asa(e), vad, sannyasa, stri dharma, conversations

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Bhaktin Priya Texted HpSwami:

"I would like to tell you about my experience today going to an ISKCON temple in which there was an attempt to seriously extort me - arranged by a devotee calling me “Maraji” but misrepresenting the cost of fuel x10. You can give me a call."

ASA 🐵:

Thank you for your text message. Bhakta T. Brown here. We are HpSwami, Anjana Suta Academy (ASA), Secretary. He said to explain that someone in Sannyasa Ashrama, like himself, has got these rules to follow.

I guess it is like your good self. You have to follow rules as a lawyer.

He said that he tried to explain this before but guess he missed the mark.

Very nice explanation of ths Sannyasa Dharma, Rules, is in Srila Prabhupada's BG. Starts at the following link and then especially goes through the next two paragraphs.

Is it clear? ?? 😕

Someone like yourself can do so, so much needed service in ISKCON.

https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/16/1-3/#bb3635

". . . .forbidden to have any intimate relationship with a woman."

It goes on to explain this as even having conversations in a "secluded place". Of course, this also means individual telephone calls in a rigorous sense.

It is not to just avoid the tricks of Maya in causing gross fall downs. It is also to avoid becoming habitualed to an informal ambience in our dealings with the opposite sex.

Is O.K.?

If you like we can put you in touch with very nice Grhasta family in Houston who can answer a lot of these questions, and give practical help in catching Con Artists.

Please answer in this Blog 🐸. At least five more people will find this dialog personally useful.

Thank you.

Go ahead. Go back home, back to Godhead.

asa[e] - VAD, Sannyasa Dharma, Advisor

Dear Maharaj,

PAMHO AGTSP!

I wanted to write to you to ask your guidance on where to go from here. Next year I can pursue college as you expressed. Until then I can pursue martial arts as you guided. But before I start martial arts, I need to wrap up previous projects. I wanted to ask your guidance on an alternative place to stay? People where my parents stay ask awkward questions to which we don’t have answers to yet.

YAS,

YS

HpS/ASA - AgtSP! paoho.... We are relating to the physical and mental world through a 75-year old California body. At 30-years old the physical energy in the body starts to diminish. At fifty the mental. We can only relate to specific planning, mental plans, by writing stuff down. We can write this kind of letter because we can write and re-write it. Focus on one "local" plan.

Very funny, very fascinating.

Same will happen to you, everyone.

As your body doesn't jump and hop, mind the same, you begin to realize that you are not body or mind.

Then, "Who am I"? Because we have spiritual resources we can, and are gratefully pushed, to realize our intellectual (Buddhi) nature.

Hmmm. How is my intelligence? What is my attitude to life? Bhava? Most people never really ask this question. They just accept the attitude to life that their culture, Disney, Netfixs, gives them.

If we get the Bhava, perspective, that BG gives us, then we can reawaken our spiritual nature and go to dance in Goloka.

Cha! Cha! Cha! ....

-0-0-0-

So, often people ask us for specific advise. We can give general suggestions and focus on a few specific situations, but without knowing the specific details, we cannot give detailed advice, Eg. In which city to live, what career to take.

It just bewilders us.

We feel like a buffalo looking at a person sitting in front of us on a motorized lawn mower, honking their horn and waving at us to move.

""Hu????"

We wrote about this topic two days ago: https://monkeywarrior.com/detail/14018/, please read that post, it should help.

We get this question often and try to explain our limits. As Mangala-ananda Das told us, "After seven or so years as your disciple, I have figured out that you are my guru, not my psychologist".

We feel bad because we would like to study every situation and help, but it is just not possible. We are not the supreme enjoyer, proprietor or FRIEND. The last mistake got Maharaja Bharata and Adam, husband of Eve.

We were pushed into Sannyasa by many intelligent people. O.K. Then we realized that it meant going beyond Kuticaka, living in a Temple cave near the Temple and just taking food from that Temple and giving advice. The administrators had some expectation that you would give advice that would be comfortable to their administrative ambitions. Oooof!

So, we took to Parivrajacacary.

