Letters to the editor

Hare Krsna Gurudeva,

All the glories to Srila Prabhupada!!!,

Please accept my respectful obeisances and forgive my ofenses please.

Gurudeva here we (Sergio and I) want to write a very special letter, when we talked with You in Arequipa we told You we were living in Cusco, after some days I moved from Divya s mataji s house to the same building Sergio was living, everything was more practical because of the business we have, etc. In that time we talked about the possibilities to get married and why, we read a very nice book that a mataji lent us, it was about marriege with a religous perspective, the questions we have to make to eachother, when and so on. Trying to forget for a while about duty and practical things we wondered what could change in our compromise and although we have to improve, we have the same goals, dificult but posible.

Gurudeva, aquí (Sergio y yo) queremos escribir una carta muy especial. Cuando hablamos con Usted en Arequipa, le contamos que vivíamos en Cusco. Después de algunos días me mudé de la casa de Divya mataji al mismo edificio que estaba viviendo Sergio, todo era más práctico debido al negocio que tenemos, etc. En ese momento hablamos sobre las posibilidades de casarnos y el porqué, leímos un libro muy bonito que nos prestó una madre, se trataba del matrimonio desde una perspectiva religiosa, también las preguntas que debemos hacernos el uno al otro, cuándo y así sucesivamente. Tratando de olvidar por un momento sobre el deber y las cosas prácticas, nos preguntamos “qué podría cambiar en nuestro compromiso” y aunque tenemos que mejorar, tenemos los mismos objetivos, es difícil pero posible.

Then, I finished my classes in the unversity with good grades, however I neglected my rounds in that time. Now I want to complete them all, I am so sorry Gurudeva for that. About our principles, with effort, goals in mind, advice and good association.. we accomplished well. 

 Luego, terminé mis clases en la universidad con buenas calificaciones, sin embargo descuidé mis rondas en ese tiempo. Ahora quiero completarlos todos, lo siento mucho Gurudeva por eso. . Sobre nuestros principios, con esfuerzo, objetivos en mente, consejos y buena asociación, lo logramos bien. 

Then we traveled to Lima and we had some meetings with my family and Sergio, very nice moments, it was a matter of time, mistakes we could avoid, etc. We spent December 31st in the house of some devotees and then, on January first Sergio surprised us with a proposal in front of my family and.. I said yes!. Before any arrangment we want to ask You Gurudeva. Now this is probably urgent for us, we would like to formalize our relation ship soon, we will come back to Cusco in Febrerary and we have some ideas about what we can do, with some help of our relatives. We are not thinking now about fire ceremony, maybe next year, civil marriege now with garlands with very close relatives.. they are ideas and desires in our minds and hearts. We would like to know what You think about this.. we will waiting for your reply Gurudeva, please forgive our offenses, May Lord Nrsimha protects You always. Sita Lalita dd.

Luego viajamos a Lima y tuvimos algunas reuniones con mi familia y Sergio, muy buenos momentos, era cuestión de tiempo, errores que pudimos haber evitado, etc. Pasamos el 31 de Diciembre en casa de algunos devotos y luego, el primero de Enero Sergio nos sorprendió con una propuesta frente a mi familia y ... ¡Dije que sí !. Antes de cualquier arreglo queremos preguntarle a Gurudeva, ahora, probablemente sea urgente para nosotros, nos gustaría formalizar nuestra relación pronto, regresaremos a Cusco en Febrero y tenemos algunas ideas sobre lo que podemos hacer, con la ayuda de nuestros familiares. No estamos pensando ahora en la ceremonia del fuego, quizás el próximo año, podría ser matrimonio civil ahora con guirnaldas y con parientes muy cercanos... son ideas y deseos en nuestras mentes y corazones. Nos gustaría saber qué piensa acerca de esto... esperaremos su respuesta Gurudeva, perdone nuestras ofensas, Que el Señor Nrsimha Deva lo proteja siempre. Sita.

I wrote You Maharaja before going to Cusco with Sita, telling You about our relation ship.. and I had no answer in that moment. Now I write You again with humillity, for something more important. On January first I made a decition to propose marriege to Sita in front of their parents, brother and girlfriend and Sita said yes. I would like to know If You agree, it would give me a lot of tranquility to know what You think. Thank You very much in advance for Your time and please forgive any offense commited, Hare Krsna..Sergio.

