Presentation of Japa Meditation School
Бхакти Вигьяна Госвами · 2020
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Invocation and introduction to the seminar
Nam Vishnu Padaya, Krishna, Prahasta, Bhutale Sri Mate, Bhaktivedanta, Swami, Nitinami, Namaste, Sarah Swati Devi, Gurava, Pracharine, Nirviche, Sha Sunnawdi, Paschatada, Sha Tari. Wanchaampatarodish du devachapatianampavana Sriu Namonha, Sri Krishna Chaitanya Prabhupada Nanda Syadva Harashivasa de Gaura Bhakta Vrinda, Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare okay
so, welcome to this little seminar where I'm going to share with you some experience. If somebody needs a chair, there is still a chair, and there is another chair here.
I will speak in English, although the half of the audience is Russian speaking people, but since we are in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, we can probably put Panshatva here.
So I'm going to share with you a project or a certain format of education which we developed in this Japan Meditation School.
And the purpose of this presentation is first of all to share some ideas and successes and perhaps give you also some ideas for the future.
So basically, as we all know, chanting of Hare Krishna or japa meditation is the main practice which we do. But paradoxically enough, we hardly teach people how to chant.
We assume that it's easy, it's natural, it's simple. At the same time, it's not so easy as we all know to get the result, to get the real spiritual experience.
And therefore, in my humble opinion and in opinion of many other leaders, the educating people systematically on how to chant up according to the level of one's spiritual advancement is crucial.
And we all know that uh some time ago Sacinandana Maharaja was the first one who started japa retreats.
Since then japa retreats uh proliferated in our society, many other devotees uh started conducting japa retreat, Giriraj Maharaja and so many other Devaki mataji here.
And at the same time, my personal experience with japa retreats is that it doesn't change much.
You come there, you get excited, you get some skills, maybe some ideas, but then you go back home, and everything goes back home. Nothing changes.
Principles of authentic Vedic education
So therefore we developed a different approach to this problem. So first I wanted to, yeah. So Japa Meditation School is a regular shastra-based educational program.
And first of all, we developed certain principles which are essential to understand, in my again we developed the principles which makes the education according to Vedic standards, because now education is more or less basically transmission of knowledge.
And we all know problems with the education in this con. First problem is that it's oftentimes quite speculative. Devotees tend to invent different stories and different anecdotes and different ideas also.
So the first principle of course is authoritativeness. It basically means that the education should be based, firmly based
On sādhu, śāstra, and guru. The order here is essential because this sādhu śāstra And guru principle is first formulated by Narotam Das Thakur in His Prema Bhakti Chandrika, specifically in this order.
Usually we say Guru Sadhu Shastra or whatever, but this is the order Which is, in my humble opinion, is essential.
Sādhu in our case is Prabhupada and the previous Ācāryas, Who by their example showed how to do this and what to do.
Śāstra goes second because without the example, living example Of sādhu, we will not be able to properly understand and apply śāstra.
And Guru is the last as the last authority in Case we don't understand sādhu and śāstra, living guru is essential. But anyway, that's a side topic which we can maybe
discuss some other time, but still the first principle is authoritativeness. Second principle is practicality. It basically means that by knowledge we don't need just information.
We need that it should be realized in practice, that it should be practically applied, and only then it becomes real knowledge.
So to include the elements of practice, in my humble opinion, is essential for the good education. If the education is strictly theoretical, it's not an education. It's not a Vedic education, it's some sort of education.
Then the third point is crucial and it's Regularly violated in this con systematic approach. We all know that in ISKCON we come to one Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam class And we hear about Rāsa-līlā.
And next day we hear about varṇāśrama, third day we hear about some political information and so on and so forth. Sometimes it's highly unsystematical and systematic approach basically
means that the knowledge or education should be given according
To the adhikāra or qualification of the practitioner. We Should not give something which is higher of one's adhikāra, and we shouldn't give something which is lower.
And that's a big problem in our society because so many different people come here.
Openness basically means it should be non-dogmatic and should not be brainwashing sort of education, fanatical education, just do it, believe it.
