Letter to Ramesvara

From: Tamal Krishna - SL_770906_D2

Los Angeles

My dear Ramesvara Maharaja,

Please accept my most humble obeisances at your feet. I have been instructed by His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada to thank yon for your letter dated September 2nd, 1977.

Enclosed please find a Letter to: the residents of New Dvaraka-dhama which I would request you to kindly read to them after the mangala-aroti ceremony. Needless to repeat to you, there is no way to describe how pleased Srila Prabhupada was with the offering of the new books as well as the beautiful photographs of Rathayatra. I have tried to express this in the Letter to: all of the devotees there.

Neither I can fully express to you how much His Divine Grace was pleased with the ceremony of the opening of the Krishna-Kaliya Temple in Fiji. Especially Srila Prabhupada appreciated your statement, “that Fiji could easily become the first country in the world to have a Krishna conscious government, and Vasudeva is the perfect devotee to help accomplish this task.”

I try to always praise you as you are most worthy of praise, to His Divine Grace. After I read your letter I told Srila Prabhupada how when you had last visited Vrndavana, before returning to the West, you had gone to the samadhi of Sri Rupa Gosvami, and prayed fervently for many hours to be engaged in making the publication and distribution of the Srimad-Bhagavatam a reality. When I said this to Srila Prabhupada His Divine Grace nodded with so much affection for you, and I could understand how fortunate you are that you are doing such intimate service for Prabhupada and how much appreciative His Divine Grace is of your service. I am a very puffed-up fool, but I pray to you that you allow me to render some assistance, because I know that you are fully qualified to spread Krishna consciousness under the direction of His Divine Grace, by the distribution of His transcendental books.

I would definitely recommend you to be in New York when His Divine Grace sets foot on the land of America. Recently, I informed Srila Prabhupada how Balavanta Prabhu was arranging for His Divine Grace to come to America, and how all of the officials whom he met were very respectful in welcoming His Divine Grace on His return to America. When I spoke this to Srila Prabhupada, He burst into tears and with tremendous feeling He said, “America has been so good to me to give me money, men, everything. I have no designation that this is my country. But because they have given me so much facility, I cannot forget my obligation to them. I want to make them happy and through them the whole world.” I can only just imagine how ecstatic will be the arrival of His Divine Grace, and I pray that you will be there.

Hoping this meets yon in. the best of health and Krishna consciousness.

Your servant,
Tamal Krishna Gosvami
Secretary to Srila Prabhupada

His Holiness Ramesvara Swami
c/o ISKCON Los Angeles

/tkg

P.S. As Jayatirtha Prabhu reported that the philosophy book, after being checked by Ravindra Svarupa, appears to be at best childish and not at all scholarly, Srila Prabhupada said that you should not publish it.

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Letter to: Yasodanandan

London,
September 10, 1977

From: Tamal Krishna - SL_771010_A1

Vrndavana

My dear Yasodanandan Maharaja,

Please accept my most humble obeisance at your lotus feet. I have been instructed by His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada to thank you for your report dated 3rd September, 1977, along with enclosures.

Your report has brought unlimited pleasure to His Divine Grace. Srila Prabhupada listened with rapt attention as you gave the description of the opening of the Sri Krishna-Kaliya Temple at Fiji. He relished each and every detail and at the end said, “All blessings of Krishna-Kaliya upon you. Thank you so much for doing everything so nicely.” I can tell you for sure, that Srila Prabhupada is very glad to have a qualified personality like yourself whom He can depend on upon now for all such important functions. Srila Prabhupada so much appreciated what you had written, that He asked me to immediately have it copied and sent to Back to Godhead for publication, so hopefully very shortly you should see your report in print. We are now awaiting the photographs which you mentioned Ramesvara Maharaja had taken.

As you will probably learn from Guru Krpa Maharaja, Srila Prabhupada is very pleased to be back here in the West. He especially appreciates the very pure devotion of all the devotees who surround Him. However in the past few days He has had difficulty with His health, developing inability to pass urine. The situation grew critical and Srila Prabhupada had us rush Him to a hospital where He underwent minor surgery for relieving the passage of urine. This was done successfully. However Srila Prabhupada is very very weak, at least as weak as He was in Vrndavana if not more so. So He requires very much rest and recuperation, and peaceful quiet without any headache or disturbance.

I suggested to Jagadhisa Prabhu, sometime after you had left, that his main business should be to get children enrolled in the school from both abroad and local. I explained to him my opinion was that yourself and Dr. Sharma are fully capable of taking care of all of the management and education of the children and of the building. I explained to him that as GBC for such a project, Srila Prabhupada expects him to do the needful as it is required. Just like in the beginning in Mayapur, first Srila Prabhupada had me get an engineer, then get the materials, then see the work begun, and at last go out and collect money to build it. Similarly, it will not be good if Jagadhisa sits in Vrndavana and writes a report to Prabhupada how all the 15 children are being managed expertly. Srila Prabhupada wants to see hundreds of children there, not 15. So if Jagadhisa is to report anything, it will have to be how he is making every effort to get children, not how he is exerting himself to manage the 15 children. That can be easily done by the persons who are already there, namely yourself, Dr. Sharma, and the other teachers. Therefore I strongly encouraged him that he should go out into the field and find out how to enroll children. I mentioned to him that he [TEXT MISSING] children in our school. Then based upon their replies he could find out what he would have to do to actually get such qualified students. Unless he goes into the field and actually learns what it is all about, meeting with the parents of possible students, as well as meeting with the principles and other managers of similar institutions, then he will not be able to get more students. So my suggestion is that you should encourage him to do this.

Dr. Svarupa Damodara is here and he should be going to Vrndavana and probably will have been there by the time my letter arrives. I want you to know that about four or five months ago Srila Prabhupada demanded that all the unnecessary members of the Press Staff in Los Angeles should be fired, as they were all taking salaries unnecessarily. At that time this was done and more than $5000 a month worth of salaries was saved. Srila Prabhupada then said that all of the money should be utilized for the scientists’ program. He said whatever was not used each month should be banked and reserved for them. So I wish to let you know this, since I think that you might like to use some of this money for the construction of the Bhaktivedanta Institute building next to the Gurukula. Of course I am certain that Ramesvara has not been banking this money and you might have a little difficulty in getting it, but if enough persons were to assert themselves in this matter, I am certain that you can get the money. Prabhupada definitely wants this money to be utilized for the purpose, that I can tell you for sure, so it is totally parampara to demand this money, and Srila Prabhupada will back you all the way.

I hope this meets you in the best of health and Krishna consciousness.

Your servant,
Tamal Krishna Goswami
Secretary

His Holiness Yasodanandan Swami
C/o ISKCON Vrndavana
/tkg

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