Letters to the editor

¡Hare krishna!

Todas las glorias sean a Srila Prabupada

Todas las glorias sean a Sri Nityananda Prabhu y Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu

Espero que se encuentre muy bien en sus pasatiempos junto a su maestro espiritual y al señor supremo.
Quería comentarle lo bien que me ha tratado Sri Krishna en este momento, pero a pesar de eso me surge una duda, ¿es bueno o malo que no tenga dudas? me sucede que no tengo muchas cosas que preguntarle ya que el señor supremo me ha entregado mucha información en el corazón. No soy un devoto avanzado, soy un bhakta neófito pero me esta sucediendo esto y no se si sea bueno o malo, ya que el ego falso puede crecer.. eso me hace sentir un poco de incomodidad ya que nunca lo sabemos todo, y no deseo ser orgulloso... cada dia trato de aceptar y mantener las buenas cualidades que el señor deposita en mi, y disminuir las malas cualidades que he obtenido hasta ahora en el contacto con este mundo material..
bueno, ahora me surge una duda jaja ¿cómo puedo mantenerme humilde y sencillo cuando el señor supremo me da muchas realizaciones en el corazón y me surge el deseo de comentarlo a los demás? (creo que esto se debe a mi ego, de querer obtener reconocimiento)

HpS - Hare Krsna. Es bueno tener dudas. Despues de rendirse a Krsna en B G Arjuna tuvo muchas dudas, pero no insinsero ni absurdo.

o.k?

Hay muchas modos mantener humildad. Claro depende en la persona y situacion particular. 1. Mantener buen assiacion. Entonces puede juzgar Su misericordia de Krsna como El bendicionar otras tambien, aveces mas que usted.. 2 seguir los normas de Bhskti Yoga. Ellos mantienen una perspectiva espiritual en nuestrs vida. La misericordia del Senor Caitanya va los mas caidos primero.

Por otra parte, quería comentarle que estuve leyendo un pequeño folleto que me facilito Garga Acarya Das, llamado Japa Joe, y estuve practicando las instrucciones que allí aparecen, sobre todo las del canto de los santos nombres, ya que es mi servicio favorito, ¡Hari Nama!, y me sucedió que mientras cantaba comence a reir a carcajadas, lo cual me hizo sentir mucha satisfacción en el corazón y senti mucha gratitud. He leído un libro de Maharaj Satsvarupa llamado Manual Reformatorio de Japa, y siempre trato de cantar los santos nombres con algún humor, a veces con gratitud, a veces con desesperación por estar en este mundo, a veces en separación, a veces con felicidad, y la mayoria de las veces ofensivamente sin prestar atención, pero en este pequeño folleto Japa Joe, he encontrado lo que necesitaba, y le agradezco mucho, espero mejorar el canto cada vez más durante todo lo que me queda de vida...
Su aspirante a sirviente Bhakta Martin.

HpS - Mas

Todas Las Glorias sean a Srila Prabhupada!!!

Todas Las Glorias sean a Sri Sri Gour Nitay!!!

Todas las Glorias sean a Usted!!!

   Hare Krishna Guru Maharaja, por favor acepte mis humildes reverencias a Sus Pies. Soy Dhanistha devi dasi de Santiago de Chile. Muchas gracias por leer mi carta, por favor disculpe no comunicarme tan seguido, ahora que mi hijo está un poco más grande, me he podido organizar mejor. Le quiero contar que retomé mis 16 rondas. Haciendo el servicio que puedo, desde mi casa, cuidando a mi hijo Abhay. Abhay manifiesta apego por las Deidades y Srila Prabhupada. Gracias a Su misericordia estoy mejor espiritualmente, Usted es muy importante para mi y espero complacerlo, por eso escucho con atención, sus elevadas palabras con mi inteligencia de burro para poder seguir adelante, actualmente se me han presentado muchas situaciones difíciles. Yo tengo un deseo fuerte de servirlo. Muchas gracias por Su tiempo,

   Su sirvienta,

   Dhanistha devi dasi.

