720214 - Letter to Hansadutta from Shyamasundara

Dear Hansadutta,

Please accept my humble obeisances! As you can see by the above start of a letter; it has been some time since I’ve either had the occasion or the time to write to you! By the way, you can disregard all of the above. I’ve sent the blasted thing to London via one devotee who was flying there anyway to be fixed and sent back by the next India-bound devotee… As for the microphone, they wanted to charge me something like Rs. 500/= for getting it out of the Post Office, so I told them to return to sender. Prabhupada has since received two others, so if you have got a Uher, you may as well use that mike yourself or sell it… I’m very very pleased to see the tone of your letters (being now His Divine Grace’s full-time secretary, i.e., plowing through 20 to 30 letters a day now—therefore please understand the time-lag in my personal correspondence); it sounds like things are really getting together there in Germany, and in Europe in general, under your able hands. Prabhupada is also very much pleased by your work! And please tell your good wife, Haimavati, not to take offense if I related the by-now-famous “Plastic Flower Incident!” The whole thing was done with a bit of tongue-in-cheek, and I think the question itself was put in a smiling way, so there’s no ill feelings there. In fact, I have only praises for the fine work you are both doing to organize Germany, get it on its feet, and actually expand nicely! Few others could have resisted the harsh conditions and near-impossible odds of introducing Krishna to Germans that you have—I know, I lived there myself for one year and was finally defeated by the whole, heavy thing! So kindly accept my most heartfelt praise and admiration—it is only proof again of the potency of this Krishna Consciousness philosophy and way-of-life, and of the unsurpassable greatness of Srila Prabhupada, that young men and women, Americans, could give-up and endure so much just to make a little progress, just for the pleasure of their Spiritual Master, to spread the light of Lord Chaitanya in another very dark corner of the world.

As for your order for deities, I have passed it on to Deva-

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