Letters to the editor

Hare Krishna!

Guru Maharaja, please accept my humble obeisances!

All glories to Srila Prabhupada, and all glories to ISKCON and all its members!

Following your suggestion, we sent the list of devotees for leading Tulasi kirtan, during FMS, for the next 3 weeks.

Monday-      HH Hanumatpresaka swami

Tuesday-       Karuna Mayi devi dasi

Wednesday- Caturatma das

Thursday-     Isvari Radha devi dasi

Friday-          Abhinanda das

Saturday-     Karuna-Sakti devi dasi

Sunday-        Priya Sakhi devi dasi / Parasurama Das

Gurudeva, we appreciate any instructions you may wish to give us in this regard.

___

Note:

It is worth clarifying that:

*This list is only for 3 weeks and does not affect the assignment of kirtan leaders that existed before the trip to Houston.

*If there is any devotee who wishes to lead one day, they are welcome.

Your servant

Karuna-Sakti Devi Dasi

HpS - Thank you. Seems, agtSP, we are slowly getting nice integrated program with Temple Program and our ASA Program.

There are many aspects that we would like to improve, and we hope we are not burdening anyone unnecessarily, but is so nice to read NoD daily, look at pictures of Lord Nrsmha etc.

Maybe more devotees come outside of Temple room for our NoD and Tulasi Kirtan!

Hare Krishna Maharaja, please kindly accept my most humble obeisances; all glories to our Founder Acharya, Srila Prabhupada;

all glories to your good self,

for your many years of selfless dedication to serving him.

HpS - Hmmm. I think that our service has been quite motivated. We want him to save us from hell from our lust tongue and belly. We want to have some interesting, fun, service!!! Oooof! Obeisances to him.

Again and

AGAIN and

A G A I N !

I have never been very good at making speeches and singing the praises of others, and so I wanted to dedicate my meager words in honor of your Vyasapuja celebration. I am certain that your initiated disciples will be more qualified and sincere in expressing their appreciations than what I could offer.

HpS - Which is better apples or bananas?

Unfortunately for me, I am not one of your initiated disciples, but I have a great need to be accepted as your disciple, just to take guidance from you.

I have been stuggling with a quagmire of emotions and decisions about how to be of service and where to serve.

For want of a surrendered attitude I have failed to take proper shelter of your association.

Simply I have grieved to you about my problems, looking for emotional support in order to survive whatever trauma life gives me in devotional service. And you have extended yourself seeing my pain, and knowing that I am weak in my heart and mind to nicely surrender.

HpS - Hare Krsna!

I want very much to surrender. I once thought that I knew how to surrender, by taking initiation, by always doing the needful: and feeling genuine satisfaction because of it.

I felt like I belonged; I felt protected. I was thinking to myself "this is the story of the rest of my life," and I was in bliss believing it with all my heart. But surrender unto the spiritual master is not just some formality of initation and doing the needful, or some blissful satisfaction that is ephemeral at best.

The disciple must be willing to take shelter of the spiritual master's instructions: "ha ha prabhu koro doya." Doya means the spiritual master shows his mercy by imparting transcendental knowledge to the disciple, so that the disciple can become free from all the miseries of life.

If there is to be any hope for peace of mind and freedom from all the miseries of material existence, the disciple must make the instructions his very life and soul: otherwise what is the purpose of accepting a spiritual master?

I don't know if in this same lifetime I can ever again have the same surrendered attitude that I once had so many years ago. But I have found hope in taking shelter of your association and being able to render some menial service to you during your visits;

sharing candidly with you my humble thoughts and offerings; and feeling enlivened and inspired to sharing Krishna consciousness with others because of your association.

I wish with all my heart that I could surrender like I did so long ago. But all I can do is hope that you will accept my wishful thoughts as my offering to you, on this most auspicious day of your appearance.

Your lowly servant,

Balabhadra dasa

HpS - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNVWVLkjknQ

From the stage show the 'Fantastics'.

