720305 - Letter to Sri Govinda written from Calcutta

Letters by Date, 1972

Letter to Sri Govinda

Tridandi Goswami
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

Date:   March 5, 1972
Camp:  ISKCON Bombay

My Dear Sri Govinda,

Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated February 22, 1972, along with the letter from Santosa, and I especially appreciate his report of enthusiastic distribution of books and generally very highly determined and pure attitude of [handwritten] Krishna Consciousness devotional service. I am so much engladdened by his report. Just see how you all are giving all of your time and energy and attention to serving Krishna and how this simple formula is having such effect of creating topmost yogis and saintly young persons. You are the flowers of your nation, the devotees of the Lord, and so you go on in this way and always remember Krishna by remembering that you are His devotee and servant, and that this position is the most exalted of all and never to be thought of as inferior or less than even the most so-called elevated materialistic person. When we think of superior person, we think he is superior because he knows something more than I, superiority means more knowledge. Krishna knows everything, and He claims that if anyone knows Him, then he also knows everything. So knowledge means to know only that Krishna is the Proprietor of everything, that Krishna is the Friend of everyone, and that Krishna is the Enjoyer of everything. These three things: Proprietor, Friend, and Enjoyer. If somebody knows this, he is actually wise. Therefore because the devotee always knows this, he is most superior person because he has got all knowledge. But even more important than the knowledge of Krishna is the acting upon that knowledge, or devotional service. By the acting he realizes his knowledge and becomes complete. So I am very much encouraged that all you young boys and girls are working so hard to please Krishna, and even I cannot give you any nice thing, still, because you have got some love for Krishna and your Spiritual Master, therefore you have given up everything for selling books door to door and working very hard in every way just to push on this movement. For your sincere helping me I thank you all very very much.
I have enjoyed your newspaper articles also, and in general I think that very soon your Cleveland center will rise above all the rest, so much so that I shall have to come to live there and translate for some time.
I hope this will meet you all nice boys and girls in very good health and happy mood.
Your ever well-wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami