Hare Krishna, Guru Maharaja!

Please accept my danvadat pranams at your feet.

HpS - Hmmm! That may be rather exaggerated!! 🙂 All glories to Srila Prabhupada! We are maybe 75% his servants and 25% beasts.

My last entry to the blog detailed some less than ideal news about the state of my sadhana & if you asked the Lord to help me, i was helped in a very surprising way.

HpS - ASA -- My goodness, how exciting!!! What will he say, "Next!". This is a fun letter.

Cecilia and I had a home invasion robbery in the middle of May. Thankfully everything such as my car, all my tools, and the higher value electronics were all insured, so aside from the car the claim process went without a hitch. We replaced our doorbell with a ‘ring’ doorbell that a has a feature where you can view crime or attempted crime footage captured by neighbors within a 2-3mi radius & there is footage being shared from our neighborhood every day, every night. One detail i found most surprising about the robbery- ive over-collected a lot of music equipment, and somehow, there was not one thing taken that i had any real attachment to whatsoever! 😮

HpS - Isn't amazing!! We really usually only need very simple tools to do our service.... Then we integrate with other craftsmen and their ability to get the whole job done. Achintya bheda abheda tatttva. Very exciting. Hope you are better adapted to dealing with thieves, though!!!!

I know with no doubt that I love the Lord & wish to follow and walk with those who seek him, but as outlined in my message to you last year, I could fall so far below the standard i vowed to keep that i could hardly expect that i was paying forward enough of the blessings and mercy bestowed on me to please my benefactors or inspire others significantly. Since 2008 i have been consistently swinging back and forth like a pendulum, from making a great effort towards spiritual life and when i reach the point of diminishing returns, and creating problems without simple solutions, slide back down into pointless short term sense gratification. Id use drinking and smoking as a placebo to simply forget or postpone dealing with issues that i could not find a simple way to solve & like someone with shattered passenger window, cover it with plastic and tape, or catching a flat tire, keep rolling forward now on the spare tire, than rather use discipline and intelligence to look more honestly at my own part in how these problems come upon me.

I believe the Lord wishes for something better for me than a beer before bhakti shastri or a smoke after a stressful & hectic day. Once again id find myself to the back wall of that dead-end again.. i give up the nonsense for some time, trying to clear my conscience with the Lord but knowing in the back of my mind its only a matter of time til ill be finding myself running the wrong way again.

HpS - Yeah, but https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/2/40/!!! We go up and down day to day, week to week, but in the long run whatever we can do for Krsna makes our long term trajectory upward.

One significant way that i hope this time is different... Is after being issued my firearm safety certificate- i know that at this point an error in judgement can have serious consequences for myself and those around me. Up until we had a repeat violent felon with no regard for rights, safety, or lives of others enter our home looking to victimize us, I always though that having a firearm safety certificate was more of a liability than a necessity.

I am very very grateful to the Lord’s mercy in delivering a wake-up call to me by someone else’s negligent behavior rather than face the consequences of my own (although i would never physically harm anyone who was not gravely threatening myself or others).

They say people never change, but i also believe in miracles, because on more than one occasion the Lord and/or his servants have cared enough to turn a great loss into a complete restoration in my life. When things get tough now i dont feel like i have any business turning back because as mentioned the certificate that i have can have terrible consequences unless used safely and responsibly by someone who is not impaired with tendencies toward an error of judgement.

I also signed a lease to my own place in oakland again. The altar i have at home now is in our bedroom and so i cant really worship there before 7-8am & so now that will change. And im hoping to be able to take part in the morning program at the Berkeley temple more often.

Please let me know if i may be able to help with some minor repairs or other service in Murfreesboro soon or after travel is safer. Very open to suggestions on how i could become more fixed up/better devotee. In need of training and guidance. Since the robbery Always completing my rounds and for a while now, doing good with my regs aside from a caffeine drink or tea here and there.

thanks very much for your guidance and mercy,

Hare Krishna

your hopefully less troubling disciple,

Loka Bandhu Rama Dasa

HpS - Hare Krsna. Thank you for the letter. Why not set short term goals for Sadhana, Japa, put them here and then report the result. What is Cecilia doing? Got a Nunchuka certificate?