Letters to the editor

asa[e] guru tattva; pranama mantras

Hare Krishna, Gurudev. Dandavat pranam unto your lotus feet.

AGTSP.

We almost, all your disciples belonging to Silchar and Imphal, have agreed this Gurudev pranam mantra.

So praying to our H. H. Guru Maharaj to kindly accept this Mantra so that all your disciples of this planet can use this same mantra to pray unto your lotus feet. Hope that by the grace of lord Radha Shyamasundar gurudev you are quite fit in all respect. Dandavat pranam gurudev. Your fallen servant. Krishna Swarup Das.

Srimad Hanumat Presaka Swami Pranam Mantra

nama oṁ viṣṇu pādāya

kṛṣṇa preṣṭhāya bhūtale

srimate Hanumat Preṣaka

svāmin iti nāmine

namah—obeisances; om—address; viṣṇu-pādāya—unto him who is at the feet of Viṣṇu; kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya—unto him who is very dear to Lord Kṛṣṇa; bhūtale—on the earth; srīmate—all beautiful; hanumat-preṣaka svāmin—Hanumat Preṣaka Swami; iti—thus; nāmine—who is named.

I offer my respectful obeisances unto His Holiness Hanumat Presaka Swami, who is very dear to Lord Krishna, having taken shelter at His lotus feet.

namaḥ akiñcana mūrtaye

bālaka­neva sarala

mita bhuk vādy­a suśīlam

samāna bhāva bhāvine

namah—obeisances; akiñcana-mūrtaye—personification of material detachment; bālaka-neva—like a child; sarala—simplicity; mita bhuk—eat very less; vādy­a—musical instruments; suśīlam—expert in playing; samāna bhāva—treated equally; bhāvine—accepted.

Our obeisances are unto you, O personification of material detachment and childlike simplicity. You eat very less just to survive and expert in playing musical instruments and treated everyone equally.

Prabhupādasyā­nucara

rūpavāni prachāriṇe

sarvato gatvā tene ca

atma jñāna prakāśine

Prabhupādasyā—of Srila Prabhupada; anucara—follower; rūpa—Srila Rupa Goswami; vāni—instructions; prachāriṇe—preaching; sarvato—everywhere; gatvā—traveling; tene—imparted; ca—also; ātmajñāna—knowledge of the self; prakāśine—enlightened.

You are the servant of Srila Prabhupada engaged in preaching the teachings of Srila Rupa Gosvami. You traveled everywhere imparting the knowledge of the self to everyone.

HpS - ASA --- AgtSP!!! Paoho. We always want more and more of your association and the wonderful Silchar, Manipura et al devotees. Just thinking about those places and the Sankirtan we are in ecstacy.

Now we are in ISKCON Houston, Texas, southern part of USA.

Is little warm here but so far is fine.

Krsna personally guarantees this place will not be perfect.

This topic of Guru-puja is very nice, no?

One of the Pancha-tattva.

"In this verse [Nectar of Instruction 5] Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī advises the devotee to be intelligent enough to distinguish between the kaniṣṭha-adhikārī, madhyama-adhikārī and uttama-adhikārī. The devotee should also know his own position and should not try to imitate a devotee situated on a higher platform.", https://vedabase.io/en/library/noi/5/#bb5954

Honestly looking at our level of renunciation and determination we can see that maybe we qualify as Sannyasi, Goswami, uttama-adhikkari, in some perspectives, by His Divine Grace, help of everyone, but we do not see our selves as perfectly, strongly on the platform of Bhava.

Developing.

We must all have lotus feet in our Siddha Svarupa but now we don't feel that we have them.

Devotees offering different Sanskrit verses to glorify us for events like Vyasa-puja or other informal moments seems fine. Then we can directly comment on each one.

The first Mantra seems fine.

The second seems to be beyond our range in some ways.

We do not feel that we are the form of renunciation.

. . . Real renunciation of going out door to door each day. 🙂

Many devotees like myself are struggling to not eat too much. Some success. Some failure. No meat fish or eggs. No grains cooked by Karmis!

Third Mantra seems too general. It is pretty much included in the first and general description of any Goswami, American Goswami, member of ISKCON, no?

So, first Mantra, especially as appreciation of what Srila Prabhupada is making us, seems enough, no?

We are like you.

We like to be "glorified" if it is glorification of Krsna and Guru!!

How is the Sankirtan in Silchar?

Your Ashrama, Family?

All glories to Srila Prabhupada. All glories to H. H. Hanumat Presaka Swami Guru Maharaj.

Hare Krishna Guru Maharaj,

Please accept our humble obeisances at Your sweet lotus feet.

hps // asa --- which some day we hope to meet.

On this auspicious day of Pandava Nirjala Ekadasi, Your poor, insignificant servant bring you this news of acceptance of Guruship to HH Bhakti Ananda Haridasa Goswami Maharaj as recommend by GBC.

We recall the words of Guru Maharaj at Sri RadhaKund about Maharaj going to become Guru very soon.

Thank you Guru Maharaj for the mercy.

HH Haridas Maharaj conveyed that Maharaj is a little shy to tell Guru Maharaj about the Guruship recommendation.

Maharaj sends His regards with all humility.

Thank you Guru Maharaj

Your insignificant servant always

Sarad Gaurangi DD

hps//asa - yes, we have had the very, very, very good fortune to give some small help to maharaja in some of his dealings with the transcendental bureaucracy of iskcon. it is very purifying.

we hope that we have also been able to serve him as a brahminical resource also.

we also hope that he takes this task for some time. inspires, trains, others, and retires.

🚋 👌

"The spiritual master who first gives information about spiritual life is called the vartma-pradarśaka-guru, the spiritual master who initiates according to the regulations of the śāstras is called the dīkṣā-guru, and the spiritual master who gives instructions for elevation is called the śikṣā-guru. Factually the qualifications of a spiritual master depend on his knowledge of the science of Kṛṣṇa."

https://vedabase.io/en/library/cc/madhya/8/128/

Thank you so much for this news!

We wish all success to Manipuri Sankirtan!!!!

It is just like Vraja in so many ways, no?

A photo of Maharaja please!

agtsp!

paoho.

hare krsna.. hare rama. oh radha, please pray to rama and krsna to engage us all in their service. what else is there?

we heard that srila prabhupada accepted some clean ice cream made from an outside source and appreciated the quality with the comment that we could see that there are devotees everywhere. nothing nice can be done without love. the soul can only love krsna. everything else is lust.

we got a nice whatsapp comment from sripada siva senali about a youtube ai video that he made about the history of money.

we looked at like 10% of it and it was nice.

yet, we could suspect that most of what it was going to say, we already knew.

the only thing that we could add is that our guru, professor herbert marshal mcluhan, professor of the history and study of media, comment that money as a media is 1] the poor man's credit card and 2] money is work at a distance.

❓

❓ ❓😐

KRSNA'S lotus feet are cool. we must protect them from all that's cruel.

hare krsna, hare rama, hare krsna, hare rama. rama rama. hare hare!!

tomorrow at 9.15am we are scheduled to assemble the 'nios' video equipment in the sannyasa ashrama library.

anybody want to help abhaya, pablo and us??

at like 6pm [post meridian🌞] is the iskcon houston pannihati festival.

O.K. Haribolo. See you in Radha Natabara's 8pm program?

write with questions, comments, etc. to this Blog.

All glories to Sri Sri Gurú and Gauranga!

PAMHO AGTSP!

HK Maharaj How are you?? How’s been your health?

Well in reply to your last email, I think you forgot to recommend me some ISKCON friends to discuss topics related to digital marketing, entrepreneurship, and social media content creation. May you please help me out?

HpS/ASA - AgtSP. I don't really know anyone who could help except maybe his grace jagad guru das in chile.

he might have time for some personal comments and then direct you to more resources.

if you send me your whatsapp number i will not publish it but will send you his contact information by whatsa app. hare krsna...... hare krsna!!!

So I was asking that question related to communism because I have a devotee friend who proclaims himself to follow that doctrine.

So he says that considering that many devotees don’t follow some devotional principles or everything Prabhupada says, he has some right to follow the communist doctrine, even he theoretically understands Prabhupada is against it.

He states that material communism is the most similar thing to spiritual communism.

ASA - Just like iron is the most similar thing to gold??? or would it be more accurate to say that fresh supply of cows milk is the more similar to gold.

I’m trying to give him some piece of advice regarding this, what do you think might be a good one to give??

hps/asa - we can't know him well enough to give details, but noi 2 is nice. it links to isopanisad which is also nice!!! professors of economics like it.

thank you very much :),

hope you are always well,

Federico Molnár

Dear Maharaja and devotees;

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. All glories to Guru and Gauranga.

