Here is a letter from my Godbrother Mayesvar Prabhu, with whom I served in ISKCON Calcutta in the 1980s and who is now based in Ojai, California. I thought Sanga members might appreciate reading it, so here it is:

Thank you for your kind words of support. Ojai is a vortex of impersonalism and I am constantly struggling with the issue of how to go about presenting Krishna Consciousness effectively. Some devotees really appreciate how strongly I hold my position, while others feel I am too heavy and just drive people away. I am constantly asking Srila Prabhupada to inspire me to do things the way he would be most pleased and from there I just try to do my best.

I am always struggling with just how strongly I should preach. It has become such a big issue in my life that I was eventually led by Krishna to discover your 30 page essay: "On Speaking Strongly In Srila Prabhupada's Service." in the Bhaktivedanta Folio. What a wonderful collection of supporting quotes! I was leaning towards putting together my own study on this subject but now that I see you have done it I am quite relieved and inspired! For awhile I was starting to think I was one of the only devotees who felt the same way you obviously do. You made your point very well and it is my opinion that every devotee should read your essay so they realize just how important it was to Srila Prabhupada and Bhaktisiddhanta that we do not compromise our philosophy for the approval of mundane individuals who are often too proud to even seriously consider surrendering to Krishna.

I will share one short personal experience that illustrates how some people will never surrender to Krishna regardless of how much we cater to their false ego and foolish ideas about spiritual life.

When I first came to Ojai in 1987 I attended a Gita discussion group headed by "Charles" a proud disciple of Rada Swami, who is from a non-bonafide lineage of the Seik tradition. Needless to say I was constantly trying to politely raise the meeting to a higher level of conversation then the usual small time impersonal banter that non-vaishnavs have when reading the Gita. It was difficult because I didn't want to insult the person speaking nor did I want to get kicked out of the group because it was the first place I went ooking to find potential Vaishnavas when I moved to Ojai. "Public Relations" was very much on my mind.

Eventually the meeting dwindled out because Charles was so dry and Un-inspiring,... but I was able to maintain my friendship with him and went out of my way to be exceptionally cordial with him when I bumped into him around town... which was often in the small city of Ojai.

Eventually I began the bi-monthly Newsletter for the American Vedic Association which is the name I use to present Krisna Consciousness in Ojai. The first two years I authored all the content and really took on many of the nonsense things that the impersonailsts teach. Then last year, after being very sociable with Charles for over 15 years, I wrote one newsletter called. "Derailed By Silent Meditation." In that article I showed how TM  and silent meditation was basically useless and not recommended in Bhagavad Gita. Charles became very upset with me and asked to be immediately removed from my mailing list. He was convinced I didn't have a clue about what I was writing and was offended by the idea that I had suggested he wasted the majority of his life sitting on his ass while pretending to be holy. I politely engaged him in a dialogue based on the Bhagavad Gita and he was noble enough to respond briefly to my questions and arguments, but after three letters he had no where else to go but to simply dismiss the Gita as: "Just some religious book by an unknown sage"

I could have perused it further, but there was no point in doing so. He was very proud and felt ordained by his Seik Guru. It was evident that even though I had been exceptionally cordial with him for over 15 years, when it got down to engaging in a serious conversation with me about what we believe and why, he abruptly dismissed me and the friendship I had spent many years cultivating with him. He now crosses the street when he sees me in Ojai and it is obvious he has no depth of character, and probably is afraid I will further expose him to his own mixed up guru-wanna-be hidden agenda.

So the moral of the story is that we can spend all sorts of time sucking up to people who will happily accept the attention as long as we do not challenge what they believe or teach! But that is where the real test of spiritual commitment comes in. Charles has absolutely no personal integrity. That was obvious to me for many years, but I was hoping that I could work thru that by becoming his friend first. I just didn't work. Maya is too strong.

Now I speak what Krishna says as polity as possible but I do not compromise and I don't give undue attention to others with the hope that it might get them to like Krishna more. No. I present what Krishna said as nicely as I can and if someone has a problem with it I deal with it as nicely as I can. But in the end Srila Prabhupad and Krishna are in charge and I press on regardless of the results. This is our yoga of determination and detachment at the same time. It seems that for those who are ready, they appreciate the straight forward information. Those who are not, will always find some stone to hide under or throw.

In any case I wanted to thank you for your research and well written paper. I now read it like scripture and it gives me the strength to press on in a city that is filled with impersonalism and so foolish they are proud of it!

Hoping this meets you in good spirits and enthusiastically engaged in the service of Lord Krishna.

Your Servant,

Mayesvara dasa

Now you can listen to the ancient sanskrit chants of Bhagavad Gita, sung in classical melodies by noted devotional singer Sri Vidyabhushana. Listen to all 700 verses of the Gita with a beautiful accompaniment of flute, veena, sitar, mridanga, tabla and tala. (Scroll down to listen to it online.)

Set includes 10 audio CDs (7 CDs of sanskrit chants, 2 CDs containing english translations for the entire Bhagavad Gita, and 1 CD providing an introductory lecture on the Bhagavad Gita by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada).