Date: 2/16/23

On January 27, 2023 I posted “Paraṁ vijayate śrī-kṛṣṇa-saṅkīrtanam!” which contained the following text from my email to Srimati Govinda Nandini Devi dasi.

“When I first viewed the video you sent me of your street sankirtana (attached to your email of 12/9/22) I didn’t positively recognize you. I just viewed it again and see that you are playing a harmonium, chanting and looking very energetic, happy and still youthful.”

Yesterday (2/15/23) I received an email from Srimati Govinda Nandini Devi in which she corrected my misunderstanding as follows.

“Today I was at Harinama after a long break. I recorded a video for you so that you wouldn’t confuse me with other young energetic mataji. (Smile) Earlier I sent you a video of Camila playing the harmonium. I am also in this video, but in the background. I will attach photos and videos to you. I play the tambourine in Harinama.”

Included with her email was the photo below.

Unless I am again mistaken, she is pictured playing the tambourine.

Therefore, I issue the following correction.

This sentence-

“I just viewed it again and see that you are playing a harmonium, chanting and looking very energetic, happy and still youthful.”… Read More...

Hari Nama on a street in Moscow.

January 27, 2023

Dear Srimati Govinda Nandini Devi,

Please accept my blessings and well wishes in remembrance of my Divine Masters.

I hope I will hear from you soon that your health has recovered.

When I first viewed the video you sent me of your street sankirtana (attached to your email of 12/9/22) I didn’t positively recognize you. I just viewed it again and see that you are playing a harmonium, chanting and looking very energetic, happy and still youthful.

Once I was with Srila Sridhara Maharaja who was speaking with us on his veranda as his kirtana party was returning from morning sankirtana around Navadwipa. As the group came nearer to us and the chanting grew louder his attention was being drawn more and more away from us and towards the sankirtana party. By the time it entered the gate of the Math Srila Sridhara Maharaja was becoming more and more joyful and animated. Finally he broke his talk on the present topic and told us (paraphrasing) ”I cannot dance any more, but in my heart I am dancing.” He was so much pleased to hear the kirtana party.

My feeling was similar while watching and listening to the video of your kirtana group and seeing everyone in a very happy mood.… Read More...

Date: 1/21/23

Good morning Darren,

I would like to further the thread of our conversation. I hope you will indulge me.

According to ancient Vedic scriptures — such as Bhagavad-gita and Sriman Bhagavatam — the current age we live in is known as Kali-yuga. It is a very inauspicious age characterized as follows:

ŚB 1.1.10

प्रायेणाल्पायुष: सभ्य कलावस्मिन् युगे जना: ।
मन्दा: सुमन्दमतयो मन्दभाग्या ह्युपद्रुता: ॥ १० ॥
prāyeṇālpāyuṣaḥ sabhya
kalāv asmin yuge janāḥ
mandāḥ sumanda-matayo
manda-bhāgyā hy upadrutāḥ

Synonyms

prāyeṇa — almost always; alpa — meager; āyuṣaḥ — duration of life; sabhya — member of a learned society; kalau — in this Age of Kali (quarrel); asmin — herein; yuge — age; janāḥ — the public; mandāḥ — lazy; sumanda-matayaḥ — misguided; manda-bhāgyāḥ — unlucky; hi — and above all; upadrutāḥ — disturbed.

Translation

O learned one, in this iron Age of Kali men almost always have but short lives. They are quarrelsome, lazy,misguided, unlucky and, above all, always disturbed.

Due to these characteristics of the Age of Kali, meditation — in the manner of a yogi sitting still in the forest in a fixed position for hours at a time — is not recommended as a means to God realization.… Read More...

Date: 12/9/22

Good morning Darren.

Yesterday you raised an interesting question asking if I thought Kenny wanted to be a millionaire, an ambition of yours.

In reply I told you ”You might be surprised.” But I was actually answering the question a little differently than you might think.

I assumed your ambition to become a millionaire was due to your thinking it would bring you some measure of happiness. This is what everyone wants and is seeking through various means. More precisely, what everyone wants is sat, cit, ananda: eternity, knowledge and bliss. My reply about Kenny, ”You might be surprised.” was not meant to directly address his ambition to become a millionaire but, rather, the reason one wants to become a millionaire. It was meant to mean ”Just as you want eternity, knowledge and joyfulness, so does he.”

Another of your ambitions is to create a ”peace center” and I agree with you it should be done with the intention of encouraging the development of internal peace, not external cessation of conflict, which can never be achieved in this world. But peace is secondary to the most primary innate desire of the jiva (soul). What every jiva is seeking is pleasure.… Read More...

Date: 12/20/22

Dear “the real gaudiya guru parampara”,

For the sake of expediency I will assume you are the one who previously wrote to me using the name ”the real guru parampara” and your current email is in response to my reply to you.

Your reply (below) to my email to you dated 12/11/22 does not answer any of the questions I posed to you regarding your identity.

As I wrote to you previously: “If you want to be taken seriously you must identify yourself.”

You did not do that. It means, as I suspected, you have no guru and cannot identify yourself as belonging to any guru parampara except, possibly, one you imagine for yourself.

It is unfortunate for you that you could not reply to these simple questions I asked in my last email to you.

What is your name?

Where do you live?

Who is your guru (the guru of what you call “the real guru parampara”)?

Who is your guru’s guru?

Fortunately, you have an attraction for our website and continue to study it in your search to find meaning for your life. This is similar in benefit to “regular attendance in classes on the Bhāgavatam”, as found in the verse following below.… Read More...

Date: 12/11/22

To: “the real guru parampara” (the name you used to contact me).

You wrote this to me:

“your govinda maharaj was a dangerous man he would punch and knock down srila sridhar maharaj , that is why some godbrothers tryed to throw govinda from the roof but you dont know all this .

Your statement is what is known in law as conjecture or hearsay. For such a statement to have weight it must come from a recognized authority such as guru, shastra or sadhu. At the very least it should be supported by some material fact or reason. You offer neither.

It’s not reasonable to think Srila Sridhara Maharaja considered Govinda Maharaja someone that abused him and would then select him to serve as his sole successor to fully represent him after his disappearance.

Your next most obvious mistake is one of simple logic. When you write ”you dont know all this” you are presenting a logical fallacy. Because you have no factual basis to know what I know or do not know about the statement you made you cannot know that I ”dont know all this.”

You have failed the test of logic. Let’s see if you are able to succeed on any other front.… Read More...

Recently I received this comment from someone calling himself Swami B.A Keshav:

sad you seem so angry.
why not go to India and make amends you are well-come always as an acarya at sri chaitanya saraswat math, please not to air your dirty laundry in public

These remarks are at once childish, foolish, ill-defined, imprecise, ill-informed and misdirected. For now I leave it to you to decide which of my terms should be applied to his various scattered thoughts, conclusions and invectives. I may reply further in the future but for now will only briefly address one item I find to be well deserving of broader dissemination and understanding.

”[W]hy not go to India and make amends you are well-come always as an acarya at sri chaitanya saraswat math,”

Although I have already spoken and written extensively on the points, I have yet to offer the following explanation given by Srila Sridhara Maharaja. A careful reading of it will be sufficient to understand why I have, for many years now, avoided “sri chaitanya saraswat math” in India and elsewhere.

Śrīla Śrīdhara Mahārāja: . . .

Our duty here only. None of us, not necessarily we went there in the samādhi of Prabhupāda.… Read More...