a.c. bhaktivedanta swami
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| Prabhupada Letters :: 1972 a.c. bhaktivedanta swami |
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7 March 2007 Tuesday, 7 March, 1972 Calcutta My Dear Aniruddha, Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated Jan. 31, 1972, and I have noted the contents. I am very glad to learn that you are enthusiastic to teach the children. Most of your questions I have answered as above to Satsvarupa. Simply follow the program of the elders, let the children associate as much as possible with the routine KC program, and when the others go out for working and business matters, the children can be given classes as you describe. They can learn our method of Krishna Consciousness by rising early, cleansing, plus knowledge of Sanskrit, English, a little Mathematics, history, geography, that's all. We haven't got to take any help from the government by getting so-called accreditation. If outsiders want to send their children to us, it will not be for their accreditation, but because they will get the best education for relieving them of all anxieties of material life and for this education the government has no idea. Where is such thing as transmigration of the soul being taught in classroom? If they simply learn to rise early, cleanse, all hygienic principles, their study will be greater than any government program. Whatever the elder members are doing, the children should do if possible. But for teaching the teachers themselves should be fixed up initiated devotees, otherwise how the children can get the right information and example? Thank you very much for serving Krishna in this way, and if you go on sincerely serving like this, chanting, and following the regulative principles strictly, all your questions will be answered by Krishna automatically. Hope this finds you in good health, Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/sda letters | 05:13 | 5 March 2007 Sunday, 5 March, 1972 Calcutta My Dear Sri Govinda, Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated February 22, 1972, along with the letter from Santosa. I especially appreciate his report of enthusiastic distribution of books and generally very highly determined and pure attitude of Krishna Consciousness devotional service. I am so much engladdened by his report. Just see how you all are giving all of your time and energy and attention to serving Krishna and how this simple formula is having such effect of creating topmost yogis and saintly young persons. You are the flowers of your nation, the devotees of the Lord, and so you go on in this way and always remember Krishna by remembering that you are His devotee and servant, and that this position is the most exalted of all and never to be thought of as inferior or less than even the most so-called elevated materialistic person. When we think of superior person, we think he is superior because he knows something more than I, superiority means more knowledge. Krishna knows everything, and He claims that if anyone knows Him, then he also knows everything. So knowledge means to know only that Krishna is the Proprietor of everything, that Krishna is the Friend of everyone, and that Krishna is the Enjoyer of everything. These three things: Proprietor, Friend, and Enjoyer. If somebody knows this, he is actually wise. Therefore because the devotee always knows this, he is more superior person because he has got all knowledge. But even more important than the knowledge of Krishna is the acting upon that knowledge, or devotional service. By the acting he realizes his knowledge and becomes complete. So I am very much encouraged that all you young boys and girls are working so hard to please Krishna, and even I cannot give you any nice thing, still, because you have got some love for Krishna and your Spiritual Master, therefore you have given up everything for selling books door-to-door and working very hard in every way just to push on this movement. For your sincere helping me I thank you all very very much. I have enjoyed your newspaper articles also, and in general I think that very soon your Cleveland center will rise above all the rest, so much so that I shall have to come to live there and translate for some time. I hope this will meet you all nice boys and girls in very good health and happy mood. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Labels: book distribution, Cleveland, philosophy, spiritual master letters | 04:18 |5 March, 1972 Calcutta My dear Bali Mardan, Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated February 26, 1972, and I have received the small booklet Transcendental Teachings of Prahlada Maharaja also. It is very nice, and it is just to the point for our ISKCON Press. You are very well suited to make endless numbers of this type of small booklet and I am very much pleased to understand how nicely you are doing it. Now if you are also able to increase our distribution at the same time, then this will be the success of our Krishna Consciousness Movement, to print and distribute profusely, side by side. We had got some indication from Karandhara Prabhu that there was some misunderstanding and things were not going too well between you both big leaders. I was little concerned because such things should never be allowed to fructify within our Society, that will spoil everything. But I am glad to hear from you that because there was some misinformation that we had got the wrong impression, and actually that everything is progressing in a spirit of mutual cooperation in all respects. This is Krishna Consciousness. Working together to please the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Practically now it is in the hands of you big guns to manage everything so that there may never be internal difficulties amongst us, and so that we may always go on increasing more and more the influence of Lord Caitanya's philosophy of Sankirtana process upon all the world. That will be your great achievement, and if you go on helping me in this way, you may know it for certain that very soon you will see Krishna face-to-face. In short words, I am very much fond of these booklets, now go on increasing. I am also pleased to hear that you have eliminated all the book debts from ISKCON Press. I am very much pleased that you are working so nicely. Now you and Karandhara, along with Hayagriva, Jayadvaita and others, you conjointly think how to double and again double our books supply, there is no limit in this respect. I have duly received, signed, and returned the MacMillan Co. contract to Rupanuga. Has he got it? Also you were to send me a copy of the contract for distributing our other books by MacMillan Co. also. Now Pradyumna is with me, so he and Syamasundara conjointly they will everyday prepare my night's translation work, one transcribing by typing, one with sanskrit corrections and synonyms, and they shall dispatch regularly to you. Hoping this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Labels: Brooklyn, management, printing, publishing, translating letters | 04:17 |5 March, 1972 Calcutta My dear Bhakta das, Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated February 7, 1972, and I am very glad to hear that everything is progressing well under your direction at San Diego temple, especially that you are installing Lord Jagannatha there and that you want to try very hard for pleasing Him always. This is the devotee's business, always to please Krishna, that is all. Throw out all other interests, simply think always that He is the recipient of all my energy, that is Krishna Consciousness. By now you must have completed nice clothes, ornaments, and all gorgeous arrangements for installing the deity, so you may place Jagannatha just as with Caitanya Mahaprabhu's picture without any ceremony required. In general we do not allow anyone without sacred thread to attend to the deity, but if there is lack of qualified brahmanas, men without sacred thread may be employed to cleanse the floor and other things which do not require their touching or gazing upon the deity at close quarter. Kindly thank our Doug Souva Prabhu for his taking part in this Krishna Consciousness Movement, and it appears as if he is understanding the philosophy nicely. Now you give him further all good guidance, and I shall be glad to initiate him when I shall come there by late Spring. Hoping this meets you in good health and happy mood. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/sda Labels: deities, initiation, San Diego letters | 04:17 |5 March, 1972 Calcutta My dear Jayadvaita, Please accept my blessings. I have also received your letter along with Bali Mardan's and I am very much glad that Pradyumna is now with me for teaching him correctly this sanskrit editing work. After he has become well-trained that will be a great relief to me and it will benefit everyone by increasing the flow of our books and literatures. I am very much pleased that Bali Mardan is doing something in ISKCON Press as manager, and that you all like Advaita and Uddhava are cooperating to print my books. One thing, I do not regularly receive copies of books and magazines which are new, so if you will kindly send me whenever they come out sample copies of all our literatures, I shall be very thankful. As I have informed, Pradyumna and Syamasundara. will be sending you regularly completed transcriptions of my translation work by post, that will avoid the high cost of sending tapes, which besides are very expensive and may be lost easily in mail, and because I am here if they have questions I can answer and make the final proofreading, and this will expedite everything. One thing, now you say the date for printing by MacMillan Co. is set for August 1st, but last time you said June 1st, so I am wondering how long this delaying business shall go on? Our Bhagavad-gita As It Is is so much important to the world for uplifting it from darkest condition of ignorance, but still we cannot give them it, that is our neglect. I shall appreciate if you can help to expedite the printing of BGAII as quickly as possible. Hope this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/sda Labels: Bhagavad-gita, Brooklyn, printing, publishing, translating letters | 04:16 |4 March 2007 Saturday, 4 March, 1972 Calcutta His Divine Grace Lalita Prasad Thakura Bhaktivinode Institute Ulla-Birnagar, Nadia dist., W. Bengal