28 – Damodar Prabhu: The Challenges of Being a Temple President

Damodar Prabhu: So he woke up a few minutes later with the whirr of helicopters, one of these diffusing robots looking in through the window, a crowd of snipers around. And all  they’ve done is nod off while chanting gayatri.

Krsnendu Das: It’s time to get inspired. Join us as we celebrate devotees success stories. Preaching, business, community development, leadership and personal growth, all from the point of view of Krishna consciousness. Our goal: to help you to make your life successful.

Hare Krishna, welcome back. This is episode 28 and we are meeting my friend and mentor Damodar Prabhu again. We’re going to be discussing about his life. How he came to Krishna Consciousness and what it’s like to be a temple president and the challenges that it requires. Just before we get into that interview, I’d like to let you know that if you would like to get some more training then you can go to successfulvaisnavas.com/class. And that’s where you can find the registration or the replays of recent trainings that I’ve been doing.

The most recent training which I’ll be presenting shortly is about how to align your life so that you can make money in a way that inspires you and which is connected to Krishna consciousness so that we can have a life where everything that we do is going in the same direction. Instead of making money over here and then in our spare time doing some preaching, we can actually have a life where all of our energy is towards developing our own Krishna consciousness and sharing it with others while at the same time making a living doing it.

So I hope you find that topic interesting. And depending when you listen to this podcast, you might find that there’s other training available when you go to successfulvaisnavas.com/class. So with that said, let’s go and listen to the interview with Damodar Prabhu and see what life is like as a temple president of the Hare Krishna movement.

Krsnendu Das: I’m so happy I’m here with my godbrother and very dear friend and mentor Damodar Prabhu again. We spoke about 7 Habits of Highly Effective People last time we were together and today it’s going to be a little bit more free form because we always have really interesting conversations. So I have faith that Krishna will guide us to speak about something that may be of interest to others.

And I know for sure I’ll find something of value out of it. So it’s nice to meet up again Prabhu.

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah, nice to see you again.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, so I think last time when we spoke we never really gave an introduction so much about how you became a devotee. Maybe that would be kind of interesting place to start. Just give it a little bit of your background.

Damodar Prabhu: I was one of those fortunate souls that was born in a family of devotees.

Although they weren’t active at the time of my birth. From the age maybe about five, my uncle was involved with ISKCON, became Srila Prabhupada’s disciple. In the age of eight, I was visiting the temples, and 17 I joined. In fact, I used to spend every summer with him from about the age of eleven upwards. And it was always weird going back to the non-devotee life having lived as a devotee for all intents and purposes on this simple living, high thinking farm. Amazing.

Krsnendu Das: So you went to a Catholic school?

Damodar Prabhu: Went to a Catholic boarding school.

Krsnendu Das: How was that, knowing what you know as a devotee at the time, what was it like being in a Catholic School?

Damodar Prabhu: There must have already been some kind of interest in God because voluntarily I went to mass every single day. It was a morning mass at like quarter to seven or something in the mornings and I didn’t miss one. So there was already some kind of searching and eventually it just didn’t really provide big answers to the big questions or satisfactory answers. But the taste was somehow there.

Krsnendu Das: Interesting. When I was at school, I was at the Anglican school and about the age of 11 then they have confirmation class. Because in the Anglicans you get baptized when you’re born basically. You don’t have much say in the matter. So there is a period where you make the choice that I’m going to be a Christian.

So I went to the first confirmation class and then I thought “Oh, wait a minute, I’m not going to just sign up for this. I want to see what my options are”, at that stage. But around about the same time I volunteered to be a sacristan or something to help at the the chapel and so I went there and they said “Oh sorry, we’re full. We’ve got enough already.”

Damodar Prabhu: Everyone’s full.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah. Yeah, totally. It was like I wanted to try to learn about God and you do some service and they’re like “Ah we have enough pujaris or whatever. You just reminded me  about that story. Yes, so you obviously already had that attraction to God, but you found that the Catholic upbringing wasn’t as complete as what you were getting from Krishna consciousness?

Damodar Prabhu: I remember a conversation with my grandmother when I was maybe about nine. I think she was readying me to go to this Catholic boarding school just because it offered a really good private education. I’m talking about some belief that we didn’t die, that possibly we simply went on to whatever.

Maybe that we didn’t even know that we’ve died. That we somehow kept on living out our life in whatever way we were destined to do. So I just remember later thinking, “Wow, where did that come from? Having those kind of beliefs about existence.”

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, cool. What was it like once you joined the temple, so to speak, when you were 17, you became a brahmacari?

Damodar Prabhu: Initially it was a little shocking because the ISKCON that I’d learned about was the ISKCON in the 70s, which is when my uncle had been involved, Uncle and Aunt. It was 1984. Bhagavan was at the helm of the UK yatra.  There was a lot of rank pulling is how I remember it.

I remember being put in my place a lot and thinking “Oh, okay. This is not quite the loving community that I’d been led to believe it might be. It was still ecstatic. I mean initially I thought I’ll join for three months and then I’ll go back and open an ashram in Nottingham where I came from.

Krsnendu Das: Right. 1970s style.

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah.

Krsnendu Das: That’s what you do, right? You go there for a few months and then you start a temple.

Damodar Prabhu: That’s the program. The one book that I’d read before joining was Every Town and Village. And so that was the impression I had of what the Krishna conscious movement was.  But it was ecstatic. I mean, a typical day for a bhakta in those days, we were in a little house called Oldenham, which is about five miles from The Manor.

So we used to get up a little bit earlier to make sure we got to mangalarati. Prabhupada used to wake us up, Prabhupada-type happening album or whatever. Exactly. Great way to wake up. Everyone used to scurry around, used to jump in the van, get to the manor, did our entire morning program then go and wash pots. Probably spent all of our midday washing pots. Then I think we used to go on harinam. Harinam there. It was a pretty nice program.

And it was very quick that I realized oh you don’t just kind of… Once you move in. This is it, this is what you do.

I remember when I was going home to see my grandmother for Christmas. I was really nervous about approaching Sivarama Swami to ask permission. Because he seemed so stern on the exterior.  But he actually he was very warm and he then asked me if I wanted to join the National Sankirtan party upon returning. In those days, sankirtan devotees didn’t belong to individual temples, but out of a national party. Although it was called Sankirtan, in those days we were selling paintings and prints.  So did that for a few months and then probably late 85, everyone converted over to book distribution. Maybe I’ve got the dates wrong.

Krsnendu Das: Alright.

Damodar Prabhu: But sankirtan became sankirtan.

Krsnendu Das: Wow. That’s really cool. It took a little bit longer for that to happen in New Zealand.

Damodar Prabhu: I may have got the dates wrong.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah.

Damodar Prabhu: But that’s the way I remember it. Sometime around there, I became part of the Soho street temple, having been on national traveling. That was disbanded.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah.

Damodar Prabhu: So this might have been when Bhagavan left in 86.

Krsnendu Das: What was the catalyst for that to happen?

Damodar Prabhu: Maybe it was Bhagavan leaving.

Krsnendu Das: Right. They said go back to the roots type of thing or something.

Damodar Prabhu: Wulther Heath, which was the holding company which used to organize all of that side of things was wound up and I think everything was then distributed back out to the individual temples.

The exact chronography of all of that, I can’t remember.

Krsnendu Das: Interesting. So then you went to Soho Street after that?

Damodar Prabhu: Soho street and I’ll still have a lot of travelling sankirtan. We used to go out in vans. That was quite an austere program, living in the van, out of a bucket. Yeah, the van ashram. But it was also really exciting particularly to do book distribution.

I did book distribution in a few different forms. There was something called the board where they go and ask the donations and give a book at the end. Then there was periods of time where I distributed books in a dhoti and even had a little book table where I used to invite people to come and get a piece of laddu take a book.

Krsnendu Das: Nice.

