Letters to the editor

Hare Krsna, Ladies and Gentlmen,

AGTSP

Paoho. We just posted our NOI Evaluation Question Bank, Phase One, to the ASA Archives. Any comments?

http://www.jayarama.us/archives/tpp-noi-evalu191031.docx

Hare Krsna. AGTSP. Paoho.

We find that it is always a struggle to honor Prasadam properly. We are impulsed by lusty desires born from you passionate, tamasic birth, and from our selfish nature. Then when we are traveling etc. we cannot offer exactly what we want so we cannot honor Prasadam perfectly.

As we see Srila Prabhupada was also faced with similar problems while traveling and even went to the point of vomiting!

Following Jayanda Das - Don't give up trying to improve!

It is 7.06 PM. We have had an 87% perfect day. Some adminstrative, political, shocks. Guess a Sannyasi should engage 20% of his time in such things.

Very weak in the morning. Chanting even 15-minute rounds. Things in Argentina straightening out. Rati, Ambo, Nikunja et all doing a lot of work... Arjuna in Chile.. Jagat guru... .... ... so many. Won't even mention some of the most im[portant.

Catur has been 1111% helpful.

We miss Palika Devi Dasi. She had to go to work in Cusco.

So many devotees.

What is NGD doing.

Worked like a fiend on the letters. Eyes little strained. Now Tiri bhava festival.

Hare Krsna!!!!

Hare Krishna,

Dear Guru Maharaja, PAMHO, AGTSP!

From my personal point of view, the senior disciples should be able to serve better the guru, because that devotee has understood the mood of the guru. If he/she is sincere he or she will be able to serve and get others to serve the guru enthusiastically, not harrassing other aspirants to the service.

We ought to learn etiquete to be closer to the guru and to grasp what he wants and what he needs.

We get proud if we are senior disciples, but it should be the opposite, we should be more humble, and inspire other aspirants to create a warm and fired up spiritual environment to serve guru.

How can we understand? We are so tiny to understand what guru is? Who deserves to be closer to the guru? The disciple with more knowledge or the one with more humbleness?

Your very many fallen servant,

Jagat Bandhu Jagannatha Swami dasa.

HpS - AgtSP!!! Paoho. This is such a common question. So common. How to serve Krsna, Guru, anyone, in the company of others.

First, as you say there is the general etiquette. In the story of the Gopis attracted by the flute of Krsna, we see that they were acting like good citizens of Nanda Maharaja's village. They killed cows, sold yogurt and ghee, and paid their taxes.

So, we keep this Blog. We explain in the Kapi Dhvaja and the DTC posts what is our situation and as much as we are trying to be a guru in ISKCON anyone can write here, and then we take some austerity to travel and anyone can join the classes and ask questions.

Then in the general discussions we can see how we need to make detailed discussions.

O.K. Some times disciples say that we, gurus, Brahmanas, leaders, are favoring a certain person, but often it is just that that person takes the effort to communicate. We answer letters from people who write, in the right way.

In our personal limited way, we have some service we are trying to offer to our Guru, the Guru of everyone in ISKCON, Srila Prabhupada. I think we are giving enough news so people can begin to understand and then write, talk with others involved to guide and help them.

These are some basic thoughts.

We just want to find our place in the Sankirtan team, do our formal service, make friends with other devotees, and ultimately through so many channels we all have to have personal relationship with Srila Prabhupada.

AGTSP. Paoho. No content in letter!

Haribol, My Most humble Obeisances. Jai Srila Prabhupada

I just wanted to note how Important this verse and purport of Srimad Bhagavatam 1.12.34.