We had stayed in Kolkatta helping our esteemed Sannyasa guru and Sankirtan leader, H. H. B. S. Damodara Swami, develop the Second World Congress for a Synthesis of Science and Religion for over a year. It had been my first summer in India and the hottest one in Kolkatta in 35-years. We lost 20-pounds, were so weak we had to be careful walking that we did not fall down. Yet, we still went out on Indian buses to do Sankirtan! Jay!!

Severe austerities for the B.I.

We had promised to stay for three months.

We did.

Maharaja asked to stay another three months.

.. . . . ... We DID.

Then he asked for another three months and

. . . . We D I D ! !

Then... yes, he asked again (each time by phone), please stay just a little longer. 'Don't always run away'!

Oooof!!!

We stayed and worked.

Then Maharaja, my Sankirtan leader, came to India, and the Congress was scheduled to start etc.

He was critical of how many contacts that we had been able make etc. etc.

We were very hurt. Whine. Whine. Whine. We had gone way beyond what he had asked. We had tried our, agree limited, best, and then he was criticizing us.

Ooof.

After about one-hour he came out of his room smiling and said, "Come here". I went into his room and he showed me some documents in his suitcase that he was unpacking. From the Kolkatta weather they had gotten so damp, they were sticking together, and one Brahmacari was very carefully pulling them apart so that they were not destroyed.

He laughed and said that he had to make a very serious apology to me, that he had forgotten (he was a graduate student in Kolkatta for many years) what it was like in Kolkata.

I was happy.

Often ISKCON leaders would be overly critical of us and never apologize. Between myself and Maharaja I feel a very intimate friendship. We hope to see him soon!

Yet, he is not God. He made mistakes. He could not give perfect advice.

If you want perfect career advice, you must talk with God. Srila Prabhupada, and They may say, that even they don't know.

The Jiva's have free will, and because of that they can do delightful never before dreamed of things that charm Radha and Krsna. We are all special. Unique, of inestimable value.

I could go on with this theme.

It describes how we scrounged a ticket back to USA. To leave Kolkata we had to duck under Maharaja's radar as more and more and more people were coming to organize this Congress etc. We arrived in New York in the middle of Winter and two feet of snow. No place to stay but on the street.

We just would not compromise with any of the Temples we knew to get a place to stay in exchange for being an "accommodating" Sanyasis.

We called Shankar Shastri and he was happy for us to stay for a few days, but beyond that it would interrupt his life style.

In the end we were determined, as must be you, and anyone seeking to become a Goswami and then a pure devotee, that we would rather die than lie to people about the truth.

Eg. "Prabhu, I know that you are Temple President, GBC Secretary, rich man, but I have to say that on this point you are wrong. You are being to arrogant with the devotees in this situation".

So, I was thinking that I would just go and sit behind a tennis back-board in a school athletic yard and freeze to death with honor and be found in the Spring thaw.

Then, little by little, Krsna revealed a plan for preaching and traveling for the next three months.

O.K. That's all we had, but that's enough.

!!!! Chant good rounds. Read Prabhupada's books. Talk with six good devotees who know you and then see if Krsna wants you here or in Goloka. If He wants you here, maybe the best he can do is give you a plan that will take you up: O.K. He has not given me an ultimate plan, but He has given me a career move that will have some immediate results and put me in a better position to take advantage of opportunities in the future. !!

You see we have taken a lot of time to answer your question.

Before this Blog we would have had to write this letter seven times each year!

Now we feel that we have done the best for many other devotees, because we can answer your excellent question, but for many other also!

O.K.???

We are facing exactly the same challenges as you right now.

We are trying to clarify what is going to happen with NIOS etc.

We are doing our work. We visited all of our work stations for six months. Now we are back in Kishkindha and we are trying to understand Krsna's next plan of work. Really, it is very possible that Krsna wants us to abandon this body and mind and go to work in another planet.

-0-0-0-

As we understand many devotees, including us, had the same question wen Tamal Krsna Swami died in the car accident, "Oh, Prabhupada, how could you let this happen"?

"I need him for other work here. I let him stay with you for as long as possible. If you did not take advantage of him that is your fault, not mine".

Unless we accept that Sankirtan may kill us, Maya will always have us under her control.

Visnu priya was just as good a Goswami as Lord Caitanya.

Tell us the opinion of others about your situation, the insights from your chanting. Citations from your readings of SP's books that related to your decision making.

O.K. We look at a few more letters.

The go rake leaves!

