Prabhupada Letters :: Anthology 2014-03-17 08:12:00 →

1974 March 17: "It will be a great pleasure for me if you can come and live with me for some time. You are 79 years old and I am also 78. I wish that in the fag end of life if you and I together can preach Krsna Consciousness all over the world, people will be benefited and all problems of the world will be solved. That is my conviction."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1974

New Vrindaban Greets Sally Aggarwal
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Sally Aggarwal visits NV

Sally Aggarwal, with New Vrindaban Goshalla in background

Sally Aggarwal, with New Vrindaban Goshalla in background

One elderly American lady and two younger ladies wandered into the lobby of Sri Sri Radha Vrindabanchandra temple the afternoon of Thurs. March 13, 2014.

Parampara prabhu inquired: “Good afternoon, ladies. May I help you?”

One of the younger women replied, smiling, referring to the elderly American lady, “You know, this lady is very special to your Hare Krsna movement!”

Parampara didn’t understand what she was referring to.

“Yes, this is my mother, Sally Aggarwal! She sponsored Srila Prabhupada on the Jaladuta from India in 1965!” she proudly declared.

Parampara greeting Sally

Parampara greeting Sally

Parampara was very happy to  accompany Sally, her daughter and her daughter’s friend on an adventure to the goshala, where they had fun seeing the three new little bull calves and some of New Vrindaban’s milking cows.

Sally spoke of how humble Srila Prabhupada was when he stayed with them in their small apt. in Butler, PA, where he had to sleep on the couch.

She recalls, “At first, we would, of course, cook meals for the Swami and ourselves. But our apt. was so small that after a short time, we had to get the Swami a room at the local YMCA. Even so, he used to come to our apt. every day and cook delicious meals for the whole family! What a treat!  It was a very special time. But I did feel bad taking service from him.”

Sally spoke about how Srila Prabhupada expressed a strong desire to go to New York. She told Parampara that Srila Prabhupada’s main goal at the time was to distribute many books to the American people.

“He told my husband, Gopal, and myself that his original idea was to come to America, distribute his books and then return to India.  As a matter of fact, he had left a trunk of books with us for 10 years, so we finally asked some devotees here from New Vrindaban to come and pick them up. I realized much later that I should have kept those books. If I had, I’d be a millionaire by now!” Sally laughed at this thought.

Jaya Krsna, community president, greets Sally

Jaya Krsna, community president, greets Sally

Caitanya Bhagavat das took the opportunity of Sally’s visit to give her a copy of the DVD “Your Ever Well-Wisher”, in which she appeared, since she had heard about this movie, but had never seen it. He gave her a Bhagavad Gita as well, for which she was very thankful.

Soon after the Swami had arrived in Butler, PA, Sally was concerned that people in the small town would think he was weird. So, in a motherly and protective mood, she went straight to the local newspaper, Butler Eagle, and arranged for an article, so people would know more about him.

Sally described another very amazing time in their lives.  “When Srila Prabhupada was leaving his body in Vrindavan, India, both my husband, Gopal, and I had the unbelievable fortune to be at his side.”

New Vrindaban was very fortunate to have a special and very fortunate lady, Mrs. Sally Aggarwal, drop in for a visit.

Sally, her daughter, a friend and some Brijbasis

Sally, her daughter, a friend and some Brijbasis

True colours
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(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 14 March 2009, Korsnas, Sweden, Srimad Bhagavatam 3.2.15)

Question: Are the faults that we see in others simply a reflection of our own faults or is there something else to it?

simhachalam 2013Not always but it can well be. If one is a liberated soul, when one sees faults in others then one sees real faults in others, faults that are there. If one is a conditioned soul then there are two options. One option is that everything one sees is coloured by the glasses of one’s false ego. The false ego gives us coloured glasses where everything is coloured by them. In that case, we see faults in a person and we add a little colour from our own false ego to it as well. Thus we make faults into something more than what is really there. We take what is there and then add something. That is looking at faults through false ego. The other option is that there are no faults at all, and that we just project with our false ego faults onto someone.

So these possibilities are there for the conditioned soul – first is that there are real faults but they are coloured, and other times there are no faults but they come from projections of our false ego. But in the case of a liberated soul, he sees things as they are because he is completely sober and he can see right through you and he sees everything at the glance: the faults, the good qualities – but with compassion, with unlimited compassion.

