Sharing Krsna with Muslims

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Hare Krsna prabhus, please accept my obeisences. Please can you put this

article on your site, I'm also attaching a photo for this article. Thank you

for your wonderful service. hare Krsna, Ys nararatna das "Sharing with Muslims"

 

 

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Sharing Krsna with Muslims.....Be merciful.

 

Hare Krsna, Please accept my humble obeisences, all glouries to Srila

Prabhupada.

 

Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu once predicted that the holy name of Lord Krishna

would be chanted in every town and village.By the mercy of Srila prabhupadh his

prediction is being brought to life all over the world.

 

However, there are some countries in the world that remain

untouched,especially Muslim countries. In Mid-Eastern Asia and South –Eastern

Europe the influence of the Orthodox Church and Islam is immense. In fact,

presenting a culture which they think is against their beliefs is met with

punishment ranging from imprisonment to the death penalty. In Turkey

particularly, a minimum of five years imprisonment is what devotees risk

facing.

 

In a conversation with one of his disciples Srila Prabhupada expressed

his desire to establish a temple in Istanbul, the real Capital of Turkey. He

felt that if presenting Krishna Consciousness in one Islamic country was

successful then it would also be accepted in the others. Taking this

instruction to be one of our top most priorities,we have set out trying to

serve this desire of Srila Prabhupad .However, we have ofcourse met with many

difficulties since sharing Krsna Consciousness with people in Turkey is

forbidden. We are therefore unable to openly distribute books or hold public

presentations and chanting programes.Nevertheless , over the past seven years

we have developed a special way of presenting and are slowly beginning to

establish friendly relations with people. This has been possible by following

in the foot steps of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who showed that instead of coming

directly into conflict with the Islamic practices we should first focus on

points that are found in both Vedic and Islamic teachings.

 

Once we gain their respect we can gradually introduce the higher philosophical

teachings of the Bhagavad Gita and Srimad Bhagvatam, inspiring them to get

books and deepen

 

their knowledge and understanding of Allah, Krsna .

 

We have learnt ,that by Krishna's mercy people in Turkey,especially the

younger generation are interested in Vedic philosophy. The responses from

people who have read Srila Prabhupad's books have been overwhelming, life

changing.

 

In one instance a man, tired of his material life,who had looked to both

Christian and Islamic books in search of spirituality was dissatisfied and

turned to us to teach him about the position of the soul, “Sanatana Dharma”.

Another young man bought the Bagavad Gita As It Is and a few days later when I

visited him he told me he had never read a version of the Gita that was so

clear and easy to understand.To my surprise he was already able to quote from

verses . I gave him some other books that I had with me and a week later he

called to take some for his friends. I then realized that there are so many

potential devotees in Istanbul and that it is left to us to find and help them.

Another incident to confirm this point; A (head covered) Muslim girl, who was

more broad minded than most and able to understand that there are other

possible ways to reach God, got a small book from us. Then, later on, she

attended our Sunday program and took prasadam. After that, She helped us print

some Hare Krishna Mahamantra stickers which we stuck in all our books.The day

she delivered these stickers to us I was in the kitchen cooking parsadam.When I

came into the room, I found her looking at some photographs of the Dieties in

Mayapur andVrindavan and other temples.After we all took prasadam,I was going

to pay her for the stickers but she refused to accept it telling me she had

become attracted to the dolls and if I could bring her one. I did not quite

understand what she meant till she showed me the pictures of the dieties.

Despite being brought up in the Islamic tradition that does not worship or

depict the form of God she was instinctively naturally attracted to the Divine

Form of Sri Sri Radha Krishna and Krishna Consciousness.

 

Srila Prabhupada says that Krishna's Name , Form, Prasadam are All Attractive

and Non Different from Him. It was inspiring to perceive this Truth in this

instance through the way it changed the life of this girl and I gained another

understanding of the potency and power of the process of Krishna consciousness.

 

 

Now, After starting our service here in Turkey in 1996 and having passed

through our first two stages where we got to know the people, the country, the

culture, the police and how they all work and interact. We have been ready for

our next stage, to buy our own flat. For the past 5 years we have rented and

these days we are paying rent at 600 dollars per month.

 

As rent we are just loosing Krsna’s money so we have a strong desire to save

Krsna’s money by buying our own flat. How to buy? Well the flat we are

currently renting is very suitable for our purposes and is currently worth

120,000 dollars ( this price is steadily going up as Turkey comes closer to

joning Europe, so the sooner we can buy the better), the only problem is

getting the cash together at once to buy it. This is were I pray and pray with

sincere folded hands that you don’t just turn away from this plea but decide

tohelp us in what ever capacity

 

You can. The financial demands of running this service are toooo much for just

me to handle.