Damodar Prabhu: I was never quite as prolific as the board. But it was probably more fulfilling because it was so straightforward.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, I remember when you came to New Zealand, in Auckland. That’s how I first remember you in your dhoti doing a little Charlie Chaplin kind of shuffle up to people and then you’re giving them books in college.

Damodar Prabhu: Charlie Chaplin shuffle?

Krsnendu Das: Yeah.

Damodar Prabhu: That I don’t remember.

Krsnendu Das: It would be sort of like I know you had your kind of motions that were quite amazing that sort of grabbed people’s attention and then you’d walk up to them.

Damodar Prabhu: I realized later, I was doing some work professionally later. This would be mid-naughties for a retail consultancy and I was trying to show people in a retail store how to approach the customer. They were just terrified approaching a customer. Especially in England, it’s just not done. People are browsing, you leave them to it.

But the goal was to have them approach the customer, engage the customer in a conversation. And I realized I’d still had techniques from when I was a book distributor.

Krsnendu Das: Right.

Damodar Prabhu: And it was almost like a mystic ability where you could pull someone’s attention and engage them in a conversation fearlessly. I had never really thought about it before until I could see that these poor people I was trying to educate about doing this didn’t have the slightest idea. It was true.

I mean it wasn’t that you had a perfect mystic siddhi, but on book distribution sometimes just by wanting someone to just stop, they would stop almost helplessly.

On book distribution sometimes just by wanting someone to just stop, they would stop almost helplessly. Share on X

Krsnendu Das: Amazing.

Damodar Prabhu: Lord Caitanya’s empowerment.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, and it’s obviously great training as well. You’ve learned very useful life skills from it.

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah, and I’d certainly look back on those days with great fondness. I haven’t been able to do book distribution now for a few decades. I should do that again sometime.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, I actually went out about a year ago after not doing it for a few years. It was a unusual feeling but it was cool to be connected to it again in those memories of those cool times. My wife is the book distributor in the family. Now she is totally fired up.

She listens to Vaisesika Prabhu’s podcast every second and she just goes out whenever she gets the chance. It’s really far out. So you were doing traveling sankirtan out of Soho street and then at some stage, what was the next step, you went to Dublin or something like that?

Damodar Prabhu: No, something Leceister for a while, even went up to Sheffield and thought about opening a place but it was lots of strange goings-on in terms of me changing ashram.

So I was in Soho street through till about 91,  and then yeah, we went over to Belfast.

Krsnendu Das: Belfast, that’s it. Yeah.

Damodar Prabhu: So just after I got married, Sivarama Swami asked me to run Belfast temple.

Krsnendu Das: So that must have been quite a shift from doing traveling book distribution and different things like that and then having your own temple to kind of be in charge of.

Damodar Prabhu: Well, I’ve been looking at other ways to maintain my ashram but His Holiness Bhakti Charu Maharaja was insisting. Now he wanted me to work full time for ISKCON. So I didn’t really know how to reconcile that. I went in front of Radha Londonisvara and prayed for some guidance as to how, particularly because at that time I was a bit disillusioned with the society.

And I remember thinking “Well the only way I could really do that is if I was at the decision-making power to change things”.

Krsnendu Das: Right.

Damodar Prabhu: It was the very next day that Sivaram Swami asked me to go to Belfast.

Krsnendu Das: Krishna’s arrangement, eh.

Damodar Prabhu: So it was nice. It was a mixed experience. I think I reveled in the responsibility but I don’t think I was a particularly mature manager. I think the devotees, they let me know.

Krsnendu Das: So what were the things you were disillusioned about that you mentioned before?  To do with the society or was it more personal things?

Damodar Prabhu: It was just viewing ISKCON leaders generally, I think by this time Prabhupada’s letters had come out and I’m just thinking I’m not sure that the decision-making is always driven by fidelity to the spiritual master’s instructions.  Sometimes it feels like decisions are made that are driven by maintenance of the temple as opposed to the ideals of the society. I mean very general but I don’t want to get too specific.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, that sort of thing. So you felt when you were temple president that you can try to give a better example?

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah. I think a lot of people do sit in judgment on temple leaders without necessarily ever having sat in the seat.

Krsnendu Das: Right.

Damodar Prabhu: And I certainly became much more compassionate and understanding that these aren’t easy roles.  Srila Prabhupada’s instructions are various and vast. Sometimes very exacting.  And you may have to be making do with a very very small budget that minimal human resources. My gut feel is that 99.9% of ISKCON leaders are very well-intentioned doing the best I can with what they have, whether that’s the training they have, the resources they have. I think it’s very easily possibly even tempting to scapegoat for everything that’s not right about the society. So somehow just having authority if you hate magic mother.

My gut feel is that 99.9% of ISKCON leaders are very well-intentioned doing the best I can with what they have, whether that's the training they have, the resources they have. Share on X

Krsnendu Das: So you were in Belfast and giving it a go? And then what happened next?

Damodar Prabhu: Giving it a go. I mean, I think we were maybe only about 10 residents.

Krsnendu Das: Is it the temple that’s in an island or is that a different place?

Damodar Prabhu: No, this was in Belfast.

Krsnendu Das: Right, it’s actually in the city.

Damodar Prabhu: It’s right on the border lands between the two communities, those were the two warring in communities, almost at no-man’s land.

Krsnendu Das: Oh, nice.

Damodar Prabhu: So just a few hundred meters, one way is Poleglass, which is a Catholic area. Just down the road the other way is Dunmurry, which is a Protestant area.

Krsnendu Das: Wow, did you feel unsafe at times?

Damodar Prabhu: Not specifically there at the temple. I remember once my wife and I went to see a movie called In the Name of the Father, which was about a wrongly convicted IRA guy. I mean he wasn’t IRA, but he was in turn I think they called the Birmingham Six or something. And it was how they were mistreated. So we were there in the Catholic area, watching the film with a British accent. That was scary.

Krsnendu Das: I remember what Charu Nandra Maharaja was telling me that he was in, I think it was in Belfast and someone came up to him in the street and said “What are you, a Protestant or a Catholic?” And then he said “I’m a Hare Krishna”. He says, “Are you a Protestant Hare Krishna or a Catholic Hare Krishna?”

Damodar Prabhu: These are legendary. I remember, I think it was Chandra Karushi Prabhu who told me that someone had been delivering books in a nondescript van. So just a plain old white transit van, in the back all these boxes, unmarked and they pulled over into a lay-by to chant the Gayatri and fallen asleep.

So there was a body that for all intents and purposes looked lifeless with a string around his thumb. And apparently he used to sleep with his eyes open, which of course didn’t help. So he woke up a few minutes later with the whirr of helicopters, one of these diffusing robots looking in through the window, a crowd of snipers around and all they’ve done is nod off while chanting gayatri.

Again, I don’t know to what extent these are legendary.

Krsnendu Das: Well as they say, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Damodar Prabhu: So Belfast was a good, you know cutting my teeth. It really sobered me about what it meant to run a temple community. I have to say it was too much for my wife at the time.

She was attached dressing on a shower and Ireland wasn’t particularly good climate for her health. So we moved back to London.  That would have been year ’92.

Krsnendu Das: And then you became the temple president in Soho Street pretty much straightaway.

Damodar Prabhu: I became the temple manager initially which was a sort of reverse, a reworked version of the vice president.

Reasonably quickly, I was a member of Parama Karuna’s congregation of preaching department for a little while. But then Sivarama Swami asked me if I’d become the temple manager,  which essentially meant that the temple president role was a preaching-only kind of role with all the financial responsibility and other decisions living with the temple manager.  Kesava Bharati Prabhu was the temple president.

Krsnendu Das: Right.

Damodar Prabhu: But in maybe it was about a year later or something like that, and it’s quite possibly just wasn’t happy that that arrangement was viable.  Yeah, then I became a TP. I was maybe TP for about a year and a half.

Krsnendu Das: That wasn’t too long. And then you went to the Manor after that?