The auspicious chida - dahi (Panihati festival) falls on coming Sunday ~~ June 8, 2025. In our regular SB workshop (7:30 am Houston time), Maharaja requested me to describe the details of Panihati festival given in CC.

Thank you to H. G. Nikunja Bihari Prabhu & H. G. Mitravinda Mataji for doing Spanish translation for class on June 1 for CC reading notes and Maharaja's class. For June 8, 2025, class: both of them has graciously agreed to do Spanish translation for reading notes on CC & Spanish translation for Maharaja's class.

Maharaja, thank you for engaging all of us in reading systematically books of Srila Prabhupada.

Your Servant

Upendra dasa

HpS/ASA - Text 133: “Placing Your feet on my head, give me the benediction that I may achieve the shelter of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu without difficulty. I pray for this benediction.”

Hare Krsna, remenbered Gurumaharaja. Please accept my humble obeisances to your lotus feet🙏❤️🌷🌻🌹

HpS/ASA - ... and obeisances to your lotus feet. we hope one day we can see them and you in your siddha deha.

All glories to Srila prabhupada!!!

All glories to You, my spiritual master!

HpS/ASA - We have only a little qualification, on Lord Caitanya's order, to become spiritual master, and "one who initiates according to the rules and regulations", diksa guru in Srila Prabhupada's ISKCON.

So, let us understand Guru Puja in that perspective, no?

Here I'm sending you the comment you asked for from the CC preface. It may not be of much use, but I'm sending it anyway.

HpS - ASA -- Many thanks.

COMMENT:

From what I can understand, the essential point of the entire preface is Surrender to Krishna.

Our beloved Srila Prabhupada begins by talking about It, what It means, and the six guidelines required to fully surrender to Krishna.

He warns us about worldly scholarship and the dangerous chaos it is causing in society.

He gives us proof by quoting verses from the BG,

encouraging us to surrender. What love for humanity on the part of the author!

He tells us a little about impersonalism and its inadequacy in helping us surrender, because without understanding that God has a form and a personality, and remaining only with His effulgence, the heart, which ardently seeks to resume its eternal relationship, will not feel any transcendental bliss that would inspire it to surrender progressively more and more, having a fiery sraddha, as Srila Prabhupada comments in NOI.

 He tells us about the absolute nature of Krishna and the teachings of Lord Caitanya, which is the direct worship of Krishna. He gives us the highest example: the gopis of Vraja, who surrendered as completely surrendered souls without any desire for material or spiritual gain.

He also affirms that Lord Caitanya recommended Srimad Bhagavatam as the literature for developing love of God and that this is the highest goal of the human life.

He tells us about Meditation, a process of great interest in these times; the importance of meditating on Krishna in His transcendental form; and the proof in BG 6.47 of how a person surrendered to Him lives.

He also points out that the holy name of Krishna, the sound vibration of His name, is equal to Krishna. There is no difference between Him and His name; Therefore, to relate directly to Krishna, he teaches us the stages of chanting that naturally lead us to love for Krishna and complete surrender to Him.

He tells us about the danger of an uncontrolled mind and how to keep it under control by engaging it in various activities designed to please Krishna. These activities naturally satisfy our minds, and prevent us from becoming entangled in activities that bind us to material existence, which distance us from surrendering to the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

He tells us about Krishna consciousness as an absolute science and about the ideal teacher, Lord Caitanya, and the wonderful blessings He gives us as His students.

In this book, we can see the author's concern for the misguided civilization of this world and His wonderful desire that we all take Lord Caitanya's teachings seriously. The author inspires us by telling us about our activities on the spiritual platform as the goal of our lives.

 The author ends the preface by discouraging us from engaging in materialistic activities that will only frustrate us, and blesses us to understand these teachings by giving us the light of knowing that by knowing them, we will be able to act with the correct perspective, knowing our true identity.

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always trying to please him:🙏🙏🙏🌷🌹🙇‍♀️

Radha Japa Prati Jalpa Devi Dasi

HpS/ASA - Thank you.

We think that as you are describing it, it is not actually a Preface but an Introduction? Yet it is perfect whatever name you give us and gives the reader a chance to understand, Krsna, Bhagavad gita, through Lord Caitanya!