720622 - Letter to Hansadutta 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 ...........June..22.................19..72.

My Dear Hansadutta,

Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated June 20, 1972, and I did receive two letters from Wolfram Ossenbrink and Han Koster dated 29th May, 1972, but there was no letter of recommendation from you. So any way, I am very much pleased to accept the boys as my duly initiated disciples, and their letter is enclosed herewith. Also please find enclosed herewith three sacred threads and four copies of Gayatri mantra duly chanted by me. Now hold a fire yagna, and teach the other big officers in Germany temples how to perform this fire yagna very perfectly, and give Gayatri mantra to Astaratha, Surabi dasi, Sachinandan, and Chakravarty. I think you have got a copy of the tape of me reciting Gayatri mantra, so play it to them through the right earhole with earphones.
I am very pleased to see the things are going on, and that new centers are opening many in Germany. Now I am feeling very much inclined for retiring behind the scenes to translate my Srimad Bhagavatam. This means that now you all leaders, especially the GBC members, must become very much responsible and do the work that I am doing to the same standard. So I want you leaders especially to become very much absorbed in the philosophy of Bhagavad Gita, Srimad Bhagawatam, and become yourselves completely convinced and free from all doubt. On this platform you shall be able to carry on the work satisfactorily, but if there is lack of knowledge, or if there is forgetfulness, everything will be spoiled in time. So especially you must encourage the students to read our books throughout the day as much as possible, and give them all good advice how to understand the books, and inspire them to study the things from every point of view. In this way, by constantly engaging our tongues in the service of the Lord, either by discussing His philosophy or by chanting Hare Krishna, the truth is that Krishna Himself will reveal Himself to us and we shall understand how to do everything properly. Now we have got so many students and so many temples but I am fearful that if we expand too much in this way that we shall become weakened and gradually the whole thing will become lost. Just like milk. We may thin it more and more with water for cheating the customer, but in the end it will cease to be [handwritten] any longer milk. Better to boil the milk now very vigorously and make it thick and sweet, that is the best process. So let us concentrate on training our devotees very thoroughly in the knowledge of Krishna Consciousness from our books, from tapes, by discussing always, and in so many ways instruct them in the right propositions.
I hope this meets you and your good wife Haimavati in good health, and I shall be arriving in London sometime on the 5th July, so you may all come to London at your convenience and see me there.

Your ever well-wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

Hansadutta dasa Adhikari c/o ISKCON Hamburg

ACBS/sda