Damodar Prabhu: When the Manor came up, the Soho team at the time was really a galvanized team, really strong. And it felt like if we could get the Manor and Soho street working as a unit, working as a symbiotic relationship, that would be the best possible outcome around. The Manor was still attracting new devotees because it had the Bhakti program but it didn’t have a downtown location. Soho Street had the downtown location, but it had a limit on how many people are could have. So it felt like, particular because they were so close together, but there’s often border wars in terms of who gets the free book distribution where that it seemed like why don’t they were together as one integrated unit? So that was the hypothesis. Akandadi Prabhu had been the temple president and then he retired and Bhrigupati Prabhu who was actually the president became the TP of Soho street.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, I stayed there for a little while when he was in charge.

Damodar Prabhu: Okay.

Krsnendu Das: That was kind of fun.

Damodar Prabhu: We have the same kind of arrangement where Vasudev Prabhu, who had been running the restaurant, became a temple manager and had all the financial responsibilities and so on  and Bhrigupati Prabhu would be the preacher. But I think that changed after about six months or something.

Krsnendu Das: Yup. You mentioned Parama Karuna. He’s a good friend of yours, I think he passed away recently.

Damodar Prabhu: Passed away, yeah, shocking.

Krsnendu Das: Last year or so.

Damodar Prabhu: Something like that just over a year ago.

Krsnendu Das: Tell me a bit about him. It sounds like he was quite a thoughtful devotee and he did some pretty mass preaching.

Damodar Prabhu: Really cool devotee. He was a temple president’s best friend. I’d say he’s like a vizier, someone who’s a great advisor.  It was him, through Sridhar Maharaj, that introduced me to the Seven Habits as a way of thinking about a cultural change. And that was very much about what was the visitor experience like? How could we create only the best guest experience in Soho Street?

Krsnendu Das: That’s right. I remember Sridhar Maharaja was really into that. He showed us some videos of Disneyland and things like that.

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah. He was into Tom Peters, into others. Parama was definitely the major brains trust for me when I was a TP. A wonderful devotee, very thoughtful and a big loss.

Krsnendu Das: Hmm. You mentioned that he was doing some congregational preaching, what was that like?

Damodar Prabhu: He was working with another devotee, called Jada Bharat. They were thinking of how do we transform the temple’s reliance on sort of a hand-to-mouth book distribution income to one where favorable Indian families provided a monthly or weekly or annual donation. Like the patron program at the Manor. And they built that up. They had cans in people’s homes and lots of programs in people’s homes. So I’d probably go out as a TP about three nights a week to programs in people’s homes. Yeah, he was building that up. He was very forward-thinking.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, I met him briefly when I was there and I was kind of impressed by his demeanor. He was quite a kind of obviously thoughtful person and it was quite interesting some of the things that he said. And he confronted a few devotees, I was at one of the istaghostis there and he said that, without going into details, he sort of confronted people. But, he’d get you thinking.

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah. Yeah, he was ahead of his time.

Krsnendu Das: So were you in touch with him when you’re at Bhaktivedanta Manor as well?

Damodar Prabhu: Unfortunately, it took me such a long time to get connected at the Manor that by the time I really got my feet under the table there, most of that temple council had been disbanded.

Krsnendu Das: Right. The crack team had sort of broken up.

Damodar Prabhu: Mahadyuti Prabhu came in and he needed to establish a different way of doing things. So it was understandable he wanted to build his own team. But that opportunity to really try and run the two as one sort of fell away.

Krsnendu Das: What were some of the challenges that he had running the temple and what was your experience like in general? You obviously would have been quite excited to have that opportunity to go there. And there must have been challenges as well.

Damodar Prabhu: At the Manor?

Krsnendu Das: Yeah.

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah, I think one of the biggest challenges of the Manor is tensions between the sub constituent communities. So they’ve got the older Srila Prabhupada disciples who are accustomed to how things have been for so many years.  You’ve got the fast growing Indian communities that in many ways has saved the temple. Yeah, there was just some tensions between those two communities.

So trying to help everyone feel valued, connected, that their contribution mattered, that’s probably one of the biggest challenges. I think that probably faces temple presidents everywhere is often just the upkeep of the place. To be fair ,the Manor is so buoyant financially, the upkeep isn’t actually as stressful. It is so straight every finance meeting we were looking for a few grand to make sure we could keep the lights on.

Krsnendu Das: Right.

Damodar Prabhu: Belfast was a smaller problem, but it was the same degree of frequency and the same sort of anxieties. Never really felt quite the same at the Manor. It was more about ensuring everyone felt that they’re valued, loved.

Krsnendu Das: What do you think about the idea that Prabhupada’s Pranam Mantra is about preaching to the west and that the Indians have taken over and you know this kind of thing and that we should try to preach to the local people more and that sort of thing.

Damodar Prabhu: I don’t see the successful  take up by the Indian community as problematic. I think that was always going to happen and I think in many ways we should be flattered that the presentation  of Krishna consciousness is viewed by them as that much more exciting and authentic than any other offerings. It’s not like we’re the only providers of sanatana dharma in the Western world. I think the standard of daily worship, the liveliness of the kirtan, the quality of the prasad, total temple experience.

In many ways, we should be flattered that the presentation of KC is viewed by (the Indian community) as more exciting and authentic than any other offerings. Share on X

That’s something that they naturally have responded to and so we should be excited that we’ve been successful with that community. The imbalance or the relative disproportionate level of interest from that community versus locals simply highlights that we’ve not done enough local preaching. So it’s not that there’s a deviation that’s happened or that we’ve given the keys to the kingdom to somebody else. We just neglected to do enough local preaching, which takes far more imagination because the serving up of ‘Here’s a wonderful temple with gorgeous deities’ and so on is not going to appeal in the same way relevantly to the average person on the street in the UK, in the US, Australia and New Zealand.

It's not that there's a deviation that's happened. We just neglected to do enough local preaching. Share on X

Finding a relevant thing that captures people’s imaginations. We’re getting it now a little bit with the kirtan movement and so do the yoga circles because obviously there’s an adjacency there. They have a similar interest. Many of those people are already vegetarian, are already thinking about bettering the planet. So clearly our messaging naturally coincides in some ways .Although to be fair, I don’t think we’re making as much as we could of the fact that we’ve got messages around natural living, we’ve got messages around balanced lives and so on. I think Srila Prabhupada was careful that we don’t water down Krishna consciousness to still be appealing. But it’s kind of weird that we’re not necessarily the loudest voices in the kirtan movement.

And that sometimes we are seen as a kind of Orthodoxy that’s a little  stuffy or up itself in those kind of circles. That’s my general thoughts.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah.

Damodar Prabhu: I think we need to find a way to reinvigorate.  A lot of that has to do with imagination, a lot of this has to do with hard yacker.

Krsnendu Das: Just try, and try things and see what works and what doesn’t work and getting out there giving it a go.

Damodar Prabhu: Srila Prabhupada referred to preaching as an austerity, the willingness to face rejection. Yeah, I mean gallons of blood to make a devotee. Double those kind of expressions are there that show us that maybe once we could pay the bills and keep the lights on, our hunger and appetite dissipated.

Krsnendu Das: Alright.

Damodar Prabhu: So that could be one of the challenges. This is the old saying about not using the deities to make a livelihood. Srila Prabhupada was really really warned heavily about that.  And the challenges that being in community has been historically so generous that in fact, they’ve kept the wolf from the door.  And maybe yeah, they’ve taken away some of the impetus. Not intentionally. It’s taken away some of the impetus for people to get off their behinds.

Krsnendu Das: Right. Some people argue that only Westerners can really preach to, you know local people can only preach to the local people. What do you think about that idea?

Damodar Prabhu: The world’s multicultural now.  I’m not convinced. I mean for instance Jay Shetty is reaching quite an international audience. I don’t think people go “Oh, he’s for Indians” because he happens to be an Indian.  So I think people are probably a lot more open.  Mostly, they just need to know that you’re relevant.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah.

