Question about "Chocolate"

13 years, 1 month ago by Bhakta David Vinces in Hot Topics

Pamho, agtSP,

Dear Maharaja,

I hope you are better now and you feel very well. I just have a little question. It is about "chocolate." I wanted to know if the devotees can eat it. As far as I know it breaks principles since it has caffeine so it's considered a drug, but in spite of it some devotees eat it claiming that it's allowed or authorized. Well, I wanted to know what is the truth about it.

ASA -  A G T S P !      As far as we know from Uncle Gismo it is not caffein, but theo-bromides. The effect is a downward stimulation. It squeezes energy from the lower part of the body, sexual energy. Thus we've seen several letters from Prabhupada and he was saying that it cannot be offered to the Deities, it is not for B'caris, but the Grhasthas might take some. Many times he was asked and then one letter he said, "No chocolate, no chocolate, no chocolate". There was GBC law against it that was late removed, as we understand. So, it appears that it is marginal, food for emergencies when you are being chased by cannibals on a desert island the boat is about to leave on the other side.

My news are that I'm studying "office automation" in an Institute and my associate is studying English in the ICPNA of Iquitos with the goal of being better prepared for the collect in the future and doing also of course a better service to Krishna. I've just finish the first application package with sufficient grades to get the certificate, my final average was 16.3 from a maximum of 20 and the pass-grade is 14. I'm chanting 6 rounds every day but Sundays 7 as you told me Maharaja, reading daily the Bg. and also reading the Mahabharata. To my associate and I is very difficult to live in a place where there is no devotees, devotees friends, but we celebrate every important Vaishnava date preparing some offering to the Lord and cheering each other up in our spiritual life.

Trying to serve you

b. David Vinces

ASA - Very nice, and Gopa-kumar Das is back in Peru. Have you talked with him much?  Do you have relatives in Lima?

Esteban Perez desde Rosario, Argentina

13 years, 1 month ago by Esteban Perez in Other

Hare Krishna!

Estimado Guru Maharaja:

Me refugio en sus pies de loto.

ASA - TlgaSP.    pfanrh.   Aqui somos Monkey & Piggy. HpSwami se muere, pero pensamos va a volver.

Espero se encuentre muy bien, el motivo por el cual le escribo es por que siento ansiedad en tener una charla con Usted.

Voy a estar llegando a Bs As el 24 de este mes para asistir al programa de Nama-Hatta en Burzaco.

De ser posible concretar una entrevista, estare ansioso de que llegue ese fin de semana para poder verlo! Ya me comunique con uno de sus sirvientes para  pedir permiso.

Mis humildes reverencias,

Bhakta Esteban

*Adjunto una foto de las deidades de nuestro hogar y los festejos de Goura Purnima.

Hare Krishna!!

ASA - Si, puede hablar con Adi-yajna Das en le templo.  El es ayudandonos cada dia y calendaristo. Devoto en contacto con todos es Bhakta Francisco.  Persona superamable.  1 158 345 275.

Siempre hay momento hablar antes o despues de las programas, pero aqui en el Blog es super para los perspectivos general.  Muchos tienen las mismas preguntas.

Welcoming Nitai Chaitanya Chandra

13 years, 1 month ago by msrinu in Other

Hare Krishna Maharaj,

Please accept my humble obeisances, all glories to Srila Prabhupad and Gurudev

With your mercy, we are able to name the deities (Nitai Chaitanya Chandra) and welcome them into our home and hearts. We are already seeing/feeling the power of deity worship and trying to understand the process and  take it to the heart.

Here with we attached some of the snaps of "the most merciful Nitai Chaitanya Chandra" on thier welcoming party.

And also begging  you to give us your mercy and blessings (for the entire Richmond Bhakti Vriksh) to progress in this path steadily.

Your humble servant

-Srinivasa

HpS - Jaya!    A G T S P !    They are our Teachers, no?   They are in the mood of devotees of Krsna.   We worship Radha and Krsna in Their association by Chanting and Dancing and Feasting in Their association.   They lilke flowers!!!   We should be able to visit them soon!  Thank you!

India Trip

13 years, 1 month ago by harsh_horse in Calendar Development

Hare Krsna Maharaj,AGTSP,PAMHO,
We found from your DTC on 16 fri that you are having trouble in contacting manipur and getting inand tickets. May be we can help you in calling Manipur  and gettin the ticket.  you have our cell no and skype detais , you can call us any time for fixing all this.

We also need to give you chip and USB modem to you.  We still have them with us, we thought we can give those in delhi when you land

We were hoping to meet you and carry your little luggage, may be goto Manipur with you if you allow. We understand there is some issue with temple going on, but hope we wont disturb you to solve the local probem.

Aspiring to Be Disciplined by You
Bhakta Harsh (+91-9910-579-879,+91-993-003-4241)

HpS -  Jaya!   Thank you.  We tried to call India, Imphal 14 times yesterday with three different numbers.    Then today, Saturday we just booked Del-IMP-CCU-DEL  Tickets with Make My Trip and after all the effort the robot took our money, said only the last booking was confirmed and they will cal Dr. Samaresh. So we wait a little.

Plan is pretty fixed now:

Arrive Delhi   21.40, 8 May.  Stay in Deelhi one day. theThursday as early as possible fly to Manipur 10th.

Then Monday 21st Fly to CCU

then Monday 28 back to Del.   We will try moe to fix the three flights and then send you more details.!

Re: Hare Krishna Maharaj

13 years, 1 month ago by gayathri in Personal Sadhana Reports

Maharaj,

Please accept my humble obeisances at your lotus feet. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

Thank you so much for your letter. I'm grateful for taking your precious time to reply back.  I had to read, re-read and still taking time to understand. May be, I will one day.

