What we are all about is Authentic Community. That is the real product or service that we are peddling at Atma Yoga – that is the unique contribution that we have to make to humanity – our “value proposition”.

All the other things we have are to support and supplement that – but Authentic Community is the secret herbs and spices – it’s the secret ingredient in our special sauce.

First of all, Authentic Community means “bringing people together with Krishna in the center”.

This is the primary necessity for Authentic Community. We must have something in common. And what will that common point be? It must be the most inclusive, universal point. It must be a lasting point. That point can only be Krishna. If we put some other limited proposition or personality in the center of our community then we will have a temporary community, we will have a community which includes some and excludes others. Only by putting Vishnu, or Krishna, who is the source of all living entities and is all-pervading, in the center can we create Authentic Community. That is our real common interest - our common source of being.

Next, Authentic Community has other characteristics that distinguish it from the apparent community that characterizes our present day existence, and frustrates our search for satisfaction and a fulfilling and meaningful existence.

Authentic community is not created or experienced through passive consumption - it can only be created through contribution and participation. Today we frequently experience community through consumption. We sit back and passively consume goods, services, and even experiences, in order to experience community. We live vicariously through reality TV shows and read the meta-reality experience on news websites, and in this way experience community with the others around us. We sit on couches and stare at televisions. We buy from the same stores, go to the same shows, and in this way construct our identity and our common identity through consumption.

Authentic Community on the other hand is based on participation and contribution - “be yourself and make a contribution”. It’s not about being exploited in the name of being served - it’s about actively serving one another. Authentic Community is based on a spirit of service, one to another.

Even in a community where supposedly Krishna is at the center, without the spirit of active service, without participation and contribution, there can be no Authentic Community, only apparent community. While lip service is paid to the ideal of putting Krishna in the center, secretly, subtly everyone tries to put themselves in the center. Everyone will sit down and wait to be served, and no-one will stand up to serve. Rather, everyone should stand up to serve, and no-one should sit down to be served. If we find ourselves in that situation, with everyone standing up to serve, and no-one sitting down to serve, then we can turn outwards and see the millions of people who surround us, waiting to be served. Waiting to experience Authentic Community.

We need to give people the opportunity to engage in Authentic Community. They cannot engage if they are relegated to the position of “consumers”. We cannot be “consumers of Authentic Community”, we must be contributors, we must be co-creators, we must be active servants in order to experience Authentic Community.

We have to create opportunities for everyone to engage in Authentic Community. That is what it is all about.

The basis of human community is looking at the faces of other persons as you eat. That is the basic human experience of community. We have to give people the opportunity to do this, and to serve each other. By giving them the opportunity to take sanctified foodstuffs, to serve one another, and to sit in a comfortable environment where they can look at each other and converse, the first taste of Authentic Community can be had.

In the Atma Yoga side of things we have to strive for high quality, professionalism, depth of knowledge. On the Atma Lounge side of things we have to strive for Authentic Community - personalism, service, inclusion. If these things can be done along with high quality and professionalism, then all well and good. Otherwise high quality and professionalism must be sacrificed, because they are secondary considerations! People have to feel that they have some ownership of the space, that they have the opportunity to contribute and influence, that they have the opportunity to serve. Let them taste the nectar!