cooperate

Regarding your unstable condition of mind, I beg to request you to always remember that you have all gone to London with a great mission and responsibility. I am so much pleased with you all six boys and girls who are doing so much for my missionary work. My Guru Maharaja, Bhaktisiddhanta Thakura, Lord Caitanya and at the end Lord Krishna Himself all are surely very much pleased for your noble activities. You have already made the city of London feel something about the Hare Krishna movement. This is a great credit for you all and I appreciate it very much. Please do your duty combinedly without any disruption of peaceful attitudes amongst yourselves. We are pushing our movement on the background of a peaceful atmosphere in the world, and if we show a little disturbance in our own camp that will not be a very good example. Therefore, everyone should be forebearing, tolerant and cooperative. That is my special request to you all.    (More...)

Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated February 26, 1972, and I have received the small booklet Transcendental Teachings of Prahlada Maharaja also. It is very nice, and it is just to the point for our ISKCON Press. You are very well suited to make endless numbers of this type of small booklet and I am very much pleased to understand how nicely you are doing it. Now if you are also able to increase our distribution at the same time, then this will be the success of our Krishna Consciousness Movement, to print and distribute profusely, side by side. We had got some indication from Karandhara Prabhu that there was some misunderstanding and things were not going too well between you both big leaders, that is why I was little concerned because such things should never be allowed to fructify within our Society, that will spoil everything. But I am glad to hear from you that because there was some misinformation that we had got the wrong impression, and actually that everything is progressing in a spirit of mutual cooperation in all respects. This is Krishna Consciousness. Working together to please the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Practically now it is in the hands of you big guns to manage everything so that there may never be internal difficulties amongst us, and so that we may always go on increasing more and more the influence of Lord Caitanya's philosophy of Sankirtana process upon all the world. That will be your great achievement, and if you go on helping me in this way, you may know it for certain that very soon you will see Krishna face-to-face. In short words, I am very much fond of these booklets, now go on increasing.    (More...)

Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated April 20, 1972, and I have noted the contents. So you have paid Mr. Bhuther Rs. 10,000, but you have built a temporary pandal for Rs. 1500/-, and all of the materials can be re-used so just see how much money you have wasted on this pandal. No one followed my instructions in this matter, as I repeatedly advised to build a semi-permanent pandal from corrugated iron sheets, and now so much money has been lost. I have got some reports that the deities in Bombay are being much neglected. This is most abominable affair. Radha and Krishna should not ever be neglected or left unprotected, so I am wondering what you have done to rectify this situation. I have heard that Madhudvisa intervened to get the deities a better place, so he has done nicely. Also I have got complaint from Nara Narayana that he is not being allowed to work on his gardening as I instructed him to do it. So you let him go on with that work of gardening; sometimes he may be difficult to live with, but good manager means he is able to satisfy everyone and live in cooperative manner with all the devotees, so if you manage things nicely he can do tremendous work. Practically no one has more energy than Visvakarma. So let him do gardening work and if Bhavananda needs his help to build Rathayatra car he can go to Calcutta for some time to work there. I have not got any plans from Saurabha, though I requested him many times, only I have got two sketches from the architects in Cyavana's letters Saurabha was going to sketch the interior of Govindaji's temple and make plans for Vrindaban also, but he has not sent, so I do not think he is yet very reliable.    (More...)

One thing is if the Calcutta festival is held at least 50 men must be there and do it very nicely. How many men will be there? On the dates that you mention, namely, October 27th to November 5th, I shall be in Vrndavana. You must all jointly make these decisions about my program there, not that whimsically one man shall decide one thing another man shall decide another thing. So unless Tamala Krsna and the others agree then I will not be able to attend on the dates you have mentioned. Anyway I shall be in Vrndavana at that time. But after the 15th November, leaving this time, and consulting with the leaders, then a suitable program may be fixed for Calcutta.    (More...)

One thing is, now we have got many many books in England and we must raise funds for our place there, so try to increase the selling of literatures and magazines and deposit everything in the building fund. Preach, sell books, in this way gradually you will feel yourself becoming perfectly happy.

Hoping this meets you in good health,

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Hoping this meets you both in good health.

