- The first purpose of ISKCON is to propagate the spiritual teachings of Krishna consciousness for the benefit of all people.
- The traditional approach of preaching has a negative connotation and may not resonate with people in today's world.
- ISKCON should pursue this purpose with a different approach that involves dialogue and cooperation with others.
- ISKCON should focus on what it can contribute to society and how it can help people improve their lives with a spiritual vision.
- Interfaith education and training is important to understand and appreciate different religious traditions and have a broader perspective.
- Training in religious traditions can be challenging but also liberating as it allows for self-questioning and deeper faith.
- Interacting with other faith traditions has unlimited potential and can be attractive if approached with openness and conviction.

- Srila Prabhupada emphasized working together with different faiths to propagate God consciousness and counter atheism.
- Interfaith dialogue can be approached by exploring practical social concerns and helping those in need.
- The aim is to counteract religious fundamentalism and extremism, as well as terrorism, by promoting understanding and respect for different faith traditions.
- The discussion also mentions the similarities between Vaishnav and Buddhist traditions, as well as exploring the concepts of rasa (aesthetics) and religious experience in other traditions.
- Ethics and the application of laws vary across different faith traditions, from deśa kalāpatra (place, time, and circumstance) to set laws and adjusting circumstances.
- The Confucian tradition emphasizes elevation to an ideal state connected to heaven.

- The speaker believes that human life is meant for elevation to an ideal state associated with heaven.
- The proposed course aims to be a foundation for students to explore and engage with different faith traditions.
- His Grace Anuttama Prabhu has organized interfaith dialogue events, particularly between Vaishnava Christians and other faiths.
- The speaker suggests that interfaith events should focus on deeper dialogue rather than just giving speeches.
- The speaker proposes an interfaith meeting where participants prepare and respond in writing before engaging in conversation.
- Vaishnavas can initiate productive dialogue by joining existing groups and developing individual relationships with followers of other faiths.

- ISKCON aims to spread Krishna consciousness through a different approach that involves dialogue and cooperation with other faith traditions.
- Interfaith education and training are important for understanding and appreciating different religious traditions.
- Srila Prabhupada emphasized working together with different faiths to promote God consciousness and counter atheism.
- Interfaith dialogue should focus on practical social concerns and helping those in need.
- The aim is to promote understanding and respect for different faith traditions and counter religious fundamentalism and extremism.
- The proposed course aims to provide a foundation for students to explore and engage with different faith traditions.
- Interfaith events should focus on deeper dialogue rather than just giving speeches.
- Vaishnavas can initiate productive dialogue by joining existing groups and developing individual relationships with followers of other faiths.

Interview about Inter Religious Dialog, with HH Krishna Kshetra Swami.
Year 2017

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So, the first purpose of ISKCON, among the 7 purposes that have been articulated from practically the beginning of the establishment of ISKCON is to propagate systematically the spiritual teachings of Krishna consciousness in such a way that it can reach to the society at large for the benefit of all people.

Certainly our society is very much engaged in all sorts of activities that we generally refer to as preaching.

Unfortunately, the word preaching, or preach to preach, for many people in the Anglophone world has a quite negative connotation.

And the implication is that preaching is what you do when you think you know the truth and the person that you are preaching to is in darkness, such that you are going to be the only 1 speaking and the person that you are speaking to is expected to only listen.

This paradigm has problems for many people in today's world.

And so The question is, can we pursue this purpose, which is a wonderful purpose of ISKCON, of Shila Prabhupada, in a wider spectrum of ways that will be with a different sort of approach, an approach that is, I don't know how to say it, more of an openness to the people that we are engaging with such that there is a spirit of dialogue and a spirit of cooperation.

1 way I like to think of it is that every thoughtful person today will agree that there are serious problems in the world, in various spheres, serious social, political problems, and so on, everyone will agree generally that there are problems.

And what may help us as a society, as ISKCON, to engage with the world in more effective ways is to first of all ask ourselves, What do we have to contribute to society?

Often we think in terms of what can we do to persuade people to turn on, tune in, drop out of society, to reject society.

