WITH THIS ISSUE, we begin a new service we've long had in mind the Hare Krsna Catalog. The idea is to bring together all sorts of items you'll find useful for your spiritual life.
 
Why should you have to write to one place to order books, another for tapes, another for videos, still another to subscribe to BTG? Now you can do it all at one place, with one order or, in America, one toll-free phone call.
 
Just as there are catalogs for material needs the Sears Catalog and countless others here's a catalog where everything is aimed at the deepest need of the soul, Krsna consciousness.
 
The Hare Krsna Catalog is a natural part of our editorial vision for Back to Godhead. We'd like BTG to work not merely as a magazine but as a resource center, providing you with services, advice, information, opportunities all for Krsna consciousness.
 
Working with us to bring you the Hare Krsna Catalog is the staff of the Bhaktivedanta Archives, in Sandy Ridge, North Carolina. The Archives is the branch of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust that makes Srila Prabhupada memorabilia and his teachings available through photography, tape cassettes, compact discs, computer info-bases, and other media. The Archives has become known for prompt, reliable service. And now, when you place an order through the Hare Krsna Catalog, it's the staff of the Archives who will speed to you what you ask for.
 
The Archives people have also taken over the handling of our BTG subscriber service new orders, renewals, back issues, changes of address. The work was being done by a commercial firm in California, who did a reasonably professional job. But we wanted better, and the feedback we got from our readers is that they'd rather be cared for by devotees. Now, in the few months since the devotees at the Archives have taken over, they've already much improved our service. (Among other things, unlike the people in California, they know how to spell Indian names, and they're used to working with devotees who go by two names a legal one and a spiritual one.)
 
By the way, in case you'd like to know where Sandy Ridge is, it's pretty much in the middle of nowhere. More precisely, it's out in the woods and farmlands of North Carolina, about forty miles northwest of Greensboro. It's the site for one of several growing communities of Hare Krsna devotees, mostly family people, who've moved out of manmade cities to live a simpler way of life in the Krsna-made country.
 
In Sandy Ridge, some devotees have gone back to the very basics, farming with oxen, not tractors, growing food for themselves and their devotee neighbors. And others are working high-tech, like the devotees at the Archives and the Hare Krsna Catalog. As Srila Prabhupada used to say, Krsna consciousness isn't one-sided; it's all-sided.
 
We hope you'll find the Hare Krsna Catalog useful and pleasing. And if you have any suggestions on how we can make it still better, please let us know. It's there to serve you.
 
Hare Krsna.
 
Jayadvaita Swami