Hare Krishna Gurudeva, please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. All glories to you.
Thinking about you a lot and your upcoming travels. I am wanting to travel with you and wanting to travel blind…but knowing I must serve you more and more in the vani sense. Sometimes it feels as though you are physically present in our morning program. I’m finding over and over again that anytime I feel discouraged, depressed, no enthusiasm..all that needs to be done is to cry out in the Guruastikam song then like magic or mysticism some enthusiasm comes in and I feel connected again(and japa improves like a symbiotic relationship). Sometimes it’s as if you are dancing in front of me. Each verse iconographic and a world of discovery. It’s sobering and blissful simultaneously. I’m committed to this experiment and we are not missing a single morning. Sometimes it works at home but mostly it is most potent at the temple(The rugged ignorant individual in me doesn’t like this!). But more then just relief from suffering it is the perspective.
Slowly slowly losing this taste for wanting to be a great man/bad man. Some intelligence is telling me to just secretly be a good disciple.
“Day by day, stone by stone
Build your secret slowly
Day by day, you'll grow too
You'll know heaven's glory”
-Little Church inspired by Saint Francis
It’s an amazing thing, Gurumaharaja..every single Thursday program and so many conversations at work and in the street Carl Jung is mentioned. And when I simply repeat some things I’ve heard from you, their eyes light up.
Another possible bridge we are experimenting with is this book: The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. We have started a new series on it for our Thursday program. Each chapter or agreement has been a wonderful jumping off point to basic Bhakti topics and specificity Nectar Of Instruction. Seems like 80 percent of people here either have read the book or have wanted to read it. I got it when I was a teenager and it may have helped me come to KC. Very famous book. Curious if you know it or know his other book Beyond Fear. Who were these Toltec people and what was their relation to Vedic culture? Is a question that keeps coming up.
Lastly, many politics and changes in infrastructure in our temple and in the US government. Our temple’s government has been shut down in a way as well. But it’s going in a good direction and this has raised a lot of questions for me personally: Do we need both conservative and liberal devotees for a healthy spiritual community? And should the two aspects be balanced within us? Like Prabhupada talks about the razors edge.. and can we put smarta Brahmins, consrervitives, and more dictative speakers all in the same general category and then Avadhutas, liberals and provocative speakers all in the same general category as well? And are these two mentalities eternal?
Thank you for all the enlivening classes recently. The redwood tree that is Houston temple is a great inspiration for our Boise bonsai tree temple. The squirrel moving the stone is just as important to Lord Ram as the big boulders the monkeys carry?
Your aspiring servant,
Nitisara Das
HpSwami ASA 🐒- Lord Nityananda and Srila Advaita Acharya engage in mock joyful arguments about conservative and liberal attitudes.
Srila Prabhupada comments that there have always been these two attitudes: Avadhuta and Smarta, and they have never understood each other and they never will.
Yet their conflicts stimulate each other and they love each other like anything.
Yes, in the drama, there are no small parts, just small actors!
Realize Boise is the center of the universe.
Will look at above book.
See you soon.
Respects to all?