Thank you!!

Expect to hear great results from your war on Maya!

JHpS - ASA

asa[e] sankirtan, sannyasa

How to question a Goswami: Old Lady, Old Man?

Mangala ananda Das, from Chile, told us that after being our disciple for 11-years he had finally figured out that he should use us as his spiritual master and not his psychologist.

It was a strong point for us!

As we have discussed...:> So many times devotees try to get advice from us in solving specific problems. but as we get older, and as you get older, you will know so many nice people. For example, today, we are trying to help families who have gone through very complicated pregnancies and are thinking about having another child, ISKCON national political conflicts. We just got off a 33' 33''call with Sriman Upendra Das to organize the Saturday morning classes, so in our old age, and you in your old age, we have to see what kind of work we can do and should do, and the Blog is super.

Think about your situation, are there any general principles that you need to clarify, specific points that have general relevance and are not too embarrassing. Discussing those will benefit many people.

It may not give you a final plan of action, but it will make, making the Action Plan very simple.

For the specific details, Hp Swami cannot really give any good advice unless it happens to be something that he is specifically involved in, like organizing Nrsmha deva festival in the park in Murfreesboro where he is actually residing and knows where the sound system is located.

🙂  🙂   💥 🐒🐒🦍  🤖

asa(e) Yoga Ladder, Time of Death

[4/14/2023 9:15 AM] Sri Radha-ananda Das: Hare Krishna Maharaja Pamho

Very nice to hear from you. I will definitely look at your bulletin. Getting older and older. Greatest problem I am faced with is to remember krishna as the clock is ticking!!

Hari Bol

[4/14/2023 4:50 PM] HpS/ASA : https://vedabase.io/en/library/iso/17/

Even if we forget Krsna, He will remind us, no?

Sri Radha-ananda Das: That depends Maharaj. He reminded Ajamil. But not Bhishma pita mahama. Bhisma a great devotee and a highly intellectual!!

One h

as to realise one self on the devotion and service he is rendering. That’s my understanding. I may be wrong and I hope I am wrong! Thanks for the thoughts to share 

With regards

HpS - ASA --- "SB 1.9 Text 30: Thereupon that man who spoke on different subjects with thousands of meanings, and who fought on thousands of battlefields and protected thousands of men, stopped speaking and, being completely freed from all bondage, withdrew his mind from everything else and fixed his wide-open eyes upon the original Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, who stood before him, four-handed, dressed in yellow garments that glittered and shined."

I think Srila Prabhupada even amplifies it more in the Purport, that Krsna manifested Bhismadeva's Istadevata form, and stood right in front of him as he was leaving his body.

We try 100% to do our service taking no help from Krsna.

Yet Krsna's foremost quality is not Satya, but Daya, so He tries 100% from His side.

Our effort is to try to remember him, but also, even more primary, to take advantage of His efforts to remind us. Look for His mercy and then be humble and

GRAB IT.

asa[e] - guru-tattva, diksa and vartmana-pradarshika guru

Hare Krishna Maharaja,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

I hope you're well in your service to Srila Prabhupada. From where i see it, it seems that you are. My respectful obeisances unto you!

I'm writing to you after reading the recent Kapi Dhvaja. Have missed some so i'm not fully up to date but it seems there are changes happening. With a mixture of sobriety and relief i took notion of the new list of disciples, which has shortened. My name is missing. This was to be expected, judging from an earlier conversation where you told me that you no longer could serve as diksha guru because i didn't keep my part of the contract. It's the first time i ever heard such a thing within ISKCON, but it makes sense in a way and i can respect that.

I must say that i don't feel bad about it. Sad perhaps that things didn't work out as i envisioned them earlier. My resolve wasn't strong enough to maintain strict sadhana throughout my life. I came to ISKCON from past life connection to Hare Krishna somehow, and dove deep into it when trouble in my life overwhelmed me and i saw no other way out. After some years of living the Hare Krishna life i became your disciple. It made sense at the time and i managed to keep up for some years. I had two children and was living a kind of brahmacari life while being a grihasta. For many years i've tried to avoid wordly duties and fled in ISKCON.