The show's original off-Broadway production ran a total of 42 years (until 2002) and 17,162 performances, making it the world's longest-running musical.

We forget the negative aspects of our surrender in the past also, no?

You're right.

We have to not think that now I am an older devotee.

Hare Krsna Srila Gurudev

Dandavat pranam at your lotus feet

All glories to Srila Prabhupada

I am writing to seek your blessings to have darshan of Sri Venkateshwara Balaji at tirupati. I had read that your holiness had accepted Sanyasa at Tirupati dhama.

Please bless that I can have the consciousness to have darshan of Lord.

Sadhana wise I am doing ok. Trying to improve more. I am trying to wake up for mangala aarti more.

I have started reading Isopanisad with Ras Bihari prabhu from Peru. We are trying to fix a proper time.

I am based in Pondicherry India and working as senior resident In anatomy department. The duty needs lot of reading as there are multiple courses to teach.

Happy vyasa puja Srila Gurudev. I am selfishly requesting Narasimha deva and Prabhupada that you stay in ur earthly pastimes few more years beyond 2024. And we physically celebrate with you for more years on earthly planet.

Hare Krsna Srila Gurudev

Rturaja Krsna Das

Pondicherry, India

HpS - Always very, very nice to hear from you. You are pretty, darn, nice person! 🙂👍👍

We took Sannyasa from H. H. B. S. Damodara Swami in Hyderbad and then went to Tirupatti with him and the party.

God bless your visit with happy advancement in self realization.

Hare Krsna Dear Maharaja,

Please accept my humble obeisances

All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

All glories to your mission of Sankirtana.

I hope you are well.

I am writing to ask you please if you can send me with Candramukhi 4 Diaries of the Traveling Creature.

And I would send the contribution of it with Candra mukhi dd.

Sri Nrsimhadeva protect you

ys and spiritual niece

Isvari R dd.

HpS/ASA - AgtSP!!! Paoho... Prahlada nrshma Das also wrote to us about Tom Brown's Diarys.

:https://monkeywarrior.com/detail/14627/

We were thinking that we could send some things to Peru, Radha Madana-bihari etal with CMD and PDD!!!

Thank you!

Hare Krishna Dear Gurumaharaja,

Please accept my humble obeisances.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

I just read your tweet about DTC. (https://twitter.com/huber_robinson/status/1743381103740658126)

I would love to have some. Is it possible? What should I do to become fortunate to get some?

Your servant Prahlad Nrsimha das

HpS/ASA - AgtSP. Paoho. You are already fortunate. This Blog is like a great source of DTC. We see several more letters with titles DTC. It is good orientation for us.

I guess we can send some back to Peru, some to Mexico, distribute some here. Keep some for later distribution here... and we can bring some to Spain (ISKCON Czech Republic) or send them!

There seems to be about 15-25% in each one that might be worth publishing, so whoever gets one could edit and distribute that.

They are by Tom, not HpS!!!

"Not my Monkeys. Not my Circus"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnXtuktNdlM

VedaBase.IO is such an essential Sankirtan instrument for so many of us. How is the Beta, Kappa, Delta, Gama... version!???

Your son is Prahlada????

He will take over the Theta version??? 😃

Hare Krishna Maharaja!

Please accept my humble obeisances,

All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

Here in Dallas at RADHA KALACHANDJI DHAMA we just celebrated Kirtan 50!!

Every year it just seems to get sweeter!!

The kirtaniyas are amazing!

Gaura Vani, Kalindi DD, Akincana Krishna, Amala Harinama, Achyuta Gopi, BB Govinda Swami , and more!!

And every day the feasts are spectacular:

Quesadillas, Chinese noodles, Momo's, Waffles, and the normal Indian cuisine.

Devotees come from all over the world for this... 50 hours of kirtan spanning over three days and it ends with a puspanjali flower shower for Radha Kalachandji.

