Letters to the editor

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

    Thank you so much Guru Dev.

    This letter is answer to your previous letter.

    we are fine....doing good at work place. we work 9 hours at office.
    breaking 9 hours = 7 hours pure office work + 1 hours discussion on NOI with Senior
   devotees + 1 hour discussion on BG with a devotee (very senior manager in IBM), He
   even asks me for a walk to discuss on spiritual topic. Office is very far from room/home,
   it takes 3 hours time, for go to office and come back room.

    we don't take break for lunch or snakes [snacks]. we put complete 'tilak' in office, complete head
    shave....can not live without 'tilak'..ha..ha.
    
    At office, Whenever we get time, we discuss on spiritual topic and BG with colleague
   and all.

    For last few months, we are continuously thinking that time is going very fast and we
    are just loosing the spiritual growth. we are just doing Kindergarten (16 rounds + 4
    regulative principles + hearing + reading + associating). We are not satisfied with these
    only. So what to do? Actually, what else. we are looking for, we ask to my self? We just
    want to have a test [taste] of deep spiritual subtleness so, what to do for more.

    So we started searching in your lecture, writ. what you say about spiritual progress,
    growth, plan and execution plan and started investing
    more time on study.

    Guru Dev, Currently reading below books:
     1. BG
    2. Padma-Puran
    3. Prabhupada's Articls
   
   www.jayarama.us/kd/guru-tattva.txt, Guru-tattva always aspire me to do as per your
   instructions. Feel...instruction from you. It shows, where i am?  Guru-tattva is check list
   for my sadana.

  Guru Dev, you will be in India on Feb 2014, correct? And as per your letter, you will take
  flight immediately for Kolkata, once you land in New Delhi, correct?  you will be in
  Kolkata with Dr. Bandopadhaya, from 9 Feb - 15 Feb 2014 and then you will go to
  Mayapur for ILS meetings.
HpS - ASA - Jaya! Get local Siksa gurus!!!   We have not yet bought Delhi to Kolkata ticket, 9 Feb. If someone wants us to spend one day in Delhi then we could do that, but if we don't get any news like that we will buy Delhi to CCU soon. Any suggestions?
  After that on 23rd, you will go to Lucknow and Vraja and will back to USA the 1st of
  November.....We are happy, you are staying very long time in India.

  As you advised, further, we could come for ILS also. Could join the group from our
 Temple.  

HpS - Yes!
  Please guide, where we can join you, so that we can have associate more.
 Thank you, Guru Dev.
your fallen servant,
Girivaradhari-Gopal Das

   HpS - Again, looking for local Siksa gurus. Also we have this NIOS promotional project for the NIOS books that we wrote to you about in Yahoo. We will answer your and Harsh's letter in a few days!!!  Hari Bolo!   Hari Bolo!     More news about your Yatra!

Hare Krishna Hanumatpresaka Maharaja,

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

I have several questions that I am curious about.

If a fallen dog were aspiring for some time, following your instruction, 4-regs strictly, 16 rounds, mangala, etc., then either has sex with their wife not for procreation or -messes around in self-abuse- but afterward continue following, have they fallen down completely or is there still hope for them?  Does the 6 months until being a formal aspirant start from when they started following, or from after they fell down and continued following?

If a fallen dog was once renounced, in this life or previously, and they decide to marry, can they still attain the favor of Guru and Gauranga after falling down?  If someone could be renounced, but they have a desire to marry, are they foolish and fallen?  If someone has attachment to women, are they too fallen for initiation?  Any advice for thinking of Krishna 100% so that thoughts of women do not occur and attachment to them can go away?

If someone has severe pain or surgery or similar, is it a fall down to take pain medicine because it is also an intoxicant?

Many things are said about chanting while driving or in a car.  Is it okay to chant in a car, or are their circumstances where it is okay?

