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Education
Japa Meditation School – Back Home, Back to the Holy Name
The Japa Meditation School is a successful, growing educational project in Russia that helps devotees to engage in systematic, sastra-based studies to understand nama-tattva deeply and to practice the chanting of the holy name consciously. Within five years, the project has developed from a one-time retreat to a full-fledged educational program which involves more than 1200 students studying the subject on three different levels. Numerous Japa Retreats give an inspiration to develop relations with the holy name, but often times it is short-lived, whereas this educational format allows to bring the practice of Japa meditation to the devotees’ homes and to turn it into serious, on- going practice. Using modern information technologies, the school implements new forms of education: online and mixed format. The development of online sanga allows devotees from small yatras and remote areas to receive quality education and valuable communication, using the knowledge and principles they have gained in real life. And the system of curators and coordinators serves as the basis for the transfer of knowledge and contributes to the formation of a mentoring system in the field of chanting the holy name.
Crises of Growth on the Path of Spiritual Development and Systematic Spiritual Education
Imagine that the day you joined ISKCON you would get a map of all the difficulties you would encounter and all the steps you would need to make at various times in order to optimize your spiritual growth. Wouldn’t that help you? Srila Prabhupada provided us with one through his teachings, but we can extract it from there and detail it for future generations. The seminar gives a clear understanding of what each devotee should be trained in at various stages of his devotional life. It also describes difficulties any ISKCON member undergoes in his spiritual pursuits and sheds light on how leaders can proactively work towards helping devotees with those difficulties. It also provides a structure the educational system can be built upon.