Saturday, April 10th, 2010

Part Two: More Gurus

Port Royal, Pennsylvania

The morning air was brisk, especially on top of the residential hill in Harrisburg where I spent the evening with a very special couple, Tamal and Lila. I circled the hill’s rounded peak again and again to make a collective 6 Km. Walk. While my legs moved, so did thoughts on a rerun topic, the need for more mentors, councilors, gurus.

In a recent dialogue I had with a very advanced soul, Bhakit Chaitanya Swami, from South Africa, I suggested we increase in our institution, ISKCON, the number of gurus (teachers). The current numbers of gurus is on a decline due to illness, death and defection. While our communities and membership increases proportionately, does it not make sense to enhance the number of teachers, whether they be monks or family persons? Bhakti Chaitanya has a past in what’s called the Guru Services Committee.

I also spoke with him about my concern for fairly high profile gurus who ‘bite the dust’ so to speak, on an annual basis. What’s causing it? What are we doing about it? I felt the need for us as a spiritual society to be more proactive and less reactive in the area of ‘fall down’. It doesn’t make us look good.

To say a word about pro-activity, retreats for gurus has begun as well as guru training. Bless these programs. They have helped. But it’s not enough. I believe it’s time for leaders to identify the qualified people in our midst who can offer this service of teaching and training others. To expand guru’s figures in our society has been my mental consumption for this period.

I desperately would like to see that a relatively easy and attractive process can be in place to bring good people on board, and secondly, to help our current gurus from pitfalls.

8 KM