© 1999 VNN
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WORLD February 12, 1999 VNN3030 The Saraswati Charitable Trust (TSCT) BY SATYANARAYANA DASA USA, Feb 12 (VNN) — 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@com.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(c)(3) Charitable Foundation, with a registered Declaration of Trust that allows it to make donations solely to other charitable 501(c)(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@com.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! Comment on this Story This story URL: http://vaishnava-news-network.org/world/WD9902/WD12-3030.html
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