Letters to the editor

Jaya Sri Krsna!

Esteemed Professor et al,
Hope this meets you indominatable spirits and youthful health energy. We have accomplished our two assignments from our last phone call. First we sent you the ISBNumber and got a response from your mobile. Second we have written the first draft of our Publisher's Forward for the much awaited "Man-Making". We will include the draft below and do some more editing work on it with Dr. Ravi.
1. In general it is still challenging working here with our donkeys 68-years of age, the heat, building etc. but we see it as actually a perfect arrangement by Krsna and we continually are making progress in personal habits and improvement of physical resources to get the NIOS, ISKCON, work done.
2. We have purchased our ticket for India. It took us 3-hours of work!  In the beginning we were coming back with quotations of up to $6,500 for the proposed trip but the final conclusion is that we will fly from Houston, Texas on the 30th of December and then connect with a Spice Jet flight on the 1st January morning to Tirupati. The 2nd is the ISKCON-Indian Christian Dialog of which we have been 90% confirmed as a participant. Then we, Radhika and myself, will travel to University of Madras for his and Kenneth's symposium on current life of the Bhagavata Purana. Scholars such as Srivatsa Goswami and others from Swami Narayana sect and well as academicians will participate. They were very enthusiastic to include your good self in this symposium, but in the end, with the time alloted to plan the program they decided that the Keynote Speaker should be someone with a more direct absorption in the topic. Did you want to contribute in any way to this symposium?
Then we are available until the 10-12 of February when there is a very crucial ISKCON: Guru, Sannyasi, GBC Sanga in Mayapura. We have pressure to visit the North-East again, Pune and of course work with Rama-giri-dhari Das and his Goloka Education. Of course, we are hoping for any direction from you in forming our plan for this time betweent 10th January and 10th February.
We return to Houston on the 14th of February.
Total price of the ticket ... $785.75! ... Jaya Sri Krsna!
3. We have been struggling for one month to contact Rama-giri-dhari Das and of course suffering mental panic, fear and frustration, but our intelligence was advising our mind to be peaceful. In the end, we had two phone calls with RGD and just as we thought, since our three weeks together in Houston, he has been struggling with his 30-employee software business that fell into disorder while he was away to the USA. Then Janmastami came and he was unavoidably drawn onto the three man managing commitee for the new Navi-Mumbai ISKCON Temple. He was sleeping from 3.30-5.30AM only for five days, but in the end his President and 60,000 visitors were satisfied. Now he has promised to get us immediate results on promoting our books and also push on the general development of NIOS and the Goloka Foundation in USA.
4. We are still having serious problems with all of our NIOS files on the computer. We have a back-up but it will not load onto the computer. We will work on this.
5. We are looking at this proposed Symposium on "Art and the Sacred", Peru 2018, as the main focus for our NIOS work. What do you think of this? All of the prestigious and active scholars who participated this year, Ambassador of India are all giving enthusiastic responses to this plan, which they suggested. Solaris should be the main tool for this development. The theme has to be focused since the topic is very broad. Ramon says a grant of $100,000 would not be impossible from a Peruvian bank and Beverly says that participation from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art is also very certain.
6. In our own writing we have started to read Jerald Larson's "Classical Samkhya" and have written a working Preface to our book on Samkhya. We are using a working title of "Dinner with Dr. Singh, Classical Indian Cosmology in Modern Necessity".

