Hare Krsna,
Dear Maharaja. OBEISANCES! 🙌
ASA - All glories to Srila Prabhupada who kindly gives us service in his Sankirtan band! Looks like a long letter. Let's go! !
What a pleasure to finally be able to sit down and write to you after such a long time. 😄
ASA - Ha! Ha! If you would write shorter letters more often it might be better, but maybe not. Good letters come in all sizes and frequencies.
I hope you are in good health; may your body and mind remain strong and enable you to continue your daily service. Jaya 🦁 Nrsimhadeva!
HpS - Actually our body is becoming more and more weak each day. Our estimate of three more years to final dissolution seems pretty accurate, but... we, the passenger, seem to be getting stronger!!! Hope is same for you.
So so so many things have happened inside and outside of me. With me, with others, with the environment, with you, with Krsna, with Prabhupada. Phew! A whirlwind of emotions, sensations and thoughts for months now.
I feel like telling you so many things! I hope not to expand this letter too much and to keep it as short as possible.
First of all, I want to thank you for your constant presence. I am very grateful to have the opportunity to contact you and to have your association (It is a gift from Krsna).
HpS - It is kind of you to give us yours. ! !
My dream world is very particular. She teaches me many things... I believe and I feel that she has helped me to decipher many important things for my growth in these last years. Thank you for be part of it.
At work everything is going well. A lot of work and a lot of responsibility. I have had to take over an important part of the company and I have felt a lot of stress and pressure in this position. I think Krsna put me in this position for a reason. I have to learn something, don't I?
HpS - Or maybe it is The Witch and The Evil One trying to trick you with thinking that you are the controller and not live a simple life of high thinking. Either one is possible. Chant, read, associate with devotees and you will know!! Very fortunate we are.
I have already started my postgraduate studies. As I told you in my previous letter, I started a Masters in Environment and Sustainable Development. It is a very interesting topic to learn about, and I think it cuts across many areas, not only Engineering.
It has been very hard, Maharaja. Working and studying is very tiring. My work itself is already demanding, and performing in my studies means more effort. I have been very tired lately, and it has been difficult for me to continue with my sadhana.
ASA - Ahh! Haaa! It is a trick from The Black Witch and The-Evil-One.
Even though I go to bed early so that I can get up and chant my rounds, I feel very tired mentally, and I need to sleep a little more (sometimes I don't manage to get into the FMP). When I get up early and chant my rounds, I feel that these are not good rounds 😔
I am very sorry, Maharaja. It has been difficult for me to get used to this rhythm of life, even though I like what I do. I understand that my sadhana is what gives me the strength to continue day by day. Please, give me your blessings to keep going and not keep falling.
HpS - Hare Krsna, but blessings are only part of success. The other one is acting.
I have done what you recommended; I keep a record of "rounds in debt", and when I can chant more than my 16 rounds, I cross them off my list. Sometimes I add more to the debt, and sometimes I subtract. I'm trying to improve every day 🙏
ASA - Super Good, but best is if we get them done daily. I also fall behind some times. I also my fighting with The Black Witch and The Evil One.
I'd like to tell you something very personal....
ASA - Here in the Blog!!!! O.K. Here it is, so I guess we can all look at it and Yoga Maya will cover those who should not see it.
For a while now I've been questioning a lot of things. Things related to how I can and want to relate to the devotees, to ISKCON, to Prabhupada, to the GBC.
ASA - I also question this. Radharani wonders if She should just give up on this unfaithful boy and be a Brahmacarini.
What happened with Lokanath Swami hit me very hard (I don't know if I should even call him Swami). It broke my heart how the ICC, GBC and great leaders reacted to that.
ASA - It is a very tough situation. As far as I know there was no serious fault on his part. Any accidently mistake he made was corrected.
Yet, we live in a VERY big institution and can't know everything about it, so we have to cultivate a circle of close friends as well as be good citizens of the institution and.... keep our individual personal relationship with Srila Prabhupada.
Precisely in all this time of internal questioning, I did not know whether to write to you about it in the Blog. I did not dare. Many times I sat in front of the computer to write to you, but I didn't know if it was appropriate.... I asked Krsna for guidance.
ASA - It is fine. We can, should, deal with such events, but in the Blog we cannot go into great detail, because a variety of people are involved. It is in between friends and institution.
Recently I was reading the book "Twirl Your Beads" about your writings, poems and others. And as I was going through the pages having this questioning within me, whether to write to you or not about this topic, a picture of you with Lokanath Swami appeared. I felt within myself that it was time to write to you....
ASA - Aaaah! Maybe that was The White Witch (Radha) and The Good One (Gopal, who always takes care of His calves and cows).
