,
identified by thoughtful people long ago (I wonder what sages are you referring too, Stepthen Covey?)
manager
poor management system
unqualified people (materially I suppose you refer)

The "magic" of KC happens when one simply applies the instructions of SP on management. Magic is develpment of KC under Krishnas hand and that is not happening, precisely because people did not implement those and now instead of implementing them they are changing them to corporate style "successful" models. Pity.

Welcome to the vaishya system of managing a spiritual organization!

this thread is deviating from the original question, so we are creating a new question for the discussion at hand:
http://www.pariprashnena.com/discussion/611/management-in-krishna-consciousness/