Letters to the editor

Tom Brown: We received a following important communication from devotee in one ISKCON community. We have edited it for practical use in this here Blog!

"Hare Krsna beloved Gurudeva,

AGTSP

PAMHO

Thanks for your letter to the Regional GBC. You are right. During the former investigation that you worked so much to organize, in the end, nobody presented a formal complaint against ABC Das.

Nevertheless, there is something much more deeper here. We do not understand why some GBC authorities support him in the way the way they do.

(Personally I am really sorry to bother You with all these things.)

So for the sake of ISKCON Xyz we will continue with the investigations.

At this point we do not know if our Zonal GBC will meet with us.

I do not know if I can act as friends as with ABC Prabhu and his friends as you suggested.

I trust My Friends and at the end of the day I do not trust them.

Many devotees are expressing themhselves in social media and they erase those comments.

Why do they not want to answer the requests or doubts of the community of devotees? What are they hiding? Anyway..

So sorry for bothering You. We Will continue until we see what Krsna wants

JAYA SRI RAMA 

In service

DEF Das

Tom Brown, Buck White et al.

Hare Krsna, Prabhu! AgtSP. Paoho. Yes, if you smell a rat you should definitely investigate, but remember the sagely advice of Mulla Nasreddin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasreddin) whom Srila Prabhupada also cited:

"One should not engage in an argument with a fool, because people may have a hard time distinguishing which one of you is the fool!"

If you feel that devotees, Jiva souls, are infected with material consciousness, greed, lust, anger, pride, then try to help them, but don't get involved beyond your strength.

Don't get too close, but don't get too far.

The people you save today may be the people who save you tomorrow.

Thank you!!!

More news!

"Hare Krishna Guru Maharaj

PAMHO AGTSP

How are you Guru Maharaj.

Bhakti charu Maharaj decipal group wanted to check how is your schedule on 4th of July, they want to invite you at DeLand Florida, for Bhakti charu swami Maharaj Tirobhava mahotsav."

HpS-ASA --- AgtSP. Paoho. Thank you for forwarding the invitation. We always have happy feeling in our heart when we remember H. H. Bhakti-caru Swami. We was a human being!

We have just finished 6-months on the road, consolidating our decades of traveling and preaching/teaching, and now are just getting our Base Camp in Nashville open and running. We just got our car registered, insured and running last week.

Very nice.

Right now we have no plans for traveling out of town, Murfreesboro, even for the rest of our life. Of course that may change as we get in a better position to see Krsna's plan of work.

Yet, right now we could not join the festival, but might join online.

Thank you.

"Hare Krishna, Gurudeva, accept. my obeisances. I am meditating hard on everything I learned during your visit. honestly during this new goverdan event it was very instructive and i am very grateful to the devotees, but i have my personal reservations and i want to serve sankirtan but i feel very ignorant. develop good communication with Dhruva Prabhu and his Family. , . we want to do sankirtan and start a preaching movement. here in Latin America as a new Goverdan base. MONTEMORELOS."

HpS - ASA -- TlgaSP!.... Thank you. I think 50% of your effort is now finished, you followed up on the visit!

Many times we organize and event. That is 50% of the effort. The other 50% is to continue.

1. It depends on our effort and Krsna's effort. Try to understand Krsna's plan from goof Japa, Srila Prabhupada's books, advice from nice devotess and people - one, two, three. Krsna wants Kirtan, hearing and chanting, in Kali-yuga, so if New Govardhana is amined at that then it is proper.
2. Judge by the results. See how things are developing and then adjust accordingly. You have already done that in terms of your Sankirtan and got good results.
3. Purity is the force. Four principles and 16-nice rounds (Mangala arati etc). Anything you want to accomplishin Sankirtan or with your family will only improve as you stick to these things.
4. Keep posting results, news, here in the Blog. Let us see if the devotees respond.

Thank you, Hare Krsna!!

We just finished watching the film. The family was delighted by so many aspects---the soundtrack, scenes, storyline.

We realized that many people leave big buildings with their names on them, but you have given us a community---of devotees, teachers, statesmen, temple builders, philosophers.

That community is visible throughout the movies---in Peru, Boise, Richmond, Nashville, Houston, and soon, in Spain and India.

How wonderful this is!

Thank you.

HpS - ASA - We say AGTSP, and just recently we realize that it means that when someone glorifies us, it is just correct to point out that we are maybe the brush and the glories mostly go to the artist.

In this case, we would not have even done this work unless, many people had pushed us to "consolidate" our Sankirtan efforts. Thanks to all of them.

Thanks to all of the members and friends (and even intelligent enemies) of ISKCON!

Thanks to our Producer, Director, Director of Photography, local professional photographers, cooks, hosts, rivers, grass, dogs, birds.

There is a kind of funny tombstone in graveyard of the Cathedral at Canterbury. It is understood as a kind of pun, that the deceased would have loved, that says, "He knew his place".

Thank you.

Respects to everyone.

Hare Krishna, maharaja, PAMHO AGTSP.