Not many people are going to be attuned, are not going to be interested in that sort of message.

And the fact is that we have so much, both in terms of theology and philosophy and in terms of our culture, our practices, our values, our ideals, which have a lot to contribute to society in practical ways.

The question is, how do we make the sorts of connections with which people can really resonate by appreciating, oh, these people want to work with us.

They want to contribute, they want to help.

So to pursue this kind of approach requires some education, some training, some considerable amount of discussion about what it means to relate in positive ways with society whereby it's not that we're about, we're not about converting people.

We are about encouraging people to do whatever they do better with a more spiritual vision, with a more effective vision, which can be applicable for all kinds of people in all kinds of circumstances.

So I think the spirit of this first purpose of ISKCON, if we look at it deeply, is really calling for this kind of approach.

Interfaith education and training is, very simply put, it's about making a systematic effort to understand and appreciate the various traditions of religion, spirituality that we find in the world today.

It has been said, this is kind of famous quote from 1 scholar of religion from the late 19th century.

He said, he who knows 1 religion knows no religions.

In other words, he was saying, 1 needs to make an effort to comprehend, at least to some degree, about another religious tradition in order to have a perspective, in order to see things from a broader perspective.

If 1 is so kind of narrow thinking that my religion is the only religion, there is a great danger there.

And the danger is that 1 is simply narrow-minded and therefore not able to connect, to relate with persons of other faiths, other faith traditions.

So the idea of training in religious traditions is to make a conscious effort to sort of overcome this tendency, this obstacle within ourselves to say, well, we have all the answers and they just have to listen to us.

This is a challenging sort of endeavor for some devotees.

So it can be challenging, but I would suggest that it can also be liberating because it forces 1 to look not only at the other tradition, but 1 has to then look back at one's own tradition, one's own faith, one's own convictions, and with a kind of fresh perspective, it involves a certain amount of questioning of oneself, which then can lead to deeper faith, a stronger conviction, which is ripe in such a way that 1 does not feel threatened by others' views.

And Because 1 does not feel threatened, 1 can in fact be very open in one's exchange with others and that becomes very attractive.

The potential for interacting with other faith traditions, in a sense, we could say it's uncharted territory.

We don't know what the potential is, but if we have some conviction that there are possibilities for such interaction.

Srila Prabhupada on several occasions emphasized that our aim is, well, 2 different things, he said.

1 was all faiths, in all different faiths, faith traditions who are centered in God consciousness, let us work together, he said, let us work together to propagate God consciousness.

Sometimes he would use the term God consciousness.

Let us together do whatever we can in cooperation to counter the atheistic tendency, the expanding faithlessness of contemporary society, let us work together.

We all agree there is a supreme God, supreme person.

We may have different perspectives on the nature of, or the, you know, the way of describing that supreme person, supreme Lord.

And we may have different ways of approaching the Lord, but we all agree on something, so let's take that something, which is that God exists, and let us work together with that understanding.

And as I said, the territory is uncharted.

1 way that interfaith dialogue has been approached is let us explore together different religious, let us explore how we can help in very practical social concerns.

So we may see in a particular neighborhood there is some need of helping people who have trouble with intoxication, with drugs, whatever.

There's different sorts of inter-religious dialogue.

There is a history of inter-faith dialogue and we may also discuss that in such a course.

The question is whether such a program may help to counteract religious fundamentalism, extremism, even terrorism.

And I would just say, yes, of course, this is the intention, or this would be, this can be a byproduct, you might say.

But certainly this is a major concern worldwide now.

People associate often religion with religious fanaticism, fundamentalism, and of course the various forms of terrorism that have been so prominent in recent years.

Obviously, these are growing out of ignorance, and ignorance means ignorance of other people's faith traditions.

And the sort of, the logic, there is a logic to a faith tradition.

It holds together through a connection of so many different ideas and also from tradition itself, from its own history, each religious tradition.

So to open oneself just to hear what is the reasoning of a particular tradition, religious faith, can help 1 to respect it and respect the people who follow it.