So it basically has to turn on your intelligence, has totally stimulate your intelligence so that you will understand what is the, you know, basis of it. And then last but not the least is the personal approach,
because as we know, bhakti it's a certain type of knowledge which is only transmitted from heart to heart. It cannot be transmitted just by just by impersonal media of internet or whatever.
There has to be heart-to-heart interaction. So, and it's very difficult. All these principles are not easy to really apply in our real life.
But unless all these principles are in place, the transmission of real knowledge or experience is not taking place.
Curriculum design based on Bhajana-rahasya
So this approach which I'm sharing with you is taking care of these principles and systematically applying these principles in practice. So basically, what we did as I said, uh we uh experienced ourselves that retreat as
the education for changing japa is not enough, and therefore we decided to bring japa meditation home, to the homes of people, to make it
regular practice, to make the practice of or improving of our meditation, japa meditation, as a regular practice.
And we took the inspiration from Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura's Bhajana-rahasya. In Bhajana-rahasya, which is Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura's manual for chanting japa.
He says that the chanting of japa has to be according to the levels of one's spiritual advancement. Śraddhā, sādhu-saṅga, bhajana-kriyā, niṣṭhā, āsakti, bhāva, and premā.
So there will be different moods and different modes and different ideas and different yeah, basically different meditations during the chanting on these different levels.
And we took this idea of Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, which he implicitly included in Bhajana-rahasya and developed it into the syllabus.
Even though Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says you chant Hare Krishna for a few days on a level of śraddhā, and then after a few days you chant it on a level of bhāva. So but few days depends.
In our own case it may take a little longer. Therefore, we decided to really systematically work on
chanting for one year on the level of Shraddha phase for the second year on the level of sadhu sangha and learning sadhu sangha and the third year of chanting on the level of bhajanakriya.
And here what we have is the explanation: what it means, very short sutra-like explanation, what Shraddha means, and what does it mean to chant on the level of Shraddha.
Shraddha basically means that we are breaking free from the material context. Śraddhā means that we accept sambandha-jñāna. Sambandha-jñāna means the spiritual context.
So we break free from material context and try to understand the spiritual context of life. What does it mean to live spiritual life and what does it mean to chant and what is the you know place of chanting.
And specifically we are targeting during this first year on developing śāstrīya-śraddhā as opposed to laukika-śraddhā.
These two terms are taken from Bhakti-sandarbha by Jīva Gosvāmī, where he says that there is a very striking difference between śāstrīya-śraddhā and laukika-śraddhā.
Laukika-śraddhā is basically śraddhā which is based on different prejudices, ideas, and it's more or less socially determined.
It's not firmly based on śāstra, and therefore it's weak by its nature and it's mixed and so on and so forth. So this first year is to create the spiritual context and to put yourself into the spiritual context.
Which is not easy because we are used to this material context, our understanding, our concepts of ourselves is material.
And therefore, you know, the whole syllabus is how to develop śāstrīya śraddhā and what is laukika-śraddhā, how to avoid laukika-śraddhā.
Second year or the essence of sadhu sangha period is to understand the value of the association with devotees? What does it mean?
How to respect devotees, develop a proper and genuine relationship, and more of a dependence from the devotees.
Because we have an independent nature and it's a very great step forward from the independence which we value and protect in our life uh to uh it's it's a very it's a paradigm shift uh from the uh independence to dependence on devotees uh and how to get free from the clutches of material association, unwanted association.
And the third year, because we so far developed the program syllabus only up to the third year, but you know, we are not planning to have japa meditation school on the premā level. It probably will not have too many participants, but at least still Nishta or maybe even Ruti we will we will develop our syllabus.
We we're hoping to develop our syllabus.
Key goals of the meditation school
But so far we have people who are taking the courses on these three levels and with some degree of success. This is the goals of Japan Meditation School, and basically,
this school is giving shastra-based understanding of Namatattva, teaching people how to break free from the habit of mechanical chanting and teaches people how to learn how to chant consciously with feelings.
Then also a very important part of the education is the stages of spiritual development and what it means to chant on this stage. What does it mean to chant on the level of Shraddha?
What does it mean to chant on the level of Sadhu Sangha, etc. etc. Then essential part is of course to understand the obstacles. What are the obstacles and how to overcome obstacles?
