BY: ROCANA DASA
Aug 20, CANADA (SUN) — A weekly response to Dandavats editorials.
Today's Obeisances is in response to two articles recently published on Dandavats, "Respect for Individuality" by HG Urmila devi dasi, and "Education vs. Demagogy" by Karuna Purna devi dasi, who takes an opposing position to Urmila devi's.
Urmila devi dasi is by far the more prominent of the two authors, being a well known personality in ISKCON. She is not only renowned in the field of ISKCON education, but is also a member of the Sastric Advisory Council, and has her name in the hat for getting her guru stamp of approval. While clearly her junior, Karuna Purna devi still presents a strong challenge to Urmila devi's article.
The first part of Urmila devi's paper is somewhat typical, I find, of papers proliferate in the ISKCON community. It offers pages of preliminary preaching, giving us the ABC's of Krsna consciousness philosophy. In this case, we get the tutorial on individuality and the way the Vedas designate different persons into different groups, namely the Varnasrama system. Given that this paper was clearly intended for consumption by devotee readers, this whole section seems to me to be somewhat of a smokescreen for her real message, which comes many pages later.
Her essential message is based on her study of many different psychologists, who've written many books based on their own particular theories about how to identify different types of personalities. In particular as pertains to education, it's about how to identify and respond to the different types of students, teaching and encouraging them accordingly.
Urmila devi doesn't focus on any one theory, but presents many -- so many, in fact, as to be somewhat repetitious. She doesn't really address the reality that in this day and age, due to the fact that Varnasrama is not being followed, it's very difficult to accurately categorize the different personality types. This, of course, is a result of not controlling essentially the gene pool. In other words, marriages between different types of personalities have just been left up to the "love principle", and as a result everyone has such a mixed set of qualities. This is very difficult for the individuals themselves, what to speak of being able to organize them appropriately into a society.
The educational system was the very foundation of the Varnasrama system, as Srila Prabhupada made very clear to us. Although we have ample information from both guru and sastra in this regard, still we face a central problem in dealing with education. The problem lies not just in the school system, which is in itself misidentified as being an actual gurukula. In fact, the guru's in Vedic culture didn't have their own schools, but had one or a few students living with them as members of their household.
In ISKCON, the society is expected to provide the education, and the gurus have little or nothing to do with it. It's up to the parents and the institution. Of course, our original gurukula system didn’t fit either of these scenarios, but was actually the Sampradaya Acarya's own educational program.
Today we find that there's very little admission on the part of ISKCON's management or the teachers themselves that we're dealing with a very awkward set of circumstances in this Age of Kali, in that nobody fits into any kind of category - not even the ones presented by Urmila devi's list of scholars. In fact, it's very difficult to identify the personality types and teach them accordingly. On one hand Urmila devi emphasizes the fact that we're all individuals, which she points out is the essence of our philosophy, but at the same time, as a loyal ISKCON personality and a part of the institution's management, she will not come to grips with or be honest about the fact that the way ISKCON is structured and managed makes it very difficult for persons like her to run the schools.
In the article by Karuna Purna devi, I find a far more honest assessment of the situation in ISKCON and a more practical solution to the problem. Basically she emphasizes the fact that you really need professional training to deal with the kind of schools that ISKCON is now forced to run. In other words, due to all the scandals and the failure of the original gurukulas, the society is now essentially running day schools and preparing the students to assimilate themselves into western culture. ISKCON is no longer striving to be a society, but rather to be a religion. The students, therefore, are really preparing themselves for a life and a career within the general society, where they'll be expected to make a living at a 'normal' job. ISKCON can't really employ or engage them, or assimilate them into any kind of work culture, beyond trying to hire some of them as pujaris, cooks etc. - a practice which is also controversial and seen by many as being against Srila Prabhupada's program.
In order to successfully prepare these children for integration with the general society, you have to do it the western way, which is basically see that the teachers themselves get the proper educational training on how to educate children. This is essentially what Urmila devi dasi is saying, too. All the different authorities and theories she mentions in her article are just what a teacher going through any university or teacher training program would be exposed to.
