671109 - Letter to Prabhus from Achyutananda

Calcutta,

9 November, 1967

From Achyutananda

Jai Prabhus,

My mother wrote me that she met Keith and he was in a priest’s habit. Good Grief! He’s really flipped. Anyway I was sorry to hear that. Hayagriva is also taken in by him.

We’ll be staying in Vrindaban so I won’t have much chance to export goods, postage only lets me send up to 30 rs. worth at a time and for heavy heavy packages I spent an hour filling out form and useless red tape. Small packages will have to be the medium, Incense, small bells, beads etc. Send me what is called a Bank Draft for the necessary funds.

We got a note from Harivilas. If it is true than the greatest havoc has been played in the name of transcendental trickery. He can give the Swami and His activites an extremely bad reputation. Vrindaban is Krishna’s abode, our duties here in this place are extremely important to the society especially in presenting ourselves before the Swami’s Godbrothers, any undesirable Characters could ruin everything. I am considering taking Indian citizenship and am prepared to stay here for some time if the draft allows me. In 2 years as a resident I can take citizenship and obtain an Indian passport to return immune from any delinquency from the draft. Anything that could hinder this plan like a nut like Harivilas would be disastrous. Please say it isn’t so. Swamiji will be returning to San Francisco soon and will probably arrive in NY as soon as the warm weather returns there. His health is back to normal and He is shining like the moon! HARE KRISHNA. DON’T LET HIM OVERWORK. This is a very hard task as the Swami is a lion, but he still has to take medicines and get His massage. Tell them this in San Francisco.

PS 50$ should be enough. Ghosh Mazumdar is a picture publishing house with very nice Krishna pictures (the best) but he is a little high in price I think, 600 rs. per thousand I don’t know if that is high or not. If you want that price let me know.

Achyutananda