So I would say certainly it can be helpful to counteract all sorts of fundamentalism in the negative sense.

Fundamentalism in a positive sense is to be grounded in fundamental principles, which is a good thing.

And you could say 1 of the aims would be to see what are the fundamental principles of the different religious traditions?

Samples from traditions that 1, that Vaishnav tradition might be able to work with.

What comes immediately to mind, and this may sort of sound strange, but there is up to a certain point very much in common between our tradition and the Buddhist tradition.

In fact, Historically, Buddhism grows out of, it came out of India, and also out of the Indian religious milieu, out of the religious culture of India.

And up to a certain point, you can say, there is actually very much in common.

You could say in simple terms it's between a theistic worldview and a non-theistic.

I wouldn't say atheistic, but a non-theistic world view.

I think you can take any religious tradition, I mean, also the Abrahamic traditions of course are very theistically focused and they have a very strong sense of the personality of God, that God is a person, whether or not or how God is identified in terms of form is another thing.

But the idea that there is a God who is somehow caring for, is concerned about at least human beings, if not in some sense other beings.

Also with the Abrahamic traditions, there's room for exploring, surprisingly, the Gaudiya Vaishnav notion of rasa, or aesthetics more broadly speaking, where Their emphasis could be on different sorts of rasa than we might consider important, but they are there.

There's a concern about relation with God and so on.

Within, again, Abrahamic tradition, there is Islam.

Within Islam is a whole spectrum of Sufi traditions.

Sufism is often associated with, for lack of a better word, mysticism.

And the emphasis is on experience, religious experience.

So this dimension of religious spiritual life, namely a sense of direct experience of transcendence or divinity and so on, that can be an interesting avenue.

In terms of ethics, this is an interesting, again, rather uncharted territory because Whereas we think of ethics largely in terms of deśa kalāpatra, place, time, and circumstance, or patra means receptacle, person, as determining what is appropriate action in different circumstances.

The Abrahamic traditions tend to go more toward set law, but of course, they're also dealing with different circumstances, and then the adjusting of those circumstances is often a big concern in their tradition.

Sharia, for example, they deal with different circumstances of applying the different sorts of law.

Then you go to the Far East and you have Taoism and Confucian tradition where notions of divinity become quite different, you may say.

In Confucianism, the emphasis is on Tian, which means heaven, and to what extent is this heaven personal or impersonal is an ongoing debate.

But there is a very clear sense that human life is meant for elevation to some sort of ideal state which is identified somehow or other with this Tian, with heaven.

So very broadly you can say all of these traditions are very much about human life being valuable as an opportunity, where the necessity is for elevation.

And so these sorts of things can be explored in many ways.

What sort of results I would like to see from such course as this that we're proposing is that students take it on as a beginning, really, of a longer pursuit in their spiritual lives that would lead them to some sort of specific, some sort of definite engagements with other faith traditions that they would then, with this beginning, and it would certainly only be a kind of beginning preliminary sort of a course, With this beginning, it would be enough of a foundation that students can go on to learn more themselves, to start to meet other faith tradition followers, to learn from them, and to explore with them different ways of developing an ongoing relationship.

So that would be, I would consider that a success.

His Grace Anuttama Prabhu has been organizing Vaishnava Hindu dialogue events for the last, I believe, 15 years, he has been doing this in Washington, D.C.

For most of these years, and since more Recently, 2 times in India, there have been such events.

Vaishnava Christian interfaith dialogue or interreligious dialogue events.

He also, I believe it's been 1 time so far, has organized a Vaishnav Muslim interfaith dialogue.

Other devotees in different parts of the world have participated.

I can say myself personally, in a very small way, many years ago, participated with some other devotees in the Parliament of the World's Religions that took place in Barcelona, I believe it was 2004.

And some devotees have also engaged on that level at other times and places.

That's sort of ongoing, but to my knowledge, in rather small, to a rather small scale.

It's certainly something that could be expanded.

