Bhagavad Gita As It Is: Coming to a Nightstand Near You
By Nartaka Gopala dasi
Let’s see: according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association there are over 4 million hotel & motel rooms in America. I must say that is a LOT of Bhagavad-gitas As It Is…Oh, wait a minute, I am getting ahead of the story.
When they read the results for the Christmas, 2012 book distribution at Alachua temple, and I heard that Nandini Kishori devi distributed 750 Maha Big Bhagavad-gitas I was astounded. First, it’s an impressive amount of books, but it was explained that she distributed all these books to hotels & motels to put in their rooms, and that is what really overjoyed and amazed me.
I vividly remember twenty years ago, in 1992, I was living at Hare Krishna Land, ISKCON Bombay at Juhu. For the December book marathon Jagat Priya devi (from Australia) and I decided to go to the hotels all around Bombay airport at Santa Cruz and distribute Gitas for the same purpose. We had some success, but only did this seva for a short time, so understanding that the same type of book distribution is happening here in America is totally enlivening.
I came to learn that there is an entire group of sankirtan devotees dedicated to the program that they call Motel Gitas. Mayapur Vihari Prabhu and Dilip Patel are the co-founders, and Vaisesika Prabhu is the inspiration. So far they have distributed over 150,000 Gitas. See more at this link: http://www.motelgita.
Nandini Kishori devi first heard about the Motel Gita project in 2009 and started going to several hotels on her own in Virginia. It was a little slow, in fact she was unable to distribute any books. Then Vaisesika Prabhu of the Motel Gita team trained her up and encouraged her to attend the Tampa Hotel Owner’s convention. That was the turning point; her book distribution really took off. She got a lot of orders, and that month she placed about 2000 Gitas at various Florida motels.
Now she attends hotel owners conventions regularly: Atlanta, GA; San Antonio, TX; and she will go to Houston, TX in March 2013.
We have so many letters from His Divine Grace AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada showing how he was enthused by book sales: “Your report of book sales is over-encouraging. You are all becoming very, very dear to my Guru Maharaja. I started this movement by book selling. I was never a beggar for money, but I was writing books and selling.”
And Nandini Kishori devi gets a lot of feedback from her happy customers. At a motel in Gainesville, Florida near Shands Hospital, Erica Wilcox, the manager, says that many of her customers are patients or their families who rent rooms for weeks; they are usually going through painful and difficult life incidents. They give her the feedback that they appreciate something to read that gives them some inner strength.
One lady at a motel desk in Ocala told her: “My life changed since I started reading the Bhagavad-gita As It Is two months ago. Now I am chanting on beads and I do puja every day.”
A guest at Rush Lake Motel, Gainesville, called. She read the first chapter and said the Bhagavad Gita was a life saver. She wanted to know where in Gainesville she could find the Hare Krishnas so Nandini Kishori directed her to Krishna Lunch which is served daily on the campus of the University of Florida. She said, “Although I am Christian, I am open to other religions.” She was very thankful.
One happy motel owner reported: “I often see guests coming in for breakfast withBhagavad-gita in hand and reading it while they are in the lobby or in the reception room. It is satisfying to know that I have contributed to spreading this knowledge.”
Lots of motel owners tell her that guests take the Bhagavad-gita home with them. One guest said: “The Bhagavad-gita is a profound literature. I thank the motel authorities who allowed me this opportunity.”
Incredibly, one motel owner related to her that he had printed 3000 Bhagavad-gitashimself about 30 years ago, as he did not know any other way to get them. He placed them in many motels. He was elated to find ISKCON distributing the authentic version of Bhagavad-gita As It Is.
Distributing Bhagavad-gitas in this way is such a wonderful, exalted service that is appreciated by Srila Prabhupada and devotees everywhere. I think this appreciation can best be stated, right in the Bhagavad-gita, in the words of Lord Sri Krishna Himself: “For one who explains this supreme secret to the devotees, pure devotional service is guaranteed, and at the end he will come back to Me. There is no servant in this world more dear to Me than he, nor will there ever be one more dear. And I declare that he who studies this sacred conversation of ours worships Me by his intelligence.” Bg. 18.68-70