O.K.
We follow with the Draft of our Foreword, chant 4-more Japa malas and answer of mail.
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FOREWORD
Man Making
NIOS is very proud to be presenting its fourth book in the form of this “Man Making [ttd]”. We were able to start this publication series in co-operation with the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust and publish a beautiful, full-color illustrated, bi-lingual, edition of Srila A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami’s, Light of the Bhagavata. Light of the Bhagavata stands as an excellent presentation of Srimad Bhagavata, Canto 10, Chapter 20: The Rainy Season and Autumn in Vṛndāvana. NIOS has expanded this into a Symposium titled, Cultivation of the Human Spirit, which has been presented at many universities and prestigious cultural and academic centers throughout the world.
Then this series of three books: Pracyaprajnapradipa, Bharata sanskriti and now Man Making, which take us into the strict and awe inspiring world of Ancient Indian History and Culture as seen through the eyes of some of best current scholars in this field.
Besides these four books, several excellent and relevant movies with Oscar Natars, selected Director of the Year in 2015 by the community of Latin American critics, NIOS has also produced the first edition of what we hope to be its flagship Journal, Solaris. This was totally integrated with the Symposium on Psychology and the Sacred realized in partnership with the National Library of Peru in June 2016, and has received enthusiastic interest from all parts.
We hope to continue this work, do something very good for the world, and invite everyone to join us. The “Man-Making” of course touches with excellent papers on the most essential topic, Education. Without proper education, no other field of knowledge can flourish. These papers were originally solicited and many then presented at the formal release of “Bharata-sanskriti” in May of 2015.
Thank you,
Dr. Ravi Gupta
President, NIOS
 

Hare Krishna

PAMHO

Jay Srila Prabhupada!

Dear Guru Maharaj, I just read your Vyasa Puja Offering to Srila Prabhupada, and I have no right words, not even one that avoids my clumsiness and lack of tact to speak.

Also, pardon my offenses, you are now the most important person in my life; forgive my audacity, I am not worthy of his causeless mercy upon me. Excuse my arrogant ignorance, I am also very silly and take for me to learn.

My feeling is that many of us feel like castaways who leads the current and soon only see him far, the ships that ply the banks, through waves of fog; the beloved and missed home. Eternal and royal abode. You're like the ship that plows through the banks, throw me a rope and a life please, I'm drowning.

Guru Maharaj, in the answer you telling me in the last letter, he says, I can develop my relationship with Srila Prabhupada through any transparent way ... This means that apart from reading his books and watching his videos, I can get closer to Him? This development can achieve with the help of my spiritual master? The point is that I am almost fanatic Srila Prabhupada and I see fear, in recent years, which has been a proliferation of websites with characters who try to pass disguised as Vaishnava, or that deviate from the true knowledge, many of them Srila Prabhupada disowning or calling themselves His Divine Grace?!, too.

You then tells me that cultivate my circle of friends and sankirtan partners to learn more, and then to work on the development of the ISKCON institution. This I take it as a mission that I gladly accept and am willing to push myself to the fullest.

The following list shows some Devotees and Bhaktas of Arequipa are inviting you, so please visit us in April next year:

P. Mahamantra d, P. Dajanidi d, P. Gaura Nitai d, P. Govinda Caran d, P. Lokanath d, P. Haridas d,  B. Gustavo, B. Joel, B. Nimai, B. Juan, B. Fernando and B. Renato. Also mothers, M. Ramalila dd, M. Krishna Ekadasi dd, M. Manasi Ganga dd, M. Lila Sri dd, M. Jestha dd, B. Rukmuni, B. Hilda, B. Ana, B. Liliana, B. Mari Luz and B. Paola.

There remains the question: I'm ready for my initiation?

My answer: I'm jumping for joy!!! You imagine, how many millions of lives have gone to arrive at this time??? And how many chances I will have missed!!! Guru Maharaj I'm ready, more ready than ever and I am aware that depart many difficulties and trials along the way, but I have faith, enthusiasm and be steadfast in my service.

Thank you so much, with all my heart and affection towards you.

Your fool servant Renato.

P.D. (thanks to Google translate, excuse me any mistake).

HpS - Thank you...   I hope we can visit Arrequipa as number one priority next time we are in Peru.    Do you have letter of Recommendation from your Temple President for Initiation?

Transparent via media can be the Paramatma. Devotees. Books. Deities. Sadhana. Books are the basis. In ISKCON we do not use the title Divine Grace. Srila Prabhupada is clearly who he is through his books, even NOI, and then we can judge every other Guru in terms of his standard!

More news from Arrequipa for September!

Hare Krsna,
Thank you, SIr.  If we can help or be helped in any way by your work then please let us know.  We will send general updates without a doubt. In January we will be in India for a program on the Bhagavata Purana with Ravi Gupta and scholars from all over the world that we are organizing at the University of Madras.

