Training of Krsnakanti dasa (Letters, 1970 - 1976)

Correspondence

1970 Correspondence

Letter to Gajendra -- Los Angeles 27 January, 1970:

When Krsnakanti (Carl) returns, you will learn from him everything how this Temple is doing nicely.

Letter to Krsnakanti -- Los Angeles 1 August, 1970:

I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated 26th July, 1970, and was very glad to note the contents. I beg also to thank you for the check which you enclosed for $100 to my book fund and I receive it very gladly as we have expended recently so much for printing our literatures and we have many more manuscripts ready for publication. I am so happy to learn that both yourself and Sriman Gajendra are now married to two of my beloved daughters. I am proposing that our Temples now be managed by the householder couples so this is very nice for you now. Please take this opportunity offered you all by Krsna very seriously and do not misuse your life for sense gratification. You are a very intelligent boy I know and a very sincere devotee of Lord Krsna. Now you have got a good wife who is also intelligent girl and devotee, so live peacefully working together for pushing on this Krsna consciousness movement for the ultimate benefit of all concerned. So you both husband and wife please take my blessings and blessings of Lord Krsna and be happy in Krsna's transcendental loving service.

Please offer my blessings to Gajendra and his good wife, Herapancami.

Letter to Karandhara -- Bombay 13 November, 1970:

Regarding Seattle center, I know that Krsnakanti is a very nice devotee and highly intelligent and enthusiastic, so he is certainly a good man for the presidency there.

Letter to Krsnakanti -- Bombay 29 November, 1970:

I am in due receipt of your informative letter dated November 15th, 1970, and noted the contents. I know you are a very qualified and sincere devotee and now Krsna is offering you a nice opportunity to perform responsible devotional service as the president of our Seattle Temple. Please conduct the affairs there very nicely and with great care and Krsna will provide you all facilities for making the center even more attractive and successful.

Please see that the standard of devotional practice is kept very high by strictly observing the regulative principles and executing devotional activities with determination and enthusiasm. If the standard practices are followed then the atmosphere will naturally be joyful and enthusiastic for working cooperatively for the satisfaction of Krsna.

I have seen the pictures of your new altar and temple renovation and everything is looking gorgeous. Always be sure that the Lord is pleased and your success as His genuine servant is assured. I am glad that you have decided to give your time now fully to serving Krsna directly, but do not misunderstand the position of "outside" jobs. Any work which is performed by a devotee in Krsna Consciousness is never work on the material platform although it may appear to be so. Such a Krsna Conscious person is never associating with the materials of mundane work or with the mundane workers, he is always associating with Krsna by devotional service whatever his position may be. Krsna is maintaining everything at all times, but those who are less intelligent do not see that everything is working by direction of the Lord and they think things are running on automatically somehow or other. That is the view of atheists and fools. Persons in Krsna Consciousness always are fixed in knowledge that the Lord is the Supreme Controller of all that be.

I am happy to hear that your campus engagements are very well received especially on the Catholic campus. That is a good sign that the students are still intelligent to find what is the best information about God and how to approach him. It is unfortunate that they are without proper guidance, but that is the condition of all persons in the world without exception. Krsna Consciousness is

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I hope you are trying to place our books in the libraries and school/colleges. The program is everywhere very successful, so you please do this very thoroughly in your area and it will be a great service.

1971 Correspondence

Letter to Karandhara -- Allahabad 17 January, 1971:

Yes, you may perform the ceremony for second initiation for Tulsi das, Krsnakanti, Locana das, Nitai das, Jayatirtha, Karuna Sindhu, Sarola devi, and Maithili devi.

Letter to Krsnakanti -- Bombay 11 April, 1971:

I beg to acknowledge receipt of your two letters dated 7th and 21st February, 1971 respectively and have noted the contents carefully. You ask that you become strong enough to fearlessly preach Krishna Consciousness. Yes, I know that you have got Krishna's blessings. Therefore you are strong enough to go on preaching and as you do so your strength will increase more and more. I am very pleased with your service from the very beginning. Please go on in this way and push on the cause of our mission.

