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| Prabhupada Letters :: 1974 |
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28 December 2008 Saturday, 28 December, 1974 Bombay My dear Uddhvareta, Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated nil and have noted the contents carefully. Regarding your proposal, I shall have to consult the GBC men first before making that decision. I have sent your proposal to Jayatirtha Prabhu and have asked him to make copies and send it to the GBC men and have them give opinions. Then send these opinions to myself. Then I will give my judgement, after hearing those opinions. I am always praying to Krsna that my disciples will not fall away from the path of Krsna Consciousness. In the Bhagavad-gita it says, bahunam janmanam ante [Bg. 7.19]. After many many births one finally comes unto Me. Sa mahatma sudurlabhah, such a great soul is very rare. My simple request is that you very strictly follow all of our regulative principles without any deviation whatsoever. And thus by example show others how to do the same. Engage in devotional service according to your propensity and the direction of my appointed authorities. Always pray to Krsna so that He may keep you engaged in His transcendental service. Avoid the service of Maya like poison. I hope this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/ps Labels: fall down, GBC, Los Angeles letters | 06:49 |16 December 2008 16 December, 1974 Bombay My dear Jayatirtha, Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated Dec. 5, 1974. Regarding the GBC meeting to be held in Mayapur 1975, the meeting should be held five days before the actual festival is to begin and it will be held in my presence. As far as your proposals are concerned the real thing is that we must make broader constitution of the management by GBC. But the difficulty is that our GBC men are falling victim to maya. Today I trust this GBC and tomorrow he will fall down. That is the difficulty. If the GBC men are so flickering then what to speak of the others. Unless this problem is solved whatever we may resolve it will not be very useful. We shall discuss this at our meeting. If the GBC men can ever manage properly then I shall get some time for writing my books. I hope this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami N.B. I have just spoken to Bhagavan dasa who received your call today. If by Krsna's grace, things go well here, then I may be coming to Honolulu in two weeks. Thank you for keeping the temple in sound condition. Please make sure that sankirtana, classes, etc. all continue without fail. ACBS/ps Labels: fall down, GBC, Mayapur letters | 02:10 |28 November 2008 28 November, 1974 Bombay My Dear Gopala Krishna das: Please accept my blessings. I have read your letter dated November 21, 1974 addressed to Brahmananda Swami with enclosed picture from Back to Godhead. Even they have changed her face, still it was not possible to hide the fact that she is old, like great grandmother. Because you are a devotee you could not tolerate the nonsense. You are a very good boy. I know that whatever money you have left over from maintaining your family, you give that to the Society. You do not even keep anything for yourself. This is very good. It is very good that you are still trying for a new building. It is long overdue. Why not the same Park Avenue building if it is available? I think that if you all try, it will not be difficult to obtain the required money to obtain it. You have marked that she bought a Toyota car with temple funds, so how could she be a Toyota. You have used your common sense. She wanted to hide herself in so many ways, just like this picture, but she could not. Bali Mardan says that taking milk is also the same as eating meat, therefore you can eat meat. Therefore does it mean that because what I eat all turns to stool, then I should eat stool? If everything I eat turns to stool, does it mean I should eat stool? Is this sound logic? He was a sincere boy, but he has fallen down by bad association. Still I can rectify both of them, provided they agree. If possible send me his address. I want to write to him. I asked him to correct himself, not to leave. Anyway if he agrees he can be corrected. Jagai agreed to the terms of Caitanya Mahaprabhu and was corrected by the Lord. I Hope this meets you in good health. Your ever well wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/bs letters | 02:16 | 19 August 2008 19 August, 1974 Vrindaban Wilingford, Pennsylvania My dear Vidarbha Kanya dasi, Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated July 2nd 1974. In spiritual life it is very important to set a good example. The teachings of the parampara are simply based on this principle of acarya. Sometimes the wife must bring the husband to Krishna Consciousness, so you yourself must chant 16 rounds and follow the devotional practices and reading my books. If it is difficult for you and you are falling down then it would be better for you to live in any one of our temples. All of you are coming from backgrounds of bad habits, so to make progress in Krishna Consciousness we must overlook the faults of others. You must be patient with your husband. Chanting offenselessly is the remedy for all of these diseases. Therefore I have established that the duty of the president of each temple and also the GBC is to see that each devotee is following the rules and regulations, chanting 16 rounds so that they may be spiritually fit. So if you are having difficulty then it would be better for you not to live apart but to associate with other devotees. I hope this meets you in good health. Your ever well wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/bs/ps letters | 20:52 | 8 June 2008 Saturday, 8 June, 1974 Paris My dear Damodara, Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter of June 5, 1974. I have asked you to stop the political program because actually you cannot organize as the others can. We cannot manage with separate money, separate brains from our regular ISKCON propagation. It is not so easy to do politics, moreover it is a filthy atmosphere. So do not indulge in it. I am glad to hear all the participants have stopped. So you convey to them my instructions in this matter. We have an immense field of work in distributing books, reading and chanting and working for Krsna in many fields. And the aim of it is to always remember Krsna. Some philosophers think that in response negatively to the nasty consciousness of material life we should become 'thoughtless' but this is not Krsna Consciousness, nor is it possible to become void or like a stone. Our process is to purify the thinking by always thinking of Krsna, actively and positively. You have asked about Rupanuga. So I have asked him to not remain secluded but to work vigorously as grhastha now that he has returned with his wife. There is nothing wrong in his preaching as you are and so many GBCs, as grhastha. So although it is officially a falldown from sannyasa, there is no loss if he will become more enthusiastic by this way. So please continue to cooperate with him and implement all our regular programs. Your ever-well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/sdg P.S. Yes you should give up the political offices and our men should return to working in the ISKCON centers. Labels: fall down, political sankirtan, Washington letters | 03:04 |8 June, 1974 Paris Warrenton, Virginia My dear Rupanuga, Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter of June 3, 1974 and I have carefully examined the contents. Yes, I could observe that your mind was disturbed on account of meeting your wife privately. There is no need of hide and seek. Better live as husband and wife as householders and in great enthusiasm execute the Krishna Consciousness movement. There are many GBC who are grhastha. You can remain for management of the temples and also work in the schools and colleges for introducing our books in the libraries. The recent reports of this work have been very favorable. Take up this line more seriously helped by your good wife and that will be nice. I have stopped the political movement because it will not help us. It is a very filthy atmosphere. Better you do not indulge in those things with expenditure of money and spiritual energy. So you should not consider taking sannyasa again, but in your country it is not a great thing. Although officially it is a falldown from sannyasa, in your country no one understands sannyasa. The more important principle is that we should purify our thoughts and engage them in Krsna's service. Please try to understand this important principle: being disgusted with their nasty thoughts people sometimes attempt to become thoughtless, but this is never possible. We should encourage everyone to not become thoughtless but to purify their thinking by always thinking of Krsna in the recommended ways. So I request you to go back preaching vigorously along with your wife who is also a good preacher. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/sdg Labels: fall down, political sankirtan, sannyasa, wife letters | 03:03 | |
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