711017 - Letter to Yamuna and Gurudasa written from Nairobi

Letters by Date, 1971

Tridandi Goswami
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

CAMP: c/o ISKCON; P.O. Box 28946; Nairobi, Kenya; E. Africa
17th October, 1971

My Dear Yamuna and Gurudas,

Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your descriptive letter dated 10th October, 1971 and have noted the contents with interest. I am so glad to know that you are seeing all the MPs and officials in the government service and if you can make each of them a member of our society it will be a great service. Try to do it to your best capacity. I am also very much pleased that Indira Gandhi is now personally well known to you. For your presence only she has given special order for our devotees stay in Delhi. Certainly this is a good achievement. The selected men, namely the MPs who are there, are supposed to be the leaders of the country, are all there. If they can be convinced of our important movement then in India we shall have a very good holding. Actually our movement is so important that without taking to it, no other method, political, social, religious, or cultural, can give relief to the present chaotic status of the worldly situation. The leaders of the society must try to understand this point, that godlessness cannot give any relief to the human society. The whole world is so made that the living entity must serve Krishna; otherwise he has to serve maya. It is the same example that the citizen of the state has to render service to the government in order to become a good citizen. If one does not abide by the government laws then he is put into prison walls and forced to serve the government more tediously. So if we do not perform sacrifice, yajna, which means method of activities for pleasing the lord; as you know it is stated in Bhagavad Gita that any work not done for the satisfaction of the Lord must entangle the doer in the complication of the stringent laws of material nature.
Regarding the Deity worship and how to take care of the marble forms, now you have got practical experience from Jaipur and you can issue a statement to all the centers where such Deities are there. We may require many marble Dieties from Jaipur also. So it is good that you have secured the name and address of a good supplier. The Deities meant for the temple in Delhi may be[handwritten] installed during the Delhi function as we did for our Calcutta Deity. In the meantime somebody may donate a throne like Calcutta or Bombay for the Deities. And in the future we shall see about Jaipur. It is a city of devotees. We can get many vacated temples there in Jaipur just like there are some churches vacated in London also.
On the night of the 19th I am going to Bombay, reaching the next morning at 8:15 am. From there, after four days, I will be going to Calcutta sometime on the 24th instant. (8/30 am) [handwritten]
Hoping this will meet you in good health.

Your ever well-wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

ACBS/adb; c/o Delhi ISKCON