Here is something else that I’ve been thinking about, in the category of “what works, what doesn’t, and why?”

Today I went to the yoga school where I will be doing my yoga teacher training over the next year. I arrived there to find two students outside. As I approached they told me that the class had been cancelled. While we stood there talking a fourth potential student appeared.

Returning home I shared this experience with some of the others, and we related it to the recent consideration we have been giving to whether or not to hold the Sunday Feast this coming Sunday, which is part of the Easter long weekend.

I’ve been thinking about this for a number of years, actually, and here’s my conclusion thus far:

When we put the word out: “Come to the Sunday Feast” we are inviting people to come. We want people to come. If people then respond to this invitation, and come, and find that we are closed, then what does that communicate to them?

“We don’t care about you. You don’t matter.”

That’s a problem.

In Peru I practiced eka-kirtan-vrata. One Kirtan. One Lecture. (I had a 64MB mp3 player, so I had little choice - props to Raivata for that). I only listened to Sri Prahlad’s Harer Nama Volume One, and the Contemporary Urban Preaching Seminars, again and again, trying to extract the essential nectar from them.

Here is one of the things that I discerned to be a guiding principle (you can also read it mentioned in HH Devamrita Swami’s online diary here [paragraph 7]):

The difference between a temple and a preaching center

In the temple the Deity is the center of everything. Everything revolves around the Deity and the service of the Deity.

A preaching center is a center with a different focus. In the preaching center everything revolves around the guest and the service of the guest.

This is an important and fundamental point.

This is an important and fundamental point.

This is an important and fundamental point.

In the Pancaratra-pradipa (the Deity Worship manual for ISKCON) it explains that if a guest arrives, especially the atithi, or unexpected guest, then one should stop their adoration of the Deity and serve the guest, completing the Deity worship later.

The unexpected guest is a representative of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Narayana.

So even if we told everyone there that we were closing next week, unexpected people would come.

Imagine it - we’re putting out the message: “Please come, please come”, and then someone responds to that, and comes along, and we’re nowhere to be found.

It reminds me of Srila B.R. Sridhara Swami’s characterization of the 10th offense in chanting: “To not have complete faith in the transcendental power of the Holy Name and to maintain material attachments, even after understanding so many instructions on this matter.”

He says: “It is like inviting Krishna into our house as a guest, and then ignoring him completely.”

Call me a fanatic, but we are not going to close. I know that some people were a little upset that sometimes we cannot all attend all of the temple festivals, but hopefully this will help people to appreciate that this is not whimsical or separatist. Simply the fact is that for our outreach programs we are saying to the people: “You please come, and we will serve you.”

And we mean it.