Letters to the editor

Hare Krsna. Forgot. We also edited two Janmastami Pptx.

Hare Krsna, Hare Rama!!!

We talked for 15-minutes with Rama-giridhari Das, then 45-minutes with Abhirama-takura Das, then prepared for the Hawaii class. It was pretty good. Svayam bhuva Manu convinces Dhruva to stop snuffing Yaksas.

Somebody's got to do it. A Ksatriya expects restraint from his family and counselors. A Brahmana is self restrained, not a Ksatriya.

Cooked for Srila Prabhupada. Eliminated more lust than ever before!

Now mail and then NGD/FEP.

Hari Bolo!!

See you in our hearts.

Hare Krishna, dear Gurumaharaja. Pamho, AGTSP!

The other day I thought I wasn't doing enough service for ISKCON. I teach once a week in the temple; I have a Bhakti sastri study group; another group with which we study the Bhagavatam. I do not serve the Deities directly, but I make donations every time I visit the temple (it is prescribed in the NOD), apart from my monthly donation of 4 kilos of raisins. Still, it seemed to me that I was missing more. Precisely, my contract at the school where I worked was finished. Now unemployed.

Almost immediately an unexpected service came to me. After talking with you and various devotees about a proposal, finally at the ISKCON Peru Associates meeting (as a legal entity before the government) I was elected secretary. The new legal board has yet to be registered in the public records, but if there is no legal problem, I will start this new service very soon.

At first, I was not very excited about the service because there are many cumbersome details regarding the operation of that position. The legal board is composed of:

P. Caitanya candra, president.

M. Candra Mukhi, Vice President.

P. raghunath, treasurer.

LAD, secretary.

I still surprised. Krishna sent me a service, a heavy one.

ASA - Be sure that you keep the Association Record book properly!

Meditating further, I realized, obviously by inspiration from Paramatma, Srila Prabhupada and you (so many suggestions and accomplishments that you has told me), that my service can go beyond a formal matter of signing papers, keeping the minutes of the meetings (of course they have their importance). I thought that the communications matters can be a great opportunity to do internal and external preaching.

ASA - Yes!

As one devotee told me, the administration needs to regain its credibility. Wonders can be done through communication and an appropriate treatment of the institutional image. We have not interacted for so long with the community, with the political authorities, with the institutions of our locality, even with the neighborhood. And then we wonder why people don't go to temples.

Some time ago I heard this concern of a guru who said that we have to go out and participate in the dialogue of the world, that we are in our bubble and still continue with the old idea (medieval said) of thinking that people have to go to the temples. Before we were invited to events in Chosica, but as we do not attend, they no longer do so. Before there was even a large sign welcoming to the city with photos of different tourist places and there was the temple. With the new mayor the billboard was changed and we no longer appear.

So, we have to work more in that direction. Someone said that the administration meetings have to be 30% problems and 70% sankirtan. The ISKCON documents say that the main task of the administration is to organize the sankirtan. Then, my work will go that way. Inspired by the preface of Srimad Bhagavatam, we must distribute the Bhagavatam in universities and educational institutions in general. We must get them to invite us to conversations, give talks in cultural institutions, interact with other religions, be part of the community. Much can be done for Srila Prabhupada. There are so many preaching strategies in his books waiting to be realized.

Again, dear gurumaharaj, please give me your blessings to do this entrusted service well, and please instruct me in this regard that you have a lot of experience. I have some experience, vision, perspective. I hope to use it well, for the interests of Srila Prabhupada's ISKCON and our beautiful Deities.

I will report regularly how I am doing in the service.

Thank you for your mercy towards me.

ss LAD

ASA - Very nice! Yes! Please report! It seems Krsna is giving an opportunity to all of us robbers!

All Glories to Srila Prabhupada!

Hare Krishna Gurudev please accept my humble obeisances, hope this letter find you fine

My apologize for not send a report before.

HpS - Considering how negligent we are in our relationship with Srila Prabhupada, how can we criticize you?!

We have some news, we came to live to Laguna Verde, V region of Valparaiso, its a wonderful place, forest and sea, we feel here that simple living and high thinking it's more possible to us, our livelihood comes from prasad and book distribution, we moved since 5 month approx, in the first period we didn't have internet, that's why it was more difficult to write you. We "bought" a piece of land and we are in the process of building a house, with our own hands and some help from good friends and devotees. We really want to build a house for the Lord in this beautiful place, and in the process we want to become consequent in all aspects... Learning how to live in harmony with nature, recycle our garbage, our children learn the names of birds spontaneously, and play with earth ...etc

16 rounds ok, 4 principles with improvements in the standard.

