680205 - Letter to Upendra written from Los Angeles

Letters by Date, 1968

A.C. BHAKTIVEDANTA SWAMI
Camp: ISKCON RADHA KRISHNA TEMPLE
5364 W. Pico Blvd. Los Angeles, Cal. 90019

February 5, 1968

My Dear Upendra,

Please accept my blessings. I thank you for your nice letter postdated Feb. 3, 1968, and have appreciated your very nice Krishna Conscious sentiments. My advice to you is to continue your good attitude that you are keeping now and this alone will help you in advancing your cause of Krishna Consciousness. Yes, it will be great advantage if you can chant so much as one lac of Names daily, and also read scriptures. This is good opportunity for you to learn to sing all the verses in the Srimad Bhagwatam as you began to do so nicely in San Francisco. That will be very nice.

Namacharya Haridas Thakur was taken to the jail and he told the prisoners there, oh, you are so fortunate to have this opportunity to sit and chant the Holy Names without the Maya distractions of the outer world! So you should think like that, and use your time in the prison house to the greatest advantage for spiritual advancement.

Please note that the other side of this page was appearing in the very popular magazine New Yorker, and even they are chanting Hare Krishna in mockery, still, it doesn't matter. Just so long they are chanting Hare Krishna, that is the success of our mission. The Kazi's men were breaking up the Kirtan parties of the Lord, and in mockery some of them chanted Hare Krishna, and thereafter, their tongues would not stop singing Hare Krishna. Our tongues should be like that, unable to ever stop singing the Glories of the Lord. We practice, and someday it will be like that.

Hope you are feeling well. And I hope you are receiving proper food there also.

Your ever well-wisher,

Wayne Gunderson
Box 67
San Bruno, Cal.