I come from a family with not such good parental relations. I got involved in drugabuse and sexual addiction in my teens and this has been a thread throughout my life. Becoming a devotee helped a lot, but it didn't root out everything as i thought it would. I had high hopes from reading Srila Prabhupada's books, but i see things in a different perspective now. I don't hold any grudges to him. I guess i only took some of his points and not others.

So in my life after a few years of being your disciple, at some point i realized that if i wanted to keep my marriage alive and be a decent father, i needed to step up my worldly life. I hardly had an education, i had been a taxi driver for most of my life. It doesn't pay the bills, and my wife had the same. She is a twice initiated devotee from Russia living in the Netherlands, doesn't speak the language, and is too headstrong to take up a menial immigrant job. So it was on my plate. Krishna helped a lot. But i didn't keep up my initiating vows. Yes, i've always stayed connected to ISKCON. I do some service.

So now i read the new list. Next month in May it is ten years since my initiation. I hardly knew you, Maharaja! You see, i look a lot like my father, both inside and out. And like my uncles and aunts from his side as well. When i saw you the first time, you looked like the best of them, and this is how i connected to you. The wisest of this particular family of the universal form. Most spiritually evolved one of them as well. Unfortunately, i was not mature enough to open my heart and build the relationship which is so deeply needed for a 'contract' to stay alive. This had happened before; i couldn't remain in Radhadesh because i didn't connect to someone senior deep enough to share what's inside and help me overcome the hurdles.

But things are going well in my service to my family. Its hard work for small successes. Destiny made me a father. We weren't married and i hardly knew the lady. But i'm making the best of it. I didn't maintain my spiritual life like i did when i was living in an ashram. It never was my strength, it was the association and the temple program. Hare Krishna. My wife was already kind of out of it, and so am i now. But i pray to Krishna that i may not forget him, and that when the time is right, i can get back into it like never before. Perhaps later in life, when the kids are grown up (now 7 and 10).

HpS - You may not be my disciple as Diksa guru. That's important. It's like being religiously married to your wife. You should be, no? We should find a bona fide priest, and perform the rituals. They are rituals but not without meaning.

I don't know why the above turned black. Amusing.

Read this? Then try to get back to the Diksa level. Everything we try to do such as family, nation, humanity, will all be easier if we can be formally connected to Krsna.

Of course, there is informal relations too. If you want to advance in Krsna conscious and we are some inspiration to you in our actions and preaching. Then you are also our disciple. Vatmana pradarshika guru.

Really Srila Prabhupada is you guru in every sense and we are appreciating each other in roles in his institution.

Personally I often think about the incredible help you gave us in airports, temples, ashramas. We owe you so much debt.

Last month His Holiness Kadamba Kanana Swami left the planet. His passing was beautiful. It touched me more than i had expected. I always had a kind of tense and uneasy relationship with him. I see people, devotees, having good relationships and i want that too. I'm learning to be more vulnerable (don't want to say humble yet) and practicing to establish better relations. Perhaps you would be so kind as to bless me to find a suitable spiritual teacher when the time is right.

HpS - Why just one! Time is the external manifestation of the Paramatma. He is our Guru in the heart. We know when we are not being sincere enough, and we know that He knows. We also know that we are trying our best and He knows, even when other people neglect us.

I had wanted to come to Spain earlier this year when you were there. It would have been a risky trip financially. Yes, i could have trusted in Krishna, get out of my comfort zone. But i didn't. The reason for coming was to tell you this all personally. At least now i told you in writing.

Thank you Maharaja for picking me up and initiating me into Srila Prabhupada's family. It was very generous of you. I will keep the name, devotees know me and call me as such. But i know deeper what transpires here between us, and that's private. It makes me sad. I'm not sure how it all works on a spiritual level, but i guess i'll find out.

Your servant,

Raghava Pandita dasa

HpS - Read the above. Part of the Contract, as listed also above, is that people we initiate should at least once a year report to us. If Srila Prabhupada asks us, "Do you know if the people you are initiating are following their vows?", and we have to say, "No", then we think he will not be pleased.

Diksa guru is very practical.

Siksa guru can be more informal.

We must have both.

Because you did not make an Annual Formal Report, then Formally we are not acting as Diksa guru.

Is O.K.?

It is kind of German, no?

Our paternal grandfather was Austrian.

Make the statement right now: Srila Prabhupada, I will work to chant the Holy Names and follow the four principles to the standard that you set?

