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The snake & mouse and curing AIDS patients

• Subject: The snake & mouse and curing AIDS patients
• From: Maria E
• Date: Fri Mar 15 13:35:05 1996
• Message-Id: <199603200811.SAA23087@magna.com.au>
• Reply-to: madhudvisa@krishna.org

Dear Mataji



Hello. Hare Krishna. Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories

to Srila Prabhupada!



Yes the technology is quite amazing isn't it? You can send letters to

anywhere in the world in minutes... There is a good potential for

preaching. Everything can be used in Krishna's service by an expert

devotee. Of course that is not what the designers of the internet has

in mind, I am sure of that. But Srila Prabhupada does sometimes talk

of the philosophy of the snake and the mouse. The snake doesn't bother

to dig a hole fore himself in the field but he finds one already dug

by a mouse. He just slithers into the hole and eats the mouse and then

calls it his home... So Prabhupada said we are not interested in

working very hard to invent and manufacture this technology, but if

the materialists do it we can just take it and use it for spreading

the glories of Krishna...



What is required to enable ISKCON to reunite and start cooperating is

to put Srila Prabhupada back in the center. But many don't want to do

that... So it is very difficult now. I don't know what will happen,

but in any case we should never give up Krishna consciousness. We

should always stick to chanting, following the regulative principles

and reading Srila Prabhupada's books -- no matter what.



All is well here in OZ [down under] -- at least for me. It is not so

difficult to live here at the moment -- but I see things are changing.

We are living in a very rapidly changing world and we may well be

looking at a very different situation a few years down the track. So

we should take Krishna consciousness quite seriously and try to do

what we can to help push on Srila Prabhupada's movement.



There is a bit of a history here in Australia, in Sydney 

particularly, of the Hare Krishna's helping drug addicts and

alcoholics. We used to have a temple in Kings Cross [it is now

Bhavananda's restaurant and cinema -- I think you saw the letter I

talked about that in]. There was a prasadam resturant upstairs, a

take-away out the front, a very beautiful marble temple for Their

Lordships Sri Sri Radha Gopinatha on the ground floor and "Mukundas",

the Food For Life restaurant out the back. It was serving more than

1,000 plates of prasadam a day, every day, seven days a week, for

about ten years and so many alcoholics and drug addicts were cured by

becoming devotees. No one has any records of course, and many of the

"cured" addicts left after they had got over their material problems

and addiction. We considered it a failure, that they had "blooped".

But actually it was a great success. Most of them went out into

society and were able to start a new life, material life undoubtably,

but far better than when they joined. Many became respected members of

society and were cured of their addiction. And of course their

devotional service was never lost. Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita:



                          nehabhikrama-naso 'sti

                           pratyavayo na vidyate

                       sv-alpam apy asya dharmasya

                           trayate mahato bhayat



     "In this endeavor there is no loss or diminution, and a little

advancement on this path can protect one from the most dangerous type

of fear." (Bhagavad-gita 2.40)



So even though many of them "blooped" still it was a great success and

they will all continue their devotional service sometime in the

future. So Krishna consciousness has great potency to cure drug

addicts, alcoholics, etc. Actually there is no other cure. I often

talk with people who are going to AA and NA (Narcotics Anonymous).

While they are into the meetings and enthusiastic to give up and in

the association of others with similar aspiration they are OK, but as

soon as they are back in the old neighborhood, as soon as they are

back in the same position with people around them taking drugs -- they

just start again. The taste is still there. They don't get any higher

taste with the AA or NA programs... It is false renunciation in our

terms. So the higher taste can only be found in Krishna consciousness.

Krishna consciousness is the only solution.



Unfortunately, for it to be successful, it requires temples full of

sincere devotees who are very clear about what the philosophy is and

actually experiencing the higher taste of Krishna consciousness

themselves. But that is not the case now in the ISKCON temples so it

is a great pity. Such programs are not possible at the moment...



Also, in Sydney, I have spoken to many AIDS sufferers and they are

dying. Of course we are all dying, but they are dying faster than

most. So naturally many of them are thinking about what happens after

death. One AIDS sufferer told me that practically all the HIV positive

people he knew were either Buddhists or Hare Krishna's. So there is a

great potential to help these people. But once again how to do it in

the current situation -- that I do not know.



Anyhow thanks for your letter. Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!



Your servant



Madhudvisa dasa

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