Damodar Prabhu: And that’s not exclusively a  thing. But I do think there may be some truth that if I’m an Anglo-Saxon person coming on to the temple and everywhere I look there’s no other Anglo-Saxons because there are only people from India, then I might go “Hm, this looks like something for Indian people”.

Krsnendu Das: Yup.

Damodar Prabhu: I can appreciate that.

Krsnendu Das: Yup.

Damodar Prabhu: But I think we also have to be careful not to identify with the body as we do all of this. Because if we place a different value on someone from an Indian background than we do for someone from Western background, if we think someone from a Western background is more of an asset or a more significant conversion, I think that’s getting dangerously close to a form of racism, if not racist.

Krsnendu Das: It’s amazing how even when devotees join the movement, they still have their racism. I’ve had that experience just last week wasn’t it on Facebook. There was a discussion about the shooting in New Zealand and then, air quotes “a devotee” was saying that “Ah, yeah you have to watch out for these Muslims” and was practically agreeing with the shooting. It was incredible. I couldn’t believe it.

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah. I don’t know how much of that is just a Facebook kind of environment but it’s shocking sometimes to hear sentiments that appear to be fueled by nationalistic  sentiments or racist sentiments. It does happen and it’s shocking. I get a sense that the percentage of the total diaspora of devotees that actually read and fully comprehend Prabhupada’s books is small.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, I think it’s an issue, isn’t it? You’ve mentioned before that this kirtan movement has taken off to some extent. So there’s a bit of a revival there, but there needs to be a revival of really studying Prabhupada’s books.

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah, I mean Prabhupada gave so many gifts. But the one that he, himself labored the most and considered the most significant was his books. And as much as we really appreciate the Sangha, we really appreciate the temples and the Prasad and the deities, kirtan, to miss out on the literature that he left, that’s a big mess.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, for sure. Just in general, what do you think is the biggest need in the society like this is obviously an important thing. Would you say that’s the most important thing or the other things that you think are also important that we need to address?

Damodar Prabhu: Oh, okay, caught me off guard.

Krsnendu Das: Big picture, kind of.

Damodar Prabhu: Well, the ability to represent the siddhanta. Because you know as the saying goes sa kaleneha mahata yogo nasta parantapa, but due to the influence of time, the succession was broken.

And scary, only 40 years after Srila Prabhupada leaves to see how many.  various versions of the siddhanta are circulating. How many people seem to openly challenge conclusions that Prabhupada gave us.

So you wonder if a couple of generations from now,  what will be the truths that are circulating?

Krsnendu Das: Yeah.

Damodar Prabhu: So that I do think… The full comprehension of Srila Prabhupada’s books has to be a really really big one. I think the social engineering is still needed, so probably the most visible failings are the failings to put the right framework in place for successive generations of devotees.

Much is made of the abuse kind of stuff. But I think possibly even more significant is just the lack of provision that was made. So people often just starting to make their own way in the world. I’d like to see  more communa- mindedness and community initiatives. I think those things are happening but the pace at which they’re happening that’s kind of concerning.

Krsnendu Das: What do you think could accelerate it all? What would happen, can happen to make it happen kind of thing? Is ian education thing or is it more it requires a kind of managerial organization to make it happen or is it a just combination of all those things?

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah, I see that. Ultimately only everything ever needs is initiative.

Krsnendu Das: Right.

Damodar Prabhu: I think more and more devotees are exercising that initiative.  So you’re seeing more and more community efforts. I’d like to help it get sponsored and encouraged by the leadership. I don’t know to what extent I’d ever expect it to be bankrolled by the leadership.  And so that raises another thing that concerns me, the sannyasi good life concerns me. I worry that we’re developing a cohort of leaders that have almost a mega star status.

Probably have a disproportionate control of overall societal resources. But potentially we’re going off in different directions. And few exemplifying sannyas dharma in a traditional sense, detachment.  So that’s just another concern. I’m sorry. I’m not really answering your question about it. Wasn’t ready for some of these intense questions.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah.  So you’re talking about initiative. So it’s just giving people a bit of space for encouraging people to take initiative as something that I’m not sure where that comes from. But when people can, individually, each person can do something.

Damodar Prabhu: So for instance, I’ve had the good fortune in the last couple years to meet Kalakantha Prabhu who’s the GBC for agriculture cow protection.

He seems to be starting some really interesting community dialogues.  Another temple that’s close to me, New Govardhana has actually got some interesting development going on.  And I suspect there might be lots of college industry level of development in lots of places, but it’d be nice to see it getting a little bit more joined up.

I don’t know if that does require a GBC Minister for or if simply devotees taking the initiative to have forums.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah.

Damodar Prabhu: I mean you come across models like the Govardhan Ecovillage. I’ve not been there. It seems like a pretty amazing place and  it seems like Radhanath Maharaja has created an interesting network of counselors.

Be interesting to see one of these successful models duplicated. Not that we should have one-size-fits-all everywhere. Because Prabhupada wanted the individual striving and independent thought and action. But you’d like to think that there wasn’t necessary reinventing the wheel everywhere where successful models could be learned from and adapted.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, I mean that’s one of the ideas behind the membership that I started is to try to connect that people that have got that idea to take some initiative and do things and collaborate. So like you’re saying the Ecovillage, someone that’s doing something in the area of self-sufficient community can contact other people who are trying to do the same thing in other places and they can share best practices and discuss the challenges with each other and mastermind and things.

Or maybe it’s people trying to preach to the local people in the city and sort of sharing their ideas.

Damodar Prabhu: I did some research at Gopal Bhatta Prabhu’s request a few years ago for a GBC meeting and it was looking at all of Prabhupada’s letters on management and leadership and the amount of times you use things collectively, conjoinedly. So even though he didn’t want there to be a centralized system, he certainly was hoping that people would voluntarily work together and make decisions together.  My sense is we might to taken “Ownership turns sand into gold” to an extreme, where our own preference for rugged individualism and autonomy may have superseded the idea of doing things as more of a collective. That’s just a thought.

Even though (Prabhupada) didn't want there to be a centralized system, he certainly was hoping that people would voluntarily work together and make decisions together. Share on X

Krsnendu Das: You earlier mentioned that even Charles Darwin talked about it.

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah, well survival of the fittest is the general mien that people have taken from Darwin. Apparently mentions cooperation amongst the species several times more frequently.

Krsnendu Das: Interesting. Yeah.

Damodar Prabhu: And that nature is actually quite symbiotic rather than competitive.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, true. Interesting twist. Yeah, it’s getting late. I can see how you’ve been working hard all day and I’m working you hard into the night too.

Damodar Prabhu: And I’m not in my prime condition.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, and I really appreciate your time. Was there anything that you would like to just sort of mention as we can wrap things up?

Damodar Prabhu: I think the vitality of the society is always gonna be there as long as anyone’s taking Prabhupada’s messages as their heart and soul. So even though in various forms around the world there might be trials and tribulations that the society faces, as long as there’s even one person who’s vitally connected to the messages of Prabhupada, the society is not forgone.

As long as there's even one person who's vitally connected to the messages of Prabhupada, the society is not forgone. Share on X

It’s not in a woeful state. It’s just growing pains. So I hope everyone can keep faith and find a way to constructively contribute.

Krsnendu Das: Nice. Yeah, so each one of us can try to be that person to keep it going.

Damodar Prabhu: That’s the thing. If we look at Srila Prabhupada’s own example, what if the entire success of the Krishna conscious movement was down to your effort? It’s not a bad meditation to have. It doesn’t mean that we discount the fact that we can cooperate with everybody and should be looking to cooperate. But filling that degree of personal responsibility might not be a bad thing.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah. Oh, great. That’s a brilliant place to end. Thanks for your time. Hare Krishna.

Damodar Prabhu: Hare Krishna.

Krsnendu Das: Thanks for listening. To find out more go to successfulvaisnavas.com.

Sri Prahlad: Whatever little service that anyone can do it for Krishna is to be appreciated and celebrated.

Jagattarini Mataji: Just give this life to Krishna.

