Letters to the editor

Hare Krishna Maharaja

PAMHO    All Glories To Srila Prabhupada

I'm in the middle of reading a book "Srila Prabhupada's Miracle" written by Vaikunthanath Das (he spells it Vaikunthanathdas).  It's a loving account of the early days of Prabhupada's movement in New York, Monteal, Trinidad, Hare Krishna Land in Mumbai, India, London, and a few other places.  Among other things Vaikunthanath was a book binder at the first ISKCON Press in Boston.  It's a new book, have you heard of it?

HpS - ASA -- Hare Krsna, David Prestha, Ji... Immediately we wonder how the mysterious and celestieal Kalindi Devi Dasi is. I have not read the book nor heard of it before, but I hand a few months of Vaikunthanatha Das' association when he lived in San Francisco and the Berkeley temple many years ago.

Just returned home from the Saturday night program at ISKCON Sacramento.  Very nice program celebrating the 50th aniversary of Prabhupada's arrival in America.  I mailed you a letter - if it's easier to respond through this blog please do so.

Your humble prune, David

HpS - It's 6.16PM here. The sun is sending very slanting rays through the trees and so many cars are passing on Medical Center Parkway that it feels like a week-day, not Sunday. We went to Abbhay-narayana's home at 10:30AM to work on our accounting for year-end for NIOS and had a 5-course lunch with himself and his good wife.   Nitai-gaurausundara Das and his family are all in Boston for the anniversary of the arrival of Srila Prabhupada in USA. So, we are quite alone here. Somewhere in the distance a dog howled.

Yes, yes,   yes, yes. . .   it is much easier and much, much more effective to respond here. Many people in this little circle of wayfarers read these letters and so we can all communicate our thoughts to a broader circle.
How is your Self Realization proceeding? You are probably making more rapid progress than we are.  Have you made some realization of the phrase, "You are not the body!"

As I remember, everytime you go to your house you have to pass over 1,000 foot abysss on a magical fairy bridge that self manifested from no where, and the community where you live is like another dream place with celestially opulent fairies that kind of float in the clouds with not real realization even of who are their nieghbors, just floating in the sky in their heads. True?

Of course, ultimate reality is to fill and finish each day with bits and barges of the KRSNA book, no?

Hare Krsna. You can see we have been writing a lot of letters. Our eyes hurt. We will write one more to Dr. Samaresh and stop. It is 4.51PM.  We have to make some preparations for the Celebrate Nashville festival, buy gas and visit NGD Prabhu. We are tired!
Guess you are too.​

Really mean looking spider in our garden. Two inches across. 70% of the spiders here are poisonous. Some very painful. Hare Krsna!    Even spider bites, dog bites are from Krsna.

We are actually making eternal progress.    Our class to Hawaii was very nice today.  We have good audience of Senior devotees there.    Tonight BG with NGD...    Talked with Anantarupa Das for about 45-minutes about his service and the Bhakti vaibhava program. Have to get him, Vais (Srivasa Pt) et al involved, and work on making the Sastric studies more practical and powerful. Then ISKCON will CHANGE!

Waiting for response from Eduardo.   Hare Krsna!!!!!!!!!

 

Todas las Glorias para Srila Prabhupada

Todas las Glorias para usted Maharaj

Hare Krishna Maharaj, como esta de salud? le hizo bien estar en la jungla?

Soy David Leyton de Santiago de Chile, recordándolo mucho a usted en estos días. Me han pasado por la mente recuerdos de cuando llegué al templo y por todas las dificultades que he pasado para quedarme en el movimiento. No fue fácil, pero ahora todo es más armonioso, tenemos un día en la semana donde un grupo de 15 devotos tenemos futbol Sangha para divertirnos.

ASA - Krsna plays ball games with His friends. They must have very interesting varieties of games.

La fiesta Janmastami fue una linda fiesta y me hubiese gustado que usted estuviese ahí o que pueda viajar más seguido a Chile.

llegue al movimiento para seguir las instrucciones de un guru como usted pero me faltan fuerzas para seguir sus instrucciones, seguir mi sadhana y servicio en el templo. Estaba entusiasmado al retomar mi servicio este año dure un par de meses pero luego baje la guardia y caí en malla. Siempre pienso como ser más austero en mi vida, esforzarme más para acercarme a krishna y mejorar mi comunicación con usted, pero mi corazón y mi mente son débiles, ¿como puedo forzar esa debilidad?

HpS - Haz lo que puede paso por paso. BG 2.~34, 'nehabikramo naso sti...'.   Aun que no estamos realizando todos nuestras objectivas inmediato, podemos adelantar bien hast a ellos. Y .En esta sendero el progresso es eterno.  Pienso es cierto que Vd ha hecho progreso substancial en esta vida.

Si, claro, a vece Krsna nos otorga oportunidad hacer gran progresso, y necesitamos listos para tomar apoyo de estas oportunidades.  Adelante!  Progresso cada dia.

Lo que puedo decirle es que todos los días canto mis 16 rondas al día, pero siempre el fin de semana hago las cosas en mi casa y quedo debiendo algunas. Sigo los principios en NO comer carne NI pescado NI mariscos NI huevos, NO me intoxico, NO tengo juegos de azar, Aún tengo pareja, nos casaremos en fines de noviembre y ahí estaré cumpliendo mi cuarto principio para dejar de degradarme.

Esperando su respuesta y verlo pronto por Santiago de Chile

Hare Krishna

Your Holiness,

                    Please accept my prostrated obeisances. All glories to your good self.

I am again writing to you after a very long time. I pray and hope that you are doing exceptionally well. 