And then to facilitate to give to gain deep spiritual experience. Because once we did a survey and we realized that most of the devotees stay in the society of devotees for six years.
If you are more than six years, you are rare exception. Somehow or other.
Majority of devotees come, get very excited, very happy in the beginning, but then it becomes a routine, and then they feel that they don't gain or get the real spiritual experience, and therefore they live and try to find something else.
So, and that's one of the goals to help people to obtain spiritual experience.
And a very important last goal is to develop the culture of mentorship so that there will be devotees on different levels of advancement who are specifically mentoring other people in the beginning stages how to do this.
So that's just a few pictures of what it means in reality. And I will explain shortly the format how it goes. Now we have more than a thousand students in Japan meditation school on three levels.
And most of them from Russia, the rest is from you know they are from all Russian-speaking background. Therefore, few are from Bulgaria and so on and so forth.
Canada, don't be misled, it's Russian-speaking people from Canada and Australia the same. But we do want to share this experience, and who knows, maybe it will be reproduced in the English-speaking hemisphere of ISCON.
So this is more or less the map, the scale of this project. And this is uh yeah, the total number is 1014.
The third year is uh you know, we we specifically were very strict on the second and third year, so the first year was very liberal. And this is the number of it.
And there are four categories of people here, which I will explain a little later. That's the structure, the management structure. As you see, it's quite an elaborate managerial structure.
It's not so easy to reproduce because it took us some time to develop this whole structure. And we have like descending structure.
On the top, we have the leader, it's your humble servant. Maybe not so humble, but nevertheless. Then the teachers who teach this to teach certain lectures and you know take active part in uh retreats.
And then uh executive committee, uh the management of the school, then supervisors of each batch of devotees, which is also important, taking care of the needs of the devotees, then managerial board and different departments in the managerial board, like IT department, financial department, finance department, educational council is the most important element of this thing.
Council of Curators. I will explain a little later what it means.
Yeah, event management division for different events, retreats and so on and so forth, technical support, yeah, and CRM department which takes care of the needs of devotees and basically very important thing.
And Dhamma pilgrimage department, I will also tell about this a little later. So then next level is senior curators, curators, coordinators, and students.
This whole very complicated structure is only to make the learning process very personal. It's not that the teachers give the webinar and immediately the students hear the webinar.
It takes place, but before that, there are curators who are more senior people with more experience in chanting japa, senior curators, curators who have little less experience, coordinators, and students, you will understand how it works shortly.
Step-by-step educational process and webinars
So that's basically names of our teachers, myself and Sachi-nandana Maharaj, the rest is Russian-speaking teachers, very qualified devotees.
And then the learning process, which is perhaps the most important part of this whole presentation.
So, first of all, uh teachers get together and discuss very thoroughly the program and make the outline of all the lessons. It takes a lot of time and you know and sharing the experiences, their own experience, their own shastra learning
and so on and so forth. That's the collective work, the beginning creating the syllabus for the whole year. Then the designated teacher, you know, they divide
the lessons between themselves, and the designated teacher records The webinar which is sometimes reviewed by his fellow teachers.
And then after that, the Educational Council works on this webinar, creates the PowerPoint presentation for the webinar, formulates questions, homework. So the webinar is recorded well ahead of time.
Then step number four: the webinar is released and it's only one webinar every two or three weeks. It's not a very overwhelming information-based education. It's basically practice-based education.
Therefore, we don't want to overload people with a lot of information. We want that this information would be applied and assimilated thoroughly.
Therefore, we give just one webinar which is sometimes one and a half hour, sometimes a little longer, sometimes two hours, uh, sometimes even longer, but it's not so desirable.
Uh ideally one and a half hour webinar for two, three weeks. Then students are supposed to hear this webinar and they're taking notes. Then the curators discuss between themselves the webinar,
the content of webinar with the members of educational council. So first the teacher gives the webinar, then it is digested by the educational council.
Then curators with the Educational Council digest this webinar, this material. Then curator discuss this webinar in depth with the coordinators, leaders of many groups in his sector. It's usually five, six people.
And then every coordinator or leader of a small group who is not necessarily more experienced in japa meditation, but still is willing to do some extra service, he discusses this webinar with his group, which is not more than five or eight people, or eight people.
