700114 - Letter to Hayagriva written from Los Angeles

Letters by Date, 1970

Tridandi Goswami
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Founder-Acharya:
International Society for Krishna Consciousness
CENTER:1975 So La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, Cal. 90034

DATE ....January..14,............19.70

My Dear Hayagriva,
Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your two letters dated January 5 and 8 1970 respectively, and I am so much moved from your kind sentiments that you have expressed for my humble activities. Actually I am not worthy of any one of the words spoken by you but all of them are due to my Spiritual Master Who was so kind to me. In fact I am a worthless person because my Spiritual Master ordered me to take up this work in 1922 but I did not carry his order until 1958, when I was obliged to carry out His order by His arrangement only. This means although I was not very enthusiastic to carry out His order He forced me circumstantially to accept it. So this is His special mercy upon me and I always think about this with gratitude to this exalted personality coming directly from Vaikuntha World and we had the great fortune to meet Him. I think that is the only credit on our part that we happened to meet Him by some "ajnata sukriti" or unknown auspicious activities. He is so kind upon me that when I came to your country, where I was completely unknown, He sent to me some good souls like you unsolicited. So I accept you all as assistants or representatives of my Guru Maharaja Who is still helping me because I am so feeble and unworthy. Anyway, the business which we have taken to work together is neither your business nor my business as far we are personally concerned, but it is the business of Lord Chaitanya and His bona fide servants like my Guru Maharaj. Therefore it is the duty of all of us to execute it as nicely as far as possible within our capacity. In other words, we shall just try to discharge our responsible duties faithfully and seriously, then all facilities will come for our help.
The Vrindavan scheme as suggested by you appears to be very nice. You purchase the adjoining two farms in the name of ISKCON and leave it to His Holiness Kirtanananda Maharaj and the devotees for further development.
Regarding Krishna book, as soon as it is ready we will begin to print it either on our own press or in Japan as it is suitable and we shall not wait for George's $19,000. His lawyer has put some difficulty in the matter and it is not yet settled up. Regarding our enlarged, revised Bhagavad Gita As It Is, if possible you can conveniently give an enlarged introduction also.

Here in Los Angeles they are selling our literature very nicely and yesterday I received the blue print of "Isopanisad" and this also appears very nice. If Kirtanananda Maharaj moves amongst the school, college and university authorities and induces them to recommend this "Isopanisad" for additional reading by the students either privately or in the library it will be a great achievement. As you have read it, we have tried to discuss the nature of God's greatness and our relation to Him as preliminary chapter of Krishna Consciousness. So this book is the cheapest of all our other books and they can easily be introduced for mass reading and they will be benefited undoubtedly.
Regarding publication by Mr. Ferlingetti, I have got all approval and we must take this opportunity for making our publication still more popular. Please try for it.
Your ever well-wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

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