Letters to the editor

Hare Krishna Dear Hanumatpresaka Swami Maharaj,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Sri Prabhupada! All glories to you. 

 Sorry I'm still getting the hang of this blog..

HpS - We also.   HpS - ASA - We also. 

I posted something a few days ago but it didn't show up.  It was a copy of the letter I emailed to you. I've been meaning to post for a  while but just got back from NYC Rath Yatra and the Radha Govind Mandir festival. And to add to the adventure, tomorrow I move to Houston, TX. I wish to hear from you soon. I was talking to Kishore Rico (from the Mayapuris) and his lovely wife Radha who were going on and on about you at the Panihati festival. Had I known- I would've definitely made my way down there. They told such nectarian stories from your time in South America. I cannot wait to one day have your mercy directly. Krishna willing - soon.

Just in case I need to post the letter again on the public form,  here it is below. 

Thank you so much maharaj for your every drop of mercy.  

Please keep me engaged in your service, please keep me sheltered at your divine feet, and thank you for your causeless mercy. 

Your aspiring servant, 

Sarita 

ASA - HpS -- No, the first letter was there. We try to answer within three days. That letter was running 4-days. We also try to put in the DTC how old are the letters that are waiting.

If it is Urgent, write that in the Subject Field.
Basically just look at www.jayarama.us/kd/guru-tattva.txt and it gives our basic undersanding of Guru.

O.K???    We wait to hear from you.  You seem like you are in an extremely auspicious position after millions of lives in the material world.

Hare Krishna Dear Hanumat Presaka Swami, Hare Krishna Dear Hanumat Presaka Swami,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Sri Prabhupada! All glories to you.

I hope this message finds you well. Please excuse the delay in posting the message on the blog as I've been traveling to NYC for annual rath yatra and just got back yesterday. I will be tomorrow moving to Houston! So crazy time.  

Attached below is the letter I sent to you via email.

Your aspiring servant, 
Sarita 

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Hare Krishna Dear Hanumatpresaka Swami

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Sri Prabhupada! All glories to you.

Please forgive me in advance as I am unaware of the correct etiquette for addressing your grace. 

In fact, I look back retrospectively and I still remember the first time I had the fortune of meeting 

you in Richmond, Virginia almost 3-4 years ago. I could not even pronounce your name. You 

were so merciful to come to the university in Richmond and give a lecture hosted by the Bhakti 

Club (I was the fool who introduced you and totally messed up the introduction as well). You 

very gracefully saved the evening by captivating the auditorium full of students and introducing 

the concept of bhakti to the student body. That was the real start of the bhakti yoga club at VCU. 

With your and Srila Prabupad’s mercy– the bhakti club has prospered immensely these last few 

years. It has been my central point of sadhana all throughout my college career.  Your disciple 

and my mentor – Subala Sakha Prabhu comes weekly with Prasadam and offers his insightful 

classes. His daughter, Chandana, will be taking over now that I have graduated. Their entire 

family has been essential to the foundation and flourishing of this club as well as expanding my 

personal sadhana in my time in Richmond. 

Maharaj, the reason I am writing to you now is that I am ready for the next step. I’ve been 

praying for a while to find my spiritual master. So many sanyasis have come through Richmond 

and DC yet there always remained that gap in guru-tattva connection. After long consideration 

(and quite a few “universal” signs) I would like to request to be your disciple. 

I watch and listen to your lectures frequently and it is not only satisfying but pacifies any doubts 

or questions I have. I’ve heard a fair share of classes from Subala Sakha Prabhu and hold so 

much reverence from him- who in turn accolades only you Maharaj. I constantly think of how 

ignorant, and frankly stupid I was when I first met you and wish I could go back and retract all 

those statement and offer all glories to you again and again. I am so embarrassed.

 Besides attempting to run  the bhakti club- my workload in college inhibited me from 

chanting 16 rounds. I chanted maybe 4-6 rounds daily but I did read and follow all regulative 

principles and attend the bhakti vriksha programs weekly. I understand the chanting is what was 

vital and I just couldn’t keep up. Since graduation however, I have been keeping up with 16 

rounds daily. I am serious now. I have finished whatever my “material” goals were but still feel 

unfulfilled. I know there is no other way and nothing else to aspire for. 

