Pariprashnena — Q&A Archive

I second that!
.....and I think all matajis who have come across stiff-necked brahmacaris would agree :)

Yes, indeed!

Yes, that would be great. Though I can hardly imagine a line of brahmacharis queueing up for a course "How to become a successful grihastha" Lol
It would also be nice to train brahmacharinis in certain helpful skills :)

In Radhanatha M.s (BVTs?) congregation system this is taken care of by grhastha council.

I agree with the training but I think its also a matter of nature...

Other sampradayas use time-tested process of astrology to determine the presence of parivrajaka-yoga in a horoscope of a sannyasa candidate and thus have close to 0% falldown rate. Although this was suggested in ISKCON already years ago, it didnt get institutionalized (I heard its used but informally). So this could be done for any ashram devotee and a relevant education could follow.

I will just detail a little more the problem:
They surrender fully to Prabhupada, distribute books for 10 or more years, they are 20/30 something and they dont have any expertise apart from distributing books. They are tired of sleeping in vans, get married to take some rest and they struggle financially the rest of their lives because they dont know to do anything and are too old to start a career.
They also dont want to get entangled too much into learning with karmis because that is maya so they stay at home, wonder how to get some money, distribute some prabhupada books and travel to india once every 12 years.

Philosophically many in ISKCON will stick to the statement that we get the material happiness we deserve. Maybe if they hadnt distributed books for 10 years and went to college they would still wouldnt be materially succesful. Some do become material successful in spite of having done no material improvement for 10 years.

Or they are just as happy without much material assets as they would have been with more material assets and anxieties. That is shastra as I understand it. Even our grhastha happiness is fixed. We may try for the perfect wife or husband, but we will get the same amount of happiness out of it. So even if he had more money his wife would still be unhappy because she wanted a bigger diamond or something. I dunno, maybe that is too simplistic.

Main problem, as we all know, is that there is very less ISKCON engagement for grhasthas. Easier to get money outside. Impossible to have proper varnashrama without farm communities. Now we have gurukuli graduates too trying to be computer experts. The bulls are used to collect trash in Mayapur and the tractors are used to farm while they dump fertilizer on the fields. Meanwhile a few are trying to earn money selling paraphenelia. Sorry if this is the inconvenient truth.

Astrology really should be used more. Some devotees are quite good at it. (We can also send them to the Brighu Pandit that Indradyumna Maharaj went to :-). Also devotees could learn pseudo-brahminical skills like therapy and hypnosis.

Choice is always there, but intelligence is to train for any of the two possibilities, while engaging in service and study.

For truly renounced persons in the heart, there are no obstacles to act like their tendency rules.

Problems come when they are subtly forced to renounce no matter what, many times due to political or manpower reasons.

One very clear thing to state always is that the society is not going to take care of them if they do get married or become independent.

In other words do not give false impression that they are going to be covered no matter what, as we practically see, once the brahmachari gets independent he loses all benefits and perks coming from his ashram and turns into a "regular" street guy for the society, no matter how much service has done.

Right, caballero_vaishnava. This belongs to the "early warning" thread as well. Things should be clear before joining ashram, in the form of a written agreement. (There are groups like Mormons who care for their members in this way though and at least materially they are more than successfull.)

The problem is that if they are not trained then when they marry they are actually like a 10 year old boy.

Hari Bol,
Yes, I think, it is very necessary. Meeting and talking to people, making others understand about the Krishna cult, conducting pujas, preparation of Mahaprasadam and mahabhog, intricacies of mangal aarati, guru puja, tulsi puja Narasimha aarati, sandhya aarati etc may initially be the curricula of their training. Pravachans are certainly very important. They should also be trained for marketing the ISKCON cult. I have seen bramhacharis propagating sale of "GITA- YATHAYAT" but not knowing about the book. They cannot answer satisfactorily if a learned buyer wants to know some thing about the book. The growth of the organization purely depends on the quality of its workers which can only be achieved by imparting of training.
Neelima Ghosh

I was very fortunate to join ISKCON at the age of 16. So when I graduated high school I moved into the b.a. There was no formal training for bramacaris and I was pretty much on my own. I am now 31 but by Krishnas mercy I am still here and still chanting. Married with 2 kids and a mortgage(we live one block from the temple). With a good foundation as a bramacari I am able to maintain standards in our home and not get too sucked into the material world. But if there was better facility for me as a young bramacari things would have been a lot easier. Life has been a struggle-but that is life.