681221 - Letter to Harer Nama written from Los Angeles

Letters by Date, 1968

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

CAMP: 4501/2 N. Hayworth Ave.
Los Angeles, Calif. 90048

DATED ....December..21,..................1968..

My Dear Harer Nama,

Please accept my blessings. I have received your letter dated December 10, 1968 and have noted the contents carefully. I was very happy to read how you are keeping nicely engaged in giving lectures at schools and preparing for a puppet show of Krishna Consciousness stories. This is very nice and if you continue to accelerate with engagements such as these then I am sure that you will be very successful in propagating this movement of Lord Chaitanya. When Krishna sees that we are trying very sincerely to preach His message to others He becomes very pleased and showers all blessings upon the devotee. So please continue to progress in this spirit and I am sure that Krishna will arrange to see that your future [handwritten] in Krishna Consciousness will be very nice.

Regarding your question about Krishna recommending the chanting of His Holy Names, probably you have not marked it in your study of the Bhagavad Gita, but in chapter 9, verse 14, Krishna describes how His devotees are always chanting His Names. Lord Chaitanya, although He is Krishna Himself, is even more merciful than Krishna in that He has shown to the fallen living entities of the kali yuga how the chanting process can immediately elevate one up to the spiritual atmosphere.

Your second question about falling down from the brahmajyoti is answered that it is not that one must fall down, but that they generally fall down. There is a verse in Srimad Bhagwatam, 10th canto, 2nd chapter, verse 26, which says: "My Dear Lotus Eyed Personality of Godhead, persons who are very proud of becoming one with the brahma effulgence and thereby consider that they have become liberated are factually in a contaminated consciousness on account of the absence of devotional service unto You. Such persons may rise to a high level of spiritual understanding as far as the impersonal brahmajyoti but on account of the lack of devotional service unto You, they generally fall down again into material contamination.

The final question which was asked by Tosan about the validity of the story of the sparrow and the ocean, you should know that everything that is found in these scriptures is factual. There is nothing allegory. But you must not depend upon your own limited experience. What happens in different corners of the Lord's Creation no one can say. But we can hear from the authentic Vedic sources such as the Puranas. This story of the sparrow is found in the Puranas.

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