What happened to your hand?
By Adiguru das
This morning my wife, Kamalagopi devi dasi, had given ‘Billie’ some Maha Flowers offered to our beloved Sri Sri Radha Neelmadhava deities. She was smelling those flowers again and again and thanked us profusely and especially my wife. She put on those flowers on the dash-board of her car.
As i again took that cab with ‘Billie’ to Houston airport, I asked her where are the books that she had so nicely displayed when I last took her cab. She told me, “all are gone, I have given them all to my friends. I want some more.” I asked her how many, she said atleast 6. This time I was carrying two more titles which she had never read or heard about, ‘Perfection of Yoga’ and ‘Bhagavad Gita As It Is’. I asked her how did she feel after reading such books. She said she feels content and happy. She told me that this is an actual religion. I gave her 6 books for which she duly paid. Since we have finished all our Bhagavad Gitas in our temple during our book distribution, I had brought my personal edition of Bhagavad Gita from my home altar to give it to her. This was one of the rare editions of Bhagavad Gita As It Is and we have been worshipping it for quite sometime now. She went through the first few pages and said the print is very small and she returned that to me. So I will have to get a Bigger Bhagavad Gita for her next week.
I reached airport around 5:15AM. I started chanting on my beads. Morning time is a rush hour at the airport and at this time you realise the rat race of material civilization. Our acaryas have summarised the material world so clearly. There was this man sitting next to me who kept on listening to my chanting for about 20 minutes. He then asked me in a typical Texan accent,”What happened to your hand?”. He must have been suprised at by looking at bead bag from which only one finger was protuding out. I wanted to laugh but I controlled my laughter as I realised that here is another person asking for a book. What my 3 minutes of lecture will do. I took out the beads from my bead bag and showed him my Japa mala and told him Hare Krishna Mantra that I was chanting. He looked at me with an expression that he didn’t understand. I took our ‘Beyond Birth and Death’ book from my laptop bag and gave him. I told him ,”I follow this book. It’s all in there.” And I continued my chanting. For next 30 minutes he was reading that book. He forgot that just few minutes ago he had bought a newspaper. I asked him if he would like to donate any money to cover the cost of the book. He told me he wants to read first and then he will send the money by post. I told him that all addresses are at the back of the book.
I was sure that now Srila Prabhupada is preaching to him and his life will never be the same again. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. All glories to the Sankirtana movement of Lord Caitanya.
All glories to transcendental book distribution.
