I beg to acknowledge receipt of your two letters dated August 31st, 1970, and September 28th, 1970. I am very encouraged to hear of your Sankirtana Party activities and your program of visiting different cities weekly is very nice. Krsna is giving you very good intelligence. In the future you may maintain a permanent Sankirtana Party that will regularly visit in the cities all over Germany and in this way you will be able to distribute our literatures without any difficulty.
Here in Calcutta we are daily travelling to different engagements and the response is very favorable.
The pictures painted by Vasudeva are very nice and will be installed at our new place under construction on October 31st, 1970.
You write to say that "the communist goal is to achieve a paradise on earth," but in the Bhagavad-gita Krsna has definitely stated that "from the topmost planet down to the lowest, all are places of misery where repeated birth and death take place"—so what kind of paradise can they achieve? Any society without religion is animal society. The difference between animal and human being is that an animal has no intelligence and therefore is not expected to follow any regulative principles, but human life is a life of responsibility and the human beings are meant for satisfying the material necessities of life under regulative principles or laws. In other words, religion is laws of God.
Human life is especially meant for reviving our lost relationship with God by following the instructions of God contained in religious books like the Bhagavad-gita, Srimad-Bhagavatam, etc. Without God-centered society, the whole thing is dog-centered society. A dog also eats, a dog also sleeps, a dog also defends and they have ample opportunity for sex-life. So the goal of life is Krsna—to become free from the cat and dog propensities of eating, sleeping, defending and mating and achieve the spiritual platform of Eternity, Knowledge and Blissful Life in pure devotional service to the Lord—Bhakti yoga, that is religion. Simply loving Krsna. Society without religion, it is all animal society.
The next point is that religion without philosophy is sentimentalism or fanaticism. Simply performing empty ritual without understanding is condemned by Srila Rupa Goswami in his Bhaktirasamrta sindhuh—pure devotional service which ignores the injunctions of the scriptures is simply a disturbance to the society. In Bhagavad-gita it is stated "One should approach a spiritual master and inquire from him submissively, render him all kinds of service. The self-realized soul can impart knowledge unto you because he has seen the Truth." One has to hear the message of Godhead from the lips of the pure devotee of the Lord or Acarya. The religion is originally spoken by Krsna Himself and that message or science is coming down directly through the chain of disciplic succession and one who is in that chain is called acarya or one who teaches by his life. Religion is practically presented by the bona fide spiritual master or acarya.
The next point is philosophy without religion is mental speculation. No one can manufacture a system of religion. Religion is the Law of God and no one but God or empowered representatives of God can put forward religious formulas. Therefore, because every living entity is the eternal fragmental part and parcel of God, it is practical that by simply accepting the authorized statements of bona fide scripture without mental speculation or fashionable interpretation one fulfills the mission of human life very easily and goes back to home, back to Godhead. "There is another eternal nature which is transcendental to this manifest and nonmanifest matter. It is supreme and is never annihilated. When all in this world is annihilated, that part remains as it is." (B.G. 8.20) "It is the highest destination, going, no one ever returns from that, My Supreme Abode." (B.G. 8.21) So although the Russians may be very much advanced by throwing sputniks into the outer space, they are missing the real point—Krsna Consciousness, the science of God. Although there are so many departments of knowledge, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, etc., the science of God is still to be introduced. When the scientist philosopher medical man will get the opportunity to study systematically what is God, what are His energies, what is my relationship, how to approach Him, then only there will be paradise. But paradise in the present condition of life in ignorance of God is parasite in temporary paradise.
I have already spoken to Hamsaduta about your enthusiasm to open some branches for ISKCON propaganda in Russia and in that connection you can immediately send him the address of the Indology Department along with the prominent professors.
Always follow very strictly the regulative principles, chanting sixteen rounds, Deity worship and everything will come automatically.