My dear Uncle Prabhupada Lalita Prasad Thakura, Kindly accept my humble obeisances at your Lotus Feet. The whole day spent at your Temple on Thursday was so pleasant, and happy that all my disciples felt celestial blessings in your association. Personally, I am so much encouraged by you, that I appreciate this as the blessings of Bhaktivinode Thakura through his living representative. Now you can expedite the lease agreement immediately so that before returning to U.S.A. in about three weeks time I may advise my assistants to take up the work seriously and begin construction and other things. Next time when I go to you I shall stay not less than one week. Hoping this will meet you in the very best health and happy mood. Yours affectionately, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/sda Labels: building, Gaudiya Math, land, Mayapur letters | 06:21 |4 March, 1972 Calcutta My dear Amarendra, Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated January 22, 1972, and have noted the contents carefully. I am very much pleased that you are expanding our position at Gainesville temple, especially I am glad that you are entering politics to try for city commissioner position. This will be good opportunity to preach widely and sell our literatures, so take advantage. But one thing, our platform must be very simple, that there is no other sacrifice necessary for the well-being of the citizens save and except this Sankirtana yajna. Regularly the town citizens can everyone congregate and chant Hare Krishna and hold festivals of celebration continually, with widespread distribution of tasty foodstuffs - who will not be attracted by such program? This is our simple method, nothing else. Any other political programs proposed by politicians will simply spoil everything. Actual government means to give the citizens the highest welfare, that is, spiritual fulfillment and access they should provide to obtain without any difficulty the perfection of this human form of life. Otherwise, government means democracy, so now instead of one king who could rule piously, there are thousands of kings, each one interested in taking only some taxes for his spending, not for welfare. Nowadays, politician means pick-pocket, fooling the people who are innocent into voting them and then picking their pockets, because in two or four years they know they may be replaced by some other king so they take as much as they can. The people are innocent, we have seen this everywhere, even in Russia, it is only these rascal leaders who have spoiled everything by fooling the people for their personal advantage. So I am very much serious that you all boys and girls should expose these Nixons and remove them, there is ample scope for protest in this Sankirtana Movement, and you yourselves be president, that is my hope for saving the misled mankind from total chaos. Popularize this movement in the world, but better to avoid talk of slaughterhouses, illicit sex, etc., and give the public instead the positive approach to life of Krishna Consciousness. Kindly keep me informed how your election comes out or any publicity you will get in the newspapers. Hoping this will meet you in good health and happy mood. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami n.b. Upon your recommendation I have accepted the three boys as my duly initiated disciples, and I have replied them on back. Labels: festivals, Gainesville, politicians, preachers letters | 06:19 |4 March, 1972 Calcutta My dear Sons, Please accept my blessings. Upon the recommendation of Amarendra I have gladly accepted all of you as my duly initiated disciples. Your beads have been duly chanted by me and they are sent under separate post. I have given you the spiritual names as follows: Joseph Magyar/ Gadi das Marc Malcomb/ Bhudara das Richard Whitenhurst/ Sridhara das I am so glad to learn that all of you have been such a great help to Amarendra there in our Gainesville center. I can understand that all of you are very sincere boys and are very eligible candidates for going back to Home, Back to Godhead. And the process is simple. Follow the regulative principles, chant at least 16 rounds of beads daily, read our literatures, go for street Sankirtana, etc. In this way keep yourselves engaged in Krishna's business 24 hours and you will be really happy in this life and in the end reach the Supreme. I am hoping this will meet all of you in good health and happy mood. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/sda Labels: Gainesville, initiation letters | 06:18 |4 March, 1972 Bombay My dear Dasarha, Please accept my blessings. I have received your letter dated February 4, 1972, and I have noted the contents carefully. I am very glad to see that everything is going very nicely there in Wilmington as per the enclosed newspaper clippings, and I am much pleased that you are wholeheartedly engaging yourself in this way, and in this way you will help to save the whole world from the most dangerous position and at the same time achieve yourself the topmost perfection of life. Regarding your questions on Christianity, we are not very much keen to engage them in argument because for the most part they are sentimentalists and have no philosophy, therefore they become fanatics or dogmatists, and this type of person we cannot change. But if you find some Christian person who is intelligent to understand philosophy then you may argue that if God is unlimited, how He can be confined to having only one son? The son is the representative of the father, and in that sense he is the same as the father, but also he is different than the father. So Christ is speaking in this sense, that only through the representative of God can one come to God. Just like Krishna says in Bhagavad-gita that one should surrender to a bona fide spiritual master, and then He also says that one should “Surrender unto Me.” So there is no difference between surrendering to God or surrendering to God’s representative, therefore Christ is also saying just surrender to me, the son or representative or spiritual master, and that is the same as surrendering to my father. Accepting the Lord or His representative as one’s savior means to render loving devotional service to Him, and in return he will give you all protection. But the foolish Christians they think God is their order-supplier so that simply by performing some religious ceremonies they are entitled to receive all benedictions for enhancing their material life. First of all, to be saved by God means that one must obey what God orders or His laws of commandments. In the Bible God says “Thou shall not kill,” but where is the Christian who does not kill animals and eat? They have changed the meaning of kill to mean “murder,” and for them, murder means onlyother humans. So unless you find out some Christian who is actually intelligent, it is useless to try for convincing them of these points. Simply show them by example that we are finding great spiritual joy in serving Krishna, sell them some literature, give them prasadam, and invite to the temple, and if they cannot understand from the point of view of philosophy, at least they will be able to appreciate our wonderful and enlivening activities and that we have proved ourselves the most upright, moral persons and the best examples of enlightened souls for the general improvement of all the citizens. Regarding your other question, you should not read such nonsense books, nor allow your mind to dwell on such subject matter. Instead utilize your time for advancing in Krishna consciousness by reading our books. We have got sufficient stock, and if you simply go on reading them, chanting regularly 16 rounds, engaging yourself 24 hours in Krishna’s business, then all of your questions will be answered automatically. Krishna promises to His sincere devotee that He will give him the intelligence to understand Him. Hoping this meets you in good health and happy mood. Your ever well wisher, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/sda Labels: Christians, outside books, philosophy, questions, Wilmington letters | 06:18 |4 March, 1972 Calcutta My dear Ksirodakasayi, Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letters dated 14th and 26th February, 1972, and I had very much hoped to meet you in Mayapur to chalk out a programme for press work in future. But anyway I think I shall be coming to Delhi very soon to settle up our business in Vrindaban in two respects. First, concerning the Saraf land, I want to sign the documents before going to Bombay within a few days from now, and if there is possibility to lay down the corner-stone there I can also do that before leaving from India. This will please me very much and give me great relief to know that we have done something solid in Vrindaban before I leave, and the credit is yours. So I am entrusting that you can arrange everything very nicely about getting the deed prepared for the Saraf land, and you may also prepare one nice foundation-stone and we shall hold a public ceremony and lay the foundation stone. Second thing is, it appears that Madan Mohan Goswami has changed his heart and become favorable to give us the downstairs veranda and some rooms upstairs above my rooms in the Radha-Damodara Temple, so for that I expect to come to Vrindaban from Calcutta as soon as I am informed by Subala Maharaja and your good self, on my way to Bombay for our pandal program there in Juhu. So kindly go to Vrindaban immediately and make all arrangements for the legal documents and cornerstone laying-down, and if Subala needs assistance you may help him also, but one thing is I want to come there immediately, so go immediately to Vrindaban and send me cable when I shall come there. I must leave Calcutta no later than the 8th latest. Regarding printing of Hindi BTG, we shall see when we meet there. But I think there is no need to print further for the time being until we develop program for our distribution. Now we have got thousands of unsold magazines, so what is the point of printing more? I think because Brahmananda is now here in India to manage things you may consult with him how to do everything in the best manner possible. Hoping this will meet you in good heath. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Labels: Delhi, land, legal, management, printing, Vrindavan letters | 06:17 | |
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