First steps of preaching

Hare Krishna!

Ramanand Prabhu (a resident Brahmachari of Sri Sri RadhaKunjabihari Temple) had come today for taking the morning class. Here are some of the points that he made.

Before preaching to others, one must realise the tremendous importance of the preaching we are going to do. The first teaching that we give is "You are not the body, you are the soul!" This teaching is so so important, that even on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, Krishna gave this as the first teaching to Arjuna!

Also, we must pray to Guru, Prabhupada, and Krishna before starting to preach. We should pray that "Even though I am not following all the teachings myself, I am preaching because this is your order. Kindly let such words come out of my mouth that the hearer can understand your message nicely."

Also, we must preach to the heart and not to the head. Meaning that we must try to change people's hearts and not try to intellectually defeat them just by logic and argument. There is a famous saying, "A man convinced against his will, has the same opinion still!" Even if you defeat the hearer logically, because of the bloated ego, the other person wont change his opinion. Therefore, if we want to be effective preachers, we must try to speak to the heart very politely.

And finally, he said that education has 4 steps:

- adhiti (I dont remember the exact word)
Meaning thorough study of the subject matter.

- bodha
Meaning contemplation on what was studied.

- acharan
Meaning abiding by those teachings in day-to-day life.

- pracharan
Meaning preaching.

But, in Kali Yuga, because everyone is going to hell in wholesale :) we can start preaching and meanwhile also trying to perfect our bodha and acharan. How to start preaching I have already told -- by praying appropriately to Guru, Prabhupada, And Krishna.

Your servant, Abhijit.