I moved back home to Washington DC and it’s taking some time to get used to not being as 

engaged as I was in Richmond.  Nonetheless, with great mercy, Krishna still keeps me engaged 

in Sadhu Sanga, Kirtan, or finding some service at the temple.  

I do know that I am serious now about my sadhana and have absolute faith in the next step. 

Please forgive me again as I do not know the protocol nor the etiquette but I am following what 

my hearts tell me Maharaj. 

So here goes….

I humbly request Maharaj, for you to allow me to accept you as my gurudev. Please accept me as 

your aspiring disciple. I have been going to the temple for as long as I can remember but am as 

lost as ever and ignorant, blind, illusional and conditioned. Please drag me out of this 

conditioned state and guide me towards Krishna. 

Please forgive any offensives I have committed

Your aspiring servant, 

Sarita

HpS - ASA - Jaya. I thin kwe answered this, no?      You have another letter. Let us look at that one.

¡Hare Krsna Maharaja! AgtSP.

I wish your health is good and don’t give to you problems.

Please, I want to ask some questions, but I see that here spoken generally about devotion, and I don’t know if to do mystical questions is correct. I think that mysticism is necessary when our heart don’t fell de devotion…like the science for the thinks that we don’t understand of the spirituality??? I´m in that situation a lot of times. I believe in God yet I don’t understand. I think about his omnipotence, omnipresence, and his powers, the gods, her potency reflection? And think that if we are not the body, her material powers work for us because Supreme God want, then we have a personal relationship with God directly or indirectly dependent of our capacity of see the powers or God in ours and in others…..is ok???

HpS - Jaya!  Vraja-mandala Parikrama, Ki Jai!   Yes, Krsna is everywhere directly or indirectly, but the more we can see Him directly then easier it becomes to see Him indirectly. If I have a personal talk with the artist, then I can really see his choices in the way he painted something.

Then, our reality is illusion if we don’t have one connection with the source of life…less if we have with the separates reflection of God in the material potencies, the gods, or any illusion if we have one personal relation with the master of the theaters …is ok??? My question is that, then, can we speak with God in the persons, or the gods, without the person in the body feel our relation with God or the potencies?

ASA - If we understand your question, yes. Duryodhana was trying to cause problems for Krsna, but he was actually engaged in his service. An enlightened person like Narada Muni or Vyasadeva might be able to see how Krsna was using someone as an instrument although the person did not know it.

When I try to see my days like that, I only see illusion, not real reality, I feel like one prisoner in one holographic world, where the deviated souls, ours, only live the film in one energetic platform, like the dreams, and we are waiting for the wake up, conscious that that vision make to us wake up when the false dead come to ask us about if we want wake up or not……are all that thinks corrects?

ASA - Again it is pretty esoteric, so it is hard for us to say precisely, Yes or No, but in general it seems pretty correct, and knowing you for a long time I would say that your existence on the yoga level is rather real, BUT it is usually contaminated with our own projections, desires, so the real thing is how it is taking us to Bhakti. Which in the befinning is Sadhana bhakti as disctated by an acharya like srila Prabhupada.

"Bahunam janmnam ante... " BG 7.19    .   Read the purport!!

For me are important that thinks because make me think about my ideas of life….HOW MAY I SPEAK WITH GOD DIRECTLY, IN PERSON, EVERY TIME, IN EVERY PERSON, IN EVERY THING, if not, what about my dream test, my real vision out of the corporal relations of man and women, with senses and wants, with material and spiritual….. If we are soooo fools, sooo poor of knowledge, of spiritual vision, if God save us, if we try to pray for our salvation of that false world…..is the way of devotion???...i am sooo fool, please, help me, save me, I can´t see You in any place, in any person….Can God, the Supreme God, pay our bill in the time of the dream test??? Like always, thanks you very much for all, I remember you soooo many times every day. Always trying to learnt more and more thanks of yours lessons. Your fool follower and friend, Pablo Parikrama. HARE KRSNA.

HpS - ASA - - - Write some poems in English.  Little ones.

Hare Krishna dear gurudeva! Please accept my humble obeisances.

 All glories to Sri Sri Gaura Nitai

All glories to Srila Prabhupada

All glories to you!

