720408 - Letter to Puri Maharaj written from Sydney

Letters by Date, 1972

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

April 08, 1972

ISKCON Sydney,
83, Hereford Street, Glebe,
Sydney, Australia 2037.

My dear Puri Maharaj,

Please accept my greetings. I beg to acknowledge your letter of 18/3/72, and I have noted the contents carefully. You will be happy to know that our centers in Australia are expanding very rapidly, and many many young boys and girls are surrendering their lives in rich country to Lord Krishna. Now I think I have got about 100 disciples in Melbourne, and Sydney, exactly like those you have observed with me in India. So there is very good scope here because we have opened up our preaching here less than two years back. The other day I was invited by some Christian monks to come to their very large monastery in the countryside near Melbourne, and they were so much appreciating our Krishna Consciousness philosophy of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and they read our Bhagavad Gita every night, and they are all very nice persons and have stopped eating meat. So practically they have become our allies, and with their co-operation there is immense work to be done. Then last night we had a meeting in the Melbourne Town Hall in the central part of the city, and there was very ecstatic kirtan with more than one thousand persons and many of them joined us by dancing on the stage. So in every respect these western countries are the best field for our Vaisnava culture to spread and take effect, that has been demonstrated.

You have requested me in your letter to consider for purchasing another house. But there is one difficulty, because the present administration of Jagannath Puri sometimes do not allow us to enter the temple. Of course, for our vaisnavas this discrimination is spiritually illegal: Arche siladhi gurusu navamati vaisnave janavate: if one is dressed in vaisnava dress, according to vaisnava law, if he is considered not a vaisnava, then that is a hellish condition. You know this also. So I think so long Viswanath Das, Chief Minister of Orissa, is there, he should pass some law to help us. Viswanath Das knows everything, he can pass an act to allow foreign disciples into Jagannath Puri. Many hundreds of foreign disciples will be coming to India in the near future, and already we have got nearly 100 men there, so it is a great opportunity for the administrative officials of Puri to increase the fame and prosperity of Jagannath Puri all over the world, and it will be their misfortune if so many qualified devotees of the Lord are not allowed into the temple, simply because they have taken their birth in a faraway place. So if you are able to do something, and approach the right persons like Mr. Viswanath then we shall be free to have our center in Puri. Kindly let me know at your earliest. I shall be at the above Sydney address until 18th of April, 1972, then I am going to Hong Kong and Tokyo, so you may write me at Tokyo ISKCON, 3211 Minami Asakawa-cho, Hachioji-shi 193, Tokyo, Japan, after the 18th to the first of May, 1972, and after that c/o my Los Angeles ISKCON World Headquarters, 3764 Watseka Avenue, Los Angeles, California, 90034, U.S.A.

Thanking you once again. Hoping this will meet you in good health.

Yours in the service of Krishna,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

[handwritten] N.B. So far Srila Prabhupada’s birth place is concerned,

I must have it in all circumstances.

ACB

Tridandiswami Sri B. V. Puri Maharaj,
Sri Krishna Chaitanya Math,Vishakhpatnam.

ACBS/sda