Letters to the editor

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

From: Srinivasa-acarya Das <[email protected]>
To: HPS Bhaktivaibhava <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, September 7, 2015 4:54 PM
Subject: Document on online learning

Respected Guru-Maharaj,

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

Attached is a document from an online english writing offered at http://www.coursera.org by MSJC ( http://www.msjc.edu ). It's pretty good in describing about five types of online learning, types of activities involved, expectations of students etc. I strongly feel it will be useful in your service in ISKCON education. I particularly like the various classifications and the terminology used in the document in describing the online learning.

Your insignificant servant

Srinivasacarya dasa

Hare Krsna dear Gurudeva!

Please accept my humble obeisances

All glories to Srila Prabhupada

All glories to Sri Caitanya's Sankirtana Movement

Dear Gurudeva, i hope your health improves as you stay in USA, i was reading the blog to get inspiration and i did, its amazing how you can take so much pain from the body with the consciousness of improving in spiritual understanding.

First i want to heart thank you for fluding us with your mercy by accepting our little service in Mexico and Monterrey cities, even when you don't need so much attentions, you only accept for owr welfare, so we can learn how to serve Krsna properly...

Guru Maharaja, in the last letter i told you i was having difficulties for chanting my rounds due to the heavy amount of services to do in a new preaching center and restaurant, adding sankirtana... in your answer you woke me up with a bucket full of water, i keep thanking to you:

HpS - "sraddha sabde...". Look for this verse cited in NoI and then look for the context and purports in the original location. If you chant 16-nice rounds ALL you other service and sense gratification will improve in the maximum possible way. Get up early and get your rounds done!

I have to admit it took me a LOT of time to finish my homework, but it was a whole revolution for my heart to recieve such mercy from my spiritual master, i readed the whole chapter of CC and got to comprehend that in both contexts, NOI & CC, Srila Prabhupada relates the amount of Sraddha or faith with the grade of taste we can get from the holy names, BECAUSE WE ARE SO WRECKLESS THAT WE DONT EVENT BELIEVE SOMETHING IS GOING TO CHANGE IF WE CHANT OR DO NOT CHANT PROPERLY... Thanks to that lecturing, i took the commitment to start chanting 20 rounds for the whole year, because for my lack of faith i often lefted 1 or 2 rounds without chant, i did my counts and if i keep this vow i can show some sincerity by paying all my debt.

Im not taking this as a burden but as a joy, because i realize that all my missfortunes and though moments in spiritual life are derived from that missbehavior. I'm feeling really hopefull by getting up early and chant my rounds, also more easy to get my services done!

Just two more things, Sri Radha (my fiance) moved here to Queretaro city so we can develope further our relationship, we all live like an ashrama, the house is big with 3 rooms, 1 for Vanamali Prabhu and his wife Thakurani (they send their obeisances unto you), 1 for man (another devotee and me) and 1 for woman (Sri radha and another mataji).

Last is a Question, do you remember i asked you about the 6 holes of the heart? lust, anger, envy, ilusion, madness and greed, can you help me  little more to understand? because Mother Devaki had to lose 6 childs before so her heart could be free from this 6 enemies in order to recieve Lord Krsna from Vasudeva (her spiritual master)

Thank you for taking your precious time to read all this...

Always aspiring to serve you in vani

Krsna-kirtana Dasa

HpS - ASA --- AGTSP!   We preach what we know, then Maya attacks us and we lose some of the realization of what we knows, then someone reminds us of what we preached when we knew, and it gives us strength to follow our own advice. Thank you for putting 16-rounds first. It helps me put them first!

I don't know much about the six contaminations you list. I see Srila Prabhupada mentioning them but have never developed much systematic understanding of them.  More specifically I have never heard before about how Devaki Mataji had to suffer death of six babies to get free from these six contaminations. I'm not saying its not true, maybe it is from one of the writings of Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur. So, I can't give you more information in this regard. All I can suggest is to just keep getting up early and keep a full morning program in the association of devotees. Then mark out some plan for participation in the Sankirtan movement etc.

As we do this it will become easier and easier to actually start working on cultivating a real awakening taste in doing our chanting and other service, Raganuga Bhakti.

HpS ​

Dear Hanumat Presaka Swami Maharaj,

Please accept my humble obeisances, all glories to Srila Prabhupada!

It's been some time, I just wanted to check in. Still traveling sankirtan, this time I'm with Bhakta Chang, a young brahmacari from San Diego. We were given a free invitation to Bhakti fest, (a popular yoga festival in joshua tree) so we tried it out last weekend. Of course, much of it is rather materialistic, and there are a great deal of prevalent misconceptions about Bhakti, Krsna, etc, but as far as festivals in the western world go I was pretty impressed. No intoxication, no meat, and everyone was chanting hare krsna all weekend! Probably they don't get much benefit from chanting, but most people were innocent and inquisitive.

Radhanath Maharaj is doing fantastic preaching out there, so many people are getting a chance to contact pure Bhakti. We adapted our style to preserve his relationship with the organizers. Mgmt there doesn't like what they perceive as 'proselytizing' so instead of stopping people we set up a little display table on the main drag and performed Kirtan with some other devotees in attendence. It was ecstatic, some people said it was their favorite Kirtan of the whole event, and somehow we managed to distribute quite a few books as well. I think one day we did about 40 big/maha big and collected about 180$, which was surprisingly decent for just calling people over.

Since then we've been mostly in San Diego, trying to get rid of some adhibhautika klesas before moving on. We've been waging chemical warfare with bedbugs for several days, and so far there's been some heavy casualties on both sides. Its taking a toll on our sleep and our sankirtan... but it's nectar. We joined Vaisesika prabhu for MSF here today, and he compared these challenges to Prabhupada's Jaladuta. My realization from today was that we all have some anxiety, it may be bedbugs, it may be tarantulas, but we've got to keep a song in our heart and perform our duty for purification.

I had another question for you about jiva tattva. I haven't spent much time on this topic since in general it can be distracting and nonessential, but I still see this as a relevant and significant topic nonetheless. Where do jivas come from exactly? When we say "Back to Godhead" does that specifically mean Goloka?

HpS-ASA --  AGTSP.   Such a controversial topic before, no?   "My Guru, knows more than your Guru!", "My Guru gave me better knowledge than your Guru!", "My Daddy can kill your Daddy!".

[Maybe your Daddy would not want to kill my Daddy]

In general Prabhupada doesn't seem to make a specific point about it so much, but mentions it in passing. Some people say that Naranaya Maharaja said, that in "Jaiva Dharma" Bh. Vinode Thakur says, that we fell from Mahavisnu loka, but I have never been able to find that, even in Maharaja's translation of "Jaiva Dharma", and no one has been able to show me the citation.

As far as I understand we could have fallen down, chosen to check out Maya Devi's Top Gun Theme Park, at any time and from any place, Goloka, Ayodhya, Vaikuntha, but also could have "fallen" from Goloka to Ayodhya and then got back up, or Goloka to Maha-visnu loka and then entered the material world from there. Murari Gupta is a Rama bhakta and Back to Godhead for Him means back to Rama lila, no?

HpS - Your note about Svasa was just lost. The Blog is having technical difficulties from our end for the last few weeks.  We never got the letter of recommendation. Can he send to [email protected] and drop us a text message to 209 505-3219 that he send it?

May all your Burning Men be big ones.​    Please send us news as you can!!