Akrura Prabhu: We know that they have much more potential than they’re presently using.

Urmila Mataji: I’m into a place of relishing the activity and letting go of the result completely.

Srila Prabhupada: You just associate with pure devotees, then you shall be able to cross over the ocean of nescience.

Damodar Prabhu: So he woke up a few minutes later with the whirr of helicopters, one of these diffusing robots looking in through the window, a crowd of snipers around. And all  they’ve done is nod off while chanting gayatri.

Krsnendu Das: It’s time to get inspired. Join us as we celebrate devotees success stories. Preaching, business, community development, leadership and personal growth, all from the point of view of Krishna consciousness. Our goal: to help you to make your life successful.

Hare Krishna, welcome back. This is episode 28 and we are meeting my friend and mentor Damodar Prabhu again. We’re going to be discussing about his life. How he came to Krishna Consciousness and what it’s like to be a temple president and the challenges that it requires. Just before we get into that interview, I’d like to let you know that if you would like to get some more training then you can go to successfulvaisnavas.com/class. And that’s where you can find the registration or the replays of recent trainings that I’ve been doing.

The most recent training which I’ll be presenting shortly is about how to align your life so that you can make money in a way that inspires you and which is connected to Krishna consciousness so that we can have a life where everything that we do is going in the same direction. Instead of making money over here and then in our spare time doing some preaching, we can actually have a life where all of our energy is towards developing our own Krishna consciousness and sharing it with others while at the same time making a living doing it.

So I hope you find that topic interesting. And depending when you listen to this podcast, you might find that there’s other training available when you go to successfulvaisnavas.com/class. So with that said, let’s go and listen to the interview with Damodar Prabhu and see what life is like as a temple president of the Hare Krishna movement.

I’m so happy I’m here with my godbrother and very dear friend and mentor Damodar Prabhu again. We spoke about 7 Habits of Highly Effective People last time we were together and today it’s going to be a little bit more free form because we always have really interesting conversations. So I have faith that Krishna will guide us to speak about something that may be of interest to others.

And I know for sure I’ll find something of value out of it. So it’s nice to meet up again Prabhu.

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah, nice to see you again.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, so I think last time when we spoke we never really gave an introduction so much about how you became a devotee. Maybe that would be kind of interesting place to start. Just give it a little bit of your background.

Damodar Prabhu: I was one of those fortunate souls that was born in a family of devotees.

Although they weren’t active at the time of my birth. From the age maybe about five, my uncle was involved with ISKCON, became Srila Prabhupada’s disciple. In the age of eight, I was visiting the temples, and 17 I joined. In fact, I used to spend every summer with him from about the age of eleven upwards. And it was always weird going back to the non-devotee life having lived as a devotee for all intents and purposes on this simple living, high thinking farm. Amazing.

Krsnendu Das: So you went to a Catholic school?

Damodar Prabhu: Went to a Catholic boarding school.

Krsnendu Das: How was that, knowing what you know as a devotee at the time, what was it like being in a Catholic School?

Damodar Prabhu: There must have already been some kind of interest in God because voluntarily I went to mass every single day. It was a morning mass at like quarter to seven or something in the mornings and I didn’t miss one. So there was already some kind of searching and eventually it just didn’t really provide big answers to the big questions or satisfactory answers. But the taste was somehow there.

Krsnendu Das: Interesting. When I was at school, I was at the Anglican school and about the age of 11 then they have confirmation class. Because in the Anglicans you get baptized when you’re born basically. You don’t have much say in the matter. So there is a period where you make the choice that I’m going to be a Christian.

So I went to the first confirmation class and then I thought “Oh, wait a minute, I’m not going to just sign up for this. I want to see what my options are”, at that stage. But around about the same time I volunteered to be a sacristan or something to help at the the chapel and so I went there and they said “Oh sorry, we’re full. We’ve got enough already.”

Damodar Prabhu: Everyone’s full.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah. Yeah, totally. It was like I wanted to try to learn about God and you do some service and they’re like “Ah we have enough pujaris or whatever. You just reminded me  about that story. Yes, so you obviously already had that attraction to God, but you found that the Catholic upbringing wasn’t as complete as what you were getting from Krishna consciousness?

Damodar Prabhu: I remember a conversation with my grandmother when I was maybe about nine. I think she was readying me to go to this Catholic boarding school just because it offered a really good private education. I’m talking about some belief that we didn’t die, that possibly we simply went on to whatever.

Maybe that we didn’t even know that we’ve died. That we somehow kept on living out our life in whatever way we were destined to do. So I just remember later thinking, “Wow, where did that come from? Having those kind of beliefs about existence.”

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, cool. What was it like once you joined the temple, so to speak, when you were 17, you became a brahmacari?

Damodar Prabhu: Initially it was a little shocking because the ISKCON that I’d learned about was the ISKCON in the 70s, which is when my uncle had been involved, Uncle and Aunt. It was 1984. Bhagavan was at the helm of the UK yatra.  There was a lot of rank pulling is how I remember it.

I remember being put in my place a lot and thinking “Oh, okay. This is not quite the loving community that I’d been led to believe it might be. It was still ecstatic. I mean initially I thought I’ll join for three months and then I’ll go back and open an ashram in Nottingham where I came from.

Krsnendu Das: Right. 1970s style.

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah.

Krsnendu Das: That’s what you do, right? You go there for a few months and then you start a temple.

Damodar Prabhu: That’s the program. The one book that I’d read before joining was Every Town and Village. And so that was the impression I had of what the Krishna conscious movement was.  But it was ecstatic. I mean, a typical day for a bhakta in those days, we were in a little house called Oldenham, which is about five miles from The Manor.

So we used to get up a little bit earlier to make sure we got to mangalarati. Prabhupada used to wake us up, Prabhupada-type happening album or whatever. Exactly. Great way to wake up. Everyone used to scurry around, used to jump in the van, get to the manor, did our entire morning program then go and wash pots. Probably spent all of our midday washing pots. Then I think we used to go on harinam. Harinam there. It was a pretty nice program.

And it was very quick that I realized oh you don’t just kind of… Once you move in. This is it, this is what you do.

I remember when I was going home to see my grandmother for Christmas. I was really nervous about approaching Sivarama Swami to ask permission. Because he seemed so stern on the exterior.  But he actually he was very warm and he then asked me if I wanted to join the National Sankirtan party upon returning. In those days, sankirtan devotees didn’t belong to individual temples, but out of a national party. Although it was called Sankirtan, in those days we were selling paintings and prints.  So did that for a few months and then probably late 85, everyone converted over to book distribution. Maybe I’ve got the dates wrong.

Krsnendu Das: Alright.

Damodar Prabhu: But sankirtan became sankirtan.

Krsnendu Das: Wow. That’s really cool. It took a little bit longer for that to happen in New Zealand.

Damodar Prabhu: I may have got the dates wrong.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah.

Damodar Prabhu: But that’s the way I remember it. Sometime around there, I became part of the Soho street temple, having been on national traveling. That was disbanded.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah.

Damodar Prabhu: So this might have been when Bhagavan left in 86.

Krsnendu Das: What was the catalyst for that to happen?

Damodar Prabhu: Maybe it was Bhagavan leaving.

Krsnendu Das: Right. They said go back to the roots type of thing or something.

Damodar Prabhu: Wulther Heath, which was the holding company which used to organize all of that side of things was wound up and I think everything was then distributed back out to the individual temples.

The exact chronography of all of that, I can’t remember.

Krsnendu Das: Interesting. So then you went to Soho Street after that?

Damodar Prabhu: Soho street and I’ll still have a lot of travelling sankirtan. We used to go out in vans. That was quite an austere program, living in the van, out of a bucket. Yeah, the van ashram. But it was also really exciting particularly to do book distribution.

I did book distribution in a few different forms. There was something called the board where they go and ask the donations and give a book at the end. Then there was periods of time where I distributed books in a dhoti and even had a little book table where I used to invite people to come and get a piece of laddu take a book.

