a.c. bhaktivedanta swami
|
|
| Prabhupada Letters :: 1972 a.c. bhaktivedanta swami |
|
|
7 July 2007 Friday, 7 July, 1972 New York El Cerrito, California Dear Sri Joshiji, Please accept my greetings, and I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated June 27, 1972, and I thank you for your proposal for cooperating. I did not reply your letter earlier as I was preparing to come here to London. Your proposal to cooperate with this movement is very magnanimous, and I thank you for your suggestion. But before doing anything tangible, I wish to discuss with you in detail. I wanted to see you in Los Angeles, but I could not get up to San Francisco, neither you could come to L.A. Now I shall be away from California for about one month, but when I shall return we shall discuss further this matter. I welcome your suggestions for voluntary service. Thank you very much. Hoping this will meet you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/sda letters | 11:32 | 7 July, 1972 New York My dear Dayananda, Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letters dated June 26, 1972, and July 4, 1972, and I have noted the contents very carefully. Now my advice is this, that you take your family to San Francisco and become the President there, because Kesava wants to change, and I think he has liked it in London very much, so he may come here immediately while I am here and help me to get one very nice temple here. What do you think of this proposal? Yes, reading my books will help you, philosophy must be there, but if you do not also apply the philosophy by participating in all temple affairs like rising early, attending mangal arati, performing devotional service, then simply learning the philosophy will have no effect. Therefore, my suggestion is that you should take charge of the San Francisco affairs, which are already in good order, and live nicely with your family in Krishna Consciousness, because you have got tendency to manage and also good experience and ability. Hoping this will meet you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/sda cc: Kesava das/SF Labels: Los Angeles, management, San Francisco letters | 11:31 |6 July 2007 6 July, 1972 New York My dear Gurudasa, Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letters dated June 19 and June 30, 1972, and I have noted the contents carefully. Ksirodakasayi Prabhu has delivered to me the Check Book no. PGL 971801 to PGL 971850, as well as the Pass Book for Vrindaban Building Fund account. The Check Book please find herewith. The Pass Book and a further letter will follow very soon, along with an advice to the Punjab National Bank written by Ksirodakasayi. Hoping this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/sda letters | 11:31 | 3 July 2007 Monday, 3 July, 1972 New York My Dear Gunagrahi: Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter from Buffalo dated June 21, 1972, and I have noted the contents carefully. Especially I am very much pleased to hear that the University of Buffalo has given to you more than $1200.00 in grant. I can understand by your enthusiastic preparations for Rathayatra in Buffalo that you are very sincere boy and capable devotee. This is very much wanted throughout the society of men, that some few of you will come to the understanding that by serving the Lord with my full energy that this will be my happy position of life and that no other occupation will give me any, not even an ounce of pleasure. Such persons like yourself who are thinking in this way are getting all intelligence and facility by how to do the things properly, and that Krishna is helping you with intelligence and ability, now you take the right course and utilize the opportunity given to you by Krishna to actually inject the human society with that same determination to serve the Lord. Only a handful of you are there who are convinced beyond any doubt about this Krsna consciousness movement, but is sufficient to change the entire course of history. I shall be in London this year for the Rathayatra festival and after that I am going to Paris for the twenty-first, twenty-second and twenty-third of July, and as I have already confirmed these engagements long ago, I regret I shall not be able to physically attend your Rathayatra at Buffalo, but my presence is always with the devotees who are serving so nicely. Worship of Radha-Krishna Deities is the ultimate pinnacle of Deity worship, and it must be done with the utmost caution and attention to every detail of giving opulent service. I am not recommending more temples to install Radha-Krishna Deities until I have become more convinced that they can properly manage. At least five to ten persons must be engaged full time to worship Radha-Krishna properly, and for any small temple especially that is a detrimental factor to maintaining the highest standard in other temple activities besides, because there are not enough men. You may worship Lord Jagannatha, or if you like to install Gaura-Gauranga, Gaura-Nitai, or simply Gaura Deity, He is also very liberal and will forgive and tolerate any service offered to Him even by Jagai and Madhai. Hoping this will meet you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/sda/nd Labels: Buffalo, deities, Ratha Yatra letters | 11:30 |1 July 2007 Saturday, 1 July, 1970 Los Angeles My dear Rupanuga, Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter from Buffalo dated June 26, 1972, and I can very much appreciate the report therein. Yes, that is our main program, this traveling and preaching just as I am doing. Now you have to keep the institution in living condition in the near future, so as such you have to preach vigorously to the right point so that people will appreciate our movement and take to it. I am so much pleased that you have taken Sannyas and are preaching whole-heartedly. Do not worry about your wife and child, Krishna will take care of them. Just you save the foolish world from going to hell. Everyone has become already animals. They are not interested in morality, religion, or other subject matter of the human form of life. And when one is prepared to become animal, then what this school-college education will do? This material world seems to me like a dead body, and even though they try to decorate it very gorgeously, what use can we enjoy from such dead body? So practically we see the youth of your country have become very much frustrated by trying to enjoy this dead body, and they are seeking to find the point of real life which has been lost, but they are thinking that to become animals will give them new life, just like standing naked or growing long hairs. But without Krishna that is not possible. Therefore, it is your duty to inform them very seriously and tactfully that this dead body of material nature can only be revived if we inject it with Krishna Consciousness movement. If we do like this, then your country will become the most gorgeous place, it will be Vaikuntha. Therefore, I am especially appealing to the GBC men to take this mission of Krishna Consciousness movement very, very soberly and without any inebrieties for advancing the knowledge of how to inject Krishna Consciousness into the dead body of material nature. And I am especially convinced that your government of your country