740116 - Letter to Damodara written from Honolulu

Letters by Date, 1974

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

January 16, 1974

My Dear Damodara,

Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated January 3, 1974.

I have accepted as my disciples, those devotees recommended by you, and their spiritual names are as follows:

Edward Striker, Aindra dasa
Neil Kallmyer, Nilambara dasa
James Machuga, Jagara dasa
Pamela Machuga Padma malini devi dasi

Now instruct them very seriously about their responsibilities. To promise to follow the four prohibitive rules and to daily chant sixteen rounds means they cannot deviate. You can hold a fire yajna and inform them that in promising before the Deity and before the spiritual master, one cannot later break the rules without being punished, just as in the law court one is held for perjury. If we simply follow these instructions however, spiritual life becomes very simple and we can go back to Krsna in the spiritual world at the end of this life, which is the success of the human life. You may send their beads for chanting to Kirtanananda Maharaja.

As for the second initiation, I have accepted those disciples whose names you have sent me, Laksmivan das, Varuthapa das and Krsnabhava devi, and I am enclosing two sacred threads and three copies of the gayatri mantra. Please instruct them and show them by example as well what is the character and practice of a brahmana. They should hear the tape of me chanting the gayatri mantra through the right ear.

Your political preaching is encouraging to me. We should expose before the public eye that the lowest class of men are now taking the posts of leaders, and therefore there can be no peace or happiness. I have given the idea for a poster which shall be entitled: "Select Real Leaders—Don't Spoil Life", and it will depict devotees as leaders, illustrating that real leaders have to be free of meat-eating and animal slaughter, illicit sex, intoxication and gambling. This poster is being prepared in L.A. and I want it distributed all over the world, and you can use it widely in your campaign for Mayor of Washington D.C.

Your ever well-wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami