Letters to the editor

PAMHO/AGTSP
Dear Maharaja, 

I've been thinking about you lately (feeling like you have my a very positive impact on my young spiritual life) and I also have some possibly trivial questions for you... in any case I'll go for it!

What is the signifigance and/or meaning of the white bead bag? I've been told by disciples of BV Narayana Maharaja that it is an important symbol of a gaudiya vaisnava in the line of Bhaktisiddhanta Prabhupada. Any thoughts or illuminations?

              HpS - AGTSP.   paoho.  I've heard that we should only use white bead bags because Tulsi is a lady and so She should not be kept in a Safron colored bead bag.  But the source of this comment is not at ALL clear.   I've heard many things from the disciple so Swami ABC but then investigating them they are not at all substantiated by Swami ABC.   I fall prey to the same Urban Myth syndrome so how can I criticise others, but I hope to eliminate it.

Also, looking at inumerable pictures of Prabhupada I practically speaking NEVER see a white bead-bag. If it appears white his dhoti also appears white.   So, ISKCON B'cari and Sannyasi standard is safron as far as I can understan.

Some time ago you mentioned in a reply to one of my questions that you are involved in translating Bhaktisiddhanta Prabhupada's "Anuvrtti" commentary of Upadesamrta, any news on that? I'm really curious!

            HpS - No, we were never translating it. Other projects with Upadesamrta contemplated but nothing happening with anyone now.  All our current stuff is mentioned here on the Blog is DTC, Hot Topics, Itenarary.

Also, I have read BV Narayana Maharaja's tranlsations of the previous commentaries and have found them to be very beautiful and illuminating! But what do you think of BR Sridhara Maharaja's commentary?

               HpS - Just read the first one and it was quite nice.   Trying to read the rest.

Okay thank you for your time! Much love and respect to you dear Maharaja :)

your servant, Gaura-lila Dasa (Rtadhvaja Swami)

        HpS - ASA -  Sri Sri Radha Kala-chandji Ki Jai.    You had university programs going, no?    How are those.

The idea is there that, sure, we live in this world where everything around us is perceived as physical, as material, but we are something else.

We have a spiritual element to us that makes us distinct. Now, this distinction is really relevant in the scientific context for the following reason.

Things that are physical, things that are material, we assume that the
interactions, the behaviors those things show must follow what we call natural
laws. And in fact, science is the pursuit of those natural laws.

The idea that through careful observation and systematic manipulation, we can
figure out what those laws are. Things like gravity, you know, and, and
various other laws. and that in so doing, we'll gain a really good understanding of this physical world around us.

And so, we studied Physics, we studied Chemistry, we studied Biology Astronomy, etc. all of those are studies of the physical world around us.
But, of course, if we do not perceive ourselves as physical beings, if we
perceive ourselves as spiritual beings, then what we're implying there is that
our behavior does not follow such constrained natural laws.

And if it doesn't, well then, it doesn't makes sense to study it scientifically.

So really, psychology would never be born unless we started to think of ourselves
in different ways and that process really began with Rene Descartes and here's a
story of Rene Descartes that I really like. the idea is that he was walking through a park in, in, in France, and as a typical French park, it had statues and it had
flowers.

Up ahead he saw a statue of, of Diana, goddess of the hunt, beautiful statue.
So, he started to approach to get a better look at her, but as he came closer
out from behind the bushes came Neptune, barring a trident and blocking his path.
A statue of Neptune, I should say, and that's what was, you know, really so
impressive, the statue moved as if with intention. Now, how did it move?
Well, this was the time when hydraulics was just being understood and used.
And so, literally, Rene Descartes had stepped on a pressure plate which forced
some sort of liquid through a tube and ultimately that force was used to move
the statue on some relatively, relatively frictionless set of, you know, rails or
something like that. That's how the motion actually happened.
But in Rene's mind, it was a really profound experience for the following
reason. He knew that statue was inanimate, he knew it was made of material, you know, physical material, and yet it behaved as  though it was alive.
That is, it was animate and had intentions.
It looked like the statue was trying to block his path.
So, Rene suddenly started looking at other things, like animals and humans,
and asking whether maybe their behavior was analogous to that statue.
Maybe they you really were physical beings as well and may be their behavior
did reflect something like hydro, hydraulics, some physical process that
made them look animate.
Ultimately, Rene concluded that that was the case for animals, he felt they were
fully machine-like, fully mechanical. But humans, he thought were a little
different. Humans, he thought, had a dual nature. And we now call this notion, Cartesian Dualism.
So, he thought, yes, humans are partly machine.

                HpS - AGTSP   paoho.   We had to do some editing to make the article inteligible  and even still there is re-redundancy of certain words.  Why is that???  Yet, is very interesting.  Thank you, very interesting!   We will look for Descartes biography on Britannica.  More!

AGTSP Hare Krishna Gurudeva mis mas humildes reverencias. Hace un par de Dias estuve leyendo el venu gita en donde mencionaban... (Capitulo 2 pag 38)... Las diferentes rasas y premas que saborea Sri Krishna con sus amigos, Madre y gopis y asi mismo menciona que Para lograr alguno de esos tipos de premas tienen que ser espontaneos "Si un devoto abriga Una devocion amorosa pura por Mi, pensando en mi como su hijo, amigo o amante, considerándose importante y tomandome como su igual o inferior, Yo quedo subordinado a el"... Entonces gurudeva como logramos ver a la suprema personalidad de dios como un hijo, amigo o cónyuge ? Como florecer ese amor tan puro por Sri Krishna? más adelante también dice "cuando los devotos sumisos escuchen acerca del amor puro de los residentes de vraja, también me adorarán en el sendero del amor espontáneo abandonando todo ritual religioso y actividad fruitiva"...-Como se llega a ser sumiso y considerar al mismo tiempo a la Suprema Personalidad de Dios como hijo, amigo,hermano, etc? Lalita Madhava Mty México

HpS -   Jaya!   TlgaSP.   Muy bien oir de Vds!!!    Puede leer las ensenansas a Rupa Goswami comenzando con la proxima texto. Pienso hay cosas muy relevantes a su pregunta!!   Esperamos sus resultados.

http://vedabase.com/en/cc/madhya/19/162

hare krsna maharaj, pamho, agtsp,
thank you very much for your mercy in India by allowing us to travel with you.
Some development on PhD front

            ASA - Jaya!    AgtSP!     Thank you for traveling with us.  Your association helps so much.  PhD = Plough Department,  Ha!   Ha!     Haw...

Our guide, his guide and some other contemporaries are trying to publish A handbook of indian management.

A handbook of indian pyschology has been already been published by  http://www.ipi.org.in/events/ip-courses-2013.php this research group is Branch of Aurbindo Society.

We were thinking we need to pitch SB here. Esp difference between manas, buddi and indriya. {mind,intelligence and senses}.   In traditional pyscho only mind and body are concerned or if we see Mr Freud .. his id,ego and super ego is there.

if we can develop this then we can get par-atma. generally indian scriptures talk of ethics, morality world view. but exectp for Kapila-Sankhya none talks about it
 

and how these [mind, inte and senses] are effected by 3 modes. this would give us 9 diff personality types. Any suggestions that we move in this line a bit or not ?

hope we are not giving you trouble.
flying unbriddled horse
 

                HpS =  We are set to give lecture on this Friday the 26th???  At Visva-bharati University.  Very much we want to just ask questions from the audience and then focus in on one of the many aspects to this problem.    In the NOI, which constitutes first instructions for neophyte devotees, in Text Three Prabhupada talks about this a little. He cites "maya tatam idam sarvam...".  So, this is where he focuses first.  Cites this text many times. Do you see him paraphrasing another text from BG at the same time???   What concept is the most fundamental?

AGTSP   paoho.    We have always wondered and asked many, why Lord Siva wears a moon on His head. For this He is called Sasi-sekhara etc.   Sri Hari Das saw an authentic India movie, Siva purana, where it explains something like Candra took two daughters of Daksa as his wives, but he only liked one so he mistreated the other. Because of this Daksa cursed him but Candra took shelter of Lord Siva who them kept Candra on His head and in this way protected him.

Jaya!

Eventually all our questions will be answered.  We just have to go on chanting Hare Krsna, reading Prabhupada's books, and watching Hindu movies (in that order).