Letters to the editor

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Merry Christmas 🌲☃️

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Dear Guru Maharaja, Hare 💛

Krsna 💜, all glories to Srila Prabhupada! 🌼

In the text of the last Kapi Dhvaja you asked about us. Thank you for your care and remembrance of ourselves on the other side of the Bhumi ball. 🌍

I do not write much (or at all) here on the Blog. Different reasons for that. Do not have much to say. Kind of nothing new, especially in comparison to your activities. Of course, life is always new and fresh and changing. You cannot step in the same river twice, said bhakta 'fellow from ancient Greek'.

I still have a job in the school with a kid with disabilities (behavior disorder). By working with him, I get a lot of new perspective. Hope that it is making me a better person and a Krsna bhakta.

Nirgata is doing online classes due to COVID-19.

Our bodies, now almost turning 50, are with less energy and more pain. Learning to deal with it positively.

We continue with puja, japa, sastra reading (little less then previous years), hearing classes online, etc. For Gita Jayanti we plan to have online reading of the all slokas of BG (translations only).

Your (this) Blog is still my most visited website (+ your Tweets).

Having some thoughts about various topics: diksa guru, devotee attire, ways of reaching out/sharing Krsna consciousness, being relevant (language) to people. Still not putting that into written words.

Parents becoming quiet old now (85 years). Some adjustments for that needed.

Are there any news from devotees from Spain (Tirtha-kirti and Laksmana, Jaya-sakti, etc.) I read here on Blog from Jayanta and Jaramara Hari.

HpS - We don't hear from The Thirtha Kirti or the Laksmana DD. I guess that means they are fine. I hope so. Such nice people.

I read news from Pandaveya? (Pablo). I met him in person once (for a few days). And your comments to his news.

HpS - Pandava-prsni Das

I lost touch with Indradyumna (Serbia). We tried to meet once on Vaisnava summer camp in Serbia but he had to work those days.

HpS - He comes on to the FMP program some time. I think he is on the road a lot doing trucking and of course he has like 400 fruit threes. He also seems fine.

It is nice to write letters (or journaling), however I still like to talk face to face. It feels warmer, more organic. That is maybe because I do not talk much or have much live conversations, so there is no enough quantity to feel it as energy sucking.

HpS - One old man in a Spanish village that had quite modern houses but went back to the time before the Romans said that he noticed that the current generation can't look at each other and talk. It is almost like they have to have little emo signs to put into their hands while they are talking. 😁

Something I was wandering about ... Please withhold name details here if you find it needed. There is a devotee, now sannyasi, I forgot his sannyasa name (Bhakti something), ex Maha-

mantra prabhu. You remember him? I know him from my Vrindavana days (half year spent in 2000.). When I accompanied you in 2006. in Vrindavana (Vraja Mandala Parikrama, etc,.) we were on one of his evening lectures in prasadam hall. After the lecture you told me :" Bhakti xyz is crazy". We did not comment much later. So, maybe you know, few years later something happened to him. I do not know the details but is interesting how you sensed it. It opened few questions up? All time brahmacari and full of sloka devotee at age of 60 having mental problems, and similar inquiries. Would you like to comment on that?

HpS - I don't remember the details. I think I know of whom you are talking. I never considered him exactly crazy except if a joking sense, that he was eccentric. Of course, the Britannica considers Lord Caitanya eccentric also.

I was doubtful of his talking to woman for what seemed hours during Japa in the Krsna-Balarama Temple, but that is all I know about his specific case.

In general, even Lord Brahma, with four heads and cognizant of like 80% of what's happening in the universe just by "figuring it out", was intoxicated by his daughter, Sarasvati, and began to run after her for romance.

In general, we can have accidental fall-downs at any point, but we don't lose our progress. We may even become deer, but we don't experience it like an ordinary Dude, no?

You have that experience, no?

You know you should not eat the extra samosa, but like Ajamila you can't stop yourself, and then your body suffers, but you don't suffer because you tried, and your body learns a lesson.

Some thoughts. O.K.?

Our respects to your esteemed family. We always think that Nir gata means No Cat.

Your servant Namacarya Das

asa[e], yoga ladder, karma vs. jnana

Hare Krsna dear Gurudeva

Please accept our humble obeisances

All glories to Srila Prabhupada

I hope you're in good health.

ASA(TB/BW) - There is no KDPC right now. The mail is not overwhelming our poor HpSwami.

Please, I would like to ask you a question for which I have not yet found an answer.

Srila Prabhupada mentions in many sections of the Srimad Bhagavatam about the fate of Karmis (heavenly planets) and Jñanis (merging into the Brahman effulgence). The fate of Karmi that pursues enjoyment is easy to understand because of a great desire, a proportional reward. What I cannot understand is how knowledge, logical deduction and philosophical speculation leads the jñani to his spiritual identity nullification. In what way can knowledge result in emptiness, being seemingly substantial and capable of neutralizing the illegitimate desire of the karmi?