Any advice to help with thinking of others in a service mood instead of thinking selfishly?  Sometimes even we can do service for Krishna for our own benefit, with thoughts like "I will go to mangala arati for Guru Maharaja, because he instructed me to and to please him.  And because I very much want initiation so that I can begin spiritual life and begin trying to love Krishna and His servants."  That desire could be selfish, thinking of ourselves, our benefit, our purification, our advancement in Krishna consciousness, our relationship with Krishna, our ability to love Krishna due to having the seed of bhakti lata.  But I feel it may be bad to think of ourselves in that way.  Please give instruction on this point, is it better to approach all service thinking "I will go to mangala arati for Guru Maharaja, to please him and Gauranga in the association of His devotees." and not for ourselves as above?

How can we center our thoughts on serving others instead of ourselves?  I feel like my desire to serve Krishna and have a relationship with Him could be selfish and greedy.  Who am I to say I am qualified to serve Krishna, or His servant or even the servant of His servant?  How could I ever expect to please Him when no matter what I do is tiny compared to His reciprocation?  Anything I do feels insignificant, and I lament that I have material desires and do not feel qualified to serve.

"In the course of traversing the universal creation of Brahmā, some fortunate soul may receive the seed of bhakti-latā, the creeper of devotional service. This is all by the grace of guru and Kṛṣṇa." (Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya 19.151)

From this text we see that it is only by the grace of Guru and Krishna that we can receive the seed of bhakti-lata.  Not by our own efforts or desires.  Please kindly instruct and correct us so that we may have your grace, and so that we refrain from thinking it is by some effort of our own that we could possibly receive such mercy.

"Kṛṣṇa will surely protect me and give me help for the successful execution of devotional service."

Yes, as much as I am in anxiety that I cannot be qualified to serve, I do not doubt that Krishna will protect me and give me help to serve Him.  I feel enthusiastic to serve Him, but I am a fallen dog.

"Devotional service is so pure and perfect that once having begun, one is forcibly dragged to ultimate success. Sometimes a person will give up his ordinary material engagements and out of sentiment take shelter of the lotus feet of the Supreme Lord and thus begin the preliminary execution of devotional service. Even if such an immature devotee falls down, there is no loss on his part. On the other hand, what is the gain of one who executes the prescribed duties according to his varṇa and āśrama but does not take to devotional service? Although a fallen devotee may take his next birth in a low family, his devotional service will nonetheless resume from where it left off."

This exerpt from NOI 3 is one I have refered to several times for solace.  We may have taken birth in a low family this time, we may have fallen down, but our service will resume.  It answers many of my questions above, but hearing submissively from Guru is also encouraging.  Please kindly instruct and correct our misconceptions.

I am also trying to be patient, but I struggle with patience.  Krishna seems so far away, even though He is so close.  I have not entered into His family yet.

Aspiring to be your servant,
Captain Blue Dog

ASA (Buck White) - AGTSP.  paoho.  Honey-chil' you got too many questions on yur scrambled brain!!!!   We just started scann'n them after numbr' six!

1) Yes, six months of following strictly you can be a FORMAL ASPIRANT.

Six months more first initiation.

ONe year more minimum mum mum and you can go on the altar and touch the Lord. . . Smoke a joint! Go to jail!... . .  Or at least you must follow the process for one year before you go back on the altar and touch the Deity.

This has practical effect.

If you get initiated, touch the Deities, and you are not ready then. Zing!   BiNg!!  Zong... Your material desires will INCREASE!   And you will go down in a ball of fire!
   So, fix you mind upon following.
And then send in shorter reports with a question for each one report!

O.K?      Colonel Pink Pig! !!!       YOur fallen servant.

AGTSP paoho. 

AGTSP

paoho

It's 6.53PM here in ISKCON (ASA) Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Darker than the inside of a goat outside. Fall has come very quickly in the past few days. It's very depressing because we are alone without another human, what to speak of spiritual, being insight, just the lights of cars passing on the main road and the Sushi Barn and Gas station.

Our memory doesn't always enliven us because we do a lot of little things everyday on different projects, so sometimes it seems that we aren't doing anything for Srila Prabhupada. When we stop and make a list it seems that we are doing something. Of course it is nothing like the really great devotees in ISKCON, but we are aspiring to make a real, unique contribution still.

Hare Krsna.

