Letters to the editor

On Tuesday, June 9, 2020, 02:04:21 PM CDT, raghupati das <raghu x x x > wrote:

Dear Hanumat Presak Maharaja

Please accept my humble obeisances at your feet. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

It's been a long while since we have been in touch. I hope and pray that you are keeping well with your health and showering nectar through your preaching. We are fine here in England in the midst of the pandemic. Somehow Krsna is keeping us safe. I have become aware that you have had a global conference on education. Hope it went well.

Maharaja, apart from my teaching commitments in the University, I am also teaching Bhakti Sastri courses for Leicester temple. I have just finished Sri Isopanisad and will be starting Srimad Bhagavad-gita next. I had prepared some teaching materials long back but have lost it somehow. I wonder if you might be able to share your teaching resources for a BS course including powerpoint slides, quizzes etc. The material will be used only for teaching purposes. Please let me know if this might be a possibility.  

Looking forward to hearing from you soon. 

Your servant 

Raghupati Das

England 

=-=-=-=

Jaya Sri Rama,

Esteemed Raghupati Daa,

Paoho..... AgtSP! It is so nice to hear from you. It is like finding a box full of Janmastami laddus three days after Janmasatami!

We post our news in www.JayaRama.Us

From that you can see we are overwhelmed by the quantity of work to do. This Blog is 90% our priority in trying to deal with our communications. Six more people will see this dialog and have their questions answered.

ASA does not formally teach Bh.S., Bh.Vai., but we do curriculume development etc.

Some of the stuff we have is in the Archives at our website, www.JayaRama.US.

If you go there you will find a series of files starting "tpp-". In those you can find some materials for Bh.S. (eg. iso... BG...).

Hope these can help you on the way.

Please write here! We all want to hear your news!!

HpS - ASA.

Life of celibacy is full of courage, adventure, humiliation, discipline, devotion, struggle and bliss, and much more.

ASA - Wow! AgtSP! It sounds like being alive! Most people now are dead!!!

Later, I will explain how.

First of all I would like to clarify that celibacy I am speaking of is better represented by the sanskrit word ‘brahmacharya’ which literally means ‘to dwell on brahman’. In simple words, it means to always be absorbed in thoughts of God.

In Vedic lifestyle, to follow brahmacharya means not to indulge in following-

1. Think about opposite gender.

2. Speak about sex life.

3. Dally with opposite gender.

4. Look lustfully at opposite gender.

5. Talk intimately with opposite gender.

6. Decide to engage in sexual intercourse.

7. Endeavor for sex life.

8. Engage in sex life.

Now I come back to the question, how is it to live the life of celibacy. In Vedas, celibacy is recommended for quick advancement in spiritual life. So celibacy must be observed for making spiritual progress. As a celibate, I found the life of celibacy to be a life of-

Courage- Whole civilization is promoting sense enjoyment and celibacy is just the opposite. So it certainly needs great courage to walk on the path.

HpS - ASA - All these apply to devotees in female body! Just have relations to become nice mother or marry Krsna!

Adventure - If something is very difficult to achieve, it becomes adventurous. In kaliyuga, whole atmosphere is surcharged to promote atheism and sensuality. To live in such society and still maintain high degree of purity is certainly very difficult. Many great warriors like Saubhari and Vishwamitra Muni also got wounded on this path. So to follow celibacy in Kaliyuga is certainly adventurous, it is very difficult to follow.

Humiliation- A brahmachari is supposed to live a vedic lifestyle. Vedas recommend that a celibate/monk should not do jobs. Rather should spend his time in cultivation of spiritual life and spreading spiritual message to others. But often people tend to take it as unproductive work, parasites for society ….. Those who don’t understand the value of spiritual life tend to ridicule the monks, and monks have to go through that. This humiliation keeps a celibate humble, which is far better than being proud.

Discipline - We follow the discipline of getting up early in the morning 3–4 am (no matter whether in Kashmir or Rameshvaram, summer or winter), taking bath and attending morning rituals, following the instructions given by Guru, doing practical services etc. These is no holiday for us, though our everyday is holy.

Devotion- We do have the facility to use our 24 hours in service of God, as we have no material responsibility. This is very helpful for always being God conscious. We can spend much more time in reading holy scriptures, developing its understanding, practically applying it in life, worshipping Lord etc.

Struggle At times services needed are quite challenging and we need to struggle to complete things on time. Also mind and senses tend to run here and there and we must struggle to keep it back on track. There is struggle to strike a balance between our services, personal spiritual practice and relationship with other fellow monks. There is struggle to maintain good relation with the superiors and managers of organizations.

Bliss, God is source of all happiness and more we connect to Him, our own life gets filled with joy and happiness. This inner bliss is so great that it keeps us from going astray. Lord Krishna says in Gita 6.22 -

yam labdhva caparam labham

manyate nadhikam tatah

“ In that joyous state, one is situated in boundless transcendental happiness, realized through transcendental senses. Established thus, one never departs from the truth, and upon gaining this he thinks there is no greater gain. Being situated in such a position, one is never shaken, even in the midst of greatest difficulty.”

