Letters to the editor

Hare Krishna Maharaja, please kindly accept my most humble obeisances; all glories to his divine grace, Srila Prabhupada, who has established this worldwide mission of Lord Chaitanya for the benefit of all souls; all glories to your good self, for your many years of selfless devotion to Srila Prabhupada.

I was chanting one of the "Gopinatha" prayers by Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, and reading over the translation. As I was reading the translation I began to realize more fully how these prayers were meant for me, just to help me realize my precarious position. It's kind of like "Now listen hear Balabhadra, you really don't understand you're in some pretty serious trouble here." There is no way that I can deny that my heart is still full of unlimited desires. How is it that I am able to keep up with my practice of sadhana bhakti in light of this truth is beyond me. There are times when I feel the need to shed tears because I feel so helpless and so useless as a devotee because of so many desires that don't allow me to be more sincere and determined in my life.

This summer marks 40 years since I received brahman initiation and when I began performng full time Deity worship, and yet I don't feel very brahminical at heart. But I do find that I feel hopeful when I have some small opportunity to give someone a book about Krishna consciousness, sharing what little I can. I'm not exactly a stalwart or empowered preacher or book distributor. The online classes that I give help to uplift me and keep me enthusiastic, although sometimes no one else is online, and I am alone. Still, I maintain these online classes even if no one shows up, because I heard on more than one occasion that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta had said "if no one comes to listen, then preach to the four walls." And so, that is what I do, to try and stay enlivened in my devotional service. Keeping up with my sadhana of chanting my rounds, following the regulative principles and being able to serve Sri Sri Radha Govinda on my altar is certainly of great solace, and thus I can feel some measure of hope.

HpS - AgtSP! Are you able to do some worship of Radha Banki-bihari?

I felt the need to write this small bit because I feel like I am in your association when I take the time out to share. I wish that I had more physical association of older devotees, such as yourself. I find great comfort and hope when I listen to the classes of older devotees: in particularly those who are disciples of Srila Prabhupada, but who are less known by the greater world of ISKCON, because of their of simple living as Vaishnavas. The Bhagavatam classes that come out of Hawaii each morning are especially enlivening. The devotees in that group are seasoned with some five decades of devotional service. So often their realizations are out of reach of the younger, lesser experienced devotees. Upfront they are "rank and file" devotees. In reality I consider such stalwart Vaishnavas to be the "unsung heroes" of Srila Prabhupada's movement. How I wish I could be worthy of their mercy and personal association.

I will close here, hoping that I have not committed some offense to any devotees, especially to your good self. I beg for your forgiveness in advance, if I have done so.

Your lowly servant,

Sriman Balabhadra dasa

HpS - Very nice. We just started a Whatsapp group to organize our ASA visit to Boise, and included you!

More news as it comes.

daily sb reading [https://vedabase.io/en/library/noi/3/#bb5883]

Today SB 1.15.41 and 42 because we are preparing for our eminent death, and trying to do it by chanting with an eye to Sankhya is very appealing.

We remembered Maharaja Yuddishira's preparations and then looked them up.

Is very interesting.

We clicked on 'juhAva' in the word-for-word and usually it indicated offering into a fire sacrifice. That is nice.

Also, we were thinking that Srila Prabhupada wrote these purports before he came to USA and had chance to refine his English, though he had young devotees edit them, no?

'Study my purports to the bone!'

So, we have a call into Srinivasa Das to discuss the translation.

It is so, so nice reading these purports after several years. We may have read them like five times over the past 40-50 years.

They are tantalizingly fresh each time.

How do you find them?

Do they help your service?

Maybe we are not trying to directly follow the Sankhya-yoga of Maharaja Yuddhisthira or Lord Kapila, but we should see the same Sankhya results from our Yoga that are described here.

'For every process in the Astanga yoga system, there is a corresponding process in the Bhakti-yoga system.'

Purport: "The material color of the mind is changed when one washes it clean of the contaminations of life-breathing..."

This phrase, "life-breathing", struck us very strongly the first time we read it and we have cited it several times in lectures and meditated upon it as we do our Japa, Kirtan, honor Prasadam.

Practice not breathing when you are chanting. Go on chanting. Make your tongue and jaw move, keep the mind on the Mantra, but see what happens to your body.

We breath to get life.

We eat to get Prana that we can feel filling and circulating in our bones and body, but - we can get the same 'life' from the Mantra.

Ohhh! Wow! Hmm? 🤔

We must learn to do that. We must learn to live without being 'colored' by the material atmosphere, air. Live atop the Himalayas.

