New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

May 26, 1975

My dear Vahna dasa,

Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated May 12, 1975 and have read the Cintamani poetry book. It is indirect, impersonal and useless. Who will read these things? Krishna’s name is only mentioned in two poems in the whole book. What is this? There are so many poems written by great acaryas. Why do you try to concoct something like this? It is not in our line. How is that our Kirtanananda Swami is there and he has approved printing this? It is a waste of time, paper, money, ink, and labor. There is so much work to do for spreading this Krishna Consciousness. Who will become attracted by such things as this. You should all spend more time reading my books very carefully and stop all this unnecessary manufacturing.

I hope this meets you in good health.

Your ever well-wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

N.B. Why there is no picture of Krishna on the cover? If you have the desire to write poetry, better if you read one chapter of Krishna book very carefully. Then put it into poetry. But, do not concoct anything. There is no need for that type of poetry. If you do this, I think it will be appreciated nicely.

Memory  by Sacimata

Remember

I’ve lived at New Vrindaban for 32 years, and have known Vahna that long.  However, I became much closer with him over the last several years, since he moved back to Talavan.   Even though Vahna, as most of us know, didn’t follow the regulative principles strictly, there was one principle he did follow, “chanting his japa.”  You would always see Vahna walking on Talavan Road chanting.  A couple of years ago, he was spending a lot of time at his house, so he would call me and ask me to bring him some prasadam.  So I would go over and bring him plates of maha, sweets and garlands.  He was always so happy to receive the Lord’s mercy. He always told me I reminded him of Hladini in that way of bringing him the mercy of the Lord.  He always spoke fondly of her, and I’m sure that she has helped him over the pathway to the spiritual sky.

One day a couple of years ago, he phoned and said his neckbeads had broken, and asked if I could buy him a set at the temple.  I said that I always kept some neckbeads at my home and I would give him a set.  So I sent a set of the old-fashioned big black tulsi neckbeads strung with silver and had my daughter, Nitai bring them to him.

When I read that Vahna was sick this summer,  I was in Canada with my daughter, and planned to go see him as soon as possible in the hospital.  Well the day he passed, I had went to the temple, got him some maha rasagullas, and was planning to visit that afternoon.  Then I got a call from Gopisha saying that he had left.  I was so sad, to hear that I missed the opportunity to visit, I cried for about 2 hours.  One thing was consoling though, Gopisha was telling me that he and Kalindi had visited him on the weekend before, and was relating their visit together, and he said, one nice thing was that Vahna was chanting his japa on his neckbeads.  He said it was one of those black tulsi and silver sets.  Wow!  That may me feel a lot better as I knew that in some way I was with him, in the form of my gift of neckbeads being with him to the end of his material life.

So, although I felt sorry that I missed the physical visit, the transcendental was still in place.  But hopefully we will all remember how temporary this life is, and to always make time to visit devotees not only when they are sick, but as an exchange of love.  It is a wonderful service to give our association to each other; which is one of the reasons Srila Prabhupada wanted his “SKCON.”

Your servant, Sachimata dd

July 31, 2013