pamho, AgtSP!

I always experience that ISKCON is vrindavan, only at first it was difficult to understand what was my position in this holy place.

Y,s. Madhu.

HpS - ENTERING VRNDAVANA:

The land, the cows, the buffalos and trees,

Are all unlimited nectarean seas,

Of the most intense mellows of spiritual pain,

Something which only the most fortunate ever obtain.

SANNYASA DHARMA:

A book bag, a blanket, a bucket and beads,

Will satisfy all of your spiritual needs.

Dear GM,

PAMHO

AGTSP

I hope this meets you in as good health as possible. I am inspired by your ceaseless service to Srila Prabhupada and the devotees.

I am getting older and weaker while still hanging around in this wonderful world of life, consciousness, sukha/dukha, gunas, reverence for Sri Krsna, and hoping for glimmers of awareness of the SPoG along with the appreciation for his servants.

I have your Tava Pache Pache in an attempt to remind me of the fundamentals of practicing devotional service under your guidance.

In addition, I enjoy epistemology. I taught the IB Theory of Knowledge course for many years to help pre-university students think critically and consider the basis of knowledge. They did not often understand the value of these thinking skills until after attending university for a while, when they would reach out to me to share how these skills helped them.

Visiting my sons for a spell in the USA. Pictures attached.

I am disconnected from the Krsna consciousness movement and all the wonderful engagements so many devotees are doing in their communities, although I have not strayed far from the path of devotion.

If I can help you in some way, please share. Maybe I could catch up with you when you return to India??

I hope this meets you well,

YHS

tscd

HpS - ASA --- AGTSP! paoho. I can immediately remember your condo on the border of San Jose and whatever it was. Your excellent intellectual association in so many, many, many ways!!! For some reason we did not stay in touch after you went to Thailand.

Ooof! 😞

Yet, who cares!!! Hari bolo! We are all in the same boat. "Once they come to Krsna, they can never get away"!

So, so nice if you can help us, join our efforts.

The simplest way is to read the News bulletin, www.jayarama.us/news.htm, every new and full moon day,,,, and as directed in there, post and read posts on this Blog.

You have so much to post here.

[4/15/2023 10:16 PM] Tusta-krsna Das: Hare Krishna, Maharaja. Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada! All glories to you!

We are in India now. After talking with you in, we went to LA for a week to meet our manager to initiate our move to India for a year. Then to India for a week to meet Mataji and try to console her! We really didn’t have much to say other than to trust Krishna with whatever happens in our lives. Then a week to Denmark. The travel was a nightmare as Germany went on strike when we landed in Frankfurt and somehow got out of Germany to Denmark after several flight cancellation and standing in long lines for 7-8 hours. We then came to India on Apr-2. We have our return tickets to USA is on 18-Apr from Chennai. Mataji's health is better and is in a position to travel.

We need to extend our visas and wait to see if my company will approve our move to India. We’ll see how things go. We hope by august we should be in a position to move to India.

It has been difficult to practice in India, Maharaja.

We squeeze our rounds everyday somehow.

I have many rounds to catch up also.

I have to attend meetings late night and hence wake up late.

Mataji, has been at home all day and has not found anything to do after her deity worship in the morning. So she is frustrated and it also brings rise to the thoughts of her health problems.

The temple is very far from our home. When we move to India, we need to figure out a few things to keep our sadhana and find a Sanga. We see how protected we were in USA by living in the dhama.

We hope that the year passes quickly, health issues are resolved and we can move back to USA to serve in ISKCON soon.

HpS - Thank you for the news. All these challenges, and our efforts to overcome them, are eternal. At the time of death we will not have Deities on the altar, Walmart, or anything. 🙂

If you struggle to get one more round done in this challenging circumstance that Krsna has sent then that fight, victory, will be with you eternally.

Seems that the problem may be that Krsna wants your good wife to be His exclusive mother!

😲

Then she has to sing for Him, cook for Him, do His Sankirtan 24-hours a day.  She has to become a devotee on the level of Visnupriya.