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Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter from Vancouver dated November 2, 1972, and I have noted the contents carefully. Your question about travelling SKP parties in other zones I have answered several times before, so you may see the letters to Dhananjaya in London and others. The thing is, our main business is to distribute books, either here or there it doesn't matter. So if there is transcendental competition for increasing sale of books, that is good. If he buys one book his life may be turned, that is best preaching work. But everything must be done in the spirit of cooperation, without any irritation. If one party wants to travel into another zone, that's all right, but there must be prior agreement between the GBC men and mutual consent. If by going there the book sales will be increased, what is the harm? But supposing if there is any harm, that is to be judged by the local president, and if he has good reason to think that another party will be unfavorable to his temple's operations, then he may order them to leave, that's all. So local temple officers should be the final judge to allow or disallow anyone from outside to sell books there. And if some outside party comes, they must sell books only, no collecting without selling books. They must live in the local temple and not separately, and they must follow faithfully the instructions and directions of the local president. They can purchase books from the temple at regular wholesale price and sell, and whatever profit there is above wholesale price they must give at least 50% to the local temple out of good will. That will be nice. So we shall not think that this is my zone, that is his zone, just like the Indian and Pakistan nation are thinking, and then there is war, no. Lord Caitanya has given us the task to spread His message all over the world, and any process which may be useful for facilitating this business, that we shall gladly adopt, never mind his zone or my zone, that is material designation. But we shall always do everything in cooperative spirit and avoid any fighting amongst us, that is Vaisnava attitude because Lord Caitanya has advised us to always offer all respects to others, especially to the devotees of the Lord.    (More...)

It is a fact that at this time I do not want to open any further Centers. It is a question of timing. We have initiated so many projects and Centers and practically we are short handed all over the world, so it is better at this time if we work to maintain and develop whatever we have.

That Gaurasundara and Siddha-svarupa have sold the Temple in Hawaii and abandoned the beautiful Tulasi plants there is a great fall down on their parts. They did not ask my permission. If they wanted to go away they could have, but they had no right to sell the Temple. It is actually a criminal act on their part. Anyone who follows them will also fall down without a doubt.

Now, we have by Krsna's Grace built up something significant in the shape of this ISKCON and we are all one family. Sometimes there may be disagreement and quarrel but we should not go away. These inebrieties can be adjusted by the cooperative spirit, tolerance and maturity so I request you to kindly remain in the association of our devotees and work together. The test of our actual dedication and sincerity to serve the Spiritual Master will be in this mutual cooperative spirit to push on this Movement and not make factions and deviate. Try to convince Gaurasundara and Siddha-svarupa to return to ISKCON and let us forget whatever has happened in the past.

Yes, you may return to Hawaii with Sudama Maharaja and take charge of caring for Tulasi devi there. I cannot understand how Govinda dasi could abandon Tulasi devi. Kindly try to induce her to return.

I hope this meets you well.

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The main difficulty there seems to be lack of full cooperation. I have written to you to become responsible and to manage things. However, at the Bhaktivedanta Manor, as anywhere, the local president is in charge. That is Mukunda. The reason why there is difficulty and competitive spirit is that everyone wants to be supreme. That is the difficulty. You have experience in the standard of our Krsna Consciousness Temples so you have to work together with Mukunda and combinedly raise the standard of the English Temples to our Krsna Conscious standard. Everyone should follow the rules and regulations. This is very important. There is a standard of behavior for devotees living in the Temple and everyone who lives in the Temple must follow that standard, or else we will automatically fall down. We have been given such a nice big facility at Bhaktivedanta Manor so it is not for our eating and sleeping. Rather, on receiving such a nice place from Krsna we should take it as an indication that we must now work harder. So I know that all the boys and girls there are enthusiastic to follow, so you leaders see that the Krsna Conscious standards in regard to initiation, cleanliness, dress and activities of the devotees, the restriction of association between men and women, all be strictly followed. Devotional service cannot be done whimsically.    (More...)

I hope this finds you well.

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This kind of criticism and counter-criticism is not good. Those who are advanced devotees try to see only the good that other devotees are doing, just as bees are attracted to honey, while flies are attracted to sores. Gurukrpa Maharaja and Yasodanandana Maharaja have gone to Tokyo with my full knowledge for sankirtana and collecting funds for our projects in India. In the past they have collected very nicely and sent $40,000 to India. So let them work peacefully, and you engage yourself fully in Los Angeles and BBT matters. You have great responsibilities in that connection. Let us try to work cooperatively, otherwise the fighting spirit will ruin our great movement.

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I hope this meets you in good health.

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I hope that this meets you in good health.

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