720816 - Letter to Nityananda written from Los Angeles

Letters by Date, 1972

Tridandi Goswami
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

Camp: Los Angeles ISKCON
Date: August 16, 1972

My dear Nityananda das,

Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated August 4, 1972, and you may know I have just arrived here from London. I am very pleased to hear that all of the programs there in New Orleans center are improving more and more under your capable supervision. Especially I am glad to note the judges decision in your recent court case and the nice words that he has used to describe our movement. Yes, that is the case, he has said rightly. So you may distribute a copy of the judges statement and the testimony of the child to all of our centers around the world. I am very glad to hear that you are training the devotees nicely in our philosophy and I also fully approve of your system for management. It appears in all respects that everything is going well at New Orleans center and I am so much pleased upon you for helping me in this way.

So far the repayment of loan, we are not very much for big, big houses, especially if they become burdensome. Our first program is for preaching, and if we have to simply work for paying money for a house, that is not very much desirable. So you pay the loan at your convenience, better to concentrate on preaching and not so much for making money for repaying the loan quickly. Even if it takes some years to pay, at least you will not be always in anxiety where to get money in that way. But if you can repay the loan in two or three years time, and save so much interest money, that is a very good plan, provided it is easily done.

Regarding your questions, in the sense that they do not belong to disciplic succession, in that sense Christ, Buddha, and the others are not bonafide. But because they have got some special power we accept them as bonafide. Just like Buddha. We accept him as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Sometimes they play like that because they may have to. Although they are bonafide, they play sometimes as unbonafide. For example, we reject Buddha as unbonafide, but we accept him as an incarnation of God. We worship Lord Siva as a Vaishnava, but as a demigod we reject him. But to speak the truth, these personalities are not bonafide because who is caring for them? This so-called resurgence of feeling for Christ by the young people is due to our Krishna Consciousness movement. They are seeing that the foreigners are here, there is some national feeling and they think why not our Christ? Whatever they are doing we do not approve. But that does not mean that they should stop their work, this factionalism will go on. But one can see by the results. It is better not to talk with these people. Better let them remain as Christians and Buddhists, we do not want to convert them. You tell them that if you stick to Christ you will come out all right. It is better to avoid these comparative studies.

Hoping this will meet you in good health.

Your ever well-wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Nityananda das Adhikary/ ISKCON New Orleans