Letters to the editor

Funding Letter Draft 170810

<img height="137" src="file:///C:\Users\HHHANU~1\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image002.png" width="117" />NIOS

North American Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies

2129 Stratford Rd; Murfreesboro, TN 37129; USA

Esteemed Members, Directors, Officers,

XXX Foundation

We, NIOS, are looking for a partner in spirit for a substantial and potent project. Since our formation in 2004 we have been blessed to have realized such projects in co-operation with the National Museum of India, National Library of Peru, San Marcos University, Peru (the second oldest university in the Western Hemisphere) and many other excellent institutions.

Considering our strengths, weaknesses, finances and community, our next selected focus is a Symposium on Art and the Sacred, October 2018. The venue is already set, Centro Cultural Ricardo Palma, Lima, Peru. The exhibition halls guarantee 40,000 visitors, international tourists, a week. The center-piece would be an excellent movie, ART AND THE SACRED: A Pilgrim’s Progress.

One of our advisors, Prof. Hector Behar, one of the most prominent players in the history of human rights in South America, and currently member of the United Nation’s Committee on World Poverty (???), commented that the United Nation’s estimate is that 1-million people commit suicide each year. This is more than all the deaths in all the armed conflicts combined.

We can define the real enemy as our own minds, our lack of cultural assets. We propose a documentary that will systematically and dramatically interview profound scholars, art historians, poets, artists, Jungians, Jesuits, from Peru to New York, London, Madrid, Delhi and Kolkata that will demonstrate and communicate a practical pathway to a world culture of Art and the Sacred.

In the world there are enough resources for everyman’s needs, but not enough for one man’s greed – Mohandas Gandhi

We are asking for a budget of $125,000. Our Director will be a longtime co-worker, Oscar Natars Burger (Iber-Americano Association for Arts and Letters, Director of the Year 2017). Of course, the premier for the film will be Lima, Peru but already it has presentation sites in Chile, India, USA and will be aired for use by such agencies as the BBC, National Geographic et al.

Join us? Money, men, brains, heart?

We have already invested $2,000 in the concept development work. If you are seriously interested we can send more details. Partial funding for even specific aspects of the project would be greatly appreciated.

Prof. H. H. Robinson

(Hanumatpresaka Swami)

Resource Research Office

Namacharya Das asks:

 Is there difference between
 refugees and aspirants? In the online list there is
 "refugees" and here in this scan you write
 "aspirants".
*** HpS - AS Jayapataka Swami explained it to us, and it was set ups for/by him, you can be an Aspirant almost immediately. This was to give a sense of belonging to people who would otherwise be "initiated" by other Gaudiya Vaisnava groups outside of ISKCON before they were following any principles. Then you are a Refugee after six months of following everything. So, technically they are all Refugees. We don't do anything formally for Aspirants usually. When Prabhupada was manifest he wrote and the standard was that anyone who followed the principles and lived in the Temple for six months could take first initiation, but for second initation there had to be more care taken.

Edited into "pdp-csg.docx"

HpS-ASA [170809] – T1 says, “On hearing Sūta Gosvāmī speak thus…”. Thus we are continuing with Chapter 3, no? Suta G. finishes there with what we hear is a very essential phrase: yathādhītaṁ yathā-mati, now I shall try to make you hear the very same thing as I learned it from him and as I have realized it, or as we heard H. H. Hrdayananda Goswami say, “I shall now try to make you understand it as I understood it”.

T1-13 Saunaka R. wants to know the Preface, why Vyasa and Suka learned and wrote the SB? He describes the circumstances and personal qualifications at its creation in detail. This leads us to the question, “Why should we want to hear and teach SB? What are our circumstances and personal qualifications in terms of answering this question?”

HK/HR

Exchanging text-messages with Anantarupa Das and Radhika-ramana Das about our daily SB reading. They say they just started Canto One, Chapter Four, "Vyasa Meets Narada Muni"; and just finished SB 6.9, "Appearance of Vrtasura". I think they read First Canto when there are new guests and then Sixth when it is just themselves.

We mentioned that we have notes at www.jayarama.us/archives/pdp-csg.docx. We looked at them and of course we can improve them.

Looked in our computer archives and could not find any Bhakti-vaibhava CSG for Canto Six. We will ask Srivasa pandita Das for them.

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (1.5.11):

tad-vāg-visargo janatāgha-viplavo
yasmin prati-ślokam abaddhavaty api
nāmāny anantasya yaśo ’ṅkitāni yac
chṛṇvanti gāyanti gṛṇanti sādhavaḥ

“On the other hand, that literature which is full of descriptions of the transcendental glories of the name, fame, form and pastimes of the unlimited Supreme Lord is a transcendental creation meant for bringing about a revolution in the impious life of a misdirected civilization. Such transcendental literature, even though irregularly composed, is heard, sung and accepted by purified men who are thoroughly honest.”

Any purified men who are thoroughly honest in Boise?  If there are then they will start coming to these classes, no?

Hare!    Hare!!!      KRSNA...

Estimado Oscar Natars, Integro,

Can you please send us a concise Bio-data to use in the Grant Application eg. Oscar Natars born 1872, Paris, France, Studied Cinema at Le Tre Ecole, Produce over 67,000 movies and stage shows, Director of the Year...

Some ideas of format:   A Don Quixote, picoresque movie. Pilgrim's Progress, In Search of the Divine.   Start with a Vedic perspective from The HpS of what is art and sacred.  Ramon's response to that [Peru, Hector, Chile, Raul Zurita]. Go to London for Shonu Shyama Dasani and the Philemon Foundation (Carl Jung) [through New York with Beverly Zabriskii and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Times]

INDIA - Kalyan-kumar Chakravarty [Director National Fine Arts Academy], Dr. Samaresh Bandyopadhyay [Greatest Living Indian Art Historian].

[[HpS]]  RAMON

[Beverley] SHONU SHYAMDASANI [[Spain]]

KALYAN KUMAR CAKRAVARTY [DSB]

What is the pathway to the Sacred?

What are your ideas?    Other people's ideas?

Include lots of little parallel threads and jokes.   Do it in modules that can be separated to stand alone as five minute clips.  Do it for 24 and 48 minute movie.

We have not heard from you since we let Spain?

How is Gundica Das? Making progress?

We become more and more and more convinced that if you can do a project on "Monastic Tradition in Jesuit and Gaudiya Vaisnavism" with a Jesuit Scholar it will have very significant impact. As we see it 1. God designed the world to work with 90% of the population living in villages (associated with towns and cities), 2. It is natural and happy when many men stay Brahmacari their whole lives, and 3. Many girls participate in Polygamy. Of course, this is incomprehensible to most modern people so it has to be explained, demonstrated. The above book would be a historic landmark in that perspective.