1 thing I've found is a kind of shortcoming of some of these interfaith events is I find that they're not, sometimes they're not really interfaith dialogue so much as interfaith serial monologues.

That, okay, let's now hear from the Christians on this topic, and then they'll give some speech.

Okay, and they sit down, that's it, okay, next.

And then another speech, and Jewish people speak, and then, you know.

And it's nice that we all come together and we at least politely listen to each other.

But I think real dialogue has to go on on a deeper level.

And I've had some idea what might be done, but It involves a fair amount of work, which mostly, who has time for it?

But it involves, my idea is an interfaith meeting for which there's been some preparation done in advance where everyone writes something, the others have to read it, and they have to respond in writing to what they have read.

And having then received what everyone has written in response to what was written initially, then I think we're ready for talking.

Because then we've really looked at each, you know, and thought about what can Vaishnavas do to initiate such productive dialogue?

Well, first we can find out what's already going on and we might be able to simply join in some group.

Another thing is just very individually, individual Vaishnavas can get to know individual whatever it is, Christian, Muslim, Taoist, Buddhist, whatever, and develop a relationship with them and then see, can we expand this in some way?


Speaker 0: So, the first purpose of ISKCON, among the 7 purposes that have been articulated from practically the beginning of the establishment of ISKCON is to propagate systematically the spiritual teachings of Krishna consciousness in such a way that it can reach to the society at large for the benefit of all people. I don't have the exact wording of it. So the issue is how do we do this? Certainly our society is very much engaged in all sorts of activities that we generally refer to as preaching. Unfortunately, the word preaching, or preach to preach, for many people in the Anglophone world has a quite negative connotation.

We say in English, don't preach to me. And the implication is that preaching is what you do when you think you know the truth and the person that you are preaching to is in darkness, such that you are going to be the only 1 speaking and the person that you are speaking to is expected to only listen. This paradigm has problems for many people in today's world. And so The question is, can we pursue this purpose, which is a wonderful purpose of ISKCON, of Shila Prabhupada, in a wider spectrum of ways that will be with a different sort of approach, an approach that is, I don't know how to say it, more of an openness to the people that we are engaging with such that there is a spirit of dialogue and a spirit of cooperation. 1 way I like to think of it is that every thoughtful person today will agree that there are serious problems in the world, in various spheres, serious social, political problems, and so on, everyone will agree generally that there are problems.

And what may help us as a society, as ISKCON, to engage with the world in more effective ways is to first of all ask ourselves, What do we have to contribute to society? Often we think in terms of what can we do to persuade people to turn on, tune in, drop out of society, to reject society. Not many people are going to be attuned, are not going to be interested in that sort of message. And the fact is that we have so much, both in terms of theology and philosophy and in terms of our culture, our practices, our values, our ideals, which have a lot to contribute to society in practical ways. The question is, how do we make the sorts of connections with which people can really resonate by appreciating, oh, these people want to work with us.

They want to contribute, they want to help. Let's see how we can work together. So to pursue this kind of approach requires some education, some training, some considerable amount of discussion about what it means to relate in positive ways with society whereby it's not that we're about, we're not about converting people. We are about encouraging people to do whatever they do better with a more spiritual vision, with a more effective vision, which can be applicable for all kinds of people in all kinds of circumstances. So I think the spirit of this first purpose of ISKCON, if we look at it deeply, is really calling for this kind of approach.

Interfaith education and training is, very simply put, it's about making a systematic effort to understand and appreciate the various traditions of religion, spirituality that we find in the world today. It has been said, this is kind of famous quote from 1 scholar of religion from the late 19th century. He said, he who knows 1 religion knows no religions. In other words, he was saying, 1 needs to make an effort to comprehend, at least to some degree, about another religious tradition in order to have a perspective, in order to see things from a broader perspective. If 1 is so kind of narrow thinking that my religion is the only religion, there is a great danger there.