Maharaja, yo le escribí antes de ir a Cusco con Sita, contándote sobre nuestra relación .. y no tuve respuesta en ese momento. Ahora Le escribo de nuevo con humildad, para algo más importante. El primero de Enero tomé la decisión de proponerle matrimonio a Sita frente a sus padres, hermano y asociada, y Sita dijo que sí. Me gustaría saber si está de acuerdo, me daría mucha tranquilidad saber lo que piensa. Muchas gracias de antemano por su tiempo y, por favor, perdone cualquier ofensa cometida, Hare Krsna ... Sergio

Well tomorrow is a veeery special day! Specially for us and for all of our god brothers and sisters, we are so thankful and ashamed at the same time, by hearing your pastimes we cant avoid an smile! or stop our tears. Just by remembering Your words we feel happy, with hope in our heart and eager to chant, the Holy names of Sri Ram!. We are so thankful, we have to do a lot, we are in debt.. so we wont stop singing and dancing, just because we know that our well situated Gurudeva can take us there, wherever He wants to take us.. there.. chanting the glories of the Holy Name. Happy Vyasa puja Gurudeva! Then we have another special day this Saturday 12. Hare Krsna.

Bueno mañana es un día muy especial! Especialmente para nosotros y para todos nuestros hermanos y hermanas espirituales, estamos muy agradecidos y avergonzados al mismo tiempo. Al escuchar sus pasatiempos, no podemos evitar una sonrisa! O detener nuestras lágrimas. Con solo recordar Sus palabras, nos sentimos felices, con esperanza en nuestro corazón y ansiosos por cantar, los Santos Nombres de Sri Ram!. Estamos muy agradecidos, tenemos que hacer mucho, estamos endeudados ... así que no pararemos de cantar y bailar, porque sabemos que nuestro bien situado Gurudeva puede llevarnos allí, a donde Él quiera llevarnos ... allí ..Cantando Las glorias del Santo Nombre de Sri Hari. Feliz Vyasa puja Gurudeva! Luego tenemos otro día especial este sábado 12! Hare Krsna.

Sita Lalita dd and Sergio.

HpS - Thank you. AGTSP. Paoho. Your history and plans seem nice. Only thing is letting your rounds slide. I have to figh this also! If you are so busy in service that you have not got time to eat and sleep then there is excuse to back up your rounds. Krsna will never punish us for chanting 16-good rounds. Whatever you did during your Japa time would have been done better if you had spent the time with 16-good rounds. The Witch tricked you.

Witch 5 - Sita 25

Next inning!

Make them up, no? Gradually! Then when you die your grand children will say, "Our Grandma and Grandpa we very upright lady and gentleman! We follow them!"

Send us pictures of the Wedding. I bet your Poppa will cry a little even though he is very tough.

Hare Krsna Maharaj,PAMHO, AGTSP

we will try to come to kolkata between 18-23 , feb.

HpS - SUper! Let us talk as soon as we get to India!

You can please try to invite Mahatama Das of education meeting in USA.

please have look at http://mahatmadas.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/108-Management-Mistakes.pdf

this combines wonderful experience.

all articles by him can be found at http://mahatmadas.com/articles/

regards,

kneeling horse

HpS - We had like one hour discussion with him and Janmastami Das about three weeks ago. Tapan misra Das from MOE is also working with them. You have to get a grant to travel and do research on education in USA!

EVALUATION OF ISKCON SASTRIC STUDIES

(rev. 2019 January 13)

With years of dialog and practical experience, among many members of ISKCON in various positions, we are making the following suggestions for standards and techniques of evaluation of candidates for the Bhakti-vaibhava and other ISKCON diplomas. We feel that this may be a step in the right direction but it is a continuous program of adjustment and improvement.

1.    Our eternal relationship with God can be revived in the human form of life, and that should be the goal of education. Indeed, that is the perfection of life and the perfection of education. https://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/7/6/2

2.    The BOEX, Ministry of Education, should be able to certify the character development by at least 20% and maybe 100% if its members have the chance to associate deeply with the candidates. Otherwise the Board will have to develop practical techniques for acquiring information from others such as Temple Presidents and senior devotees.

