Letters to the editor

HpS/ASA - No, agtSP, content in the letter!

Would like very much to hear from you.

Thank you.

Diary of a Dreaming Creature

It 😎 is at 5.11PM. Sunset was some time ago, here in ISKCON Houston.

Very nice letter from Miguel, Terkadamba Devi Dasi, Dallas, but should take a break now for our eyes etc.

Been pretty good day.

1. Japa Joe 📿🐵
2. Full Morning Program in the Temple ⛪
3. Meeting with:
4. Atul Krsna Das on the Bhakti-sarva-bhauma diploma.
5. Tandavika Das about Guru-puja in Nashville.
6. Rest and Reading. Mail.
7. Preparing for meeting with Uncle Gismo and H. G. Gopinatha Das from Hewlitt-Packard this evening.
8. FEP

Thank you for your association. Sankirtan!

💪💪💪🐵🐷

Please adored Gurumaharaja accept my humble obeisanced to Sweet dust of Your lotus feet🙇🏻‍♀️🙏🙏🙏💖🌷🌹🌷💐🌻🌹🌷💐🌻🎵🎶

HpS/ASA - We feel really unhappy when people talk about "the sweet dust of our lotus feet". It seem kind of like what a lady might feel like if her husband washed her feat in public and sprinkled the water on his head and the head of others. 😆

In Vaikuntha I guess we all have lotus feet (or lotus hooves) but here they are maybe just venerable as chaste ladies, austere Sannyasis, no?

AgtSP!!!

All Glories To Srila Prabhupada!!!🙇🏻‍♀️🙏💐🌻🌹🌷🌻💐💖

HpS/ASA - 👦 🐒 🐖 Jaya! !

All glories To You Gurudeva!!!🙏🙏🙏🎵🎶🙇🏻‍♀️💐🌻🌹🌷🌹🌻💐🌻💐🌷💐🌹🌻💐🌷💖

We have been concerned about your throat for a long time, and we are very happy to be allowed to talk about this on the blog. How can we help? ... I always think that a little tea with honey and perhaps ginger would help... but I really don't know what is good for your dosha.

If any well-intentioned disciple knows what is best for you, it would be so good if they could help you so that this stops once and for all. It is very painful to think that your throat might be hurting from the inflammation caused by making that sound that helps you continue speaking.

I think—please correct me if I am wrong, beloved Gurudev—that although, as disciples, we cannot advise you, and that is taken as offensive, there is also the example of the gopis, who did not care about going to hell if they had to give the dust of their lotus feet to cure Krishna's headache. And... even though we may not be advanced or pure like Them, I think it's normal to feel pain if you see the most beloved person in the world suffering, and you know how to help, but... for fear of offending, you don't help.

So... I sincerely hope that some devotee who knows how to reduce the swelling in a throat that's draining... water? from Her lotus nose, can help stop this and allow you to have some peace of mind, at least about this.

Please forgive me if I've caused any offense... I've long wished this could finally stop bothering you.

On the other hand, it's so lovely and inspiring to see my brothers and sisters wanting to follow SDG Srila Prabhupada so well! My deepest respect to all! I hope we can all understand how to improve our service and relationship with You. Better and better, clearer and clearer...!!! Jaya Gurudeva! Your class was so wonderful; it was exactly what I needed to hear.

Always aspiring to serve the dust of her fantastic lotus feet;

Japa Prati Jalpa Radha Devi Dasi

HpS/ASA - Very nice ayurvedic doctor here, Ananta isvara Das. South Indian Brahmana boy.

Very, very nice.

I hope that he and Nikunja and others can all be in touch.

Maybe a Latin American Tour.

We have some specific medicine, daily: Chaywan Prash, specifically blended for our nature. Is very strong.

Other than that our throat, eyes, ears, skin, heart are all under systemic care that seems to be the best remedy.

Of course, when we get up in the morning we have to wake up everything, so there is some coughing to clear the throat.

In general, it is o.k. Weaker that ten years ago, but still functional.

I hope to get a new one when this one is finished!!!

Thank you!!!

I think you speak for many people.

Hare Krishna Gurudeva, please accept my obeisances.

Gurudeva, I have no problem with the ISKCON authorities, nor am I very close to them.

My service is outside the temples. I currently hold no authority, but I was thinking of taking Maharaj Yadunandana Swami as my Siksha guru. What do you think?

HpS/ASA - Seems very fine. ISKCON is Srila Prabhupada's body, no? So, we should see the the Head, Shoulders, Arms, Belly, Legs are as healthy as possible.

My service is outside the temples: cooking for my deities, chanting 16 rounds, reciting the Srimad Bhagavatam, observing the Ekadasis, chanting the Gayatri, and worshipping my household deities.

HpS - Your attitude seems great. Just work to become a part of the institutional Sankirtan more and more. You must protect the GBC. You are their Mother!

My father's name is Hugo Morales; he is 71 years old. He is a retired math teacher. He is currently not working but owns some properties in Peru that he rents out and runs a small business with my mother-in-law.

My father has known ISKCON since 1994. His friend, who was also a vegetarian at the time, introduced him to it. From then on, my father always taught his family and friends about Krishna consciousness. Thanks to my father, I was able to read Srila Prabhupada's books. He taught me to sing the Yapa chant, to cook, and to worship in our small temple at home.

Nadiya Nivasi Dasi

HpS/ASA - You are such a fortunate person. Become a devotee on the level of Narada Muni by the grace of Lord Nityananda and our Founder Acharya!

Come with us to the Next Letter! ➡

asa[e] VAD; grhastha ashrama; divorce

"The divorce act is encouraging prostitution, and this should be abolished."

https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/1/17/38/#bb17253

"If her husband is fallen, it is recommended that she give up his association. Giving up the association of her husband does not mean, however, that a woman should marry again and thus indulge in prostitution."

https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/7/11/#bb47099

The entire Verse and Purport give very clear advice on this topic. Please study them nicely! https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/7/11/28/

For even more detail:

"Actually the qualified brāhmaṇas are meant to give direction to the kings for proper administration in terms of the scriptures like the Manu-saṁhitā and Dharma-śāstras of Parāśara."

https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/1/9/27/#bb15336

We found a translation of Parasara's Dharma Sastra at the University of California Berkeley, Law Library.

A copy is at: https://www.jayarama.us/archives/parasara.doc

As we remember it explains that for a woman whose husband dies or takes Sannyasa, it is first class for a woman to follow her husband in the same fire of sacrifice.

If he dies she enters the funeral fire.

If he takes Sannyasa, then like Visnupriya, she followed the Lord as a woman by dedicating herself fully to taking shelter of the Holy Names while staying at home.

As we understand, she would collect one grain of rice for each maha-mantra and then cook what she had collected by 2pm.

She was as good of a Sannyasi as Lord Caitanya.

This is first class Dharma for a woman, wife.

Second class is that she does not enter the fire, but she enjoys life in a civilized fashion but does not get remarried.

Third class, and still progressive in Kali-yuga, is that she gets remarried after six years.

Any comments?

Hare Krishna Gurudeva, please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. All glories to you. 

Thinking about you a lot and your upcoming travels. I am wanting to travel with you and wanting to travel blind…but knowing I must serve you more and more in the vani sense. Sometimes it feels as though you are physically present in our morning program. I’m finding over and over again that anytime I feel discouraged, depressed, no enthusiasm..all that needs to be done is to cry out in the Guruastikam song then like magic or mysticism some enthusiasm comes in and I feel connected again(and japa improves like a symbiotic relationship). Sometimes it’s as if you are dancing in front of me. Each verse iconographic and a world of discovery. It’s sobering and blissful simultaneously. I’m committed to this experiment and we are not missing a single morning. Sometimes it works at home but mostly it is most potent at the temple(The rugged ignorant individual in me doesn’t like this!). But more then just relief from suffering it is the perspective.

Slowly slowly losing this taste for wanting to be a great man/bad man. Some intelligence is telling me to just secretly be a good disciple.  

“Day by day, stone by stone

Build your secret slowly

Day by day, you'll grow too

You'll know heaven's glory”

-Little Church inspired by Saint Francis

It’s an amazing thing, Gurumaharaja..every single Thursday program and so many conversations at work and in the street Carl Jung is mentioned. And when I simply repeat some things I’ve heard from you, their eyes light up.

Another possible bridge we are experimenting with is this book: The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. We have started a new series on it for our Thursday program. Each chapter or agreement has been a wonderful jumping off point to basic Bhakti topics and specificity Nectar Of Instruction. Seems like 80 percent of people here either have read the book or have wanted to read it. I got it when I was a teenager and it may have helped me come to KC. Very famous book. Curious if you know it or know his other book Beyond Fear. Who were these Toltec people and what was their relation to Vedic culture? Is a question that keeps coming up. 

Lastly, many politics and changes in infrastructure in our temple and in the US government. Our temple’s government has been shut down in a way as well. But it’s going in a good direction and this has raised a lot of questions for me personally: Do we need both conservative and liberal devotees for a healthy spiritual  community? And should the two aspects be balanced within us? Like Prabhupada talks about the razors edge.. and can we put smarta Brahmins, consrervitives, and more dictative speakers all in the same general category and then Avadhutas, liberals and provocative speakers all in the same general category as well? And are these two mentalities eternal?  

Thank you for all the enlivening classes recently. The redwood tree that is Houston temple is a great inspiration for our Boise bonsai tree temple. The squirrel moving the stone is just as important to Lord Ram as the big boulders the monkeys carry?  

Your aspiring servant, 

Nitisara Das 

HpSwami ASA 🐒- Lord Nityananda and Srila Advaita Acharya engage in mock joyful arguments about conservative and liberal attitudes.

Srila Prabhupada comments that there have always been these two attitudes: Avadhuta and Smarta, and they have never understood each other and they never will.

Yet their conflicts stimulate each other and they love each other like anything.

Yes, in the drama, there are no small parts, just small actors!

Realize Boise is the center of the universe.

Will look at above book.

See you soon.

Respects to all?