700418 - Letter to Bertl written from Los Angeles

Letters by Date, 1970

3764 Watseka Avenue
Los Angeles, Cal. 90034

18th April 70

My Dear Bertl,
Please accept my blessings. I am very much glad to receive your letter because sometimes I was thinking of you. You are a very intelligent boy, so I was impressed by your talking when you were walking with me on the street of Hamburg.
You have got a strong tendency to accept the Buddha philosophy, but you should know it also that if you want to accept Buddha philosophy you should act practically for this purpose. Lord Buddha was the embodiment of renunciation. He was in the princely order, grown up very luxuriantly, and he accepted the order of a mendicant, devoting his whole time to meditation. I meet many people who talk of Buddha philosophy, but their practical life is different.
Our philosophy is that we must apply in practical life what we believe. In this age no other philosophy or process of self-realization will be practical and effective as Krishna Consciousness is. So I would request you to come and live with our devotees in Hamburg and join the Samkirtan Party, try to understand the philosophy, eat with them, sleep with them, talk with them, and chant Hare Krishna. I am sure you will be happy and will be relieved from the present disturbances of your mind.
I would have been glad to ask you to come here, but I do not know whether it is possible for you to come here. But if you live in our temple in Hamburg, I am sure you will be happy.
If you have got any drug habit you must give it up. The drug habit is killing the soul of the younger generation in the Western world. So if you live with the devotees, you will get strength to give up this bad habit, and if you live separately you will never be cured of your present diseased mental condition.
Hope this will meet you in good health.
Your ever well-wisher,

A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

ACBS:db

Berti
c/o ISKCON Temple
2 Hamburg 6

Bartelsstrasse 65, West Germany