-0-0-0-

The we thought of SB 5.5.5 that SP cites in NoI etc. etc. etc. Has same idea? Let us look. 🙄

SB 5.5.5 - 'karma-ātmakam — absorbed in material activities' is the phrase that SP cites in NoI, but did not see it discussed here. Maybe it was prenoted in the previous verse. SP discussed them together in NoI. 5.5.4 is a memory verse.

Do you know it?

Try to chant it now.

. . .

No karma-ātmakam is not there in 5.5.4 but we remember nice discussion in NoI.

🚙

Let us look up how Bhisma deva left his body.

[UG: We discovered that if you put a colon [ : ] and follow it with words, the emo list shows up!

SB 1.9.43, no, no Sankhya there. . . . O.K. . . . . Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare!!

Let the Hari-kirtan guide us in our recitation of SB.

😃

Hare Krishna Maharaja and Devotees;

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

On Saturday, July 8, 2023, Maharaja is going to be busy in doing home programs in Richmond, Virginia, so it won't be possible to have our regular Saturday Morning workshop on July 8, 2023.

This coming Saturday and Sunday, we will have two consecutive classes for our regular SB workshop.

The Sunday class will be held to cover for class we are going to miss on Saturday July 8, 2023. On this Saturday we will be reading from CC Adi lila, chapter 14, verses 70 onwards.

Thank you to everyone for valuable association.

YS

Upendra dasa

Hare Krishna, guru maharaja, please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

Maharaja, we are very excited to hear that you will be visiting us in September. Anantarupa prabhu has bought my ticket to fly with you back to Tennessee and I was hoping to stay for a few days. So can I be there from Wednesday the 27th to the evening of Saturday the 30th of September. Is that okay with you?

HpS - Seems fine with us. Your mercy! Whole week of festivals. We can develop a lot of Sankirtan.

I like to sleep on the floor and I can cook, clean and do any other menial services.

HpS - How about Brahminical services!? 😄

We want to thank you again for giving Yamuna her middle name. ~Tarangita~ It very much suits her so far. Waves of the Yamuna river. Fresh. Not stagnant. Anantarupa Prabhu says that she will bring waves of bhakti to the Boise temple and the astrologer says she will start preaching very successfully at age 15.

HpS/ASA - Jaya!

Also, I wanted to let you know that we have a wonderful new pujari from Nepal named Madhava prabhu. It was a long process getting him here but thanks to Radhika Raman Prabhu and Anadi’s strong and diligent effort he is now taking very good care of Radha Bankebihari. I also really like him. His association has been a very good thing.

HpS - So, nice!!!

I hope this finds you very well.

Your aspiring servant,

Nitisara das

HpS - Look for the internal intelligence that Bankibihari gives you to find the internal thread to reach your neighbors in Boise for the Sankirtan of Lord Caitanya!

Hope our Kapi Dhvaja and this Blog and Twitter are useful!!!

Dear Guru Maharaja,

Please accept my humble Obeisances.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

Kapi Dvaja family, Ki Jay!

Due to visa, me and my husband, we had to leave Bali for a while. Now we are back here.

HpS/ASA - Hare Krsna!! Thank you for writing us! Where is "here". 😃

Unfortunately, I don't get India 's student visa. I don't know when India will reopen a tourist visa to China. I was planning to meet you in Kartik in Vrindavan.

ASA - We have no plans to be in in India in Kartika!

Seems like that won't happen so soon. It's very sad.

HpS - A little bit, but Mother Saci was happy that Nimai was based in Puri. She was getting news and Prasadam from Him and He and Nitai came for lunch everyday.

In Bali,we stay in one temple, Singaraja Town, Prabhuji gives classes and does books, I do service in the kitchen and sowing deities outfits.

HpS - Super!

We attend mangala arati and other programs everyday. We chant our rounds early in the morning. To improve my chanting, I watched some seminars from Hari sauri prabhu, Giriraj maharaja and Jayadvaita Swami. I have followed all the rules strictly and have been enthusiastic. I am ready to take responsibility of being intitiated.

HpS - Have you taken The Disciple Course? You need letter of recommendation from Temple President or some GBC line authority. In any case, if you are chanting 16-nice rounds and following the four principles strictly and following Temple program and want to take shelter of Srila Prabhupada for initiation, it seems certain that he and the Supersoul are taking lasting attention to your commitment.

Can you fulfill the above administrative requirements?

How long 16/4 been doing?

Your aspirant

Wang Pan

Dandavats dear Hanunat Preshak Maharaja

Glories to His Divine Grace!

Its my privilege to write few words from the Eastern front to your Holiness. I apologise for my English mistakes.

