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Let's talk about Krishna

• Subject: Let's talk about Krishna
• From: Kamsanasha das
• Date: Thu Jul 20 11:51:12 1995
• Message-Id: id614

Dear Kamsanasha dasa

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
All glories to Their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Gopinatha!

>Nice to hear such an inspiring reply from you and attached letter
>to Vipramukhya Swami. I wonder how you could put out such a wonderful
>BTG's last year with the computer with 60Megs of HD. Actually I
>got one of them from you, but I didn't disguise myself that time
>who I was. Now you know me and my position in the temple.

I had a different computer last year. It had about 500Mb of disk. You need lots of
disk space and memory to work on the four-color pictures for printing.

>
>You asked which country I am coming from. Originally I am from
>Latvia but my parents are from Germany. Hare Krishna movement I
>joined when I was 12 years old. Of course in such a young age I
>didn't move to the temple straight away but waited till the end
>of my study in school. Now I am 19, and in the temple I live for
>about 4 years. Time when I joined devotees had to hide themselves
>underground because KGB was very heavy with them in my country.

It's something we have never experienced. Preaching here [in Australia] has been
relatively easy up to now. But I think difficult times are ahead. We have to be

prepared to preach under any condition. I think, generally, the Australian
devotees don't take it seriously enough. But you have seen both sides so that is
good. It is interesting that I found out last year the government has now passed a
law [in the local government act] making it illegal to "hold religious services in
public." Which means they have made Hari-Nam sankirtana illegal! They may not
enforce the law, but it is in the law books now and the can legally  stop the
Hari-Nam any time now. We are living in a very difficult time, and it's getting
worse.

By-the-way you are not 19.. Your body is 19. you are not the body but the spirit
soul within... It's not an easy thing to remember at all. We are so attached to
the bodily concept of life.

>It's interesting that now after all that movement in that part of
>the globe is growing enourmously. For population of only 2 million
>of people we have big (huge!!) temple with more than 40 fired-up
>brahmacaris and about 20-25 matajis, plus congregation of more
>than 150 people. Temple is so beautiful that people get attracted
>absolutely spontaneously. (Here is where my story begins)

Krishna consciousness is natural. It's our original consciousness, it's within
everyone's heart, so if we chant purely anywhere people will be attracted. It is
such a nice thing.

>Guruttama Prabhu, I am sure you know him very well, was a temple
>president at that time (when I joined). He was taking care of me
>just like my father, and because I knew some English he took decision
>upon himself to bring me here in Australia for couple of months.

I do know Guruttama Prabhu well. We both served Sri Sri Radha Gopinatha for some
time together. Guruttama Prabhu was an expert cook and he was doing quite a bit of
Deity worship as well. He also lead a short lived, but very ecstatic while it
lasted, travelling bus program which I had the great fortune to be part of.

>
>I was meant to do Deity worship and nothing else, but when temple
>authorities found me capable doing computer work and I/net communi-
>cations. So after 8 months of cooking, dressing and performing
>aratis, I changed my service (now really by my own desire) to
>what I am doing now. Guruttama left me in hands of local temple
>authorities, Atmarama Prabhu and Vikunta-sanga (Head pujari).

I would be very reluctant to give up the Deity worship altogether if I was you.
Sri Sri Radha Gopinatha are so beautiful and the more you serve them the more you
will see it. Of course you are serving them in your other work as well, there is
no difference really, but if I was in your position I would still want to do some
Deity worship.

>But actually I find it sometimes very hard with Atmarama because
>he's got his personal problems pouring on me from time to time
>in form of anger.

There are always difficulties. But it seems you have a very nice opportunity to
serve Krishna there and lots of good service to do. So just put up with it. We
have to tolerate so many things, the main thing is the service. If you leave you
may not be able to get such nice service elsewhere.

