Hare Krishna, Guru Maharaja,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhuhpada!
I see that you are well underway on this 10 week tour of North and South America. I should expect a delay to this letter but perhaps it is good since it will help me remember your lotus feet more often.
HpS - ASA - We would like to remember our lotus feet. Maybe we have donkey feet in Goloka also. We would like to rember your, everyone's lotus feet.
I received your reply from my vyasa puja offering and was just curious about a humourous thing you wrote "how long are your intestines, combined?" I figured you just wanted to know more about my family?? How we are?
Well, now we are five members strong: Husband, Audharya (4years), Arindama (2years), Isavasya (7months), and myself. I stay at home with the children and my husband works now as a teacher for grade 2 students. We are still in Calgary. My parents and sister live here also and the kids really enjoy their company.
I remember also another comment from a previous letter talking about my japa and you wrote something along the lines of if I don't chant all my rounds it is like giving powdered milk to my kids. It really opened my eyes and since then I have been improving my chanting everyday. Slow increments of at least 8 rounds everyday with ocassional 16 rounds a day. Maharaja, having children to take care of all day makes it difficult but I follwed your advise to rise early and that is what really helps and is making this happen. I feel once again enlivened by chanting my japa and has driven me more to associate with devotees through reading their books. An example is Yamuna devi's unalloyed book. It was beautiful to see her love and dedication to Srila Prabhupada. She ispires me so much. And I wish to resume studying Prabhupada's books- I still remember where I left off in the Bhagavatam!
I write also to ask some advise about how to make a decision. We are trying to decide where to move our family. We have some needs that are not being fulfilled in our current location. A spiritual need is not there because of lack of association our age. There is a temple community but we don't feel very included after almost 4 years living here. We have a need for our children to have a spiritual education as well as peers but here there are not many other youg parents with children. We visited a community that has these needs, and are going to visit another such place. This is us trying to do something about out situation but after having visited a place that has these needs we are finding it difficult to make a decision about it. We thought it was going to be super easy but it proved otherwise. It is very difficult. Do you have any sugestions about what it takes to make an important decision? We just don't have the skills.
I apologise for the length of this letter.
Your aspiring servant,
Rasa-mandali dasi
HpS - AGTSP. We are in Houston with Hari-lila Das. We met you here with him, no? Mother Yasoda has problems making decisions.
http://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/10/9/5
If we chant 16-good rounds early then we can get the solution offered in this purport. To add to that we have Chanakkhya Pandita's advice: Victory comes from good advice and good advice comes from many counselors. So, chant good rounds, read Prabhupada's books, and associate with devotees and you'll get a clear understanding of what to do. It may be that you cannot have a perfect understanding, maybe Krsna Himself is not sure, but we will see what is the best solution right now and later we can reconsider.
