681015 - Letter to Rayarama written from Seattle

Letters by Date, 1968

Tridandi Goswami
AC Bhaktivedanta Swami
Acharya: International Society For Krishna Consciousness

CAMP: ISKCON RADHA KRISHNA TEMPLE
5516 Roosevelt Way, N.E.
Seattle, Wash. 98105

DATED ..October..15,...................1968..

My Dear Rayarama,

Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your two letters, dated September 30, 1968, and the other one, October 9. I am very sorry I could not reply you earlier, because there are so many letters, and I have to reply them one after another. Anyway, the issue of Back To Godhead which you have sent me is very very nice, and Krishna is helping you for your sincere efforts. I hope you will continue this attitude and improve the quality and writing of Back To Godhead both nicely. It is also gratifying that Subal has joined you and so also Bhaktajan has come back to assist you. Now I think you have got sufficient staff, and you may not require the help of the boy, Chintamoni in Montreal. I think that he's required there to assist Hansadutta. I have received letter from him.

I have noted with great attention your statement that you are sitting at one desk in a tiny office, room, which is ferociously hot in summer and freezing cold in winter. So people might think you mad if they heard of your crazy work. So spiritual activities are like that. Sometimes my contemporaries from India, they also write that in this age, the age of 73, when people would naturally like to retire, and I am working here. So this is all possible by Grace of Krishna. Krishna can adjust opposing elements. In the material world, yes and no are two opposing elements, but by Krishna's inconceivable power, yes can be no, and no can be yes. That is the law of Krishna. And austerity, Krishna Consciousness, there is some austerity. So we should not be afraid of any condition. Narayana para sarve Na Kutaschana Vivyati--that means, those who are in Krishna Consciousness, they are not afraid of anything. Either they are in hell, or heaven, for them, they are all equal. They do not make any distinction in the material world; this is good, or this is bad, this is hell, or this is heaven.

Your idea of issuing a special issue concerning the Varnashram dharma, and Gandhi's movement; it is very good idea. And actually India's position is now degraded; it is not advancing. They have lost their original culture, and now they are begging from outside. So actually they have not gained by sacrificing their original culture. Of course, this superficial loss of original culture is visible only to the so-called educated person at the present moment, and they have become befooled as it is stated in the Bhagavad Gita: Mayaya Prihatajnana, their knowledge has been taken away. So if you try to criticize that will be of some value because you are outside purview of the Indian government, but do it very carefully, so that you may not offend anyone. But you must speak the right thing. I shall send you some matters also, that how many rascals and fools are employed in the government service who deride at Krishna, because they think that He was black, therefore low-born. In this way, how much they have become degraded. Jayagovinda's article on Rirshikesh, is very nice. If he sends such articles from India, it will help you very much.

Regarding your constitution making: don't be very much hasty, immediately, as try to do it slowly. Because your first business is to organize Back To Godhead. And besides that, whatever you do, first of all send me a copy and then distribute.

Regarding my letter heading: Don't complete it now. Because if we get our office in the Church Center of the United Nations, I'll have to make a different body of letterhead. So I shall let you know when everything is complete.

Hoping this meets you in good health,

Your ever well-wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

P.S. Please send Back To Godhead complimentary copies regularly at the following address. [handwritten]

(1) His Holiness B.R. Sridhar Maharaj
Sri Chaitanya-Saraswat Matha
P.O. Navadwipa, Kolergunge, Dist: Nadia W. Bengal, India [handwritten]

(2) Hari Krishna Agarwal
     President—Vedanta Centre
     Premkutir, Churchgate reclamation
     Bombay [handwritten]