681123 - Letter to Devananda written from Los Angeles

Letters by Date, 1968

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

November 23, 1968

My Dear Devananda,

Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter of Nov. 18, and I have noted the contents with great satisfaction. It is very much encouraging to me.

I can understand from your letter that you are working nicely for the spreading of Lord Caitanya's mission. Just keep this your attitude of sincere service and without a doubt Krishna will give you all intelligence to serve Him nicely. Krishna is not ungrateful but rather He sees all our efforts and appreciates our sincere service. Krishna is interested in how we engage our energies in His service. We are very small, very insignificant, so what can we do? Simply He wants to see that we are engaging our time and energy in His service. And you always remember to abide by the laws of Krishna as described by His bona fide Representative, and the passage of going back to Godhead is assured. This is Krishna's Mercy. But pure devotees do not even want to go to Krishna's abode. Simply our prayer should be, My dear Krishna, please remind me to always chant Your Holy Name, please do not put me into forgetfulness. You are sitting within me as Supersoul, so you can put me into forgetfulness or into remembering You. So please do not put me into forgetfulness. Please always remind me to chant, even You send me into the hell, it doesn't matter, just so long as I can always chant Hare Krishna. Lord Caitanya and Nityananda are singing one very nice song in which they are requesting everyone to please chant Hare Krishna, and come along with Them. So that is our request to everyone.

Regarding the prayer from "Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu", yes it is very nice, and approved by me.

Hope you are all well there, and offer my blessings to Satsvarupa and Jadurani, Rukmini, Saradia, and all others.

Your ever well-wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami