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Conversations between Visnu Murti dasa and Akrura dasa (Gita Seva) recorded in December 2012 at the Vanipedia headquarters in Radhadesh, Belgium

VANIPEDIA

Gita Seva: What is Vanipedia?

Visnu Murti dasa: Vanipedia is a humble but bold attempt to offer an unparalleled platform for Srila Prabhupada to continuously inspire and train devotees, strengthening their faith to take up the process of devotional service through his teachings. It is meant to be a long-term project. We have done this work in the last 35 years since Prabhupada’s demise, but still there is a lot of work to be done. Why? When Srila Prabhupada left the planet, he left us possibility to serve him by bringing his teachings to pristine condition. What do we mean by that? We understand this as a work in progress, because still there are his books, his lectures, conversations and letters, which have to be translated in different languages, Prabhupada’s audio tapes have to be made available and studied. The same applies to all his teachings, that is, we have to have educational courses into those messages. Why should we make such an effort? Prabhupada said, "If you want to love somebody you have to know who they are." He gave us Krsna’s name and telephone number, His address, and then explained His pastimes, His character and His nature. By knowing Him we can fall in love with him. Similarly, if we are going to fall in love with Prabhupada, which is in important element of anyone being able to surrender completely to him, we need to know him. This is one of our goals in Vani, to maximize the chance for people to get to know Prabhupada. For example, we have documented 60 ways how we should study his books – seriously, scrutinizingly, penetratingly, minutely, thoroughly, critically, devotionally, faithfully, etc. Therefore, it is not enough just to keep books in print (which is already a challenge). They must be studied, realized, assimilated, and taught. That is how we can keep Prabhupada’s teachings alive and relevant.
Gita Seva: Will these 60 ways of reading be facilitated by Vanipedia?
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes, but the most important thing is to facilitate a culture of Prabhupada’s messages and it is way beyond Vanipedia. Vanipedia at the moment is just a website. It is planned to become the most comprehensive repository of Srila Prabhupada’s teachings in all varieties of ways and to facilitate access to them. Another work for Vanipedia is to keep up to date with all the different new technologies. The Web didn’t exist when Prabhupada was on the planet. But the Web has become known as an incredible platform for the distribution of knowledge. Once I wrote to a Prabhupada’s disciple that I would like to turn Srila Prabhupada’s books into an encyclopedia. As an answer this devotee mentioned a letter of Srila Prabhupada written in 1973, where he said not to do it as it is too much work and encouraged him to go on with his service. Nevertheless, this devotee approved the service we are doing in Vanipedia; that I appreciated so much. I wrote back to him and said: "Prabhu, what was too much work in 1973 would be a crime not to do it in the year 2012. Actually, it shouldn’t be called just a crime. If we do not give devotees this opportunity and maximize the capacity for them to connect with Srila Prabhupada, it is no less than devotional genocide. In other words, we will wipe out all the future generations of devotees before they even take birth." Prabhupada’s books are the lawbooks for the next ten thousand years – this has become standard fact accepted in ISKCON. Why do we say so? In our research we have found a letter written in 1972 to Satsvarupa Maharaja. There Prabhupada asks Satsvarupa Maharaja to study the books. He says, "We have enough stock for a thousand years." So this is it! Time frame statement from Prabhupada: "We have enough stock for a thousand years." Please understand, this was in 1972. If we calculate how many books were printed in 1972 and how many books were printed by 1977, if we do a statistics of how many more there was, then there could be stock for about 3000, 4000, or 5000 years. Through such messages as this one we have got certain conviction: Prabhupada envisioned that his books would be studied by future generations. And therefore we ask, "What do we have to do to facilitate that to happen?" This is our quest. Although we don’t have all the answers, we are enthused to have such service and that many devotees of great talents and dedication come together and cooperate together to discuss everything. It is alright even if all the devotees do not agree unanimously regarding the necessity of such service, because some devotees have different realizations, or different ways of serving Prabhupada. Prabhupada’s mission is very vast in that sense. Prabhupada has said, "What is the use of hundreds and hundreds of stars, better is one moon. I just look for one moon." So, it doesn’t need many shiny trinkets in the sky. It only needs a few, very competent, committed, dedicated, conscious, aware and very realized moonlike devotees who want to do this Vaniseva and are engaged according to their capacity. They may be 108 people who have become the well-wishers and the executors of the mission of Vanipedia. And they can be patrons, or they can pray, but when you communicate with them, or they communicate with others, it’s very coherent. And they have to be users of Vanipedia in order to understand and to get to this level of commitment. It is a question of association. Because of modern technology we have the possibility to do astronomical work in a very short period of time and thus fulfill these dreams of Prabhupada that every gentleman in his home has a Bhagatavam set, and every person studies his teachings. The Web and collaborative work on the Web has made work exponential. It’s the window of opportunity to do a very large amount of work in a very short period of time. Let’s take the UN as an example. The UN, as you know, has varieties of departments. So it is translated into 76 languages a whole variety of health articles including different statistics or different information on health. All this is done for the global benefit of people. On Wikipedia you can see those same articles in 186 languages. So through the collaboration in Wikipedia the amount of languages where these documents are available has been doubled. Similarly, we can do the work too. As you see, there is a lot of work that has already been done and a lot of achieved successes. But there is more to be done, more success to be had. And we say: "Let’s do this!"
Gita Seva: You mentioned the term "Vaniseva".
Visnu Murti dasa: Vaniseva is a service to the guru through his teachings or Vani. There is also such term as Vapu seva which means to serve the guru while he is present. But it is temporary. Service to the Vani is eternal. There was a very strong dependency on Srila Prabhupada’s vapu when he was present. Srila Prabhupada was not only a pure devotee, a renunciant, a smiling Buddha, who just glanced at everybody and gave them love, but also he was a general, a ksatriya, protector, a leader. He went where no one had ever gone before, and no one could ever go. Knowing, very consciously, that his vapu was not eternal, he put as much focus as he could on preparing the Vani. This was something important for him – a sacred service for the souls of this world. So if we want to establish our relationship with Prabhupada, we have to have the service connected with his teachings where we inquire submissively and render service. If we do not have service then that relationship won’t really be established. This is how we understand the truth. This is how we get the mercy of the pure devotee, the self-realized soul, and in this way he imparts the knowledge unto us. So we need to establish the relationship with the Vani via service. One can ask: "Is there any such service to be done?" Yes, Vaniseva. We should be creating service for devotees to do. And with that service, and their proper attitude, they will establish a relationship with the Vani. This is what Vanipedia represents. We all can work together before we leave our bodies to build a foundation of Vani Culture.
Gita Seva: What is the advantage of Vanipedia in comparison to what is already there? We have books, and everything else is transcribed.
Visnu Murti dasa: What I’ve been trying to do, as a principle of our compiling, is to bring to life Srila Prabhupada’s voice. Prabhupada is communicating and I’ve been trying to bring that to life. Yes, of course, there is the philosophy of Krsna consciousness, which Prabhupada communicates through his purports. He even said, "The books are for my disciples". But time doesn’t stand still. One of main advantages nowadays is the power of the Web. The Web is a place to be. For instance, Internet World Stats data shows that there is 34.3% penetration worldwide for mid-year 2012. Some even predict that Internet world penetration will be in the range of 70-80% by 2021. About 1 billion people hang out, connect on Facebook. It’s a lot of people. And if you talk about Wikipedia, 400 million people a month hang out to some degree there. So we’re saying the power of the Web has given us an unprecedented possibility to distribute Prabhupada’s teachings. And to make us all connected to them. Like we’re connected now through the Web. We are all on Skype and social networks, thus communicating all over the world to friends, e-mails are now a thing of the past. We have mobile phones so it’s not even limited to being with your computer. You can just be anywhere you are, 24/7, and you’re connected with people. Understanding this, for us not to be on the Web in the 21st century is a failure. Therefore Vani, Prabhupada’s teachings, are on the Web.

TRANSCENDENTALLY ENTANGLING EXPERIENCE

Gita Seva: How will Vanipedia expand on the Internet? Now it doesn’t look like it’s very social, very much connecting people.
Visnu Murti dasa: The Vani Culture can just expand more and more, into all varieties of ways. This is a step-by-step process. We don’t know who’s going to come forward and how it’s going to work, but we want a place on the Web where you can get a very transcendentally entangling experience with Srila Prabhupada’s teachings.
Gita Seva: What do you mean by "transcendentally entangling experience"?
Visnu Murti dasa: When you go to some video clip or a trailer and you watch it for two minutes, you can get materially entangled by thinking, "I want to watch this movie. I’m going to download it." So then you download the movie and watch it for two hours. That’s called "materially entangled". Because the trailer captured you. Transcendental entanglement means we want people to be attracted by this great personality named A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and his teachings.

WHY WE WANT PEOPLE TO HEAR PRABHUPADA, BESIDES READING HIS TEACHINGS?

For example, one of such promising ways for achieving this is a Vanipedia project we want to develop now. We believe that not enough people have had access to Prabhupada’s speaking. We also believe in the power of the way how the speech is delivered. And when it comes to text there is a tendency to interpret. We can think that the emphasis is on this or that word, when you read it in the text form. When we hear, we are much more aware of where the emphasis is, so there is less probability to interpret the message wrongly. Hearing is a very powerful form of learning. Even on a spiritual level "sravanam" is stated as the first of nine ways of pure devotional service (SB 7.5.23-24). Prabhupada was great example for this. He spoke continuously, over a vast period of time and subjects. There has been captured 2,000 hours of Srila prabhupada’s audio. But predominantly that has only been available to the devotees. Now the books have been distributed to the world. 500 million people have touched Prabhupada’s books, very few people have touched his audio. So in Vanipedia we want to make a presentation of Prabhupada’s audio that facilitates many people to encounter Prabhupada’s voice. Our plan is to make short snippets of Srila Prabhupada speaking. And we would like to make 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 5,000, whatever Krsna allows us to. And those snippets will be an audio file. We will create a very nice presentation, which can be a combination of photos of Prabhupada, or some graphics which could help to capture the individual’s attention. The achievement we want to have is multi-language subtitles so that foreign people could be able to hear and understand Prabhupada and the meaning of his messages. For this we want to include as many languages as possible. These videos are five to ten minute statements about certain aspect of philosophy, so they will be thematic. They will be linked to all the other ones that we have created on that subject, and then linked to the repository of all of the compiled thematic snippets of Prabhupada’s teachings. And then, also linked to the full source. They can go out on YouTube and other sites. In this way we are hoping that this will greatly increase the capacity for people to hear Prabhupada’s voice, and as a result, many more people will be introduced to Srila Prabhupada and attracted to him.
Gita Seva: I like the idea of subtitles. Do you already have this video section and the audio section on the Vanipedia website?
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes, it is called Vanimedia. But Vani projects are never satisfied just to put the original source content. We are educationalists, compilers, researchers, and packagers. So we want to present in ways that we believe will maximize the possibility of accessibility, understanding, etc. We wanted to do it in the beginning by including audio links to Vaniquotes, as it was something that was very dear to me, but we couldn’t do it because the technology wasn’t available. We did a lot of feasible things. Instead we went with the text, the Vaniquotes, and basically we focused on that and created that. But now, when we start our IT department in Mayapur, this will be one of the first projects that I will give to the IT department, to actually start creating the infrastructure. These short video clips are just drops of nectar. Any devotee who listens to Prabhupada and hears something that is really first class, he can give it to us and we can enter it. We will start with one and we hope to continue to ten and then to a hundred, then to a thousand.
Gita Seva: What if for every lecture you have at least one snippet?
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes, we could have one snippet for every lecture. But we just want to let it grow organically. What we have done in Vaniquotes is much more comprehensive, in a sense of a text. And our original idea was that with Vaniquotes we would already have the audio to link to. And the snippets of the quotes in text form would be linked to the audio. This has not happened yet, but it could be incorporated later. For example, Vaniquotes section is big, impressive. People hear about it and take interest in it. So when we say here is one thousand, five-to-ten minute, thematic snippets of his Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada, propounding the Krsna conscious philosophy, people can come and see the different themes, and then they go in and see the different languages, and they can click on their preferable language and start listening. Of course, the link travels and people can find it in other ways, but in our repository we will try to make very nice and attractive stand-alone inside of Vanimedia as a powerful exposé of Prabhupada’s audio. The fulfillment of the aim of this Vanipedia petal as well as other ones does not last for one hour a day, or two hours a day, or every weekend on Saturday morning, but we are absorbed in Vani 24/7. Please understand, we are not advocating that somebody stays on our website for 24 hours, 7 days a week. We’re saying live the Vani 24/7, and do not be disconnected at any time. We can have such a connection with the powerhouse of the Vani that even though we are in the material world, with our material needs, our material body, and our material responsibilities, we are actually transcendental. We hope this "transcendental entanglement" will allow everyone to regain their original nature.

VANIQUOTES

Gita Seva: If, for example, someone wants to find a Vani link in order to improve his leadership, if he wants to study and to apply it more successfully, how can he use Vanipedia? What can be "transcendentally entangling" there?
Visnu Murti dasa: Although there is still a lot to be done, we are creative. We’ve taken it upon ourselves to be very bold, to compile, to research, and to package Prabhupada’s teachings in different ways. That is going on in Vaniquotes. In Vaniquotes we have compiled everything that Prabhupada said into different categories, like the "GBC", "Prabhupada and Management", "Prabhupada and Training", etc. Just enter the key word or phrase and find what is needed. From these quotes, which are categorized, we would like to have useful, very practical articles made as e-books. You can, for example, go to the category "Householder" and read everything that Prabhupada says about it. We are also studying why has Prabhupada used a particular word. Or when does he use the word "Householder" instead of "Grhastha". We give the facility for that study. To do that, here one can go through all the books, lectures, conversations and letters. The system is thorough, complete, but simple. All we have to do is to take words and make pages, but the true miracle is done by Prabhupada himself. This is another proof for his empowerment. Especially I have been trying to capture Prabhupada speaking directly to his disciples. One reason for this is that during my research I realized how much Prabhupada was with his disciples. The second reason is because I feel that his voice has to be kept alive for all of us, as well as for the future generations. In other words, we should try to become his siksa disciples, to understand him and please him, and love him for what he is, to serve him and carry out his mission. In order to make that happen, we developed a category. First of all, we wanted to document how Prabhupada spoke. If you go to the Category "My (Umbrella Category)", you will see different categories, where Prabhupada is speaking directly about his advice, anxiety, ambition or activity, or aim, or attempts, or ability. ‘Business’, ‘Blessings’, ‘Books’, ‘Body’, ‘Birth’, ‘Belief’, ‘Home’, ‘Heart’, ‘Health’, ‘My Humble’, ‘My Happiness’, ‘My Hard Work’, ‘My Hearing’. ‘My point Is…’, My Plan’, ‘My Program’, My Presence’, ‘My Proposition’, ‘My Purports’, ‘My Preaching Work, ‘My Preaching’, ‘My Purpose’, My Pride’, ‘My Projects’, ‘My Position’, etc. Here we did a thematic mapping. As a result there are easy ways for somebody who is interested in the particular subject to go into these and find the teachings. We can say that Vanipedia has created a 108,000 windows into Prabhupada’s teachings, but I would prefer to use the phrase "magnifying glass", because not only is it transparent, but it brings out the detail. The thematic grouping allows to get the intent of Prabhupada in much easier way, because everything is grouped together. There one can find Prabhupada’s statements on a specific subject in four different formats, which he said over a period of time (1966 to 1977). We have such sections as books, letters, lectures and conversations and discussions given in different places. Lots of information there is available from purports on the Bhagavad-gita, Srimad-Bhagavatam and Caitanya Caritamrita. We have Prabhupada’s teachings presented in such a way that somebody can come in, get a little experience and love it to such a degree that they spend two hours entangled transcendentally in the association of a pure devotee, and a pure devotee’s beloved Lords. And that is valid for both devotees and new people. This is what I want to show you. My goal was to try and map as many different attributes and natures of Prabhupada’s personality as I can, who he was, by doing this word-based thematic mapping of things in relationship to himself, like ‘My Determination’, ‘My Death’, ‘My Decisions’, ‘My Learning’, ‘My Leaving’, ‘My Service’, ‘My Success’, ‘My Satisfaction’, etc.

GOING BEYOND OUR PRE-DEFINED CONCEPT OF WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

Gita Seva: Someone may look at Vanipedia and ask: "What’s the use of so many pages of text?"
Visnu Murti dasa: Then I should ask: "What is the use of the Srimad Bhagavatam with so many purports?" Prabhupada believed in the use of writing purport after purport after purport, and giving class after class after class. Prabhupada saw the use of repeating the same thing in different ways. In one sense you can give a critique to Prabhupada and say he just copied and pasted. He is just saying the same thing again and again. Now, through our study, we have found the brilliance of Prabhupada, that every single time that he addresses the same subject it is always a little fresh, a little different. It is alive, it is dynamic. It is not copy and paste. That is what I have found.
Gita Seva: Is that the "magnifying glass" you mentioned?
Visnu Murti dasa: All this breaking down is definitely a magnifying glass. The whole mission of Vanipedia is to create a very deep study ethos of Prabhupada’s teachings. So if people are not trained, or inclined to study, then it will all look too much. It is a question of training. If we gave you now a big plate of prasadam, with subjis, and samosas, and rice, and pakoras, you are going to say it is all too much, because you haven’t been trained. You have been fixed for the last three years in just taking salads. So if you are not trained in serious study of Prabhupada’s teachings, if you just look at such a big amount of teachings as is manifested in Vanipedia, you are going to say, "Oh, why so many pages, it is all too much." I would even say that the nice thing about the whole presentation of Vaniquotes is that it’s organized in such a way that you are forced to encounter more than what you would have necessarily been looking for, because of the linking process. So if we just have a little bit of an adventurous nature, or a little bit of curiosity to go beyond our pre-defined concept of what we are looking for, then it is very easy to encounter so many new incredible and amazing aspects of Prabhupada’s teachingsthat will push us forward in our devotional lives.

VANI ARTICLES

Gita Seva: How do you choose or discriminate what quotes you need?
Visnu Murti dasa: We don’t choose or discriminate. We’re explorers. If you are an explorer and you are just going somewhere to find what has to be found, you have a greater chance to find something which is even beyond what you want, but always what you need. Choosing means accepting and rejecting. Discrimination means a proper in-depth attempt to represent. But our own imperfections can be an obstacle there. We don’t want to do that. Our goal is to find everything. First we just have to create awareness. An attempt to make a non-discriminatory, complete, comprehensive presentation is Vanipedia articles. There we have a qualitative approach, not quantitative. If something you want to find inside of Vaniquotes is lost, and you have an opportunity to find it, but if it gets lost again, we could just have an introductory article on the subject. And it can be very small, and it can just say a few words, and it can make a little bit of summary and just bring in different elements. Like a skeleton. In these articles we are not trying to say what we think, in any way, shape or form. We are just trying to present what Prabhupada has said, in a flow, that summarizes what he said, and just keeps the interest going. The idea of an article is that somebody should read it. So it should be written in a way that captivates the audience.
Gita Seva: So by these articles you would like to inspire people to do more exploration.
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes. Ultimately more exploration and more writing. To write the results of their exploration. The only real way you can say it is pretty much complete, and the only way that you can be open to criticism, or improvement, is to write a Vanipedia article. Such Vanipedia article as "Animal Killing in Human Society" has been written, with all of its footnotes and extra reading material, anyone can go in that and use it as a litmus test. They can find something in Prabhupada’s books and say "This is fantastic! I hope that this is in the Vanipedia article." Then go to the Vanipedia article and see "Ah, great it’s there." Or "Oh, it’s not in the article." And then, either, according to who they are, they can add it in to the article themselves, or they can contact the author and say "Look, I found this research, you know, I found this angle from Prabhupada. I thought it was very important. I felt it was very open. I saw that it wasn’t really developed in the Vanipedia article. Could you please add it in?" So another work we do in Vani is that we leave footprints. They call it now the carbon footprint. So we leave our research footprint. We show where we have come from, and where we are going, and where we are at. Again, we are open to improvement and we facilitate anyone to come forward and move it to another level. Of course, you may ask: "What if the author becomes attached to his piece, then they wouldn’t be willing to add something?" The author can become attached in a good way, because somebody could offer a suggestion that might not necessarily be as mature or as aware. But actually, it is not the Vani Ethos. The Vani Ethos is we are all open to improvement and we don’t claim ownership. So in that sense it shouldn’t be there. Unlike on the wiki level, on our level it should be a discussion. Once the principal person has written the article, there is always a discussion page where everyone who has permission to write, like Vanipedia members, can discuss the article. So suggestions should go to the discussion page. And then, peacefully, the author can look at that and start a dialogue with the discussion. In Vaniquotes, however, we have everything and also no space for Vani Ethos to be ignored. If Prabhupada spoke about a certain subject seven times, Vanipedia articles should address every one of them. There must be all those seven approaches, because some of them might be seemingly contradictory which means we have to at least address them inside the article. And when I say "seemingly", I mean that just like anything we do on a Krsna conscious level it shouldn’t be approached superficially. It’s very important not to stay superficial regarding Prabhupada’s teachings. We must dig deeper until we find the missing link. It has to be complete.
Gita Seva: Could you give some practical idea about what method of digging we should use for seemingly contradictory statements? And if you have different kinds of quotes about a subject in Vaniquotes or Categories, how do you connect the quotes with your comments in a Vani article?
Visnu Murti dasa: Regarding the first part of your question, I would refer to bodhayantah parasparam (Bg 10.9), that intelligent devotees are coming together and discussing. The discussion will bring us to ideas, and the ideas will bring us to a project, and that project brings us to a result. As for the second part, I haven’t attempted to do it myself, but there are devotees who have done it. First of all, one has to identify the subjects within the theme, then the different subjects that deal with that theme. Then over a period of time one has to see if they were related together, under a higher cover, or umbrella. And then one has to decide where to start with, flow into, etc. Then, to prove what was stated, one has to give quotes, footnotes. You can access every single one of them mostly through the Vanisource. But other than that, there is also an extra reading material. This is like the actual footnote, with the actual quote, where to look, to read, and a short description of the topic.
Gita Seva: This is an amazing resource for the students or for the Ph.D.’s! This can actually attract intelligent people, because here they have a systematic way of studying and exploring. If I would like to write a book on family life or something else, could I make a book that includes everything Prabhupada said about a certain topic?
Visnu Murti dasa: You need to do your research. First, I would suggest that you look at the existing research on the subject in Vaniquotes. Then you can start to formulate an article that you would like to write, to put it together in a structured form of different sub-categories of the subject. After than you can do an extra research, which you see is missing and should be done. And finally you can make an Vanipedia article, and that article would have given you the stimulus and the education into a solid understanding of the subject.
Gita Seva: When you find everything about a certain subject, how do you apply it to your particular situation? Suppose I am representing somebody who presently doesn’t think that your project is something that benefits him directly and immediately. So if he takes the advantage of the Vanipedia, how it will help his life today? He is a grhastha, he works, he has to maintain his family and a wife.
Visnu Murti dasa: In this project everyone can find something for themselves, and grhastha is not an exception. Today we have something which no one else has offered to such a degree. What is it? If you want and if you have opportunities to study Prabhupada’s books and become a good leader, Prabhupada’s books are available. You can go the Bhagavatam class every day, you can take the Bhagavatam, you can read it through, you can go to the index, you can take notes. But if you encounter the Vanipedia, you can study anytime, anywhere, including your home! And in this way, you as an individual can start to draw up a repository of Prabhupada’s statements on the subject of leadership. As I already mentioned, there is much more planned, for this is a work in progress. Our aim for the future is to have very comprehensive educational courses drawn exclusively from Prabhupada’s teachings, a combination of books, letters, lectures, and conversations, and, as far as our capacity allows, present a very large percentage of what Prabhupada was teaching, for example, on the subject of leadership, how to act in leadership, principles of leadership, qualities, characteristics, etc. Vanipedia is nothing other than Prabhupada’s teachings. If you as grhastha have faith in Prabhupada’s teachings and you believe that Prabhupada’s teachings give you shelter, strength, insight, greater level of tolerance, reason to live, capacity to overcome your difficulties, etc., you can have an access to Prabhupada’s teachings. That access has been increasing decade by decade in varieties of ways. Now Vanipedia is taking it to a whole new level. You have a word-based, thematic mapping of everything that Prabhupada said. You will find things grouped together on specific concerns that you have in your own spiritual life, and your own devotional life, your own practical life, as a grhastha living outside with a wife, and you can take shelter in Prabhupada’s words and be enlivened by them.

HOW TO APPROACH SRILA PRABHUPADA’S TEACHINGS?