Krsnendu Das: Nice.

Damodar Prabhu: I was never quite as prolific as the board. But it was probably more fulfilling because it was so straightforward.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, I remember when you came to New Zealand, in Auckland. That’s how I first remember you in your dhoti doing a little Charlie Chaplin kind of shuffle up to people and then you’re giving them books in college.

Damodar Prabhu: Charlie Chaplin shuffle?

Krsnendu Das: Yeah.

Damodar Prabhu: That I don’t remember.

Krsnendu Das: It would be sort of like I know you had your kind of motions that were quite amazing that sort of grabbed people’s attention and then you’d walk up to them.

Damodar Prabhu: I realized later, I was doing some work professionally later. This would be mid-naughties for a retail consultancy and I was trying to show people in a retail store how to approach the customer. They were just terrified approaching a customer. Especially in England, it’s just not done. People are browsing, you leave them to it.

But the goal was to have them approach the customer, engage the customer in a conversation. And I realized I’d still had techniques from when I was a book distributor.

Krsnendu Das: Right.

Damodar Prabhu: And it was almost like a mystic ability where you could pull someone’s attention and engage them in a conversation fearlessly. I had never really thought about it before until I could see that these poor people I was trying to educate about doing this didn’t have the slightest idea. It was true.

I mean it wasn’t that you had a perfect mystic siddhi, but on book distribution sometimes just by wanting someone to just stop, they would stop almost helplessly.

Krsnendu Das: Amazing.

Damodar Prabhu: Lord Caitanya’s empowerment.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, and it’s obviously great training as well. You’ve learned very useful life skills from it.

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah, and I’d certainly look back on those days with great fondness. I haven’t been able to do book distribution now for a few decades. I should do that again sometime.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, I actually went out about a year ago after not doing it for a few years. It was a unusual feeling but it was cool to be connected to it again in those memories of those cool times. My wife is the book distributor in the family. Now she is totally fired up.

She listens to Vaisesika Prabhu’s podcast every second and she just goes out whenever she gets the chance. It’s really far out. So you were doing traveling sankirtan out of Soho street and then at some stage, what was the next step, you went to Dublin or something like that?

Damodar Prabhu: No, something Leceister for a while, even went up to Sheffield and thought about opening a place but it was lots of strange goings-on in terms of me changing ashram.

So I was in Soho street through till about 91,  and then yeah, we went over to Belfast.

Krsnendu Das: Belfast, that’s it. Yeah.

Damodar Prabhu: So just after I got married, Sivarama Swami asked me to run Belfast temple.

Krsnendu Das: So that must have been quite a shift from doing traveling book distribution and different things like that and then having your own temple to kind of be in charge of.

Damodar Prabhu: Well, I’ve been looking at other ways to maintain my ashram but His Holiness Bhakti Charu Maharaja was insisting. Now he wanted me to work full time for ISKCON. So I didn’t really know how to reconcile that. I went in front of Radha Londonisvara and prayed for some guidance as to how, particularly because at that time I was a bit disillusioned with the society.

And I remember thinking “Well the only way I could really do that is if I was at the decision-making power to change things”.

Krsnendu Das: Right.

Damodar Prabhu: It was the very next day that Sivaram Swami asked me to go to Belfast.

Krsnendu Das: Krishna’s arrangement, eh.

Damodar Prabhu: So it was nice. It was a mixed experience. I think I reveled in the responsibility but I don’t think I was a particularly mature manager. I think the devotees, they let me know.

Krsnendu Das: So what were the things you were disillusioned about that you mentioned before?  To do with the society or was it more personal things?

Damodar Prabhu: It was just viewing ISKCON leaders generally, I think by this time Prabhupada’s letters had come out and I’m just thinking I’m not sure that the decision-making is always driven by fidelity to the spiritual master’s instructions.  Sometimes it feels like decisions are made that are driven by maintenance of the temple as opposed to the ideals of the society. I mean very general but I don’t want to get too specific.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, that sort of thing. So you felt when you were temple president that you can try to give a better example?

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah. I think a lot of people do sit in judgment on temple leaders without necessarily ever having sat in the seat.

Krsnendu Das: Right.

Damodar Prabhu: And I certainly became much more compassionate and understanding that these aren’t easy roles.  Srila Prabhupada’s instructions are various and vast. Sometimes very exacting.  And you may have to be making do with a very very small budget that minimal human resources. My gut feel is that 99.9% of ISKCON leaders are very well-intentioned doing the best I can with what they have, whether that’s the training they have, the resources they have. I think it’s very easily possibly even tempting to scapegoat for everything that’s not right about the society. So somehow just having authority if you hate magic mother.

Krsnendu Das: So you were in Belfast and giving it a go? And then what happened next?

Damodar Prabhu: Giving it a go. I mean, I think we were maybe only about 10 residents.

Krsnendu Das: Is it the temple that’s in an island or is that a different place?

Damodar Prabhu: No, this was in Belfast.

Krsnendu Das: Right, it’s actually in the city.

Damodar Prabhu: It’s right on the border lands between the two communities, those were the two warring in communities, almost at no-man’s land.

Krsnendu Das: Oh, nice.

Damodar Prabhu: So just a few hundred meters, one way is Poleglass, which is a Catholic area. Just down the road the other way is Dunmurry, which is a Protestant area.

Krsnendu Das: Wow, did you feel unsafe at times?

Damodar Prabhu: Not specifically there at the temple. I remember once my wife and I went to see a movie called In the Name of the Father, which was about a wrongly convicted IRA guy. I mean he wasn’t IRA, but he was in turn I think they called the Birmingham Six or something. And it was how they were mistreated. So we were there in the Catholic area, watching the film with a British accent. That was scary.

Krsnendu Das: I remember what Charu Nandra Maharaja was telling me that he was in, I think it was in Belfast and someone came up to him in the street and said “What are you, a Protestant or a Catholic?” And then he said “I’m a Hare Krishna”. He says, “Are you a Protestant Hare Krishna or a Catholic Hare Krishna?”

Damodar Prabhu: These are legendary. I remember, I think it was Chandra Karushi Prabhu who told me that someone had been delivering books in a nondescript van. So just a plain old white transit van, in the back all these boxes, unmarked and they pulled over into a lay-by to chant the Gayatri and fallen asleep.

So there was a body that for all intents and purposes looked lifeless with a string around his thumb. And apparently he used to sleep with his eyes open, which of course didn’t help. So he woke up a few minutes later with the whirr of helicopters, one of these diffusing robots looking in through the window, a crowd of snipers around and all they’ve done is nod off while chanting gayatri.

Again, I don’t know to what extent these are legendary.

Krsnendu Das: Well as they say, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Damodar Prabhu: So Belfast was a good, you know cutting my teeth. It really sobered me about what it meant to run a temple community. I have to say it was too much for my wife at the time.

She was attached dressing on a shower and Ireland wasn’t particularly good climate for her health. So we moved back to London.  That would have been year ’92.

Krsnendu Das: And then you became the temple president in Soho Street pretty much straightaway.

Damodar Prabhu: I became the temple manager initially which was a sort of reverse, a reworked version of the vice president.

Reasonably quickly, I was a member of Parama Karuna’s congregation of preaching department for a little while. But then Sivarama Swami asked me if I’d become the temple manager,  which essentially meant that the temple president role was a preaching-only kind of role with all the financial responsibility and other decisions living with the temple manager.  Kesava Bharati Prabhu was the temple president.

Krsnendu Das: Right.

Damodar Prabhu: But in maybe it was about a year later or something like that, and it’s quite possibly just wasn’t happy that that arrangement was viable.  Yeah, then I became a TP. I was maybe TP for about a year and a half.

Krsnendu Das: That wasn’t too long. And then you went to the Manor after that?

