View source for It is the duty of the GBC to maintain the devotees, keep them in the highest standard of Krishna Consciousness, and give them all good instruction, and let them go out and preach for making more devotees

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{{terms|"It is the duty of the GBC to maintain the devotees, keep them in the highest standard of Krishna Consciousness, and give them all good instruction, and let them go out and preach for making more devotees"}}
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{{compiler|Visnu Murti}}
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[[Category:Our Duty (Disciples of SP)]]
[[Category:GBC]]
[[Category:Our Maintaining (Disciples of SP)]]
[[Category:Our Devotees of God (Disciples of SP)]]
[[Category:Keeping Ourselves (Disciples of SP)]]
[[Category:Highest Standards of Devotional Service to God]]
[[Category:Standard of Krsna Consciousness]]
[[Category:Us (Disciples of SP)]]
[[Category:Good]]
[[Category:Our Instructions (Disciples of SP)]]
[[Category:Let Us (Disciples of SP)]]
[[Category:Our Preaching (Disciples of SP)]]
[[Category:Making Devotees of God]]
[[Category:Spiritual Responsibilities of the GBC]]
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<h2>Correspondence</h2>
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<h3>1972 Correspondence</h3>
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It is better to maintain a devotee than to try to convince others to become devotees. It is the duty of the GBC to maintain the devotees, keep them in the highest standard of Krishna Consciousness, and give them all good instruction, and let them go out and preach for making more devotees. Your first job should be to make sure that every one of the devotees in your zone of management is reading regularly our literatures and discussing the subject matter seriously from different angles of seeing, and that they are somehow or other absorbing the knowledge of Krishna Consciousness philosophy.
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[[Vanisource:720616 - Letter to Satsvarupa written from Los Angeles|720616 - Letter to Satsvarupa written from Los Angeles]]
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You mention you like to speak now very often, but the first business should be to preach to the devotees. It is better to maintain a devotee than to try to convince others to become devotees. It is the duty of the GBC to  maintain the devotees, keep them in the highest standard of Krishna Consciousness, and give them all good instruction, and let them go out and preach for making more devotees. Your first job should be to make sure that every one of the devotees in your zone of management is reading regularly our literatures and discussing the subject matter seriously from different angles of seeing, and that they are somehow or other absorbing the knowledge of Krishna Consciousness philosophy. If they are fully educated in our philosophy and if they can get all of the knowledge and study it from every viewpoint, then very easily they will perform tapasya or renunciation and that will be their advancement in Krishna Consciousness. So first thing is to instruct all of your temple presidents and the other devotees to read daily, just as we have done in our morning class in Los Angeles. You may remember that we were reading one sloka each morning in Sanskrit and reciting it altogether and then discussing it thoroughly by seeing different new things. So you introduce this system and train the devotees first. Don't be too much concerned for the time being with nondevotees, now we must fix-up what devotees we have got in the knowledge of Krishna Consciousness, then we will succeed. What good are many, many devotees if none of them are knowledgeable?
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