a.c. bhaktivedanta swami
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| Prabhupada Letters :: 1975 a.c. bhaktivedanta swami |
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17 October 2008 Friday, 17 October, 1975 Johannesburg My dear Gopijanavallabha dasa, Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated September 24, 1975 and I have noted the contents carefully. Thank you for the enclosed check for Daksina. Your plan to have my quarters on the 11th. floor is very nice. I have made some alterations to your plan however and if possible you can implement then when you are designing the rooms. Enclosed is a copy of the 11th. floor plan with alterations. When it is completed, then I shall go there. New York is very special to me because I started there without anything except faith in my spiritual master and Lord Krishna. I am very glad to see that things are developing there nicely. Yes, your plan to hold 24 hour kirtana is approved. Everything is kirtana including recitation of Bhagavatam which is also kirtana, and japa as well. I hope that this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/pks Labels: New York letters | 02:04 |17 October, 1975 Johannesburg My dear Cyavana Maharaja, Please accept my blessings. I have received one letter from Jnana das Adhikari dated Oct. 8, 1975, and also Pusta Krsna Maharaja has pointed out one letter addressed to you here in Johannesburg dated Oct. 10 from Jnana das. This letter was opened by Pusta Krsna because it may have contained information relevant to our travel to Nairobi. In any case, it appears that Jnana das is restless. It is not a good idea for him to bring Lilavati's daughter to Kilifi as he has described the living conditions as very poor and now she is at least nicely situated in Gurukula. Also, he speaks of going to America, and who will supply him the money for this? So, all these unnecessary expenditures should be stopped. We can discuss the matter further when I am in Nairobi. I will be arriving on BA 018 from Johannesburg on Saturday, October 25. I hope that this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/pks Labels: Nairobi letters | 02:03 |17 October, 1975 Johannesburg My dear Ramesvara das, Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated September 19, 1975, and I have noted the contents carefully. If Dr. Wolf has become envious then we must simply avoid him. What is his complaint? The idea of the nursery school is very good idea. I have instructed Pusta Krishna Swami to issue one newsletter to the temple presidents, GBC, and sannyasis concerning the nefarious activities of Swami Bon. Kindly copy this and send out to all the temples accordingly that they should have no dealings with Swami Bon or others who are envious. You will find this letter enclosed. I hope that this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/pks Labels: Gaudiya Matha, Los Angeles letters | 02:02 |16 October 2008 Thursday, 16 October, 1975 Johannesburg My dear Svarupa dasa, Please accept my blessings. I am in receipt of your letter dated September 27, 1975, and I have noted the contents carefully. Your program of life-membership is a good idea. Thank you very much. I hope that this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/pks Labels: life membership, Los Angeles letters | 02:00 |16 October, 1975 Johannesburg Gaithersburg, Maryland My dear Mr. Parikh, Please accept my blessings. I am in receipt of your letter dated August 22, 1975, and I have noted the contents carefully. You are knowing so many languages and you can be of great service in this respect, so why don't you join our Bombay centre and help to propagate Krishna Consciousness in Hindi and other languages. I hope that this meets you in good health, Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/pks letters | 01:58 | 16 October, 1975 Johannesburg S.N. Mukurji Senior Divisional Engineer Damodara Valley Corporation Dist. Dhanbad, Bihar, India My dear sir, Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated 5/8, and I have noted the contents carefully. In India we have got so many centres. Which ever is convenient for you, you can join and live with us. I hope that this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/pks letters | 01:57 | 16 October, 1975 Johannesburg My dear Kirtiraja dasa, Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated October 8, 1975, and I have noted the contents carefully. As soon as someone is trained then go to preach very nicely in Poland. Try to make some literature in Polish and Russian. Anyone can be trained to execute orders in sending out the books but preaching requires special qualification. So you have this good qualification for preaching and now do it very nicely. I hope that this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/pks Labels: Los Angeles, Poland letters | 01:56 |16 October, 1975 Johannesburg My dear Karunasindhu das, Please accept my blessings. Concerning your letter of Oct. 5, 1975 addressed to Brahmananda Swami, nobody should interfere with our work. There is no need to send anything to be checked by Purusottama das in Vrindaban. It is useless. I hope this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/pks Labels: Los Angeles letters | 01:55 |16 October, 1975 Johannesburg My dear Ramesvara dasa, Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated Sept. 27, 1975 and I have noted the contents carefully. Concerning the expenses listed of phone calls, you should minimize phone calls. Concerning loans to temples, loans should be limited to a certain extent. Monthly installments should be regularly reminded and taken payment of. So far Kirtiraja is concerned, preaching is our first business and ordering is routine work. Anyone can learn and manage the ordering department, but preaching requires special qualification. So Kirtiraja, if he is qualified for preaching he can be replaced for routine work of order execution. I hope that this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami P.S. Concerning Prices of books to Nairobi, if it is not very difficult for you, you can accept this. Our main purpose is to distribute books not making extraordinary profit. I think India and Africa, both are poor countries; so it is up to you. ACBS/pks Labels: expenses, Los Angeles letters | 01:52 |16 October, 1975 Johannesburg My Dear Audulamidasa, Please accept my blessings. It is great offense to change dress now that you have taken babaji dress you must continue. You are all so restless and take everything as farce. Now, take more rest and go on with your program of chanting and that will be good for you. I hope