We would be super honored to help you come to that standard!!

asa[e] - yoga ladder, guru, sadhu, sastra

Hare Krishna Gurudeva

Please accept my obeisances

All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

I thought that this was something very intimate in the spiritual life and that it should not be revealed openly to other people, but following your instruction, I am now making the contents of the letter public.

I want to reveal my mind regarding a situation that has been happening to me for a few weeks. Today, April 1, 2023, I am writing this letter to you again.

On several occasions in the past I have tried to have a mystical connection to be able to make decisions in my life. On one occasion I asked questions in my mind and felt the answer in different parts of my body, but I found that it was not something reliable. I also paid attention to what was happening around me to have answers, but that can eventually turn into paranoia.

Before and after meeting the devotees I have practiced different methods of meditation, and recently I tried to meditate and have an answer within. And indeed I had an answer, either positive or negative.

As the days passed, I began to have answers in meditation that seemed contradictory, and the question arose in me: Could it be my false ego?

After that experience I tried to connect with who I really am, the soul, momentarily freeing myself from the false ego, and at the same time visualizing you: Hanumatpresaka Swami, Srila Prabhupada and Sri Krishna Caitanya (his feet), as an altar in the heart or in consciousness.

When I began to meditate and receive an answer, either positive or negative from this altar in my heart. The contradictory answers stopped and such a great clarity and peace came within me that I felt happy and surprised at the same time.

I have realized that I need to go into a state of deep meditation to have a clear answer, otherwise the false ego gets mixed up in the communication.

I have been able to organize my life better, have peace and be able to make decisions that are difficult to make due to my indecision and insecurity.

However, I come to you to confirm this communication in the heart. This may be my speculation or something similar, even more so for a mental patient like me.

Is this real Gurudeva or should I avoid doing it?

Thank you very much Gurudeva

Your Servant

Piyari Mohan das

PS: After receiving your response to the previous letter on this topic, this fact of communication in the heart began to be contradictory and finally stopped working.

Anyway, if this is not real, it has helped me to realize the implementation of intelligence, and make decisions through it.

Thank you Gurudeva.

HpS - AGTSP. Thank you so much for these comments and questions. Honestly, as far as we know, they are so useful for many people. Some are in a very similar situation as you and may not present it, and for others it is a chance to understand people of different mentalities than themselves.

Our Yoga is "sublime". That means it works directly on the root connection, directly from our current situation. We can be inclined to Tama and Raja guna in a body like Jayananda Das, a Sudra or woman or a child or a dog... but that does not matter. Krsna incarnates in a gross form like the Rathayatra cart or bread and potatoes, and we can do Yoga straight from the heart through that incarnation.

Our stuggles with building or assembling the Rathyatra cart touch our heart.

Yes, the mind and intellect, manas and buddhi, must become purified, but no direct effort is needed. If you see the light house and try to go towards it, automatically you negotiate all the obstacles in the path.

O.K.?

Maybe you are influenced by Tama and Sattva guna, so you can do very inspired art, but then sometimes very gross physical desires are activated in a very artistic way.

So, you must learn how to engage your body, words and mind in Krsna's service. Direct experiments with Yoga might be a natural part of your work, just as Anandamaya Devi Dasi or Jaya-prema Devi Dasi in their letters might be involved with children and mothers or aunts.

It is Visvannatha cakra Varti, as we remember, who says that whatever realization we have, we should check it with Guru, Sadhu and Sastra.

So, you may be in contact with the Paramatma, Deities on your gross or subtle altars, but then you check that with Guru... we are acting as Diksa guru, Siksa guru and Srila Prabhupada is your Siksa guru and Founder-Acharya (Samstapaka-acharya) Siksa and Diksa guru. He gives tons of information in his books, by his examples,

Sadhus --- There are the examples and preaching of the previous Acharyas through him, and our godbrothers in ISKCON.

Sastra - Does your inspiration agree with Srila Prabhupada's books.

If the answer is yes, yes, yes, then you can have trust in the details you get by inspiration. All of us must become Gosvamis. All of us just develop connection with Prabhupada in our intelligence. After that we can become completely pure devotees.

If there are very fine, necessary details to discuss, that you cannot solve by detailed discussion with other devotees, then we can communicate quickly about these details in more confidential communications.