Urmila devi is trying to make the point that ISKCON's teachers have to be very much aware of and sensitive to the individuality of the students and teach them accordingly. But this is just commonsense from an educational point of view. Obviously within the educational systems, wherein you have a classroom full of day students, one's ability to relate to the students on an individual basis is completely relevant to how many students you're expected to teach at one time in a classroom setting.
The original gurukula was based on the concept that the students would actually live with the guru as part of the family, and in that way the guru/teacher could deal with the student in a very individual way, as one would with their own children. But as soon as you go to the classroom setting, you have to be very practical in the sense that you have to know all the techniques, as Karuna Purna devi says, to "motivate and stretch students to strive to attain their maximum potential."
Karuna Purna devi is very straightforward in saying that the problem really is that ISKCON is not training their teachers properly. In fact, they sadly lack qualified teachers. You'd also assume they're not paying them the same salaries that a teacher with the proper educational credentials could expect in the regular school system. At any rate, they apparently can't attract the kind of persons that she says are required for the job. And essentially if you read between the lines, Urmila devi dasi is basically saying the same thing, and trying to provide some information that any teacher would gain if they went to a regular university.
It's interesting to note that Karuna Purna devi doesn't provide the name of the article she's responding to, nor does she mention Urmila devi dasi as the author. Instead, she just refers to a "recent article in Dandavats". This is very typical of the ISKCON mood… never mention devotees by name, just hint at who they are. Perhaps Karuna Purna doesn't 'name names' because she's basically saying that ISKCON's educational system is failing and that Urmila devi dasi's suggested solution is an over-simplification.
In Karuna Purna's opinion, if you don't have proper training the results can be very dangerous. Of course, we've all been witness to the many ex-gurukula students who have sued ISKCON, ostensibly because of some abuse. One of the things they're upset about is the fact that they weren't educated to be assimilated into the western culture, but were just thrust into that culture because ISKCON couldn't assimilate them into our own society. They weren't educated properly in either culture, so they had to make out as best they could, which is very frustrating if not debilitating. This is also the case for many of Srila Prabhupada's disciples who were forced out of the society after sacrificing their education to be part of what they thought was going to be a lifetime commitment. They assumed the society would always give them shelter, and they were going to be able to use their spiritual expertise until their dying day. This, of course, was Srila Prabhupada's plan both for the children and for his disciples.
I found that all of Urmila devi's suggestions in terms of teachers being able to properly identify students are also applicable to ISKCON in general. This was essentially an element in Srila Prabhupada's master plan -- that we would all be simultaneously teachers and students, and we would always be learning and teaching, which is what preaching is all about. This is especially true when it comes to the guru/disciple relationship. But the fact is that the gurus themselves aren't being trained as teachers, they're only being trained as initiators. Those who were supposed to teach them aren't being taught at all, nor empowered to teach the disciples of the gurus. Consequently no one's being trained, what to speak of identifying and personalizing the training, which is essentially what Urmila devi's message is all about.
As I read about the many abbreviated approaches of all these Doctors of psychology and the books they've written, I'm reminded of the fact that many of our ISKCON leaders also fall into these different personality categories. And according to these essential definitions, many shouldn’t be leaders at all because they just don't have the right personality type to fulfill that function. Regardless, due to circumstance they became leaders and no one can change that, even though they're not suited for their occupation. Besides that, many of the leaders want to wear multiple hats: guru, sannyasi, and GBC. Their personality type may be suited to one of those three roles, but how can they be suited to all three of these diverse occupations?
Of course, as an ISKCON leader, Urmila devi dasi would never venture down that road. She has the luxury of just taking the knowledge that she's obviously become attracted to and applying it only to the educational system which is, as I understand it, a very minor part of ISKCON's current program. I would hazard a guess that many of the devotee parents today feel compelled to send their children to regular karmi schools rather than to put them into the few ISKCON schools that are still functioning. So in reality, there is a very narrow field of application for this debate in ISKCON today. That's rather unfortunate, considering the obvious knowledge and expertise of these two writers.
Obeisances to Dandavats, to HG Urmila devi, and to Karuna Purna devi dasi.
