I can not forgive myself whatever happened to one of our real hero inArmenia Bhakta Armen Sargsyan, and you know him personally too.Tough I was not even in the country and he never approached me for any helpever, yet I feel very bad and guilty what had happened to hem.After the jail and psychiatric hospital Armen was feeling very bad due tomany wrong medicines and injections and slowly slowly he started to have somemental problems and was unable to work and support himself and his wife and twochildren. The material very poor condition and his hepless situation pushed himvery very far and one day he wrote a very sad note to his wife and kids andcommitted suicide wile jumping from the 5th floor.My dear Prabhu believe me if we would show him a drop of compassion andattention as well as respect whatever he had done for our movement and help himlittle bit materially he would have been with us today and with his family.And you know what is hearting me even more today?That I am in Yerevan now for last two years already and could never findsufficient money and courage to visit his wife and children because mysituation is not any better then their.But I hope one day I will be able to make it and pay a visit to this REALHEROS family and help them out as much as I can and help them as much as I canso that they would feel that they father and husband meaning something to us.I purposefully didn't mention this tragedy in my book, because I didn't wantmy karmi readers to know this very painful reality. I didn't want them to knowthat devotees too they have some week points and after being such hero's can gothat far and commit such activities.And you know what is the most painful part of all this story?That there are some others who are almost in the same situation and God knowswhat is gone happen to them.Hope this will help you to understand the main meaning of my letter and youwill change what you ware thinking wile reading first part of my letter andthinking that I am offensive or whatever.And conclusion is that we shall never let this kind of thing happen to anyoneelse again and as I have mentioned earlier learn from our past mistakes andnever repeat them again.We can not possibly allow this things to happen, this is very painfulAnd at the end just wanted to quote from Srila Prabhupada to make my lettereven more meaningful to you:Your love for me after I am gone will be shown how much you will cooperatewith each other.I may be not quoted exactly word by word but am sure you got the point andunderstand what our Acharya wanted from us.I hope you can understand me well and hope I didn't upset or offended you byany means and if so please forgive me and accept my humble obaisanses.-----------------P.S. from Vrindavan Lila Dasi:The name of the book mentioned by Sarva Bhavana is "Salted bread" - it's his story of presecution of Hare Krishna devotees in Soviet Union, his expiriences in Soviet Armeniya - prison, crazy house, tortures....Devotee he is talking about in this letter, Armen Sargsyan, did a lot of preaching and distributing Srila Prabhupada's books in underground situation in Soviet Armeniya, he was also a victim of same types of persecutions described in SB's book.if you interested in more info on preaching in USSR please vis it http://www.hkussr.com/
thank you for your comments. i also have not got any responcies... there is a lot of discussion goes on back and forth on devotees forums about helping devotees to come back to ISKCON and feel art of ISKCON again. There is no solid valuable solution yet, some people propose different things... The general understanding is that Srila Prabhupada direct disciles have to be taken care first and by set example other devotees would follow when they reach the stage of seniority. I will post a blog post on this now, one of proposals to GBC. (pls note - this is still work in progress)
hare krishna...
a very much touching letter indeed...im not qualified to say anything but i just feel at the lotus feet of all devotees in this part of world who has taken SP s word as their life & soul & even have sacrificed it to the progess & preaching of Lords name... they are the REAL SOLDIERS OF SP! All glories to Vaishnava...All glories to preachers... all glories ...haribol...
haribol mata
i need to know about the suicide thing you explained
as i heard about he was facing problem and told few devotees i wanted to financially help him
but tose devotees never came back to give me more information
Comments
a very much touching letter indeed...im not qualified to say anything but i just feel at the lotus feet of all devotees in this part of world who has taken SP s word as their life & soul & even have sacrificed it to the progess & preaching of Lords name... they are the REAL SOLDIERS OF SP! All glories to Vaishnava...All glories to preachers... all glories ...haribol...
i need to know about the suicide thing you explained
as i heard about he was facing problem and told few devotees i wanted to financially help him
but tose devotees never came back to give me more information