Hare Krishna Maharaja, please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Thank you so much for Vijaya Prabhu’s Treasures of the Brhat Mrdanga book and the prasadam. We are very inspired by the nice forward that Vaisesika Prabhu wrote. Hope to dive further in soon.
HpS - We, agtSP, were just looking up topics that we liked and reading clips from it!
The painting of Sri Advaitacarya that I sent was posted on Facebook by a devotee. On His appearance day I impulsively sent it to you. I really love the painting so I wanted you to see it in case you hadn’t seen it before.
Maharaja, I want to apologize for my long letter I sent last month. At the time it seemed like the right thing to send but I can see now that a lot of it was unnecessary and maybe too personal and vulnerable and much too long. Been really struggling internally.
Maharaja, I’ve heard you talk about becoming too institutionalized within ISKCON a few different times throughout the years and I’m just wondering how to understand this more.
And maybe it’s not something I can understand at this neophyte stage?
I’m just always dealing with this rugged individualism that I was brought up in and heavily conditioned by, so for me the institutional aspect of ISKCON seems to be something I need to lean into more?
I’ve had some very profound and instructive dreams recently where you had answered some questions I have really struggled with.
Anyway, thinking about you being back in the Murfreesboro camp and hoping this finds you very well with no more mouth pain.
Maharaja, would you be able to visit us in Boise this year?
Your aspiring servant,
Nitisara das
HpS - We, agtSP, are struggling to answer this Blog timely. We are lazy, and actually limited. This letter seems to have had a FMS/BPC but we missed it!!!
Noted all of your good concerns.
Becoming institutionalized would seem to relate to 'niyama agraja' as in NoI 2. We go through the institutions rituals because it accommodates our sense gratification, gives us friends and family etc.
Yet, the rituals, eg. Japa Vrata, pushes us to reflect, "Why am I doing this?". If we are sincere and take advantage of this natural push from the Sadhana, then we really ask the question and we can see for example how we joined ISKCON, took up some service, for a certain vision, but now we have lost that.
It has repeatedly happened to me and I guess of course others, even you!! Then I took a month off in Braja as it offered itself to get back on track.
It may take a month every now and then to adjust for six years of institutional conditioning.
Helps?
So, much more detail in Prabhupada's books.
It seems that we will be based in Nashville until mid-May unless we die during this breath. By then, any travel plans should become clearer, but really seems that we should stay anywhere we can prepare for a change of body, engage in strong Sankirtan with deep meaning.
🙂
Another letter!
