Letters to the editor

AGTSP!
paoh..0'........
Made it to New Bihar-van, Boise, Idaho.
Had a ripping sore throat and fever starting yesterday when we left New Badarikashrama, Denver and today it blossomed!
 

Ooof.
 

We are trying to adjust Br. Asses load like all of you and then it is devotional service, so we can always be happy. We are unhappy when we to live without disease and death in this material world.

It it is a joke.

So today, four class programs that were essential. Mangala arati was so nice for our health - Dancing and chanting under our breath as Radhika lead.

HK/HR!

We finished 26-rounds yesterday which was a lot while traveling!
We have to adjust the Japa. Devamrta Swami does 25-while at home and only 16-while traveling. Of course the real thing is to chant all the time on or off beads but 16-good rounds minimum and we definetely want to adjust our other service so we can get 25-day.

O.K. . . . Feel like a car ran over Br. Ass but happy.
 

Candramukhi Devi Dasi had a fever on Tuesday. LAD said he answered our letter but we can't find it. Jagat and M. Yugala had great questions and comments for BhVai today.
 

5.22PM. A little Japa and then bath and 7PM our last program. Home program with about 45-Indian engineers et al.

We are winning!!!

AGTSP

paoho

We just answered like 14-letters. Took the day off from other academic effforts. Headache coming. <img alt="smiley" height="23" src="http://hps.monkeywarrior.com/sites/all/libraries/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/regular_smile.png" title="smiley" width="23" />

Enough, no?    Now we just rest a little and talk with the Lord in the Heart (as distinguished from the Lord in the Stomach). Today is Thursday. Ekadasi vrata. Hmmm. Nice.

O.K. Thank you so much for your association!

About 20-letters to answer. Tomorrow we go to Boise.

In the chaos of dying, what ideas do you want to hang on to?

That is all you can take with you, your understanding of things, memories. Hang on to a few of them?

HpS - ASA - Monkey - Pygee!

Hare Krishna Maharaja, please accept my obeisances. Agtsp I'm camilo from sydney. The reason for this post is that I've been considering the fact of spend a few years in the sydney temple as monk, by many things, for example that I need to learn how to train my mind, and also learn how to serve the guru properly, and at least have a basic understanding and study the vedas to preach much better. Because I thought that if I move in to govindas ashram, which is a good place to have a glimpse of bramhacari life or what live under a spiritual authority means, and to develop a service attitude ,is Okey. But isn't like a real temple life, really absorbed in Krishna and having no association with women. So I said, better to do it all at once, or better to do it as it should be done to get the spiritual benefits of it. And the other reason is sort of like an astrological thing, because I did a chart with a devotee and she said that I have to do it before being married. I just hope to receive the mercy to be qualified to do it and don't fall in the mind , because I'm very emotional sometimes hahaha. And another thing I've been thinking is if I should talk about my tendencies, like for example, I love music and play mridanga, harmonium, piano, etc. Well, I think that's all. Thanks for your time. Hare Krishna Maharaja. Trying to be your servant, camilo.

HpS - ASA -- AGTSP. Why not try it for some time. Then see the result!!!

Hare Krishna Maharaja, please accept my obeisances. Agtsp. Is camilo writing from sydney. News about the temple: well in this point I've been in contact with your disciple madhu-manjari mataji, she told me some things about you, so I can understand more about you. Then, the temple president he already knows me, he is very kind. But if what you are asking me is to get someone to write you about me, that probably would be the ashram managers here at govindas. Govindas ashram: this is a facility given by Pratapana prabhu and Jay sri mataji ( Prabhupada disciples), and consists of a training space for those who want to be Krishna cconscious, the way it works is that we have to attend the weekly programs such as Friday harinama, book distribution 4 or more times a week, meditation sessions at govindas restaurant(Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday night), bhagavad gita course on Thursdays, and also kirtans on Tuesdays and Fridays evening,plus going to the temple Saturday and Sunday morning for the bhagavatam classes,plus any spontaneous service that may come up. I hope this helps. Hare Krishna. Agtsp Your aspiring servant, camilo.

HpS - ASA - AGTSP.  Paoho. We see another letter from Kitri Das. We look at that next! This news is nice!

Dear Gurumaharaja,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

Last week we had the good fortune of receiving your TPP composition book in the mail. Thank you very, very much for sending this precious gift. We find it a wonderful look inside the mind of Hanumatpresaka Swami, with the many pearls of wisdom that you share with us disciples written down in a jolly package. It is a priceless gift, and i offer you my gratitude.

This is the score of my bookdistribution last july, for your and Srila Prabhupada's pleasure:  1 maha, 10 big, 8 medium, 3 small.
    HpS - ASA - Did you keep contact with any of the people. Is super report!!

Then i wish to inquire on your thoughts on the following. I wish to publish an updated version of On Chanting Hare Krishna, in Dutch languat. It is my intention to gather donations from local devotees, and make this a free publication, not one to throw away after reading, but softbound and 30+ pages. So it will be slightly different than bigger than the original, with articles about: SP, Mahamantra, ISKCON, who is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, kirtan yoga, what ISKCON can offer als alternative lifestyle, and finally, the synthesis between science and religion. There is a request to Kadamba Kanana Swami, born in Holland, to write a foreword. If you consider yourself a good person to write an article about the synthesis between science and religion, would you want to do that? It does not have to be very extensive, an introduction will do. Or if you have any suggestions, i will be pleased to hear them. I gather your focus is more on education these days, which personally i consider more of an internal ISKCON affair. Please correct me if i'm wrong.
HpS - I think all the material would be copyrighted by the BBT, no? You would have to do it under licence to them, no? I think someone like Aja-govinda Das or another of the devotees with PhD in science should write about the scientific basis of chanting. We could talk with them by phone etc.

