Sophocles and Bhagavata Philosophy, Personal Sadhana

1 year, 10 months ago by rohini in Personal Sadhana Reports, Special Category B

asa[e] sankirtan; world classical literature; sophocles.


Hare Krsna, Gurudeva

My respected Gurudeva, please accept my most humble and respectful obeisances.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada!


I always wish you the best for your health.


¡Om namo Bhagavate Narasimhaya!

Today I watched the movie Edipo Rey by Sophocles. On this topic I only had remembered The Edipo Complex seen according to Freud.


In Greece, the arts were greatly promoted, theater was a very efficient means to educate, to transmit the necessary messages, the principles that lead man to become a human being.


Bg 1.39-45 came to mind, that family tradition that knows its lineage, so that when a new family is formed, it is known where it comes from, avoiding so many social misfortunes.

Considering each woman as if she is his mother, has a deep meaning. Consulting all relatives and respectable older people about the origin of the gentleman or the lady is so fundamental, for people, for the family, society and the world.


Education is very deficient, currently the basic principles that make a good family are unknown. We are governed by the instinctive-motor and sexuality without giving way to reflection.

There are many important contents in this tragedy, another is Karma, it is necessary to know WHO I AM, to accept ourselves and direct ourselves along the right path, where we will suffer less and cause less suffering to others.


Knowing that each being comes from Krsna is a great solution; If Krsna really guides our lives, with every breath we will keep Him in mind for small and big decisions, if we associate our breathing with the Mantra Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare, it would be beautiful, right?


HpS/ASA - Right! So right it reminds me that should be chanting while I am reading! Who am I to read and write without the association of the Holy Names? 🐵


Thank you very much for your attention Gurudeva, your time and mercy.

His disciple

Rohini dd.


HpS - Thank you! Did you read Sophocles as part of a broader educational program? We like the Phaedo? Have you read that?

We will put this letter in the ASA Encyclopedia.

Hope to be more involved with your Sankirtan!!!

Hard Times part 1. Long Trip to China

Hare Krishna, AGTSSGN AGTSP PAMHO!


Dear Gurudev, I hope your body and mind don't cause you too much anxiety and Radha & Krishna always protect your consciousness always fixed on His and Srila Prabhupada's lotus feet.


It was difficult to write before, a week ago we buried my father, I've felt very tired and a little erratic.


The first thing that I Want to say is thank you for the instructions you gave me, I communicated it to my family and we tried to fulfill it as best as possible.


My mother was very accompanied by friends and family, I feel that life has been very cruel to her, she lost her mother, her daughter, her father and now her husband, even so she has remained faithful to her faith in God and feeling that he was merciful to my father by not making him suffer and that he could go away in the dream due to heart failure and not cause of the cancer that afflicted him.


In my case, I had days of deep atheism, of feeling resentment for Krishna and of gratitude for some devotees whom I could trust and who helped and supported me in this difficult time.


Mother Manjuali D D helped me to get remnants of S S G N, Mother Mahanandini and her children offered me their house to honor my father and cook for JBS and share prasadam, Priyasakhi equally as an elder sister with her words of support. Also Kamalaksi Subhadra D D, Kalini Radha DD, SSJPS disciples who are like my family, accompanied us all the time.


Sri Bhakti and his wife Indira Jahnava similarly arranged to send a photograph of my father to Vrindavan Dham. For all of them I ask for their blessings for being there for me.


Since before the trip to Madrid I knew about this situation, at that time the diagnosis wasn't yet conclusive, every day I asked Nrisimha Deva for my father's health, after returning from Mexico, everything began to get complicated, until a day there was nothing else to do.


My father was not a very religious person but he was a believer, he was a normal person, but he never had any problems with me practicing KC, he often donated to be able to cook for festivals, he paid half of the institutional plaque that we put outside the temple, he accepted prasadam and he read some SP books and in those moments when I was not emotionally well he preached to me telling me that I have been devotee for too many years and that this should be my strength in difficult times, he told other people about my religion and that I gave him that spiritual part that was sometimes missing.


HpS/AS - He is, agtSP, going up. He is in the army.


I only hope that Krishna is merciful and allows him to be released soon, because I think that if I could forgive any of his faults, Krishna must also do so.


Sincerely I don't know how I will deal with your departure, it's something that worries me, it's the risks of sharing so much time with the people we love.


(I don't know what the story is about the father going by boat to China, could you comment on it or tell me where to find it?)


HpS - We don't remember where but we heard Prabhupada us that analogy.

It is like 1902 in Santiago. One man has very good opportunity to go to China for his engineering company. He will be gone for three years until a big dam project is finished. At shipside his father and mother, wife, children, brother and nephews are all there.

There are many last good byes. Many tears.

Mother and wife are straightening his tie etc.

Then good bye waving from ship.

Everyone knows that he is not going to cease to exist.

There will be letters that will arrive three weeks after they were written.

There will be very crude telephone calls once every few months, but he will come back.

It is like Krsna enters Dvaraka.

The citizens were just like little children. They were so excited when Krsna returned that they could barely speak properly.


His wife and parents are there. His Uncle, no, he passed away while he was gone.

His children are so dressed up and waiting with flowers and gifts.

He has some gifts to give them directly.

Hand carved panda bear.

So, it is like that.

Person who was your father is not dead.

Is very natural to feel separation but does not mean that there cannot be meetings in dreams.

That we won't meet again when the physical separation caused by being fixed in a material body is finished.


Krsna is your father's best friend, just like He is your best friend.

Krsna is more concerned for his well being at every moment than you and I are.

Hare Krsna.

Preach this to others.

Your Sankirtan gives him enormous benefit.


Greatful for your time, your eternal servant Parasurama Avatar Das, Santiago - Chile.