I hope you are doing well! I had written you some month ago but I don’t know if you read it, because you were already traveling.. 

 I was dealing with a great challenge and I was all the time thinking about you told me "If you are feeling big enthusiasm, don't be surprised to get big tests also.”  Anyway I’m back on track again. Because of this, I could realize how important is taking shelter of guru, sastra and sadhu specially when  our intelligence is covered. 

Well, Finally I took the decision to give up my job at september and go to Mayapur for living there for a time. As I told you before. My spiritual master His Grace Mahatma Prabhu wants me there because there are a lot of work to do for Soul Tools and he wants I work with him. I will go for studying also. So if Krishna allows me, I will be there on October  and the ideal is to stay there but Indian laws has changed some days ago and there’s no way to extend student visa in India. Once visa expired one have to come back to their country to get new visa or maybe by going to another country but not near to India though. So now we are waiting for lighting and trying to plan a way to extend the visa in some way in the future. 

About my sadhana, I was able to organize my schedule according to my nocturne work, of course. So, I’m still doing the complete morning program at home but at noon. Trying to keep 16 rounds done after the program and following 4 principles, studying bhakti sastri (now the other part: Bhagavad gita), worshiping deities very happily. A picture attachment.

Still very enthusiastic doing a lot of service. How can I develop goodness modality if I’m doing a lot of things all the time of course in the passion modality?

ASA - AGTSP.  Very nice to hear from you. I think you have to set priorities and then even though you do many things you will understand that you can't do all of them. Have full morning and evening program.

I like to have a balance between both. I think that maybe I have a nature mixed with both. I like to be busy all the time and thinking new things to do, i love challenges by doing different things all the time but sometimes these brings me a lot of anxiety. And on the other hand I love some bhraminical duties like studying and worship deities by which I feel more deeply connected to Krishna and with much more fixed consciousness.

Gurudeva, What happens when a devotee get a lot of knowledge about sastra by studying books and starts to feel pride for that

ASA - It is like a snake with a jewel on the head.  Ha!   Ha!   Ha!

How can one stay humble in that position?

ASA - By trying to teach all the knowledge you have. 

On the other hand, Is there something that you want that I do as a service for you dear gurudeva?

HpS - ASA -- 1. Give your regards to The Mahatma (Das),  2. Really focus on getting ready for first initiation.  3. Send us some news from time to time about your Yatra.  4. Tungavidya Devi Dasi was trying to renew her student visa while in India. Hmm.   Guess she can't do it now.   Generally speaking its good to come back to your country every year or so anyway, no?  Hare Krsna!

your servant and siksa disciple,

Bhaktin Belen

Hare Krsna Gurumaharaja!
Please accept my humble and sincere obeisances
All glories to Srila Prabhupada and you!
All glories to Sankirtan movement of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu!

Im sorry for waiting so long to write you, even worst, for telling you i was going to write since last week and doing it just now, i would really like to say i was overwelmed by so much service we are traing to develop in this kshetra, still i had time to spend in my own personal activities so, that would be a lie, i'm really making an effort to start telling allways the truth even when it buys a pain-ticket for me; ¡IT IS VEEEEERY HARD!

ASA - If you are completely honest you don't have to remember anything - Mark Twain

I am very gratefull to you  for the example you always give to us, your aspirant to disciples, each day is a struggle to continue in this path while we dumbly still carring the over-wheight of our anarthas, still we have a great moto. we have 2 months with the preaching center here in Queretaro, we are serving very nice boys and girls who enthusiastically are eager to learn about Sri Krsna, also selling prasada in many places.

Gurudeva, i had a big inner fight because i was very attached to sankirtana while i was in the ashram, but, since 1 year ago when i started to travel and collecting for my own preaching programs (also some offered material gratification)  i felt a great change in my attitude towards sankirtana, i wast just doing it because i needed to... it was allways a great fight with the mind to get out, of course, also a great nectar when i started to speak with the ppl, so 2 weeks ago i spoke with Vanamali Prabhu and asked him to allow me to work with them into the prasada distribution and go out in sankirtana at weekends; i completely felt the changes, im very happy to get out and preach, many honest ppl had approached to the preaching center and wonderfull things had happen since i changed the direction i was heading, yesterder i went to sankirtana with marco, a visitor devotee, and i did 35 books in 1:15 hours, i was soooo happy that Lord Caitanya allowed me to taste that nectar again, that i could not forget how important is the purity with which we are doing any service which is our service for the Sankirtana Movement.