To this end we should obtain the standards and techniques used by the Ministry of Sannyasa Services in evaluating candidates since Srila Prabhupada indicated the Bhakti-vaibhava (BhV) diploma as being for Sannyasis.

3.    Students might graduate Cum Laude, Summa Cum Laude or Magnum Cum Laude, and optional lines should be developed by Varna Ashrama situation eg. Ladies, Gents, Brahmanas, Ksatriyas. Some may be good at Slokas others at essays and others at songs.

4.    In the matter of direct Sastric knowledge we would suggest that:

a.    Evaluation should be done by globally standard semester divisions eg. BhV might be grouped into four years or eight semesters. The students would have to be registered with the BOEX at the start of each Semester with their name, e-mail contact, and local contact person. Passing the Semester evaluation would then be centrally recorded and if they complete all eight Semesters within (?) 8-years then they receive the glorious diploma!!

b.    All related ISKCON BhV centers et al should develop and continually improve a common Question Bank of several hundred good, interesting, short-answer, questions on Cantos One – Six. Of course, these would be grouped by Semester and could be weighted from 1-5 points in terms of their importance. Semester tests could be selected from this Bank and anyone who can answer the questions without taking a BhV registered course would be quite a Venerable Dude.

c.    Three Open Book Short Essay Questions from maybe seven alternatives could be presented and the candidate could use all personal notes, indices etc. with full access to all of Srila Prabhupada’s literature. Of course this would be a timed evaluation of maybe 30-minute.

d.    Essays written at the candidates leisure but then presented in a discussion forum where they would have to defend or enhance their presentation.

e.    Sloka Memorization should include texts used by the Acharyas from the first six cantos of the Bhagavatam, but should also include relevant texts cited in the purports even if not in the text of the Bhagavatam itself eg. Candidates for Bhakti-sastri should know nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām even though it is not mentioned in the texts of the BhS syllabus.

The total number of Slokas may not be so high.

The candidates for BhV should be re-evaluated on verses from the BhSastri syllabus. This of course would be related to training the students how to develop techniques to refresh and deepen their memorization of relevant texts.

Daily and Annual songs and prayers can be included in the evaluation eg. For first initiation one should be able to follow the full morning program. For second initiation and BhS one should be able to lead it from memory and for BhVai one should know the word for word meanings to good extent. Testing could be offered for festival material such as Dasa-avatara-stotra, Radha-stava and Mangala-arcana.

Candidates should select some texts for their own memorization and then be tested eg. One may like to memorize the prayers by Queen Kunti in Canto One and another by Hanuman in the Fifth Canto.

f.     Relevant texts can be included eg. Nectar of Devotion Southern Division, Waves of Devotion, Surrender Unto Me.

Thank you for your attention and consideration and please contact us with comments, complaints, questions and donations.

Hanumatpresaka Swami

Anjana Suta Academy

 Www.JayaRama.Us

On ‎Saturday‎, ‎January‎ ‎12‎, ‎2019‎ ‎11‎:‎10‎:‎50‎ ‎PM‎ ‎CST, Huber Robinson's Sister, Brenda Robinson, wrote:

Hi Hube, its been a while since we heard from you. How are you doing and where are you now? In the states or around the world?

😊HAPPY BIRTHDAY😊

Hope you had a good day and when you have a chance bring us up to date on your travels, teachings, etc.

Love, sis

HpS (HHR) - Thank you for your letter. We try to send news but I guess some of it gets lost?! Please send our regards to Ernest Larry Robinson et al. Did he ever find out what our Austrian family name was?

We always post our news each two weeks at our web page: http://www.jayarama.us

Basically we are still based in Nashville but travel through South America twice a year and India Spain once a year.

We had an incredible symposium on Art and the Sacred with the National Library of Peru in November with artists and scholars from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Australia etc. This is our third year with them and next year we will be going to Education and the Sacred.