Now you American tour has started, i wish you happy travels. May you touch the hearts and minds of many devotees, and that it will be reciprocal.

With kind regards,
Your junior disciple,
Raghava Pandita dasa.

HpS - ASA --- AGTSP  Hey, how is the family? Temple????

Your Holiness,

                         Please accept my prostrated obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

I desired to write articles on the interface of science and spirituality and you were very kind to me to recommend that I write to you on this website. I do apologize again for my delay and also thank you for giving me a second chance.  With your consent, I will now proceed to render some service.

I  pay my prostrated obeisances to Maharaja again. Then I pay my prostrated obeisances to Srila Prabhupada. Then I pay my obeisances to all the spiritual masters in the line of disciplic succession.  Finally I pay my obeisances to Vraja Kishore and Vraja Kishori. With the dust of the lotus feet of all of them on my head, I try to render some service, however meager may it be.

HpS - ASA - AGTSP paoho. This is a little bit esoteric Blog for our ASA members. At www.jayarama.us you can get more description of ASA. You are in Chicago Temple? We talked with Nityananda-pran Das about visiting there.

Richard Dawkins has written many books. I must accept that I do not know how much of an impact he has had on the people of the world. Srila Prabhupada wanted his disciples to defeat atheists and their arguments against the existence of God.  From the little I have seen on the internet and in my interaction with people, Mr Dawkins is considered a prominent atheist. Thus I have decided to study his book, “the God Delusion” and present before people his arguments and how they could be misleading. So I propose to submit some articles with the aforesaid goal in mind. The first article is given below.

HpS - Have you read the "Dawkin's Delusion"?  Alister McGrath was the Head Theologian at Oxford, no?

The Dawkins Delusion

Reference taken from:

Book: The God Delusion

Publisher: Black Swan, paperback edition

Page number:138

"However statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable." The above quotation is found in the book "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, page no: 138.This is the first and foremost argument that Richard Dawkins gives us in chapter four entitled “why there is almost certainly no God”. His argument is (I am just rephrasing) as follows:

It is very improbable that life evolved, unassisted by God. Thus, the existence of God, must be at least as improbable as the evolution of life because life happens to be designed by God Himself. Thus the existence of God is very improbable. Thus there is almost certainly no God.

This argument has impressed a lot of people all over the world and is one of Dawkins’ most amazing arguments, going by how he has ‘freed’ people from the God ‘delusion’ with this masterstroke. However much as I would like to agree with Dawkins, (because free sex and meat become easy to enjoy…, or so it seems…) I have to raise my hand and ask a meek question.

This form of reasoning seems flawed for the following reasons:

If God is allowed to exist then it is He who is causing life to evolve the way it has (if there was any evolution).  If you see a watch and know that  the watchmaker (who can see) exists, then what is the probability that the watch was designed by the watchmaker ? At least very high. Then we do not worry about the various permutations and combinations involved in the construction of the watch.  We know with great certainty that the watch was constructed by the watchmaker and there is little doubt about it.

If God is not allowed to exist then life has evolved due to a blind, random process. If you see a watch this time and know that there exists no watchmaker it is only then that you wonder about the permuatations and combinations of the various arrangements in the watch and wonder how the watch came into existence, unassisted by a watchmaker. It is only then that you wonder how the watch came into existence from clay and mud etc. It is only then that you calculate the probability of the watch coming into existence.

You cannot say there is God, yet He has nothing to do with the evolution of life, and that because life evolved by a blind process, whose probability is very low, the probability of God’s existence is also low.

Either life evolved due to the will of God or due to a blind process.  It is difficult to see, how both have simulateously taken place.

Let's say you see a building. What is the probability that the building came about as a result of a hurricane during which matter got amalgamated to produce the building ?. Very Low. What is the probability that the building was built by an engineer? Very high. Now will you say that because it is very improbable that the building was assembled during a hurricane, that the poor enginner who built the building has a similar low probability of existing?  Compare this example to an analogous setting where you can replace the engineer with God, the building, with life and the hurricane with evolution, and you will understand the point I am trying to make. 

If Mr Dawkins feels that the Darwinian evolution has a very low probability of happening, then he should maybe question his own understanding that life had to evolve that way, rather than catch hold of a theists collar and insist that the theist’s Creator has a very small probability of existing. Rather it is the theist who can point out to Mr Dawkins that since it is very unlikely that life evolved, maybe it just didn’t happen.

HpS - ASA - The wiki-pedia gives a nice list of refutations, comments on Dawkin's book, no?

The argument that you listed above seems very very strange. "Very little chance that a watch was created by chance, therefore very little chance that God was created by chance." O.K. then then natural conclusion is that neither God nor the watch was created by Chance. That seems very simple, natural way to investigate.

Bertram Russel commented (we hear) that the most important concept in the 20th century is the concept of chance, because no one has the slightest idea what it means.

A chance or random event is an event the outcome of which cannot be predicted.

Doe such an event exist???? Who has demostrated this.

We look up the etymology of "Chance" and it just means the dice fell out of the cup. Seems again to be a very strange idea on which to base you investigation. The same as Vedic, "neti neti", no? Not this, not this, but some people do NOT want to know. They prefer ignorance in the hope of "free sex and hot meat". Guess they are headed to become amoeba. The amoeba can enjoy these two with his whole body, not just his tongue, no?

Thank you!