Letters to the editor

From: Bhaktarupa (das) ACBSP (Puri - IN) <>
To: Srivasa Pandit Das <> 
Cc: HpS (HHR) <>; Vaisesika Prabhu <>
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2017 2:19 AM
Subject: Re: Bhakti Vaibhava certificates
As per the standards there are four areas of assessment, not just one question paper per semester. Since the kind of procedure that you used was never anticipated by the Board members, they will need to be convinced that it was satisfactory. Please prepare a full presentation of what procedures were followed in this regard for all the assessment areas, addressed to the Board.

Your servant, Bhaktarupa Das

___________________________________________________

HpS - Hare Krsna. Prabhu, BOEX

AGTSP Paoho

You asked "Who prepared the exams" and it seems Srivasa pt. Das answered that question. The exams were done Semester by Semester, which I think is pretty common. This included a total of 200 short answer questions over eight Semesters as required and then the one-hundred pages of essays as required. The essays were written more or less as we did each chapter and then collected and edited into one document which is with Srivasa pt. Das.

The Semester Exams also included the testing on the relevant Slokas cited in each Chapter and also those cited within Purports eg. "parasya shaktir vividaiva sruyate svabhavika jnana bala kriya ca".

1. Short Answer

2. Slokas

3. Essays

Personal Presentations: Then, our structure, for four years, was roughly doing one chapter a week. Everyone would use the Chapter Study Guides we had developed and then meet with their Study Partner each week on line - usually 1.5 hours. Then there was a general meeting on-line every Saturday. One member was the Presenter and another the Chief Guest. These presentations were about 50-minutes with Power Point shows and the Chief Guest would come in if there was some confusion during the presentation and everyone would make their individual questions and comments after that. Again that was about 1.5 hours. The next week the Chief Guest was the Presenter.

There were one week for Module Reviews and one week for Semester Reviews.

In rotation each Semester one pair of partners were Curriculum Development Team and they also would set the test questions from the Semester Review Questions, like the Question Study Bank for the Mayapura Institute. The class was about nine devotees: Two PhD, four Bachelor, our selves, Vaisesika Das etc.

There are two more groups now in progress in San Jose.

The Semester Review Questions (Source of Exams) was reviewed by everybody and edited, and many or most cases Radhika-rama Das saw the question sheets and said that they were very nice.

The very last Semester the Temple President in Boise was Anantarupa Das and he had some strong criticisms of the entire world wide program  and local application that have been very useful.

So, and the students presented about every two months over 48-months.

Anything else?

In general, as Member of the Executive Committee of the Ministry etc we see, as Yadunandana Swami said, higher education in ISKCON is in diapers. 

We've watched the program in Mayapura, Govardhana Eco-village, San Jose, Houston, Washington D. C., Vrndavana, Melbourne, Brazil etc and the Board of Examiners and there is a LOT of work we all have to do to bring this up to a good standard, but the diplomas that Harvard gives now cannot be compared to the diplomas they gave in 1636!

My opinion and I hear from others in those programs that all the Sastri Studies Institutions have serious defects and we need to have more communication and cooperation, accept that people will have half a brain in their heads and understand that this is a start up program and we are rewarding students as much for their pioneering spirit as well as for their memorizing facts and concepts.

I think Srivasa pt. Das also explained how Vaiseka Das is already finishing his last Master's Class. These are great and we can include them as part of the curriculum in the future for all BhVai programs if the want.

As far as I can see San Jose followed the proposed system which was approved by the BOEX and it is the basically the same system that is being used by most everyone with adjustment for residential and on-line facilities etc. I don't see how it is something that was never done before????

Also, the students in San Jose in the current groups have physical meetings on a weekly basis now and we have been having a week of physical meetings with all the students in Boise each year.

Hare Krsna!

Hare Krsna,

Anuttama Das Prabhu,
AGTSP!   Paoho.  How is your Grace?  Atreya Rsi Das told us that of all his GBC Godbrothers Hansadutta Swami was the most intelligent, but it wasn't is intelligence he worried about, it was his morality.
Hansadutta told us that we were "a man ahead of our time", but considering that I think the next suggestion is in time.
You should run for President of the United Sates of America with your wife as First Lady and Tulasi-garbha from Hawaii as you running mate, Vice-Presidential candidate.
Please tell your esteemed wife about this (Macbeth).
Both funny and all to serious.
All ISKCON Members would vote for you and support you. All our friends would vote for you. Dharmic and even sane people, the more we get our ideas out, would vote for you and maybe we would not win this time, but maybe we could get in as Secretary of Education, Human Resouces...
O.K. Balls in you Court, Mr. President Elect.