Maharaja, I wonder how can I be part of an institution that supports and endorses a man accused of abuse an 11 year old girl, who is a spiritual master, Sannyasi, who speaks of Krsna, who represents Prabhupada, who preaches love?
ASA - You can't, I wouldn't.
- We mentioned before that we heard from Srila Prabhupada's lips that this is the material world. There are problems everywhere, even in his temples.
Even in Braja when Krsna was personally present.
So, if we hear of problems in the institution, then we have to take action from our position.
I have seen some cover ups in ISKCON, but never anything that lasted or was too great. That is because the individual members have taken shelter of the Brahminical qualities and people that Srila Prabhupada has given us and acted to make corrections in the institution and its leadership.
Mother's Partys.
Zonal Gurus.
Rtivik.
There will be more and more. Srila Prabhupada says that it is a very old story, Deva/Asura, the gods versus the demons. In the material world it always goes on. In our institutional dealings we have to fight it as men, women, children, sudras, ksatriya, brahmanas... and keep a nice circle of friends.
There are many nice devotees in this institution.
You have to make friends and proper connections with them.
We can only help a little bit in institutional problems.
Take advantage of that.
Help us if we fall and you are standing,
but have a lot of nice friends in the institution and don't even hope that it will become perfect in Kali yuga (SD 1.17).
How can I continue to trust the preaching without questioning it, when some people who are in charge of it, are sexual harassers, abusers, violent?
Why, if we are not the body, if we are spiritual souls, do they give so much importance to being a woman, being homosexual, being black, white, Hindu, Christian?
I am in a woman's body and it is not easy.
HpS - No body is easy in the material world. Just different challenges.
It is not easy to accept some verses that talk about women in the scriptures. How in some classes they speak from racism, from homophobia, from misogyny. It is not easy to see how we are mistreated with words on a daily basis, with acts, with abuse.
HpS - Try being a Sannyasi for a few years and reading Prabhupada's books!! Ooof! He is always kicking, following the Acharya's, false Gurus, false Sannyasis.
They also kick False Women, False Homosexuals, False Black/White/Yellow people. Once we are devotees. We are real women, homosexuals, black/white/yellow people.
Just counting quickly I have five initiated disciples who are public or confidential homosexuals. O.K. It doesn't bother them or me any more than if they were heterosexuals.
Just have to adjust to the kind of body you have.
Radharani, Sita Devi, completely control There husbands, by love.
ASA - Regular Chilean society supports animal slaughter and divorce etc, no? So, I am ready to live my institutional life in any institutional religion which is better than the current ISKCON, but I have not found it. Send news, but really don't expect perfection from institutional religion. Expect it from practical perfection in the institution, based upon perfect personal relationships amongst the devotees who make it.
O.K. ?
It hurts me so much to see this in ISCKON. It hurts me so much to feel that we are no different than other institutions. I wonder what Srila Prabhupada would say, Maharaja. I wonder all these things because my heart feels sad. I feel really pain, Maharaja. And this pain hurts me deeply.
Please excuse me for writing these things to you. It may not be appropriate, and if so, I am sorry. I feel in my heart the need to express it to you, hoping that you can help me to understand all these questions; trusting in your wisdom, feelings, knowledge and being.
I am not trying to generate a controversy. I hope that those who read this blog will not feel offended 🙏. I express these questions from my heart so that you can help me to understand them, as I have not been able to do so myself.
ASA - Maybe ISKCON, the institution, GBC, is a bunch of pedo-homo-bestio-philes and I don't know it, but for 47-years now I have been working in the institution and two times ready to leave because of the problems that were supposed to be there. but after serious, serious, investigation I came to the conclusion that the administrators were just as sincere as was I and trying deal with their faults and the institutional faults.
Recently we went through accusations against a devotee in Peru. I spent hours, and hours, and hours, and suffered so much verbal violence to get to the bottom of the situation as a member of the GBC investigation committee.
We found out what we could as an institution.
We made recommendations.
We saw that so many people make accusations. Repeat descriptions of sins that they have heard, but very rare to find anyone who is willing to do the actual work of investigating things rather than just enjoying/suffering, the nectar of fault finding.
So, Hare Krsna.
Know the soldier next to you in the trench!
Look at the General from a distance, and do the best you can, and get a direct connection from Srila Prabhupada, and follow those directions.
The Witch, Putana, will try to kill our faith in the Institution, Our Friends, and Our Guru (Prabhupada), get past the witch by sincere love for Prabhupada and HIS Iskcon.
More than eternally grateful to you.
Your aspiring servant,
Bh. Nicole Silva
HpS - 🙂 👍
