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Monday Morning Greetings 2024 #16 – The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Preachers Part II

April 14th, 2025

2. Empowering

 

A person who wants to widely communicate an important message needs people to assist in that work. It is therefore important to also empower others as preachers. That was Śrīla Prabhupāda’s example. Even though his followers were young and inexperienced, he inspired so many of them to effectively carry on his teachings, even in his lifetime. In other words, he was expert at seeing devotees’ potential, encouraging them, and then engaging them to actualize their potential, even though they were immature in so many ways. Perhaps today we can afford to better prepare and train devotees before we empower them to fully represent the mission. Of course, Śrīla Prabhupāda had no choice but to quickly put his fledgling disciples on the front lines, but he did demonstrate a powerful point—as an effective preacher, he did not hesitate to empower others to expand his mission.

 

When I traveled and preached in south India in the summer of 1978, everywhere I went the people would tell me that “we have heard of your Acyutananda Swami.” He was so impressive—a young Vaiṣṇava in his mid-twenties who spoke their language, could sing their songs, and expertly presented the philosophy. I remarked at the time that those people, although they had heard of Acyutananda Swami, didn’t seem to know who Śrīla Prabhupāda was yet. I saw, however, no fault in that. Powerful teachers empower students and are happy even if the students surpass them.  Of course, Acyutananda achieved influence in just one part of India, while Śrīla Prabhupāda was preaching all over the world. He was also planting the seeds of an extraordinary preaching mission that would continue after he left. Unlike most missions started by a charismatic leader and carried into the next generation by a single appointed successor, Śrīla Prabhupāda’s plan was to inspire countless devotees, men and women, to take up the mantle of his mission and even manage it after he left.  There were challenges that appeared after his passing, which could be expected. But one cannot deny that Śrīla Prabhupāda’s movement inspired innumerable devotees who have successfully carried his legacy in an unprecedented way, establishing almost 1,000 temples of Krishna worldwide. A preacher must be empowering.

 

3. Nonsectarian

 

A preacher should respect all senior Vaiṣṇavas and as far as possible welcome their help as long as they can properly respect and represent one’s lineage. This sometimes can be misunderstood to mean that a saṅga should have an open-door policy, and that one is therefore sectarian if one doesn’t give a seat in their saṅga to any powerful Vaiṣṇava who requests a visit. The term sectarian, however, has another definition. It is also sectarian to enter another saṅga with one’s own agenda rather than serve the place which has welcomed one. It is therefore not sectarian to keep such people out. I try to be non-sectarian and welcome advanced Vaiṣṇavas to enlighten my saṅga and also serve their mission wherever I am invited to theirs. I will relate my experience in this regard.

 

Too often, I am disappointed. I have welcomed others that request to visit my saṅga and speak but found out their only intention was to serve their own mission. For example, I hosted one mahārāja and some of his followers, only later to be shown text messages sent to one young lady in my saṅga from our guests proclaiming this visiting sannyāsī was the real “rasikā” guru and others were less qualified. Obviously, that person or his followers will never be welcomed again.

 

We had several good experiences also with welcoming sādhus. I arranged a program in New York City for the respected Vaiṣṇava author Simon Haas (Sundar Gopal), a disciple of Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Mahārāja. It soon became clear that his only objective was to nourish our faith. He not only refused to accept any donations but left the proceeds from the sale of his own books and any donations he got personally with us. Later I co-hosted several retreats with him in Colombia and our experience was the same—his single intention was to serve us. A preacher should be intelligently nonsectarian.

 

Next week I will cover the other four remaining qualities of a highly effective preachers—being pro-active, giving Vrindavan, transmitting culture, and preparing the next generation.

 

As a good leader is one
who can achieve
many great tasks,
much better is one
who can empower others
to also perform great tasks,
and even better is one
who can inspire others
to simply love Krishna!

—Jamuna Jivana Baba (dedicated follower of Śrīla Prabhupāda)—Radha Kunda Harinam Saṅga

 

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