Some of the devotees in Chicago, I can think of are HG Prthu Srava prabhu (Urbana-Champaign), HG Danakeli Mataji, HG Nityananda Pran Prabhu (our temple president) , HG Premanand Mataji, HG Jaya Jagannath Prabhu and others. I think one of the temple devotees, HG Gokulnanda Prabhu is from South America. And HH Romapada Swami Maharaj visits Chicago frequently.  I'm sure to have missed more.

We will be so blessed if we can have your association sometime. Will continue praying to our Sri Kishore Kishori to receive you Maharaj.

Yours ever grateful servant,
gayathri 
(Chicago)

HpS - AGTSP   pamho  Maybe we visit Toronto and Chicago this summer??

Application for becoming formal aspirant to study in ASA/ISKCON and acheive goal of life.

13 years, 1 month ago by harsh_horse in Personal Sadhana Reports

To, The most reverred and dearest personality we met in our life His Holiness Hanumat Preshak Swami.

We are willingly hereby expressing our desire to achieve purpose of our life under your guidance. For this purpose  we desire to accept you as Diksha and Siksha guru.  We read guru-tattva.txt [GTT] in jayarama.us archives.  We at this level can not understand that what is our relationship with Srila Prabhupada, so we desire to accept you as his representative also.

We want to follow “tad vijnanartham saha gurum eva abhigached”  we know that our circumstances physically, mentally,  socially, financially, practically every thing is opposite to  acheive goal of life in this life itself.  May be we are mad, but we think to acheive goal of Human life in this life,is possible[ even though it is rare and inconceivable].  Hence we are moving ahead taking necessary move to utilize this valuable human of life.

We have this crazy feeing it is worth a shot and will be possible by mercy of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu  received through Guru-parampara, Srila Prabhupada and you. {mukham karoti vacalam} is what we are hope to happen.
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According to GTT to become your disciple we need to become  formal aspirant. Though to achieve this stature may be very difficult for us. We need to improve lot of things practically in every aspect, but we hope it can be done, if we are sincere.

Here are some questions[red color]  and descriptions of our position[green color] for becoming formal aspirant  

  1. Can you help us in figuring out the meaning   of “Sankirtana and practical relation with ISKCON “  ?[ 2nd line in answer to ,’What happens if a Disciple falls down?’  in GTT]

HPS - Sankirtana means glorifying Krsna in cooperation with ISKCON. We can live in a Temple ans distribute books, or we can live in home with our family and invite friends and evotees to take prasadam and hear from Srimad Bhagavatam.

  1. Four rules we can easily follow.  Though wedo take non-onion non- garlic food[jain food] prepared by Karmi.We mentally offer it. Is that a disqualification ?

HpS - It is not so good.  Nectar of Instruccion cites, "visayira anna kaila hana dusta mana". If we take food cook by non-veg people then it can contaminate our feeble minds. We should encourage everybody to follow four princoples sttrictlyly.  But for Sankirtana puproses if the cooks are strict vegetariann then we can offer the food to the Deity.

  1. 16 rounds daily we think its very achievable for us [ we would try to improve quality also]
  2. Mangal arti  [as we understand]  this is not a very big challenge.   We have two questions in this
    [a] Do we have to do mangal arti at 430 only or sometimes we can start it later also ?

HpS - Must be during Brahma muhurt.  90-45 minues before Sunrise.  Nice time for Yogis.

  1. ‘sincerity to serve Srila Prabhupada’: We think we have the desire, but not sufficient to jump over the obstacles. We are very confused regarding our swa-dharma and vritti, which again could be obstacle for serving Srila Prabhupada.
  2. Temple President or other ISKCON authority
    [a] Does  ISKCON  authority should be regionally situated/present at same place where we are residing ? 

HpS - Yes, should be.  Is natural.  Is like institutional relatinship but not withut meaning! 
[b] Is there a GBC document which mentions the name of authorities from whom we can get recommendation?HpS - Yes, but I don't know what it is.  Temple President or his designated people, GBC Secretary.  Where do you live? 
 We are being futuristic [as we need to send you weekly reports] as we dont know where do we and up materially to maintain our Grhastha- asrama. [what if  we dont have temple near by]

  1. Do we need to really need to understand role of GBC in  our future relation with ISKCON ? In India we have some temples which have problem with GBC.  So we think we need to keep in contact with GBC and understand the issues with temple or it is not required.
                                                       ------------------------------------------------
    We know our situation becomes more complicated as we are not near any branch of ASA. We have less information about your requirements, as we get less chance to interact with other disciples of yours.

 We can not conceive how we can we serve you and parampara, when we see other devtoees it seems they have some devotee support  [parents, brothers, sisters,friends]. We have none because we dont know the art of making and sustaining relations with other people[ we are learning it by your grace].  We wish to offer our best  fight to obstacles to serve you through out life.
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You asked us last time  ASA - In what media are you good at expressing yourself?  In [http://hps.monkeywarrior.com/node/1366] . We think we can express better by speech dialogue.

Moreover communication in foreign language is also a problem . {this remind us purport of SB 1.5.11 , abaddhavaty api }

Aspiring to Serve You and Guru-Parampara  Throughout  This Life And Ever After
Bhakta Harsh See you in Idnia in May!HpS - AGTSP  My God we thought this was a ne

w fellow!   ha!  Ha!  Ha!   Lets tak buy Skype some times  Email is terible right now.  Takes ten second for the letters I type to appear on the screne!