Initially we were on the way to New Gowardhan, Australia. Rupa Ragunath prabhuji (TKG) invited me to join the green pasturing grounds on the Golden Coast in distribution of books. Mainly I thought that could be a better place for Rukmini. More girls and some senior matajis so she can grow more healthy.

Also everyone speaks English which is not the case in Indonesia. Bali although tourist place hardly anyone can say few words in English. Nothing is written in English on the streets or shops. They want to keep their culture untouched as much as possible is what they say. However, somehow we got stuck here.

Here is work in progress, New Gowardhan is already well organised. Recently in Bali government banned devotees from public activities and party members often come to temple to treaten devotees. It did had effect . Many devotees just stop coming to temple. We could say, their activities and faith were not based/rooted on sastra, so when trouble came, many left.

With sentiments they came, due to sentiment they left. Its sad. Its been long time things were going well here. Now is turning point and major test for devotees who remained. As usually, two sides are claiming they know how to continue. One wants to remain as it is and the other one wants to mix with Balinese culture to make it look more "normal".

We know everything is temporary and sooner or later things will change so we are basically unaffected by this. As Prabhupada said, nothing can stop the movement from inside. That is the case again. We have seen similar things around the society but it seems like devotees have to go through that purification.

I got good responses from local devotees. Simple people, culture of humility. Lots of facilities to talk and I hope for more as the relationships become more solid with steadiness.

Books are hard to get. Australia is expensive and Indonesia tax books from there. Mumbai gave up saying that there are no ships. So I personally went to Vrindavan and send by post and found someone who can do that when needed.

Shipping for 100 kg is 500 usd . Someone says its too much, but that would be vaishya calculation. We are interested in the pleasure of the Lord and experience showed us that yagna brings multiple benefits, not only to the person who has received the books. So we took it as a favorable and believe in Krsnas intervention.

Books only go to foreigners, its more safe. Locals are all very negative for Hare Krsna at this time. There are plenty of spots where I can move and remain invisible. Our devote bought Ganja oil online from Holland for his wife who has cancer and police found out the bottle in the post office. They took him to jail and sentenced 14 years. So severe are punishments here for small offences. That is another reason books find owners in foreigners hands. And and and....lots of things, it's a time of need in short.

Maharaja, with your prayers and attention we can continue contributing to this wonderful movement of Lord Caitanya. This movement makes sense and its worth of giving life to it. Taking Prabhupada to the future is our motto.

Book Distribution ki Jai!

Sarva Sukhino Bhavantu!

Your servant

Narayan pandit das

HpS - Wow! Thank you so much for this letter. It is an honor to know you and your Sankirtan. Our old friend Abhimanyu Das we in a center in Bali teaching in the Gurukula. Do you know him? He is disciple of B. S. Damodara Swami.

I hope you can help Mrs. Rukmni adjust the GBC requirements for initiation.

Nothing can stop us.

Please accept my most humble and respectful obeisances at your lotus feet all glories to Srila Prabhupada.

HpS/ASA - Lettuce feet. AgtSP!

Dear Gurudev, I hope you're doing very well on your transcendental basis, every day we ask Lord Narasimha to protect you in all directions.

ASA - 🐷

Jaya!

 We are very grateful for the daily Darsan, which serves as a focus to develop our daily devotional service, I feel that little by little I have been improving, we still have to heal more anarthas, but sadhana and sadhu sanga are the best medicine.

 We continue to serve at Krsna Lunch Gainesville, our sponsor, where we are 30 minutes from the Alachua Temple, which we visit on Sundays for programs and parties. We are truly very fortunate for such mercy and the transformation of our lives.

We continue to study the Bhakti Sastri with Prabhu Laksmana Agraja who is very enthusiastic about deepening and sharpening our gaze on the sastras.

We will have a one week break from Monday. June 28th

ASA - Monday, today is June 26th? Next Monday is July 3rd?

. . . and we want to visit you in Nashville,

we would travel on Tuesday to Murari Sakha Temple (where we would stay) and go to your base for the program on Wednesday and Thursday

ASA - What program??? 😕

We live in a cottage in the jungle and the only regular program we have is FMS and Evening Walk with NgD and the GMGWS?

Murari is like a two hour drive each way????

We would suggest you don't come.

Spend more time with Alachua Temple or Subra and Caitanya et al!!

Devotees are coming for the 15th July weekend.

That would be more productive.

Then the 16th or so of September.

O.K???

and return Friday loaded with bhakti and illumination of your lotus lips. Excuse me for writing at the last minute, but time has played against us between service and sadhana.

Surrendered at your lotus feet,

Laksmiradha DD & Syam Krsna Gopal Das

HpS - We don't use our lotus lips too much here.

More on line.

🙂

🐒

🐒 🐒