TEXT 34

tena sambhṛta-sambhāro

dharma-putro yudhiṣṭhiraḥ

vājimedhais tribhir bhīto

yajñaiḥ samayajad dharim

SYNONYMS

tena—with that wealth; sambhṛta—collected; sambhāraḥ—ingredients; dharma-putraḥ—the pious king; yudhiṣṭhiraḥ—Yudhiṣṭhira; vājimedhaiḥ—by horse sacrifices; tribhiḥ—three times; bhītaḥ—being greatly afraid after the Battle of Kurukṣetra; yajñaiḥ—sacrifices; samayajat—perfectly worshiped; harim—the Personality of Godhead.

TRANSLATION

By those riches, the King could procure the ingredients for three horse sacrifices. Thus the pious King Yudhiṣṭhira, who was very fearful after the Battle of Kurukṣetra, pleased Lord Hari, the Personality of Godhead.

PURPORT

Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira was the ideal and celebrated pious King of the world, and still he was greatly afraid after the execution of the Battle of Kurukṣetra because of the mass killing in the fight, all of which was done only to install him on the throne. He therefore took all the responsibility for sins committed in the warfare, and to get rid of all these sins, he wanted to perform three sacrifices in which horses are offered at the altar. Such a sacrifice is very costly. Even Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira had to collect the necessary heaps of gold left by Mahārāja Marutta and the brāhmaṇas who were given gold in charity by King Marutta. The learned brāhmaṇas could not take away all the loads of gold given by Mahārāja Marutta, and therefore they left behind the major portion of the gift. And Mahārāja Marutta also did not again collect such heaps of gold given away in charity. Besides that, all the golden plates and utensils which were used in the sacrifice were also thrown in the dustbins, and all such heaps of gold remained unclaimed property for a long time, till Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira collected them for his own purposes. Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa advised the brothers of Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira to collect the unclaimed property because it belonged to the King. The more astonishing thing is that no subject of the state also collected such unclaimed gold for industrial enterprise or anything like that. This means that the state citizens were completely satisfied with all necessities of life and therefore not inclined to accept unnecessary productive enterprises for sense gratification. Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira also requisitioned the heaps of gold for performing sacrifices and for pleasing the Supreme Hari Personality of Godhead. Otherwise he had no desire to collect them for the state treasury.

One should take lessons from the acts of Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira. He was afraid of sins committed on the battlefield, and therefore he wanted to satisfy the supreme authority. This indicates that unintentional sins are also committed in our daily occupational discharge of duties, and to counteract even such unintentional crimes, one must perform sacrifices as they are recommended in the revealed scriptures. The Lord says in Bhagavad-gītā ( yajñārthāt karmaṇo 'nyatra loko 'yaṁ karma-bandhanaḥ [Bg. 3.9]) that one must perform sacrifices recommended in the scriptures in order to get rid of commitments of all unauthorized work, or even unintentional crimes which we are apt to commit. By doing so, one shall be freed from all kinds of sins. And those who do not do so but work for self-interest or sense gratification have to undergo all tribulations accrued from committed sins. Therefore, the main purpose of performing sacrifices is to satisfy the Supreme Personality Hari. The process of performing sacrifices may be different in terms of different times, places and persons, but the aim of such sacrifices is one and the same at all times and in all circumstances, viz. , satisfaction of the Supreme Lord Hari. That is the way of pious life, and that is the way of peace and prosperity in the world at large. Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira did all these as the ideal pious king in the world.

If Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira is a sinner in his daily discharge of duties, in royal administration of state affairs, wherein killing of man and animals is a recognized art, then we can just imagine the amount of sins committed consciously or unconsciously by the untrained population of the Kali-yuga who have no way to perform sacrifice to please the Supreme Lord. The Bhāgavatam says, therefore, that the prime duty of the human being is to satisfy the Supreme Lord by the performance of one's occupational duty (SB 1.2.13).

Let any man of any place or community, caste or creed be engaged in any sort of occupational duty, but he must agree to perform sacrifices as it is recommended in the scriptures for the particular place, time and person. In the Vedic literatures it is recommended that in Kali-yuga people engage in glorifying the Lord by chanting the holy name of Kṛṣṇa ( kīrtanād eva kṛṣṇasya mukta-saṅgaḥ paraṁ vrajet [SB 3.31.1]) without offense. By doing so one can be freed from all sins and thus can attain the highest perfection of life by returning home, back to Godhead. We have already discussed this more than once in this great literature in different places, especially in the introductory portion by sketching the life of Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, and still we are repeating the same with a view to bring about peace and prosperity in society.

The Lord has declared openly in Bhagavad-gītā how He becomes pleased with us, and the same process is practically demonstrated in the life and preaching work of Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. The perfect process of performing yajñas, or sacrifice, to please the Supreme Lord Hari (the Personality of Godhead, who gets us free from all miseries of existence) is to follow the ways of Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu in this dark age of quarrel and dissension.

Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira had to collect heaps of gold to secure the paraphernalia for the horse sacrifice yajñas in days of sufficiency, so we can hardly think of such performance of yajñas in these days of insufficiency and complete scarcity of gold. At the present moment we have heaps of papers and promises of their being converted into gold by economic development of modern civilization, and still there is no possibility of spending riches like Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira, either individually or collectively or by state patronization. Just suitable, therefore, for the age, is the method recommended by Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu in terms of the śāstra. Such a method requires no expenditure at all and yet can award more benefit than other expensive methods of yajña performances.

The horse sacrifice yajña or cow sacrifice yajña performed by the Vedic regulations shouldn't be misunderstood as a process of killing animals. On the contrary, animals offered for the yajña were rejuvenated to a new span of life by the transcendental power of chanting the Vedic hymns, which, if properly chanted, are different from what is understood by the common layman. The Veda-mantras are all practical, and the proof is rejuvenation of the sacrificed animal.

There is no possibility of such methodical chanting of the Vedic hymns by the so-called brāhmaṇas or priests of the present age. The untrained descendants of the twice-born families are no more like their forefathers, and thus they are counted amongst the śūdras, or once-born men. The once-born man is unfit to chant the Vedic hymns, and therefore there is no practical utility of chanting the original hymns.

And to save them all, Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu propounded the saṅkīrtana movement or yajña for all practical purposes, and the people of the present age are strongly recommended to follow this sure and recognized path.

Haribol My Most Humble Obeisances. All Glories to you all. Jai Srila Prabhupada!!

ASA - AgtSP. Paoho. We don't understand you question? You want to know "the importance of this verse". All of the verses are important, no? Is there something more specific you want to know?

Hare Krishna Maharaj,

 Please accept my humblest obeisances. All Glories to Srila Prabhupad!I’m sorry I haven’t been writing often. I do think of you every day and say your pranam mantras every morning. Morning program is going on every morning ( a curtailed version at times) and the intensity had died down for a while but it’s slowly getting back to normal. Nothing major has happened besides some inner self work that made me shift around some of my sadhana (almost down to bare minimum sadhna honestly) but still following the principles and regulations. Japa Nama sent me some pictures and he really pushed me to write to you thought it feels like there’s no new updates. I did tour around Spain and visit the temple in Barcelona in July and did some solo traveling.

Perhaps (Krishna willing) I’ll move more into the grhsta path this year *my parents had some horoscope readings done and it seems to be looking that way- who knows*. Family is good and my mom was remembering you the other day. They want to see when you decide to come to Richmond again. Radhika Raman prabhu was in town also a few weeks and it was blissful to see him again.

Today is my birthday (27) - please do give me your mercy. I pray to always remember Krishna and never forget Him and be engaged in any service I can. Thank you gurudev for your causeless mercy. Please keep me sheltered.

Your always struggling servant,

Sugopi dd

HpS - ASA -- Hare Krsna. AGTSP. Paoho. If you are reading the Kapi Dhvaja you know why we are so so so, slow in answering letters. It is very nice to hear from you. Chant! Radha and Krsna and the Gopis will engage grab you and put you into your confidential service!!!!

More news with the Priority Code in the Kapi Dhvaja.