--------------------------------------------
On Sat, 8/27/16, Darrol Bryant <[email protected]> wrote:

 Subject: RE: HpSwami, Hello.
 
 Hi
 
 Thanks for the update...  I think often of our
 meeting in Peru...  Since returning I have been busy with
 the editing of a volume on Practices of Compassion: An
 Interfaith Exploration...  It grows out of a Conference
 initiated by the Ven Doboom Tulku that I organized in
 Hyderabad in January 2016...  And I have also completed my
 Out of Galilee: the History of Christian Thought as a Great
 Conversation.... 
 We have had a hot July and
 August, but I have just returned from a week in Northern
 Ontario communing with the water, woods, rocks, and loons
 ....  It was wonderful...  Away from phones and internet
 and just being present to this glorious creation...
 
 All the best,
 
 Darrol
 
 
 
 
 "
 ______________________________________
 From: HpS
 Sent: Friday, August 26, 2016 8:03 PM
 To: Beverely Zabriesky; Darrol Bryant; Radhika
 Ramana Dasa Ravi Gupta; Nitaigaurasundara das
 Subject: HpSwami, Hello.
 
 Jaya Sri Krsna!
 
 Esteemed Scholars, Friends et al,
 We are first concerned that you are all well
 and in the best of spirits. We have not heard from Jungian
 Psychology in New York or Inter-faith Dialog out of Canada
 since we parted in Peru!  We wrote to Beverely and called
 once but have not heard. Any problems?
 
 We have continued with our little efforts to
 illuminate the world while also being seduced to some degree
 by the forces of darkness in the form of too much nighttime
 orange juice and ice-cream.
 
 Ramon continues with great enthusiasm in these
 educational lines we saw blossoming in Peru. With the new
 President and his newly appointed Minister of Culture, Ramon
 may continue as Director of the National Museum for another
 five years, but in any case he has already been directly
 invited by the new President to be his Director of the
 Bi-centennial events for the anniversary of Peru's
 liberation from Colonial, political, domination. Of course,
 the question of liberation from intellectual and cultural
 domination immediately  arises and to this extent he is
 very, very open to literary or other contributions from
 Indian or other perspectives that address this issue in very
 practical ways.
 
 "Solaris" magazine is going out in
 Spanish and we are already expanding our dialog with
 Trans-personal Psychologists. We are quite advanced toward
 publishing the English edition. Our current strategy is to
 work toward a world-wide symposium in 2018 on "Art and
 the Sacred", and during 2017, smaller, effective
 dialogs with professionals in the area of "Psychology
 and the Sacred". "Solaris" would be the
 backbone of developing all this. Very personally we are
 starting to work very seriously on a book on
 "Sankhya", which is the whole cosmology of the
 Vedic wealth. We are enjoying the help of Alejandro, Miguel
 Polo  and Professor Ravi Gupta. We hope to do something
 very useful.
 
 Our heath is
 pretty good for 68-years old. Our office/Ashram was invaded
 by sometimes mean spiders while we were gone, but we seem to
 be winning that war. Our religious institution, ISKCON, is
 growing. For example, receiving a robust personal letter of
 congratulations from the new Prime Minister of England, and
 of course, along with that facing new, very serious
 challenges that are complete different from the ones that it
 originally faced as a young evangelical movement (God's
 Marines).
 
 What is your
 news?    We are based in Nashville until January 1st, then
 go for some Symposia and other work in India until third
 week of February. This October-November, we will be in a
 little tour of Chicago, Richmond, Raleigh and D.C. Any work
 we can do for you?  We would certainly like your help in
 this "Solaris" and other work!
 
 Sincerely,
 Hanmatpresaka
 Swami
 Prof. H. H. Robinson
 NIOS
 

Dear Huber ( as your mother called you). Eduardo, Ramon, Alejandro, Ravi Gupta, and Ravi Singh -(altho I do not have his email- please forward to him)

There has been a shameful delay in my writing to send my extreme appreciation for having been part of a most excellent project and experience with you all in Lima.  

Your unusual confluence of energies produced a most compelling program. I was glad to be part of it.

I am sorry for not writing sooner. This has been an intense summer so am just now settled enough to gather my thoughts.