Thank you for sharing the link for the movie. We watched the movie, and we really appreciated all your efforts you have put into making this film. It is definitely a lot of hard work. Throughout the film, we got to see mangoes 🥭 that have ripened by your mercy. 

I just had a suggestion that I would like to share with you. At some points in the film, it felt like certain individuals were playing a very important role and were being given more screen time than others.

I just feel like this whole Krishna movement is not one man show. It definitely takes a lot of group effort, and every devotee needs the association of other devotees. For example, it would be nice to see the pictures at the end of those people who have put so much effort into making this film happen. Or like how so many devotees are doing service together and inspiring each other. 

I beg for forgiveness if I have done any offenses while expressing my thoughts. 

Your servant, 

Bhaktin Sitarani

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AgtSP!!!!! He made the movie, no? Paoho. Thank you for this very nice comment. Very, very, nice. We felt exactly the same thing when we saw this and the first movie.

We did not edit the movie. We gave suggestions, but in the end Pablo Rivas Plata, Director of Photography, had to push the buttons and make the cuts.

Me, Raul, Abhirama et al made editorial comments, but Pablo had to do the job.

We feel that we were too prominent in the movie. It is about Tom Brown more than HpS, but it is better than the first one.

In Houston, we did full interviews with Subhra Devi Das and one of her Goswami Academy students, Guru-bhakti and Sarva-bhauma, Hari-lila and Nandulal. They are all great.

The same in true in Peru.

We have interviews with devotees who are now on committees with the United Nations.

Ooof!

I wanted so much more to be in the film. I pushed to get some interviews in there because they I felt they were representative, an example, of the general service that so many were doing, but so, so, so much more was possible, but really not practical. Personally, considering how much he has worked to understand ISKCON, us, Pablo made a fantastic collection of final cuts. Fantastic.

I commented to Abhirama that it seems there are six more full movies from the footage we shot during our six months in Peru.

He laughed and said that he, Raul and Pablo had decided that there were ten more Eg. Science and the Vedas, Management in the Church Sector, Hamlet and Arjuna...

The same in true in Houston, Richmond, Boise, but... we have the footage there. All in 4K. So more movies can be made.

You!! Should make movies about the Yatra. About your life. Stop and talk about all that has happened to you, like Sridhara and Radhika rama in the movie. I remember going out with you and M. Arrudha DD doing primary and middle school programs in the summer. You would talk to the kids and dance, no? It was so much fun!

Radhika was in the first movie in Peru.

His family shows up in the second movie.

He won't be in three or four.

Professor Bejar is in the first movie, not in the second, at the end of the third and very prominent in the third.

It will will allow people to have "traveling" companions as they go through the series.

Your idea of a collage of people at the end exciting to me.

I think Pablo tried to catch that with the Rathayatra festivals.

Bhakti Siddhanta made us Brahmanas.

Srila Prabhupada gave us the Vedas.

We have to make the movies, no?

P.S. What do you think of these:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_cinema

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotte_Reiniger

asa[e] - VAD, Sannyasa Dharma, Advisor

Dear Maharaj,

PAMHO AGTSP!

I wanted to write to you to ask your guidance on where to go from here. Next year I can pursue college as you expressed. Until then I can pursue martial arts as you guided. But before I start martial arts, I need to wrap up previous projects. I wanted to ask your guidance on an alternative place to stay? People where my parents stay ask awkward questions to which we don’t have answers to yet.

YAS,

YS

HpS/ASA - AgtSP! paoho.... We are relating to the physical and mental world through a 75-year old California body. At 30-years old the physical energy in the body starts to diminish. At fifty the mental. We can only relate to specific planning, mental plans, by writing stuff down. We can write this kind of letter because we can write and re-write it. Focus on one "local" plan.

Very funny, very fascinating.

Same will happen to you, everyone.

As your body doesn't jump and hop, mind the same, you begin to realize that you are not body or mind.

Then, "Who am I"? Because we have spiritual resources we can, and are gratefully pushed, to realize our intellectual (Buddhi) nature.

Hmmm. How is my intelligence? What is my attitude to life? Bhava? Most people never really ask this question. They just accept the attitude to life that their culture, Disney, Netfixs, gives them.

If we get the Bhava, perspective, that BG gives us, then we can reawaken our spiritual nature and go to dance in Goloka.

Cha! Cha! Cha! ....

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So, often people ask us for specific advise. We can give general suggestions and focus on a few specific situations, but without knowing the specific details, we cannot give detailed advice, Eg. In which city to live, what career to take.

It just bewilders us.

We feel like a buffalo looking at a person sitting in front of us on a motorized lawn mower, honking their horn and waving at us to move.

""Hu????"

We wrote about this topic two days ago: https://monkeywarrior.com/detail/14018/, please read that post, it should help.

We get this question often and try to explain our limits. As Mangala-ananda Das told us, "After seven or so years as your disciple, I have figured out that you are my guru, not my psychologist".

