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| Prabhupada Letters :: 1974 |
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27 December 2008 27 December, 1974 Bombay Southall, England My dear Durgesh, Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter 10-12-74 and have noted the contents carefully. It has been recommended to me by the leaders in London that you should move into our temple as a permanent brahmacari and that your father will allow it if I also recommend. After studying your letter carefully and seeing the devotion and sincerity that you possess I am also very much in favor of your staying at our temple as a brahmacari. In my previous letter I had said that you could go to school during the week and live in the temple on the weekends. But I did not know how serious and determined you were to become Krsna Conscious. Someone as determined as you should be given facilities to spend cent percent of his time in Krsna Consciousness. Therefore I would be very happy to see you living in the temple, following all of our principles of pure life and becoming an expert scholar in Vedic knowledge, through studying my books diligently. This is real education. The so-called education that they are teaching in the schools and universities today is simply useless knowledge which is all based on atheistic and speculative theories. The teachers themselves are following no real authorities in wisdom neither do they set any good examples for their students. By going to school today there is always the danger through bad association of becoming entangled in so many unwanted things such as illicit sex, intoxication etc. Therefore definitely the best thing for you is to live in our temple in London. Please request your father on my behalf to let you do this. If there is any hesitation on his part please request him to write me and I will try to clarify things. If you go to live at our temple, because of your age, you should have a written statement from your father showing that he has given permission. Then authorities will not think that you are a run away. I hope this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/ps letters | 06:34 | 1 May 2008 Wednesday, 1 May, 1974 Bombay My dear Acarya Prabhaker, Please accept my greetings. I am due receipt of your letter dated 24/4/74 and I have noted the contents carefully. Sometimes in the year 1950 or 51 I first met you in Jhansi and since then we were very intimately connected and you took Hare Nama from me and I also expected in the future both of us would preach the Krsna Consciousness movement all over the world. So practically more than 20 years have passed and you are working in a different field of activities. I am also working in a different field of activities. But by Krsna's grace again we are trying to come to one platform. Your statement that present educational system has produced no good effect is confirmed by the sastra: Yasyasti bhaktir bhagavaty akincana sarvair gunais tatra sanaste surah harav abhaktasya kuto mahad-guna mano-rathenasati dhavato bahih [SB 5.18.12] Human life is especially meant for spiritual education or Krsna Conscious education. For eating, sleeping, sex life and defense it is not very much necessary for the human being to receive education, because naturally every living being has natural education for these demands of the body. Therefore for the human being spiritual education is essential: atatho brahmajijnasa. You are a competent scholar and very intelligent personality so if you understand this philosophy of life then immediately I shall be able to cooperate with you. Our Krsna Consciousness movement is specifically based on Bhagavad gita as it is. We accept Krsna the Supreme Personality of Godhead with full opulences of wealth, power, potency, beauty, knowledge and renunciation. If we want perfect education then we must follow the principle of Bhagavad gita. Such education will help the whole human society. In all different fields of activity, social, political, religious, cultural, economic and so on. If you take up this principle then the educational department should be divided into four divisional departments for advancement of knowledge. There are many departmental institutions for giving education just like medical, engineering, legal, administrative etc. But there is no educational institution where real ideal Brahmanas are educated according to Srimad-Bhagavatam brahminical culture, or to educate a certain section as ideal, perfect persons is essential in human society. At the present moment all over the world, hardly you will find such ideal men on top of society. So this class of men is essentially required if we want to keep peace and harmony with one another. I am trying to do this work and now we have got a very nice place in Bombay. I invite you immediately to come and see the place and I am prepared to amalgamate or affiliate your institution with ours. I think when I was in Delhi I went to this place Kirti Nagar and stayed two or three days with you. You are paying Rs 1,250 rent--that is not very much considering present circumstances. Please let me know the area of the place and under what terms you are in possession of the land. If possible, you can immediately go to my secretary at the following address: G 12 Ananda Niketan Extension, new Delhi 110023. My secretary's name is Tejyas das Adhikari. We have a temple there and the quarter is very nice. But if some suitable arrangement is made we can take up your place at Kirti Nagar on the approval of my secretary there. So the best thing is you may come immediately at Bombay at the above address and probably I may go back to New Delhi along with you because I have to go to Vrindaban before I go to Europe. I am expected in Rome on the 23rd of May and then Geneva, Paris, Stockholm and London and then I will return to India. In Vrindaban I am constructing the big temple you have seen. I hope you will approve my scheme in Vrindaban. On the whole, it is Krsna's grace that after more than 22 years you are still coming nearer for cooperation so please let me know when you are coming. Yours affectionately, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/sdg letters | 09:40 | |
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