We really want to collaborate with the propagation of Krishna Consciousness here, with your blessings, we know its an ambitious project, but anyway we could not live in Santiago anymore, so take the risk was our best option. We are a little bit further from devotees association than before, but Krishna have been so much kind with us, now there is a cultural center in Viña del mar with saturday programs, (1 hour approx from our house)

Gurudev and finally i wanted to ask you a question, we were reading about Druva Maharaja pastime, and i was wondering ... in the beginning he was acting by materials motivations, which are like weeds in the bhakti lata, and hinder its growth. So how he could attain the perfection in his spiritual life? i mean i know we all have material desires in the beginning but my doubt is because in this case his motivation for the spiritual practice was a material goal... so it makes feel confused about it.

HpS - Because he was not offensive. If we approach Krsna for material things then Krsna satisfies our desires in such a way that we lose our interest in the things and just want to be with Him, but if we are offensive, "God did not give me what I wanted immediately", then the taste diminishes. In NOD Eastern Part as we remember. Bhava-abhasa

well, waiting anxiously for your visit,

your fallen servant and aspirant disciple

Indu lekha devi dasi

HpS -Thank you very much. So many ways to live happily in the country now. Japanese developing nice hand driven machines to make gardening very productive!

previous letter node 10378

hare krsna maharaj, PAMHO, AGTSP.

Its nice to see we have written 6 reports (every ekadasi {+ 7 days margin}). Good to see you still find us intelligent. We are able to get 16 rounds done somehow, four rounds among them must of quality. 1 page krsna book is add on for last seven days.

it is tough to practice KC in adverse environment. But krsna is the ability in man.

please bless us that we can be determined in a humble mannner, not a warrior manner.

Pancha-tattva prabhu from Mardel Plata is visiting India, he might meet us.

salute,

Horse

HpS/ASA - Jaya!! The Victory Horse! 16-rounds and one page of Krsna book! Was it a good result? We are struggling just as hard. For years we are offering and eating pizza when we [Brother Ass] want to eat it. (10PM?), not really asking Srila Prabhupada what he wants to eat. He accepts our "Karma yoga" and suffers! We are stopping torturing our Guru because Krsna arranged a big picture of Prabjhupada (Photo attached) sitting in front of it. It is a gift of one nice devotee artist. Little by little. Look for the chances and take them. Pancha tattva et al in Noida.

Next report tell us about how many nice gifts you got for Mataji.

What was the benefit of the Japa vrata (if any).

AGTSP paoho! Is O.K?

=============================

NIOS MEETS NANTES

The door opened and out came a very congenial scholar. We had some trepidation because before we’ve met some powerful Jungian scholars but some have been chain smokers and others angry and arrogant. . .

Ooof!

Quite a relief. Then Professor Nantes took us across the Baroque lobby into his office, which was lined with books and beautiful artifacts to the ceiling. The fresh morning air of Buenos Aires came in through the window, cars hummed by as they went to work. There were ourselves, Hp Swami and three young students.

“Have you heard of E. T. Hall?”

“Have you read Jung in India?”

We have been trying to meet Dr. Bernardo Nantes, the founder of Fundacion Vocacion Humano, Dean of Universidad del Salvador, translator of C. G. Jung’s Redbook for three years ( and Shonu Shyamdasani of the University of London, co-founder of the Philemon Foundation, for at least seven years).

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In Dialectical Spiritualism, Srila A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, Prabhupada, offers commentaries, on summaries, of the ideas of many, many Western philosophers. These summaries were presented by two of his educated students. The very last philosopher presented was Dr. C. G. Jung:

Prof. Howard Wheeler: That ends our session on Jung.

Srila Prabhupada: So far, he seems the most sensible!

If we take our NIOS work as building bridges between the classical worlds of the Orient and Occident, then Prabhupada’s comment along with Jung’s that follows is simply compelling.

“... if you go to other races, to India or China, for example, you discover that these people are conscious of things for which the psychoanalyst in our countries has to dig for months.”

“We Europeans are not the only people on the earth. We are just a peninsula of Asia, and on that continent there are old civilizations where people have trained their minds in introspective psychology for thousands of years, whereas we began with our psychology not even yesterday but only this morning. These people have an insight that is simply fabulous...”