We feel bad because we would like to study every situation and help, but it is just not possible. We are not the supreme enjoyer, proprietor or FRIEND. The last mistake got Maharaja Bharata and Adam, husband of Eve.

We were pushed into Sannyasa by many intelligent people. O.K. Then we realized that it meant going beyond Kuticaka, living in a Temple cave near the Temple and just taking food from that Temple and giving advice. The administrators had some expectation that you would give advice that would be comfortable to their administrative ambitions. Oooof!

So, we took to Parivrajacacary.

We had stayed in Kolkatta helping our esteemed Sannyasa guru and Sankirtan leader, H. H. B. S. Damodara Swami, develop the Second World Congress for a Synthesis of Science and Religion for over a year. It had been my first summer in India and the hottest one in Kolkatta in 35-years. We lost 20-pounds, were so weak we had to be careful walking that we did not fall down. Yet, we still went out on Indian buses to do Sankirtan! Jay!!

Severe austerities for the B.I.

We had promised to stay for three months.

We did.

Maharaja asked to stay another three months.

.. . . . ... We DID.

Then he asked for another three months and

. . . . We D I D ! !

Then... yes, he asked again (each time by phone), please stay just a little longer. 'Don't always run away'!

Oooof!!!

We stayed and worked.

Then Maharaja, my Sankirtan leader, came to India, and the Congress was scheduled to start etc.

He was critical of how many contacts that we had been able make etc. etc.

We were very hurt. Whine. Whine. Whine. We had gone way beyond what he had asked. We had tried our, agree limited, best, and then he was criticizing us.

Ooof.

After about one-hour he came out of his room smiling and said, "Come here". I went into his room and he showed me some documents in his suitcase that he was unpacking. From the Kolkatta weather they had gotten so damp, they were sticking together, and one Brahmacari was very carefully pulling them apart so that they were not destroyed.

He laughed and said that he had to make a very serious apology to me, that he had forgotten (he was a graduate student in Kolkatta for many years) what it was like in Kolkata.

I was happy.

Often ISKCON leaders would be overly critical of us and never apologize. Between myself and Maharaja I feel a very intimate friendship. We hope to see him soon!

Yet, he is not God. He made mistakes. He could not give perfect advice.

If you want perfect career advice, you must talk with God. Srila Prabhupada, and They may say, that even they don't know.

The Jiva's have free will, and because of that they can do delightful never before dreamed of things that charm Radha and Krsna. We are all special. Unique, of inestimable value.

I could go on with this theme.

It describes how we scrounged a ticket back to USA. To leave Kolkata we had to duck under Maharaja's radar as more and more and more people were coming to organize this Congress etc. We arrived in New York in the middle of Winter and two feet of snow. No place to stay but on the street.

We just would not compromise with any of the Temples we knew to get a place to stay in exchange for being an "accommodating" Sanyasis.

We called Shankar Shastri and he was happy for us to stay for a few days, but beyond that it would interrupt his life style.

In the end we were determined, as must be you, and anyone seeking to become a Goswami and then a pure devotee, that we would rather die than lie to people about the truth.

Eg. "Prabhu, I know that you are Temple President, GBC Secretary, rich man, but I have to say that on this point you are wrong. You are being to arrogant with the devotees in this situation".

So, I was thinking that I would just go and sit behind a tennis back-board in a school athletic yard and freeze to death with honor and be found in the Spring thaw.

Then, little by little, Krsna revealed a plan for preaching and traveling for the next three months.

O.K. That's all we had, but that's enough.

!!!! Chant good rounds. Read Prabhupada's books. Talk with six good devotees who know you and then see if Krsna wants you here or in Goloka. If He wants you here, maybe the best he can do is give you a plan that will take you up: O.K. He has not given me an ultimate plan, but He has given me a career move that will have some immediate results and put me in a better position to take advantage of opportunities in the future. !!

You see we have taken a lot of time to answer your question.

Before this Blog we would have had to write this letter seven times each year!

Now we feel that we have done the best for many other devotees, because we can answer your excellent question, but for many other also!

O.K.???

We are facing exactly the same challenges as you right now.

We are trying to clarify what is going to happen with NIOS etc.

We are doing our work. We visited all of our work stations for six months. Now we are back in Kishkindha and we are trying to understand Krsna's next plan of work. Really, it is very possible that Krsna wants us to abandon this body and mind and go to work in another planet.

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As we understand many devotees, including us, had the same question wen Tamal Krsna Swami died in the car accident, "Oh, Prabhupada, how could you let this happen"?

"I need him for other work here. I let him stay with you for as long as possible. If you did not take advantage of him that is your fault, not mine".

Unless we accept that Sankirtan may kill us, Maya will always have us under her control.

Visnu priya was just as good a Goswami as Lord Caitanya.

Tell us the opinion of others about your situation, the insights from your chanting. Citations from your readings of SP's books that related to your decision making.

O.K. We look at a few more letters.

The go rake leaves!

Thank you!!

Expect to hear great results from your war on Maya!

JHpS - ASA