Nityananda-kari devi dasi wrote to share her realization of the three essential elements of Authentic Community:

• Sadhana
• Seva
• Sanga

Here are my further comments on these points:

Sadhana refers to essential spiritual practice. Sadhana is the external gateway to a substantial “inner experience” of transcendence. Krishna Consciousness means consciousness or internal reality. The outer practices begin as forms, but through dutiful practice they reveal hidden reality within. Srila B.V. Tripurari Swami wrote a nice poem about this:

O rite and ritual
the light to reality,
What is your heart?
the river runs freely
I bathe with regularity;
the bell rings, all rise,
for whom doth thou toll?
then rhyme and rhythm,
the drum beats and
we are driven to dance
and song in abandon,
what merry have you made,
and why do I ask on?
O rite and ritual
your performance habitual,
when will we part-
the door between reality
to see your heart of spontaneity.

Mechanical practice alone won’t cut it, but neither will neglect of practice. It’s the middle path.

Social recognition didn’t make the cut for the necessary and essential three S’s. Having other people around us consider us to be a model devotee is no substitute for our inner cultivation. The praise of others around us, while alluring and so much easier than actual application to the process, rings hollow if we are internally empty, and the falsity of the charade cannot be maintained for long.

Our external sensual orientation since time immemorial, enflamed by present-day consumer culture and drawn to enjoyment of the objects of senses, takes us out of touch with our internal reality. We tend to gravitate to the externals of the tradition that our practice comes in and social standing easily and naturally replaces Sadhana and its internally transformative effects as our measuring stick for our progress.

Seva means “service”. It refers to actual engagement in activity, again mechanically in the beginning. The conscious engagement in service cultivates an internal service mentality, transforming our identity, and allowing us to understand our real relationship with reality. Service should be performed under guidance, and it is an eternal function of the living entity.

Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment - chop wood, carry water

Without the service mentality there is no question of Krishna Consciousness. If you don’t have a service mentality, then do service - you’ll get one.

Over the past few days we’ve discussed cutting off our sikhas. We’re not going to do it because everyone will freak out and start saying that we’re deviating. It will also cause some disturbance in our public profile - community needs continuity. The important thing to understand here is that “Sikha” is not one of the essential three. Get rid of your social standing and your sikha, and you can still be Krishna conscious. Get rid of Sadhana and Seva, on the other hand, and it doesn’t matter how big your sikha is or how popular you are at pizza parties.

As new people come to restock the Red Hill ashram the last thing I want is for them to start thinking: “Hey, these guys have a funny haircut. I’ll get a hair cut like them, and then I’ll be one of the boys.” Being one of the boys means Sadhana, Seva, and Sanga, not Sikha. Let me tell you a story that really brings this out:

In Peru I had many adventures and met many con men. One such personality was a guy named Willy who showed up at the temple with a proposal. He wanted to utilize an unused space in the downtown temple during the day to give a course. The course was to be a certified course on “Inyectables”, which where you learn to give injections (South America is… different). His proposal was that he would charge these people money, and give me a cut.

In discussions it became apparent to him (maybe it was when I told him point blank) that I wasn’t interested in money. It should have been obvious from the start - you don’t go from Australasia to an inner-city South American temple for the economic benefits. Anyway, he started trying to figure out what made me tick. I helped him out by telling him: “I’m a missionary. I came here to preach”.

I was not at all swayed by his attempts to exploit my self-interest, but I considered that his coming was an arrangement of the Supreme, and went along with him to see what would happen.

With zero start up capital he secured an inner city space. Next he put up a sign on the street outside: “Employment: Chicas wanted - Apply within”. He soon had a steady stream of young ladies looking for work, and a stack of CVs on his desk. The terms of employment were simple. The girls would be trained for two weeks, with no pay, then they would go out and canvass in universities and schools for the course, and as students started coming and enrolling, money would be generated. The girls would be paid, and we would get a cut from the whole thing.

It was impressive to see him at work, hustling like anything. Meanwhile I was quietly running background checks on him and insulating the operation from the temple.

After one interview he called me over. “Hey, Sita-pati. This chica, she wants to ask you something. She’s interested in your religion”. The girl stood there, embarassed. “Go on,” he prodded her, “Ask.”

She stared at the floor and blushed. “I was just wondering what you do here….” she blurted out.

I explained briefly what our temple operational concept was. “Okay,” said Willie, giving her a push toward me and motioning in the direction of our small temple gift shop. “Now you can take her over there and get her one of those tunics that you guys wear.”

That’s what you call an extremely superficial external conception of what this is all about, and we do not want that.

Willy didn’t last.

Sanga means community. We “find ourselves” in community, not in isolation. We are part of something much bigger than any one of us. None of us is the complete whole, self-sufficient. Our identity is integral to the identity of everyone around us. Relationship, or rasa in Sanskrit, is fundamental and eternal. Community starts with realizing that we are not the center of the universe, and it goes from there.

“Sanga” without sadhana and seva, however, simply becomes social standing. It’s apparent community, not authentic community. At the moment of death we stand alone, and the condition of our heart is tested. All the fallible soldiers that surround us cannot save us at that moment.

What’s another S that we can disqualify from the three S’s? How about “sari”. The previous example showed that how you dress is not an essential characteristic. We need to be careful about relying too much on the external show - the sikha, the social standing, the sari, and allowing that to make us feel like we are “devotees”, when what we need to do is focus on Sadhana, Seva, and Sanga, in order to become transformed. Let’s be aspiring devotees forever, striving to do something, anything, to become a devotee, and never feeling that we have “made it”.

Here is an interesting article about Atma Yoga from 2003 that includes a brief excerpt from Prema Pradipa by Bhaktivinode Thakura where he mentions internal indifference to external formalities, along with external acceptance of them.

It is also mentioned in his Sri Krishna Samhita. Shukavak N. Dasa describes this in his book “Hindu Encounter with Modernity” when he analyzes the Sri Krishna Samhita in the fifth chapter:

Bhaktivinoda begins the Sri-krishna-samhita with a description of two types of men, one he calls Bharabahis, meaning literally one who carries a burden and the other Saragrahis or one who searches for the essence. The Bharabahis are the masses of men who are attached to religious externals (lingas), which he classifies as customs, ritual and doctrine. He points out that sectarian fighting and religious discrimination are the result of the Bharabahi’s over attachment to religious externals.

In contrast to the Bharabahis are the Saragrahis, or the great souls, who are unattached to religious externals and spend their time seeking the essence of truth. The Saragrahis are few in number and do not organize themselves into religious sects. They recognize the Bharabahi’s need for religious externals and so they participate in the use of these externals to a certain extent.

Anyway, we’re not going to shave off our sikhas, because I know that will disturb everyone’s minds, but we should be ready to do it at a moment’s notice, for example, if we have to go to Singapore to preach, where you can’t have a sikha. Being attached to sikha, sari, and social standing is not the goal. Being attached to Sadhana, Seva, and Sanga is. And then there is Lord Rsabhadeva’s instruction to not be attached to the process… but we’ll leave that consideration for the mahatmas. I’ll settle for attachment to the real process, as distinguished from the apparent one.