Letters to the editor

Tom Brown/Buck White wrote to:

https://bearnibbles.us/

Hello, Hare Krishna,

We are the 'Anjana Suta Academy' [www.JayaRama.US].

We want to buy a lot of your fruit leathers but...

. . . will they fit into envelopes for mailing ie. are they less that 1/4" thick?

How much does each flat packet weigh?  We tried 'Stretch Island Fruit Leathers'. They were pretty good, 1/2oz. but seems we might be able to work with you-all a little better. 

ASA is about 400-direct members, but the broader Hare Krsna community, ISKCON, is about 1-million.

https://vedabase.io/en/library/rkd/2/12/#bb1581004 

Thank you,

Hanumatpreska Swami 

HpS - ASA -- Hare Krsna! Gandharva Das [et al]. Our extended conversation was very nice yesterday. We suggest erasing some things and editing others. I think the letter can go to edited letter can go to Paramatma Das and Mathuresa Das as Secretary and Chairman of the LA RBGC. If you accept the changes we have made.

O.K.?

Hare Krsna dear Gurudeva

PAOHO AGTSP

I'm sending you the RGBC report. The spanish and english versions were sent to your email. I'm waiting for your comments and suggestions. Hope you're doing great and we are very happy that your health is getting better.

*************************

Hare Kṛṣṇa dear RGBC authorities

Please accept my humble and respectful obeisances

All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda

My name is Gandharva das (HpS), in charge of the Regional Representation service on behalf of the ISKCON Ministry of Education in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. By the initiative of HH Hanumatpresaka Swami Maharaja, I am writing this letter with the intention of greeting you, humbly requesting your blessings and presenting the activities report that I have carried out during the last two years.

• I was born in Lima, Peru, in 1967 (53 years old) and studied Arts at the National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving of Mexico City, between 1989 and 1996. For 25 years I have been teaching and researching in different universities and colleges in my country, having taught theoretical and practical courses in faculties of Architecture (12 years), Plastic Arts (16 years), Design and Visual Communication (10 years) and Photography (13 years). I am married to Indira Sakti dd. and we both received initiation from Maharaja Hanumatpresaka Swami. Currently, we are both serving as pujaris for HH Radha Madana Vihari in the ISKCON Chosica temple in Peru.
• In March 2019 I was suggested by HH Hanumatpresaka Swami and appointed by the National Board as Regional Representative of the ISKCON Ministry of Education for Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, with the permission of HG Mathuresh prabhu (representative of the GBC Zonal Secretary for Peru and Bolivia) and Divya Priya dd. (representative of the GBC secretary for Ecuador). My position is under the authority in consultation with H. H. Hanumatpresaka Swami (member of the board Executive Committee the Ministry) and S. G. Tapana Misra prabhu (Executive Secretary).
• During the first year of service, I made the necessary contacts with authorities and educators from temples and preaching centers to find out their needs, interests and concerns regarding the educational development of their respective communities. For this, two face-to-face meetings were organized with different educators from Peru and several teleconferences with teachers from Ecuador and Bolivia. During 2019 I traveled to Bolivia, in order to establish contact with local educators. A trip to Ecuador was also planned at the beginning of this year, which was frustrated by the health situation.
• The year 2020 has been very fruitful for educational development. The confinement situation has given the opportunity to many teachers to provide their services on online platforms and thanks to this, six Bhakti Sastri courses are currently being taught since March 2020 with 170 students, approximately, in the three countries of the region. In addition a Bhakti Vaibhava course is taking place in Lima with 5 enthusiastic students.
• We are applying, Yugala Kisora dd, and myself as examiner and administrator of for the Bhakti Sastri course at with the Board of Examiners of the Ministry of Education (BoEx). The accredited temple will be ISKCON Chosica and the procedures are advancing, so we await the official appointment for during the first months of 2021.
• In order to increase the capacity skills of the teachers, the TTC2 and TTC3 courses are being taken, having achieved an alliance with Bhakti Culture School, which offers us facilities so that teachers can improve themselves at through the different courses that this platform offers online.
• We have been actively collaborating with the Executive Secretary of the Ministry in the search and recruitment of devotees who can perform a similar service of Regional Representation in different areas of Latin America: Zone 1 (Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador), Zone 2 (Chile, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay), Zone 3 (Brazil), Zone 4 (Colombia, Venezuela and Panama), Zone 5 (Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana), Zone 6 (Mexico and Guatemala) and Zone 7 (Central America and the Caribbean Islands). At the moment, the applications of Adikarta das (Colombia) and Param Padam das - Nara Narayana Rsi (Argentina), from zones 2 and 4, respectively, have been accepted by the Ministry. I have heard from H. H. Hanumatpresaka Swami that Tapan Misra Das has suggested to you that someone act as a Latin American Regional coordinator for the reporting and communicating with the Ministries Zonal Representatives in these seven areas, the Ministry and your good selves. I think I could do this service for a year while things are developing, but after that it may require more energy than I am capable of.
• Finally, we have had conversations with devotees from Arequipa (Peru), who are very interested in the development of a pedagogical program for children and pre-adolescents. At the beginning of 2021, we will put them in contact with devotees with experience in this field and we will provide them with the translated teaching material, available on the Ministry website.