Last weekend Aravinda Prabhu visited us accompanied by his wife, 5 or 7 matajis, and Gokulananda Das Brahmacari. We had ecstatic programs, many many benefited persons who came to them, many many distributed books in the streets and also a big party of tacos to say good bye to our honorable guests; maybe, next monday, if maharaja agree, Aravinda Prabhu will bring Dhanvantari Swami to meet the place, since they are traveling to Cueramaro.

PD: i have to admit that i felt like not valored by the devotees because every time Aravinda Prabhu would say something nice about the preaching in Queretaro, he would give the whole credit to Vanamali Prabhu and his wife Thakurani Sri Mataji; honestly, im allways feeling that i have put so much into this project since one year ago, so, when somebody speak nice about all other devotees participating in this service but me, i feel hurted. i know those are not the feelings of a servant, still, i felt that, Gurudeva, what can i do to change that desiree of prestige in my heart?

Thank you very much for being so kind with this selfish rascal.

Your aspiring to disciple:

Krsna-kirtana Dasa

HpS - AGTSP. Thank you for the nice news. Bhaktivinode Thakur says that if we can do our service our whole life and not be disturbed that no one ever notices us, that is self-realization.

In the Bible it says, When you do big fasts on religious days do not go our with a long sad face and let everyone know that you are fasting, doing austerities. When you do your fasts and austerities do them in private in your closet, and God who sees all things in private will reward you in private.

We can use our intelligence and see how much illegal sense gratification and fame we need at this point. We can be honest and tell Krsna, I'm still a fool, I need some of this, but also let me see how it is suffering not happiness.

Also, we may need some prestige for our service. Unless people know what we are doing how can they relate to us properly. So we can try to let people know what we have done, but not be violent about it and then let Krsna decide what he wants to do with our reputation.

O.K??

hare krsna maharaj,
Please accept my obeisances (may be not humble yet) at your feet
Jaya Srila Prabhupada

I have been reading letters of others devotees mentioning thier servics, concerns. I see my concerns at very different platform then them. One should not approach guru to solve petty things, but to get way to purpose of life. I hope my questions help  myself and others in solving the mystery of life.

i have intermettentily started reading canto 2. i think i should read atleast 3 times before i move ahead. rounds are ok. The communication with mother Urmila is helping a lot ( though we can not offer any help in her service) in establishing lost connection with Krsna

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This is in reference to letter http://www.hps.monkeywarrior.com/node/5314

you asked : "HpS - Well I can see her being disturbed with our picture, but what did Krsna every do to cause her distress?" Krsna has not done anything to her. whatever we have done is and had been problem. As you said "Of course, we may not come to the natural standard immediately, and to force it artificially will cause other problems". This had been problem. we practically dont know which standards to apply in our life. We tried to have non-onion-garlic diet in home for every one, eat only offered food, have regular offering. out enthusiasm turned in passion and fanaticimsm etc..

so she has  got negative emotional cues with ISK  (classes and altar(not with you)). All sufferings come back to her as flash back.

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on another note we remember your life ( as married men). You must have great  renouncing abilities when your wife and kid left you because of your adherence to the movement. Hats off to you !!!!
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all this suffering we tolerate with this perspective... " austerity/suffering  is there, only chocieis voluntary or involutanry ". i hope all these sufferings nullify my sinful actvities (which i have definitely done a lot in this life time itself).
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we suggested by you in previous letter.."Work toward good association of any kind. It is even worth risking economic situation to get good friends, no?"  yes you are correct...we are working towards that.....
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we did look on internet on "super cool liquid: .. it takes a moment for life to change....but as we understood there are many prequisite for that...
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thank you very much for being fixed up in Devotional Life.
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horse.

HpS - AGTSP. paoho.  We have to communicate with you a little about the NIOS work and Professor. It is all so amazing. Being in the material world means being in a prison. Have you every visited a prison. Is full of emotionally sick people. It has been tolerable for us. We have similar emotional stress to you, just different group. Nobody in this world is in an enviable state.

Thing is to learn how to have fun in the middle of the magic.