Prabhupada’s Vani can help you in so many ways. But if you are coming with something this pragmatic, the counseling is better. And once you got that clear, every time you approach Prabhupada’s Vani you will be in a state of mind where you get all sorts of inspiration. Just go to Vani with humble state of mind, and realizing the sanctity of Prabhupada’s Vani, who Prabhupada is, and what shelter he can actually deliver to you. And approach it as you turn to the spiritual master. A problem arises when everybody is thinking that somebody else should solve their problems without making an effort himself. Prabhupada said, "Why should I always repeat the same questions all the time? We need a system where I don’t have to repeat the answers to the same questions." So this is our humble attempt in Vanipedia to help Prabhupada, relief Prabhupada of this pressure to answer questions. Although it is just a construction site, we’re dealing with a thousand Vanipedia users. We want 10,000, a 100,000 people a day using Vanipedia. They just have to know how to use it and Krsna will guide them. There is another aspect which we all should understand. If you are thinking of I, me, and mine only, that will take up all your time, leaving no time for anything else. Devotees are not meant to think selfishly. Prabhupada did not think of I, me, and mine, and he trained his devotees not to think like that also. That is the Prabhupada standard, and with Vanipedia we just are trying our best to emulate Prabhupada’s standard. Sarva dharman parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja – first thing is surrender. Surrender does not mean the end, neither the first initiation. It means one accepts to be trained, and go on a spiritual journey. So yes, Vanipedia is working 24/7. That is our service. We’re not doing it simply because we need some answers. When we need the answers, many times we approach Prabhupada’s teachings. And it doesn’t necessarily get us the best answer, so this is not our motivation. We have no political agenda here. We are doing it out of passion, for the process itself. We’re not doing it because "I need an answer" or "I’ve got a problem" "What would Prabhupada do in this circumstance? We need an answer." That’s how, many times, we approach Prabhupada’s teachings; out of crisis. And it doesn’t necessarily get us the best answer. So we have no motivation here. We have no political agenda here.
Gita Seva: What would be a better approach then?
Visnu Murti dasa: Firstly, we are firm believers in the thematic approach. Attitudinally, one must be very humble, one must have faith, one must have passion. Rules and regulations are routine, it is not a way to see the magic. Krsna consciousness is all about magic, because it is all about consciousness. So if you just read because you have to read, but you are not conscious and attentive, then you will not get an optimal result. You have to surrender to study. And the main motivation for turning to Prabhupada shouldn’t be simply our selfish motivations and everyday agitations. By being conscious and attentive, sooner or later it will become a sattvicly passionate activity. And when I say sattvicly passionate I mean similar to that very enthusiasm and desire some devotees have for chanting Hare Krsna. We can say that chanting is an expression. So, preaching is the expression of reading. Communicating what you are reading. That is what you do, you read and communicate. Another way how to approach this is to remember that Srila Prabhupada has given us three sadhanas: Hare Krsna chanting, Deity worship, and the sadhana of studying his teachings. Just like in the case with the holy name and the Deity, in such studies too we are meant to have a continual developing relationship, where deeper and deeper levels are reached despite all challenges, difficulties, and obstacles we know we will face. What kind of difficulty? There are, for example, three names in the mahamantra: Hare, Krsna and Rama. And we say that inside those three simple words is Krsna and goloka prema dhana or spiritual world. We are chanting them every single day, but we still haven’t fully realized that it’s everything that is. There is more than three words in Prabhupada’s teachings. There are so many subjects, angles, etc. So it’s not that we will necessarily understand in one or three or five years’ time. Still this is our aim. We believe that Prabhupada’s teachings need to be comprehensively understood. The dimension that we are taken into by associating with Prabhupada’s teachings, is a dimension that is meant to bring us out of our bodily concept of life. So basically it is the same as with the holy name; you don’t chant the holy name to control it. You approach the holy name to surrender to it, to serve it, and to allow yourself to become purified and uplifted by it. In the same way that we approach Prabhupada’s teachin
Gita Seva: to be uplifted, to be purified, and to purify our consciousness, advance in our consciousness, mature in our consciousness. Thematic learning helps there very much. When it comes to Srila Prabhupada’s teachings, we have to understand that it is not only external content we should be looking at, but also transcendental subject matters and association. We are associating with Krsna and His pure devotees like Srila Prabhupada, through his teachings. Such attitude, or approach, is an important element. This is what we all as individuals need to cultivate.
Gita Seva: And how should we cultivate this?
Visnu Murti dasa: Just like we should constantly associate with the holy name every single day, we should study Prabhupada’s books every day as he wanted it.
Gita Seva: So are you speaking, from a practical point of view, about something like a daily habit of studying, so it gets into our blood?
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes. This, after all, is the only way we can associate with Prabhupada now. And we need that culture of associating with Prabhupada in separation to be successful. We need to see devotees working out their problems over time, keeping faith and enthusiasm, becoming advanced, mature, purified, as a result of their relationship with the Deity, the holy name and Prabhupada’s teachings. Another way to look at it is that there are different degrees of people. And what sort of delivery this project gives, on varieties of levels, has to be now evaluated. Brahmins, for example, are meant to be learned and wise. So, an academic has to go in there and say: "Look, this was really helpful, and this was not helpful." A layman or a simple devotee has to go in, someone who is preparing for a class has to go in. An experience is made available for everyone. This is Prabhupada as he is, but it is concentrated on a specific theme. Without a deep relationship with Prabhupada’s teachings there won’t be true understanding. Srila Prabhupada gives so many repetitive instructions that the devotees should study his books. But he also says that if one can’t study his teachings, if one is illiterate, than he can just chant Hare Krsna, still having a chance to attain perfection. But you cannot be a brahmin, you cannot be a leader without studying Prabhupada’s teachings.

OBSTACLES IN DEVELOPING OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH SRILA PRABHUPADA’S TEACHINGS

Gita Seva: Do you want to say that first we have to change the whole paradigm of how we look at the teachings, what is our attitude towards the teachings, how high we put them on our priority list?
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes. We have thought about five stages, or situations that we have to go through. We call them obstacles in developing the relationship with Srila Prabhupada’s teachings. First, "Ignorance of…". Srila Prabhupada has given instructions, and we just don’t know they exist. So here we are looking for a solution, or we are acting. Prabhupada has described such people as busy fools and lazy fools. Busy fool is dangerous. Running around, doing so many things, but not aware of what exactly should be done. Prabhupada is giving us his teachings so become aware. If we are ignorant of instructions that exist, it’s a problem, an obstacle. So we say: "Free for all, distribution of and accessibility to Prabhupada’s teachings eradicate ignorance." Next obstacle is called "Indifference to…" We know, but we’re indifferent to it. We know that the instruction exists, but we don’t care. We walk by it. That’s an obstacle. Then there is "A misapplication of…" We know the instruction exists, and we act with full enthusiasm and sincerity, but we are not so mature or aware of how should we act. So we misapply. It’s an obstacle. "A lack of faith in…" also exists. We don’t believe in it. We don’t accept it for some reason. Like "I’m doubtful.", "It’s not relevant now", "It doesn’t work. It’s an idea, but it’s not practical."
Gita Seva: Or "I’m not sure", "It’s for pure devotees.", "It’s for another time."
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes, "It’s for the direct disciples of Prabhupada, it’s not for me.", "It’s for the hippie years, it’s not for now. It’s for the nineteen-seventies, it’s not for forty years later." And the last but not the least one. "To be in competition with…" That means to move very enthusiastically and convincingly, and many times convincing others, in a direction that is contradictory to the way that Srila Prabhupada wants us to go.
Gita Seva: Can You give an example of that?
Visnu Murti dasa: I’ve heard there are devotees who say that there should be only three regulative principles. Because they think that the fourth regulative principle, sex life, is conditional, and in marriage relationship is allowable more freely, and they give various arguments for that. From my study of Prabhupada’s teachings I have found out that it should be four regulative principles, and sex life is for procreation of children. Whatever difficulties we might have to follow the standard, it is still the standard. Neither being unaware of laws nor their breaking on purpose does not free one from responsibility. Srila Prabhupada teaches us the most essential aspects from the Vedas. These scriptures state that if we do not follow even one of those principles we break at least one key principle of religion. By eating meat there won’t be any loving charity, by using intoxicants there won’t be any asceticism, by gambling we destroy truthfulness, but by practicing illicit sex life we become impure. So Prabhupada’s standard isn’t unreasonable and for sincere people it isn’t unattainable.
Gita Seva: They wouldn’t say it in opposition to Prabhupada’s teachings. They say, "Because people can’t follow…" Then they try to give them steps in between.
Visnu Murti dasa: We should set the priorities. Vani hopes to present and represent what Prabhupada stood for. Whether we practice it, or don’t practice it, are successful, or are not successful, is a secondary thing. Srila Prabhupada says: "I have given you everything you need to know". And we believe that.
Gita Seva: Returning to these five obstacles that you mentioned. Can they be turned into five nice positive guidelines for devotees so that we have something practical?
Visnu Murti dasa: Sure. So… One: A constant association and awareness of Prabhupada’s teachings at our fingertips. Two: A complete appreciation and awareness of the relevance of Prabhupada’s teachings in all aspects of our lives, and everybody’s lives. Three: An empowered capacity to apply those teachings in all places and circumstances. Four: An incredible faith that nurtures, in an unparalleled way, the development of our devotional life. That is complimented, of course, with the holy name, and with the Deity. But let’s face it, you will not continue to chant Hare Krsna or worship the Deity your whole life unless you have a deep relationship with the Vani. So I say, of the three sadhana’s I mentioned, if you get the Vani right, you will get the other two automatically. You get one of the other one right, you might not get all three at all. Relationship with the Vani automatically means you have a relationship with the holy name, you have a relationship with the Deity and with Krsna. And Five: a total, coherent, movement of devotees who have full faith and fidelity to Prabhupada’s teachings as sacred codes of wisdom, that should not be touched or played with. And we all follow them already. And we follow them ‘until our dying breaths. And we hand them over to a younger generation, who takes up the banner and continues them on. And so generationally, you have a strong, solidified sanga of Vaisnavas, who have taken full shelter in Prabhupada’s teachings, and the practices that he gave us. And we don’t know to which degree that sanga will grow, and which trials and tribulations we will have to encounter. But we do know that we will stay fixed, and chaste, to our spiritual master’s mission.
Gita Seva: Sometimes, when devotees have discussions or meetings, they quote Prabhupada. But then it can be taken out of context, misunderstood. Maybe there are other quotes that we are not aware of and they may be pushing their own point or agenda.
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes. Because so many devotees like to quote Prabhupada, we need to have an arranged access to Prabhupada’s teachings. And also it is not enough to have just one statement put in a context which is not necessarily easy to understand, or can be taken out of the context, to get confused. So there are too much gray areas or misinformation, or a lack of understanding, a lack of knowledge into many subjects of Prabhupada’s teachings. And there still is a lot of research to be done. Srila Prabhupada’s teachings are like the roots which we still need to explore. But Vani is growing and evolving. We hope to build a very strong central trunk so that all the branches, twigs, leaves, flowers and fruits that come out of that trunk, can grow healthy. And what are those branches, leaves, etc.? That is all of the different preaching activities and projects devotees have. If they are connected through a trunk to the roots, they will be successful in this Vaniseva. Vani is not isolated. It is Vani tree which also evolves on the Internet. That is the whole point about Vanipedia. For many of devotees having a repository of Prabhupada’s quotes is like to drink refreshing water on a hot day. You wouldn’t get many happy devotees if you gave them a drop of water. You want to give them a drink, a cup. Similarly, why compile one quote on a subject? Why not compile all of them? We decided to make hundreds of thousands of quotes, so the devotees can bathe in them in a safer way, and quench their thirst for Prabhupada’s association, because Vanimedia is trying to eradicate such taking out of context, or misquoting. How? We have thematically mapped the information. You can have particular quote and quickly access the source from which it is taken. We have now created 18,000 categories of quotes. These quotes are snippets which also serve as links. You just need one click, and you go into the full lecture, full letter or conversation, in other words – you get full Vanisource. We need to have Prabhupada’s instructions at our fingertips, right in front of us, in order to be inspired, in order to be convinced, and, most importantly, to represent. Thus everyone can have their own tablets and Vani resources at their fingertips while they are all sitting at a meeting. They can just come out, and put their tablets into a screen and present what they have to say, express quotes that they want to bring attention to. And others may discuss that.
Gita Seva: Did you say Vanisource?
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes, Vanisource. This is the basis for the Vaniquotes. Now we have 108,000 Vaniquotes pages. Inside those pages we have 1,800,000 quotes. Any time that anybody wants to read the full letter, the full lecture, the full conversation, or the full purport, he can click and in a second he will be in Vanisource.

RELATIONSHIP AND SERVICE

In establishing our relationship with Prabhupada, if we do not have service then that relationship won’t really be established. We inquire submissively and render service. This is how we understand the truth. This is how we get the mercy of the pure devotee, the self-realized soul, and he imparts the knowledge unto us, through humble, submissive inquiry and rendering service. So we need to establish the relationship with the Vani via service. And then the question is, "Well, what can I do, Prabhu? Is there any service to be done?" Wow, we should create untold Vaniseva. Unlimited, untold. This is our service, this is our facility. We should be creating service for devotees to do. And with that service, and their proper attitude, they will establish a relationship with the Vani.
Gita Seva: You said that there are a lot branches and leaves in this Vani tree. That is all of the different preaching, activities and projects devotees have. Devotees are already doing service, but they seem to be not so much conscious how much this is related to the books, to Prabhupada’s teachings. It is more like unconscious work.
Visnu Murti dasa: Of course, it is better to be conscious about what is to be done. But, please understand, Vaniseva is work to the Vani. This means to follow the instructions is also Vaniseva. Srila Prabhupada asked us to preach, so we go and preach. We go out, we give classes. We just repeat Krsna’s words, quote slokas, and present the philosophy. That also belongs to Vaniseva, and Vani tree as well. But now I am specifically talking about service to the Vani.
Gita Seva: What does it mean?
Visnu Murti dasa: It means BBT and Bhaktivedanta Archives who are doing Vaniseva by bringing Prabhupada’s teachings to pristine condition. It also means those devotees who are translating and printing Prabhupada’s books and the book distributors.
Gita Seva: What about the practical application of Vani? Isn’t it also Vaniseva?
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes, it is. If the Vani is completed and brought to pristine condition, the practical application of Vaniseva will be enhanced. If the trunk is there, and it’s solid and strong, and everyone can tap into it for their own Krsna conscious benefits, then all of their Vaniseva will be enhanced. But this will not happen unless some devotees do some Vaniseva. Unless the BBT devotees keep the books in print, the devotees don’t get the books. Unless the Bhaktivedanta Archives do the work to preserve Prabhupada’s teachings, it doesn’t happen. Unless devotees take up direct Vaniseva to bring the Vani to a pristine condition, the other Vaniseva is hampered. So, this is our point. It is like a priority. And Vanipedia is all about respecting the faith that Prabhupada had in his own teachings which he knew will have practical application in the future. Unlike us, Prabhupada had no doubt in them — such was his transcendental, purified consciousness, above the modes of material nature. This is something which we aspire for: to get out of our conditioning. Prabhupada did not wait for people to be qualified, he engaged people without qualification, because he knew the power of the engagement. Yes, we accept that it is not that we always have the capacity to know, understand or learn Prabhupada’s messages quickly. There has to be dadami buddhi yogam tam – a realization that comes when Krsna is happy with us. And we hope that realization, practical application and the expertise of understanding is a gift that will be given to us at a certain time in the future.
Gita Seva: Is one of the goals of Vanipedia to build people’s faith in Prabhupada’s teachings? And when you have faith then you will apply something because you have faith that it will benefit you?
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes. We talk about the second coming of Prabhupada. We allow ourselves to have that analogy. Different than the Christians. Because the second coming of the Christians for Jesus is that he will reappear in some physical form. We are not saying that the same will happen with Srila Prabhupada and he will reappear in some physical form. We are saying that the spiritual master appears in two forms: he appears in vapu and he appears in vani. And he did appear in his full vapu glory, he had a total, 100%, manifestation in his vapu glory. Prabhupada appeared on this earth, he walked on this earth, he spoke, he expressed, he shared, he cried, he moved, he had interpersonal relationships with others. He was in his full vapu glory. While he was on the planet he was constantly preparing, delivering and giving his Vani. But when he left his Vani was not completed. So, we say here’s an opportunity for the second coming of Prabhupada. In this "second coming" there are two phases: Phase A, that is, to bring Prabhupada’s teachings to pristine condition, and Phase B, to have hundreds and thousands of devotees living with them. That is because without practical application we don’t have a living religion. As Srila Prabhupada states in Gita: Religion without philosophy is sentiment, or sometimes fanaticism, while philosophy without religion is mental speculation (Bg.3.3). Both of them is nicely combined within Prabhupada’s teachings. So what is the advantage of Vanipedia in comparison to what is already there? We have books, everything is transcribed. It’s an educational process. It’s comprehensive. It’s more than that also, it’s a place, because of the power of the Web. The Web is a place to be. If you say Facebook, one billion people hang out on Facebook. They just hang out, they connect. It’s a lot of people. And if you talk about Wikipedia, 400 million people a month hang out to some degree in Wikipedia. BBC news, I don’t know how many people go maybe once a day to the BBC news, it’s a reference point for them. We are saying the power of the Web has given us an unprecedented possibility to distribute Prabhupada’s teachings. And to make us all connected to them. Like we are connected now through the Web. We are all on Skype and we Skype all over the world to friends, emails are really a thing of the past, now that social networks and Skype has brought us all together. Mobile phones, Skype, Internet, it’s not even limited to being with your computer. You can just be anywhere. You are connected with people 24/7. So it’s another reality. So we’re saying, "Okay, let’s do that with Prabhupada’s teachings. That’s possible, we have them on the Web anyway." Why is Vanipedia existing? Beause vedabase.net has existed for fifteen years now.
Gita Seva: Can you give an example?
Visnu Murti dasa: I suggest you to go and look for yourself. There are many examples within 14,000 categories documented in Vani. For instance, we have a category called "Idol Worship". We have identified idol worship as a subject that Srila Prabhupada spoke about. And then our responsibility is to develop it. Not that he spoke about it and we put up 5 % of the content. We don’t know to which degree he spoke about it, but we should include 100% of the content he spoke about it.
Gita Seva: So you can easily and quickly access it?
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes. Whatever Prabhupada has addressed, on whatever subjects, we want to make them clearly available.
Gita Seva: There is one success teacher who said that when you face a problem, or you find out you don’t know something, go to the library and learn everything about it. Find the books, the tapes, etc. If we have something that we face in life and if we can learn everything Prabhupada said about it, then we would have light, as you said. And it would be very helpful.
Visnu Murti dasa: For this we need faith, sraddha, in Prabhupada’s teachings. And again, beginning stage is work. If there was no work to be done, it’s a real difficulty. It’s like you come to the temple and you want to do seva. You go from a door to door, to pujaris, cooks, offer to clean, give courses, lead kirtan, but no one needs your service. Instead of encouragement one hears only denying answers: "No, sorry, we’ve got a full schedule." "How long you’re staying?" "For two weeks?" "Oh, that’s a pity because we can put you in three weeks time, but you’re only staying for two weeks. Unfortunate." As for Vaniseva, there’s lot to be done. We create the Vaniseva and engage the devotees. Another one of our goals is to spend so much time in the ocean of Vani that we no longer have any need to be out of the ocean. So we need the Vani. We should have got such realization. Let me give you an example. Imagine you are here and you see beautiful walls, a beautiful setting, nice floor, nice carpets, nice things, but and there is no roof. You would notice that instantly, right? And as a journalist you would ask me the question, "Visnu Murti, why don’t you have a roof?" My answer would be, "Well, you know, I like feeling freedom. I like the nature. I like openness." It could be okay, if the sun happens to be shining. But what to do when a storm suddenly comes, or thirty centimeters of snow? Everything that seemingly was nice in this house would be destroyed, because there was no roof. So we need asraya, we need shelter. We say that the fundamental shelter for devotees is in Prabhupada’s teachings, because Prabhupada is our fundamental shelter. If you talk about ISKCON as a society, and a followers of Prabhupada, for them Prabhupada exists in his books, his teachings. And he is not just there in cryptic, theoretical, idealistic form. He is there in transcendental reality. Prabhupada said, "Krsna is there in the Bhagavad-gita; and you can associate with Him directly through it." Krsna’s entering into the Bhagavad-gita is a five-thousand-year old existence. Prabhupada had that realization. He had a realization about the relationship with the Deity and the holy name. That is why he gave them to us. And he had the realization of Vani. So he gave us his books. "I am laboring so hard", he said, "to give you something valuable, which you can enjoy when I am no longer with you." Prabhupada was very conscious what he was doing. He was offering himself to humanity. That is what parampara does. They offer themselves to stay in this world as portals for people to find shelter.
Gita Seva: So are you proposing to people in the Krsna Consciousness Movement to take Srila Prabhupada and his teachings much more seriously than they do, and make it a foundation of their lives?
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes. I suggest there would only be benefits coming from that. Let’s take an example from Vanipedia Articles. ‘Animal Killing in Human Society’ is qualitative, coordinated manifestation of all of Prabhupada’s instructions on the subject matter of animal killing in human society. Let me just tell you how important this is. Someone sent me a link to a debate ‘Should animals be off the menu?’ It was 1 hour and 50 minutes long, recorded in Australia, done in May of 2012. This was a public debate, ten-minute-long exposé by one person. He was very passionate, preaching about the terrible reality of the slaughter of animals. Very inspiring. So, I took some liberty to listen to the whole debate. There were three speakers for the affirmative, and three speakers for the negative, and they all spoke for about ten minutes. Then there were people from the audience speaking. The end result was that 73% said animals should be off the menu. Life is evolving in this way. This man was talking about mass murder. He said that weapons of mass destruction are our forks and our knives. He did not mention such word as karma, the reaction for the sin as a reason to give it up. He was using the word "murder", which means something you have to go to prison for, you get a reaction for it, you are in trouble. That is one reason why very few people murder. Why do people murder the animals? Because they don’t have any concept that there is going to be a reaction. Who gave us that concept? Srila Prabhupada. He does it very, very clearly, consistently, repetitively. Prabhupada has given a unique angle on the subject, which is karma, and a unique ethical reason why we should not kill animals. I have been studying different ethical reasons that so many different groups have been giving. They are good ethical reasons, but they don’t involve karma. Just like in this debate they involve the suffering of the sentient being, that the animal is suffering, therefore it is not ethical. But they don’t bring in the ethical reason that the eater will suffer karma by being killed by that very animal in the next life. Nevertheless, this is a voice that is not heard, but should be heard. We have a responsibility to help to make Prabhupada’s voice heard. We don’t need to try to become a big preacher, because we already have the preacher. Become a servant of the preacher, facilitate the preacher to preach. He says it in such ways we cannot say it. Prabhupada is not a historical personality that should be waning. He is a historical personality who should be waxing. If Srila Prabhupada leaves, it will be catastrophic for the spirituality of this planet. Because his contribution has not even begun to be felt. If you liken Prabhupada’s offering to the human society to an absolutely humongous tree, then maybe we have seen the twig and the first leaf in the time span, but that tree is still to come. That is why it is so important to solidify his Vani.
Gita Seva: Undoubtedly, Prabhupada Vani waxing should be promoted. Many devotees in our movement didn’t give it enough relevance and didn’t put Prabhupada in the center really. I also have that feeling.
Visnu Murti dasa: And this is a crime. To give us something of extreme value Srila Prabhupada came with absolute liberalism. He freely gave us the holy name, Lord Caitanya’s mercy, Krsna. So liberally that he paid for it with his life. By intense degree of austerity that he had to go through.
Gita Seva: May we say that one of the purposes of Vanipedia is to strongly draw attention of devotees to Prabhupada as the preacher, and to his books and teachings?
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes. In that sense it’s a culture. We understand we have a Vani philosophy, but we don’t necessarily have a Vani Culture. It is like there is a big crowd of people where Prabhupada happens to be in the center. Because there is a big crowd of people, you can’t necessarily see or hear him. So if everybody is disconnected, and doesn’t really care about it, and those five people close to Prabhupada are really happy that they don’t have to share him, then nothing is going to change. But if these five devotees or people know that Prabhupada is the center of this crowd and think that everybody should be aware of it, they will try to place Prabhupada up higher, so that he could be above and people could see him, and he will get a microphone so that everyone could hear him.
Gita Seva: Some may ask, "Well, isn’t it a personality cult? Prabhupada wasn’t saying: "Me, me, me." He was saying: "Krsna, Krsna, Krsna."
Visnu Murti dasa: In some way he was also saying, "Me, me, me.", because he taught that we should surrender to guru, and follow him. "In this way, you will get Krsna," he said, "because guru has Krsna." He was very humble, and he was obviously putting all the focus on Krsna. But what happens when we put our focus to Krsna directly? Will we get Krsna automatically? Maybe, maybe not. What happens if we put our focus to Prabhupada? Will we get Krsna automatically? Yes. Because Prabhupada is so transparent. There is no way, if we turn our attention, our devotion, dedication and our surrender to Srila Prabhupada and not get Krsna. We have to emanate that same liberalism in regards to Srila Prabhupada. We have to give Srila Prabhupada to ourselves and to others. Just like he gave himself to others. He rose early in the morning and give us his purports. He preached, even when he was sick, to constantly deliver his Vani. Inside of his Vani is incredible wisdom and realization, which must be given further.
Gita Seva: It reminds me of Harinama Ananda Prabhu from Switzerland, one of the best book distributors. When he is on the street, he stops a person and draws their attention to Prabhupada and his books, convinces them to focus their attention on him. It is like a sankirtana on a larger scale but first sankirtana to devotees, then to the people in general.
Visnu Murti dasa: If we manage to engage devotees successfully, then they will be going out, sharing the association of Prabhupada’s Vani in a more powerful, faithful, convinced, and expert way. That is how it is going to increase. People become informed. This is important now. There was a time when everything Prabhupada said was absolute. As time is going on, that time has been challenged. Prabhupada is not here present to clarify. So we should learn this art of service in separation. Take the inspiration from the expert. There is a perfect person we can get help from – Srila Prabhupada himself. Srila Prabhupada was the servant ‘par excellence’ of separation. Somewhere he says that he only met his spiritual master ten times, in other places he mentioned even less. Prabhupada says, "My spiritual master left the planet in 1936. I started the movement in 1965. This is the proof I am getting help." This is Vani. Prabhupada proved that he lived in the Vani – he was connected. Someone may ask, "How come there are breaks in our parampara?" But, it isn’t a problem. You just have to choose the principal acaryas, because whoever connects with the Vani is in the parampara. It’s not a problem that there is a gap. That might have been a time when physical people didn’t take it up. So our whole success program is Vani, take It up, live and connect with it. That is our success program. That is parampara.
Gita Seva: Do you also want to prevent speculation and deviation, because parampara means to present unchanged message. How relevant this actually is? Is there any place for discussing the messages we do not clearly understand?
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes, and actually imbibe a culture of informed discussion.

INFORMED DISCUSSION

Gita Seva: What does it mean?
Visnu Murti dasa: As you said, not everything is clear. If everything is understandable, there is no need to discuss it. But whenever you leave something unclear without clarification, without discussion, then you’re going to create doubt, schisms, fighting, anger, or frustration. Such things need to be discussed. There is a difference between uninformed discussion and informed discussion. Uninformed discussion is very detrimental, "Oh, I heard that… Maybe… Didn’t he say… and you know, well you know, etc." Informed discussion brings out all the information, all the facts. It approaches the subject from all the different angles, it is easier, performed in a conducive way, with genuine concern and desire for understanding and realization. You get much better result. So this is another reason why we build the Vani, because we see there is a lot of uninformed discussions going on. And if we have Prabhupada’s teachings right next to us. That is a step towards facilitating informed discussion. On any Krsna conscious subject we have a responsibility to study and share Prabhupada’s teachings. But again, please remember: "Does everybody have a responsibility to study it?" "No." "The brahmins?" "Yes." "Should everyone put Prabhupada be in the centre?" "Definitely."
Gita Seva: I have the same feeling that we didn’t give enough relevance to and didn’t put Prabhupada in the center in a way he deserves it.
Visnu Murti dasa: Anybody who is establishing their relationship with Prabhupada and liberally distributing, sharing Prabhupada with others, they are doing well. For example, if ISKCON make the right, principle-driven and strategic decisions, in a very short period of time they can offer Prabhupada to the world, in the most incredible way.
Gita Seva: What would be a great strategic decision?
Visnu Murti dasa: To embrace the Vani Culture. We have already embraced theoretically that Prabhupada is the preeminent siksa guru in ISKCON. So we should establish relationship with the Vani.
Gita Seva: Isn’t this happening already? I mean people are preaching from these books every day.
Visnu Murti dasa: It happens to different degrees. But there are some subtle issues. Although people are preaching from his books every day and have Bhagavatam classes, so many times I’ve seen that the Bhagavatam class seems to be just part of something like eternal space zone, which is separated from our daily lives. In the morning program and during Bhagavatam class they are in a state of existence, consciousness and presence. But when they come out of the Bhagavatam class, things tend to change – they forget what was said and heard, that mood of determination to do their best in Krsna consciousness weakens. But it is important not to think that the Bhagavatam class is just a place where we theorize.
Gita Seva: It is some kind of isolation.
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes. For some the Bhagavatam class is just another intellectual isolation, where we discuss our philosophy, but outside the Bhagavatam class we don’t practically apply it. It is not what Prabhupada came to teach us.
Gita Seva: Does it mean we didn’t imbibe the philosophy deep enough in order to apply it in every hour of the day?
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes. That’s right. This connection, relationship with the Vani, belief in the Vani and servitude is a challenge and not something easy to do. And Prabhupada is not going to let us maintain our material attachments. So it is a very serious decision of a one-way voyage in our devotional lives. In theory our decision-making is an understood fact, but in reality we see many devotees have given up their level of faith and practice that they committed to at the time of initiation. This happens among Prabhupada’s direct disciples, this is also valid for the generation afterwards, among disciples of current gurus. It is just a sad reality of Kali-yuga: faith is taken and faith is lost. What needs to be done is breaking down any barriers that there are, both pragmatically, philosophically and culturally that stop us from having a liberal, informed, devotional, deep relationship with Prabhupada. And again, to do this we have to study Prabhupada’s Vani as orderly and as elaborately as possible.
Gita Seva: If the order is what we should follow, why don’t we start from the beginning? How do you think Prabhupada Vani has developed historically?
Visnu Murti dasa: The history of Prabhupada’s Vani starts when Srila Prabhupada is in the Radha-Damodara temple. There he was crying to Rupa Gosvami desiring to be empowered to represent Lord Caitanya’s mission, which was given to him by his Guru Maharaja. As a result of his prayers the First Canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam was written. That was the result of Srila Prabhupada’s tears – he created magic Vani. I believe that faith in Prabhupada has been tested and challenged in so many ways. When he came to the West, he had only forty rupees, no contacts, no followers. Yet he came as the absolutely richest man on the planet, because he brought trunkloads of his books and Krsna’s mercy. What did he do then? Do you know where he sold his first set of books? On the boat Jaladuta! For it he got 16 dollars.
Gita Seva: He sold it to the captain?
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes. And He never used those 14 rupees, because it wasn’t changeable in America. He used the 16 dollars. And then he started selling his books and preaching from them. So the movement as such was not the first that took place. Vani did. To anyone who came forward to offer some service he gave Vaniseva – typing, transcribing, editing. When Vaniseva was going on in full swing a movement of Prabhupada’s love for Lord Caitanya was started, and the intense desire to have people sheltered in a way that they could practice Krsna consciousness became expressed. In 1968, after three years of being in America and two years of starting this movement, Prabhupada said that some of his older disciples, two-year devotees, had understood Krishna consciousness philosophy and wanted them to take care of this movement so that he could do the real work – to give the books, the Vani. Year 1968 is the first expression I have found of Prabhupada speaking about this. After the movement was only four years old, by 1970, he formed the GBC. Prabhupada was constantly, consistently trying to hand over the management of the movement, so he could do the real work. He wanted to give us Mahabharata, Puranas, Ramayana, and many more. But he couldn’t even finish his Bhagavatam, because he had to get involved in secondary work – to manage and lead the movement. This management, however, wasn’t the fundamental offering that Prabhupada came to give. That was Vani. Vani in parampara. Prabhupada shared his Vani. How? Lectures. Conversations. Letters. He wanted his lectures and conversations to be recorded, his letters to be published, books to be printed, translated and distributed anywhere and everywhere, to everybody. Yes, it is a risk to give this knowledge to faithless people. But Prabhupada as a merciful, compassionate, para-dukha-dukhi preacher took it to find the faithful, to find the lost soul in the mass. To find the person who would be receptive. Prabhupada had been so liberal with his distribution of Vani. He engaged his devotees to do it. That is why Vanipedia is so fundamentally conservative. This is not a ‘new agey’, a fashion, or a trip. This is a fundamental principle of disciplic succession – the distribution of transcendental knowledge.
Gita Seva: I think that if we want people to buy into using it, first they need to know how – like you are telling me now.
Visnu Murti dasa: They can do a research themselves, or they can just share the research that has been done. We have spent a lot of time creating links, because we believe in the link just like Prabhupada believed in the book. Neither he nor anyone else believes in the piece of paper, which can get lost in the wind or put in the rubbish. But a book has substance.
Gita Seva: What do you mean by "We believe in the links"?
Visnu Murti dasa: Because links travel, text doesn’t. Text is just a dead piece of paper with no capacity to travel. Just like a loose piece of paper from a book. You can share the text, but it may get lost. Whereas when you share a link, you are giving the opportunity to have the text within the link, because the link is in the categorized page, where one can orientate and associate with the text easily and quickly. The covering of the book is not so interesting for us, and it is harder to find something specific there, but we are interested in the contents of the book. Our links are a lot more transcendental, because they are also verbatim statements of Prabhupada. Links can transfer and present messages all over the planet. It can be put onto different Websites, and people can have links into it. We’re nearly up to a 130,000 links in Vaniquotes alone, without speaking of the links in Vanisource. Because every translation and purport is also a link.
Gita Seva: Yesterday I looked at Vanisource, and on the first page of the Vanisource there was one verse from the Bhagavatam, which said that when you become free from the modes, you become happy. I don’t know if it always stays there or you change it.
Visnu Murti dasa: That is a quote, a verse of the day. It changes every day.
Gita Seva: I put the link on my Facebook, and I just wrote how to be happy.
Visnu Murti dasa: So did you put the link of the page, or you put the link of the front page?
Gita Seva: I put the link of the front page.
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes, so that will be changing. It’s definitely how to be happy. Look at Vanisource everyday and you’ll become happy. We also have a Vanipedia Group on Facebook. If one joins, he can give a feedback about how the project is developing, give some evaluation, etc. We started with 100 members, but now we have about 2500. One can look at the group and then decide if he wants to join. That’s a communal place to relish Prabhupada’s teachings through the Vani platform. Now we have more and more people who share links.
Gita Seva: We can share links?
Visnu Murti dasa: They share links to the pages of the Vanipedia. We can have more and more groups on specific subjects. Facebook, as you know, is an incredible lazy intelligent tool for us. It doesn’t cost us a penny. I just spend a little bit of energy with it. I go into other groups, they make quotes. All I have to do is to see a quote of Prabhupada, check if we have it in Vaniquotes. If we do have that particular statement of Srila Prabhupada, I provide the information about the Vaniquotes page, where it can be found. And if it doesn’t exist, I make it immediately, and I say, "Here is the Vaniquotes page".
Gita Seva: Where do you go? Are you going to other Facebook groups? Are there Facebook groups related to Prabhupada?
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes, hundreds. More than I can even imagine, as I haven’t spent time for searching or looking through them in-depth. If someone intelligent, resourceful and with a vision goes to Facebook and says, "I’m going to vanify Facebook to the maximum of my capacity," they will have no end of service.
Gita Seva: I definitely Vanified my Gita Coaching page. And I’m on Twitter and on G+. And I have a blog. I am also on Skype.
Visnu Murti dasa: I am not on Twitter, it’s a whole new world for me. The first thing that you have to do is now become a very competent Vani sailor.
Gita Seva: Vani sailor? I like that.
Visnu Murti dasa: We ourselves are only servants, tiny little sailors in the vast ocean Prabhupada has provided for us. And we want to excel in servitude. What that means for us in the long run? We don’t know yet. But the longer the run is, the more experience we gain. Even now the project is nurtured by experience. And that experience has come personally and it also has come with interaction of other devotees. Because so many devotees have told me that I must do this, I have to keep going. And now, as we discussed, we’re in a crossroad. Because we have done one level of the work, and we’re ready now for communicating the results of what we have achieved. We want to help devotees to become familiar with and have access to Prabhupada’s teachings in this powerful format. And then we also have now the responsibility and the opportunity to get the feedback from devotees. As you can see, we want to have an ultimate result, that is, we want more people having access, understandability, a faith, and the capacity to represent Prabhupada’s teachings. For us our visitors and users are not just a number or a name on the screen. We want to know that we have about 100,000 users every day. That every day we have 5,000 users who have irrevocable faith in Prabhupada’s teachings and they believe in them and they understand them. That we have 1,000 people fixed up, fired up representatives, who are sharing everything in their own field of influence. First, informing some people, because some people don’t know that Prabhupada’s teachings exist. Second, helping them to understand them. Third, helping them to get faith. Fourth, helping them to become so convinced in what they represent. So that 1,000 that represent grows to 10,000, grows to a 100,000 and then grows to that 1,000,000 and 10,000,000, of which Prabhupada gave a very clear vision.
Gita Seva: What about application? You mentioned these steps but it seems to me the application is missing.
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes, application must be there. You can’t have ten million people preaching theory. There are two levels of application. One level is individual life. One has to practice what he preaches. It is useless and foolish to go and tell people that you should live a pure life and not to live a pure life yourself or to try to convince people that they should have faith in Krsna, without having faith in Krsna yourself. It is wrong to tell everybody they should surrender their lives and do everything as a service to Krsna, but don’t do that yourself. So that is one level. Application on the social level is very important, because a lot of people are more than willing to look at any new idea, which gives them hope that they can live a better life. But if they don’t live a better life themselves, then whatever previous conviction they had will be lost. We have had full time devotees who completely believed that Krsna consciousness is that very activity that they should be doing and the world should be doing. And after a period of time this faith reduces, weakens. "Well I don’t believe that anymore. It’s okay, I can go to Janmastami and appreciate Krsna."
Gita Seva: "Respect from a distance" takes place.
Visnu Murti dasa: "I respect Prabhupada, but I have to live my life Prabhu. I have to eat, sleep, mate and defend. Not as an animal, but I have to survive, I have to flourish. I am a social being. I have to interact with people. I have to live." So practical application is a very big issue. We don’t give it enough time for whatever we do. We have a three-day seminar in which we have to get a result. So you do everything you can in those three days, because that is all you have. But actually we need ten days for that seminar to get the right result. Or you need three years to get another result.
Gita Seva: Are you saying we don’t give enough time to learning?
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes. This wouldn’t be so bad if we were expert in following up. But my experience regarding this is negative. They would rather have a three-day seminar, so many things will be thrown out, so many thoughts and ideas and possibilities initiated, and we do not invest in putting those into practice. I am a vivid world observer. I watch the news and see how things go on. I know, there are flaws and mistakes in this world, but I also know there is organization. So, to explain all those shortcomings we experience even there in all of us, we approach Prabhupada’s teachings to find the answers. Prabhupada’s teachings are our canon, and if we can’t find the answers in them than there are no answers. But if we can find the answers in Prabhupada’s teachings then we have the capacity to act on those solutions.
Gita Seva: That is another challenge.
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes, that is the application. Because one thing is to get a proper siddhanta, carried through in the Bhagavatam class, a speaker or a devotee who just lives his life, someone who counsels, who interacts with people, or who faces the world. And it can all be very nice. But there is another aspect: if individuals are those who do it, loosely walking around and if it is not developed in the form of any real community, or on principle-based groups of people, then that isn’t applied, in a group level. This is why I have been encouraging serious study in Prabhupada’s teachings. Not just from the theological level, the classic sort of aspect – that we are eternal spirit soul, eternal servant of Krsna, controlled by the three modes of material nature – but a much deeper and widespread approach to Prabhupada’s teachings which covers all the subjects including many aspects of our positioning that Prabhupada dealt with. We all are in different positions – that may be the reason which causes problems in understanding.
Gita Seva: What do you mean?
Visnu Murti dasa: Well, we have three modes of material nature which affect us in all varieties of ways. We are at different stages of our advancement in Krsna consciousness, neophyte, madhyama, we are in different stages of anartha nivritti, determination and conviction that pure Krsna consciousness is our ultimate goal. So this puts us all into a whole variety of different perceptions and desires. And therefore inside of Prabhupada’s teachings one person can give a class saying something and fifty people can listen to the same aspect and still hear fifty different things. So application takes place according to that.

SRILA PRABHUPADA AS CONSCIENCE

Gita Seva: Can we say that Vanipedia will facilitate creation of more madhyama adhikaris?
Visnu Murti dasa: Here fitting would be to speak about Prabhupada as conscience. And when I say this, I mean Prabhupada’s teachings. His teachings are the conscience of ISKCON’s individual devotees, ISKCON society, and the world at large. We know that being conscious of our conscience haven’t helped us to get out of this material world. Yes we have the Supersoul which also undoubtedly is a conscience, but He helps us by extending Himself as the spiritual master. The spiritual master is an external manifestation of the Supersoul. In this form we had Srila Prabhupada who appeared as the external manifestation of the Supersoul, and lived, spoke and taught Krsna consciousness. He left his teachings, which are the canon and the foundation of the International Society for Krsna Consciousness, which are the authority for all of his followers, and which speak to the world. Therefore it is his teachings that are the conscience which we can always check and balance against the other conscience – Supersoul in our heart. We have the Supersoul within our heart telling us what is right and what is wrong, and what I should do, what I should not do, and Prabhupada’s teachings represent Him in more accessible manner. So Vanipedia’s service is simply to say, "Hello everybody, please don’t forget this, concentrate on this". And whoever is doing it, continue doing it, do it better, take it to the next step, don’t get stuck in anything. It is a journey, after all. It is a path back to Godhead. Prabhupada talks and communicates in incredible ways. He is a caller, a leader. Srila Prabhupada is a leader who tells us to go forward into the unknown, into the valley of death, into a difficult challenging situation for us as conditioned souls.
Gita Seva: So, basically you are saying "Vanipedia is the way."
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes. But it is important to understand – ‘Vanipedia’ is the name, which people really are meant to know. Presently in one sense everyone knows Vaniquotes, because Vaniquotes is where we are working more visibly. But if you look at the whole project finished, this is the project of Vanipedia. And some people will just say that they are going to Vaniversity, because Vaniversity is going to become popular, and used. Some people will just be using Vanibooks, some people will be using Vanisource, and some will just be using Vaniquotes or Vanimedia. These are subsets. It is not that one petal is less important, or less topical than another. What we are saying is that the project is called Vanipedia and we are building introductory articles into the whole site, because someone can cover only text quotes inside his or her Vanipedia article. But if we make a thematic grouping of audio quotes from Prabhupada on this theme, then he or she can link to that from the Vanipedia article. The Vanipedia article can go into parts of Vanictionary and get Sanskrit words that deal with that particular subject in question. It can link to a Vanibook, which is a bigger exposé than the Vanipedia article. So now the Vanipedia article already links to Vanisource and it links to Vaniquotes. But as the other petals are developed, they also link to that. So basically Vanipedia is the portal into all the different elements of the site. Another important aspect I would like you to understand is that when I say Vanipedia, it is synonymous to Prabhupada. And when I say Prabhupada it’s synonymous to Vanipedia, because this project is nothing other than Prabhupada’s teachings, his Vani. And we say that he is 99 % present now only in his Vani. Of course, he is in the temple in his murti form, and in the heart of the devotees who remember him. But he is predominantly present in his Vani. And he was very conscious that this is how he would stay in this world, through his Vani, and that is why he worked on the written literature, to leave his Vani behind him, so that he would live forever in his books. It is not our interpretation. We have Vanisource, Vaniquotes, which consists of Prabhupada’s teachings only. We will have Vanimedia, where only Prabhupada’s teachings are included. We also have Vanictionary, Vanibooks – in all of them only Prabhupada’s teachings are given. And then we get into two delicate petals of the Vanipedia project which are: 1. Vanipedia articles, and 2. Vaniversity courses. Apart from this we also have on-site future plans for some interesting project or club that we could create called a Gita Reading Club. And this would be made up of the communal reading of the Bhagavad-gita English verses, translations, of Prabhupada’s Gita, which takes a total of about three hours. So it would be branded and presented in that way. People would come for a Gita Reading. They would sit in a circle, and depending on how many people are there, they read a certain amount of verses. This could provide a transformational community experience where everybody is equal. Of course, everybody is coming from a different direction, and some people have had more association with the Gita, some might not have had ever, but they might have heard about this Gita Reading. The experiences could be discussed by everybody. That is the culture, the basic principle of the Gita reading. For online Vanipedia it would be very useful to create Vani Solutions. If we can create pages that offer solutions to different challenges that devotees face, and solutions for different goals they want to achieve or projects, like ideas how to make a restaurant or get along as a grhastha, for example, and it is all in one place, then, I think, that would be a great service.
Gita Seva: These plans seem to offer a wide range of extra possibilities. But meanwhile, could you please explain about Vaniversity? What is your vision for Vaniversity regarding studying? If, for example, you want to study verse and purport, would you then also use Prabhupada’s lectures to study that verse and purport? And how?
Visnu Murti dasa: Vaniversity is a concept. It is a place of learning. Just like the origin of the term "University" is just a gathering of wise people who discuss something. Vaniversity is a concept where we want to educationally present Prabhupada’s teachings through the form of courses. How it will be presented and the varieties of courses, that is not defined yet. We are opened to variety, because we see there are different natures of the subject, different kinds of audiences, different levels, so we just say ‘Introductory to Advanced’. And inside Vaniversity we have Vanifun, Vanischool and Vaniversity.
Gita Seva: What are "Vanifun, Vanischool and Vaniversity"?
Visnu Murti dasa: Vanifun is just simple multi-question things, very simple courses. Vanischool offers more developed courses, and Vaniversity even more developed ones. From simplified to advanced. Returning to the second part of your question about studying verses and purports, I can say that we have an idea inside of Vanipedia to have a section which is called study guides. And this would be the verse and the purport of the Gita or the Bhagavatam. So we would like to include the verse, the purport, the page, and then all the different study guides, assistance from Vaniquotes, or other references in Vanisource to do with that subject. So, it becomes a study plan for somebody who wants to give a class or has to give a class. That is another Vani project we have started and there’s little sample of it in Vani. We are opened to all sorts of creative, novel ways, to learn more of Prabhupada’s teachings. We are closed to the concept that we will learn more things other than Prabhupada’s teachings, inside of Vanipedia. We are not saying that people don’t necessarily want to or need to learn other things in this world. But we are repeatedly stating that Vanipedia only offers the chance to learn things from Srila Prabhupada. So in that sense we have a closed definition of what is our field of knowledge. Anyway, Vaniversity as well as Vanipedia articles are those projects where we should come into the calculation, where we have to be very cautious, and very transparent, so that the Vanipedia articles, and the Vaniversity courses also equal Prabhupada. The other five petals are irrevocably Prabhupada. We often go through this. If a devotee creates a ‘Category"name’, ‘title’ which is not exactly how Prabhupada made the expression, as sometimes happens, I will say, "Why? Why don’t we use Prabhupada’s expression?"
Gita Seva: Sometimes people change something to make it more attractive, from the marketing point of view, or from the point of view of attracting people. That is justified. But you didn’t do that.
Visnu Murti dasa: When we started on a journey, we wanted to do something, we prayed to Prabhupada, worked hard. We had to be very creative, to grow and we had to flow into the process because we didn’t have previous experience. We were so happy that we stayed with the word-based thematic methodology.
Gita Seva: What do you mean by the "word-based thematic methodology"?
Visnu Murti dasa: We study words of Prabhupada. We study words, and grouping of words, which means phrases. We don’t believe in the letter, or the power of the letter. Like ‘k’ doesn’t mean anything to me, nor does "r", and nor does "s", nor does "n", and nor does "a". These are just five independent letters, and they have no meaning. When we put them together, they say: Krsna. That’s the word. So we believe in the word and starting from a word. Two words, we believe even more in: "Krsna is…". Then you say," Well, this is getting interesting. Krsna is…what? The answer can be "Krsna is all-attractive.", "Krsna is God". These are phrases. This is what we have done only in Vaniquotes. We have just studied Prabhupada’s usage of language. And coming from that, we have seen themes manifested.
Gita Seva: So this is how you created categories?
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes, exactly. It just has been a linguistic study of Prabhupada’s form of communication. He was a communicator. Everybody is a communicator. Some people communicate with body language, with words, some people communicate in English, some people communicate with painting. Prabhupada communicated in the English language. He is a teacher. As explorers we just find the message, which means we get such a wonderful, edifying, and purifying experience for ourselves. So many devotees go to Prabhupada’s teachings to find just what they want for their conviction. If you are an explorer and you are just going there to find what has to be found, you have a greater chance to find something which is beyond what you need. There is nothing inside of Krsna consciousness or inside of Prabhupada’s teachings that we don’t need. Unfortunately we do have the situations where devotees study Prabhupada’s books and feel that it is not complete and look for something else. Then they add something. Srila Prabhupada introduced a premise by saying that we do not need anything else. When Prabhupada makes a statement it’s up to us to test it, to factually see if we can be complete and whole without anything else. It is an interesting exercise which we have been going through.
Gita Seva: Srila Prabhupada also encouraged other things, like translating and studying the works of acaryas. And I heard that he encouraged studying the management system of the Transcendental Meditation and the Catholic Church, and thus encouraged learning from other sources.
Visnu Murti dasa: I would suggest full learning from him at first. If we go too quick, without mastering what should be known, and then study some other source of information, there is a great risk that whatever we learn outside becomes actually predominant. We have this experience. We see how devotees get really fired up about something.
Gita Seva: So it becomes a new religion.
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes. They are very competent, very communicative, and very convinced. Also, not always it is a good idea to incessantly or continuously quote the past acaryas when there is no content or quoting of Prabhupada. It happens sometimes though. And often this leaves us with the feeling of something unnatural, artificial. We have a weakness – our lack of faith, and when we get more faith, we become strong. Faith is an indicator, barometer of our advancement, because without it one cannot reach prema. One cannot have sraddha, or faith, lost in the middle of advancement, and still move on to sadhu-sanga, bhajana-kriya. One doesn’t lose the previous stages after reaching the higher stage of development. Sraddha is increasing through all the different stages of our advancement in spiritual life. But how to practically get this faith? To associate with a devotee who has the faith – Srila Prabhupada.
Gita Seva: What would you recommend if I would like to learn about management from anybody who is good at management, from either spiritual or business organization, in order to apply it in ISKCON?
Visnu Murti dasa: The reason for doing this is a wish to help ISKCON to develop. The first prerequisite is to study very seriously what Srila Prabhupada had said about management. But this is not enough. We did the study inside of Prabhupada’s teachings and found that he wanted his devotees to write. Therefore we created a category ‘Our writing’. There we have huge amount of indications and instructions from Prabhupada that the devotees must write. And why must they write? In order to prove that they have realization, in order to nurture their realization. We need to write, discuss and churn what Srila Prabhupada had said about management and leadership to the point that we become "one with it" in servitude, not "one with it" in the sense of equality. It means: we have understood it.
Gita Seva: Managers could say, "We don’t have time to do this."
Visnu Murti dasa: This is an obvious answer that all managers give. They want the quick fix. All managers simply want to get the answer. And then they can represent it, preach it, legalize it. Don’t get influenced by managers. Get influenced by Prabhupada. Where has Srila Prabhupada said that his leaders don’t need to get learned in his teachings, that his leaders have such an important job to do, that they don’t have time to study, and that they need a whole set of people who just give them that siddhanta? And with that one word they just go like parrots, and they push through the army, with that micro weapon.
Gita Seva: GBC has a Sastric Advisory Board. As far as I understand, they are supposed to do a research to make sure that the GBC decisions are bonafide?
Visnu Murti dasa: We have letters Prabhupada wrote to GBC members, Prabhupada’s conversations with GBC members. We have the history of ISKCON, we have many GBC’s, some of them are still alive. How he trained, what he trained in, what was the premises, what was the approach, what was the attitude, what was the system, what was the style. Unless we have found direct indications in Prabhupada’s Vani, like what were the successes and failures, what were the adaptations and the changes, how can we say that we are seriously trying to be the representatives of Prabhupada’s teachings?
Gita Seva: Let’s speak about the managers of ISKCON. You said they should study more, so that they are more established in a deep understanding how to manage based on spiritual principles. Yet, as I said, they don’t have time to study and have meetings to discuss what Prabhupada said. In the Siksamrta there are so many instructions about GBC, management, etc. When I read this, i am thinking, "Who is reading this? Is a devotee who gets a management service asked to read this?" Probably not. So how can we inspire leaders, preachers and anyone else to actually study Prabhupada’s instructions about their service?
Visnu Murti dasa: The real way to do it is just to step out of the social concern and do the work, do the serious research, get to the realization, and transform it into curriculum. Today nobody needs permission to start a course. We have so many courses, people giving seminars, traveling around the world. They are getting advertised, it’s put on the bulletin board, they get a few people coming, and they’re preaching. They have given themselves unlimited platforms. So let the devotees who are concerned about this subject matter just step back for some time, however long it takes. Devotees could prepare Srila Prabhupada’s Vani on all topics, and they do it as a group. You say the managers don’t have time. Okay. But what will happen if the brahmins say they don’t have time because they are too busy teaching, or looking after their disciples? There is no coherence, no coordination. True brahmins won’t do it, and the managers also. But we need collective intelligence, the collaborative process, and the consultative process. Here is one example of the importance of it. It’s just a simple example to explain. Varnasrama is a very important and interesting subject. When I started compiling on this subject I was using excel files and doc files before I got into Vani. I thought of all the different terms in Prabhupada’s teachings related to varnasrama. I got hundred of them and I wrote them all down. To check them I wrote to Rabindranatha Prabhu, who lives in Los Angeles, who believes in varnasrama, and has written various works. He has researched Prabhupada’s teachings. I asked him to give me hundred key phrases and terms that have to do with varnasrama inside of Prabhupada’s teachings. So he send them to me. There I had a list of a hundred. And now a question for you. How many of those hundred were the same? What would you expect?
Gita Seva: Half.
Visnu Murti dasa: 50%? That’s what you’d expect? It was 20% only. And this was the result of just two people doing research. Such is the power of this brahminical sanga which we are meant to have if we want to be the leaders of society. In order to reach this stage we have to know what was the understanding of Prabhupada. But if one chooses to act whimsically, try to start a philosophy in our Krsna conscious movement which includes not having to chant sixteen rounds a day, then see how far you get inside of the Krsna consciousness movement. Or instead of sixteen rounds daily for initiated devotees allow chanting four. Such whimsical activities hopefully will never be accepted. We accept the principle of free will though. Someone can work for Krsna, but we can’t force people to be initiated. We accept everybody. They can offer their different services. They can help. So from our research there are sixty ways in which Srila Prabhupada has told us to associate with something very profound. The holy name is very profound, the Deity of Krsna is very profound. We are told to associate with these two elements of truth in a cautious way, otherwise we will get ourselves into trouble. Similarly, Srila Prabhupada’s teachings are not a comic book. They are a very profound manifestations of truth, and it is needed for us to associate with them with a certain attitude. And Srila Prabhupada has given those attitudes. It’s not that we have to create those attitudes, because Prabhupada has given us a lot. But we need this Vani Culture. We should make a successful movement to serve and please Srila Prabhupada, in service of Srila Prabhupada. Without his teachings it won’t be successful. This will strengthen our chanting of Hare Krsna, this will expand our care for the devotees, extend our faith in devotional service, empower us to actually attract other people. This will give us shelter, asraya, on all levels. This is how Prabhupada will protect us, if we actually approach his teachings. I have never found any indication from Srila Prabhupada that he wanted to change, rewrite his books to speak to the world. He was confident of the substance of his books. He had no doubt that his books were way beyond him. He believed himself to be a medium and said, "Krsna wrote these books." Prabhupada confirmed that he is working so hard to give you only what his Guru Maharaja gave him, and didn’t give anything which he hadn’t received from Bhaktiddhanta Sarasvati. He didn’t change anything, neither he added or subtracted anything.
Gita Seva: If I come to you and say, "Okay, what you’re saying makes sense to me. To build a Vani Culture, to put Prabhupada in the center, and whatever you are saying, all your arguments, all your points sound very true, very serious, very impressive. But what is your message for me as one of many people who take Vani seriously? What is your whole program of transforming ISKCON?
Visnu Murti dasa: I would suggest that you take full advantage of a very powerful manifestation of Prabhupada’s Vani via the Vanipedia project. You have Prabhupada’s Vani totally independent of the Vanipedia project in the form of his books, lectures, other websites. Basically just take a much more conscious and excited, submissive, happy, faithful approach to Prabhupada’s teachings, understand that they are the shelter and they can nurture and enliven you. Become a representative of Prabhupada’s teachings as much as you can, that is, while interacting with other people try your best to bring your words back to Srila Prabhupada’s teachings. Try your best to imbibe them in a realized way, so that it doesn’t sound like dogma and it isn’t parrot repeating but it’s actually born from realization. If you believe in the Vani Project or you believe in different things that I have been saying, please consider how you can help this project to go forward. This project is a core fundamental, important element of our society. And therefore this project should not just be given blessings from a distance, but supported. We need help in the form of talented devotees, participating in varieties of ways, because this is still a construction site, it is a skeleton, skyscraper building that is not completed. The more it becomes completed, the more it will become impressive, relevant for more people, more potent and powerful. Prabhupada did not think of I, me, and mine, and he trained his devotees not to think of I, me, and mine. That’s Prabhupada’s standard, and with Vanipedia we just trying our best to emulate Prabhupada’s standard.
Gita Seva: I would like to have a link between where I am and the idea.
Visnu Murti dasa: That’s how you get there, by stopping to think about I, me, and mine. First thing, sarva dharman parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja. First thing is surrender. Surrender does not mean the finish, initiation does not mean the finish. It means one accepts to be trained, and go on a journey. And one goes on that journey and everything comes. And you get more than you’ve ever imagined you need.
Gita Seva: I am not sure about that.
Visnu Murti dasa: Oh well, so don’t take initiation.
Gita Seva: (laughs)
Visnu Murti dasa: Initiation is not for you. Until you’ve given up your doubts you should not be initiated.
Gita Seva: I have some faith, but I want to see what’s in it for me.
Visnu Murti dasa: You have to understand who is "me," because if you’re thinking "me" is your material body, and your material mind then you’re making a mistake, because the "me" is that Krsna conscious self. The "me" that Krsna consciousness is speaking to is the soul, the atma.
Gita Seva: You are looking for construction workers.
Visnu Murti dasa: Now, if devotees are appreciative of a fundamental core element of the spreading of Krsna consciousness, which is liberal distribution of Srila Prabhupada’s teachings in the World Wide Web, and which not only facilitates an unparalleled platform of distribution, but also with modern technology an unparalleled manifestation of presentation. By this we can present Prabhupada’s teachings in ways that have never been presented. And this is already Vani’s proof. Now we are ready for a big buy-in, but a big buy-in means people will have to really dedicate themselves. People are important.
Gita Seva: What does a "big buy-in" mean?
Visnu Murti dasa: We should get some financial support to engage those people. But a bigger buy-in than that is engagement. Therefore as an experiment we turned to the GBC. And they approved our proposal.
Gita Seva: And how did you define the reasons for this?
Visnu Murti dasa: Some of the aspects we pointed the out were that: 1. All of ISKCON’s members are dependent on properly understanding Srila Prabhupada’s teachings in order to be able to follow his instructions as he has given them 2. To facilitate the understanding of Srila Prabhupada’s teachings there is always a need to compile them from the different angles of vision that they were presented 3. Whereas in 2007 the Prabhupada Vani Research Academy, PVRA, has been established to facilitate the comprehensive research into Srila Prabhupada’s teachings 4. There have been numerous GBC members and committees who have already approached the PVRA to research Srila Prabhupada’s teachings via Vanipedia platform 5. There will always be a need for the GBC to have access to reliable and comprehensive research into Srila Prabhupada’s teachings 6. Vanipedia has proven its dedication and competency in research, by already surpassing the results of other previous research projects into Srila Prabhupada’s teachings 7. Bhaktivedanta Library Services (BLS) is a non-profit organization that runs the PVRA and needs a dedicated person available to fulfill the needs of the GBC Research Committee Our explanation was as follows: (1) What prompts you to submit this proposal? After being approached by devotees from the Strategic Planning Team, the Sannyasa Ministry, the BBT-GBC Relations Committee, and the GBC Team Building Committee to help them in researching Srila Prabhupada’s teachings, and while trying to help them in their specific needs, I see that it is far more logical and natural that the GBC supports a full-time researcher in order for the GBC needs to be satisfactorily fulfilled. There is also a long-term consideration of the advantages of thematically compiling all of Srila Prabhupada’s teachings for the edification of all future generations of devotees. (2) Why this proposal is important for the success of ISKCON? Srila Prabhupada’s teachings are our foundation, and his instructions are our life and soul. There have already been some historical errors that have occurred during Srila Prabhupada’s presence and after his physical demise that could have been avoided by more fidelity to Srila Prabhupada’s wishes and direct instructions. Thus a comprehensive repository of Srila Prabupada’s teachings can only help in the successful development of ISKCON’s future. Regarding succession issues, it is of paramount importance to train the future generations of leadership into the mood and mission of Srila Prabhupada. This training will be greatly enhanced by comprehensively mapping all of Srila Prabhupada’s teachings and creating educational initiatives based on the teachings as they are delivered by Srila Prabhupada. (3) What would be the implications of implementing this proposal?

