Preaching as Bridging
Like so many things in our ISKCON world – what has come to be called “bridge preaching” has become somewhat controversial. Devotees wonder whether “bridge preaching” is a good thing or a bad thing, or whether it is something in between; or whether preaching as such could be considered “bridging.” I want to suggest that effective preaching is effective bridging.
“Bridge preaching” is an expression in which “bridge” is a grammatical modifier of “preaching,” suggesting some sort of modification or special case, or type, of preaching, begging the question: what is unmodified “preaching”? Indeed, what is meant by “preaching”? Etymologically the English verb “preaching” is related to the Latin verb prae-dicare which means “to proclaim publicly”. The basic form of this Latin verb is dicere “to speak” (with its related Latin nouns such as dictum, diction and benediction). This Latin verb is in turn closely related to the ancient Sanskrit verb root diś- “to teach, to show”. Many well-known Sanskrit nouns are derived from this root, for example ādeśa (order), sandeśa (message) and upadeśa (instruction). From a Vedabase search it is apparent that Srila Prabhupada used the term “preach” or “preaching” over 5000 times.
How can the bridge metaphor be useful in relation to preaching? Did Srila Prabhupada ever use the expression “bridge preaching”? No, as far as we know. But it should not lead to a conclusion that “bridge preaching” is not a useful term. Let us look at the Sanskrit term dharma-setu – the dharma bridge.
Srila Prabhupada: “Originally, the regulator of religious principles is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Therefore, Krsna is sometimes addressed as dharma-setu. Setu means bridge. We have to cross over. The plan is that we have to cross over the ocean of nescience in which we are now fallen. The material existence means it is ocean of ignorance and nescience, and one has to cross over it. Then he gets his real life.”
Such “bridge building” requires following the key principle of preaching culture – tasteful presentation of the subject. Srila Prabhupada: ”We should not compromise in any way just to accommodate the public idea, but we can so tastefully present the real thing that we will change the people to accommodate us.”
Srila Prabhupada: “Preaching means he must be conscious, Krsna counscious, advanced.” Advanced means madhyama. Isvare tad adhinesu balisesu dvisatsu ca / prema-maitri-krpopeksa yah karoti sa madhyamah. Yukta-vairagya is explained by Srila Prabhupada in two ways: first, in relation to the uttama-adhikari – one who comes down to the madhyama platform to preach; second, in relation to the kanistha-adhikari, who is learning to advance. In this way the middle position – that of the madhyama-adhikari – is a “bridging” position, where yukta-vairagya is the key principle of practice.
A possible use of the metaphor is then: bridge as medium of preaching. Objects such as books and prasadam,and activities such as book distribution, kirtan, and public speaking, are media for bringing the content ‒ Krsna consciousness, or sambandha, abhidheya, and prayojana – over to the target, which is people in general, specific audiences, individuals, all in various conditions.
Let us now look at the preaching of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. His preaching penetrates through all “layers” from His direct associates, to other Vaisnava groups, then to other brahmanical traditions, to Saktas, Buddhists, Tribals, to Muslims, to animals, plants, objects, sacred images and substances.
And what is then our problem, after having received Lord Caitanya’s mercy? Is it a mission drift? Watered down Krsna consciousness? Or could “bridge preaching” be just avoiding the necessary fight? Srila Prabhupada: “Now we are being recognized as the enemy of maya. A fight is a fight. They are using their tactics, we are using ours.” Preaching means obedience. Preaching means to obey the order of the spiritual master or superior authorities to do good to others. “Krsna conscious means that he is a lover of Krsna. Isvare tad… If you become preacher, then you will create so many enemies also. Just like Prahlada Maharaja.” Preaching means speaking with authority ‒ adhikara ‒ or being prepared to meet opposition. Or is “bridge preaching” a compensation for making an unnecessarily big gap by such cultural superficialities as dress, food, or music styles? Or is the bridge metaphor just exposing limitations or pitfalls in immature or ill-conceived preaching practices? Direct or indirect preaching? Examples of indirect preaching from the tradition are Narada to Chitraketu, Narada to Mrgari, Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s purpose in taking sannyasa, Srila Prabhupada: “Actually, I am tricky, because I have tricked all of you into surrendering to Krsna, and now you are caught and you cannot get away”, upaya-kausalya or “artful means” in Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Are we missing the target by ill-conceived preaching efforts?
Back to my basic point: effective preaching is effective bridging. Bridging by finding ways to address people’s recognized needs and connecting them with Krsna. Let us see the bridge as medium of preaching. Let us master the art of managing changing details to bring the science of unchanging principles over to all kinds of people with all sorts of needs. “Therefore strive for yoga, which is the art of all work.”
Gaura Keshava Das: “HH Bhakti Tirtha Swami was expert at what we call ‘bridge preaching’. He was able to help people outside the Krishna conscious tradition work their way in. He gave them points of similarity, points of interest, allowing them to more fully appreciate the Krishna conscious tradition. The results speak for themselves. We now see him being appreciated all over the world.”
A little more about principles and details. Which is which? To distinguish these consult sadhus, sastra, guru, and beg for blessings of the Vaishnavas. This is the empowerment for “independently thoughtful” preachers, whose actions are likely to “push the envelope” of the possible (e.g. Srila Prabhupada). Empowerment enables wise risk-taking.
Are there limitations to how a Vaisnava can preach Krishna consciousness? “A person who is searching after the Supreme Absolute Truth, the Personality of Godhead, must certainly search for it up to this, in all circumstances, in all space and time, and both directly and indirectly.” (SB 2.9.36) As followers of Caitanya Mahaprabhu, how can we overcome our self-imposed limitations, become ourselves more effective bridges to link everyone to Krishna? And what opportunities are there for doing so?
—from a presentation by Krishna Kshetra Swami at the ISKCON European Leadership Meeting in New Vraja Dhama in September 2018
Your Own Most Authentic and Modern Way to Preach Krishna Consciousness
“If you do not know where you are going, you will end up somewhere else.” There is some kind of wisdom in there… These are words of Yogi Berra, famous American professional baseball catcher. Back in the ‘60s Yogi Berra was one of the best, and one thing aside of his baseball career was that he made expressions or statements that made no sense and yet made sense at the same time.
Some time ago I gave a presentation on the subject of ‘Bridge preaching’, which was called ‘Preaching as effective bridging’. One expression from the presentation was the idea of a process. The idea of a process of preaching and of a process of practising, but more specifically starting from ourselves, knowing what is our own nature.
In Bhagavad-gita we find a technical term svabhava, literally self-nature or own disposition; it can also mean temperament or our qualities and skills. And along with these there is education and knowledge. Not formal education, but everything we from day one receive from our parents. And then we also consider the issue of adjusting V-U-C-A. What is V-U-C-A? Volatility, unpredictability, complexity and ambiguity. These are four characteristics of our present-day world. With other words: we are dealing with the fast-moving target of contemporary life.
In my presentation I also talked about targets, in an analogical way. The general purpose of a bridge is to cross over from one place to another, where there is something in between, a problem. We want to get to the other side, not to stay on the bridge. In this context we can think of the bridge as a medium between two points. What are these two points? One of them is the target. And the other one is the context. Let’s even call it the content. It is what it is that we want to bring to the target. And as it turns out it is not so much what but how. Because we want to communicate, we want to be an agent, to bring Krishna to others. We, as servants of Krishna, want to get the message of Krishna to others. And the question is how to do it. That is where the bridge comes in.
Let’s go back to ourselves. Let’s think about our own effort to have a sense of purpose, a goal in life. Prabhupada would often challenge people, asking: “What is the aim of your life?” It is a question that can make one feel uncomfortable. As aspiring Vaisnavas, we have a ready answer: “My aim of life is to realise Krishna-prema.” But we need to be careful. If we make it a slogan we can forget our actual purpose, which means we have to constantly reconsider, “What is my point, my aim of life?”
If we do not make a purposeful effort to go to our goal we will end up being drifters. One of the pictures in my presentation was the picture of a donkey standing in a boat on the water by itself. The poor donkey is completely by himself. He has no idea where he is going, completely helpless. So, if we do not know where we are going, we end up being pushed by the currents of time. You can say the whole Bhagavad-gita is about learning to become purposeful in our life, aiming towards a purpose, towards a spiritual goal.
We are speaking of spiritual goal as Krishna-prema and communicating that to others, inspiring others to somehow connect with Krishna, and the starting point is always ourselves. It is about communicating our ownexperience, taking preaching as communicating our own experience. And if we think about our experience, we might think about how we make stories about ourselves. We tell ourselves stories, we tell others stories about ourselves, and we revise our story as we go along, and sometimes we get confused about our story when we encounter others with their conceptions of their lives or our lives. So, what then should we do? We each have our own story and at the same time there is Krishna’s story. And I want to suggest that we try to understand how our story connects with Krishna’s story. Because of that connecting point, that is where we become agents in the expansion of Krishna’s story. So, we are starting with ourselves, our own experience and the narrative dimension of that, and on the other side we have the goal of Krishna consciousness and Krishna’s story. So, one way to approach this question of ‘bridging’ might be: “How do we tell our own story to others, such that they can become attracted to Krishna?”
Srila Prabhupada does this in his poem which he wrote on the ‘Jaladuta’ when he was completing his journey to America. He is basically telling his own story about how he has been given the trust by his guru, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur, to bring Krishna consciousness to the wild west. And he is reflecting how he is going to do this. “I will not be able to do this without the mercy of Krishna” – by this he brings the story of Krishna as part of his own story. But before that he also refers to Prahlada’s story, specifically refering to his remembering of his guru, Narada Muni, and how grateful he feels to his guru for giving him Krishna. And with that kind of spirit of gratitude Srila Prabhupada is then ready to appeal to the mercy of Krishna. And with that story of himself appealing to Krishna for help he is expanding his own story. So, on one side he is being very humble, but also honest. He says, “I do not know how this is going to work, I do not know how it is going to be possible.” But then he concludes with confidence, “I will receive the mercy of Krishna, it will be possible to communicate this message.” No matter how much V-U-C-A there might be.
So, we can think of Prabhupada as a model for ‘bridge preaching’, beginning with his attitude he shows in his prayer, and then we can go back to basics of finding what it is that we need to equip ourselves with to be qualified. We might start with the idea of dharma and eventually from dharma we can get to the idea of sva-dharma. Dharma has this broad sense of that which sustains and sva-dharma means our own dharma, our own duty. In Vedic literature sva-dharma is usually used in a rather general way: am I a brahmana, a ksatriya, a vaisya or a sudra. This is more or less as particular as it gets. But if we keep to the term itself, sva-dharma, where sva means own, then we might think of our own individual unique relationship with Krishna. So, sva-dharma in that sense would be our unique duty, our unique calling, or we might even say our unique genius. Each and every person has a very particular genius, and we must find our own “zone of genius.”
To get there, first I think it helps to start with the general idea of dharma and for this we have four particular sorts of virtues, of practises which are important and we are familiar with these: truthfulness, purity, tapasya(austerity, or self-discipline) and compassion. And related to each of these is a regulative principle. Now, here is an interesting thing: when we bring these principles in our lives simultaneously, then dharma manifests in our lives. And as a result of dharma entering into our lives, our thoughts, words and actions obtain special quality. Such a quality that we become supported. The word dharma means support. So, we become supported in our efforts to reach our goal and share Krishna-bhakti with others.
All this might feel a bit abstract, but it is meant to help to try to open our reflection to, “How can I effectively be an instrument in preaching of Krishna consciousness?” We need to wrestle with ourselves, “How am I imbibing these principles of dharma?” – and then with our sva-dharma, zone of genius, “How am I bringing it out for others, how do I get it over, across the bridge. How can I become excited to say something about Krishna consciousness to others?”
However V-U-C-A the world is, still we can do something!
—from a lecture by Krishna Kshetra Swami in Sadhu Bhavan (Poland) in August 2019