Letters to the editor

Sent: Monday, October 5, 2015 4:47 AM
Subject: BhVai - where we are at?

Dear Guru Maharaja and devotees, please accept my humble obeisances. 

All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

Please excuse me for disturbing your bhajan. 

If you allow, I would like to ask where we are at in our BhVai study program?

Also, am I expected to do something about the situation in which the program is now?

Thank you!

Your servant Namacarya das, from Yahoo.

=======================

ASA - 2014 Oct 8

Hare Krsna!     AGTSP.     Paoho.   Please write to the Blog with all this.
From my perspective we are right at the Lotus Feet of Srila Prabhupada, doing Nama-kirtan, with this program (barely).     We still have the Saturday morning meetings on line, and I send the links to the recordings by Twitter.

We tried our best, which is very tiny, to get the record keeping stuff arranged but:

After about four requests to complete the document list, not all the testing for the last canto done, no report of progress on correcting the examinations, no progress in efforts to involve the temple managements in the administration and development of the program after repeated efforts, then:

We are taking another approach.

We are pretty much waiting for the next step in systematic progress to come from the formal ISV side.
We have looked back at our own heart in terms of this systematic relations with Srila Prabhupada's lotus feet, study of his books, and we recommended that everyone should do that, often!

Our conclusion is that we need to:

1. Have regular Pada-padma Study every Saturday morning, and we will continue it with SM now.
2. We need a general Spanish class at SM every Saturday evening.
3. We have a BhS program going with NGD, we are joining the Boise, Anantarupa Lilamrta class Friday evening and that is about it.
4. All this is in intense perspective with the Ministry of Education etc.
5. We will post this letter on the Blog!
6. So....    please Chant Nitai-Gaura, HK/HR and join us Saturday. This week we will do our overview of the First Two Cantos, then some one else can do something that tickles their fancy the following week.

Let's all go to Goloka!  Let's all stay in the very same boat!   Let's all stay in the Sankirtan movement, ISKCON, Srila Prabhupada, will keep us all afloat (with the words he wrote)!

CHAPTER NINE – Billy Brine

Billy Brine, cousin to our Rat,

Was distinguished by a Bolivian, felt, simpleton’s hat.

151007

3.25AM - R[5]
We just started Chapter 17 of the TLC. We learned one new detail after another: Chapter 17 so far is a summary study of CC 1.7, Lord Caitanya in Five Features. The dialog with Prakasananda Sarasvati that starts in Chapter 18 also starts in CC 1.7. The assignations of the verse, “Pancha tattva makam krsnam…”, now seems clearer to us. We see Prabhupada talking about both Confidential and Internal devotees when he is talking about Gadadhara Pandita, as contrasted with Srivasa Pandita who is the marginal potency. This seems to clarify our questions of whether Jiva souls become internal potency when they become attracted to conjugal love. Seems that some are Jiva and some are Hladini Shakti.

We develop a hypothesis. Then we read with that attitude and see confirmation or rejection.

Next, we see Prabhupada emphasizes learning from the Six Goswamis, but here we see him emphasizing especially following the path chalked out by Srila Jiva Goswami!

3.34AM – Time for bath, Puja, FMP. See you after that.

7.05AM – FMP, Japa to R[16], Krsna-katha with Bk. Daniel. Now let’s read and write and honor Banana, P-nut butter and Jam Prasadam.

Monkey: Well, Mr. Wizard, what should you write?     You have BhSastri, BG class, to give later.

HpS: Well, Bhakta Tom, at this point I guess we should write lyrical fiction. It’s the only thing that seems to take us out of the work-a-day world of dollars and incensed people.

Deely’s Day

Once there was a goat named Deely, who was standing on the seeding machine out back of the barn. It put him about 30-inches up in the sky, so he had a pretty good view of the barn-yard around him. It was a little before 7AM and the October frost was just starting to dust the pumpkins. The smell of the sage from the desert was especially intoxicating, and Deely just stood there feeling the strong rays of the rising sun warming him. Eventually he even let out a loud bleat, feeling so animated.

A few hours later he was headed up the path to Clear Mountain Spring with Barney, the farm owner’s son, and Buitch, Barney’s collie. Barney had strung a pair of shoulder packs on Deely’s back and he was actually feeling quite useful. He also knew that unless he was able to contribute with cargo like this he probably would not have been brought along. Barney liked him, and so did Buitch [and Tasco, the Myna bird] but the extra care for a non-contributing team member would have been a real liability on a trip like this.

Deely rolled his shoulders a little to adjust the pack and then even took the lead some times since he was actually the oldest there by body years.

When they got to their destination, it was cold and crisp. It was the Ashrama of Leeky-pal Muni and the Ambarisa Bhu, Camp-park.
Some campfires had already been set in the fire rings and the smoke of burning pine and people huddling around fires in thick wool coats filled the air.

Barney, Buitch and Deely, set up their little tents by one open section next to the Great Stream and then went to see Leeky-pal Muni.

“How many times does the work, “hate” appear in the Krsna book, and does it mention Krsna ever hating anyone.

Leeky-pal went into trances and responded, “As far as I can tell, two times, and it is demons hating Krsna or Krsna not hating anyone.”

We will go back to the world and quite reading pamphlets from “The Hindu Heavenly Hate Society”.
“Good idea”, said, Leekey-pal Muni, "Better to go for a bike ride and dress like a Yogi so people ask you about the “Happy Heavenly Hindo Society”".

###

Your Holiness,

                         Please accept my prostrated obeisances. All glories to your good self. All glories to His Divine Grace.