Our body, burro, is great for 71 years old. Our eyes, ears, teeth, memory, right knee joint are all headed out. We expect to go to our reward about October 2024.

How are you all???

Esteemed Patricia, Please forgive our little slowness in writing this letter. Part of it is that we are very busy with some deadlines before this trip to India. The other is our own laziness which we are fighting with great heroism to conquer. 🦍🐘🐘🐘🐷

First, thank you for the conversation. Then let us reiterate that NIOS, our North American Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies, has developed over the term of its existence a good record of practical accomplishments in integrating historical and geographical cultural assets from around the world. I hope you can agree with this after being one of the most principal participants in our last effort: Art and the Sacred, in Lima.

For all of us, and especially for me, the integration of the work and perspective of Carl Jung and the traditional intelligence of classical Indian philosophy is central to this work. Our very serious enquiry would be if Prof. Shonu Shyamdasani and the Philemon Foundation are familiar with the heritage of Sri Krishna Caitanya, Srila Rupa Goswami et al who have been most prominently advanced in modern times by Srila A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami and his Bhaktivedanta Book Trust eg. www.VedaBase.com. Of course, other regular academic scholars and investigators such as Prof. David Haberman from Indian University and many others are making these resources available.

We love Jung, we love A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, we love Journey to the West and we are sure they love each other. We are hankering with some deep resolution and passion, for our own sake and many, many others to participation in this integration of these vital and relevant cultures.

Then ...… ...... can you present these enquiries to Dr. Shyamdasani and other members of the Philemon Foundation and inform us of the link to the symposium in Santa Barbara in April that you mentioned. It sounds wonderful and we will be returning from this two months in India on the 27th of March so we would have to fix it into our calendar as soon as possible. 🙂🙂🙏🦓 🐻     🦍

Thank you!!! So much. AGTSP. We think it is more your mercy in overlooking our bad qualities that makes us of any use. We will post this in our Blog. Can you please write there some time with your Sankirtan experiences!!

HpS

On ‎Tuesday‎, ‎January‎ ‎8‎, ‎2019‎ ‎04‎:‎59‎:‎15‎ ‎PM‎ ‎CST, Sangeetha Balam <[email protected]> wrote:

Hare Krishna Maharaj,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. And all glories to you.

As nothing pleases you more than the regularity of devotional service, I would begin with that. I have been chanting 16 rounds and following four regulative principles throughout 2018 by the mercy of Lord Chaitanya and Guru Parampara.

A good teacher teaches by example and you teach all of us by your wonderful example. Your compassion for people in general, your love and respect for the devotees, your desire to elevate our consciousness with absolutely no desire for gain for yourself are so inspiring.

Your methods and research of sastric education are exemplary. Your goal is to always help your disciples in their service and sadhana. You go the extra mile to make all your disciples feel protected and loved. Your detachment for accumulating followers is evident. You are equally enthusiastic whether it’s one person sitting in the class or a 100. You endure so much austerity but are never hard on your disciples.

You never accept material luxuries even if they are provided. You do not sleep on nice beds (You sleep in the sofa in the sannyasi quarters of Houston even if a nice bed is provided), you do not dress luxuriously( you do not even sew the ends of your dhotis, it is just a simple cloth) and you do not eat luxuriously ( You have your small lunch box, and whatever fits in it is your lunch). You are a perfect follower of Lord Chaitanya’s principles for sannyasis.

tapyante loka-tāpena

sādhavaḥ prāyaśo janāḥ

paramārādhanaṁ tad dhi

puruṣasyākhilātmanaḥ (SB 8.7.44)

It is said that great personalities almost always accept voluntary suffering because of the suffering of people in general. This is considered the highest method of worshiping the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is present in everyone’s heart.

You follow this principle perfectly and you can see the Supersoul in everyone’s heart and act on that platform.

On this day I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your association. A moment of your association can change the perspective of everything that’s happening around us and gives the perspective of Krishna Consciousness to it.

On this auspicious day, I pray to Srimati Radharani that serving your lotus feet may be my eternal occupation. My faith and service to you may never be disturbed. My eagerness to hear from you may never slacken. If somehow or other I can please you I would consider my life a success.

Your servant,

Sundari Radhika dd.