710419 - Letter to Bali-mardana written from Bombay

Letters by Date, 1971

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

April 19, 1971

Penang

My Dear Bali-mardana,

Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated 12th April, 1971 and have noted the contents carefully. Yes, I have received the Deed of Gift for the asrama land and it is going to be mailed today. Formerly it was proposed that Kamala Devi would give us the required money, up to $50,000 for temple construction. In my last letter dated 16th April, 1971, I sent you a rough plan for a temple, and so construction of the temple should be according to that plan. If we construct our temple, it must be more gorgeous even than the existing Laksmi-Narayana Temple there. So see to it. If possible we shall construct the temple in marble. I have sent one letter of appreciation to Mr. Makhunlal, as to your request, a copy of which is enclosed herewith.

Sending devotees there is one thing, but why not create devotees? To send devotees from here or anywhere else is more difficult than to create devotees locally. If need be, you can write to America. Here also we are trying to have a very good center and require more devotees, and many are coming.

Registration of our society is very essential and you should see to it immediately. Here in Bombay we are registered as the International Society for Krsna Consciousness. We are not converting Moslems. We do not convert. Is there any prohibition to preach Krsna philosophy to Moslems? If anyone understands our philosophy, he will make his own conversion and find a way to do it. So if there is no prohibition, then go on preaching our philosophy. That will be all effective.

So far as my going there, that depends on whether we have to go to Russia. If not, then I shall go to Sydney via Kuala Lumpur. That program should be fixed up in a few days, so I shall let you know.

Hoping this will meet you in good health.

Your ever well-wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

P.S. Of the two copies of documents, the original should be

registered and returned to us.