 

I am doing it but less & less time is being spent giving souls the chance of

contacting Krsna Con. I’m open to any ideas and suggestions you may have that

can help us achieve this goal of obtaining our own flat. I’m pleaing to you to

help me in what ever capacity you can to raise the laksmi of 120,000 dollars by

donations or loans. If anyone is able, they can buy the flat fully for us( by

cash or taking out a morgage plan) , it can be registered in their name ( so

actually you will own it) and we will pay you a monthly amount of at least 600

dollars until everything is paid off; I am paying this much per month as rent

right now anyway & getting nothing!. Or devotees can kindly donate or loan us

1,000 dollars each. This seems the easiest as we only need about 125 devotee

to do this then we have all we need. Some devotees have already pledged to help

like this so they have helped us by opening bank accounts in England, America

and Europe. Devotees can now easily transfer their donations into these

accounts without any charges whenever they like. If you would like to help by

donating a monthly amount of your choice that would also be great. Even if you

can only donate a small amount every month it is still great and we would

appriciate it very very much.

 

Really for us here, every rupee helps.

 

 

 

ENGLAND: donations in pounds:

 

 

 

Account name: Mr G Patel

 

Bank: Nationwide Building Society

 

Sort code: 07 01 16

 

Account no: 01055016

 

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AMERICA: donations in dollars:

 

 

 

Bank: US Bank

 

Acc holder's name: ANANDA SUBRAMANIAN

 

Account number: 196470431772

 

Routing number: 073000545

 

Branch: Ames University Office

 

2546 Lincoln Way Ames, IA 50010

 

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EUROPE: donations in EUROS:

 

 

 

Bank name: Postbank (kind of account: ‘Girorekening’)

 

Current acc name: J.Boxma

 

Account number: 3266643

 

Bank address: Postbank NV

 

Postbus 1800

 

1000BV Amsterdam

 

Netherlands

 

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TURKEY: donations in dollars

 

 

 

NAME: HSBC

 

BRANCH: BAKIRKOY

 

Address: BAKIRKOY CARSI HALKCI SOK. NO:8

 

BAKIRKOY-ISTANBUL

 

BENEFICIARY: BERNA KARAARSLAN

 

BENEFICIARY A/C: 814-1019544-770-01 (USD)

 

SWIFT CODE:HSBCTRIX

 

 

 

TEL:+90 212 570 88 10

 

FAX:+90 212 570 93 12

 

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Saving Krsna’s money is not the main idea or the only one; We cannot expand

our efforts to do more or bigger. You know how it feels to be practicing Krsna

consciousness in some one elses property. we constantly live with the

possibility of the owner kicking us out because they might not like what we do,

this is ofcourse specially a big problem here in a Muslim country. we have

Muslim landlords who can object to what we privately do and at any time force

us to vacate the property. If we have our own place, as long as we do things

privately, sensebly and within the limits no one can stop us or kick us out so

we can really focus on develping things nicely and increasing our service here.

Please please stop to consider this special request knowing that in our service

here we cannot walk outside and get donations from Muslims or sell krsna

conscious products to collect money as can be done in other countries. These

are Muslim people and we are in a Muslim country so we have no source of income

other than myself working. I have managed to finance this project here for the

past 7 years from my own pocket with money I got by selling my flat in london

and distributing Prabhupada’s books but for this next step I really really do

need your help. I’ll be very encouraged and happy to recieve any financial

help as well as any advice about how to acheive this goal. Please dont

hesitate to contact me, I’m ready to tell you more about what we have done and

what we are hoping to do to help spread the mercy of Prabhupada & Lord caitanya

to Muslim people in this Muslim country.

 

Ps. Devotees to encourage me in my service would often tell me how Prabhupada

said that he would take the dust from the feet of anyone who is spreading the

teachings of lord Caitanya in Muslim countries and that they would receive very

very special mecry. So here your chance to get some of that special mercy too.

Thanks for taking the time to consider our plea.

 

 

 

Some of the other things we are doing:

 

A. Producing & distruting books that educate both devotees & future devotees

about

 

Krsna Consciousness & Islam, e.g:

 

1. Srila Prabhupada on Islam (Everything prabhupada said about Islam)

 

2. Bhakti Yoga and Islam (Frequently asked questions and answers )

 

3. The Hidden Treasure of Al-Qur'an (as explained by Sri Chaitanya

Mahaprabhu)

 

4. Comparative Cosmology (A comparative study of the viewpoints of modern

 

science, the Qur'an, the Bible and the Vedas)

 

5. Enlightenment of Chand Kazi:

 

(Teachings of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to the more philosophical

Muslim)

 

 

 

B, Krsna Consciousness & Islam seminers given in Mayapur Dhama. Now a newly

produced 20 hour double CD presentation.

 

 

 

C, Arabic Bhagavad Gita; Yes, Hot of the press, the complete Audio version of

all 18 chapters of the Bhagavad Gita on two cds now available.

 

 

 

D, 50% of Prabhupada’s DVDs are now in Turkish.We are trying as much as poss to

translate Prabhupada’s message & instructions into Turkish.

 

 

 

Hare Krsna. Ys nararatna das. visnupada (AT) hotmail (DOT) com / We have just put up our

own hare krsna web site in Turkish so you can direct any interested Turkish

friends to: www.harekrishnaturkey.com. We will put up more Krsna & Prabhupada

Necter as we translate it. Wishing you all a happy happy hare krsna Gaurapurnim

(hope to see you in Mayapur) & a happy positive Krsna conscious new year. Hare

Krsna. Ys nararatna das.