Report to Dr. Samaresh
Hare Krsna, Professor,
Here we are back in Lima, Peru, after about two weeks on Chile.
We have not seen any e-mail or any Text messages from your good self nor any of our Kolkata friends for weeks. We don't know if you got our last letter.
We are in continuous stress and distress but we have learned to ignore it unless it is very, very, bad and just go ahead with the work.
In Chile, the results were past human imagination. We presented, "Hamlet and Arjuna", at the National Library at request from local promoters. The last time we did this theme was about 5-years ago but it seems to have left a lasting impact.
The auditorium was filled. Raul Zurita, the National Poet Laureate, was with us to make his comments. He is an extremely distinguished international scholar who has lived and suffered through the genocides of Latin America, is standing as continuous guest scholar at universities such as Sorbonne and Berkeley. From his appearance he is about 80-years old and as handsome as Cicero.
He also did an acclaimed translation of Hamlet into Spanish. Chile is a country smaller than Bengal that boasts two Nobel Laureates in literature et al.
The program started with Om Bhakti. They are local classical Indian musicians, lead by our disciple who has studied for seven years total in Kolkata and Varanasi. You know the kind of experience I have with classical Indian music and I must say that I have never heard better anywhere.
Then I did our slide show of our constrasts of Arjuna and Hamlet with Raul listening on the stage and then he made his comments on the presentation and read for about 15-minutes from extracts of his translation. Stage program finished with a violin solo by Russian artist who had studied at the Tchaikovsky Institute in Moscow of Bach to match the feelings of the Seminar. It was most excellent with the audience practicall rising to dance with him.
After this five kinds of Indian sweets and savories in the marble halls of the library fourey. We and the organizers were flooded with comments from heads of culture of the best national T.V. channels etc.
Everyone wants more.
The program on "Jung and the Bhagavat" was even bigger if it can be imaganined.
(Spelling is terrible in this letter, because the computer is geared to Spanish orthography)
Of course, the internal programs with ISKCON Chile, the multitude of personal consultations with friends and disciples who had traveled from Brazil, Panama, Argentina, programs with the Indian Community, Yoga studios, Karate association on Pranayama and Varna-ashrama-dharma etc and the continuous stress from cold made a program in which we were almost hysterical, but we did our little part and now the universities, scholars, all want to know how they can join, "Art and the Sacred", or whatever NIOS will be doing.
We have also been representing ISKCON Board of Education.
Back in Lima, things are even more disorganized than when we left. Not only has the director of the national library changed 3-times but now Sandip Chakravarty has been repositioned to New York. A new gentleman is coming to take his place from Mexico and the Yoga Instructor, Ayam Gupta, a very excellent person, is the interim Ambassador for one month.
We are trying to have another meeting with Ramon today to fix some kind of strategy for what we will do next.
Seems that God, our Ayur-vedic doctor, all are pushing us to stay completely out of management except to field questions that come to us from the field below and we should be calming down, becoming introspective and then putting something in writing.
We have tried to call again and again, but the connection has been hard, and you can see that many times we have just been under too much fire to think straight. We apologize sincerely and will try to call soon!
We left the ISKCON Chile temple at 1.30AM. At the airport 11-devotees met us and the the line was two blocks long to the check in desks, but we only had hand luggage so we were able to get a Kiosk boarding pass and stayed in the line for one hour to give to/take company from Pancha-tattva Das who was head back to Brazil and had luggage. Then flight to Lima. One night in Alejandro´s house. Met out team of about 15. Looked at the movies clip summary of Psychology and the Sacred 2017. It is O.K. and is now being subtitled by Gandharva Das who is a professor of the history and practice of advertising art.
We saw the English translations of four of the Spanish edition articles of Solaris 2. Again they were abominable, but also perfect, close enough, so I could see the content of the articles, ideas. The ideas are exciting. We want to comment, but I don´t think it is strategic to work on a full publication of Solaris in English this time. I want to send these rough translations to you, Radhika, Dr. Kalyan and some others for your appreciation. There are very fine thinkers in the world and so far Solaris has a definite place to play.
One night in his house in Callao near the airport. Next night we passed in our Lima Central ISKCON temple from where I write how.
It is old and delapindated. Maybe 150-year old adobe building, but very accesible to all the devotees. At 4.30PM we will have meeting of all the local educators to discuss Education with ISKCON in Peru etc. We have challenges integrating the education with the Temple managament structures etc.
One night in Callao.
One in Lima Central.
Tonight back to Callao.
Fly South to Arrequipa for Saturday and one night.
Another night in Callao.
Next night in Cusco the former capital of the Inca Empire where any historian of classical culture would leave his body and return every fifteen minutes looking at the remants and living heritage.
Then 10-days in Cochabamba, Boliva, for a National Winter Festival with us. The devotee there has the UPS (DHL mail) franchise for the country. Is our ISKCON Governing Body Commission (GBC) Regional Supervisor and maybe the most active in Education in South America.
We are promoting Radhika´s mother´s super, super, acclaimed (why not it has at least produced three Oxford scholars) book on Home Schooling, which is now in Spanish as the basis for starting Collective Home Schooling. There are over 125,000 school age children in ISKCON now.
Then one night back in Callao and 36-hours to finish everything in Peru. Next night in the airplane. Eight hours in transit in Mexico City with our scholars and friends and then arrive in Houston at 5PM.
Lecturing, breathing and working there until from Wednesday to Monday and then back to our base in Tennessee. There we will be based until September 27th when we leave for India.
(I can tell you the name of our Travel Director if you want to use him).
INDIA PLAN . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sept
28-2 Oct -- Delhi-Vrndavana
Oct
3-4 Ministry of Education Meetings Ujjain with Rama-giri-dhari Das et al
5-11 Bombay side. Any work for us?
11-21 Australia: Melbourne, Gold Coast, Brisbane.
21-25 Bombay ?
25 - 8th Nov, Kolkata, Manipura side.
How can we be of service to you with this schedule? ?
Although this is a report from a soldier in the field, I hope you can see that some strategy prevails. With NIOS we are looking for our Emperor Ashoka or Constantine to put this scholar-ship into practice. Maybe that will emerge from our meetings with Ramon Mujica. We have an incredible team of world-class motion picture directors, historians of art, Deans of Universities, devoted friends and master.
With ISKCON we are focusing on the proposed quarterly North American Journal on Education.
We finished our 100-pages of Essays for our Internal, ISKCON, Bhakti-vaibhava Diploma and shipped them today. We have to write Grant applications for NIOS within the next few weeks. We have practical relations with Rama-giridhari Das on all this work and we are hoping for your mercy and advice (and all the other readers with whom we share this Report).
Thank you,
Hare Krsna!
HpSwami (Professor H. H. Robinson)
Anjana Suta Academy
CAMP: Avenida Garcilaso de la Vega
Across from National Art Gallery.