Yes, Krishna is providing everything. Krishna is so kind. As you require something for His service, he provides it. And Tulasi Devi is growing so nicely there. Tend Tulasi very nicely and your devotion towards Krishna will increase. In the evening a lamp should be offered to the Tulasi plant and in the morning each devotee should offer a little water and offer obeisances.

Push on your program at schools and colleges, vigorously, as you have been doing, and try to teach classes there also. That affords the ideal opportunity for introducing our books. Try and get KRSNA book and Bhagavad-gita AS IT IS recommended by the professors. Door to door Sankirtana is very nice program also, and a very nice means for distributing the books, so increase it more and more. And incense business is also picking up. These are all different opportunities to render service to the Lord. From now on all BTG and book fund collections should be remitted to Karandhara in L.A.

Yes, when I return to L.A., I shall be glad to visit Seattle. Radha Krishna Deities may be installed at that time also, provided there are at least four doubly initiated devotees present who can take proper care of them.

Jambavati should try to avoid any more marriage. Once she has been forlorn by her husband and who knows that a second husband might do the same? Let her forget her marriage and be fixed up in the service of the Lord. Simply she should concentrate her mind on the Lotus Feet of Krishna and she will be happy.

Letter to Krsnakanti -- Bombay 30 May, 1971:

I am in due receipt of your letter dated 18th May, 1971 and have noted the contents carefully. You will be glad to know that the two boys, Paul and Patrick, recommended by you have been duly initiated by me and their beads and letters are enclosed herewith. Their names are purusa and Bhumna respectively.

So far as your coming here to India, one thing to consider is that temple worship must go on nicely. That cannot suffer and if it is dependent on you, then you shouldn't come. For India, anyone can come; a newly initiated neophyte is all right. Experienced men like yourself are not required. So instead of you, find a newcomer; he can come.

One thing though, is that I have noted with interest that you are proficient in the Russian language. If that is the case, then your service may be very much required, and so if I go to Russia at all in the near future, then I shall call for you and you shall accompany me to Moscow.

For the time being, develop our Seattle center more and more and make it a grand success. That will be to your credit and Krishna will be pleased. So do it nicely. Two new boys have come just recently and as Krishna sees that you are sincere to push on this movement, so he will send you many more devotees.

Letter to ISKCON L.A., Nagapatni and others -- London 15 August, 1971:

I beg to thank you very much for your kind feelings of appreciation of my humble service unto you. You are all helping me in pushing forward this mission of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, coming down by disciplic succession to my Guru Maharaja. So whatever you have spoken, it is simply due to them. I am simply the via media to receive them, on behalf of my Guru Maharaja, His Divine Grace Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Goswami Maharaja Prabhupada.

Letter to Karandhara -- Delhi 3 December, 1971:

I am in due receipt of your kind letter on November 12, 1971, and I have appreciated the contents with great pleasure. Radha and Krishna have been so much merciful upon me to have given me so many nice spiritual sons and daughters as yourselves. I can see by the photos of your Los Angeles Temple that you are all very good servants of Radha and Krishna, and that They are very much pleased by your service. Thank you very much for assisting me in this way.

Now my one request to you all is that you become fully happy by conducting your lives in Krishna Consciousness, and you can know it for sure that in this way you will come with me back to Home, back to Godhead.

1972 Correspondence

Letter to Siddhesvara, Krsnakanti -- Calcutta 16 February, 1972:

I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letters of January 24 and 25 respectively, and I am so much pleased by this Krishna Show! If you are able to arrange everything so that I can simply sit in my room and be seen by the world and speak to the world, then I shall never leave Los Angeles. That will be the perfection of your L.A. Temple. I am very, very encouraged by your proposal to flood the medias of your country with our Krishna Consciousness program, and see that it is practically taking shape under your hands, so I am all the more pleased. Especially it is nice that because they hear our Krishna Show the people are ordering Krishna Book. This is a very good way to induce the public for accepting our philosophy, because they are prone to believe and accept whatever they hear on the radios and televisions. Now go on in this way increasing more and more, and always stick tight to the point of our philosophy. We should not compromise in any way just to accommodate the public idea, but we can so tastefully present the real thing that we will change the people to accommodate us. Thank you very much for assisting Lord Caitanya so nicely in spreading this Sankirtana Movement.