 

 

 

Sri Gaura purnima Shobha Yatra in ISKCON-Delhi (Album 117 photos)
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Gaura Purnima is a Gaudiya Vaishanva festival that celebrates the divine appearance of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu in Navadwipa, India. Gaura Purnima means “Golden Full Moon”. The name signifies that Lord Caitanya took birth at time of full moon and He blesses everyone with the moonlike rays of His teachings. Festivities at ISKCON Delhi include a shobha-yatra (parade) with utsava murti of Sri Sri Gaura Nitai on Juhu beach followed by Sringar-arati and lecture on the glories of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprasad. The evening festivities consist of maha-abhishek of Sri Sri Gaura Nitai, Sri Gaura arati followed by dinner prasada for all. Read more ›

Clearing My Throat
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"To withhold is to perish." - Khalil Gibran

http://www.crystalvaults.com/images/chakra_body_throat_chakras_symbol130.gif

A friend of mine recently told me that I often clear my throat. In fact, over the years I have had the constant experience of losing my voice. As one of the seven chakras is located in the throat - the capacity to communicate and share the self - I find it no surprise that I have had a rocky relationship with my voice.
Communicating my self is one of my greatest joys and one of my greatest struggles.
This morning I was chanting japa and watched the sun slant through the window in a brighter and brighter patch. I thought of this blog, Seed of Devotion, and came across that all-too-familiar sensation of blankness. Whiteness. Void.

I want to communicate something, anything, and although so much beauty has been transpiring in my life, I'm at a loss. More and more, I'm at a loss. I'm frustrated and angry that I refrain from communicating even on Facebook or an email thread. I'm afraid of no one getting me, no one listening, no one caring.

I realized this morning that not trying is painful, but to try and fail is even more painful.

But to withhold is to perish. This morning I felt like I was going to explode.

I am praying to my dear gurudeva and my beloved Lord that somehow or other They may allow me to communicate my heart.

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Sri Krishna Chaitanya (Gauranga) Mahaprabhu (Album 47 paintings)
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Mahaprabhu was a beautiful child, and the ladies of the town came to see Him with presents. His mother's father, Pandita Nilambara Cakravarti, a renowned astrologer, foretold that the child would be a great personage in time; and he, therefore, gave him the name Visvambhara. The ladies of the neighbourhood styled him Gaurahari on account of His golden complexion, and His mother called Him Nimai on account of the 'nimba' tree near which He was born. Beautiful as the lad was, everyone heartily loved to see Him every day. As He grew up He became a whimsical and frolicsome lad. After His fifth year, He was admitted into a pathasala where He picked up Bengali in a very short time. Read more ›

My Sacred Duty
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We spent the first day of our travels in Nepal in Kathmandu in order to acclimatise for the higher altitudes we’ll reach near the Tibetan plateau later this week. We didn’t waste a moment though, for within a couple of hours we were out on harinam samkirtan with the local ISKCON devotees, chanting and dancing [...]

New Vrindaban’s Palace of Gold Honored – Back to Godhead Magazine – October 1980
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New Vrindaban’s Palace of Gold Honored – Back to Godhead Magazine – October 1980.

By William Robins

Limestone, W. Va., Aug. 5

Hare Krsna Devotees Cool Off in Fountain in The Garden at Palace Of Gold

Hare Krsna Devotees Cool Off in Fountain in The Garden at Palace Of Gold

The men in saffron robes, in denims and faded shirts, heads shaven and unshaven, the women in saris of many colors, the Hare Krishna devotees came in twos and threes and troops, afoot and in Jeeps and in panel trucks; and old cars.

And as they rounded a bend in the narrow mountain road they beheld, rising like a mirage above the trees here in rural West Virginia, the gold-leafed domes and spires of a vision of spectacular opulence, the Palace of Gold, whose construction they had come to celebrate.

From across the United States and from Canada, Mexico and India as well, many of these members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness were arriving to join a 300-member community of the faithful here for the second annual Prabhupada Summer Festival, which ends tomorrow.

It has also been proclaimed by some to be a grand opening of the palace, though their swami described it as only a preview for a grand opening scheduled for Labor Day weekend. The palace is the first of many religious shrines to be built here in a community the devotees have named New Vrindaban, for a sacred city of temples in India.

