(no subject)

05-26-2006, 08:49 AM

Letter to: Bhanutanya
—
Hyderabad
18 November, 1972
72-11-18

My Dear Bhanutanya dasi,
Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter
undated, and I have noted the contents with great concern. One thing is, I am
very
much sad to learn that you have left the company of the devotees over this
incident at Gurukula school. Now you are living by yourself because you have
been
hurt by seeing that the children are sometimes mistreated, and because no one
has taken your good advice in this connection. But you may be assured that I
am always anxious about the welfare of my disciples, so that I am taking steps
to rectify this unfortunate situation. Now my advice to you is to give up
these feelings and return to your life of Krishna Consciousness devotional
service, and if you go back to Dallas school and demonstrate to the other
teachers
there just the proper way to instruct and discipline the students nicely, that
will be a great service. I am forwarding the copy of this letter, with your
letter, to Satsvarupa for his immediately attention.
Now the thing is, children should not be beaten at all, that I have told.
They should simply be shown the stick strongly. So if one cannot manage in that

way then he is not fit as teacher. If a child is trained properly in Krishna
Consciousness, he will never go away. That means he must have two things, love
and education. So if there is beating of child, that will be difficult for him
to accept in loving spirit, and when he is old enough he may want to go away—
that is the danger. So why these things are going on _ marching and chanting
japa, insufficient milk, too strict enforcement of time schedules, hitting the
small children? Why these things are being imposed? Why they are inventing
these such new things like marching and japa like military? What can I do from
such a distant place? They should run and play when they are small children,
not
forced to chant japa, that is not the way. So I have given you the guiding
principles, it is not that I must be consulted with every small detail, that is

the business of the in-charge, but if no one is there who can manage in the
right way, what can I do? Now if you have got the right idea how to do it, you
may go there again and take some responsible post for correcting the situation,

that will be your real duty, not that there is some disagreement and I go away
disgusted, no. That is not Vaisnava standard. Standard should be that, never
mind there is some difficulty, my spiritual master has ordered me to do like
this, now let me do it, that's all.
Hoping this will meet you in good health.
Your ever well-wisher,
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
ACBS/sda