|
|
| Prabhupada Letters :: 1974 |
|
|
23 December 2008 Monday, 23 December, 1974 Bombay Tiruchy Junction 1, India Dear Sri Srinivasan, Please accept my greetings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated 19-12-74 and have noted the contents. Your life will become perfect if you can engage yourself fully in the devotional service of Sri Krsna. As stated in your letter now you are retired from your job and your daughters are getting married. This means that your grhastha life is almost finished. Therefore, according to Varnasrama Dharma you should spend the rest of your life simply engaged in there devotional service of the Lord. It has been the ancient custom that the man in the later years of his life, usually after the age of 50, prepares to leave home and takes the order of vanaprastha, taking pilgrimages to different holy lands. Then eventually he may take sannyasa, the renounced order of life, with no connection with family whatsoever. This is actually necessary as it is recommended by Sri Krsna Himself. So you have asked my advise and I think the best thing is for you to either go to our Vrndavana center or our Mayapur center or our Bombay center and live there for the rest of your life, chanting Hare Krsna, feeling the bliss of being fully engaged in the service of Sri Krsna. By association of devotees and eating Krsna prasadam, constantly engaged in the service of the Lord you will become purified from all unwanted things and it will be very easy for you to absorb yourself in thoughts of the Supreme Lord only. Then when it comes time to leave your body at the end of life you will go to Krsna. You will not have to take another birth in this material world. But you will go to the spiritual world, the Vaikuntha world. I was also grhastha but now I am sannyasi. As grhastha I was thinking it would be very difficult to leave my householder life and take up preaching full time. But actually it has become very easy by the grace of Sri Krsna. Now there are no difficulties. So I recommend that you also take up this life. Now that your household duties are more or less finished I think this is your best alternative. All great previous personalities such as Arjuna and the Pandava brothers, Maharaja Rsabhadeva, King Bharata, so many great kings and great saintly persons all finished the last part of their lives living as mendicants, sannyasis. Therefore following in the footsteps of the authorities we should understand the Supreme Lord Sri Krsna. If there are any difficulties concerning my request to you to leave your home then if you like you can write me for further advise and it will be my duty to serve you in this way. I hope this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/ps Labels: retire, sannyasa, vanaprastha letters | 01:32 |17 December 2008 Tuesday, 17 December, 1974 Bombay Dear Sri Mohan Mazumdar, Please accept my greetings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter in Bengali dated 10.12.74 and have noted the contents with care. Regarding your proposal for preparing a film on the life and precepts of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, I am ready to help with my men but it is not possible for me to make the financial help. If you can arrange with some film studio men for direction and photographic handling etc., my men are ready to help you in this connection, at any time. Also I shall be glad to give direction. This is all possible in Los Angeles but you have to arrange all these things. I have previously instructed you to contact some film producer company in Los Angeles, but I do not know if you have done so. So I still stick to my word as I earlier said to you. You can arrange but I think it will cost huge amounts of financial assistance, of course our service is free, but for other things you have to arrange for financial balance. Anyway I am always ready to help in the above mentioned ways. But one thing I shall advise you, if there is a difficulty for financial arrangement you can drop the idea. Now you are old, 60 years old, better retire from all enterprising activities and devote yourself fully for developing Krishna Consciousness. That will not cost you any financial assistance at all. You can live with us anywhere in the world and along with our devotees gradually you will learn all devotion activities. And if you desire you can translate our English books into Bengali language. You are already reading our Nectar of Devotion and if you like this idea you can translate this Nectar of Devotion immediately into Bengali and send me some copies of the translation so I can see how you have done. For the time being I have postponed my journey to Honolulu. Maybe I will be going to Australia by mid-January 1975. I hope this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Labels: Calcutta, film, retire, translation letters | 02:19 |26 November 2008 Tuesday, 26 November, 1974 Bombay, India My Dear Damodara das: Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated November 12, 1974 with enclosed photograph. The photo is nice. Thank you. Yes, it is all right that you retire from the president post to do preaching. You are one of the elder students, so you should be careful to always set good example for the others. Maya is undoubtedly very strong, and we have to be very vigilant like soldiers in a fortress. We should not let maya enter into our activities, but keep all of our activities Krishna conscious. I have faith in you, so always try your best to serve Krishna and your spiritual master, and you will be all successful. I hope this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Labels: Mayapur, retire, Washington letters | 02:14 | |
|
|