Hmmmm!   Good question to ask while chanting.

asa(e) Yoga Ladder, Time of Death

[4/14/2023 9:15 AM] Sri Radha-ananda Das: Hare Krishna Maharaja Pamho

Very nice to hear from you. I will definitely look at your bulletin. Getting older and older. Greatest problem I am faced with is to remember krishna as the clock is ticking!!

Hari Bol

[4/14/2023 4:50 PM] HpS/ASA : https://vedabase.io/en/library/iso/17/

Even if we forget Krsna, He will remind us, no?

Sri Radha-ananda Das: That depends Maharaj. He reminded Ajamil. But not Bhishma pita mahama. Bhisma a great devotee and a highly intellectual!!

One h

as to realise one self on the devotion and service he is rendering. That’s my understanding. I may be wrong and I hope I am wrong! Thanks for the thoughts to share 

With regards

HpS - ASA --- "SB 1.9 Text 30: Thereupon that man who spoke on different subjects with thousands of meanings, and who fought on thousands of battlefields and protected thousands of men, stopped speaking and, being completely freed from all bondage, withdrew his mind from everything else and fixed his wide-open eyes upon the original Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, who stood before him, four-handed, dressed in yellow garments that glittered and shined."

I think Srila Prabhupada even amplifies it more in the Purport, that Krsna manifested Bhismadeva's Istadevata form, and stood right in front of him as he was leaving his body.

We try 100% to do our service taking no help from Krsna.

Yet Krsna's foremost quality is not Satya, but Daya, so He tries 100% from His side.

Our effort is to try to remember him, but also, even more primary, to take advantage of His efforts to remind us. Look for His mercy and then be humble and

GRAB IT.

AgtSP paoho

After nine months of hard, productive travel we are back in our Base Camp.

HpS knew that there would be advantages and disadvantages.

1. After nine months, we can cook for our selves, our Diety, Lord Nrsmhadeva, our gross body. Yet, we also have to adjust to all the Boga and Prasadam that local devotees generously send.

Only here for few nights.

Campsite, water, fire, roof are good! Thanks to Tandavika, Ladies!! Getting car fixed. Getting into local rhythm and perspectives.

Getting online classes and calendar fixed.

Now is three minutes to local online FES.

We will try to put all these details in the Kapi Dhvaja so you all can join if you like or visit.

Yet, we are doing pretty well keeping this Blog up, so write here. Then others can see the answers and comments.

Hari bolo!

asa[e] - guru-tattva, diksa and vartmana-pradarshika guru

Hare Krishna Maharaja,

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

I hope you're well in your service to Srila Prabhupada. From where i see it, it seems that you are. My respectful obeisances unto you!

I'm writing to you after reading the recent Kapi Dhvaja. Have missed some so i'm not fully up to date but it seems there are changes happening. With a mixture of sobriety and relief i took notion of the new list of disciples, which has shortened. My name is missing. This was to be expected, judging from an earlier conversation where you told me that you no longer could serve as diksha guru because i didn't keep my part of the contract. It's the first time i ever heard such a thing within ISKCON, but it makes sense in a way and i can respect that.

I must say that i don't feel bad about it. Sad perhaps that things didn't work out as i envisioned them earlier. My resolve wasn't strong enough to maintain strict sadhana throughout my life. I came to ISKCON from past life connection to Hare Krishna somehow, and dove deep into it when trouble in my life overwhelmed me and i saw no other way out. After some years of living the Hare Krishna life i became your disciple. It made sense at the time and i managed to keep up for some years. I had two children and was living a kind of brahmacari life while being a grihasta. For many years i've tried to avoid wordly duties and fled in ISKCON.

I come from a family with not such good parental relations. I got involved in drugabuse and sexual addiction in my teens and this has been a thread throughout my life. Becoming a devotee helped a lot, but it didn't root out everything as i thought it would. I had high hopes from reading Srila Prabhupada's books, but i see things in a different perspective now. I don't hold any grudges to him. I guess i only took some of his points and not others.

