Hare Krsna Gurumaharaja
Please, accept my humble obeisances
All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
How are you, Gurudeva? How is your health? What new things does this Winter bring?
HpS - ASA -- I suspect we are about the same as you only in a little bit older body (buddy). Winter does not bring to much difference. Just very cold, now it is 7-degrees C, at 4PM. Makes it very hard to get out, but really our service is about the same.
I hope your sankirtana is developing as it should be.
HpS - ASA -- Me too! And you!
I tell you that Indira Sakti and I are no longer in Chosica, I think a brother has already mentioned to you. It was a difficult decision. Part of me wanted to stay there, the atmosphere is very favorable for a serene and introspective devotional life, the daily association with devotees was invaluable too. But other part of my heart was a bit disappointed of the institutional experience. It is sometimes difficult to reconcile the teaching of Srila Prabhupada and the institution which, supposedly, preserves the legacy that he left us (my perception is restricted to this disfunctional yatra; I have no experience with others).
HpS - Yes, our spys tell us everything about Peru. Ha! Ha! Ha! I personally heard from Srila Prabhupada's lips when one reporter asked him, "Swami Ji, are there problems in your Temples", and Srila Prabhupada answered, "This is the material world. There are problems everywhere."
Even when Krsna was personally present in Vrndavan there were demos coming, causing such distubances that the girls were having miscarriages!
You may have figured out now that Omkara Das is not Krsna, although he resembles him in some aspects. Chosica, a different kind of town, is not Vrndavana, and things aren't so bad there that girls are having spontaneous abortions.
If we are Krsna conscious we see all the problems as opportunitys, impetous, for service, no?
Sometime serving in Lima, sometime serving in Chosica. Sometimes serving in Mayapura - Vrndavana.
What I read in books, not always I see it reflected in the cotidaneity. Maybe, I lack the necessary vision to understand that this correspondence exists before my eyes, but my egoism prevents it from perceiving it.
The truth is that we have returned to Lima with the intention to resume some roads that were suspended some time ago. I have been offered the teaching of new courses for the next year, and this perspective excites me. I am preparing material related to the generation of ideas and its materialization in the visual languages. I am developing a course on Semiotic analysis of photography (which, strangely, has led me to wish to read Whitman...?). All this excites me because I am passionate about the genesis of a course, I am very pleased with research and pedagogical planning, in the end I am happy with the opportunities that are presented to me. Meanwhile, Indira Sakti is returning to school to finish her career and working free lance.
HpS - Very, very, nice, but beware the Mode of Goodness and Passion. It is much easier to dovetail with KC but it can also lead you to personal pride and vanity in personal accomplishment. Do it all for Krsna!!
The great question will always be how to reconcile what is important in life with devotion, which is essential.
HpS - You got it! You must have been a devotee in your last life also.
I want to believe that everything creative, any idea originated in intuition or in intellectual lucubration have origin in Krsna, source of all energy, I wish to believe that by awakening in my students a certain disagreement with the artificial face of the world, I direct them (in some way) to the search of the truth. Perhaps they are mere fantasies, I lack the intelligence that allows me to live in full surrender to God, while doing what I love so much. The mysteries of devotional service in professional life
HpS - Seems natural to us. After two years in Lima you may want to go back to Chosica but with much better perspective, or Rome.
We try to cling to the chanting of japa, the four principles, the reading of Srimad Bhagavatam and the eventual association with the few friends we have in ISKCON. We ask you to bless us, Gurudeva, in order to follow you.
We miss you, Gurumaharaja.
Your servant
Gandharva dasa
HpS - Keep sending us reports of your work to the Blog so that we can also take your course!
Have you got "The Media is the Massage" by Marshall McLuhan?