I say goodbye to you,

Your servant, Gandharva das

Hare Krsna Gurumaharaja.

Por favor acepte mis respetuosas reverencias.

¡Todas las glorias a Srila Prabhupada! 

Prabhu Tejas vit, el encargado del templo me contactó en estos días, informa que con el asesoramiento del GBC el Templo está planeando organizar el tema de las iniciaciones de los aspirantes, están formando un equipo de devotos activos del yatra para que les faciliten la comunicación con los diferentes maestros espirituales que nos visitan para concretar el tema de las recomendaciones e iniciaciones, me pidió que por favor apoye con ese servicio siendo parte del equipo para tener comunicación con Usted. 

Le propuse que yo pondría la información requerida en el blog de manera que otros puedan opinar, le pareció bien a prabhu Tejas vit.  

Gurumaharaja ¿Usted está de acuerdo con este servicio? 

HpS - Esta bien. Srila Prabhupada dijo una vez que el proceso de iniciacion es muy simple. Aqui es el estandard. Estas siguiendo? Si senyor. O.K. Puede ser iniciado.

Compartí algunos puntos que Usted menciona con respecto al tema y sumados a la preocupación del templo, están considerando las siguientes puntos : 

- Publicar la lista de los candidatos en el mural y en la página de facebook del Templo

- Manejar el tramite con suficiente tiempo 

- Realizar un examen psicológico ( algún psicólogo con relación neutral con el candidato) 

- Solicitar antecedentes penales 

- Solicitar carta responsiva al candidato

- Tener el compromiso de una relación con el Templo mediante algún servicio práctico por el tiempo acordado con las autoridades. 

HpS - Ooops! Pienso hay problema con esto en terminos del estandard de GBC para iniciacion, y una carta a TODOS GURUS Y PRESIDENTES del Templos, que no puede establecer requisitos mas que lo que estan establecido por leyes del GBC. Guru-prasada Swami puede informar bueno de esta carta.

- Haber tomado el curso para discípulos en ISKCON

- Haber sido acreditado con el curso de etiqueta vaisnava 

Solicité un comunicado oficial de los puntos mencionados, y me dijo que si lo tendrán.

Si Usted tiene alguna petición u observación si le parece bien le puedo comunicar. 

Vuestra aspirante a sirviente

Asta Sakhi dd 

HpS - Necisita la leyes del GBC. Todos necesitan.

On Monday, November 30, 2020, 03:38:09 PM CST, mishra-bhagavan das wrote:

Thank you for writing. Humbles and Glories. La esposa y yo visitamos a mi hijos en Colorado por Thanksgiving. Aron Mataji offers you dandavats . 🙏

I like the special Thanksgiving preparations like cranberry sauce, mashies, gravy, pumpkin pie, and the like. My son Navadwipa Chandra is a pretty good disciple of Rohini Suta Prabhu. His wife is Initiated by Jayapataka Swami. They teach their children to chant Hare Krishna.  My granddaughter is learning to play mrdangam. 🐄

Over 500 people bought Srila Prabuupada's books from me since I returned from Chile. Though I was hoping to hang up the book bag after achieving this goal, your disciple Nandabraja Dasa gave me a stack of" the Light of the Bhagavat " to distribute. Asi que pedi otra caja de "Karma la Justicia Infalible " al BBT. 📚

A challenge of performing sankirtan is that we are never done. Even after Vasudeva Datta took the sinful reactions of the entire universe and emptied it out, the universe quickly filled back up with suffering conditioned souls that need the mercy of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.🌄

Tu sirviente Mishra Bhagavan Dasa 🤠

HpS - ASA --- He is leaving a path the whole world can follow!

