720204 - Letter to Sudama written from Bombay

Letters by Date, 1972

Tridandi Goswami
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

Date: February 4, 1972
Camp: ISKCON Bombay

My Dear Sudama,

Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter of January 21, 1972, and I am especially glad that Karandhar is there and that you are working conjointly to print many books. That is my greatest pleasure, to see books being printed and distributed profusely. Without books, how can our preaching go on? I will be very glad if you can print Bhagavad Gita As It Is in Japanese version, and that will be sufficient to convince many Japanese boys and girls to become devotees of Krishna. You are learning Japanese language, that's all right, but it will be better for our preaching and translating work if the local boys and girls can perform such work, instead of us wasting so much time by learning difficult languages. So if you spend your time to engage many native persons to translate for us, and train them up in our Krishna philosophy at the same time, that will be a better use of our time; but [handwritten] if you think it is necessary in order to establish this Movement that you learn Japanese language, then it is all right, but generally I do not think it is absolutely [handwritten] necessary. If you can find some boys who speak English, and if you can engage them for translating and teach them our philosophy by holding classes, then that is better. We cannot become very good preachers in such difficult language, even if we spend years to learn, but if we take a few weeks to train some local men in Krishna Consciousness philosophy, then they can preach like anything, leaving us free time to organize and manage everything properly. In this way, we shall expand very rapidly.
If you can arrange for me to meet with the Emperor of Japan, I shall be most happy to meet with him. If it is difficult, there is no need for a pandal programme. Simply some very nice speaking engagements with intelligent people, that is nice. I am not very much anxious to speak only to Hindu community, but I want to speak to Japanese people and students, just like in Africa we have recently held one festival, and, although there is very large Hindu community, I was encouraged that so many black Africans came as well, and that they listened carefully and grew very fond of our deities. So I think the Japanese people, too, can all become Krishna-ized very easily, as they have become now very opulent like Americans and they are very intelligent, clean, quiet, and respectful on the whole. I shall inform you when I am coming there.
Hoping this will meet you in good health and cheerful mood.
Your ever well-wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

ACBS/sda