691027 - Letter to Upendra written from Tittenhurst, UK

Letters by Date, 1969

Tridandi Goswami
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Founder-Acharya:
International Society for Krishna Consciousness
CENTER: TITTENHURST PARK
TITTENHURST HOUSE
Ascot, Berkshire, ENGLAND
DATE......October..27,............1969

My Dear Upendra,

Please accept my blessings. I beg to thank you for your letter dated October 16, 1969 and I have noted the contents carefully. Regarding the "Prabhupad's Table", from the next year you will be getting so many books for selling. I have now made a policy that as soon as my books are printed in the press I shall distribute them in all the centers along with the respective bills. You will kindly send me the money for the Book Fund as soon as you sell them. The money may be sent to me or to the coastal president. But I shall overload you with books. I am so encouraged to learn of your nice propaganda work in the local schools. Last Monday we were at a law college and at least one hundred law students were up and chanting and dancing along with us. So there is much potential for organizing the student communities to take part in our movement. I am pleased also that you are decorating your temple nicely, and the more you decorate the temple beautifully the more your heart will be beautiful. The example is that the more you decorate the original the more the reflection automatically is decorated. So our heart is the reflection of the Original Consciousness, Krsna, and the more Krsna and His paraphernalia are decorated the more this will be reflected in our heart and we will feel transcendental bliss.

I do not know why you write that you are unhappy. You can join me at any time providing your business does not suffer. You are developing the Seattle temple nicely. If you think in your absence there will be no mismanagement, then you are welcome to stay with me as long as you like. I like your cooking very much, so I shall enjoy nice good foodstuffs. But at the same time I desire that your field of activities may not suffer.

Regarding your question, in one sense both you and Mahapurusha are right. The fact is that after the dissolution of the Universe the living entities remain in slumber within Maha Visnu, and again when the creation takes place they are impregnated in their original position and they come out in different species of life. By gradual evolutionary process, when they come to the human form there is good chance of getting out of the repeated birth and death, and one can enter into the Spiritual Realm. But if one loses this chance he is again put into the cycle of birth and death. The conditioned souls are always within the Maha Visnu Form, whereas the liberated souls in Vaikuntha, they are engaged in the service of the Lord. Constitutionally every living entity, even if he is in the Vaikuntha Loka, has chance of falling down. Therefore the living entity is called marginal energy. But when the falldown has taken place for the conditioned soul is very difficult to ascertain. Therefore two classes are designated: eternally liberated and eternally conditioned. But for arguments sake, a living entity being marginal energy, he can't be eternally conditioned. The Time is so unlimited that the conditioned souls appear to be eternally so, but from the philosophical view he cannot be eternally conditioned. Since we cannot trace out when we have become conditioned, there is no use of arguing on this point. Better to take care first how we can get rid of this conditional existence; as much as a patient should take care for treating his disease more, and less waste his time in finding out the cause of his disease.

Please offer my blessings to the others. I hope this will meet you in good health.

Your ever well-wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami