By Taraka das
Recently I have travelled to a number of ISKCON centres. The place that stood out for me as welcoming and warm was New Vrindavan. Every devotee that I encountered said, “Haribol. How are you?” or similar or just smiled. This really warmed my heart as I have often been to a new place and devotees did not acknowledge my presence At all. I know I am not alone in this experience, and may even be guilty of ignoring guests myself from time To time.
The question to ask ourselves is – what impression do we give our guests? Devotees in our ranks are surrendering to distribute books on the street and are inviting people back to the temple for a festival or weekend program. Some Of the people they contact, actually take up the invitation. Some people read a book or go to one of our restaurants, or yoga classes, meet a devotee or read Something on the internet to find out about our temples. There are many ways people contact the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. So when they pluck up enough courage to visit a temple, and then they spend some money and time getting there and walk in the door, if they are ignored it may result in them never coming again. If they are met by a new devotee and told they should give up everything and move into the temple (I heard a new devotee tell an elderly couple this at his first meeting of them as the couple were putting on their shoes, oh so slowly. I knew they were regular attendees and home worshipers) this could also result in guests never coming again, or finding another place to go. Of course there are other experiences in between these two extremes.
It comes down to understanding the needs, interests and concerns of those whom we are “ministering” to. Some people need a lot of space when they come for the first time and don’t want to be bombarded with philosophy or interrogation, some people need to feel included and some require information and association.
In doing some quick research I found a PowerPoint presentation from a church website outlining various methods for church services that could be adopted by those wishing to share the “gospel”, which is what we are trying to do as a movement. It suggests a consistent approach for church services, with a trained team, with a strategy.
Thinking about having trained devotees, a strategy and consistency is important as the reason I was pushed to write this article was due to consistent behaviour, not so conducive to our mission. A senior devotee from Bhaktivedanta Manor told me when she visited two temples in Australasia,
(one temple she visited every day for a week), not one devotee approached her, although she was wearing Vaisvana dress and attending the program. This made my heart sink, and I Wondered if she was wearing saffron with a danda, would it have made a lot of difference? Had she been featured in BTG or any other publication, would it have made a difference? Are we really so busy or unhappy that we don’t have the time to smile or greet newcomers to our temples? It appears that it is not only the guests from the public that we can ignore, but our own devotees – our extended family members.
What are the obstacles we face as an organisation to this problem?
Some of the problems I see are that most devotees have a major duty to do within the organisation, perhaps pujari, cook, Manager, book distributor, teacher etc. When the devotees are doing their services, there may not be time to spend on a new guest, whether devotee or not. The other difficulty is that unlike Churches, our temples are open from 4:30 am to 9:00pm and this means guests can come at any time during this period. We have a variety of guests, from various backgrounds with a multitude of needs. Another challenge is that many devotees live on the property or in the building, so that means they live, worship, do seva (work), and socialise all in the same place. This causes the boundaries to be quite blurred and sometimes to “be on duty” twenty-four hours a day can be overwhelming, especially in times of stress, or Ill-health. And suffice to say, other factors.
What are some of the solutions? Having a point of entrance where all the people come into a building does help this situation because someone may be situated at a reception or information desk. Then the responsibility of greeting guests is predominantly the devotee’s responsibility who is at the desk. Make a strategy for greeting guests when there are a lot expected, like at Sunday Feasts or Festivals. Have a team of trained devotees who like greeting guests. This is not natural for every person, so best to engage those who like new people.
Train devotees to greet guests, and to learn how best to meet their needs. And finally, we are supposed to be happy Hare Krishna, that means, we can at least give a smile to new people, even if we don’t have time to greet them, and treat them like bhagavan.