Monday, 15 November, 1971
Delhi
My Dear Lalita Kumar,
Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter, and I am very encouraged by the progress you are making to lead the citizens of your community, Wilmington, on the transcendental path back to Home, back to Godhead.
Because you are very sincere and enthusiastic boy, and very intelligent also, Krishna has give you this position of leadership in His army, to win the war with Maya and establish Krishna Consciousness as the perfect way of life for every living entity. If you simply push on this one activity of distributing my books, your all success will be there.
I have hatched this transcendental plot for getting money by selling my books, and if we stick only to this plan, and use our brain for selling books, there will easily be sufficient money.
I have recently informed the GBC to allow each temple to keep 25% of the money they collect from direct book and magazine sales for temple maintenance, 75% to be sent to Book Fund. Supposing you can sell 800 dollars a week worth of literature (retail price). Will not 200 dollars weekly be sufficient for food and rent? If not, increase book sales, or, until things are adjusted in this way, supplement in other ways, but try to avoid too much business as this distracts us from our real mission.
If Krishna sees that we are very active to spread information about Him, He is Master of the Goddess of Fortune, He will give everything. I note that you have got a nice van–why not have some travelling Sankirtana parties in the surrounding countryside, distributing our literature in new places?
Your approaching schools and colleges is very tactful because these students are the most eligible candidates for receiving this transcendental knowledge of Krishna philosophy. Simply by repeating what I have said–first you must yourself become fully convinced of this philosophy–your preaching will meet with all success.
Our philosophy has the full potency to deliver anyone from the darkest realms of ignorance to the enlightened realm of complete cognizance. The potential is there, simply you have to master the words and deliver them purely, and this will please me very much.
You will be happy to know that I am preparing a book on commentaries on your Western philosophers, so that all of my students may defeat these nonsense rascals who are simply speculating this and that and misleading the people. If we sincerely try to present our philosophy at every opportunity, eventually it will be heard and appreciated. So plan your school program in this way.
As for your questions, do the fallen souls leave the spiritual world all at once or gradually, we can answer, do all the prisoners in the prisonhouse free at once–no, some are coming, some are going.
Our presentation of Krishna Consciousness must be always very bold-if we are king, we must act like king. The idea is if we speak the truth, those will hear who are intended to hear by being qualified or prepared. It is not that we should compromise to attract the mass–we are after the class. Still, it was my method to make Krishna Consciousness palatable to you Western boys and girls, how else could I attract you to give up your habits of sense gratification?
Krishna philosophy can be approached from every angle because it is the Complete Whole, purnam. So if your scientific explanation, beginning from the point that sound vibration is the root cause of everything, and leading to the understanding that Krishna is the Cause of the sound vibration is having good effect, why not continue in this way.
Only thing is to remain true to the authorities–Krishna, the great saints and acaryas–and everything you say will come out nicely. People are of different natures so we have to use our talents how to convince people in different circumstances, that’s all.
I hope this meets you and your good wife Jambavati in good health and cheerful mood.
Your ever well-wisher,
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
First l want you to remember that what Srila Prabhupada is saying here is in real time. He is giving his advice and instructions to all of us right now. This letter is released so that devotees and followers may follow his instructions now. These are not old historical instructions they are non different from his presence. If we read this then we are allowing Srila Prabhupada to speak to us personally. Now we must consider very seriously what he is saying and try to organize as best we can and act now.
From the letter titled “It was my method to make Krishna Consciousness palatable to you Western boys and girls”
We again are presented with the fact that personal hands on Krsna conscious teachers are desperately needed. Srila Prabhupada wanted to make Krsna consciousness palatable so he had to come personally to teach. So again I recommend that there be created a web of on line Prabhupadanugas Krsna conscious preaching centers staffed with teachers by phone and key board and be ready to receive and reply to regular mail. Volunteers needed.
From the 4th paragraph down from the top Srila Prabhupada says ” If not, increase book sales, or, until things are adjusted in this way, supplement in other ways, but try to avoid too much business as this distracts us from our real mission.”
I repeat here again what Srila Prabhupada has written “try to avoid too much business as this distracts us from our real mission”
The activity presented below by Srila Prabhupada needs to be reviewed, updated and put into action as practically as possible and as soon as possible. If there are devotees and followers out there engaged in on line one on one preaching and teaching it would be nice for them to share their programme with us. We all have a great deal to offer. We have many thousands of years of experience in Krsna consciousness among us.
Again from the 4th paragraph down. The question mark at the end of the sentence to me says Why Not?
“note that you have got a nice van–why not have some traveling Sankirtana parties in the surrounding countryside, distributing our literature in new places?
Qualified Krsna conscious teachers of all ages are out there with time and resources available. There is no age limit and never has been. So Srila Prabhupada says in the 6th paragraph down “Your approaching schools and colleges is very tactful because these students are the most eligible candidates for receiving this transcendental knowledge of Krishna philosophy.”
If someone could find out and post which book this is that Srila Prabhupada is referring to in the reference below that would be very helpful. From the 8th paragraph down he says:
“You will be happy to know that I am preparing a book on commentaries on your Western philosophers, so that all of my students may defeat these nonsense rascals who are simply speculating this and that and misleading the people. If we sincerely try to present our philosophy at every opportunity, eventually it will be heard and appreciated. So plan your school program in this way.”
I repeat that Srila Prabhupada wants us to NOW plan our school programmes as he has outlined in this letter.
So plan an online school programme NOW!
“Srila Prabhupada is our leader, the holy names are our main weapon and the origianl Bhagavad Gita As It Is is our war plan” Hasti Gopala dasa
Second paragraph down Srila Prabhupada says “Because you are very sincere and enthusiastic boy, and very intelligent also, Krishna has give you this position of leadership in His army, to win the war with Maya and establish Krishna Consciousness as the perfect way of life for every living entity. If you simply push on this one activity of distributing my books, your all success will be there.
Hare Krsna Dear Hasti Gopal prabhu
Obeisances.. all glories to Srila Prabhupada
I think the ‘book’ you may be referring to is .. “Dialectic Spiritualism” A Vedic View Of Western Philosophy.
You can download a pdf copy from PrabhupadaBooks
https://prabhupadabooks.com/pdf/Dialectic_Spiritualism-A_Vedic_View_on_Western_Philosophy.pdf .
From 1973-1976, His Divine Grace recorded 100 hours of discourses on 36 Western philosophers from Socrates to Sartre. At the final session he gave the book its title and said “print it at once”. But the next year, Srila Prabhupada left this mortal world and the manuscript remained unpublished, as some of his disciples feared against publishing such a controversial book and alienating western philosophers Despite attempts at suppression, here is Srila Prabhupada’s last great opus Dialectic Spiritualism, the complete and unexpurgated philosophy book as Srila Prabhupada himself spoke it.
Trust this helps.
Your fallen servant,
Balaram das.. Australia.
Balaram das.. Australia.
Dandavats, All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Thanks for your insight , not only was this manuscript NOT published , soon the agents of Kali in FISKCON started changing his books.
Bhaktisiddanta warned us that these kali celas will invade the Vaishnava community to weaken the Sankirtan movement, right after1978, book distribution, Harinam practically stopped.
Many of his sincere disciples who left FISKCON, many kicked out, have been printing and distributing the works of Srila Prabhupada unchanged, this Sankirtan movement will continue stronger,
misleaders or fake gurus elected by the corrupt GBC cannot stop us, especially in this information age where we can now post online.
On my laptop couldn’t download your link for “Dialectic Spiritualism” A Vedic View Of Western Philosophy.
Instead found a good free download audio version of this book (good for us older devotees)
here’s it is for those interested;:
http://www.krishnapath.org/free-ebooks-audiobooks-of-srila-prabhupada/dialectic-spiritualism-a-vedic-view-on-western-philosophy/
Thanks for that extra information Prabhu.
Yes the glory days… from the early seventies until the departure of Srila Prabhupada (still here in Vani), when we would come back for evening Prasad after distributing cases of ‘Big Books’. Transcendental IEDs, improvised explosive devices that even now are still claiming their unsuspecting victims.
Srila Prabhupada’s Original Transcendental Literatures Ki Jaya.
Your fallen servant,
Balaram das.
Hare Kṛṣṇa Balaram Prabhu, _/\ò_ All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda!
Thanks for the great pointer to Dialectic Spiritualism, great reading as always! I went straight to the sections on Origen and Kant, two of my favourite Western philosophers because they are closer to Vedic thinking than most of the others. Origen in particular (whom Prabhupada seemed to agree with a fair bit in this book) was very important in the formative centuries of Christianity in the time between Jesus and the Roman Catholic Church (where much was later changed). Being one of the few early Christians who upheld reincarnation and the doctrine of transmigration of the soul it is fascinating to see the works of Origen elsewhere and how close they are to Vedic Philosophy unlike the later church.
Hare Kṛṣṇa, Rathayatra das:
perhaps this pdf link will work for you (it worked for me). Personally I like being able to flip through the pages of a book, even if it is in pdf format, especially in this case reading chapter entries selectively. And almost instantly
https://vanimedia.org/wiki/File:1985-Dialectic_Spiritualism-A_Vedic_View_on_Western_Philosophy.pdf
It appears to be photocopied from an actual published 1985 book and as such might represent one of the few things Iskcon and the BBT have gotten right since the ZAS era IF it was left untouched… coming from Vanipedia it may not be as corrupted as Vedabase which we all know has the changed books (I’m no authority on the subject). The same version of Dialectic Spiritualism pdf can be downloaded from krsna.org
https://krishna.org/dialectic-spiritualism-a-vedic-view-of-western-philosophy-pdf-download/
so I guess they’re both authentic versions. I hope that helps
Ys Sam Treloar