Hey Dude, I am almost finished with the first Canto of Bhagavatam!
Hare Krishna, Dear devotees. This is a letter from someone I met at the Bonnaroo music festival. Whilst it’s not exactly Vaisnava jargon and etiquette [hopefully that will come later]; it proves the importance of distributing Srila Prabhupada’s books, and over and above that, of spending time cultivating people and giving them your own contact info. As individuals, we can distribute a limited number of books, but if we can convince others to do it too, obviously the numbers will increase.
Your servant
Adikarta das
Hey Dude! Have your made your way to Europe yet? I am almost finished with the first Canto of Bhagavatam. I am in process of ordering all the volumes as translated by Prabhupada. I wanted to say Hi and make sure you know how thankful I am you gave this great gift to me. To be honest, I’m so taken with it I would probably aim for reaching renunciation in this life to return to Godhead, but I am not able to do so my friend. I cant leave my soon to be wife as she very much helped save me from failing in the material world, so I cant leave her to save myself in terms of the spiritual world. I hope that I can at least work hard and earn a better position in a future life so that I soon will be able to renounce all sensory pleasure to return home. But I cant feel right about sacrificing the family I have around me who gave me so much to save myself. Perhaps I can sacrifice myself to help save them and open their eyes a bit to the point of this material life. I see in the book now why you insist I surround myself with pure devotees and follow a spiritual master, but not sure this is realistic for me…at least at this point in my life. So for now, you’ll have to be my Swami Aidi :-) haha I hope you are well my friend. Tell me about what stage you are in in the transcendental devotional work to Godhead ! I would like to hear where you are and what you have left to achieve in this life. I have grown a lot since we met Aidi and that is thanks to you. I have a clear picture of the impersonal Brahman and God’s cosmic form. I also feel his presence daily and he is always on my mind. One thing I would like to develop further is the correct meter to chant Hare Krsna to better communicate directly to Vishnu. Well, I am going to get back to my daily chores before work. Take care !
Hare Krsna.
Brett was in the marines with the colorful shirt who wrote the unusual letter.