And the danger is that 1 is simply narrow-minded and therefore not able to connect, to relate with persons of other faiths, other faith traditions. So the idea of training in religious traditions is to make a conscious effort to sort of overcome this tendency, this obstacle within ourselves to say, well, we have all the answers and they just have to listen to us. This is a challenging sort of endeavor for some devotees. So it can be challenging, but I would suggest that it can also be liberating because it forces 1 to look not only at the other tradition, but 1 has to then look back at one's own tradition, one's own faith, one's own convictions, and with a kind of fresh perspective, it involves a certain amount of questioning of oneself, which then can lead to deeper faith, a stronger conviction, which is ripe in such a way that 1 does not feel threatened by others' views. And Because 1 does not feel threatened, 1 can in fact be very open in one's exchange with others and that becomes very attractive.

So that's the aim of this program. The potential for interacting with other faith traditions, in a sense, we could say it's uncharted territory. We don't know what the potential is, but if we have some conviction that there are possibilities for such interaction. Yeah, we could say the sky is the limit. Srila Prabhupada on several occasions emphasized that our aim is, well, 2 different things, he said.

1 was all faiths, in all different faiths, faith traditions who are centered in God consciousness, let us work together, he said, let us work together to propagate God consciousness. Sometimes he would use the term God consciousness. Use the term God consciousness. Let us together do whatever we can in cooperation to counter the atheistic tendency, the expanding faithlessness of contemporary society, let us work together. We all agree there is a supreme God, supreme person.

We may have different perspectives on the nature of, or the, you know, the way of describing that supreme person, supreme Lord. And we may have different ways of approaching the Lord, but we all agree on something, so let's take that something, which is that God exists, and let us work together with that understanding. And as I said, the territory is uncharted. 1 way that interfaith dialogue has been approached is let us explore together different religious, let us explore how we can help in very practical social concerns. So we may see in a particular neighborhood there is some need of helping people who have trouble with intoxication, with drugs, whatever.

Let's work together to help them. That's 1 sort of approach. There's different sorts of inter-religious dialogue. There is a history of inter-faith dialogue and we may also discuss that in such a course. The question is whether such a program may help to counteract religious fundamentalism, extremism, even terrorism.

And I would just say, yes, of course, this is the intention, or this would be, this can be a byproduct, you might say. But certainly this is a major concern worldwide now. People associate often religion with religious fanaticism, fundamentalism, and of course the various forms of terrorism that have been so prominent in recent years. Obviously, these are growing out of ignorance, and ignorance means ignorance of other people's faith traditions. And the sort of, the logic, there is a logic to a faith tradition.

It holds together through a connection of so many different ideas and also from tradition itself, from its own history, each religious tradition. So to open oneself just to hear what is the reasoning of a particular tradition, religious faith, can help 1 to respect it and respect the people who follow it. So I would say certainly it can be helpful to counteract all sorts of fundamentalism in the negative sense. Fundamentalism in a positive sense is to be grounded in fundamental principles, which is a good thing. And you could say 1 of the aims would be to see what are the fundamental principles of the different religious traditions?

How do they articulate them? How do they hold them important? And so on. Samples from traditions that 1, that Vaishnav tradition might be able to work with. What comes immediately to mind, and this may sort of sound strange, but there is up to a certain point very much in common between our tradition and the Buddhist tradition.

In fact, Historically, Buddhism grows out of, it came out of India, and also out of the Indian religious milieu, out of the religious culture of India. And up to a certain point, you can say, there is actually very much in common. What is that point? Well, that's a whole discussion. You could say in simple terms it's between a theistic worldview and a non-theistic.

I wouldn't say atheistic, but a non-theistic world view. But how exactly that comes about. I think you can take any religious tradition, I mean, also the Abrahamic traditions of course are very theistically focused and they have a very strong sense of the personality of God, that God is a person, whether or not or how God is identified in terms of form is another thing. But the idea that there is a God who is somehow caring for, is concerned about at least human beings, if not in some sense other beings. That kind of idea is there.

Also with the Abrahamic traditions, there's room for exploring, surprisingly, the Gaudiya Vaishnav notion of rasa, or aesthetics more broadly speaking, where Their emphasis could be on different sorts of rasa than we might consider important, but they are there. And rasa is about relationship. There's a concern about relation with God and so on. Within, again, Abrahamic tradition, there is Islam. Within Islam is a whole spectrum of Sufi traditions.

