This Sunday we started our new series: Live to SERVE.
We’ve changed the format slightly. The opening kirtan was not getting much traction, so we’ve made it into a bhajan performance section. A lot of the people who come at 5pm are first time guests, and asking them to sing as soon as the walk in the door puts them on the spot a bit. When you are relying on them to sing and they don’t it puts you on the spot, and generally everyone feels a little uncomfortable. People are familiar with the “performance” format, and it allows them to relax.
The words are projected on the screen and different singers lead. Surprisingly we’ve found that this has actually increased people’s participation in the kirtan at the beginning.
The translation for the bhajans is in the handout that we debuted this week. Check it out here (.pdf, 184kb).
I gave the class “Service brings Significance“.
(.mp3, 16MB, 56kbps, mono)
It was the fifth time I delivered the class - the other four times were at the ashram. The development cycle was close to two weeks. Each time I gave the class we would sit around and discuss it, analyzing the different aspects. I recorded it each time and listened to it at least two times before giving it again.
The class weighed in at 40 minutes. I think that the next one I give will be 30 minutes. From the feedback I got from people the regulars were happy and would have been happy to get even more content, but I sensed the new guests wearing out.
This series is pitched squarely at our existing crowd, so it’s not intended so much for a first-time crowd. At the same time, we have to strike a balance. What I call the “logical chain”, the number of steps from the beginning of the argument to the conclusion was a little too long for a number of people. This can happen when their mind becomes overwhelmed with too many details, too much new information, or too many unfamiliar terms. People who are familiar with the philosophy could follow, and enjoyed it. For people without as much intellectual power or disadvantaged due to unfamiliarity, the class would have seemed like a collection of unrelated, random things, rather than a structured presentation. Intoxication, illicit sex life, meat eating, lack of austerity, and an unregulated lifestyle all conspire to destroy your intelligence as well.
Wherever I go I have people telling me: “People in this country are not intellectual. They don’t read, they don’t get into philosophy - they just like to chant and dance.”
Let me tell you something - 90% of the people in the world are like that. There is nothing wrong with pitching your presentation at the other 10%. Those are the people who are going to help you to make a massive prasadam distribution program for the other 90%. But if you don’t have some of those people on your team, and you just try to pitch to the 90% your movement will die out pretty quick due to lack of leadership.
Afterwards we discussed the class. I got some good feedback from Dhruva prabhu. Too many personal stories in one class. The logical chain was too long for a lot of people. Some people were really into it, however it left a lot of people behind. That’s ok, but I wasn’t expecting that, even after giving it four times with feedback each time and trying to find its weaknesses.
One thing is that as the test audience at the ashram are all experienced devotees they can’t see the class as first time guests will see it. They accept a lot of things whereas the mind of the first time listener is critically examining everything, which wears them out fast. Also, a pure lifestyle and study of scripture increases your intelligence. The other thing is that after hearing it three or four times you become blithely unaware of the impact on a first time listener.
Anyway, it was a ranging shot for calibration. Teach less for more. Teach less material for more comprehension. Teach less action points for more action.