So this is how the whole thing descends. And then what happens next, uh, because the webinar is once every three weeks, that once a week this group meets on a Skype conference.
Uh ideally, if they can meet in person, it's fine. If not, they meet on Skype and then once a week they meet with each other and first they discuss the theory, the content of the seminar which they heard.
Second week, they try to practice this and apply it in their daily life, and then they discuss the value of this material, how it is applicable, what is valuable, what is not. And by sharing this between themselves, it increases their appreciation.
If somebody valued something and he didn't, he didn't notice something valuable, somebody else noticed something else. And in this way they get more round and more comprehensive understanding of the material and how it is practical in their life.
And then for that's the second meeting. And the third meeting they discuss and share between themselves what worked in their practice and what didn't work. And then they are ready to hear the next webinar.
So one webinar is being digested by the students for two or three weeks with the help of the coordinator, curators, and their fellow students.
So this is again this whole format is just to help the knowledge to descend without distortion and you know to do it in a most proper and genuine bona fide way and ultimately to be assimilated by the students properly and to develop real skill.
And that's the difference between the format of you know Holy Name Day or Holy Name Retreat for one week you're there you're excited but then you're back home back to mumbling something
so so that's again that's the idea and that's ongoing for for one year. Of course, we have summer break, but uh you know for nine months. Uh so during the year we only have something like 19 webinars, not more.
But there is a lot of practice on a daily basis so that basically the every webinar becomes the skill.
Group discussions, homework, and self-assessment
Little tips which are there included or little important points they become the real skill.
So that's the learning process, and uh that's the yeah, that's the general uh the methodology of uh teaching, and that's what the students do.
It's basically to repeat them the same thing, but again, first they hear once every two three weeks, then they get uh together and discuss it for one one and a half hour. So it's not time-consuming.
You only hear once every three weeks one lecture for one and a half hour. And then every week you discuss for one and a half hour with the group. What is amazing about this is that people develop very close relationships.
When Sacinandana Swami started these holy name retreats, He uh he said that my idea or my desire is to create the community of learners. Those people who are into learning these skills
or studying these skills of japa meditation and improving in this area. If somebody needs this presentation, you know, you're free to get it. Then there will be homework for every webinar.
It only requires 20-30 minutes to do this homework. But this homework is how to apply this knowledge in everyday practice.
How it's targeted specifically of how to apply this knowledge so that the knowledge will not just overburden uh the person but uh be practical practically applied.
Then there is a diary of sadhana for conscious chanting of the holy name. That's one of the elements of the whole educational program.
And then there is personal communications with the coordinator and curator, more experienced people. Especially curator.
Coordinator is not supposed to be much more experienced, but curator is supposed to be somebody who has some experience who can answer your questions, who can help you, you know, and so on and so forth.
And then of course, whenever we have an opportunity, we have eye-to-eye meetings, personal meetings, retreats, holy name days. But for the whole school, we have only one retreat a year.
When all the people from Canada and Australia and Russia come together. Well, not all, but majority of people come together. And it's a very joyful one week retreat with some other learning. And exams are being taken there.
And then there is also I'm sorry, exams. But these exams are taken by the students themselves, there is no teachers, they themselves have to evaluate. It's a self-evaluation process, which is much more empowering.
And the emphasis is not that you is not that you have to graduate from the first year and go to the next year and the next year and next year and get to premā chanting as soon as possible. No.
You stay on the same level as much as necessary. No need to jump over. You know, if it requires more than a few days to learn how to chant on a Shraddha level, no problem. Stay. And therefore, this is self-evaluation.
The questions are crafted in a certain way so that people would understand whether they really assimilate, whether they really develop the level of aikhar.
Again, as I said, the idea behind this education is to give education according to the adhikāra of the person. Not to give education which is not according to his adhikāra.
There is no need to get extra information, it's only detrimental.
It's actually, once Prahlāda Nanda Mahārāja, who for some time was going to Iyengar school, he said to me very interesting principle, which is very strictly applied in this Iyengar school of yoga.
They don't learn anything new unless they really realized something which is before. They don't go further. Not even one step further. First, this is what we know. This is what we can do. This is the realized knowledge.
