Calcutta
21 May, 1971
My Dear Kirtika,
Please accept my blessings. Rupanuga Prabhu has recommended you for initiation and I am so glad to accept you as my duly initiated disciple. I have given you the spiritual name Kirtika Devi Dasi. Kirtika is the name of one of the gopis. Also your beads have been duly chanted on by me and are enclosed herewith.
The gopis are so much engaged in the transcendental loving service of Radha and Krishna that they are condemning the creator, Lord Brahma for not knowing how to make perfect eyes. They were disturbed that when blinking their eyes, they could not see Krishna.
So that is perfection in Krishna Consciousness; to be so much engaged in Krishna’s loving service that you cannot bear separation from that service, not even for a moment.
So somehow or other always be engaged. And if there is nothing else, you can always sit down and chant Hare Krishna Mantra. 16 rounds daily is the minimal requirement, but you should chant Hare Krishna as much as possible. And follow all the regulative principles strictly.
Read all our books, attend classes and go for street Sankirtana. In this way be engaged in Krishna’s business 24 hours and you will be happy and in the end you will go back home, back to Godhead.
Hoping this will meet you in good health.
Your ever well-wisher,
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
ACBS/adb
Certainly, we have an innate tendency to gravitate towards those things and those persons who satisfy our inner-most needs. This is natural, as the Sri Isopnaisad explains that from the Originating Source Complete Whole, Sri Krsna, uncountable sparks of spirit emanate, all of which have a unique portion of the qualities of Godhead. One difference, Godhead is atmarama, self-satisfied, whereas the sparks, ie us, the jiva souls, are dependent in all times upon a relationship with others, but we become fully satisfied only when we are fully spiritualized with Krsna’s energies, as He is the self-satisfied One and originating Father.
A fish on the sand can never be satisfied until it is back in the water, its natural state. After many births and deaths , “One who is in knowledge surrenders to me, knowing me to be the casue of all causes and all that is. Such a souls is very rare in this world.”
When the souls wish to try to enjoy as the Supreme themselves, the material realms become manifest for us. Here, we may make any attempt we wish, from creating universes, to crawling in the mud. In order to fulfill this illusion of seperateness from Godhead, we are given bodies with a degree of ignorance, we are given the built in hardware and software, we are given a field of activities. The interface is called the mind, and it can be our best friend, when trained, or our worst enemy, if we allow it to control us, like sleepwalkers in a dream.
By substituting positive alternatives to the crazy plans of the mind, ones given by fully liberated souls, such as the bonafide Vaisnava guru, we can become free of being servants of the mind and material nature, by instead intelligently taking up devotional loving service to Godhead, as this is our constitutional position, jivera svarupa haya, nitya krsna dasa.