This last week at the Sunday Feast we had a Hare Krishna Network Questions and Answers Panel. We have three devotees: a greenhorn, a representative of the fairer sex, and a senior devotee, get up on stage and speak to questions from the audience. It’s a free-for-all, a royal rumble, open mic night at the Sunday Feast with a roving wireless handheld for the audience.

Having these three personalities answering the questions of the audience does a number of things:

• It showcases the diversity of the movement - there are many different types of people involved.
• It enables people to hear from someone like them - whether they are a first time visitor, a long time devotee, male, or female. Of course our target audience is the general public, rather than the choir. Sometimes a greenhorn presents things in a way that people can relate to, while the old timer gives a solid perspective that goes over people’s heads.
• It enables different perspectives on the one issue to be aired. There is more than one way to peel a mango, and there are always different tacts to take on answering a question. No tact is ever going to satisfy everyone, so with three people you get three times the opportunity to give someone an answer that speaks to them.
• It lets greenhorns get mic time and experience in public speaking without subjecting the audience to an excruciating experience.
• It’s an intense learning experience for the greenhorn. When you’ve just been flummoxed by a question in public, you’re real interested to hear how the seasoned hand is going to handle it.
• Taking questions from the audience enables a dialogue to take place, which automatically makes people more attentive and receptive, and it enables them to target your preaching for you.

There are probably some other points that slip my mind right now.

This week we had Elliott, Rasika Seva dd, and Tirtharaj Prabhu on the mic. Tirtharaj was on fire, giving solid answers that were preaching textbook material.

Another thing I noticed that he did, which my Guru Maharaja also did last week, is speak to something behind the question a lot of the time, rather than to the question itself. Elliott would a lot of times answer the literal question, and when it came to Tirtharaja, understanding more the mentality of the questioner, he would broaden the context out and address fundamental misconceptions and assumptions that underlay the question.

There is another format that I’ve been thinking of, based on a US TV show from the 70s called “Challenge My Sermon” (yeah Raivata, I’m thinking of you buddy . It’s kind of like the WWF of preaching engagements. I haven’t got a complete handle on how to pull it off yet, but I’ll keep you posted. When it does go down, I think Tirtharaj is the man in the corner wearing the white dhoti that I’d put my money on, if I were a gambling man, which of course I’m not.

Now I beat you’d love to hear the recording of the evening. However, I just checked to upload it, and it seems that the personality in charge of recording it connected the mp3 recorder to the wrong plug on the mixing desk. I think I have a recording of the one from three weeks ago around here, I’ll dig that up for your listening pleasure.