Jayapataka Swami says get people chanting Hare Krishna first, add rules later. He points to Lord Chaitanya's teaching that even one chant makes you a devotee, and argues strict rules now keep newcomers away when historical practice was public chanting everywhere.
Chapters
And I found that sometimes you need people. And I ask them, how many rounds do you chant? And they say, oh, no, I don't chant 16 rounds. I'm not a devotee either. I don't chant Hare Ka much. But because even Lord Chaitanya said, if you chant even one time, you're devotee. And he used that for the chant. When the Chankazi somehow two, three times said Hare Krishna Narayana said, you are supremely pure. You are a devotee, so we should incur. Lord Caitanya was very all encompassing. Although his devotees were very strict in their circle. But he had the whole town chanting. It wasn't that everybody in the town was on the same level of spiritual practices. But the public congregational chanting of Hare Ka was so popular. That somehow in our Ka conscious preaching. We stress the rules and regulations so much. And people, they don't even get the strength to even think about following these rules and regulations. Unless they chant Hare Ka. Where it's very clear that Lord Chaitanya got everybody to chant first. And once they were chanting, then it was easy for them to follow the rules and regulations. We're putting, what do you call the card before the horse. We got to get the people to chant first. And then when they're chanting and they get purified. Then they can actually start to follow rules. But if we put the rules first, people run away. People all over the world know Hare Krishna follow too many rules. I met one guy in the airport in Miami. And I said, oh, I'm Hare. He said, what original Jupiter I was wearing. You know, like devotee close Salam Hare Krishna. Oh, I know guys. You control your sex. You only have sex for children. But I am a Christian. We're allowed to have unlimited sex. With the blessing of Lord Jesus Christ. This guy. You don't know anything about Hare Krishna. Only thing you know is that we follow all kinds of rules and regulations. Which were totally part of his school. So then by the time of Lord Chaitanya. Everybody knew that that wasn't the calling card. The calling card was that everybody chanted Hare Krishna. We knew that the top devotees were very pure. But everybody was encouraged to chant. So they could get the whole city of Pazatis to gather in front of the Shankazi's hundreds of thousands of people.