Can the gross desire of karmis be understood to be opposed to the mental speculator's lust for control, or are they basically different expressions of a similar consciousness?

Your servant

Gandharva das

ASA - To quote our Siksa guru, Jayananda Das, "I don't know, but it seems to me that...".

NOI 10 gives some basic perspective!

Then we have to distinguish between Karma-yogis, Jnana-yogis. Bh. V. Th. defined Bhakti as commitment to honesty. So, Socrates and his recent follower Anthony Flew (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Flew), were Jnanis, but they were honest. Flew shocked the entire world, and maybe drove many atheists to the pub, when he announced he believed in God. For years he had been a POWERFUL debater and proponent of Atheism.

When he announced his change he explained that at the beginning of his career and association with others at Oxford he had adopted Socrate's basic idea, that we shall use logic and argument (jnana) to consider the problem and then we shall accept wherever the process takes us without personal consideration.

So, Flew said that after considering the situation for so long he had come to the conclusion that there must be a God as Aristotle describes.

So, in a certain way he as a jnana-yogi.

Prabhupada said that Socrates we a good boy, just didn't have a Guru.

By jnana we can only come to realize brahman (there is a reality) and paramatma (reality has eternal forms and there is "the hand of God" in things).

To realize a personal, Bhagavan, relationship with God you need His divine grace.

O.K.?

A Karmi is not progressive. He demands only potatoes for his sacrifice, and does not want to develop wisdom (jnana).

A jnani is not progressive. He is not a jnana-yogi. He demands impersonal wisdom for his sacrifice.

We see phrases like, "When you go for revenge, better to did two graves first", from Confucius, which detaches you from Karma but leaves you in a void.

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Can we say that the most prominent Jnana community in the modern world are the Mathematicians?

Of course, science is termed as Rational Empiricism, or can we say Mathematical Empiricism. By taking Mathematics to pragmatic empirical level it surely results in sense gratification, smart phones, Hulu, latest Tom Cruise movie.

Look at Mathematics. How fundament is Euclid's Elements [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclid%27s_Elements] to Mathematics? There seem to be "higher" mathematics after that, but many are still based upon his fundamental axiom, postulate, in which we must place blind faith, the definition of The Point.

It seems that in Higher Mathematics they go outside of this and we get into another kind of Jnana, but is it still determined to be atheistic or is it like Socrates? I have heard that Srila Bhakti-siddhanta Sarasvati gave a demonstration of Bhagavata philosophy from Mathematics. I mean there are "transcendental numbers" in Mathematics. 😎

Coming back to the point which is that basis of so much of our modern jnana, you know that it is described as that which has no extension: no width, no depth, no weight, no mother, no cellular, no... no... no... In Sanskrit you know this philosophy? Neti neti. No this, not this. So that leads us to impersonalism. Some rare Mathematicians might follow this to its conclusion and enter the Brahmajyoti.

Are these some useful ideas, or have we completely missed the point of your question, or do you have more details?

Hare Krishna dear Guru maharaj, Please accept my dandavat pranams, All glories to Srila Prabhupad. Thank you very much maharaj for giving me the opportunity. Here is the transcription from 10:00 to 15:00 . Thank you also to Sugopi mataji for her help in parts of transcription

you servant

NC Das

HpS - ASA/MOE = Thank you so much. As we said in the DTC today, this was such a nice team effort. We hope to have the 'Viplavah' out soon so that we can all see how nice this is.

Why don't you write? Interview people. Make comments on modern world? Krsna will give you opportunities.

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HPSwami(10:00): For participating in being book distributors, the full morning and evening program is kind of like enough? What do you do,what is your program like reading and studying that integrates with book distribution?

Vaisesika Prabhu(10:10): Well ofcourse, Prabhupad said different things at different times and there is recording for Prabhupads enthusiastically saying Read 2 or 3 hours a day. Well depends on what the morning and evening class is like also, Some classes by the time,end up, somebody finishes singing Jaya Radha madhava and reads the verse, you get like 5 minutes of discussion, personally I need a lot more than that and when I had that experience in SanFrancisco, When Prabhupad personally said you must read my books, I felt that he was so emphatic that, I took the liberty to do that, Through out my book distribution career and continue to do so. I read at least 41 pages of Bagavatham every day and because that means that I finish the whole bagavatham in 1 year and every year, following in the footsteps of His Holiness Hanumat Preshak Maharaj , who is my mentor for reading Prabhupad books and I also take a month, at least a month, 5 weeks in Govardhan every year. This is first year, I have missed in 20 years because of the pandemic, where we sit down for 5 hours a day and hear Bagavatham every single day of kartik and I try to have longer classes here in our community, because I feel that devotees need to hear Prabhupads voice and they need to be really familiar with Bagavatham in order to have lifelong commitment to devotional service. So, I personally need more, myself to engage my mind. I just impose that upon others who come around me in the community.