Respected Maharaja,

Please accept my humble obeisances.

I am so grateful for your last reply. It was very helpful for me to decide my next step. You had advised me to find out how to stay within the institution of Srila Prabhupada. We had meetings with Temple President of Patna temple. I have started my service here. Since I was more interested in preaching at Darbhanga ( 140 Kms away from Patna, the main city of Mithila) while Patna required help for preaching, it was fixed up that I would be traveling to Darbhanga regularly while preaching at Patna. Usually I am 2 days in Darbhanga every week.

After some struggle, I got room at Darbhanga. Also, another brahmachari devotee from Haldia/ Kolkata has joined us. Thus I feel more secure now. Our preaching till now was few Sankirtan and house programs.

I was in Mayapur from 23-27 November, praying to Panchtattva for empowerment. I met a devotee who asked me if guru wants me to do what I am doing. In flat words, answer is I am not sure, as all initiatives in whole thing was taken by me personally. This question shook me up. Still wondering about it.

While returning I had planned to deliver the books to Professor Samresh. However, due to lockdown effect and some other troubles, I failed in my attempts. It took me 11 hours of troublesome journey to reach Kolkata from Mayapur, and I had to rush to station to board next train.

Later, a devotee Ajay Prabhuji agreed to do this service. So he collected the books from temple and delivered to Dr. Prof Samaresh within the stipulated time of 2.30- 3.00 pm. Now no books are lying at ISKCON Kolkata.

My laptop had crashed and I am unable to do many things. Due to too much traveling, I find it difficult to manage time. Also many things are in phase of creation, requiring lot of time.

I simply admire the way you are rendering so many services. As always, please excuse me for being so slow in my reply.

Your servant

Purushottam Keshav Das

-=-=-=-

AgtSP! Paoho. We are inspired by you! It is so interesting to hear about B'cari life in Iskcon in India! We are so happy the books go tot Dr. Samaresh!!! Please extend our thanks to the B'cari who did this work.

I don't think there is ever any question of 'leaving the institution'. It is just a question of what IS the institution. If the Temple is no longer and ISKCON institution, then we have to take charge of maintaining and developing the institution to the best of our ability. Srila Prabhupada only created ISKCON as the development of Srila Bhaktiseddhanta's institution. Of course, then there is the ISKCON that is the group of friends.

Sankirtan. Sankirtan!!!!!! Everyday see progress in sense control. We are going to die. Sooner or later, but what do we die for?

Hare Krsna dear Gurudeva

PAOHO AGTSP!

I am writing to tell you that last Thursday I had a very interesting conversation with Param Padam das, about educational issues in general and the Regional Representation for Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, in particular. I told him, in general terms, what are the functions of the Regional Representative and he told me that he has been performing this service in recent years in his country, Chile and Uruguay. I also brought up your idea of ​​appointing Nara Narayana Rsi das as the Representative and he found it interesting. In that sense, I commented to him that since the service is so demanding, it would be appropriate to assemble a team of devotees who work under his supervision, including Nara Narayana Rsi das. I would like to know your opinion about it Gurumaharaja, so that I can communicate it to the Executive Secretary or, otherwise, find another alternative.

Your servant

Gandharva das

HpS - ASA --- AgtSP. Just worked for 30-minutes to write a letter to Tapan-misra Das, and copy to you, of a draft of the letter from him, Executive Director MOE, to the Latin American Regional GBC. Sripad Virabahu Das is really pushing, begging to get this done.

The letter addresses the points you bring up here. We are hoping EVERYONE will help develop this Regional Rep system and one person to act as a Zonal Rep. It is really an austerity, so maybe people can serve for one or two etc. years and then someone else can take over.

I think Param-padam Das et al would be very good, but.... at this point it seems we have to work on our a practical relationship with the RGBC. I suggested something as simple as an Annual Report to the RGBC about what is happening to start with, but if the Brahmana do their work then the RGBC will be inspired to give facility and make demands for more educational programs.

O.K.??