Hare Krsna maharaja,

Please accept my most humble obeisances and All Glories to Srila Prabhupada!

Today is Sri Nityananda Prabhu's Appearance Day, so we had a nice home program and offering this afternoon at break-fast time. Today will also be our first time going to the Sunday Feast here in Spanish Fork.

I am really glad we were able to meet and that I was able to have your association in Boise while Adrian and I were there! I wish to move to that community one day. All the devotees are sooooo very sweet, it was so humbling to be there. Plus, the children are all so intelligent, I was very impressed with the home schooling program and Emily, the 13 year old girl, going to take college classes! Amazing!

Adrian and I made it back to Springville in one piece, thank Krsna, haha, but there is something that I wanted to ask you about.

My friends in Hawaii, namely Sharon and Taravali, are both devotees in Honolulu, but they recently got into an argument. Sharon is my age and Taravali is 15 years old, but she is quite mature for her age, so we used to all hang around and do service together. Anyway, the facts are that Sharon is engaged to a prabhu, Yashoda DD, but was recently closely associating with our new roommate, Tracy prabhu. Taravali, being friends with Sharon, noticed their association and it agitated her because she thought it wasn't good for Sharon's relationship with Yashoda, and she yelled at Sharon for her actions. Sharon got really upset about it, and Tara apologized, and Sharon told Tara she didn't want to associate with her for several days (which really upset Tara). 

Now, me being friends with the both of them, have heard both sides of the story, but I still don't feel that either of them fully understands the other/ that either of them WANT to understand the other. So I am in a hard position because I spoke with Sharon once about the situation and she took my concern more as criticism. I apologized to her for my approach, but she revealed to my friend that she is upset about it still. Tara is still confused about the situation, too.

Tracy is now living with Adrian and I, so I was speaking with him about it this morning and he revealed that, Vedically, friends don't criticize or instruct one another. Then Adrian spoke up about whether or not you should then just allow your friend to continue acting in a way that was not conducive for their spiritual life. 

So now, I am just asking you to maybe give me a little more spiritual insight into the situation. Should I try to help? Should I forget about the situation and just do my own thing? I don't want to give up either of their association, but I really don't know what is best for me...

Thank you maharaja, I hope you are well :)

Hare Krsna! Jai Nitai!

your aspiring servant,

reb

HpS - Jaya!    AGTSP      So happy you got back to Utah O.K.    We felt so much anxiety that you two had to do so much austerity to visit Boise.

In general these things cannot be resolved to perfection.     So don't take them too seriously.  Try to have clear relations with people.  NOI Texts 4,5,6 make perfect basis for this.  Avoid the Karmi, Jnana, Yogini aspect of people, make friendship with their devotional aspects and help their innocent aspects.

If they want to take your "good advice" based on Scripture or the statements of pure devotees then you should favor them in correcting their ideas. If not then we should be respectful and let Krsna arrange the situation. Arjuna had to give up his cousins!

In all cases chant rounds, follow principles and don't worry too much about these things. Be happy with them and be sure that Krsna is everybody (including Rebecca's) best friend.