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Dear devotees, a cordial hug and a big hello from Bogotá. We arrived yesterday. In the morning they opened the new temple in Villa Marina in Sao Paulo. It is a small but excellent temple in the very centre. The preaching has also increased in several places in Brazil. I really felt a lot of enthusiasm seeing that this time our mission in Brazil is taking a more serious form. These days I had many wonderful experiences of the power of the mercy of Bhagavad Gita. Of Srila Prabhupada.

Really, the Bhagavad Gita, being the personal word of Krishna, offers its readers something so unique as if you received a phone call from the Supreme Personality of Godhead who advises you regarding the problems of your life. When Arjuna sees the universal form of the Lord, he apologizes for having behaved like a friend of Krishna, but Krishna establish that He wants to have this loving relation with each one of us. He is the Lord of the Supreme Love and does not want that anyone escapes from His Divine embrace, and Arjuna with his expert questions brings us to appreciate the opulence and the tenderness of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Krishna is in reality our Supreme Father. Aham Vicha Pham Pita. I am the Father who gives the seed to all. In America they celebrate Father's Day today. Father's Day is the Day of Krishna, but then, please, we should celebrate our Lord Sri Krishna every day. In the world of exploitation the father is seen like someone who has to give us things; someone who accomplishes a function where we are the centre of the case, but the teachings of Lord Krishna can save us from this exploiting mentality.

This idea that someone belongs to us and should give us things is typical for the relationships in the mundane world. We really must learn to see the things totally different. The Bhagavad Gita teaches us the true Love and gratitude, and the conclusion of gratitude is the surrender to the will of God; the surrender to the will of the Guardian.

In the Vedic culture the compromise with our family and our community is much bigger.

Despite that in old times there were also rebels like Ravana, Kamsa, Sisupala, Duryodhana and his brothers, etc., the essence is that our father is 100 percent loving, impartial and unconditionally well wishing for everyone, therefore we should surrender to His desires that purify us and let us have a sane and healthy community. Only by these conditions one can hope that things turn to loving cooperation to improve our life and environment in all aspects.

For instance, we want that our temples and communities are 100 percent loving, progressive, impartial, without megalomanias; rather ecstatic. How can this be possible without gratitude to our Supreme Father and His messengers? Besides that, it is necessary that there exists a representative of the Supreme Lord or of His representative, and this representative should be approved by the mercy that comes from above and also by the new sincere devotees that are under His guidance. This is a fundamental truth. In the times of Srila Prabhupada here was a reunion of the devotees in London and they voted, took out the president of the temple and put in a new one. The devotee who was taken away in that way, ran to Srila Prabhupada to complain, but Srila Prabhupada said to him: "If the local brahmanas did not appreciate your leadership, then you should consider this to be a mercy and realize that you were not qualified." In the brahmanic life, each brahmana has the responsibility to surrender, and by his own conviction surrender to the adequate person that maintains the stream or the flow of the stream of divine love. So is the criterion, and Arjuna in the Gita confirmed this again when he said: "I surrender to You Krishna, because You are the Supreme Lord."

A judge in the city of Musjhi das crossing Brazil, received a Bhagavad Gita of Srila Prabhupada. He read it and was impacted. After this he read it four more times and decided to look for his spiritual master, nothing but this. Now he is called Gauranga das. I initiated him yesterday.

Another history. A lawyer liked very much the esotericism and Krishna came to her in form of Bhagavad Gita, and soon after that she knew Sachinandana. She liked the teachings of Lord Krishna so much that she realized that He must be the source of the light that she adored in the esoteric teachings. As she was talking so much of the Bhagavad Gita, nobody calls her by her name Rita anymore, but they all call her Gita. Then she started reunions to make conferences on Bhagavad Gita and now she is initiated and is called Gita Govinda.

