It's Our Philosophy, Our Way of Reaching Out to Others, Our love 4/14/13 :Italy

Dear devotees
This time I send my message from Italy.

A pilgrim's journey is always full of nice surprises. Sure, there are plenty of difficulties because they are part of life, he who is born, grows old, gets sick and dies. So, whoever expected a smooth life must have two tomatoes in front of their eyes. The theme of the good surprise is that we are all a family and when a new devotee joins we feel that we have really come a giant step closer to our spiritual family. Just with Krishna it is a very large family and every devotee has a connection with Krishna. No matter whether you are a new devotee or a devotee for several years. Both can guide us, surely the more senior and advanced devotees help us more and more so than that are the great Bhagavata param gurus like Srila Prabhupada. I dare to say that most of the preachers, both siksa as diksa gurus are pancaratrikas param param gurus. They are gurus who faithfully follow our Bhagavata param gurus and when they perform their service, they are seen with the same eyes as are the Bhagavata param gurus are seen.

Just this morning I had a long talk with Ramananda prabhu and Mahapurusa das about gurus and sannyasis who failed in maintaining their vows or who were unwilling to continue fighting as sannyasis. That is one thing that seems very shocking and certainly it is very sad but honestly it would be more sad if they had not tried to pursue it. As the example of Srila Prabhupada, when he was asked why there were so much maya in the temples, he replied by saying that the question asked was wrong, we should ask how is it possible that so many temples exist during the rein of Maya in full Kali Yuga.

These devotees, especially siksa gurus, who are opening temples and travel the world who try to spread the messages of the glorious Vaisnavas are doing a huge service. If they ever feel that they can't do it anymore there is most certainly a reason, such as an offense they may have committed, but that does not mean that their service was in vain. Especially if your service was backed by a powerful Bhagavata param guru like Srila Prabhupada. He is behind all those who have preached in his name and whom before Krishna have taken such responsibility.

I've already seen everything, I have seen sannyasis confused about their sannyas and after some contemplation they turned around and returned to resume their vows. Anyway, my mission is to make people happy, not uniformed and desperate people, or worse, irritable people who abuse others. In Krishna consciousness we have two options pravriti marga and nivritti marg. Serve, renouncing many of your whims as well as familial life, nivritti (renunciation of material situations), or the path of pravritti (positive use of material situations)or taking certain facilities and then serving the world with a familiar life.It is true that nivritti marga devotees are respected more because they have more time for others, but this does not mean they are the most successful in their services, as there are many grhasta preachers who have also done wonders.

The sacred sannyas order exists and is intended to point to the devotion that has been in the Gopis who offered up the dust from their very own feet to relieve Krishna from a headache. In our Vrinda family, I am very indebted to the sannyasis, brahmacaris, vishnupriyas, maharanis, grihastas, temple presidents, to all, as well as everyone that gives support from outside, and what to say to those who struggle to keep the principles of the mission. I am continually grateful to all. I also want to say, and please do not panic, but it is my hope that many of my disciples do become spiritual masters and understand the need of the conditioned souls all over the world. I am not in the illusion that within the Vrinda family there will be a ton of parama Bhagavata acaryas but I am sure we have many souls who are very sincere and faithful to Srila Prabhupada. And they're going to be those who represent him well and will allow others to have full access to the divine instructions of pure devotees although there is a risk that some of them will fail and the devotees who were connected with this person will have to find a connection with another Vaisnava so they can continue with us in good company.

The phenomenon that touches us when a temple president is leaving the service and we have to find another sincere soul who is willing to continue this responsible position, as Srila Prabhupada said quoting the slogan of Indian Railways: the wheels have to keep moving. That is the movement where the wheels of Gouranga keep moving, do not be superficial, do not be libertines, but donot be offended or disappointed by the failures of others, because that leads one gossip, thus, the recommendation of Srila Prabhupada is to be strict with yourself and be merciful with others.