>I was ready to go back to Latvia, I had even
>arranged with BBT in Sweden to do transcribing work there, but
>suddenly Krsna's plans turn in different direction and I didn't
>go anywhere. Prabhavisnu Swami asked me to do communications work
>here, plus as you may heards we are printing 4 newsletters. I
>personally have to do 3 of them. Main one is "Australasian Sankirtana
>Newsletter" (it's 16 pages sankirtana report from all the temples
>around the zone), next one is "Sydney Regional Review" (also 16
>pages, temple president's report), and "Book Distribution Unlimited"
>(8 pages encouraging newsletter for congregation who are engaged
>in some sort of book distribution). Sukadeva Prabhu is doing his
>"Hare Krishna Today" (4 pages).


Why not do a full-color Australian Back to Godhead as well? It is a very simple
thing. Color DTP is no different to black and white. You just put color scans in
instead of the black and white ones. And it is so easy. You can do everything in
Pagemaker. You can just set everything up to make the films and take your files [I
used a "Syquest" 200 Mb removable hard drive for this] to a imagesetting place and
they make the films. I had a place that was making A2 films for me for just $40.
Then you just take the films to the printers and they make the plates and print
it... I was making the little A5 size books of 32 pages and the last one I printed
7,000 copies and it cost me just over $3,000 all-up. So it is now very inexpensive
to do color work. Instead of a 32 page A5 book you could do a 16 page A4 magazine
for exactly the same price. That  would probably be better. And it would look
wonderful! People would read it. Black and white is not really very attractive any
more. Almost everyone is using color so we should too. If you want any help I
would be very pleased to answer any questions you have on email, I would also be
happy to come there and help you set it up if Attmarama Prabhu thought it was a
good idea.

> To find someone here who is more
>or less is into computers or desktop publishing is not so easy.
>PVS Maharaja asked me to do the work because I spent some time
>working under direction of my spiritual master, Srila Harikesa
>Swami in Sweden on producing the books of Prabhupada in my own
>language (Latvian). I personally has translated 4 books, Elevation
>to Krishna consciousness, Sri Isopanisad, Introduction to Bhagavad-
>gita and Perfect Questions - Perfect Answers.

It's fantastic! It's a very, very, very important service. Have you considered
continuing to translate (in your spare time :-) I think you are probably much more
familiar with English now, after 12 months in Australia and you could now
translate very easily. What do you think about that?

> So as I had some
>experience on that field (plus I was printing "Debess Un Zeme"
>newsletter of our Riga temple, 16 pages), I became in charge of
>publishing work here. Most of the work I've done was on IBM-
>compatible machines, but I really like Macintosh for their
>graphics capabilities.

Of course you can do everything on the PC's now. They have Pagemaker, Photoshop,
etc.. But when you go to output your films you will find most places have Mac's
hooked up to their immage-setters. So it is easier if you have your files in the
Mac format. You can find places with PC's connected to the Image-Setters to, I had
a PC. But even the place I went to usually used disks made on Macs and they had
some problems with my BTG's that they would not have had if I had a Mac.


> In Sydney temple we've got 7 computers,
>for accounts, book distribution databases, temple presidents's
>personal staff, communications work (like I/net and COM) etc.
>Some devotees are more computer literate than others, but their
>problem was that no one around here was capable to do DTP.

It is not a very difficult thing! I think you should train some others up. It is
too much for one person to do four magazines! And anyhow it is good to give other
devotees a chance to do different services. When I joined in the Perth temple
Dvija Deva told me at one Sunday Feast that it wasn't so much that we should try
to do all the work ourselves, but that it was very important to engage others in
Krishna's service too. He was encouraging me to get volunteers from the guests and
organize them to serve out the Sunday feast rather than me going mad trying to do
everything myself. It was very good advice. So you should try and train up some
others in DTP too.

> This
>is the only reason I had to change my service, otherwise I'd just
>prefer to do Deity worship, cook and preach.

I'd still do all those things as well. But, of course you can't do them full time.
But sometimes you can cook, sometimes you can worship the Deity, and always you
can preach! [Publishing is VERY GOOD preaching]


>
>I explained to you my difficulties staying in this temple referring
>to lots of service being loaded on me. I think I can handle it.

Very good. I think you are in an extremely good position and you would be a fool
to give it up, even if there are sometimes little problems. There are problems
everywhere!

Looking forward to hearing from you again,

Your servant

Madhudvisa dasa

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