must come forward to assist us. We may approach our government leaders with our simple formula and show to them by the practical result that we are accomplishing the reform work that they are trying to do by spending millions of dollars but not very successfully. We, on the other hand, are rescuing the most fallen members of society among the young people and giving them new life of spiritual or highly desirable qualities, such as honesty, cleanliness, truthfulness, morality, like that. Now you approach the government leaders and convince them in this way, and that will be the greatest achievement. They have got so much money for spending for human welfare activities, and practically we are demonstrating that they have given us foodstuffs in India and we are distributing them daily to not less than 500 men, and if they would give us more we could also increase more and more. Your government has got inclination to assist the unfortunate people of the world, and that is very nice idea, now they should understand also that we are very much anxious and capable to assist them in their great and noble endeavor by rendering our services amongst the unfortunate citizens. If they give us financial help in this matter of human welfare activities, we are prepared to save or rescue their entire population from the clutches of ruin and degradation of all sorts. As I think you have tried once before and you have met some important political leaders in your Washington, D.C., so I am requesting you especially should take up this task very seriously of convincing your nation's leaders to give us all cooperation, and we shall in turn volunteer our all services to help them. By our mutual combination I am certain that we can improve the entire humanity to the point of spiritual understanding and thus automatically eliminate the basis for wars, poverty, disease, inequality, insufficient supplies of foodstuffs, and so many other problems that plague our so-called civilized societies. Another thing is, wherever I shall be from now on I want the Bhagavata Seminar to go on. In San Diego, I spoke at one such seminar on Hinduism which attracted many scholarly persons from all over the United States. So I am thinking that if we arrange similar seminar programs in the future, wherever I am speaking at the time, that will be a great success. So I am coming to New Vrindaban for the Janmastami celebration by end of August from Europe, so if you can arrange and advertise widely for such Bhagavata Dharma seminar or festival, I shall speak for minimum 7 days on the subject matter of Bhagavata Dharma. You may invite all the intelligent class of men, like students, professors, philosophers, scientists, educationists, like that, and they can pay some fee and we shall give them all facilities for living, and they shall attend our classes daily for some set period and take away immense benefit. I am enclosing the copy of one sample advertisement for the seminar in San Diego. Similarly, we can arrange such seminar at New Vrindaban. What do you think? Hoping this will meet you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Labels: government, intellignet class, sannyasa, Virginia Beach, wife letters | 16:38 |1 July, 1972 Los Angeles My Dear Satsvarupa, Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter from Cleveland dated June 26, 1972 and I have noted the contents with great pleasure. Similarly I have received such nice letters from Rupanuga and Hrdayananda, and I am very much satisfied that you are all feeling the serious nature of this Sannyasi mission. So far you are concerned, I am especially stressing the importance of our Dallas Gurukula for training up the next generation of Krishna Consciousness preachers. This is the most important task ahead. I am seeing practically how wonderful the children are coming out. Therefore, we shall be very, very vigilant and careful to maintain the highest standard of temple atmosphere and conduct in Dallas. You may install Radha-Krishna Deities and worship Them very, very gorgeously. Simply by associating with the elderly members, the children will learn everything. So, the quality of the elderly members must be also very much to the standard of excellent Vaisnavas; otherwise, the children learn by example and they will very easily be misguided if their senior god-brothers and god-sisters are themselves neglectful. I shall certainly come there to Dallas to see how things are going on as soon as there is opportunity. We must develop our Krishna Consciousness school at Dallas to be the model for education in all the world, and let anyone see our Krishna Consciousness children and they will immediately understand the importance and necessity for such education amongst the citizens at large. Otherwise, the children of your country and other countries, they are simply growing up to be sophisticated animals, so what good will their education do? But if they will agree to try to understand our Krishna Consciousness education or way of life and allow their children to be educated by us, they will see them come out as the topmost citizens with all good qualities such as honesty, cleanliness, truthfulness, loyalty, etc. So that is a very important work and you are especially responsible to make it successful. All other GBC men should give you all assistance for building up the standard there. You mention that you are no longer much occupied with seeing that the rent and mortgage is paid and that the incense is sold, but GBC means to be occupied with everything in the zone. It is not that now we are preachers we can neglect all other points. No, the GBC member is supposed to know everything and anything about the condition and situation of all matters within his jurisdiction. That is the meaning of secretary. So because we are engaged in many fields of activity I am especially relying upon that knowledge of my GBC assistants and secretaries to manage everything properly. But if we do not take time to understand how the financial matters are going on, then at any moment we may experience some calamity due to our inattention to these matters. Therefore, you should try to keep yourself always informed how the financial matters are improving and keep your watchful eye on every feature of our Krishna Consciousness activity. That is also part of preaching work. I am also preaching daily. But I am at the same time managing everything, seeing the statements of accounts, going to the bank, giving advice on every topic, like that. Just now I have purchased one apartment house with seven apartments just adjacent to the L.A. temple and very soon we shall invest in similar properties. So practically there is no question of my neglecting the financial matters of the society, and similarly, you shall do as I am doing. That is your real business. So far your question, Yes, it is good to be prepared with a well-thought lecture in advance. However, we must be able to preach effectively at a moment's notice or under any conditions or circumstances also. As you begin to study the Sanskrit words, in each word you will find a treasure house of different understanding. Hoping this will meet you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Labels: Dallas, deities, GBC, gurukula letters | 16:37 | |
|
|
