Letters to the editor

Hare Krishna Dear Maharaj,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Sri Sri Guru and Gauranga and Srila Prabhupada.

:-) :-) This is Sujata from Houston, in the last post seeking blessings of Your Holiness and all devotees. New Srivasangan is the name of our humble dwelling.

HpS - ASA -- Ahhh!   Very nice.  Are you still in the apartment where we visited?  You must have very nice Gaura-Nitai there!  Our respects to Mr. Gopal and Mera (?). 

Very much looking forward to your visit 23rd and hopefully 30th at airport.  We should be in Houston, unless  we get bitten by the travel bug suddenly.

It is very difficult for me opening up on a public forum like this, this is accessible for the whole wide world to read. Have never done it, thanks to our conservative Indian upbringing. Please forgive my anonymity.

Respects and obeisances from Gopal p and Meera,<img alt="smiley" height="23" src="http://hps.monkeywarrior.com/sites/all/libraries/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/regular_smile.png" title="smiley" width="23" />

Your aspiring fool of a servant,

Sujata

HpS - It is like a meeting of the Goswami Academy School Board. You introduce yourself as you have and then just post any news or ask questions in a general sense. In a Sunday Feast class someone may ask, "What is the standard for Diksa in ISKCON?".   So we answer and 200-people also get that question answered. Then afterwords maybe 11-people come up to the speaker and ask more personal questions, and the same person asks, "What is your more specfic standard, Maharaja?", and again we answer and maybe five more people in that group who had the same question get the answer also. That's what this Blog is like.

Very nice, very useful. Then same person may ask to have a few words individually and he explains that he has a pretty strong attachment to garlic, so we talk about it individually.

Three levels of questioning a Brahman, no?

Don't have to go over the basic idea every time...  Oooof!
So, maybe be see you Friday if no bugs bite your household.

Thank you,

HpS, Monkey/Piggy et al.

Dear Guru Maharaj,

Sorry for taking so long to reply... as soon as I arrived back in LA I ran a shipment of books down to the tksp party in San Diego with the intention of helping out with the marathon, but then some unexpected things came up that I needed to look into right away and now I'm realizing that I'm going to have to really focus to get myself over the initial hump of starting an art "business."

Brghupati prabhu set me up with one devotee we both know to help me with finances, and while trying to help me rebuild my credit he discovered that I still have about 10k worth of student loans I had no idea about which are about to be due soon. (It looks like I may have been somewhat cheated by the debt consolidation agency I worked with last year.) If that wasn't bad enough, I somehow lost a bag with probably 40-50 of my best pieces from the last few months. 

It looks like a hard road ahead for me, but the silver lining is that I still have the very best pieces from my last exhibition which I can show to galleries, and I finished a page on Patreon a while back, where I'm basically raffling artworks in exchange for monthly donations. I hope this will help me attain some basic stability and also give me the ability to travel and support different preaching projects, like a book distribution fund. I thought it would be wise to start the first fundraiser project to help me visit the pipeline protest (since it's a cause a lot of people could get behind), but it doesn't look like I'll make enough to go personally. At least I can send some prasad and supplies. Anyhow, it looks like the protesters won for now, apparently Obama stepped in to halt construction. But they're still afraid to leave because the oil co. threatened to build without permission and just pay the fines. Such demons! Plus they say Trump might reverse everything when he gets in office (to protect his investment$$.)

At any rate, I've got my work cut out for me, but some opportunities came up as well. When I was in San Diego picking up wifi in a Starbucks, one scruffy fellow asked to sit by me. Eventually I struck up a conversation and when he found out I was an artist he put me in touch with a childhood friend who now curates galleries all over the west coast! She added me to a list of "open studios" she promotes throughout California so now all I have to do is set up a display on Sundays and people will come to me. How cool is that? I'm hoping I can set up near the temple and take visitors on a tour of the BG museum & Sunday feast!

One last thing... I'm sure you probably heard by now, but Bhakta Philip has tragically left this world. I don't know all the details about the circumstances, but it was a suicide. It's amazing to see how many people he affected in his lifetime as people come forward to offer their respects on the Facebook page Chandranjana mataji made for him. Despite the differences he had with you (and with many others in ISKCON) I still think of him as a senior godbrother. He was a huge inspiration for me and I regret that I wasn't able to get to know him better. I'm helping to organize a small memorial for Phil here in LA where we'll do Harinam sankirtan at the beach in his honor. Now he and Raktak are both gone away, but losing them has inspired me to not take people for granted. I'm trying to spend more time with Bharadraj prabhu, and I just reached out to Govinda Dasi the other day for advice. Another devotee Sri Kalachandji has also offered to collaborate with me on some art projects soon. If you like I can try to write you more often as well... I was just trying to limit my posts to once a month so as not to crowd your inbox. If you ever need to contact me you can reach me at 310.503.2989 or my primary email: [email protected]

Whatever Krishna steals away is replaced with something better: only sorrow is temporary; only joy, forever.

your servant,

Ekāśma Dāsa

HpS - Yes, we heard about Prahlada Nrsmha, Phillip. He has always lived with such a passionate character. I don't think we really had that many 'differences'. He seemed to be always misunderstanding what we were trying to say until it got so we had to include a judge in the conversations.   I hope his future is very, very progressive!!!

With all your debts and stuff just keep a strong morning program and regular consculation with good devotees then you can realize it is all service, no?  We are half out the door to Mexico and India!!

Look, look, look for meetings with remarkeable people!

Pamho,

Agtsp, Agtssgag,sp!