It was a pleasure to be with the kind and generous  Nios group, to be with Eduardo and Guida in Lima, to meet the attentive and shepherding Alejandro, to glimpse the full personality of Ramon.

I learned a great deal from Ravi Gupta, and felt at ease with the gracious Ravi Singh group.

I received your idea for a conference on art and the sacred while here on Naoshima, an art island in Japan's Inland Sea. It is extraordinary,  a Tadeo Ando mix of buildings and outstanding art on this island and several of the surrounding ones. There are works here be De Maria and Turrell that are religious experiences. It is an artlover's paradise.

Four years ago, I was part of the art and psyche working group that produced a four day conference in New York: Art and Psyche in the City. It was an excellent conference with artists, art teachers and critics, curators, art therapists, and analysts interested in art. I could send you the program to see what we organized if you like.

The visual arts are certainly a huge field. Are you thinking of focusing on the visual? or interested also in music and dance and literature?

If you proceed with this plan I could offer you some fine speakers. Kenneth Soehner, the chief librarian of the Metropolitan Museum Watson Library, and John Haworth, current director of the Museum of the American Indian in New York, He is very active in work with indigenous peoples and also in truth and reconciliation efforts.

One artist who it would be a coup to have involved is the video artist Bill Viola.

So yes your idea for the next conference is stimulating.

Next week is the Jungian International Conference in Kyoto, and then back to NYC mid September. If any of you come to New York, please let me know in advance as it would be a pleasure to greet you.

Once again I thank you for your invitation, for your kindness to me while there, and for allowing me to participate in such a fine enterprise.

With appreciation and the very best wishes,

Beverley Zabriskie

=================================================

HpS (Huber)

Jaya Sri Krsna,
We got your letter. Thank you. We have been drowning in our work also.
Thank you so much for your words.  We hope that you and your community can be excellent source of strategy for this 2018 conference that it can do great good for this world.   We were thinking of all art.
Marshall McLuhan: Art is whatever you can get away with.
We will send more news soon. Very best of wishes for your work.
Our dream in life is to be able to have a few words with Shonu to clarify his thoughts about Jung, India etc. Maybe you can find some chance for a little concentrated exchange with him.
Thank you.

Hare Krishna, dear Gurumaharaja. Pamho, AGTSP!

Thanks for your response.

I couldn’t go back to sleep until I could write this letter.

Well, I was expending something else, and I got an institutional answer. But anyway that’s what I deserve, I guess.

Maybe the message is “stop whining before your spiritual master and do your bloody job”

You are not my shrink or my daddy. I was probably expecting an “attaboy” or “well done”, but I got “we probably better shut down the whole damn thing”. So, people, “don’t brag before your spiritual master, just do your job the better you can”

Maybe I was looking for some sympathy. So “don’t play the victim, just do your job.”

Thanks for teach me a lesson. “Just do your job”.

HpS - ASA --- We don't have a lot of communication here so when you send letters it is with a lot of undevleoped perspective. Actually we were very appreciative of the history you gave. Again. Thank you. Like we said you seem to be doing a whole lot to satisfy Srila Prabhupada!

Tom Brown: Atta, Boy, well done!  You have earned your Sargent's Stripes in the Army of the ISKCON Apes!

However, and not to be cruel of judge anyone more harshly than WE judge ourselves, we have to set practical goals and do them. Without these regualr Nimsar reports we can't run "ASA Branches" of which NIMSAR has been in first or second place.

Yes, we (NIMSAR) need a lot of improvement. I guess what are we doing is not good enough. We need to be more professional, etc. I think we need more people working together to do better things. We are on it.

I still want to do some improvement for BVB in Spanish. Actually I have like 8 new students for Pada Padma so that is forcing me to work on the Tpp study guides. I’m translating the entire material again and I’m adding some little things like photos, etc.  So, If you allow me I can carry on with this job. We need to work on the BVB authorization also. Currently we are working as an informal branch of your own program.  

I’m revising the ppt for Bhakti sastri as well and I got 3 more students on-line for that purpose and of course to remember the thing for myself and help others.

I still need  to prepare myself better and do my master degree but maybe I’ll do it in Peru. It’s going to be way too expensive to do it abroad.