So in my life after a few years of being your disciple, at some point i realized that if i wanted to keep my marriage alive and be a decent father, i needed to step up my worldly life. I hardly had an education, i had been a taxi driver for most of my life. It doesn't pay the bills, and my wife had the same. She is a twice initiated devotee from Russia living in the Netherlands, doesn't speak the language, and is too headstrong to take up a menial immigrant job. So it was on my plate. Krishna helped a lot. But i didn't keep up my initiating vows. Yes, i've always stayed connected to ISKCON. I do some service.

So now i read the new list. Next month in May it is ten years since my initiation. I hardly knew you, Maharaja! You see, i look a lot like my father, both inside and out. And like my uncles and aunts from his side as well. When i saw you the first time, you looked like the best of them, and this is how i connected to you. The wisest of this particular family of the universal form. Most spiritually evolved one of them as well. Unfortunately, i was not mature enough to open my heart and build the relationship which is so deeply needed for a 'contract' to stay alive. This had happened before; i couldn't remain in Radhadesh because i didn't connect to someone senior deep enough to share what's inside and help me overcome the hurdles.

But things are going well in my service to my family. Its hard work for small successes. Destiny made me a father. We weren't married and i hardly knew the lady. But i'm making the best of it. I didn't maintain my spiritual life like i did when i was living in an ashram. It never was my strength, it was the association and the temple program. Hare Krishna. My wife was already kind of out of it, and so am i now. But i pray to Krishna that i may not forget him, and that when the time is right, i can get back into it like never before. Perhaps later in life, when the kids are grown up (now 7 and 10).

HpS - You may not be my disciple as Diksa guru. That's important. It's like being religiously married to your wife. You should be, no? We should find a bona fide priest, and perform the rituals. They are rituals but not without meaning.

I don't know why the above turned black. Amusing.

Read this? Then try to get back to the Diksa level. Everything we try to do such as family, nation, humanity, will all be easier if we can be formally connected to Krsna.

Of course, there is informal relations too. If you want to advance in Krsna conscious and we are some inspiration to you in our actions and preaching. Then you are also our disciple. Vatmana pradarshika guru.

Really Srila Prabhupada is you guru in every sense and we are appreciating each other in roles in his institution.

Personally I often think about the incredible help you gave us in airports, temples, ashramas. We owe you so much debt.

Last month His Holiness Kadamba Kanana Swami left the planet. His passing was beautiful. It touched me more than i had expected. I always had a kind of tense and uneasy relationship with him. I see people, devotees, having good relationships and i want that too. I'm learning to be more vulnerable (don't want to say humble yet) and practicing to establish better relations. Perhaps you would be so kind as to bless me to find a suitable spiritual teacher when the time is right.

HpS - Why just one! Time is the external manifestation of the Paramatma. He is our Guru in the heart. We know when we are not being sincere enough, and we know that He knows. We also know that we are trying our best and He knows, even when other people neglect us.

I had wanted to come to Spain earlier this year when you were there. It would have been a risky trip financially. Yes, i could have trusted in Krishna, get out of my comfort zone. But i didn't. The reason for coming was to tell you this all personally. At least now i told you in writing.

Thank you Maharaja for picking me up and initiating me into Srila Prabhupada's family. It was very generous of you. I will keep the name, devotees know me and call me as such. But i know deeper what transpires here between us, and that's private. It makes me sad. I'm not sure how it all works on a spiritual level, but i guess i'll find out.

Your servant,

Raghava Pandita dasa

HpS - Read the above. Part of the Contract, as listed also above, is that people we initiate should at least once a year report to us. If Srila Prabhupada asks us, "Do you know if the people you are initiating are following their vows?", and we have to say, "No", then we think he will not be pleased.

Diksa guru is very practical.

Siksa guru can be more informal.

We must have both.

Because you did not make an Annual Formal Report, then Formally we are not acting as Diksa guru.

Is O.K.?

It is kind of German, no?

Our paternal grandfather was Austrian.

Make the statement right now: Srila Prabhupada, I will work to chant the Holy Names and follow the four principles to the standard that you set?

We would be super honored to help you come to that standard!!