hare krishna hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare Camp. Kirata Suddhi Dham, Upen, (University Area), Kinshasa, DR Congo.Mob 00243813744835 All Glories to Sri Guru and Sri Gauranga! Dear Dinadayadra dd and Bhn Jennifer, Please accept my blessings! All Glories to Srila Prabhupada! Thank you for your letter. Please excuse my reply delay. Are you still trying to send texts to me? Please try the number above which I also use as a phone modem and mobile. But maybe your network is different than RN's and GP's. > Hare Krsna Guru Maharaj AGTSP PAMHO So what's going on in Goma? > Does it have anything to do with Mother cow? Not sure yet whether Goma has anything to do with cows etymologically. It sounds like it should. But Lake Kibu on which Goma sits at the North side of, is said in local legends to be the place from where cows were mystically generated and on the South side of Lake Kivu is the city of Bukavu which means "the place the cows came from the lake". About 100 kms from Goma away is the area Masisi where the main cow protecting area is and we can get nice cheese for sale from there in Goma. We are planning to visit there and do some programmes. But that is also an area where the Congolese military and rebels are often frictioning. So I heard they ate up a quite a few cows for their troups. Bal Nitai was very kindly left by his uncle about 1 acre of Land at the backside of Goma overlooking the lake and city. It is on the slopes of the active volcano Nyiragongo inside which is a bubbling cauldron of lava. Sometimes tourist planes dare to peep inside but by some magnetism they are added to the lava couldron ready to be spewed out after some time. I don't think they will find their passports (as they miraculously did in 22/11) About 10m years ago lava wiped out most of the the city but things have again been rebuilt on the cooled lava by determined antlike humans. We have our 1 acre land there made of 60 yr old vintage lava which gladly sprouts with trees and plants . We just constructed our first lava Tulasi stambha. We are starting some buildings - made of lava of course. We also chant, cook and eat lava! Krishna IS lava! Bhumir apanalo vayu! Actually here is an interesting Morning Walk snippet about volcanoes: Devotee:  Actually, you were asking if there were any examples of explosions happening without material cause, and I was just wondering if you could explain how volcanoes explode. Prabhupada: Hm? That is God's desire, nature's way. Nature is behind this, and behind nature... Devotee: Through the demigods? Prabhupada: No. Nature, the material nature, and... Just like in... Sometimes at night you have got, what is called, pollution, night pollution? Trivikrama: Yes. Prabhupada: So why it is happening? Why it is happening? Why this eruption comes? Can you explain? Devotee: I don't know what night pollution is. Trivikrama: Passing semina in sleep. Devotee: Oh. Prabhupada: Why it does happen? What is your explanation? Nobody can explain? Ramesvara: Desire in the heart, subtle desire. Pusta Krsna: It is nature, just... Prabhupada: No, no, nature... The body is made of material nature, and the eruption is coming. Why it is coming? Does it come in the dead body? Devotee: No. Prabhupada: Then? What is the cause? Paramahamsa: The soul, living entity. Prabhupada: Because the soul is there. Similarly, the Supersoul is there, and He's arranging everything. The volcano's eruption does not take automatically. When it is desired by Krsna, then it takes place. Mayadhyaksena [Bg. 9.10]. Why don't you read Bhagavad-gita. "Under My superintendence." When He knows that "Now this eruption is required," immediately there is... Parasya saktir vividhaiva sruyate [Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport]. He has got so many potencies. One potency works. That's all. Because the living soul is there, therefore the seminal discharge takes place. Similarly, because the supreme living is there, therefore all these things are happening. Where is the difficulty to understand? Krsna says, vistabhyaham idam krtsnam ekamsena sthito jagat: [Bg. 10.42] "The whole worldly affair is going on because I am there." Vistabhya: "I have entered into it." Don't you read in the Bhagavad-gita? Then? And we are reading that portion, how Karanavasayi Visnu enters in the each universe. He's... Then He expands Himself as Ksirodakasayi Visnu. We are explaining that. Krsna says in Bhagavad-gita, vistabhya. Vistabhya means entering. Morning Walk -- April 3, 1975, Mayapur So right now we have a wooden and corrugated iron roofed hut with 3 rooms.It feels very nice to sleep there. Just behind the land is a beautiful extinct tree covered circular crater about 500 metres diameter and 100 metres deep whose rim the cows walk round and