One argument that theists make is that there has to be an origin of everything which implies the existence of a Creator. Some reply with the question that if God has always existed then why can’t we just assume that matter has also always existed. I thought of replying in the following way:

If I say that a black box has travelled on its own, from Mumbai to Washington, most will question the veracity of this statement. But if I say that a human being has travelled like that, the statement will be less questionable. This is because a human being is more complex than a black box. Thus we can expect the human being to have greater properties or abilities than the black box, which is why the human being can be expected to travel on his own but the box can’t. Similarly God being more complex than matter has more versatility than the latter. Thus one can expect God to have always existed on His own whereas matter needs a Creator.

HpS - Very neat.

Another explanation could be that empirically we observe that every effect has a cause. If we take any object and observe its cause and then find out the cause of that cause and proceed like that then we end up with a regression which either ends or doesn’t. If the regression doesn’t end then we end up with an infinite regression, which becomes inexplicable. If we consider that the regression terminates then all matter has to have had an origin, which implies the existence of a self caused cause of all causes. This explanation was given by Thomas Aquinas, a Christian Theologian.

Maharaja, I will be very grateful, if you could kindly consider my reasonings and give your kind impression of them, and/or if you have anything additional to say.

Your servant

Jashodev

HpS - AGTSP.  Thank you for your letters. I guess one thing is that all these arguments depend on a certain logical structure. We use Euclidean geometry to organize our thoughts, reality, but others make the obvious comment that even in the actual world there are cultures that use different logic. Why can't there be an infinite regression. At least beyond our ability to reason.      Why do we assign one cause to things. Why not accept that many causes are interacting with many things to produce many results in a way that really does not reduce down to unique points and lines.

This is like Statistical Mechanics, no?  At least it may be useful to consider these things with our intellectual, cultural tools, but in the end the honest mind comes to the conclusion that we need to be informed by a higher authority that knows.
O.K??​

Toda gloria a Srila Prabhupada!!!

Por favor acepte mis humildes reverencias querido Gurudev!!!

HpS - Jaya!!!!       MUCHAS GRACIAS estas noticias. No esta fijado. Pienso bajar a S. America no mas antes de 15 Deciembre y pasar por Mexico, Peru, Argentina, fin de Enero en Chile. 11 Enero es 'Vyasa Puja'. Muchas peticiones pasar lo en Chile. Despues Lima, Mexico, HOUSTON, INDIA Febrero - Mayo.

Que piensa?    Cuando regresa a Argentina los 18-Sankirtaneros?

Los sankirtanesro piensan regresar para la Argentina el dia 2 de Enero y en el viaje de vuelta algunos se quedan en Cordoba y San Luis  visitando a familiares y descanzando, despues cerca del 8 o 9 de enero llegarn a Buenos Aires todos, ya que es el mes donde el templo siempre se vacia para visitar seres queridos o descanzar un poco.

Mi propuesta es, que de venir Usted a Argentina  y en el templo esten los devotos para recibirlo y asistir a sus clases lo mejor seria que viniese despues de su visita a Chile. A la vez no entiendo si esta confirmado su Vyasa Puja en Chile o si lo esta dejando abiero, como una posibilidad para acerlo tambien aqui en Argentina, Ahi su fecha en Argentina Cambiaria y tambien su llegada a Chile, de ser asi nosostros ya deberiamos comenzar con la organizacion.

A Su servicio Adi Yajña Das

HpS - ASA -  Desculpa la demurra responder, pero puede ver la presion de nuestras viajes. En primero lugar es el diagolo con los psicologos de Peru. Vamos a ver como adelanta esta esfuerza.  Pero antes de todo es Jara y Mrtyu. Nuestra cuerpo, ojos, todo es desintegrando. No tenemos mucho mas tiempo en es zona.

Muy claro su communicacion. Otras cosas fijados:

Necesitamos noticias de Vrsabhanu y Ambaris Das si vamos a presentar algo en Cordoba con psycologos.

Symposium de Educacion, fin de Enero en Chile (Esperamos noticia de ellos del evento y fecha.

ILS en India​ como 28 Febrero hasta 4 Marzo. Llegar a India como una semana antes (21 Febrero)

Pienso V'puja no esta fijado. Ya depende en el calendario de viajes mas detallado.

Pero que hace Vd hasta Deciembre?

Hare Krsna Dear Gurudev,
    Please accept my humble obeisances at your lotus feet.
    All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
    All glories to Guru parampara.

    Gurudev, Thank you so much.

    i was in the team of Janmastami flower decoration for entire Temple. We were total 26 (23 external + 3 internal (ISKCON)) member.

HpS - Krsna-Balarama Mandir!!!

    Continuously, around 54-56 hours of service, with no sleep. We decorated the entire temple, SP Samadhi and all. I was surprise
    even after 56 hours none-stop, i was not feeling tired, sleepy !!

HpS - Hmmm!   Must have been a vaisya in India in you last life time. Managing many people in the town with very religious sentiments.

    To see this, Our one Lead, asked me to come for next day again for whole night....i was happy.

    Actually, we had started service from 4th Sep to till 6th Sep. Double decoration of SP Samadhi Mandir.

    Have collected SB + BG Preparation materials and few thing need to discus with few seniors from temple. Then i will be able to
    Finalize one 15 days preaching schedule for a new location. Once everything fix then i will share the detail with you. As of,
    it is under discussion and planning.

    Eager to meet few more Brajwasi Vaisanava for sadna and want to visit few more bhajan kutir or Bhajan stali of Vaisanava.

    Please let me know if you have any thing for me.

your fallen servant,
Girivaradhari-Gopal Das

HpS - ASA --- Yes, yes. More news as it happens  and  are you going to take second initiation?  Then you can go on the altar!