Gauranga!
Hare Krsna Hanumatpresaka Maharaja,
please accept my respectful oveisances!
All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
My name Kadamba Kanana das I'm Sri Radhe devi dasi's husband.
I'm happy to hear You feel better!
HpS - Jaya!!!!! AGTSP Pamho. Soooo nice to meet you! So, nice!
I'd like to say thank You for Your blog, You give us a lot of useful informations via it.
The other purpose of my message is the letter from my wife, see below.
There are a few question, and my main question is the following:
how we can understand this situation and how we can apply in the path of become humble and tolerant?
Thank You everything,
your servant:
Kadamba Kanana das
Sri Radhe's letter ((Plese don't publish it just the questions.) )
HpS - AGTSP O.K. If it is letters from girls, if we read we publish. But this is nice etiquette that lady communicates confidential things with association of husband!
Dear Hanumatpresaka Swami,
Please accept my respectful obeisances,
All glories to Srila Prabupada!
...
Is there creativity in the spiritual world? Or there are just an authoritive system? And we are just like soldiers? Is it necessary to over-emphasize the authoritive system?
. . .
Your insignificant servant,
Sri Radhe dd.
HpS - AGTSP paoho. We are in Mexico City. We have had six days of very intense programs with Higher Education etc. in 45-minutes we leave for Cueramara, desert, for week with 25 Sankirtana devotees from all of South America.
Our energy is 90% recovered from intense month of May in Europe and India. We learned our lesson. Almost by dying. Now we are 64-years old. We have to be Informal Educational Resouce Agency. Not Active Soldier or Lawyer.
Your right. There is no need to talk of the personal details here. The general principle is correct.
I have argued this point with many devotees in ISKCON. Our understanding is that in the material world there is also free will. You can look at the final verses in first canto where Narado Muni just finishes preaching to Vyasadeva. It says he leaves free to travel everywhere and as I remember Prabhupada says that there is free will in both the spiritual and material world.
In ignorance we are FORCED to act like a tree or animal. We are learning by force. In passion there is choice but the desires are so strong that it is hard to control them. In goodness we have real choices. We can steal the money or not. Of course we don't know about spiritual choices, but we have material choices, and that is how we create new Karma. No choices, no responsibility for Karma.
Then Krsna gives us spiritual life.
The Gopis are full of unpredictable states of conscousness. They have free will. They come up with fun things to do that even Krsna couldn't predict! Krsna was amazed at the demons, Aghasura, that Mayadevi made. External energy.
Krsna, Krsna's devotee, and devotional service come together and dance and no can quite undrstand who is in charge. There is novelty, creativity, freedom of whether to make samosas or pasta for Radha and Krsna's lunch. All with the desire to please Krsna. Sometimes Krsna dictates, "I want!". Sometimes He says, "What do you want for Me."
So much fun and new things.
O.K. There is free choice (for Krsna) in the spiritual world.
This brings up an interesting point about free will in ISKCON. I and I guess many people have been through this thing, "I am the Temple President/GBC/Head Cook/Man of the Family. You cannot serve Prabhupada except through me." There was a letter to Jayatirtha Das that came to Berkeley when I was there and Jayatirtha Prabhu was in Los Angeles so he told me to open it and read it. It was about the Gurukula and many things. It finished with Prabhupada saying, "You cannot exist without my mercy". I was spontaneously shocked. Prabhupada so forceful, but then my intelligence reacted, "Yes, whatever Prabhupada wants". But then I read the next the whole sentence... "You cannot exist without my mercy, and I cannot exist without your mercy. This mutual love, this mutual respect is Krsna consciousness".
[A few tears might be appropriate at this point]
So that is it. Krsna is the boss. Temple President is the (Administrative) Boss. Sannyasi is th (Spiritual) boss. Husband, Mama.... BECAUSE they are tryin in all sincerity to be our servant. Yeah. In Los Angeles the devotees are more Sudras and in San Francisco they are more intellectuals (some say) so the GBC, Temple Presidents deal with things differently.
In LA no Narayana Maharaja devotees preach in the Temple. In San Francisco, GBC and Gurus go to programs organized by Prabhupada's Godbrother, Govinda Maharaja.
So these are a few thoughts.
There is free will.
If ISKCON authorities are suffering from temporary insanity of thinking they have become God (Haw! Ha! Haw!) and we are the only sane people in the Yatra (Haw! Haw! Haw! Haw! Haw! Haw! ) then we can follow the example of Prahlada Maharaja, and preach the truth during lunch. Or the example of Vibhisana.