this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/pks Labels: babaji, Detroit, farce letters | 01:52 |16 October, 1975 Johannesburg My dear Jayatirtha das, Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated September 28, 1975 and I have noted the contents carefully. There is no question of removal at the present moment. We shall sit together in Mayapur if there is any complaint against one another. At the Mayapur meeting, whatever we have decided that is good for one year. So if anything has to be done it will be decided by majority decision of the GBC. I do not wish to give any decision without the GBC's verdict. My only grievance is that I appointed GBC to give me relief from the management but, on the contrary, complaints and counter-complaints are coming to me. Then how my brain can be peaceful. Naturally, I want to see that all of my centres are going nicely, so is it not possible to mitigate the differences of opinion and work smoothly, conjointly. So best thing is that we wait for the Mayapur meeting and decide there combinedly what to do. The local management has to be done by temple president, GBC should see whether management is going on nicely, and if there are any discrepancies that will be discussed at the GBC meeting in Mayapur. That is the process. Sannyasis are meant for preaching only. That is the principle. But, contrary to the principle if things are being embezzled then how can I save them. How one man can manage the whole world affairs? This is my concern. So far I know you are approved manager, so why complaints are there I do not know. I hope that this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/pks Labels: Berkeley, GBC, management, sannyasa letters | 01:51 |16 October, 1975 Johannesburg My dear Ajita dasa, Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated Oct. 1, 1975 and I have noted the contents carefully. If you see problems in the Stockholm center why don't you try to reform it by your example and practical application of our philosophy. If I have to be involved in every dispute, then what is the need for the GBC? GBC is there for this purpose. However, if there is some serious difficulties, just now I can not give decision. If it is not settled, then it can be discussed at Mayapur. I hope that this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/pks letters | 01:51 | 16 October, 1975 Johannesburg My dear Hamsaduta dasa, Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated September 29, 1975 and I have noted the contents carefully. It is a good idea to have the Russian teacher in Czechoslovakia to do the translating, but it must be checked afterwards by our men with the help of someone competent. It is encouraging to hear of your book distribution there and if you can manage locally by selling books, then I have no objection. If you want to print another cassette of books, that depends on your good discretion. Why Bhagavan should interfere with Stockholm. I appoint GBC for peaceful management of affairs and now you are creating disturbances amongst yourselves. So how can I be peaceful to translate my work. So all these things should be kept in abeyance for the time being and when we meet in Mayapur we can discuss amongst the entire GBC. If Stockholm is in your charge why Bhagavan and Jayatirtha should dictate, and why Ajita should join with them. On the whole why there should be difference of opinion amongst the GBC? If there is some difference of opinion how is it that it can not be adjusted amongst you? The Spiritual Sky questions and all other questions of this nature will simply have to wait until we discuss it in Mayapur. I hope that this meets you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami cc: Atreya Rsi, Jayatirtha, Bhagavan P.S. concerning the castle which you mentioned; if you can afford it then you can buy it. ACBS/pks Labels: Germany, Stockholm, translating letters | 01:50 |12 October 2008 12 October, 1975 Durban His Holiness Swami Sahajananda, Divine Life Society of South Africa, Dormerton, Durban My dear Swamiji, Please accept my humble obeisances. I beg to thank you very much for your kind letter dated 10th October, 1975. It is very encouraging as you write to say: "As many spiritual leaders are often deriding the Godhood of Lord Krishna, it is gratifying that your great movement is disseminating His greatness and thus keeping alive our devotion to Lord Krishna." It means that Your Holiness is a great devotee of Lord Krishna. So, out of your natural humbleness you have presented yourself as my "humble child." Certainly, in consideration of age, you are my child but I see in devotion you are greater than me. So as you are a devotee of Lord Krishna you are my guru. Thank you very much. It has become a fashion nowadays amongst the politicians, scholars, and so-called swamis to deride Krishna. This is very dangerous position. Any blasphemous activities to Krishna will not affect His body. He has no material body, therefore prayers or accusations do not affect Him. He is always kind and equal to everyone. samo 'ham sarva-bhutesu na me dvesyo 'sti na priyah ye bhajanti tu mam bhaktya mayi te tesu capy aham [B.G. 9/29] "I envy no one, nor am I partial to anyone. I am equal to all. But whoever renders service unto Me in devotion is a friend, is in Me, and I am also a friend to him." But, those who are deriding the Godhood of Krishna are considered as demons and raksasas. There was only one raksasa at the time of Lord Ramacandra who did not care for the Lord and attempted to kidnap his wife so he took away maya-laksmiji from Narayana. The result was that he became ruined with his whole family and kingdom. In this age of kali there are a number of Ravanas deriding the Godhood of Lord Krishna and Lord Ramacandra, and they will meet with the same result as it was done in the case of Ravana. So it is a dangerous position of the whole world that they have become all godless or atheists in different degree or manner. It is the duty of saintly persons to save these rascals from ruination. So, I wish that a devotee of Lord Krishna like you may conjointly work in propagating Krishna Consciousness to save the fallen souls from going down to the darkest region of hell. I am quoting one verse from the Srimad-Bhagavatam, Canto 7, chapter 5, verse 31: na te viduh svartha-gatim hi visnum durasaya ye bahir-artha-maninah andha yathandhair-upaniyamanas te pisatantryam-urudamni baddhah [SB 7.5.31] Thank you very much for your kind letter. With my best wishes and regards, I beg to remain, Yours sincerely, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS/pks letters | 01:50 | |
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