In conclusion, help me with all your power to spread the message of love of Srila Prabhupada. I'm making a collection of information from projects that were made by Vrinda family anywhere in the world, that have something to offer other preachers, I mean in order to print materials, advertising materials, music recordings, documentaries and I would also like to know the history of each project through telegram, such as who had the idea, who executed it , who cooperated, which part of the project's material is available to date and can be obtained, from whom can you get it, if there is any value to get it what is the value.There is more than 30 years of creativity that I have behind me and I myself have forgotten many things or at least I have no documentation, but some individual devotees do have it. This can include old photos of the early stages.

I want you to review their files and look for good things of the past that might have been forgotten, for example many years ago to the theater "The Burden of Don Jose Slaughterer" a devotee of Miami named Jaya Ram made the first recordings for the protection of animals, remember that one of them was the song "I have a cow" that was used in the presentation of the work in the Media Torta de Bogota. Many plays are lost simply because we have not kept up with such materials. Each individual play is one of those projects that would be sad to forget. I remember one time with mother Vrinda and Laksmi we made a tremendous play about the liberated woman. I instructed a mother in Miami, Ramesvari  to collect Conscious Art and many of the things you report to me qualify to be presented there. Help me please with this collection, especially the old devotees who must have pictures or a good memory. Sure, its mostly things that can be relived, as our churches need a lot of culture and beauty. There are even books that have been printed of which files have been lost. For example when I was in India we were looking for a book of vegetarianism in Hindi published by the Ganga Action Parivar but we did not find the files in order to reprint.

So in Vrinda, we have many files that have been lost but may have a form that can be scanned. For me, the Internet is mostly an archive of valuable things from the past, imagine how we would suffer if Srila Prabhupada conversations had not been recorded or preserved so that today we can hear the nectar of such conversations. For this reason I want to begin this search for things in the past now and protect them better, people often think about today is not worth much but it does the artist may be made famous later? Even the details of the past will be taken into account and although we do not deserve it, we are part of a historical aspect that is called the start in the western part of the mission of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and the early beginnings of the WVA. Just as the early restoration of temples in India, like Vrinda Kunja, I believe there doesn't exist too many photos of it.

The principle out of sight, out of mind is used here, of course, there can always be visual saturation or you may not have time, but this is not a reason to refrain from preserving the treasures of the past. I also know that some devotees have collections of old cassettes that have not even been transferred to a digital format. That is also a reason to check, for example Madhava Prakash Maharaj wrote and recorded many songs but they were not recorded in a studio, I think Prabhu Vaisnava should have these cassettes. It's kind of an archaeological work that I'm asking for. Of course, over time the quality of the recordings is much improved.

One of the things that have always been left for later are all the newspaper clippings in which we have been written about, or where we have had radio and television interviews. For example when Srila Harijan Maharaj left, one way or another I can not remember how, he got on Colombian television and they made a tremendous report on his departure. And when it comes to preaching materials, I do not mean only made by Vrinda, I also like to preserve treasures of other missions. And current projects I want basic information that can be identified and who does it. If you know old devotees that may not be connected to the Internet and are not going to read the chat, you can visit them and interview, asking them to show you their old photographs. All these material please send a copy to me and prabhu Pancatattwa so that we know things have been rescued.

We are on track to Rimini Terni, yesterday was a historic day because we made a beautiful fire ceremony on the mountain, San Erasmo, where the Surya Narayan Temple was built 7000 years ago. Before that we did a radio interview and went to the waterfall for Harinam. We then had a program for Mother Earth in our Vrinda center in Terni and then went to a presentation of Radha Dub System where we sang at an old church some bhajans with the group.

This morning we discovered near the temple of Imlitala a beautiful ecological path that devotees did not know that devotees despite living more than 10 years there. Hriday Caitanya Prabhu, who is the builder of Imlitala Centre of Terni, located just next to the temple of Ramananda prabhu, Sringabath, made a new space in the woods behind his house that serves as a theater in the forest .

It is quite remarkable that the devotees in Italy have a long tradition of making some altars in their homes very beautiful much more beautiful than the altars we see in temples, they have love for detail. That is the essence of spiritual life, much love for detail. It is our philosophy, our way of reaching out to other, our love to all. And I hope you that all of you embrace this wish of mine to preserve the love of the past. It is love for those in the future. With this message I say goodbye for today.

Your always well wisher
A big hug for everyone.
Swami B.A. Paramadvaiti