Then only go further. Our problem is that theoretically we know so many things, we are ready to dance, rasa dance with Krishna almost. But it's purely theoretically. It's not really real things.
So therefore, we want to be real in this very important process, and therefore the whole program or the whole idea was developed. And yeah, basically this is to reiterate what I already uh discussed with you.
The webinars are there, discussions in mini groups which is essential and make it more personal uh and more also the stress on yeah, the stress on application, curators, coordinators, network.
And we have special events for this group of people because they are essential. If they are inspired, the people, students under them will also be inspired.
So for them, we make special retreats, special education for them. So but it's it's important element of it.
Dhama pilgrimages and future development plans
And then face to face activity whenever we can.
And this is a very important feature of the whole idea is that we arrange special pilgrimage to the holy places among the students in the groups which they developed with a specific emphasis to chant the holy name.
Not just to be a tourist in a holy place and just to look around and eat some pizzas and ice cream in Mayapur.
But to emphasize and to reiterate and repeat the knowledge that they have and practice it in the Holy Dham in the holy atmosphere of the Holy Dham. To again deepen the experience and to make it more profound. Yeah, and this is basically yeah, this is this started in 2016, the whole project. And now we have 1,014 students, regular retreats, pilgrimage
to holy places, the holy name day program, and three courses already developed. That's basically. And that's the future plans. We want to develop the introductory course.
Not uh we realize that even the Shraddha level is a little too high for some people. So, some introductory level is good before Shrada. So, we're planning to develop uh one more course.
Of course, we are working on the fourth year also of education. Then we are constantly working on strengthening this mentorship system uh to make it more effective because that's the key.
And uh yeah we want to increase the number of students but uh we don't want also
to increase in exponentially because the quality of education is essential, and for that, you need qualified curators and coordinators, and the number is limited. So we are not really trying to expand too high, too much.
And then in the holy dhama there were big pilgrimage with big groups, but we also realized that it becomes impersonal. Therefore, we developed another program when we have small groups going to holy dhams and again emphasize the personal relationship and the personal atmosphere and everything.
Yeah, and then we're working on the support, technical support for administration.
It's very important when you have more than a thousand people, you know, and everyone has to do the homework, everyone has to do the exams, everyone. It's a very complicated thing. So there is a very developed CRM for
those who don't know, it's customer what? Management. Customer relation management. Yeah, customer relations management system which we use to keep track of what is going on.
And then you know if if it will work, we're ready to help those people who want to implement this program for the English-speaking devotees. We spoke with Sachi-nandana Maharaja, he is interested.
But as I said, it requires it's a great deal of uh management. Uh so therefore it's basically up to you. If you want, we want to help. If you don't want, it's fine with us. So basically, that's what I wanted to tell you.
And that's if somebody wants to get more information, that's the uh Email address and WhatsApp number of the devotee who is in charge of the educational council, you can also ask me.
Application of the educational template
But this Yaroslav is ready to help you with whatever materials you need. And if you have any questions, I will be happy to answer. Yes. Can we actually use this template for some other courses. Absolutely.
We use this template successfully with slight differences according to the course in some other in our programs, in our educational programs as well. It's a very effective template, and you're most welcome to use it.
It's just here the emphasis is on practice. I'm planning to open Bhagavatam school, the school for studying Bhagavatam, but there there will be some other di uh emphasis. So there will be some differences in it.
But basically, the template, in my opinion, is very good because it solves the problem of not having too many Mahabhagvatas in our society and more smooth transmission uh to the rank and file level. So yes.
And um yeah, I I don't know uh what is the system here on ILS. I'm ready to share this PowerPoint with you, but uh I don't know if I'm allowed to do this or not. I I will a Yeah yeah it's here it is.
So uh he he will send us this this particular QBT in email? Uh yeah yeah he can send it. He can send it. Yeah. I I can also give no problem.
So then you can share your mail ID this um maybe it's difficult, I'm too too bugged by by the email. Yeah, that's uh he speaks in English, so no problem.
You can write to him in English and uh that's uh the the school the school is running in Russian and uh English is our but if you are interested please do contact uh Yaroslav.