HpS - ASA - AGTSP.   Prostrated obeisances sounds a little scarey.    Its nice to see things in the light of Srila Prabhupada!

I thank you so much for responding to my letter and for your encouragement.

I do apologize but I couldn’t conceive of a different system of logic which can be used to expound on reality. Unfortunately I do not know which other cultures have a different way of thinking and what their mode of thinking is. I will be very grateful if you could kindly inform me as to how I can gain more knowledge of these cultures that are able to conceive of a different understanding of reality.

HpS - Many studies on cross-cultural anthropology.  The person we know the best and like very much is E.T. Hall.  His books are on Amazon.com and maybe in libraries in India or available as e-books.

I do agree that I think in Euclidean terms but the only other geometry I know of is Minkowskian  geometry (which is used to describe curved space) and I couldn’t conceive of a different understanding. You asked me why an infinite regression is impossible.  After some thought I had to admit that in all probability there is an infinite regression but I would like to still say that matter cannot regress indefinitely.  I will try to explain why I feel so.

An infinite regression means that the cause effect relationship has been going on for an infinite amount of time.  Lets imagine we plot a graph of volume of matter produced, verses time, with time on the x-axis.  Let’s assume that the time arrived at now is called t.

 Thus time has travelled a distance from –infinity to t, in other words it has travelled for a distance of infinity + t, which is infinity which is mathematically impossible because in terms of modern scientific understanding infinity cannot be approached by any entity including space-time.

HpS - Complicated!     Verbal communication required!   Infinite = Without End, no?   Set of all positive and negative integers, and the set of all positive integers are both infinite, but they are not "co-numerous".

Another problem with infinite time is that according to the second law of thermodynamics entropy goes on increasing. Thus after an infinite amount of time, the  entropy will be infinity which means there ought to be total disorder and everything ought to be at the same temperature neither of which is observed.

HpS - Wait 10 to the 164th more years!

Then space has to be infinite to account for infinite amount of matter or else matter will be infinitely dense because there will be an infinite amount of matter and only finite amount of space to accommodate it. Yet we observe that space is finite.

Before the Big Bang theory became well known, there was an understanding that the universe is infinite and has always been existing. Yet there are several problems with this paradigm as well which are now acknowledged by modern scientists like Stephen Hawking.

Thus I finally concluded that the cause of all causes is not an infinite regression of matter but of something that can violate the laws of matter, in other words it has to be an infinite regression of spirit. It seems to me that Brahman has been regressing infinitely.

I will be very grateful for your comments and/ or corrections of what I have expressed.

Your servant

jashodev

HpS - Invocation to Isopanishad it nice!    In general this is not a good forum for such ideas because it requires a lot of definition of terms and other things.      Seems Lord Caitanya is offering the idea of direct experience of the Cause of all Causes, no?

HpS - Hare Krsna. Swami Oscar!!!     Ooof!   When we got back from the whole tour, we were almost dead. Medical diagnosis is that we just exhausted our liver, and if you are 37-years old it recovers, but at 67-years old we had been living a very dangerous life. We rested and now we are back to a pretty sane level of energy. Of course, we had to minimize our mail and really were not able to get to your letter until now.   We really had to just put all money, and plans aside.
What do we want to do in life?   We only have 9-years left in this body as far as a very good estimate goes, so we are really working on our own plan of work and investigation.  Personally I consider you one of my best friends, and I hope you are also merciful to have some care for me.

Your fast, in the 'Bhagavad Gita' Arjuna asks about someone who does austerities for a good purpose but is not able to be 100% successful. Then Krsna gives him some details but in general says, "One who does good, my friend, is never overcome by evil".

As far as helping with finances, we have to look toward what is left to pay for the 'Bharata-samskrit' book, what Ramon is expecting from us in terms of the proposed "Psychology of the Sacred" symposium in June and then, I would say, that of course, we always want to help you and Integro.

As always, we cannot send money overseas for programs, but have to have some tangible product, like a book, or movie etc.

What kind of sponsorship were you thinking NIOS might be able to make?

Our phone is 209 505-3219, and just for practical purposes we do 90% of our mail through our Blog: Letters to the Editor  It is a great system and then puts all the stuff we are discussing in front of our whole community so they can also get involved!

Hope to hear from you as soon as you can!!!

HpS

From: oscar naters <[email protected]>
To: HpS HHR <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, October 4, 2015 6:29 PM
Subject: oscar naters

Hare Krsna!

are you receiving my mails?

Oscar

El Lunes, 28 de septiembre, 2015 19:02:17, oscar naters <[email protected]> escribió:
 

Hare Krsna!

Dear Maharaj,how are you? Still in Mexico?

Now I am home again. I couldn t finish the 9 days at the mountain, I did 4 days because my kidneys got swelled. Anyway in these matters there is no defeat. There is a sentence that say:"You do everything right and everything goes wrong".That is a good medicine also.

I will try ir again next year.

Maharaj I wonder if it is possible a NIOS sponsoring for our next INO MOXO season, as you remember I have been recognized as best theatre director of the year with this work, and also received 7 nominations, best lights, dance performance, singer, scenic design, best musin , best director and best ouvre.We just presented it 4 days at the Teatro Municipal de Lima. Now we will do a short season at Teatro Britanico from March 31th till April 11th.

We really need some help because the peace has some complex  technical necesities.

Hope you give us a positive answer.

I am reading Jung books, and I am sure next time the program will be better. I am planning to call Eduardo Gastelumendi very soon to prepare something new.Thank you very much.

Oscar

http://stme.in/inlwxM35P