Death Ceremonies

1 year, 10 months ago by hps in Personal Sadhana Reports, Special Category B

asa[e] death ceremonies


[10/14/2023 9:01 AM] Rama Das: Hare Krishna Gurudev AGTSP 🙏🏻

My father die today, so I need to know what I should and can do now, some indication for this process and something immediate for his benefit.

Thank you.


HpS/ASA - AgtSP! We would say that first thing is the attitude, perspectve, Bhava, Krsna Consciousness.

Do you have that?

Bg, SB, CC?

Prabhupada's story of the father going on a boat to work in China?


Then the ceremonies can be performed on three levels:

  1. bhur
  2. bhuvah
  3. sva

Have Kirtan for your father with his picture there.

Do Kirtan with your lips, mind and heart.

Read nice texts and purports for audience.

offer mahaprasadam to your father and then others.


ask brahmanas what else to do.


he may, probably, is staying on the second leval, bhuvah, so make a good world of thoughts to guide and orient him.


O.K?

Report from NVM and TPP Critique

asa[e] tpp, criticism


Pamho. Tgasp.

Haribol, Maharaja.


HpS/ASA - 🐒 hk hk kk hh hr hr rr hh

Espero que se encuentre bien.


HpS/ASA - Ha! Ha! Hare... Bad allergy reaction. Body is big burden of blood, fat, bones, brains.. but it can chant and read these Blog posts!


Yo estoy bien por Nueva Vrajamandala, trabajando la huerta y produciendo forrajes para las vacas,valiendo para algo. A veces doy algunos libros.

Estoy leyendo "Tava Pache Pache", y me gusta mucho. Si le parece bien podria escribir algo mas. Seria una buena contribución a la sociedad vaisnava. Sin más que contar , se despide un soldado sirverguenza en el ejército de Prabhupada.

Hare Krisna Tsard ( = ???)


HpS/ASA - AgtSP! Puede Vd. escriba algo para la proxima edicion de TPP. Ya estamos extraer la Appendices de Versos Citados en NdI y editar en una pamphleto que puede llevar contigo para refescar y contemplar los versos!

Gracias...


Si tiene sugerencias de temas especificas para escribir...


NIOS Campus Development - Theory and Practice

Another Committee Member writes:

Other Member writes:

Minutes of meeting for NIOS campus:

1) identify real estate agent

2) identify the bank for loan

3) formation of the board of trustee

4) Plan the property lay out

5) start building low cost designer housing

6) gaushala

7) workshops

8) organic farming

9) water harvesting/storage

10) bio gas and bio composting plant

11) fruit trees

12) cottage industry of soap, honey, etc

13) wind and solar energy production plant

14) Sewage treatment plant



Note: I am planing to retire from GLA job and visit Houston/Nashville around Dec -Jan to work on the development of the NIOS campus. 


All are requested to give feedback on this. So that we may chalk out a time line for each of the action item by the end of Nov 2023.


HpS/ASA - This is wonderful.

We were at Rama ghata during the Braja mandala prikrama and this management process came to us:

  1. Whom am I?
  2. Who are we?
  3. Whats the Plan?
  4. What Materials do we need?

We applied it with great success again and again, and then Srinivasa Das showed us "From Good to Great", a first class business administration text that they were using for Micron.


It was almost identical principles identified in corporations that had gone from being members of their industry to leaders.


So, first question would be:

Why do you personally want NIOS to develop a Campus?

🙄

ASA Encyclopedia and India trip report

Dear Guru Maharaja


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


I am still in India. I am in Nagpur now visiting Divya’s parents. Will leave from here on Monday and have my flight back to Dallas on 1-Sep and we’ll reach on 2-Sep. Divya Sri is alone but thankful we have such a nice community of devotees who are taking care of her. Our car was broken into a few days back in the temple parking lot when Divya was dressing Radha Govinda. But she is ok and the car is in the workshop.


In the time I’ve been here, I haven’t been able to work on ASA Encyclopedia. When I arrived, it was the 10th day ritual for my uncle, then there was rituals till day 13 with so many relatives in my home. My uncle didn’t have kids. So my father was performing all the samskaras and then my visa appt.


Somehow managed to squeeze in a trip to Mayapur for a 3 days. Met Mishra Bhagavan prabhu there. He took me to Srila Prabhupada’s quarters in the lotus building and told his memories. He said it was in that very room that Prabhupada asked Tamal Krishna Maharaja to go to China! I went to Mayapur after 5 years and the crowd has increased significantly. They have displays in the Pancatattva courtyard for devotees to take Darsan even during mangala arathi as there is no place inside the temple room. It’s totally packed and so wonderful to sing samsaradhava with about a thousand devotees in unison! We felt your connection so much in Mayapur during the morning program.


I then took my father for his cataract surgery and follow up. It was a successful surgery.


I want to ask for forgiveness to have not started work but state that we are very much interested and willing to work on the ASA Encyclopedia. I should have time after Janmastami and will start work and make some progress.


HpS - Nothing to forgive. It seems to be moving ahead practically. If anyone has any idea how to improve things, then please let us know.

Maybe it will prove to be not really worth doing.

Srila Prabhupada wants us to chant Hare Krsna and then adjust our Sankirtan to that base, no?


I would also like to pass the sound-cloud credentials to the ASA carnival team so that they can maintain all the media. Can you please send me the contact of the devotee I should talk to Guru Maharaja?


ASA - Text us by Whatsapp.


We are hoping to come and see you in Houston in November Guru Maharaja.


Your servant

Srinatha Krsna dasa


HpS - Thank you so much for this news!!

So, much.

Best wishes for everyone to become more and more integrated with Krsna's pastimes.