This is my first time blogging here and am grateful to HH and all Vaisnavas for allowing me this access. Please pray for this fallen soul.

Thanks again,

Yas,

HpS - ASA -- Thank you Srivasangam [Das}  Who are you??? How can we serve you?

Hare Krshna querido maharaja: 

Por Favor Acepte mis respetuosas reverencias!

Todas las Glorias a Srila Prabhupada!

Discúlpeme por no haberle escrito antes, soy Rukmini, hija de madre Ramalila d.d. y prabhu Mahamantra d. de Arequipa-Perú, siempre quise comunicarme con usted pero no pude por razones que no lo justifican.

HpS - Yes, we recongnized your name and remembered you. Yes it has been a long time since we heard from you. Are you rich and famous? Do you have palaces on three continents? Do you regularly fly to the moon to give advice to the people there? ???  Let us read on!!

Maharaja usted sabe que desde muy pequeña he buscado el refugio en sus pies de loto pero siempre ha sido mi culpa el no lograrlo, hoy estoy decidida a luchar por ser su discípula,  canto mis rondas constantemente estoy tratando de culminar mi  curso de Bhaktiyoga con prabhu Laksmana Agraja de Lima quien me ha ayudado muchísimo con su paciencia y misericordia. Actualmente cumplo el servicio de asistente de pujari, soy Bachiller en Contabilidad y trabajo en una Constructora, tengo una pequeña niña de 3 años que se la presente alguna vez, su nombre es Ananda Shakti y mi esposo bhakta Gustavo aspirante de  Mahavisnu Maharaja.

Tambien le escribo para pedir sus bendiciones y consejos para mi matrinmonio que se llevara acabo el 31 de diciembre de este año.

Siempre orare al señor nrisimha  para que lo proteja y  pueda brindarnos su santa asociación.

A su servicio

Rukmini Devi

HpS - Casi tan rico.  Tiene bebe, esposo y ya matrimonio?  Confusion.  Pues claro es buen si puede ser casado con su esposo formalment.  We love your whole family very, very much. We wish that we could spend more time with you. I think that you and they must have gone through many challenges, but you all have been such good people, devotees, servants of Srila Prabhupada and Krsna that you will certainly at least get a little house in the pleasure groves of Vrndavana dhama for everyone if you just continue a little while longer on the same path.

Please send us more news and even photos of your wonderful marriage.

Hare Krishna Guru Maharaj

Todas las Glorias a Su Divina Gracias A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Acepte por favor mis reverencias

El día de su Vyasa Puja se encuentra cerca y eso me recuerda que hace 10 años su VP fue celebrado en el templo de Miraflores, ese día yo me atraje mucho a su personalidad debido al servicio que hacias predicando la Conciencia de Krishna en las Universidades. Son casi 10 años que llevo practicando Conciencia de Krishna de manera constante en ISKCON - Perú, y estoy muy agradecido a Usted por permitirme tener su asociación cada año, escuchando sus clases y otras veces con una entrevista personal.

Este 2016 estuve donando el 10% de mi sueldo mensual al templo de Chosica, adicionalmente apoyé programas de prédica en Lima y en Chosica. Por primera vez en mi vida realicé tantas obras de caridad para el Señor Krishna. También tuve el servicio de adorar a Gaura Nitay todos los sábados en Wilson y dar clases del Bhagavad gita una vez al mes.

Tengo el deseo que en los siguientes meses mi servicio continúe y poder algún día ser un discípulo ejemplar suyo

Muchas Gracias por su asociación

Jagat Pavitram Das

HpS -  Thank you so, so much for your letter and wonderful description of your service.  We are simply tryin to be of service to you and Srila Prabhupada. We hope you are more and more inspired by His Divine Grace and do wonderful things for him in Peru and the world.

Now we go to Mexico and in June Lima!    We will see you soon. Always write to us as you need to.

Hare Krsna SS Hanumat Presaka Swami.

PAMHO. AGTSP!

For the reports that you send, we see that your health has ups and downs.

HpS - Thank you for this report. Our health is good for our age. Usually no ups nor downs. Is matter of controlling our energy, lust.

We worried the time pass, our leaders leave.

Sorry for sending this late report.

1.-Answering your questions of the previous report:

_Yes, Nimsar have minutes book.

_ What is the relationship with National Council?

For the moment, efforts are being made to improve the communication with them.

_ Karuna Krsna d explained me: Nimsar can to give courses but first presenting our proposal to each temple.

_ Visit of SSJPS to Perú is suspended.

2.-We talk with lad (Isvari dd, abhinanda d), to coordinate meeting with NImsar.

Lad desire to establish rules for to regulate to administration of NImsar.

3.-Here arrive to Chosica a devotee named Mahabudhi d (Director of Vedic College Florida), was invited to give class of SBhag but devotees they do not know that him is now follower of Narayana Maharaja.

HpS - As far as I know he was associating with N. Maharaja but never to the extent of any formal sanction by GBC.

4.-In the last report of year, I will send a report resume of activities of Nimsar.

That will be my last report. The next year new secretary.

ASA - On behalf of T. Brown, B. White, G. Gizmo and all of the Members of Supreme Absolute Undifferentiated Commando of the Anjana Suta Academy we extend our most sincere thanks for your most expert and sincere service. We can only hope that greater opportunities are soon to come.

5.-I think so we will be on stage to become good citizens of ISKCON.

Sri Nrsimhadeva protect you and let us understand your instruction.

With affectionate respectful.

ss Isvari dd

HpS - We talked with LAD and are hoping for a meeting with NIMSAR this Friday. Excellent prospects.