“I wanted to introduce this. Now I have given you ideas. You can do it. You are all intelligent. For Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s para-upakara… So you do good to others.”

- Srila Prabhupada, October 8, 1977 - Room Conversation, Vrndavana

How to construct a network.

The first persons to start the network are Vaisnava brahmanas. This means persons who understand the principles that underlie the network, and the purpose and person behind it.

The Vedic history tells us that in Satya Yuga there was no differentiation among the human population. In the recent Treta Yuga, as technology advances and further diversification of personality type takes place, the network arises. At the same time, the knowledge of the network, its structure and its response to the present environmental conditions arises within the hearts of the population (ref: SB. 9.14.43). As time progresses, it becomes more and more difficult for people to perceive this knowledge within their heart as the effect of the tamo-guna increasingly obscures consciousness.

Brahmanas are able to access this information, and they are also able to guide and enable others to access it.

The first step in recreating the network then, is to create a class of brahmanas. This means searching amongst the human population for personalities who are thought leaders, and then engaging them activities which will allow that ability to develop in alignment with divine purpose.

Here is the four step program:

1. Start with yourself.
2. Add another person.
3. Adjust the network.
4. Repeat from step 2.

Take a look at that, and you’re looking at the success formula of the Loft and Bhaktivrksa. In the case of Bhaktivrksa at a certain point you activate another person as the active principle - the “Bhaktivrksa leader”, and it expands exponentially.

Here are some guiding principles that should oversee the development of the network:

• Purpose-alignment. Align the individual with their purpose, and allow the macroscopic situation to reveal itself.
• Apply simple fundamental principles at the local level. Generally this means interpersonal relational principles.
• Allow the network to develop organically in response to the environment.

Part of the response to the environment consists of people who will interact with the network. We have to have some faith that there is a divine plan behind everything that happens, and that specifically the hand of the Lord is in our lives, and that everything that happens, everyone that comes along, is doing so under Krishna’s guidance.

Understand that everyone who comes has been sent by Krishna:

1. To help you with your personal development through working on your relationship with them
2. To help the development of the network as everyone works on the relationships with that person
3. So that you can personally help them with their development and discovery of their purpose
4. So that the network can provide the support and the multidimensional feedback that they need to discover their purpose

How the network creates lift

Imagine that you have a blanket. There are four people, one on each corner of the blanket. They begin to pull in different directions.

The four people represent the four broad categories of Vedic personality sankhya. The blanket represents their relationships with each other. Their pull in different directions represents their different natures.

When there is a healthy tension between the two, their differing natures and their interpersonal relationships, the blanket lifts up.

With four people of the same nature they simply drag the blanket behind them as they march off. With two or three people the blanket will not lift - all four different types of people are needed. If the pull of their nature overcomes their interpersonal relationships, then the blanket will be torn - they will move apart, and the lift of society will be stopped.

Lessons from this:

• We don’t have to like everyone, but we should understand that “Commanders and Soldiers should not have likes and dislikes”. Everyone is necessary, and no-one should be eliminated or excluded.
• By working through our differences in dialogue and with mutual respect we create the lift in the network. By trying to force everything our way we might “get what we want”, but we destroy the network effect. No one of us has the complete picture or the “one true perspective”.
• We need to work on our interpersonal relationships and balancing everything through direct dialogue and personal interaction. This is the glue of the network. When we rely on impersonal relationships and “position” and “authority” instead of influence, it is one step away from asuric varnasrama-dharma, if it hasn’t already become it.
• Multidimensional feedback is necessary. Just as all political systems are based on an oppositional tension in order to create a balanced system, so the network works on the basis that diverse community has an averaging effect, ameliorating potentially destructive imbalances. We should honour and preserve that diversity. Everyone must understand that they have to compromise. No-one is going to get it “all their own way”. No-one.
• We discover ourselves in community. Although yesterday I talked about examing yourself, because each of us is only a part, it is by examining ourselves relative to everyone else that we understand where we fit in. That’s based on understanding how we apply our gifts in serving the others around us. I’ll write something more on this later.

To be more effective in Network-centric preaching, whether it is Loft or Bhaktivrksa, or whatever particular instrument or model we are using, we need to increase in our emotional intelligence - our ability to empathize and interact with others - our ability to subsume our own ego needs in deference to the wider mission and the good of the many, and our compassion, which gives rise to and is composed of both of these.