Jung, C. G.; Analytical Psychology, Its Theory & Practice; Vintage Books, 1970, pages 48 & 74

Please join this work. If you are like us you had some little contact with Carl Jung during your undergraduate university studies. It is enough to pique interest but seemingly superficially presented. If you continue to be like us then you read the above quote in Dialectical Spiritualism and you are motivated but don’t know how to approach Prof. Jung and his followers in more depth. Of course books are the basis, so here is a suggested reading list. It’s interesting that everyone who I know who has read the books has also found them challenging for their personal spiritual development and mental hygiene. They can all be found at Amazon:

·      The Tavistock Lectures,

·      Memories, Dreams and Reflections (Auto-Biography),

·      The Kundalini Lectures.

·      Carl Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology – The Dream of a Science (Take it slowly. It is a look at the development of all of Western thought on psychology during Jung’s lifetime),

·      Introduction to the Redbook by Prof. Shonu Shamdasani (Buy the text only version of the Redbook)

·      . . .and now we are reading Jung in India.

Besides the books there are the people: Beverley Zabrieskii, Paticia Llosa, Maximilian Peralta. We have been able to meet so many, and then we attended a three day symposium on Art and the Creative Intelligence at U.C. Santa Barbara and were swimming in an ocean of youth, old age, various nations, intense scholarship, social awareness and compassion, artistic creativity, money.

Maybe you are not like us. Maybe you are coming from the other side of The Bridge. Our preferred lecture title has been: Science, Psyche and Spirituality, the Encounter of Prof. C. G. Jung with the Mysticism of Ancient India. As soon as you start talking about the mysticism, philosophy, religion, Yoga of ancient India you are diving into an ocean of traditions, practices, living examples.

If you want good food, go to Italy; romance, France; machines, Germany; but if you want Philosophy, India.

Sanskrit

George L. Harte, University of California

A Rapid Sanskrit Method

Motilal Banarsidass, Dehli, 1989

Preface

“It [sanskrita]is, like Chinese, Arabic, Greek and Latin, one of the few languages which has been a carrier of a culture over a long period of time. 

Thus, the variety of writings in it, and the quantity of those writings are staggering. An incomplete list of subjects treated in Sanskrit, usually with great prolixity, is as follows:

·      The four Vedas

·      The Brahmanas and Aranyakas

·      The Upanisads

·      Grammar

·      Epic, puranic, literature - Including 18 major puranas, 18 minor puranas, and hundred of sthalapuranas.

·      Works on Medicine

·      Logic

·      Astronomy & Astrology

·      Mathematics

·      Lawbooks

·      Architecture

·      Music…

On most of these subjects, there is an immense literature still extant. Indeed, a rough estimate of the works which will be listed in The New Catalogus Catalogorum yields a total of about 160,000 works… many so difficult that it would take years of study to properly understand them.…Sanskrit does have its share of great writers: Kalidasa ranks with the greatest poets, Panini is without question the greatest pre-modern grammarian, the Mahabharata ranks with the Iliad and the Odyssey, and the Bhagavata-purana is among the finest works of devotion every written, being equaled in my opinion only by other works in Indian languages.”

Of course, the Britannica article is a good place to start if you have no experience with India philosophy and mysticism (which I doubt): https://www.britannica.com/topic/Indian-philosophy.

Then if you have a little preliminary faith and can accept our advice we would recommend our own tradition of Bengali or Chaitanya Vaisnavism. It is centered around the above mentioned Bhagavata-purana and is based in tradition upon Srila Rupa Goswami’s 16^th century Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu of which Professor David Haberman, Indiana University, has produced an excellent translation. The Introduction to his translation is worth a million dollars, tracing the entire tradition from Bharata Muni, before Christ, on up to even modern times. At Amazon.com it clocks in at around $101 but maybe you can find it in your research library of even try to contact us. It is 752-pages so if you want a simpler path we would suggest:

·      Light of the Bhagavata.

·      The Nectar of Instruction,

·      The Teachings of Lord Caitanya.

These are all on line at www.vedabase.com and can be purchased in hard-copy at www.Krishna.com .

Are you interested in crossing the Bridge to buy and sell?  Are you interested in waking up.

An Englishman saw three people doing the same thing. He asked the first one:

“What are doing?”

The fellow answered, “Can’t you see, you damn fool! I’m laying bricks. Leave me alone”.

“Sorry, please forgive me.”

Then he asked the second man, who was doing the same thing:

“What are you doing?”

The man paused and replied, “I’m making money, take care of my family”.

English man thanked him and asked the third Johnny, “I say old chap, what are you doing?”, and the man looked up and said, “Oh, it’s very interesting. Today we are putting up the wall that goes behind the altar, and after a couple of days when it is set, the marble masons will come and hang the marble. My children are very small now, but when they are bigger I will bring them here and show them how I helped to build this great Cathedral!”.