Hp Swami( 11:48): I remember another letter that Prabhupad wrote, he said “are all your pujaris I think he said chant your Gayatri? Do they all have 1 hour a day to read my books and Temple president or somebody said, Prabhupad they are very busy. No, An intelligent man will not be satisfied, unless he has 1 hour atleast a day to read. So, like you are saying, Different diets, Some people very Shakti oriented, they are are just happy that other people are buying, everything else. Other people they really got to have very intellectual work so that, before they can preach

HpSwami (12:27): Number 3. What are the different modes of distribution, eg., Bhaktivedanta Institute, rock concerts…

Vaisesika Prabhu (12:36): Oh, well, Rockefeller distinguished himself as an entrepreneur because he took the production of oil to a new level, to say the least. He got thousands and thousands of uses out of one substance – oil – and that is how he made his money. So, as many devotees as there are, there are techniques and avenues for book distribution. As an example, during the pandemic we are finding ways that we had never seen before, online, using the telephone to contact people and talk to them. Bhaktivedanta Institute? Absolutely. Rock concerts? Absolutely. There is… as many places as there are people, there is ways to distribute books. So, we recommend that people start book distribution in their communities for what it makes of them to engage in it. And, when devotees have an opportunity to go out and do book distribution at least once a month, on a weekend, even if it is for a short amount of time, then they get this kind of oxygen from going out into the great unknown and doing the right thing and going out of their comfort zone. So, like right now, we just discovered, there is little free libraries that people put outside of their homes. It is actually a network, there is 42,000 of them in North America, and we are now working on a network to put Prabhupada’s books in each one of the 42,000 little libraries that go outside people’s homes. We are also putting them in hospitals and hotels, we are meeting people on the streets, we are selling books online, and the list goes on and on.

HpSwami (14:43): So, on our evening walk, we go walking every evening with Nitai Gaurasundara Dasa, and our group here, and we walk right by. One of our neighbors has one of those little places there. And what I was thinking, wow, you know, it is like we need so many kinds of books. A lot of children’s books are in there. And that’s the whole thing too, like you are saying, is that I heard Prabhupada say “every salesman has his own technique.” And you can steal ideas about how to sell from other salesmen, but in the end, you have to develop your technique.

HpSwami (15:15): Okay, number 4. Are there webpages, books, others, who our readers can contact in terms of how to develop book distribution?

Hare Krsna Maharaj,

PAMHO, AGTSP,

The letter might be uncivilized, you can edit according to audience.

Now finally we think we can give you vow of 4 rules and 16 rounds chanting. Been following for six months.

Morning program + reading. We can not give vow currently, but when it will be there we would approach you for Brahaman Initiation.

Kindly your grace tell us the formalities that are required, to formalize this relationship between you and me, especially in the times of pandemic, where your/my travel will be restricted.

We were thinking that we can just continue as a Siksa disciple but now we see the importance of Diksa also.

But your mercy and Parampara's mercy will required to elevate us, always , even when you leave Brother Ass. The mercy was always there, but we are insincere ( naming it as fear, circumstantial ) .

We are two legged animal, not cultured or civilized or sophisticated or refine. But still as soul having a material body, we can throw some pebbles and trees to fight Ravana.

Please recruit us and train us to be monkey warrior.

Kneeling down,

Horse,

Suicide Bomber.

HpS - There us no doubt that Krsna is conscious of all your efforts.

Maharaja Bharata took one life as a deer, then got human form again.

So, maybe we are designated to live one life as not initiated devotee and then take birth in Nadia with Nimai.

Who knows.

Trying to to advance formally and take initiation.

Four principles strictly and 16-enthusiastic rounds and basic standard, but Srila Prabhupada says that we cannot remain enthusiastic, chant inetusiastic rounds without getting up early. He gives the example of how the streets of Vrnadvana are full of people moving to the Temples before 1-2 hours before sunrise.

How is your morning program?

Napolean and Saocrates were up and doing work then, no?

Hare Krishna Guru Maharaj,

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

This is in relation to the previous letter i had sent: https://monkeywarrior.com/detail/11796/

In that i had mentioned that i had passed the IDC [Iskcon Disciple Course] and i am waiting for the recommendation letter from ISKCON Atlanta for Initiation.

I just received the recommendation letter today guru maharaj. I have emailed both the letter and the IDC certificate to your email: [email protected].

I am also attaching them both here.

I am eagerly awaiting the day that i can take initiation at your lotus feet guru maharaj.

Your Servant

Sriram Arunachalam

HpS - AGTSP. paoho. Mostly we are just trying to connect people in Siksa and Dikssa to our Acharya, Srila Prabhupada. It seems that your are ready for initiation!

Mail your beads to HP Swami; 2129 Stratford Rd.; Murfreesboro, TN 37129.

Ask the local authorities about a fire sacrifice.

Very nice.

Any questions?