Hare Krishna, dear Gurudeva,
Please accept my humble obeisances.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
HpS/ASA - Gurudeva, Ki Jaya!!
My family (Tarangaksi dd, Devahuti) and I are grateful to Krishna for having your association online. We truly appreciate reading and staying connected through your messages on the anveSaka WhatsApp group. They've been especially helpful for us (particularly for me living in Finland), and we are thankful for the effort, energy, and time you put into it.
HpS/ASA 👦 🐵 🐖 We are very enlivened by your association and hope it develops more and more into association with you all and everyone on the completely spiritual platform!
What are people in Finland like? Do they all have big beards and drive sleds with reindeer?
It has been almost 10 months since I moved to this northern country. It has been tremendously hard, perhaps the hardest experience in this life so far. Even though the city I live in is relatively warmer than others, 2 things disturb the mind the most: the dark winters (with little or no sunlight) and the isolation (as Finnish people often build homes in the middle of forests🌲).
ASA - The Sun is as incarnation of Aniruddha and Aniruddha is the predominating deity of the mind. ... Therefore, it is impossible to keep good mental health without sufficient sunlight!
(Of course, KRSNA is the divine Sun!) 🌞
Multiple times, the mind felt so disturbed, caught in lamentation and ignorance. Yet, by Krishna’s mercy, we have good friends here, and a Buddhist sangha became our refuge, too.
Now, I realize that solitude is a great opportunity for introspection—the chance to look deeper within ourselves and better understand who we are.
When you are 'alone', you can hear the mind louder (and you can easily go crazy😅), but you can also engage with your inner wisdom and discover the incredible strength that lies within. Ultimately, I believe all this comes from Krishna (Paramatma?).
ASA - https://vedabase.io/en/library/bs/5/38/
Now, I'm reaching the end of the 1st year of my master’s program. My conclusion is that the program has given me a broad perspective on how education systems function around the world, particularly how international organizations (e.g. United Nations, OECD, World Bank, etc) manage global education agendas through a sort of 'soft power' that encourages countries to align with them. To sum up, we learnt how this material world works and how conditioned we are by it. For the 2nd year, I must complete both an internship and a thesis.
I'm eager to write my thesis as an offering to You and Srila Prabhupada. By the mercy and help of Maha Lakshmi mataji (from Spain), I was able to connect with Sri Mayapur International School. Since the school follows the Cambridge curriculum, I'd like to write a thesis on how the school keeps a 'balance' between what this global curriculum expects/demands, and the values, principles, and knowledge from our Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition. For that, I intend to intern as a teacher at the school for a full year, which means moving to Mayapur. Therefore, if You consider this a favorable plan, Gurudeva, and I could be useful to the Mayapur community, and ultimately to ISKCON, I humbly beg for your permission and blessings to move to Mayapur and carry out this seva.
HpS - Sounds fine. Of course, this is the material world, so there will be problems in Mayapura too, but the more we become devotees, we see that all these problems are great. Purifying our relation with the looney bin! 😬
Thank you so much for reading this letter🙏
Trying to be your disciple,
Rukmini Devi Dasi
HpS - Did we mention Bhadra rupa Das to you? He is from Peru. He has gone through a very similar route as you.
Studied in Japan, then Finland or Sweden??? Then did his Doctorate in Switzerland, and is now on the United Nations promoting music education as essential for world peace and getting an audience.
We think he is doing like Bhakti vaibhava with Yadunandana Swami.
We will send a link to this post to him.
Thank you!
Do you feel Srila Prabhupada thanking you!!!?
