The Saraswati Charitable Trust

[Guest guest]

Unlimited obeisances to the wonderful jewel-like devotees of the Lord. Your

association is the only path to real joy and eternal happiness. To put it

personally, I know that I will simply never be happy unless I am always in

your kind and devotionally intelligent company. I pray to serve you, to learn

from you, to share thoughts with you, to laugh with you, take prasad with you,

dance and chant with you, to be quietly at peace with you, and to be guided by

you back to the lotus feet of the ever-increasingly joyful and loving Sri Sri

Radha and Krishna. With the Lord's mercy, I will also do my part to help you.

 

The Saraswati Charitable Trust (TSCT), an independent private foundation, was

established in an attempt to discover some rare opportunities and new

"pioneering soil" in which to plant the transcendent seeds of Srila

Prabhupada's books (and to provide a clear conduit for others similarly

interested). At the present time, it is primarily involved with helping to

facilitate the translation, printing and distribution of Srila Prabhupada's

books in very specific, undeveloped areas of the world. Areas that currently

remain either non-funded or very poorly so. The greatest interest of the Trust

is to provide help in the places that Srila Prabhupada noted were of very

special importance to him. With participation from interested and

philanthropically inclined parties, the scope of this non-profit Trust may

widen to also include important areas of Krishna Conscious development other

than book distribution. Until that happens, however, due to limited

self-funding, the primary purpose of the Trust will be to work with qualified

projects similar to those about to be described.

 

Personal attempts to discover specific book distribution projects of this

nature during the last Gaura Purnima festival in Mayapur and Vrndavana, and

then throughout the year, did provide some helpful information from ISKCON

leaders that has since been acted upon. Overall, however, the results proved

to be less than hoped for. In other words, a lot of legwork for little

information about exactly where these pioneering areas are and who has the

clear details about them. Therefore this open and practical

announcement/request on the web is being made (which will hopefully produce

more positive results than negative)! The idea is to attempt to develop a

qualified body of clear information that can be organized, researched and

acted upon as quickly as possible. It must be stressed that the purpose of

this Trust must, of necessity, be a highly focused one, and only those

projects/areas meeting the qualifications can be considered and responded to.

And even with those, only a few will be able to be served each year. Hopefully

this will increase soon as interest grows.

 

To the point: TSCT is seeking a dialogue with active and dedicated preachers

in the field: Sannyasis, Independent Itinerant Preachers, BBT managers and

Gurus who are working in pioneering "third-fourth-fifth world" areas and

countries on this planet that are currently not being funded for book

distribution by other sources. As we choose to remain within the house that

our spiritual master Srila Prabhupada built, only ISKCON-related efforts will

be supported. To give some specific examples of what the Trust is looking for:

Donations of Srila Prabhupada's books last year were shipped through the Trust

to preachers in Nigeria, Ghana, Ukraine in CIS, plus other needful areas. The

first action of this year, currently in process, is a donation of 100,000

books to Pakistan, an area of great interest to Srila Prabhupada as noted in

his letters. Dedicated sankirtana devotees in these areas who are sincerely

working to spread this transcendental knowledge manage the distribution of the

books. Either domestic BBT's or authorized devotees within the country are

worked with to both lower the shipping costs and to produce the maximum amount

of books for the available laksmi. Otherwise, the closest neighboring

countries with a BBT office are contracted to print and ship the books. The

Trust donates quantities of books equivalent to "seed" grants of approximately

US$5,000 to $10,000. The idea is ultimately to get the areas to establish

Srila Prabhupada's formula of self-sufficiency and spiritual expansion through

book distribution, although we recognize that this takes time.

 

If you think you may qualify for assistance in your preaching area per the

above descriptions and examples, please contact any ISKCON authorities either

directly in your area, or the ones deputed to oversee development there (i.e.,

Gurus, GBC's, co-GBC's, Temple Presidents or BBT managers). Ask them to

prepare an e-mail letter(s) which includes the following information: the

nature of the undeveloped area and its inhabitants; details of current and

past preaching and book distribution efforts there; availability of the films

for Srila Prabhupada's books within the country, and can printing be arranged

domestically; how exactly will the donated books be distributed; any shipping

or importation obstacles that may arise; what are the local language(s) and is

there a need for translation work; which, if any, books are currently being

translated; plus any other pertinent information that will help us to

determine how to proceed.

 

Please have them send those e-mails to:

 

The.Saraswati.Charitable.Trust (AT) com (DOT) bbt.se

 

 

And if you happen live in a highly developed area of the world, you can also

greatly benefit from these efforts -- by helping to expand them! Any parties

in the position to donate to this Trust (and to share in the eternal blessings

of actively spreading the glories of Lord Krishna), should note that TSCT is a

fully non-profit, 501©(3) Charitable Foundation, with a registered

Declaration of Trust that allows it to make donations solely to other

charitable 501©(3) non-profit situations, like those described above.

Donations made to TSCT are fully tax-deductible up to a significant percentage

of your business income (please contact your accountant for details). Thus any

contributions made to the Trust would make both great business and spiritual

sense, and would also enable the Trust to expand its efforts in these most

important devotional services and others.

 

If you are interested in helping to support this vital devotional work, please

send a detailed e-mail message to:

 

Trustee.TSCT (AT) com (DOT) bbt.se

 

A copy of the Declaration of Trust will be made available to qualified parties

upon request, as well as the contact information for all of the ISKCON leaders

and BBT managers that the Trust has been working with.

 

Thank you very much for your time and interest in reading this. May we all be

blessed with success in developing our pure love of Krishna, and may we be

inspired to help as many others as possible to be similarly blessed.

 

Jai Sri Radhe! Jai Sri Krishna! Gaura Premanandi Hari Hari Bol!!!