It is so nice to see how The Bhagavad Gita enters the heart of people. The relation and the teaching to Arjuna is so loving but despite that he tells him the truth; on one hand Krishna says: "You complain for what is not worth complaining about and you are stupid." And on the other hand He says: "you are my friend". In certain forms we should conduct our communities that way. The other day in an airplane a man sat by my side and told me that he adored the past times of a Japanese tradition "Mahikari". I took out the Bhagavad Gita and showed him the verse that said that "one who adores the past times will go to the past times, one who adores the semi gods will go to the semi gods, and one who adores Me, will go to My divine abode." The man started to think a lot, and when we arrived Santa Cruz, he gave me 100 dollars to continue giving the message of Bhagavad Gita.

The Bhagavad Gita says that Krishna Himself is the Sun and the fire, the Moon and the fire. It is very important that you read the Bhagavad Gita. I like very much to give "Unknown India", by Walter Eidlitz, to people as a first book. But a preacher in this world who does not go with several Bhagavad Gitas to distribute in this world, is a failing soldier, who goes into the fight against Maya without ammunition… because we have no other book where the Supreme Personality of Godhead talks directly to introduce His world of Love. There exists no similar book in this world. The Bhagavad Gita is the book that all humanity was looking for, and we found it. And it should follow us until the day we die.

Krishna encourages us in so many nice verses. Like the one where He says: "I give you the intelligence by which you can come to Me." What relief for those who cannot remember almost anything! Help me Krishna! If You don't help me to remember You, I will not be capable. It is so difficult to be attentive to all the compromises that we have, or that we have accepted in our life; we always want to run away from them in our minds, and the old mentality of exploiting wants to invade our mental world. One who does not remember these immortal instructions of Lord Krishna in His Bhagavad Gita, gets depressed, frustrated and without the desire to do anything good. But, one who remembers these instructions has the effect of instant blessings, enthusiasm, joy, compassion, gratitude and is disposed to fight against Maya to make something very nice that he/she can offer to Lord Krishna.

To Lord Krishna we can offer a glass of water, tulasi, a flower, etc, always when it is offered with love, but the nicest offer we can give is the smiling face of a new devotee who, with the japa in hands, burns with the desire to also become an instrument of His love. So is the wish of Krishna, Radharani and all the pure devotees of the Lord. If you still cannot enjoy the existence of each new Vaisnava, you have not sufficiently understood yet to identify with your spiritual family. It is rejoicing to know that there is another Vaisnava in some other place, and it is not even necessary to know him or her personally. Of course, one would like to know him or her too, and confirm the reality of earlier contact.

One feels sadness when alienates from the Vaisnava family. So preaching means to rejoice and also feel pity more and more. May our heart be caught in the emotions that surround the Vaisnava family, and so for Maya, there will happily be almost no time. We have to apologize to Maya, like Haridas Thakur did, that we no longer can attend her. Srila Prabhupada said it many times, that preaching is life. To not preach is to die in life. To not care for people, to not have sincere relationships with others, to not invoke the presence of the eternal Father in His Bhagavad Gita, forgetting all the beauty, simply to attend the most boring gratification of the senses, just like the cockroach and the rats; this is to die in life.

Sense pleasure in the animal kingdom is disposable in a much greater form for human beings, even though they don't want to recognize God. There is a lot of affect among the animals; their kids are as playful as the children of human beings, and they like to be caressed. What makes human life extraordinary is not the sense pleasure, but the possibility to love God and become a loyal servant of Him in this world. This is the invitation in the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna satisfies all desires, one just has to wait a little, and then hopefully we will not disturb Him with individual desires, because what a pity, since He satisfies all the desires, He can also transfer our case to Durga to take care of our material desires. Therefore the true servant, who could be a temple president for instance, always has to find out if his service is appreciated by the representative of Lord Krishna and by the devotees that he is trying to serve.

An essential saying of true humility is this: Thank you prabhus for letting me serve you, for tolerating me being insufficient. Please, be so kind to always let me know if you see how I can serve you better, because I never want to lose the privilege to be able to serve you, the devotees of the Lord. The same is applicable on family fathers as well, and how nice the world would be if the leaders would have this mentality. The world of exploitation is really a big shame. If we study the neo-colonialism of the international bank and its system for to squeezing with force the last drop from people to enrich a few, the only fitting word is "Disgusting". And disgusting are also those who participate in this exploitation, whether bankers or governors. Of course, don't worry, tomorrow they will pay the bill, and those who are suffering today are surely paying the bills of mistreating of others from yesterday.