Damodar Prabhu: When the Manor came up, the Soho team at the time was really a galvanized team, really strong. And it felt like if we could get the Manor and Soho street working as a unit, working as a symbiotic relationship, that would be the best possible outcome around. The Manor was still attracting new devotees because it had the Bhakti program but it didn’t have a downtown location. Soho Street had the downtown location, but it had a limit on how many people are could have. So it felt like, particular because they were so close together, but there’s often border wars in terms of who gets the free book distribution where that it seemed like why don’t they were together as one integrated unit? So that was the hypothesis. Akandadi Prabhu had been the temple president and then he retired and Bhrigupati Prabhu who was actually the president became the TP of Soho street.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, I stayed there for a little while when he was in charge.

Damodar Prabhu: Okay.

Krsnendu Das: That was kind of fun.

Damodar Prabhu: We have the same kind of arrangement where Vasudev Prabhu, who had been running the restaurant, became a temple manager and had all the financial responsibilities and so on  and Bhrigupati Prabhu would be the preacher. But I think that changed after about six months or something.

Krsnendu Das: Yup. You mentioned Parama Karuna. He’s a good friend of yours, I think he passed away recently.

Damodar Prabhu: Passed away, yeah, shocking.

Krsnendu Das: Last year or so.

Damodar Prabhu: Something like that just over a year ago.

Krsnendu Das: Tell me a bit about him. It sounds like he was quite a thoughtful devotee and he did some pretty mass preaching.

Damodar Prabhu: Really cool devotee. He was a temple president’s best friend. I’d say he’s like a vizier, someone who’s a great advisor.  It was him, through Sridhar Maharaj, that introduced me to the Seven Habits as a way of thinking about a cultural change. And that was very much about what was the visitor experience like? How could we create only the best guest experience in Soho Street?

Krsnendu Das: That’s right. I remember Sridhar Maharaja was really into that. He showed us some videos of Disneyland and things like that.

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah. He was into Tom Peters, into others. Parama was definitely the major brains trust for me when I was a TP. A wonderful devotee, very thoughtful and a big loss.

Krsnendu Das: Hmm. You mentioned that he was doing some congregational preaching, what was that like?

Damodar Prabhu: He was working with another devotee, called Jada Bharat. They were thinking of how do we transform the temple’s reliance on sort of a hand-to-mouth book distribution income to one where favorable Indian families provided a monthly or weekly or annual donation. Like the patron program at the Manor. And they built that up. They had cans in people’s homes and lots of programs in people’s homes. So I’d probably go out as a TP about three nights a week to programs in people’s homes. Yeah, he was building that up. He was very forward-thinking.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, I met him briefly when I was there and I was kind of impressed by his demeanor. He was quite a kind of obviously thoughtful person and it was quite interesting some of the things that he said. And he confronted a few devotees, I was at one of the istaghostis there and he said that, without going into details, he sort of confronted people. But, he’d get you thinking.

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah. Yeah, he was ahead of his time.

Krsnendu Das: So were you in touch with him when you’re at Bhaktivedanta Manor as well?

Damodar Prabhu: Unfortunately, it took me such a long time to get connected at the Manor that by the time I really got my feet under the table there, most of that temple council had been disbanded.

Krsnendu Das: Right. The crack team had sort of broken up.

Damodar Prabhu: Mahadyuti Prabhu came in and he needed to establish a different way of doing things. So it was understandable he wanted to build his own team. But that opportunity to really try and run the two as one sort of fell away.

Krsnendu Das: What were some of the challenges that he had running the temple and what was your experience like in general? You obviously would have been quite excited to have that opportunity to go there. And there must have been challenges as well.

Damodar Prabhu: At the Manor?

Krsnendu Das: Yeah.

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah, I think one of the biggest challenges of the Manor is tensions between the sub constituent communities. So they’ve got the older Srila Prabhupada disciples who are accustomed to how things have been for so many years.  You’ve got the fast growing Indian communities that in many ways has saved the temple. Yeah, there was just some tensions between those two communities.

So trying to help everyone feel valued, connected, that their contribution mattered, that’s probably one of the biggest challenges. I think that probably faces temple presidents everywhere is often just the upkeep of the place. To be fair ,the Manor is so buoyant financially, the upkeep isn’t actually as stressful. It is so straight every finance meeting we were looking for a few grand to make sure we could keep the lights on.

Krsnendu Das: Right.

Damodar Prabhu: Belfast was a smaller problem, but it was the same degree of frequency and the same sort of anxieties. Never really felt quite the same at the Manor. It was more about ensuring everyone felt that they’re valued, loved.

Krsnendu Das: What do you think about the idea that Prabhupada’s Pranam Mantra is about preaching to the west and that the Indians have taken over and you know this kind of thing and that we should try to preach to the local people more and that sort of thing.

Damodar Prabhu: I don’t see the successful  take up by the Indian community as problematic. I think that was always going to happen and I think in many ways we should be flattered that the presentation  of Krishna consciousness is viewed by them as that much more exciting and authentic than any other offerings. It’s not like we’re the only providers of sanatana dharma in the Western world. I think the standard of daily worship, the liveliness of the kirtan, the quality of the prasad, total temple experience.

That’s something that they naturally have responded to and so we should be excited that we’ve been successful with that community. The imbalance or the relative disproportionate level of interest from that community versus locals simply highlights that we’ve not done enough local preaching. So it’s not that there’s a deviation that’s happened or that we’ve given the keys to the kingdom to somebody else. We just neglected to do enough local preaching, which takes far more imagination because the serving up of ‘Here’s a wonderful temple with gorgeous deities’ and so on is not going to appeal in the same way relevantly to the average person on the street in the UK, in the US, Australia and New Zealand.

Finding a relevant thing that captures people’s imaginations. We’re getting it now a little bit with the kirtan movement and so do the yoga circles because obviously there’s an adjacency there. They have a similar interest. Many of those people are already vegetarian, are already thinking about bettering the planet. So clearly our messaging naturally coincides in some ways .Although to be fair, I don’t think we’re making as much as we could of the fact that we’ve got messages around natural living, we’ve got messages around balanced lives and so on. I think Srila Prabhupada was careful that we don’t water down Krishna consciousness to still be appealing. But it’s kind of weird that we’re not necessarily the loudest voices in the kirtan movement.

And that sometimes we are seen as a kind of Orthodoxy that’s a little  stuffy or up itself in those kind of circles. That’s my general thoughts.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah.

Damodar Prabhu: I think we need to find a way to reinvigorate.  A lot of that has to do with imagination, a lot of this has to do with hard yacker.

Krsnendu Das: Just try, and try things and see what works and what doesn’t work and getting out there giving it a go.

Damodar Prabhu: Srila Prabhupada referred to preaching as an austerity, the willingness to face rejection. Yeah, I mean gallons of blood to make a devotee. Double those kind of expressions are there that show us that maybe once we could pay the bills and keep the lights on, our hunger and appetite dissipated.

Krsnendu Das: Alright.

Damodar Prabhu: So that could be one of the challenges. This is the old saying about not using the deities to make a livelihood. Srila Prabhupada was really really warned heavily about that.  And the challenges that being in community has been historically so generous that in fact, they’ve kept the wolf from the door.  And maybe yeah, they’ve taken away some of the impetus. Not intentionally. It’s taken away some of the impetus for people to get off their behinds.

Krsnendu Das: Right. Some people argue that only Westerners can really preach to, you know local people can only preach to the local people. What do you think about that idea?

Damodar Prabhu: The world’s multicultural now.  I’m not convinced. I mean for instance Jay Shetty is reaching quite an international audience. I don’t think people go “Oh, he’s for Indians” because he happens to be an Indian.  So I think people are probably a lot more open.  Mostly, they just need to know that you’re relevant.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah.

Damodar Prabhu: And that’s not exclusively a  thing. But I do think there may be some truth that if I’m an Anglo-Saxon person coming on to the temple and everywhere I look there’s no other Anglo-Saxons because there are only people from India, then I might go “Hm, this looks like something for Indian people”.

Krsnendu Das: Yup.

Damodar Prabhu: I can appreciate that.

Krsnendu Das: Yup.

Damodar Prabhu: But I think we also have to be careful not to identify with the body as we do all of this. Because if we place a different value on someone from an Indian background than we do for someone from Western background, if we think someone from a Western background is more of an asset or a more significant conversion, I think that’s getting dangerously close to a form of racism, if not racist.

Krsnendu Das: It’s amazing how even when devotees join the movement, they still have their racism. I’ve had that experience just last week wasn’t it on Facebook. There was a discussion about the shooting in New Zealand and then, air quotes “a devotee” was saying that “Ah, yeah you have to watch out for these Muslims” and was practically agreeing with the shooting. It was incredible. I couldn’t believe it.

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah. I don’t know how much of that is just a Facebook kind of environment but it’s shocking sometimes to hear sentiments that appear to be fueled by nationalistic  sentiments or racist sentiments. It does happen and it’s shocking. I get a sense that the percentage of the total diaspora of devotees that actually read and fully comprehend Prabhupada’s books is small.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, I think it’s an issue, isn’t it? You’ve mentioned before that this kirtan movement has taken off to some extent. So there’s a bit of a revival there, but there needs to be a revival of really studying Prabhupada’s books.

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah, I mean Prabhupada gave so many gifts. But the one that he, himself labored the most and considered the most significant was his books. And as much as we really appreciate the Sangha, we really appreciate the temples and the Prasad and the deities, kirtan, to miss out on the literature that he left, that’s a big mess.

Prabhupada gave so many gifts. But the one that he, himself labored the most and considered the most significant was his books. Share on X

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, for sure. Just in general, what do you think is the biggest need in the society like this is obviously an important thing. Would you say that’s the most important thing or the other things that you think are also important that we need to address?

Damodar Prabhu: Oh, okay, caught me off guard.

Krsnendu Das: Big picture, kind of.

Damodar Prabhu: Well, the ability to represent the siddhanta. Because you know as the saying goes sa kaleneha mahata yogo nasta parantapa, but due to the influence of time, the succession was broken.

And scary, only 40 years after Srila Prabhupada leaves to see how many.  various versions of the siddhanta are circulating. How many people seem to openly challenge conclusions that Prabhupada gave us.

So you wonder if a couple of generations from now,  what will be the truths that are circulating?

Krsnendu Das: Yeah.

Damodar Prabhu: So that I do think… The full comprehension of Srila Prabhupada’s books has to be a really really big one. I think the social engineering is still needed, so probably the most visible failings are the failings to put the right framework in place for successive generations of devotees.

Much is made of the abuse kind of stuff. But I think possibly even more significant is just the lack of provision that was made. So people often just starting to make their own way in the world. I’d like to see  more communa- mindedness and community initiatives. I think those things are happening but the pace at which they’re happening that’s kind of concerning.

Krsnendu Das: What do you think could accelerate it all? What would happen, can happen to make it happen kind of thing? Is ian education thing or is it more it requires a kind of managerial organization to make it happen or is it a just combination of all those things?

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah, I see that. Ultimately only everything ever needs is initiative.

Krsnendu Das: Right.

Damodar Prabhu: I think more and more devotees are exercising that initiative.  So you’re seeing more and more community efforts. I’d like to help it get sponsored and encouraged by the leadership. I don’t know to what extent I’d ever expect it to be bankrolled by the leadership.  And so that raises another thing that concerns me, the sannyasi good life concerns me. I worry that we’re developing a cohort of leaders that have almost a mega star status.

Probably have a disproportionate control of overall societal resources. But potentially we’re going off in different directions. And few exemplifying sannyas dharma in a traditional sense, detachment.  So that’s just another concern. I’m sorry. I’m not really answering your question about it. Wasn’t ready for some of these intense questions.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah.  So you’re talking about initiative. So it’s just giving people a bit of space for encouraging people to take initiative as something that I’m not sure where that comes from. But when people can, individually, each person can do something.

Damodar Prabhu: So for instance, I’ve had the good fortune in the last couple years to meet Kalakantha Prabhu who’s the GBC for agriculture cow protection.

He seems to be starting some really interesting community dialogues.  Another temple that’s close to me, New Govardhana has actually got some interesting development going on.  And I suspect there might be lots of college industry level of development in lots of places, but it’d be nice to see it getting a little bit more joined up.

I don’t know if that does require a GBC Minister for or if simply devotees taking the initiative to have forums.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah.

Damodar Prabhu: I mean you come across models like the Govardhan Ecovillage. I’ve not been there. It seems like a pretty amazing place and  it seems like Radhanath Maharaja has created an interesting network of counselors.

Be interesting to see one of these successful models duplicated. Not that we should have one-size-fits-all everywhere. Because Prabhupada wanted the individual striving and independent thought and action. But you’d like to think that there wasn’t necessary reinventing the wheel everywhere where successful models could be learned from and adapted.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, I mean that’s one of the ideas behind the membership that I started is to try to connect that people that have got that idea to take some initiative and do things and collaborate. So like you’re saying the Ecovillage, someone that’s doing something in the area of self-sufficient community can contact other people who are trying to do the same thing in other places and they can share best practices and discuss the challenges with each other and mastermind and things.

Or maybe it’s people trying to preach to the local people in the city and sort of sharing their ideas.

Damodar Prabhu: I did some research at Gopal Bhatta Prabhu’s request a few years ago for a GBC meeting and it was looking at all of Prabhupada’s letters on management and leadership and the amount of times you use things collectively, conjoinedly. So even though he didn’t want there to be a centralized system, he certainly was hoping that people would voluntarily work together and make decisions together.  My sense is we might to taken “Ownership turns sand into gold” to an extreme, where our own preference for rugged individualism and autonomy may have superseded the idea of doing things as more of a collective. That’s just a thought.

Krsnendu Das: You earlier mentioned that even Charles Darwin talked about it.

Damodar Prabhu: Yeah, well survival of the fittest is the general mien that people have taken from Darwin. Apparently mentions cooperation amongst the species several times more frequently.

Krsnendu Das: Interesting. Yeah.

Damodar Prabhu: And that nature is actually quite symbiotic rather than competitive.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, true. Interesting twist. Yeah, it’s getting late. I can see how you’ve been working hard all day and I’m working you hard into the night too.

Damodar Prabhu: And I’m not in my prime condition.

Krsnendu Das: Yeah, and I really appreciate your time. Was there anything that you would like to just sort of mention as we can wrap things up?

Damodar Prabhu: I think the vitality of the society is always gonna be there as long as anyone’s taking Prabhupada’s messages as their heart and soul. So even though in various forms around the world there might be trials and tribulations that the society faces, as long as there’s even one person who’s vitally connected to the messages of Prabhupada, the society is not forgone.

It’s not in a woeful state. It’s just growing pains. So I hope everyone can keep faith and find a way to constructively contribute.

Krsnendu Das: Nice. Yeah, so each one of us can try to be that person to keep it going.

Damodar Prabhu: That’s the thing. If we look at Srila Prabhupada’s own example, what if the entire success of the Krishna conscious movement was down to your effort? It’s not a bad meditation to have. It doesn’t mean that we discount the fact that we can cooperate with everybody and should be looking to cooperate. But filling that degree of personal responsibility might not be a bad thing.

What if the entire success of the Krishna conscious movement was down to your effort? Share on X

Krsnendu Das: Yeah. Oh, great. That’s a brilliant place to end. Thanks for your time. Hare Krishna.

Damodar Prabhu: Hare Krishna.

Krsnendu Das: Thanks for listening. To find out more go to successfulvaisnavas.com.

Sri Prahlad: Whatever little service that anyone can do it for Krishna is to be appreciated and celebrated.

Jagattarini Mataji: Just give this life to Krishna.

Akrura Prabhu: We know that they have much more potential than they’re presently using.

Urmila Mataji: I’m into a place of relishing the activity and letting go of the result completely.

Srila Prabhupada: You just associate with pure devotees, then you shall be able to cross over the ocean of nescience.