Hare Krsna

agtsp All glories to you guru dev

we are here in cordoba with Vrsabhanu nandini and Hari vamsi dhari building our house, asrama, traying to be focus in krsna service under your guidence.  

As you ask this morning in the fmp we are here to start the Nios youtube conversation.

we are willing to serve, how we can be useful?

yours servents Vrsabhanu nandini d.d, Ambarisa das

HpS - Very nice. Can you start a channel and post the videos and maintain them?  I will send a copy of your letter to Bh. Joshua in Houston. He is helping us with all of this.

Hare Krsna Maharaj, AGTSP, PAMHO

How are you?

ASA - We ate some puffed rice Prasada with spices and now we have lot of acid in our stomach! Hare Krsna! We are learning.

I was talking to one of phd (PhD) student from policy making about population (burdern/dividend). So i told him the idea about polygamy to decrease population. He understood but he said that in his country place where muslims are there they have polygamy, their population has increased.

then I told system do not matter much, its the people in system matters. Every system can be exploited, spirit of law is more important than letter of law.

your esteemed,

harsh

HpS - Yes, seems to be the basic principle. One man has to take care of 36-children from six women and five men stay brahmacari and have no problem. Get begged to help. Man with 36-children burden may begin to look for better way to become happy.

“If Kṛṣṇa is satisfied by one’s actions, then everyone will be satisfied.”

From BG 2.41 purport

Dear Guru Maharaja, please accept my humble obeisances.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

Taking these words, and whole sentence, literally as they mean, at least to my understanding, it means that when some devotee does anything in the matter of Krsna-seva, and if that service is satisfying to Krsna, Krsna will be satisfied and what follows is that everyone will be satisfied.

I can say that at this moment I know at least few persons who are not satisfied. Does this mean that at this moment there is no devotee somewhere who pleases Krsna?

Also, Srila Prabhupada was present for 80 years on this planet and of those years, 11 in the west. I believe it would not be an exaggeration to say that during those years there were people who were not satisfied. Does this mean that Srila Prabhupada’s service was not pleasing to Krsna? Because, if his service was pleasing Krsna, at least at some moment(s) everyone had to be satisfied, no?

Of course, possible sub-questions are: what means “satisfied (in connection to Krsna and in connection to everyone”) and “everyone”.

Apart to the direct inquiry here, the background of the question is what SP is saying to us and if sometimes his words can mean different things. I specifically think of situations when SP uses words “always”, “never”, “everyone”, “nobody”, “only”.

Thank you!

Your servant Namacarya das

HpS - ASA - Hare Krsna. Good question.  For us the basic ideas is that when we put water on the root of the plant then all the parts are satisfied. But what if somebody wants to be and obtuse, anti-social son of a base female dog? Well, he is also satisfied. He gets more things to complain about. You can hate your wife, you can hate your car, you can hate your boss, but....    Oooooo!    You can really hate Krsna!!!    You can really hate a devotee!!!

Hate Jesus Christ and look what happens!    It's in the newspapers on the TV, cinemas, books for the next 2,000 years!

Srila Prabhupada's arguments have passed though PhD students in Oxford to Alister McGrath who was Head of the Department of Theology at Oxford University. He used them to fight with Richard Dawkins, BIG atheistic biologist and maybe Prof. McGrath and Dawkins didn't know where the source of their satisfaction, a good fight(?) was coming from.

O.K?       Service to Krsna is service to the Devil?

Hare Krsna,

Nanuk, AGTSP. Paoho. We have been traveling very hard through India and Australia and so have not been able to answer mail. We explained that in the Kapi Dhvaja and the Blog here. We hope you are well.

You brought up criticism that Srila Prabhupada was poisoned. The following is a link to a discussion of the topic that I think is very good by a devotee I respect as fair and clear.

Before I read this I even discussed it a little bit with our friend here who is a Director of local Psychiatric hospital and his observations was the same as mine that poisoning someone with Cadmium would be very, very hard, impractical. Mayesvara Das, who was a scientific researcher for the Navy goes into great detail.

Thank you,

Hare Krsna.

http://akincana.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Poison-Conspiracy-Antidote-Submitted.pdf