M. Isvari already sent you the report last ekadasi.

NIMSAR is reporting everything to the authorities and always asking for permition, but in a kind of an impersonal fashion.  Jiva sakti prabhu said that we need to approach them to have better communication.  It was a brilliant piece of advice.  That’s probably what they are expecting.

Please, we need your constant advice.

I hope we (NIMSAR and I) can have your blessings to carry on and do a better job.

Your servant,
LAD

ASA - Thank you for the quick response!!!  There is nothing in ISKCON more important than this dialog. We got a letter from Isvari Devi Dasi, our Secretary for NIMSAR, so let's see what she has.

About the the TPP stuff for BhV and BhS we need to talk. I would say that there is no loss in the work you are doing, but we can improve it more if we co-ordinate it.
So, the NOI lectures that we did should pass to Ajata-satru Das and Abhirama Das for Editing?  See, this is what I mean. We have to discuss our priorities here in the Blog. We can communicate here eternally and transcendentally.

Let's look at Isvari Devi Dasi's letter.

Hare Krsna,

AGTSP!   Paoho.   How are you?  It is 31-degrees celcius, about 91-degrees farenheit, here. About 50% humidity. If we sit directly in the fan on the porch, or use our little, mobile, air-conditioner to cool down one little room in our dilapidatred mobile home then we can tolerate it, but is is tough.  Of course, guys in Africa who eat once a week have it tougher.

There are so many more miseries, no?    We, you, could start listing the things that are bothering us: Heat, cold, insects, cuts and bruises, social cruelty...  but if we just chose to smile in every situation, Hare Krsna!  Then amazingly it all looks O.K.

This place is designed as a place of austerity and we are trying to enjoy it (I have a few more options).  When we see it for our purification and a chance to teach others to engage in scientific austerities, then it all makes sense.

We see our religious institution, Mormons, Evangelicals... have theirs, having so many problems, our local branch has so many problems, but something that we have seen while we have been traveling all over the world, for years, and decades, is that if you just get up early and have a full morning program, chant good rounds, four principles, do Sankirtan to the best of your miserable ability, when the day is done, the week's visit is done, there will be definite, tangible improvement every time. We will have definitely take strength from the Witch's hands and helped people make eternal progress back to Goloka, where Krsna really needs our help.

Today was better than yesterday. We could really say that it has been the best day in a series of improving, days over our whole devotional career. We live alone. We have money. We can go to the Super-Market and buy 1,000,000 different items for sense gratification: Ready to bake apple pies, and canned whip-cream, and three kinds of ice cream and ...

... but we don't (well a little (frozen orange juice (condensed milk sometimes))), this means we are advancing.

We fall into orange juice and condensed milk (what's your problem? Gossip and political dealings?  Movies?) not just because we are evil, but also because they satisfy sane desires that we have no sane way of satisfying. We need strong protein. Prabhupada said that Western devotees in India could take Paneer, cheese, daily. Indians, he said once a week. Of course, you are going to die a quicker Western death, but that may be unavoidable. In some cases we have to just give things up, but really it is usually just finding the real desire that is being pervertedly satisfied and looking for a better source of satisfaction. Of course, this is the material world, so there will always be some imperfection, which of course is one of its perfections.

Did our Samkhya reading today, answered mail, heard the Hawaii class, gardening, cooking for Lord Nrsmhadeva, preparation for BG class tomorrow, SB class on Thursday, talked for one hour with Miguel Polo and Abhirama Thakura over internet about the NIOS programs in Peru etc.

Tweeted about it all.

O.K.  Was a really good day.   Can we keep up this pressure?  We can die trying?  Don't expect us, we don't expect you, to live a long time. This one week may be it. Don't try to live a long life, try to live a useful life, no?

O.K. Pack up. NGD will be calling. It is 6.15PM now. Then off for our evening walk. Fill our water bottle.

Hare Krsna!  Hare Rama!

Lot of work to do.

Priorties = Vaidhi bhakti.  Regular schedule is part of priorities, but we must review them again and again.

Thank you so much for your association.
Very intense thoughts about NIMSAR in Peru in the letter to/from Laksmana agraja Das.