There is no better way to start off a new Year!!

The temple is not so big, but hundreds of devotees attend... So just trying to get a spot in the temple is a job in itself... I usually try to climb up on a pillar and kind of half-way hang there... But this year I barely got a spot.

I saw Yasodanandana Prabhu!! As you probably know, he designed and installed most of the beautiful stained glass installations here at Radha Kalachandji's.

It's always been one of my dreams to make stained glass art for Krishna!

I've connected with this Prabhu many times and he said he will take me as an apprentice, but he has no money to start the projects at the moment. It's fun to hear and talk about future projects though. He's a very talented artist.

And of course the Prasad is overflowing, not all of it gets served...On the waffle day (I ate my waffles plain with butter only), there were so many waffles left over. So Achyuta Govinda prabhu and I took a tray of waffles, cranberry sauce, maple syrup and butter and went door to door offering them to the local families.

It was a good chance for me to practice my Spanish and we distributed about 13 plates of double-stacked and fully loaded waffles!

Oh on Friday before the festival, Daruka Prabhu held a massive pizza party for all the devotees and visiting musicians!

He and Mother Sweta (the head cook for Kalachandji's restaurant) normally cook an offering for Radha Kalachandji every year for Sadhu Sanga that's big enough to serve the Prasad to about 3,000 devotees!! So a pizza party for 300 devotees seems like a cake walk.

Daruka had just built the wood fired pizza oven and deck. ... I'm sure this is just as good as Panca Tattva Prabhu's pizza!

They also had cauliflower pakoras with parmesan cheese, salad, and a bean soup.

It was amazing and the whole community came to party in the back yard.

There was a book distributor there needing Spanish books, so I gave him 40 small books... I'm not sure if this counts as distribution??

HpS - Una eslabon en la cadena!

On New Year's Eve, the kirtan really started to get intense and Achyuta Gopi sang sweetly for Lord Jagannatha. Kalindi Mataji prepared everyone for midnight, and then the incense started billowing as the curtains opened for Sri Sri Radha Kalachandji!!

We were so so happy to see Radha Kalachandji for the new year.

His Holiness BB Govinda Swami lead a raging kirtan until about 1:30 in the morning. He grew up with Elvis, or had some connection with him. During one of the previous years he was dancing like Elvis and doing push-ups during the kirtan.

So hilarious!!

(We made it to the mangal next day! By his mercy)

Then the kirtan was winding down on New Years Day until the flower shower for Radha Kalachandji!!

And by his mercy Maharaja I was able to sneak up there are throw some rose petals for Radha Kalachandji!! I'm eternally grateful !!!

After Radha Kalachandji and all of the other presiding deities are up to Their neck in multi-colored rose petals, then boxes and boxes of the Maha Prasad are offered to Srila Prabhupada and all of the devotees!

The crowd goes wild and prasad for everyone!!

It's a flower fight!!!

Below is a link for the kirtan!

Exactly at 1 hr : 48 minutes : 45 seconds is when HH BB Govinda Swami tells everyone that has a phone to look up the Radha Krpa (Katasksa ?) Stotram.

It's so good!!

Your aspiring servant,

Jaya Hari das

https://www.youtube.com/live/FMqamennpNU?si=4Jb0YF3bCxStF56J

And here is a link for Yasomatinandana Prabhu's video....

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1lEjmyu0cpBAXeLMCvXZ6CrOMgWRrOT7rtCJM0/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

HpS - Thank you! Such nice report!!! We can also report that it was so ecstatic that several of the devotees from Houston who went for the festival brought some of the participants back with them.

They came back with three day flu virus. 😅

Docotoress, Mother, Guru-bhati Devi Dasi is almost recovered.

I guess the Bacteria also benefits from the Prasadam!!! 💪🙂

Our Light of the Bhagavata Symposium was great and now we're headed for Vyasapuja and DTC-Spain release.!