Sufism is often associated with, for lack of a better word, mysticism. And the emphasis is on experience, religious experience. So this dimension of religious spiritual life, namely a sense of direct experience of transcendence or divinity and so on, that can be an interesting avenue. Be an interesting avenue. In terms of ethics, this is an interesting, again, rather uncharted territory because Whereas we think of ethics largely in terms of deśa kalāpatra, place, time, and circumstance, or patra means receptacle, person, as determining what is appropriate action in different circumstances.

The Abrahamic traditions tend to go more toward set law, but of course, they're also dealing with different circumstances, and then the adjusting of those circumstances is often a big concern in their tradition. Sharia, for example, they deal with different circumstances of applying the different sorts of law. Then you go to the Far East and you have Taoism and Confucian tradition where notions of divinity become quite different, you may say. In Confucianism, the emphasis is on Tian, which means heaven, and to what extent is this heaven personal or impersonal is an ongoing debate. But there is a very clear sense that human life is meant for elevation to some sort of ideal state which is identified somehow or other with this Tian, with heaven.

So very broadly you can say all of these traditions are very much about human life being valuable as an opportunity, where the necessity is for elevation. And so these sorts of things can be explored in many ways. What sort of results I would like to see from such course as this that we're proposing is that students take it on as a beginning, really, of a longer pursuit in their spiritual lives that would lead them to some sort of specific, some sort of definite engagements with other faith traditions that they would then, with this beginning, and it would certainly only be a kind of beginning preliminary sort of a course, With this beginning, it would be enough of a foundation that students can go on to learn more themselves, to start to meet other faith tradition followers, to learn from them, and to explore with them different ways of developing an ongoing relationship. So that would be, I would consider that a success. His Grace Anuttama Prabhu has been organizing Vaishnava Hindu dialogue events for the last, I believe, 15 years, he has been doing this in Washington, D.C.

For most of these years, and since more Recently, 2 times in India, there have been such events. Did I say Vaishnava Hindu? I meant Vaishnava Christian. Vaishnava Christian interfaith dialogue or interreligious dialogue events. He also, I believe it's been 1 time so far, has organized a Vaishnav Muslim interfaith dialogue.

Also that happened in Washington, D.C. Other devotees in different parts of the world have participated. I can say myself personally, in a very small way, many years ago, participated with some other devotees in the Parliament of the World's Religions that took place in Barcelona, I believe it was 2004. And some devotees have also engaged on that level at other times and places. That's sort of ongoing, but to my knowledge, in rather small, to a rather small scale.

It's certainly something that could be expanded. 1 thing I've found is a kind of shortcoming of some of these interfaith events is I find that they're not, sometimes they're not really interfaith dialogue so much as interfaith serial monologues. That, okay, let's now hear from the Christians on this topic, and then they'll give some speech. Okay, and they sit down, that's it, okay, next. And then another speech, and Jewish people speak, and then, you know.

I've had that experience. And it's nice that we all come together and we at least politely listen to each other. But I think real dialogue has to go on on a deeper level. And I've had some idea what might be done, but It involves a fair amount of work, which mostly, who has time for it? But it involves, my idea is an interfaith meeting for which there's been some preparation done in advance where everyone writes something, the others have to read it, and they have to respond in writing to what they have read.

And having then received what everyone has written in response to what was written initially, then I think we're ready for talking. Because then we've really looked at each, you know, and thought about what can Vaishnavas do to initiate such productive dialogue? Well, first we can find out what's already going on and we might be able to simply join in some group. I think that's the first thing. Another thing is just very individually, individual Vaishnavas can get to know individual whatever it is, Christian, Muslim, Taoist, Buddhist, whatever, and develop a relationship with them and then see, can we expand this in some way?

Can we do something with this? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Very kind of you.

Thank you.

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Interview about Inter Religious Dialog - HH Krishna Kshetra Swami - 2017