HpS - Muy bien. Esta en el sendero correcto. Estaba cantando nada de Japa antes? Unos rondas? Cuantos anyos, meces tiene El Abbhaya?

Reciba mis humildes reverencias, Guru Maharaja Hanumat Presaka Swami

Me inclino a sus pies, para agradecerle profundamente por la oportunidad que me dio al entrevistarme con usted; de seguir esforzandome y preparandome para llegar a  ser un buen sirviente, discípulo y devoto suyo.

Gracias también, por su misericordia  hacia mi humilde persona, y por darme la posibilidad de comunicarnos permanentemente.

Tengo muchísimo que decirle y preguntarle. Sería tan amable de indicarme de que forma es la manera correcta?

Quedo a sus ordenes y me refugio en sus pies.

Renato.

HpS - Please forgive the delay in responding to this letter. We have been traveling and little time to write. We are very glad to hear from you. We remember meeting you in Peru, or was it Bolivia?

We also remember our earlier meetings in Arrequipa.

You can start with questions here!

We should be able to answer them faster.

Hare Krishna <img alt="smiley" height="23" src="http://www.hps.monkeywarrior.com/sites/all/libraries/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/regular_smile.png" title="smiley" width="23" /> .

Por favor acepte mis respetuosas reverencias SS Hanumatpresaka Swami Maharaj
Todas las glorias a Srila Prabhupada 

Mi nombre es Bhaktin Emily pertenezco al Yatra de Guayquil-Ecuador.

Para nosotros fue un gusto inmenso poder contar con su discípulo el Prabhu  Laksmana Agraja Das que fue nuestro instructor  y amigo, los jovenes del yatra a raiz del curso discípulos en ISKCON quedamos muy motivados  y comprometidos en ayudar en la misión de Srila Prabhupada.

Nos organizamos con guía de los devotos mayores para realizar este sábado el primer Harinama del 2016.

Disculpe cualquier falta u ofensa, estaba muy nerviosa y no sabia como presentarme.

HPS-ASA - Hare Krsna, Bhaktin Emily. It is very nice to meet you. Use translate.google.com. We wish you all success in your Sankirtan. Please send some reports to this Blog. We also hope we can visit Ecuador. Are you chanting a regular number of rounds?

Dear Guru Maharaj,

Please accept my humble obeisances, all glories to Srila Prabhupada!

I can't thank you enough, I'm always surprised by your kindness.  I met with Svavasa prabhu and he also was most merciful and accomodating.  We talked it over and came to a satisfactory conclusion for everyone. Please forgive me for being a little intense, Badrinarayan Maharaj advised me that I may need to push a little bit to convey a sense of urgency.

On a spiritual level, I'm happy and I'm only interested in preaching Krishna consciousness, but after years of trying I just don't see snatching brahmacari's off the street as a complete strategy for expansion. I'm interested in cultivating Vaisnava community. Even in large temples like LA with thousands of devotees hardly anyone even knows each other, but I see tight knit community as a crucial factor in terms of both maintaining and expanding the movement.

As it happens, on a material level I also have an intense creative impetus, but I don't see my spiritual desire and my material desire as incompatible. After doing some research I'm realizing that being a professional artist means spending most of my time marketing and networking. I'm actually taking a keen interest in that lately. So if I gather a network of people interested in spiritual art, a certain subset of that group will certainly be interested in Bhakti yoga. What I've learned is that art is not about selling pictures, it's about selling yourself and your ideals. It's about becoming a leader and leading people in a direction they want to go. I want to use my art to lead people to Srila Prabhupada.

What Svavasa prabhu and I agreed on is that in the meantime, I can help Naikatma prabhu with some dhama seva a few hours in the morning (gardening, sweeping) and then in the afternoon I'm free to study and paint and mess around on the internet. Later on I can buy the extra van from the temple and use it to branch out to different cities as well.

Looks like I'm already getting over 100 hits per week on my website and I haven't even started promoting it yet! Basically my idea is to keep a weekly Tumblr blog about Bhakti and art etc etc in order to educate people about my work and about Krishna Consciousness. This is meant to generate an interest for the art I'm posting on my website. Meanwhile I'm learning how to use Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest etc etc to drive traffic to my blog and my website.  People can sign up there to an email list where they will recieve a weekly newsletter about new blogs, events and special offers. This solidifies a web community. In addition, I plan to set up a table a couple days a week in strategic locations around LA, and put pieces on consignment in local cafés, yoga studios, (veg?)restaraunts, etc. I'm a little rusty, but working with sumi ink and watercolor means I can finish 4-5 practice pieces daily which I can sell as I improve my skills and develop my ideas. When I complete some more sophisticated projects I'll begin to submit work to the list of galleries, publications and contests I've accumulated for features and exhibitions.

When all this begins to come together, I hope to utilize whatever resources I generate (after 50% net donation) to host  some kind of programs, probably somewhat related to the Bhakti Vriksha modules. During the summer I can also coordinate with music festivals to get myself and a whole crew in for free to make art and distribute books and do Kirtan etc. Hopefully we could even arrange for you to speak at some events as well.

As for your question about ashram, I have no interest for the time being in getting into family life or anything like that, I just want to go deeply into this service. Nonetheless I do feel awkward as a brahmacari essentially going into business. I'm thinking about changing ashrams just as a social consideration so I don't reflect poorly on the brahmacari ashram if I have to occasionally meet or correspond with women in the course of conducting some trade in the modern world. Would it be less appropriate to join Grhasta ashram with no intention of marriage or to bend the rules in order to remain a brahmacari? Any recommendations?

Your ridiculous servant,

Ekāśma Dās

HpS-ASA - AgtSP. Paoho. I guess you can see from the posts that we have been on "traveling Sankirtan" for weeks and months now. Meeting so many people that we can't do much with our blog-world.

How are you now, two weeks after this letter. There are lots of ISKCON artists who have started Brahmacari. Even regular artists. Don't run a business. Make it a non-profit foundation.

Our whole focus with ASA is probably going to be a global, millenium shaking symposium on "Art and the Sacred" 2018 in Peru.

Hey, you can give your self an exotic title and be part of that, its development!

You can do all your business as part of NIOS.

Also, Carl Jung, Surrealist community already use art to get to a higher, spiritual status of life, no?

Whatayousay?

hare krsna maharaj, pamho, AGTSP,

all glories to your current austerities in south america.  I always find difficult to write you anything because of not been able to assist you directly.
 ANyway communications with you is what keeps us going. So here goes various updates/question

1. our thesis's main theme is test hypothesis that situation defines the variability of Personality- performance relationship.
2. can you tell us what do you look for sankirtana authority which you ask in every disciple report ?

HpS - Well, AGTSP, so, so nice to hear from us. You have given us so much help. We are eternally indebted to you and your family. ISKCON is a Sankirtan movement, so Sankirtan Leader may be Temple President, or Rama-giridhari Das of Goloka Education. Just try to find some practical way to help ISKCON. That can even mean corresponding with someone in the BBT.
3. we are happy that you are ready now to write paper on sankhya. ( may be you can use voice recognitio software when your eyes get tired ).

HpS - We have done some experiments and maybe will talk with Radhika a little more on strategy and then get your opinio also!!!
4. we are still struggling , but thinks are much better. its better to trust sabda praman then pratyaksa.
5. the people/systems of the world are moving to collectivism to indvidualism gradually. hence lot of problem are arising (finding from our studies on academic research on values).

HpS - Just talked with Srinivasa Das at Micron and he says that his first hand experience of even the Communications courses at the university and Micron may be very professional but the content is terrible.   This education symposium here has given us great hope that with your help ISKCON start giving practical advice about how to run the world.
6. we started reading Jaiva dharma (we sort of getting bored on reasing spirals of SP books).

HpS - Keep up the spiral reading as you can but most important thing is to taste the sugar tree wherever you can. It will dictate a systematic program for you.
7. we will write more , with more focus.

regards,
impersonal horse

HpS - Skype is working on our phone again!