680301 - Letter to Upendra written from Los Angeles

Letters by Date, 1968

Tridandi Goswami
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Acharya: International Society for Krishna Consciousness

CAMP: ISKCON Radha Krishna Temple
5364 W. Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, Cal. 90019

DATED ...March...1,....................196.8..

My Dear Upendra,

Please accept my blessings. I thank you very much for your letter dated February 26, 1968, and I have noted the contents. No, when the Lord appears it is mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita that He does so in His Own Internal Potency. This Internal Potency is called Yoga Maya. All Pastimes and activities of the Lord are administered by the Yoga Maya. Therefore, He is not under the influence of material energy, as the conditioned souls are. By the arrangement of Yoga Maya, the devotees sometimes forget the Presence of the Omnipotent Lord. Just like Yasoda Mayee treats Krishna as her begotten Son, and forgets Krishna's inconceivable power. Therefore, she asks Krishna to open His Mouth to see whether He actually ate some earth. He showed her that He swallowed not only a bit of earth, but the whole cosmic manifestation. Yasoda Mata was astonished to see this miracle, but still she forgot that Krishna is God, that Krishna is the Supreme Lord Himself, and not her ordinary Son. In this way, reciprocation between the Lord and His devotees takes place. The Lord doesn't forget but in order to enthuse the Pastimes of the Lord, the action of Yoga Maya is prominent.

N.B. Yes, you may take up such debate, but not any quarrel or argument should take place. It is good to have such debate, and to know the various arguments which the Mayavad philosophers put forth, and to know how to fully defeat each one. That God can come under Maya is one of their foolish arguments; therefore they say "I am God." This nonsense statement can be refuted in full with our information from Bhagavad Gita, Srimad Bhagwatam. What, then is the definition of God? How can God become a dog? If you are God, why are you suffering, life after life? God means Supreme Controller; can you control anything? Not even your own body. What to speak of the millions of planets spinning so perfectly in their orbit. In this way, we must learn all of us, to defeat these nonsense rascals, and curtail this epidemic of Impersonalism, Mayavadism, which is fatal to the innocent people. We can stop this epidemic with this information of Krishna Consciousness, and it is our duty to do it.
The question, does Lord Rama or Lord Chaitanya forget, is like saying, does God come under Maya, or forgetfulness. You must fully understand this before you can successfully debate with the Mayavad arguments. It is very important point.