the villagers cultivate inside. Volcanic soil is super-fertile. It is said that the craters don't explode twice because the channels of lava go solid in its veins. We sincerely hope not. So Bhakta Nyiragongo has veins of lava which can only come up anywhere new. When it it comes up generally there is some warning and time to excavate. Its never happened in Goma like Mount Vesuvius did in Pompeii, Napoli, Italy. There all the depraved Roman people were gas asphixiated and then petrified in a few moments. But Nyirgongo is a gentlemen and everyone has time to move as the molten lava comes bubbling inexorably down moving usually around 10 mph and the volcano is about 25 kms away ,thank goodness. At night you see a red flashing glow round its crater. During the day and night smoke is pouring out.. Anyway free land is land and we can preach from there .When we do harinam hordes of kids follow us. Grownups have to go through complex mental adjustments before they do more than just stand and gape thinking we have emerged as weird spirits out of Nyiragongo himself. Still the Holy names envelop all as a transcendental lava flow of sound. So I was thinking maybe Brighton should become the sister city to Goma and an oracle could help to build our l transcendental welfare FFL centre in Goma centre there. I can send some photos. It really is a rather surrealistic landscape. But as usual pople are people and the Holy names are the Holy names wherever you go. > How aware are these peeps of their maker? What Srila Prabhupada says is still true, generally."So practically we have seen last time when I went to Nairobi, so many, these Africans, they are making progress very nicely. They are making nice questions. They are following rules and regulation. So African people, they are not so much sophisticated or so-called civilized to forget God. But if you work sincerely and if you can deliver one person only by your endeavor, then immediately you become recognized by Krsna. Na ca tasmad manusyesu kascid me priya-krttamah. This is the quickest way to become recognized by Krsna, by preaching work. Sannyasa Initiation -- Bombay, November 18, 1975" > And whats your strategy to Jago these Jivas?< Harinam and books, prasadam association.Same things. We are following Tukaram's example. Maybe Goma will become an adventure break for some of our Brighton devotees? Sita Thakurani can come and teach some Nyiragongo lava cake making, and Chris can come and manage the lava construction. Of course French is very helpful. Shireen will be the resident lava nurse retired and Christian can paint Nyiragongo lava paintings, Jen and you can be the main resident grehastha family preaching lava team .Somehow we can work out something.They say a change is as good as a holiday. Its good to experience different situations. > We are absorbing our selves in many nectarean lilas, most recently the pastimes of Sri Tukarama and of course those of his inspiration the supreme Lord Mahaprabhu himself :-) Interestingly we came across some refs from Srila Prabhupada glorifying the Maharastran Saint's legendary propagation of Hari Nama.< > Do you think there is any chance of Garuda picking us up when we want to check out? Every chance. That's what the sikha is for. Remember the original picture in BG? "The purport of this verse is that a devotee does not need to practice astanga-yoga in order to transfer his soul to the spiritual planets. The responsibility is taken by the Supreme Lord Himself. He clearly states here that He Himself becomes the deliverer. A child is completely cared for by his parents, and thus his position is secure. Similarly, a devotee does not need to endeavor to transfer himself by yoga practice to other planets. Rather, the Supreme Lord, by His great mercy, comes at once, riding on His bird carrier Garuda, and at once delivers the devotee from material existence. Although a man who has fallen in the ocean may struggle very hard and may be very expert in swimming, he cannot save himself. But if someone comes and picks him up from the water, then he is easily rescued. Similarly, the Lord picks up the devotee from this material existence. One simply has to practice the easy process of Krsna consciousness and fully engage himself in devotional service. Any intelligent man should always prefer the process of devotional service to all other paths." Bg 12.6, Bg 12.7, Bg 12.6-7 > My health is improving as a lesson in patience :-) That's good news .But I just I got this disconcerting "General rant" from Caitanyadeva (Dave Haslam) who thinks your'e sinking fast. "I have been in touch with the Brighton crew, concern is growing over Dr Dina's health and have been informed Temple Street is closed. The devotees are making contingency plane but depending on who you