*****

Of course the list is endless, this is a brief answer.

If one stays in family life then principles of Brahmacharya can be applied in following ways

1. Don’t have sexual connection with anyone other than one’s own spouse.
2. Within married relation, union must take place only when one wants to beget a good child, and not for any other purpose.

HpS - ASA - Thank you. Now.... can you give practical examples of each of these from your own experiences this year in ISKCON!!!?

ANJANA SUTA ACADEMY’S

O A T M E A L  R A I S I N  W A L N U T  C O O K I E S

Makes 400 small or 200 medium

                  2 ½ Quarts Rolled Oats                              2 ½ cups Water

                   9 cups of unbleached flour                      6 Tablespoons Ener-G Egg Replacer

                   7 ½ cups of cane sugar crystals               6 teaspoons of Cinnamon

                   7 cups of Raisins                                        6 tsp. Trader Joes non-Alcoholic Vanilla

                    3 cups of chopped Walnuts                      6 teaspoons of Baking soda

                    3 pounds of Butter                                     3 ½ teaspoons of Molasses

Place 3 pounds of diced, cubed butter in a 3 gallon mixing bowl and let soften.

Once soft, add 8 cups of sugar crystals and 3 ½ teaspoons of Molasses, mix thoroughly. (Best wear nitrile gloves and literally mix by hand)

Next, in a 1 quart measuring cup, add 2 ½ cups water, 6 1/8 teaspoons of liquid non-alcoholic Vanilla (Trader Joe’s has it) and 6 tablespoons of ENER-G egg replacer. Stir into a froth with mixer.

When mixed, pour froth into bowl of sugar & butter, then mix.

Next, in a 3 quart bowl, dry mix 9 cups of unbleached flour with 6 teaspoons of baking soda and 5 to 6 teaspoons of Cinnamon (depends on freshness). Then stir this mix into your mix of butter and sugar.

Now you have your batter done, now add 7 cups of raisins & 3 cups of Walnuts in. Once stirred in , slowly mix in the 18 cups (2 ½ quarts) of rolled oats.

After all is mixed in, let the dough settle for a few minutes, while this is going on you can dust your cookie baking trays with flour and rub butter on the (#24 1½ oz. or #70 ½ oz.) scoop servers.

Place each scoop about 2½ inches (for # 24) or 1½ (for #70) apart, then gently press down on to your baking trays. Place trays in a 350 degree preheated oven for 20 minutes (just a the raisins start to puff-up), then pull tray out, once cooled use spatula to remove cookies.

Once complete, offer the cookies with Love and serve all you can.

ASA (TB) - AgtSP paoho. That is a LOT of cookies! Only God could eat that many cookies! (UG) Basically the Formula is 10-parts oats, 10-wheat, 7.5-sugar, 6-butter, 2.5-water ...

HK//HR

We get news and questions about Deity worship?

For example, should wooden Deities be painted? Should paint remover be used? Paint over old paint?

We refer people to the Ministry of Deity worship, but in our own perspective we have heard that Prabhupada commented that this is a very intense topic where devotees have a lot of material, emotional attachment.

We worship Deities because we have physical attachment. Required for Grhastha. Sannyasis can worship in their heart.

It is also a topic where personal taste enters and so Srila Prabhupada with a laugh would not get involved. The devotees involved have to discuss this politely (NOI 5) and then develop a community decision, based upon practical details from the Ministry eg. Is paint remover O.K.?

Hare Krishna Gurudev,

Please accept my humble obeisances,

All glories to Srila Prabhupada,

Three questions:

Why Srila Prabhupada made commentary of Caitanya Caritamrita, rather than Caitanya Bhagavat or C. Mangala?

HpS - I don't know everything about Srila Prabhupada's motives. Actually probably very little, but as far as I know it was because his time was limited and he wanted to give us more philosophy than lila. CC is more phil. and CM is more lila.

Svayambhuva Manu´s Daughters married two Brahma´s sons. Prasuti with Daksa and Devahuti with Kardama. Aren´t they their uncles? was that allowed? And Who is Ruci´s father?

HpS - Ooof! I am not sure of these things. Daksa is mental son of Lord Brahma, no? Maybe no body else to marry at that time.

Hiranyagarbha: It is confusing whether it is Garbhodakasayi visnu or Lord Brahma itself. Who, what or where is Hiranyagarbha?

HpS - Maybe used as a general term some times and more specific other times. I understand that there is Virata-rupa, then Hiranyagarbha, then Paramatma realization. It is all realization of Krsna is some aspects, no? HG is more intense, personal that VR.... it is the Seed Given God.

Thank you Gurudev,

At your service,

Nikunja Biahri das.

Hare Krsna! Next letter. :>>>>>>

Hare Krishna Gurudev,

Please accept my humble obeisances,

All glories to Srila Prabhupada,

Sent email to address provided.

Thank you,

Nikunja Bihari das.

HpS - AGTSP!!!!!! and we answered, no???? Was interesting. We made our suggestions on this first round.