I recently read an advertizement for the Srimad-Bhagavata-Vidyapitham on Dandavats.com, posted by Matsya Avatara dasa. It is about a new school for teaching Sanskrit and the Bhagavatam to ISKCON devotees. It began with the question: “Why become an academic scholar when you can be a natural scholar in the eternal Vaisnava tradition”?
The question has bothered me for a few weeks now. On the one hand we have major problems within the social, religious, intellectual and political order of today’s world. On the other hand ISKCON is not thriving the ways many believe it can and should. If ISKCON is supposed to play an important role in the moral, intellectual and spiritual leadership of the world, then we seem to have a big problem on our hands. I find it terribly disheartening that the only school in ISKCON engaged in traditional Caitanya Vaishnava learning has such a polemical attitude towards devotees doing academics seva—this does not bode well for ISKCON scholars learning to serve Krishna side-by-side. How can ISKCON scholars fulfill their very lofty hopes and dreams of providing genuine spiritual leadership in an age of quarrel and hypocracy if they can’t even work together, and if they can’t even make an effort to understand one another?
I think the Bhagavata-Vidyapitham school has great potential. I do believe very strongly that ISKCON needs to train and educate ISKCON students in a traditional manner, but I also believe that ISKCON needs a presence in the academic world. And if ISKCON is going to succeed in leading the world, then scholars serving in different areas (whether teaching in an ashrama in India as sadhus have done for thousands of years, or teaching in an academic university in the heart of New York City), then they need to the support, encouragement and friendship of one another. The recent message on Dandavats.com was so disheartening because the authors do not manifest awareness of the necessity and utility of devotee scholars working together.
