Dear Guru Maharaj,

Please accept my humble obeisances, all glories to Srila Prabhupada! I just wanted to add a few details to the last letter for your consideration.

When I had the idea to attempt a gallery exhibition back east, an old friend came to mind who I asked for help. Blake is a painter and performance artist who is favorable to Krishna Consciousness and fairly well-connected with the Charleston "Avant-Garde."

She went to the trouble of finding a gallery to show my work and a few other artists who were interested to contribute to a group show based on the theme "Body, Mind and Soul." I was under the impression that the gallery would take care of production for us, but as it turns out they're just providing a space, and we have to curate the exhibit ourselves.

This places me in an awkward position because I'm fairly obliged to co-curate an art show with someone who happens to be in a female body and I don't see that as remotely feasible without free communication and probably transporting stuff in a car together, which I should not do as a brahmacari.

Moreover, here in LA I'm helping to organize these college Bhakti yoga clubs which require us to commute some distance to meet my partner Marvin. Neither of us are very competent to work a crowd with kirtan, so we take help from the congregation. Currently, practically all the other men who were helping us now have other engagement, so that means at some point I'll probably be stuck with just one or two desperately needed kirtaniyas in female bodies with no way to get them on site.

So I find myself in a predicament where the kind of service I want to do is already, and will subsequently, place me in a situation which is incompatible with the brahmacari ashram. In the past I simply would have avoided these situations to take advantage of monastic life, but now I'm really trying to serve full on in these types of projects which require me to engage all kinds of people.

By your grace it's not that I'm particularly agitated at the moment, and it's not that I don't value vedic culture; but I am deeply convinced that before westerners will accept the form of Vedic civilization, they must first accept the substance. I feel like sooner or later somebody is going to have to take some personal risks in order to convince people of the value of our philosophy before we have the luxury of preaching very widely in the comfort of our own lifestyle. 

Currently I'm enthusiastic to follow all my vows and to serve Krishna in the most dynamic way possible, but I'm anxious to re-establish my integrity. To me the most natural way seems to be to just change ashrams and carry on with what I'm doing but I would be willing to drop everything and try to redirect my energy if it pleases you.

Your monkey soldier,

Ekāśma Dās

HpS - We gave our thoughts about this a lot in the last letter. If you have to Speak French to do some preaching program then you can take a French course for two years and then do the program. It is just a practical consideration, or you can do other kinds of programs that don't rquire you to speak French.
If the only reason that you want to get married is so that you won't be socially criticised for transporting representative members of the opposite sex to different Sankirtan sites, then it seems that it would be better to jut find some other way to do it than get married.

Look at James Bond!    He's not married, and he does so much good for society.    (Haw!   Haw!   Hare!).   See my point.  You don't have to be an ideal Grhastha to attract people to Krsna consciousness.  There is so much appreciation of Brahmacari life in the world. It has always been that way and always will be that way.
You should get married if you feel a strong compulsion to have someone who will laugh at your jokes.
Talk with a lot of people who have more immediate contact with your than us.   We give our opinions, but we are Sannyasis.

Waiting to hear from you (We will laugh at your jokes if you laugh at ours).

Nice art.