talk to is depending on the answer you get; the chaps are stiff upper lips get on with it, but some of the ladies are more concerned (although as always the chaps think it's a little bit hormonal like)" > hope all is well with you. Now in Kinshasa (Congo Capital) I've been staying at our 2 Centres alternately. One is at Mbuddhi at our own beautiful land by the Congo rapids in the Kinshasa outskirts and the other is in a big old squatty house just near at University Pedagogique Nationale (UPN) which we can use free of charge for a few years donated by a very kind Congolese mataji who saw our TV programme. By the Congo we have started a semi-rural project and behind the foregound noises you can always hear the kirtan of the Congo rapids. We are growing veggies, cassava, bananas, papaya mangoes and flowers etc. There is opportunity to expand our property and make a mini Mayapur training centre with our own sandy beach on the river and we are praying Mr Right will come along to puchase about 1 more acre of land. My Dartmouth laxmi is almost drained out in Krishna's service now. From there you can also take a local jollopy bus to the city centre for about 1 dollar usd. From there you can see an uninhabited Island (except for a few forgotten dinos) and on the other side of the river there is another nation Congo Brazaville where we have a little centre too. The similarity of Congo and Ganga is always in my mind and I seem to remember in that "Mother Ganga" book of Jaya Vijaya's (I left it with you), it says according to one partidcular account of Ganga's decent to this planet it refers to her tributeries showering all over the planet ***Please can you research that for me??? Maybe Congo is one of them. It also says in Kurmas little Sacred Cow Book that any stream or river cows drink from becomes the Ganga! So definitely Congo is the Ganga. This last 10 days we have done a major TV programme, quite a few harinams, a padayatra from UPN to our Mbuddhi centre taking 6hrs hours kirtany walking visiting devotees on the way. Kinshasa is a huge straggling city about 80 kms long with about 13 million people. We have distributed many leaflets and books too. I have taken lots of special junglyherbtree prasadam often cooked by Kalindi dd who knows secret recipes only learned by villagers hiding from rebels in the Congo jungles for 2 years. Bal Nitai now has 3 kids:-latest Abhay 5 mths, Gita 21 mths yr and Subhadra 36 mths. So you can imagine the baby wailing kirtans.Her relatives older kids are here also so its also like a gurukula family atmosphere as the olders tend the younger. My disciple Gaura Gopal is about 16yrs and a genius at kirtan and pujari service and brilliant at school. Bhn Pauline is about 14 yrs. Bh Ellie is 12 yrs. Harinam is 9yrs. The atmosphere is very attractive as everyone loves kirtans and I refound my klinkykonk here but it gets cracked after about 15 heavy kirtans and has to be rewelded. Sri Sri Caitany Nitai are the presiding Deities in UPN and Mangala Arati is flexibly about 0515 on average.It is punctual because it is still before sunrise at least .In Mbuddhi the Deities are called Sri Sri something something. I am looking for the right names. Something related to the Ganga/Congo.Navadwipa Chandra ?, Nitai Jahnaviananda?? Every morning I give a translated class from SB 1 ch 1."Questions by the Sages" and the local devotee young men who attend are asking amazing questions. One lovely question from Bhakta James aged 20 ( ex Roman catholic seminary) is everything is destined by the Supreme Controller so how we have freewill? So I must wrap this up now. Must try for Zambian visa. I will be starting a big tour soon including a boat ride down a Congo tributory from Kikuit down to mainstream Congo and up to Kisangani if possible.Maye take a few days but we can do harinams in new port towns on the way. From Kisangani then into new territory in Beni with an enthusiastic University professor.Then back to Goma then Bukavu then down lake Tanganyika down to Zambia or Lubumbashi. I have resigned to missing Mayapur festival in the hope that we can make steps to establish a new centre in Zambia at Konka Copper Mines as Shyamsundara 1967 Prabhu is engaged as Anil Agrawal's mining consultant. > jennifer is doing well, we are both rather taken with the name Pandurang! RK Love ( is there any other kind?) to you your servant DDd How is the refurbishments to No 1 coming on? Any sign of active preaching light to be seen at the end of the health recovery tunnel? You are supposed to be the Pandurang of Brighton! How is Tulasi Gifts doing in sub zero temp? Must go into city in our old jollopy. Low Battery. No house current either!!! Thanks. Hoping that this finds you well in Krishna consciousness, Your Wellwishing, Mahavishnu Swami