However they regarded the occasion, visitors stared with awe as if at a miracle of creation atop a ridge overlooking miles of forests and fields, foothills and valleys. But again their spiritual leader was more restrained.

“This was not a very difficult thing to do,” he said in an interview. “Nothing is very difficult when the Lord is in your heart. Without Him it would be impossible.”

The rain showers marred opening festivities late yesterday when an opening address by the swami and a vegetarian feast, both scheduled for the grassy hillsides, were driven under shelter. But today, unperturbed, the devotees resumed, from before dawn till after dark, their three days of rituals and seminars, interspersed with strolls to the palace and visits to a bazaar under a multicolored canopy, much like a country fair, where they could buy refreshments and visit educational booths and stalls selling their literature.

This is the second of three celebrations of the construction of the palace. The first, last September, was a dedication. When the third occurs, on the occasion of a festival named Janmastami over the Labor Day weekend, the finishing work will still be continuing, with devotees bending and carefully brushing gold leaf onto intricate relief work of walls, columns and steps.

On a site that was once a garbage dump, the devotees were climbing broad steps to walled terraces looking down on development of a Garden of Time to be dotted with fountains symbolic of phases of human life and out over construction work on a restaurant and museum toward broad acres on the ridge top where still another garden is to be created. As they walked they chanted the names of deities.

Over all this rises the ornate palace, built as a memorial to A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the Indian scholar who brought his translations of ancient scriptures in 1965 and began the Hare Krishna movement in this country. Its black and gold leaf walls, inlaid with Italian onyx, are pierced through with intricately decorated stained glass windows, and they support gold and black domes, all an amalgam of Eastern and Renaissance architecture.

Inside, crossing marble floors in geometric mosaics under mirrored ceilings, the devotees finished two shrines to Prabhupada, who died a few years ago.

One is a suite in which sits a couch he once used, adjoining a study where a lifelike figure of the sainted Prabhupada bends over a marble table as if to work on a translation. Adjoining is an onyx, teak, marble and gold bathroom.

The other is a central court, a sacred room where the devotees in small groups knelt and prostrated themselves before another statue, a gold figure of Prabhupada seated on a gold throne under an ornately carved cupola. Overhead the domed ceiling is decorated with paintings depicting the life of their Lord Krishna, including one showing him casting out demons.

All the construction is the work of a small community living on 2,000 acres of the rural countryside and executed in their own craft shops. It has about 300 members now, who have raised by their own efforts the $500,000 spent on it thus far.

Friday, March 14th, 2014
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Toronto, Ontario

The Raw Thaw 

Snow! Ice! Slush! Water! That’s what you get on a day like today. It’s the raw thaw. And it’s okay. It’s an adventure going through it all, as I traversed Yonge, Bloor, Bathurst and Dupont streets.

I feel no regrets not being in a car. I’m happy on my feet. There’s something sweet about it.

As I went (direction West) with a blinding sun in the eyes, I could make out a toquedchap coming towards me, hands in pranama.

“How are you Maharaja?” said he.

“Oh it’syou, Jiva-nuga!” I responded.

Immediately my thoughts raced to the past. He’s a fine human being. His roots are from the East (New Brunswick) and he had joined the ranks of monks in the West (Vancouver) years ago. While he’s no longer a man of the cloth, and chose to reenter civilian life, his time in a brahmacaryaregimen really benefitted him.
I’ve always liked Jiva, he’s as honest as you can get. He’s quiet and mild, but strong of body and skilled with his hands.

With the sun to my left shoulder, now going North-bound on Bathurst, I met another pedestrian, an acquaintance. It was Kathleen O’Connell, widow to Professor Joseph T. O’Connell, pioneer in many ways for helping establish wholesome dialogue between leaders of different faith groups.

Before his departure, Kathleen told me that Joseph recently set up a comparative religiouscourse in the University of Dacca in Bangladesh. His office was right next to the fundamentalist Islamic group. With his charm, wit and intellect, Joseph managed to build a bridge of communication.  

He was also thrilled, back in 1968 in Boston, to meet our guru, Srila Prabhupada, during the embryonic stage of a promising bhakti movement.

It was great meeting Kathleen. She was watching her steps, as I was, to evade slush and water pools as we parted our ways. It’s my assumption that she’s a walker and doesn’t mind the adventure that goes along with it. You don’t get this kind of interaction when buzzing around in a car.

May the source be with you!

5 KM