720524 - Letter to Giriraja written from Los Angeles

Letters by Date, 1972

Tridandi Goswami
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Founder - Acharya:
International Society for Krishna Consciousness
CENTER: Los Angeles ISKCON

DATE .....May..24................1972..

My dear Giriraj,

Please accept my blessings. I have received your letter dated May 9, 1972 and I have noted the contents carefully. Actually it is the duty of the spiritual master to find fault with his students so that they may make progress, not that he should always be praising them. So if you find some criticism, kindly accept it in that spirit. I am only interested in that you along with all my other students should become Krishna Conscious.

Now we shall only want good devotees to live with us on that land. Not that we shall form a co-operative housing society and whoever pays us money, we shall accept them to live with us. If they live with us and do not follow our principles we can not take them to court. So we must be very careful from the beginning to select only qualified devotees of Krishna or Vaishnava families to live with us, just like Indira devi and her family. So you may create the building society but there should be an explicit understanding that only those who agree to follow the rules and regulations will be allowed to live with us. So begin collecting in this way from devotee families in Bombay, and when I shall come there in Autumn we shall see how the things are going on.

I am glad to see that all of the other programs are going on nicely, especially that the deities are being cared for again properly. Now you give our ladies full facilities and help them by giving them money and other things wherever required by them so that our deity program will not be lacking. I am especially also engladdened by your report of book distribution there in Bombay. You can distribute our men there to other centers - to Gurudas and Bhavananda - if they shall require our help. Yes, we can become self-supporting in this way by distributing our books in Bombay and in India in general. I shall be interested to hear the result of your experiment whether to lower the prices on books.

So far the temples in India are concerned, the independent and self supporting method does not apply in India. In India Bombay is the headquarters and all other centers shall send their funds for centralizing in Bombay. In return you shall supply everyone with enough books and you shall pay construction bills as required by them. I had asked you in one letter previous if you are interested in accepting the GBC post for India and central Asia. I have not yet heard from you in this connection but I shall be glad to hear your opinion.

Yes, that is good proposal about Hindi translating*. Ksirodaksayee has written to me that he is unable to translate, layout and compose everything himself there in Vrindaban. So if he is able somehow or other to get the things translated there in Vrindaban let him send the matter to you in Bombay for composing and layout. In addition there is one man and his wife here in Los Angeles who will be also translating in Hindi language under my direction. They will also send their manuscripts to you for composing and laying out, or if it is better we may do the composing and layout in Los Angeles. Kindly consult with Ksirodaksayee in this regard.

Hoping this meets you in good health.

Your ever well-wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

Giriraj das Brahmachary c/o ISKCON Bombay

P.S. Please send Rs. 1000.00 one thousand only to Puri Maharaj at Rajamundry as advised to Mahamsa. [handwritten]

ACB/sda