A.C.BHAKTIVEDANTA SWAMI

Camp: I.S.K.C.O.N. Radha Krishna Temple

5364 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, Cal. 90019

__________

My Dear Jay Mazo,

Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your

nice letter dated Jan. 12, 1968, and have noted carefully the

contents. And because you are already acquainted with Krishna,

I have no objections to accepting you as my disciple. Practically,

I do not have any disciples: I select so many masters to train

them in the service of the Lord. Your natural attraction for

Krishna makes it show that in your previous birth you have cul-

tured this science of Krishna Consciousness. In your Poetry,

last line, I have changed the word "beautiful transforming

Being" into "beautiful eternal Being." Krishna does not trans-

form, but He has millions and billions of expansions which are

all eternally existing simultaneously. Just like the sun at

noon, and the sun at morningtime, and the sun at eveningtime;

they are simply by names and they are eternal. To the sun there

is no morning or evening or noon, still we say morning sun, eve-

ning sun, noon sun. There is a nice verse in Brahma Samhita—

that Krishna is the supreme Personality of Godhead and has

multi-expansions like Rama, Nrisinghdev, Vamana, etc.

Your letter is very interesting to me and when I shall meet

you in N.Y. sometime in March or April, we shall talk frankly

and I shall officially initiate you. In the meantime, please

go on attending classes in N.Y. as usual and do it regularly and

you will be benefited.

I thank you very much for your appreciation of my disciples in

N.Y. and you will be glad to know all my disciples in different

Centres are being so trained. The four principles of restrict-

ion, namely, no illicit sex relations; no animal food; no intox-

ication; and no gambling, are acting on their character. Char-

acter building is the groundwork for seating Krishna Conscious-

ness and the Vedic injunction is that one can advance in spirit-

ual life by following the rules of austerity and celibacy. We

do not bluff our students that he has liberty to do all sorts

of nonsense, and at the same time advance in spiritual under-

standing. And because we are a little bit strict in this matter,

we have not a very large number of followers, neither do we want

any large no nonsense followers. We want only one moon at night,

and we do not care for millions of stars. When we meet we shall

talk further on this matter, and I hope you shall be initiated.

I thank you very much for your nice letter, and hope you are well.