• The GBC would always have at its fingertips the researched instructions of Srila Prabhupada in order to successfully govern our society on his behalf.
• The GBC would send a clear message to our society that it is dedicated to assist in the achievement of this monumental task of creating an encyclopedia of Srila Prabhupada’s teachings.
• By implementing this proposal a gigantic step forward would be made towards eradicating four major obstacles surrounding Srila Prabhupada’s teachings.

These four obstacles are: a) Ignorance of…(Srila Prabhupada’s teachings) b) Indifference to…(Srila Prabhupada’s teachings) c) A lack of faith in…(Srila Prabhupada’s teachings) and, d) In competition with…(Srila Prabhupada’s teachings).
Gita Seva: Here you PVRA institution. What exactly it is?
Visnu Murti dasa: PVRA, or Prabhupada Vani Research Academy, is an internal department of BLS, and Vanipedia is at this time the only research project that is being developed by it. We didn’t want Vanipedia to have to do everything. So Prabhupada Vani Research Academy can do other projects which are complementary.
Gita Seva: Your approach is brilliant! This proposal seems to be very nice summary of the things I am talking about. Here you have outlined very clearly what’s in it for them.
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes, but we cannot forget the real world. The money is good, but we just want awareness more than that. And our service is to offer access. Now this little machine called computer has access to two billion people. So why don’t we use this machine, and this powerful phenomena called the WorldWideWeb, to do everything we can, to work and think and reflect how to introduce Prabhupada to 700,000,000 people, hoping and praying that 70,000,000 people will love and respect him from being introduced to him. And then those 69,930,000 sets of Bhagavatams will be distributed and the world will be a better place. So again, we make Vanipedia for this specific idea, just to introduce people to Srila Prabhupada. And we present the teachings in such a way that we’re hoping to maximize the amount of people who are introduced to him, and who will love him and respect him.
Gita Seva: That is the ultimate goal.
Visnu Murti dasa: Yes, to love and respect Srila Prabhupada, our Founder Acarya. …
Gita Seva: While listening to you I repeatedly feel your selflessness and dedication to Srila Prabhupada. How do you become a representative of Prabhupada’s Vani without becoming proud? Could you tell me something about yourself in connection with this project?
Visnu Murti dasa: How do we not become proud with anything? You can be puffed up not being a representative of Prabhupada’s Vani? Pride is coming from a strong identification with the body. This is our anartha, we have our conditioned nature, and if we have a strong attachment to our bodies and our intelligence, then we are called proud. And this definitely won’t do us any good. But if you like to know how Srila Prabhupada’s mercy in his Vani form has encouraged me, I would gladly tell you next time.
Gita Seva: Let us talk about you, your nature and input, looking through the Vani eyes.
Visnu Murti dasa: There have many things happened over the last 25 years. I joined Prabhupada’s movement, I just surrendered, and served as I was asked. I had leadership, and I was trained under leadership, and leadership gave me leadership positions. From the very beginning people saw in me some level of responsibility and stability. I started taking care of the inventories, then they asked me to take care of some boys on sankirtana, so I became a sankirtana leader. And then it expanded into taking care of all of the sankirtana in France. There were 73 devotees that I was taking care of. Then I was put under Indradyumna Maharaja to lead New Mayapur. So I served like this for two years, from 1984 to 1986. There I was Vice President and later I became a President there. So, this is the hierarchy that I had in ISKCON: Vice President, President and then Regional Secretary for half of France. And then due to circumstances I left. So what did I do then? I had gone through 8 years of devotional life, tried to practice spiritual life, understood the mission of Prabhupada, and served the mission. Of course, I had my anarthas, attachments, conditioning, limitations. I took a sabbatical for a year to reflect on what was really going on. My spiritual master left this world, and this naturally changed a lot. Then I started a very proactive, wonderful sabbatical to rejuvenate my spiritual life and with that I encountered a lot of Prabhupada’s disciples, went to India twice, went to the Vaisnava Institute for Higher Education (VIHE) and became the first experimental student of the VIHE course with Sacinandana Swami and other devotees. Then I found Prabhupada’s letters. The service with the Bhaktivedanta Archives was just a seed, but I was able to develop it. So 25 years later the seed I planted still lives in the form of BLS. And then the seed of the Bhaktivedanta College was sown, and the College still lives. All of this is was done within the mission and based on my realizations, but it was collaborative with other devotees, or existing projects in the form of the Archives or a College. Then Vanipedia became the first project that, by the mercy of Krishna and Srila Prabhupada, I did completely my own, born from my own realizations, my own perception of what was really needed. I remember at the beginning I was going very intensely into in-depth study, and following the methodology that I was establishing, which is the study of words. I looked at a word and reflected on it. I tried to see how Prabhupada is using that word, and how he is using that phrase. I remember when I was hearing people speak, when I was reading books, when I was going to the Bhagavatam class, I was hearing the words, reflecting on them. I was referring every single word back to if we had a category already, and had I encountered it yet. And I can say for sure: when you become a real Vanipedian in the sense of how you study (by looking at words), then your whole life will change. Of course, to map and create the categories is the easy part. Another thing is to be in contact with those categories, in contact with the subject, in contact with the words, and actually start to imbibe a real deep relationship with, and oneness in service. But that is there to be gotten. If you do not study, do not read and reflect, then you take everything for granted, like Krsna consciousness.
Gita Seva: What benefits you have experienced in exploring, researching, compiling, working with the Vanipedia, working with Prabhupada’s quotes, thematic mapping, etc.?
Visnu Murti dasa: I can just say that I feel very blessed to have been in such proximity of Srila Prabhupada over the last 7 years. In this way I associate with him. The benefits I have received are as follows: • I have developed more faith in Prabhupada than I had before. Due to my intensive association with Prabhupada’s teachings, I have had all my doubts clarified. • Prabhupada’s teachings has purified, enlivened me and still do, they have given me spiritual strength and capacity to discriminate much better. • I have found Prabhupada addressed subjects that I previously did not know he had addressed. That has increased my faith in Prabhupada’s ability to actually give comprehensive shelter to not only his devotees but also to the world at large. • I would say that Vani, the work I have done, pretty much put Prabhupada’s teaching under a microscope, because the simplistic statements that Srila Prabhupada makes, for example, "I have given you everything", and "Everything is in my books", "If you need to know, I have covered everything", can be critically analyzed. And I have been pleasantly surprised and satisfied, that Prabhupada’s teachings need to be seriously looked at, discussed, evaluated, because they are really carrying a very deep message.
Gita Seva: How this work has affected your sadhana?
Visnu Murti dasa: It is an interesting question, because what I define as real sadhana is to be 24 hours engaged in Krsna consciousness. And this service has really increased my capacity to be somewhat Krsna conscious all day long. I must say that I have worked long hours compiling in the service of being with Prabhupada. For me, even though one can say it is service, or that VM is just working so hard, that service or that hard work is what I define as sadhana, because I have been in Prabhupada’s teachings.Now regarding my chanting, I chant 16 rounds a day. I won’t say that I have had serious breakthroughs in relationship to the holy name in the last 7 years. My definition of sadhana because of my nature is to actually have Krsna directing my intelligence. For me to be inspired, enthused, and creative in Krsna’s service, I consider that to be sadhana. So that sadhana has been very invigorated through this intense association with Prabhupada.
Gita Seva: How this service has affected your relationships with devotees?
Visnu Murti dasa: Although I have been talking about Prabhupada in many ways for many years, I have been distributing his books to the devotees for 25 years and I was working with the Archives, I would say it has helped a lot, because with this service I have had the nice opportunity to be able to talk about Prabhupada more than I have ever done with any other service. This is a deeper level because I have experienced being able to speak very relevantly direct statements of Srila Prabhupada to devotees on numerous occasions. And that, if it is done properly, and the person who is hearing and actually perceiving that it is done properly, to be able to represent, repeat Prabhupada’s teachings in a way that invigorates the sanga that you are in, is a very enlivening experience. So I would say the quality of my association with devotees has been improved. And regarding the relationship with devotees there is another angle I would like to discuss. Vanimedia is a very strong, fundamental vision. And this definitely is not a one man’s work. I am trying to find people who despite their possible limitations can take responsibility so that it can grow. Now this is what I found in the form of Laksmipriya, because if Laksmipriya wasn’t doing what she is doing, I would still be in BLS, because BLS is something I gave birth to and I can’t be irresponsible to it. I’m involved in the Vanipedia process, but she is the executor on all levels, starting from the level of financing, to the level of ordering, to the level of sales, and ending with the level of management. In other words, everything. And all this Vani process is still developing. It’s like cottage industry. Ultimately Vani has to go way beyond cottage industry. I do not want the principle and the goal to be shifted. And this is a challenge just like time is and more people being involved is. We make mission shift. Like I was saying many times, Vani has to be real and it shouldn’t cause any problems.
Gita Seva: What do you mean?
Visnu Murti dasa: There is a lot of things in this world that cause trouble already and we don’t need another one. Vani has never been designed to cause trouble. Vani has been designed to serve. Vani is envisioned to represent Prabhupada, who didn’t come to cause trouble, although he did come to agitate, to challenge. Whereas we can do things in such ways that we cause trouble, Vani should never, ever, cause trouble. It is better that it dies as an ideal, something honest that was attempted and that survived for at least ten, fifteen or twenty years. Otherwise if I have any power, I will stop it myself. But to keep its purity is a challenge when you have more people coming in. People have ideas, realizations, levels of consciousness, and motivations. Prabhupada has given us so many instructions, principles, guidelines and standards on how to keep things pure, and we find ourselves today challenged with how to keep them pure.
Gita Seva: Do you have a clear understanding about what kind of people you want to have?
Visnu Murti dasa: The kind of people who I believe will be able to really successfully serve the mission of Vani are devotees who have a deep relationship with, appreciation of, or awareness of Prabhupada’s Vani. I would love to connect with very talented devotees, who have been studying Prabhupada’s books for many, many years, who love Prabhupada’s books, who are sustained, very consciously and obviously in their own spiritual lives because of Prabhupada’s books. And who express that through all the varieties of services that they are doing. Which do include research, writing, and preaching. So they have to have the desire to work with, to serve, and to assist the Vani. They are missionaries by nature. Actually there has to be a core team of such missionaries. I started to try and build up a core team from the very beginning, with different devotees, just the people that came to us, but I observed inregularity taking place. As we are building, building, building, the core team has to be outgoing. That is the team, the leadership. So, Vani is and will be in the creation stage for many years, and we have got so much already, not because we had a lot of people, not because we were given a lot of money, not because we had devotees who were really aware of what was going on, but because I work very hard, and because I worked from the front and managed to get those people who maybe will participate. The time goes on, it’s running out and we need to work hard. Of course, over time we need to get a much bigger buy-in, but until that happens and people being patrons to Vani appear, it will be built by people who are selfless missionaries. Such participants have to be team players. And I want to work with people who have something to offer. Some have something to offer intellectually, some are good working with themselves, some are very creative and very talented in writing, some are managers. For those with managing talent it is important to understand: one has to manage something before he or she can bring in other devotees of different talents who need to be facilitated. Not everyone has this skill. Most writers, for example, won’t be the managers. They are the intellectuals, the brahmins, they just need very peaceful place and facilities so that they don’t get distractions. If they are the brahmins, and they have a passion for their subject, then they will just pierce through, and create something very beautiful at the end. Some teachers are very brilliant teachers, but they won’t be good enough at making sure that the students are coming to the College. So there are different departments that Vani needs. And again, there is something else which we must be aware of. ISKCON works most of the time because people get paid. Somehow they worked it out that they have their payments, their salaries, and then the big question is whether this person is enthusiastic about his service because of the security he gets from it, or because of the actual fact of the service?
Gita Seva: Both, I think.
Visnu Murti dasa: Maybe, maybe not. I think Vani needs to be primarily… certain devotees need to be involved in Vani that for some reason aren’t here or don’t get attracted. We need to get the devotees who aren’t looking for a secure position, who are looking for a secure service where they can excel and offer something.
Gita Seva: So basically you are looking for missionaries.
Visnu Murti dasa: Predominantly, yes. Vani is so close to Prabhupada. And we have managed to create something. As I have repeatedly stated, we want Vani to be a total expression of Prabhupada. It is not that Vanipedia should be bought from corporate money, or built from corporate money. Prabhupada wouldn’t sell himself out to corporate money. Prabhupada’s movement is being built on love. This movement has been built on the sacrifice of many devotees, the selfless service of many devotees, and he repetitively has expressed that this is bhakti. And he gives so many indications on finances where we should just depend on Krsna, and that the temples are places for Vairagya, detachment. And if we do have extra needs, those should be done outside, because it will not create the pure attitude needed for the temple to be a place of shelter. Prabhupada has given many teachings like that.
Gita Seva: So what is the probability of finding such people?
Visnu Murti dasa: Very rare, in this day and age. If you looked at the possibilities of Prabhupada’s time, such a chance was very high. Not that everybody was a missionary by nature, but everybody was a missionary by designation. And they acted in mission, because here was only one true mission to join. So they had the designation of being a missionary, and, of course, the heart opened to accept such mission. But in this day and age (2012) the way that the social development has developed in ISKCON, in the way we live our lives and relate to devotional service, such people are more rare and very difficult to find. Yet, we are determined to move on and, who knows, anything can happen. By giving such vast possibilities to serve in Vanipedia petal-like projects we are looking for those deep sea-divers who want to bring to the surface the jewels of Srila Prabhupada’s teachings and put them in places where so many people can have access to them. They themselves might be first visiting them in a museum, but it draws from them the desire to go into the ocean themselves and they want to actually have that experience. We already have preachers, writers and researchers of Prabhupada’s books. We have a pool of devotees already out there who are doing this. And I would love to be able to connect with them, to have them appreciate, and know, what the Vanipedia project is trying to do. And if they see the advantages of having one place, which is phenomenal by nature, which is of an astronomical or a big manifestation of Prabhupada’s teachings, understand the advantage of having all that centralized in one place, then hearing from them and working with them, about how to take the dream and make it a reality. It would be one of the greatest successes.
Gita Seva: Can you give an example of a devotee you would like to get involved? For example, such devotees who have been studying Prabhupada’s books.
Visnu Murti dasa: I can think of Urmila mataji, Vishaka mataji, Bhurijana Prabhu, Dhanurdhara Swami, Giriraja Swami, Bhakti Vikasa Swami, Drutakarma Prabhu, Danavir Gowami, and I could go on and on. And then we include other devotees who are not Prabhupada disciples, but who have been studying Prabhupada’s books. So, it is really a person who has a complete conviction in the absolute and spiritual nature of Prabhupada’s teachings, one who has an ability inside himself to have already connected to that and sustained by it. Just like some people get sustained by prasadam, some get sustained by the holy name, some people get sustained by devotees association, some devotees get sustained by just having a service. So this project is for people who really have experience that their spiritual life has nurtured and grown and matured because of being sustained by Prabhupada’s teachings. Anyway, we need to maximize the chances that people like them say yes. Everybody’s busy, everybody might not have an awareness of some other reasons, arguments, questions or doubts which need to be satisfied. We have talked and thought about recruiting people to write for the Vanipedia project. After all, all those numbers of articles growing throughout the years will be expressed in an unparalleled exposé of Prabhupada’s teachings, in a very coherent, respectful, understandable, attractive presentation for both those who are helping and those who are using Vanipedia.
Gita Seva: So, to summarize, who and how many can really, practically use your service and take advantage of the possibility to participate?
Visnu Murti dasa: If we’re successful, we will have a lot of people using Vanipedia. Who is going to use it? People who are interested in spirituality. Who is going to use it out of the people who are interested in spiritually? Those who have an affection for Srila Prabhupada, obviously, because Vanipedia is Prabhupada’s expression of spirituality. It is not somebody else’s expression. Vanipedia is our homage, our offering to Srila Prabhupada. By having accessibility we can give people that opportunity to start being interested in spirituality at a certain time in their life when they weren’t before, to get an appreciation for Srila Prabhupada in their life, when they didn’t have it before? Because we are on the Web, we’re increasing the possibility of accessibility. We once mentioned the Wikipedia. Do you think that Wikipedia has any difficulties now to get people having access to Wikipedia? No. Because they are just at the top, you Google something and they’re there. So if we are successful, we will have Vani easily accessible and quickly "foundable". Of course, even though Wiki is on the front, if they don’t like its presentation, people can just never look at Wiki on Google, but look at the ones around Wiki. People will have the free choice to do that with Vani as well. But we are saying that we have not yet given people a real, honest, complete chance to get attracted to Prabhupada’s teachings. So you are asking who is going to use it? We have testimonies. We have made Vaniquotes in a way that is absolutely ecstatic, and it is just the beginning, the easy part. And people appreciate it, because they are looking for Prabhupada’s quotes. And they have Vedabase, they have books, they have quotes hanging out here and there, they have compilations. But the advantage of Vaniquotes is that it is very comprehensive. It is always there to refer back to remember. What to speak of making all of these articles that can really attract! And despite a huge pile of work ahead of us, once you have all these articles, proper themes, and then the content very nicely arranged, that is going to attract. Vaniversity courses will attract people, people who want to learn things. The media by having photos of Prabhupada, by having video and audio compilations will attract. But there are limitations, of course. Vanipedia is very conservative. We can’t put in some rock’n’roll music into Vanipedia unlike in Hare Krsna bhajans for attracting more people. If we can, Vanipedia will be a place where we will have Prabhupada’s bhajans permeating throughout in different ways. Some people say that we are really limiting ourselves, because we only have Prabhupada. That in the middle of new worldly developments we are trying to revive something that was locked in a time frame. They often ask whether it is a challenge for us. But actually we don’t care about that challenge. Ultimately we don’t even care how many people visit the site. We would love the whole world to visit the site. But if we judge our results by how many people visit on the work that we do, how many are helping us for some reason or another, it is not good. We just want to do the work to put Prabhupada’s teachings in a beautiful presentation that from our limited capacity maximizes the chance of people to appreciate them. Therefore we do not stop and in Vanipedia we think about broader possibilities for people to get introduced with Prabhupada. And this has been our whole endeavor. We have worked very hard, and very long, to create a very broad exposé of the subjects within Prabhupada’s teachings. So yes, you get an initial appreciation or attraction because you might have a question, or because you might have a service, you might have a need. But those who want, and those who are looking, and who are open to be transcendentally entangled, Vani facilitates that manifold. I would say Vani is done. Now, if it is far out at 5%, just reflect upon and imagine what it will be like when we get to 10%. Imagine what it will be like when we get to 25%. Imagine what it will be like when we get to 50%. Imagine what it will be like when we get to 90%, and then imagine what it will be like when we finally finish Vanipedia.
Gita Seva: Can you ever finish Vanipedia?
Visnu Murti dasa: Well, we can finish the encyclopedia, but there will always be little things. I don’t have an idea that we will ever finish teaching it, and learning from it. That goes on and will go on. What is never finished is our association with it, our learning from it, and our teaching of it. For ourselves, it will finish when we leave our bodies, but there will always be some new people coming along taking birth. And so therefore there will always be that constant growing of Vanipedia by individuals growing in their Krsna consciousness.

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