Our regular Sadhana will save us.

Now we will stop for Gayatri.  Ommmm....

We caught up with the mail to one week ago. We almost caught up with our BhVai reading. Is very very nice chapter, INstructions OF MAharama PRthu. Really it seems like more than one week to go through it and to really appreciate the purports and content would take at least a month of daily classes. Prabhupada especially noted this chapter out of all of our literature for understanding political science.

O.K. Gayatri: At 7.15PM we go with Nitai-gaurasundara and Mataji and maybe Abhiseka to Visnu carana Das' parents house for some evening program. We made very satisfying offerings to Lord Nrsmha deva today. We are learning to prepare the Bhoga better.

Bh. Daniel came by and bought $38 of books.  We talked with Laksmana agra Ja by telefone in Peru for 20-minutes. We listened to M. Urmilla DD's Hawaii class and did our own powerpoint show for tommorrow. It is in the Archives as sb 1.8.45.

Hari Bolo!!!  Now we shall merge into the Mystical Mantras, and have nice Kirtan at VCD parents house w/ NGD MMD and Abhiseka and Syama gopal Das and his wife. They are millionaires I think. Of course Krsna is a $1,000000000000000000000... aire.

Hare Krsna Maharaja,

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

Maharaja, the past 2 1/2 weeks I have been 5-15 minutes late to Mangala arati. I find it harder to get up with the cold and with a temperature sensitivity due to health issues. I am thinking maybe I should try to get up closer to 3 AM instead of 3:30-3:45? If I still have this same job during Kartik, I will need to wake around 2:30-3 AM in order to chant Damodarastakam in the morning in the ashram, as normally that is after Guru Puja and I am at work at that time. Another problem I have had for the past year is only being able to rest 4 hours or less, sometimes 2-3 hours. I try to rest, but it takes an hour or two or more sometimes. 6 hours would be enough. Maybe someday 2 hours will be enough, but I am not there yet. I tend to go to Sandhya arati and afterward finish rounds if I haven't completed, or sometimes extra rounds or talking with devotees. Then after that the mind wants to keep going. My mentor advised to start winding down around 7:30 PM, not go to Sandhya, maybe read for an hour and bed by 8:30. Bed by 9 and sleep by 9:30 would make 3:30 AM work for waking.

               HpS - AGTSP.  "http://vedabase.com/en/sb/3/26/30" has a nice discussion about sleep.

I'm trying to manage my time between morning program until 6:30 AM, work 7-4, finish rounds, dinner, etc. As I find ways to manage time better, I hope to find more time to read... the mind has trouble focusing when reading often, but it is all so much nectar so I want to read more and more. So far I've read your book recommendations except for Prabhupada Lilamrta (LoB, NOI, Biography of Lord Chaitanya,Your Ever Well Wisher, and also re-read SoSR). I am starting on Srimad Bhagavatam and will shortly also start on Prabhupada Lilamrta, reading both side by side. I also may read a little Radha Damodara Vilasa in-between to hear of the pastimes of Their Lordships, though that isn't the focus of the book, Their pastimes are there and I want to hear.

Please forgive my lack of focus and attention on Krsna. I am failing so much but I am determined to try to improve, if by your mercy I am able. Gradually my mind is thinking less of other things, but it still has so many distractions. Somehow or other, it is my hope that by your mercy I will someday be able to think of Krsna cent percent of the time and no longer have disruptions of other thoughts.

I contacted the Houston temple and am working out arrangements for a place to stay. It may be a bit expensive for me with no ashram, but we will see how it works out. I hope to have your association soon! "The verdict of all revealed scriptures is that by even a moment's association with a pure devotee, one can attain all success." CC Madhya 22.54

I am excited... Kartik is soon, Lord Damodara's month! I miss spending Kartik at Gita Nagari...

HpS - AGTSP. Paoho. Just getting a little of your association it seems that you have a very disturbed mental condition. You seem to be very intelligent, but maybe harrassed by ghostly influences from previous life. This is challenging, but it also have incredible results when you overcome this. So, keep looking for good local asociation of devotees who can advise you from personal contact with you.