Letter to Krsnakanti -- Tokyo 23 April, 1972:

I am in due receipt of your note dated April 18, 1972 and I have noted the contents. Thank you very much for your contribution of $20. Your endeavors to spread Krishna consciousness by means of radio and television is very encouraging to me, and I am looking forward to participating in this program when I return to Los Angeles soon.

1976 Correspondence

Letter to Krishnakanti -- Vrindaban 6 April, 1976:

I am in due receipt of your letter dated March 27, 1976 with enclosed cassette tape and I thank you very much. I very much liked the chanting on this tape. It is very excellent and should be popularized and it will be a great success. Introduce this into every home and that will help them, and if they read our books then finished, no more material life. Yes, when I come also I can make a tape of chanting Hare Krishna but the chanting of Hare Krishna by the other boys on this tape is very nice. Thank you.

Letter to Ramesvara -- NEWSLETTER 26 November, 1976:

HSd.: Srila Prabhupada, when you were in L.A., you heard that new record by Krsna Kanti...

HSd.: ...this pop music, you know, the tape you just got. The western style music

HSd.: In the new BBT newsletter which just came yesterday, there is a statement by Ramesvara that you were asked whether this record could be played in the temples and you replied: "Why not in the temples" Hari Sauri thought you said, "not in the temples," but Ramesvara,..

S.P.: No, not in the temple. If the wordings are alright, if there is no mistake in the set up of the wording, the change of musical tune, that is not harmful. Hare Krsna, this vibration you can make in different tune, we are already doing that.

HSd: But we are talking about these songs they are writing, philosophy songs, like this "caterpillar had a change of heart"

S.P.: Therefore we see the wording.

D: If the words are alright, can they be played in the temple?

GKd: Because no one can hear the words, it's the pop music that people hear.

Ak Sw: The words are just like modern pop songs, you can't really tell what it means. I suggested to these people: "Why don't you put music to Prabhupada's books. Take the words straight from prabhupada's books...

HSd: No, Prabhupada has approved this method for attracting karmis, but the thing is, when you become a devotee,..

S.P.: Yes.

Ak Sw: That kind of music reminds us of past bad sinful activities,..

HSd: The question is whether it should be played in the temple or not?

S.P.: Temple it may not be played. What is the use of playing in the temple?

GKd: I know from practical experience Srila Prabhupada, I just played the record, it is all current pop music with English philosophy wording and the brahmacaris were so agitated. They came to listen to it and they were taking fun of it like the pop songs.

Ak Sw: Because that style of music reminds us of the night club.

S.P.: Therefore I said it is better not to make these records.

GKd: Just your records and parampara records should be played I think. There are so many tapes of your records.

HSd: Yes, but this style they are doing now they explain that they wanted it because then that way they will be able to get them played on the radio; otherwise, they won't play bhajans or anything on the radio. But there's a distinction between that kind of music and pure Krishna Consciousness music. Even though the words indicate Krishna Consciousness, most of the songs are written in such a way that it's like, indirect. It's not directly Krsna. It's indirect.

S.P.: Yes, indirect.

HSd: Like they give this thing: "A caterpillar changed his mind," like that. It provokes some speculation.

S.P.: No. Indirect (it's) for gross outsiders. not for us. Therefore it should not be played in the temple. Gross outsiders only.

Letter to Krsna Kanti -- Hyderabad 2 December, 1976:

I am in due receipt of your letter dated November 23, 1976 along with the record album.

The music is nice for the nondevotee class of men. However, the picture on the album cover is not nice. Why this crazy picture? This will not help our cause. They will not be able to understand. They will think it is change of body, not of heart. We have got so many nice pictures of Krsna.

Page Title:	Training of Krsnakanti dasa (Letters, 1970 - 1976)
Compiler:	Alakananda
Created:	04 of Jun, 2010
Totals by Section:	BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=0, Let=14
No. of Quotes:	14