Therefore we preach the Bhagavad Gita and not the illusory revolution of the materialists. But at the same time we should be on the vanguard of the true surrender, of the evolution of the conscience towards the will of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Rupa Goswami. To use everything in the service of the Supreme Lord, in a certain form is found in this weekly worldwide chat of the Vrinda family. At least I feel it that way. All of you who are present here on the chat, united in great joy… How nice! And what is the purpose of the chat? It is to discover how we can serve better, how to become more expert, more pure and more tender in our life to expand the family and that more souls are blessed with the contact of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In other words, the chat has the exclusive purpose to satisfy the transcendental senses of Krishna.

There is no place for schisms, calumny or offences at this level, because an offence written on Internet is multiplied by the quantity of people who will read, so an offence becomes an auto-goal of instant Vaisnava aparada, easily bringing a spiritual auto knock-out. On the other hand, like Vrindavan multiply the service to thousands when glorifying Krishna by Internet, one single preaching can become thousands of preachings. And in case that I cannot be present in some chat sometime, I beg you to ask the major devotees who are present to maintain the flow of nectar of Krishna Katha. There is no importance if the preaching comes from me or Guru Atulananda or any known devotee from our mission. Important is to listen to Hari Katha, to be connected, to learn to appreciate the marvellous work that other devotees are doing. Like our news pages; their purpose is to inspire the programs with the stories of success from the sacrifices of your brothers and sisters in other parts of the world.

Philosophical debates, and even more conflictive topics, only belong to the relation of questions and answers with advanced devotees we trust. Public forums that degrade to a language of an attitude that is not very Vaisnava, disturbs our spiritual life and cannot help us. Sadhu - Sanga, versus Asat Sanga is the fundamental element to maintain advanced. There are always conflicts in this world, and that person is never missing who fail in his or her personal behaviour, sometimes also sannyasis have failed. But Hari Kaha and the spirit of Caitanya Mahaprabhu live and remain forever. The mentality of flies is like always looking for excrements, the sad part of the world, meanwhile, is that the devotees are like bees that always look for Honey; they pass the excrements without paying any attention to it.

The foundation of Vaisnavism is revealed in the Holy Name of Krishna and the Bhagavad Gita. To achieve the association of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is completely possible, simply by the infinite grace of Srila Prabhupada. And of course, always where there is some delicate topic to discuss in our mission, through the Gurumaharaj.net page, you will find the answer or comment on my part or G. Atulananda. And if someone does not agree with what is to be found there, he or she can write another letter and express his or ser inquiries, but as for the platforms of the chat, my wish must always be to maintain them on a level to work hard to make others happy; to not be so weak and to associate with determined devotees.

There exist some forums in English, of some very frustrated persons with their experiences in some Vaisnava missions with harsh language, full of offences, that only can discourage and not inspire. I hope our Vrinda family can maintain itself far away from this kind of exchange, today and in the future as well. For more details, read The Heart of Krishna, by Srila Puri Maharaj.

Finally, it has been a marvellous day to be with you, and I would like to continue, because still I haven't exhausted the desire to share with you the different ideas and inspirations, but I will give one hour now to answer personal questions. I just want to dedicate some words on Father's Day to the brave Grihasta men that take good care of their children and their wives, of course. Men that always act in such a way that their family can be proud of them; who always maintain the divine light in the different corners of their griha, and those who know to ask forgiveness if they in some moment have failed. To those, who maintain their families with the material and spiritual necessities, who still go on supporting the mission of the Spiritual Master, in some way, I offer you today my congratulations. The position of a family father is practically like the position of a spiritual master, so you can see that Krishna wants that all of us become Spiritual Masters. So for any man or woman that is given similar responsibility, it is the pure mercy of the Lord. Go on to care for you families and thank Krishna, the Supreme Father that He has given you the confidence to take care of one of His gopis and those nice children that always want your tenderness and illumination.