We're trying to implement it for the English speaking hemisphere. Here I'm just sharing our experience. Now it's all in Russian, but we're trying to implement it in English, but we need some dedicated people.
So if somebody is interested, not just to be the student but to uh take more active role into the whole project, that's actually the purpose of this presentation for you. Yes.
So a person who English speaking, this seems to be like from the very beginners like, stage by stage. But of now some devotees have already spent ten fifteen years, they are chanting, whatever.
So would you accept what stage they are in and what everyone has to bring which begin to push?
Well uh my personal experience that uh there is no harm in going back to the school of Shraddha and to really probe our Shraddha and to understand what it is.
But at the same time, you know, there is a room for those who are more experienced, and those who are more experienced they can serve in the school as curators, senior curators, teachers, coordinators.
So, and for them, because they are teaching, and while they are teaching, they are also learning themselves in the more depth.
So they can be very successfully engaged in it, uh, in the whole project, uh, with the you know profit for themselves and uh for the profit for the whole project, basically. So that's yeah, Jagadis.
Yeah there's a discussion yeah do you edit the webinar which was already edit afterwards which was already discussed? It, what's the point of discussion?
Because some people understand something, other people understand something else. So when they discuss together, uh they get more roundabout knowledge of what was said to them and what was the message of the webinar.
But we are working on improving the content and we are recording the new webinars on the basis of previous one, getting the feedback from the students, what was good, what was not.
So that's how we are improving the content. But basically, the discussion is not for this. The discussion is to more clearly and more deeply understand the message of the and the content of the webinar.
Okay, I guess that's it. We are done. If there's no more questions, we are right on time. Yes.
And of course uh we go against uh like you said some some tips given in the seminar doesn't really help to come back to mansion in the beginning.
Student evaluation and practical observations
But I would just like to request, please, you explain the whole structure, but we were also hoping some tips to know the the See, the purpose of this webinar is not to teach you japa.
If you want it, three years are already there program. I don't believe in teaching japa in 15 minutes.
So that's the whole idea of this webinar, to stress that it needs to be regularly practiced in the society of devotees with the proper attitudes.
It's because it's a skill building exercise, it's also a value-building exercise, you know, the proper attitude building. there's uh a lot of ingredients therefore I don't believe in this in
this format, you know, in fifteen minutes I will tell you something and you go, yeah, right, Hare Krishna. Can we just share how the student progressed? Like few few insights in here and you can see.
I can share with you this, let me go here. What our experience is that many people when they came to the third year they realized that they probably should go back to the second year.
That material which is given here, and the skills which are required on this third even though it seems to us, oh, bhajana-kriya oh I know everything. But bhajana-kriya has some tricks.
So there are more and more, many people on this level, uh, even though they went to this level, they just want to go back to the second year. That's one of the results.
And I'm very happy about this result because sometimes, you know, mentally or in our imagination we feel that we are very advanced, but it's not so when it comes to practice and the practical requirements of this particular level.
And usually people are very inspired on the first year, so many new things, and uh you know they all inspire. There are many people here who chant for 20 years. I mean, relatively many.
20 years and more, they have more experience, but they still're grateful to go through the whole system because it gives them new life. We know that people chant, chant, chant, and then you know it's just goes nowhere.
It's just they feel that they're stagnant. There is a stagnation. They're not really moving forward. So this is a very you know systematic and very gradual program which helps people to become real when the meditation.
And you know there are so many meditations, types of meditation, and japa meditation is a very specific skill which we have to develop.
Otherwise, we just develop the mechanical habit of you know chanting without feeling, without anything else. Yes. Are they basically lecture either by you or sentimental mode? Um it's m most of the lectures are by myself.
Sachinan Maraj gave a few. Rest is other teachers. But majority of lectures of myself, but not only. There's a lot of other lectures as well. But you know, we don't have too many lectures as I said.
It's only 19 webinars a year or so. So we have so far hardly 60 lectures, around 50 lectures all together.
But it's a very deep and systematically structured material with a lot of practical applications and everything else. We have to finish. If you won't come back, we can discuss a little more. Okay, thank you very much.
Śrīla Prabhupāda-ki-jaya. Hare Kṛṣṇa.