Ukraine Book Distribution
Hare Krsna Prabhus,
Please accept my humble obeisances, all glories to Srila Prabhupada.
The devotees in Ukraine just had an great festival with over fifteen hundred devotees participating. Ten sanyasis were there to enliven the devotees. Niranjana Swami was the host Sanyasi as everyone was invited by him, thus after the first kirtan of the festival he introduced and glorified all the devotees that would be giving seminars, about twelve devotees. He spoke for about an hour and a half introducing everyone. Then it was his turn, all the devotees that he had glorified, glorified him, for another hour and a half all the senior devotees glorified Niranjana Swami to every ones delight. Acuta Priya Prabhu the regional secretary for Ukraine said this was the best seminar of the festival.
It was a six day festival so everyday I was giving a seminar on book distribution, which had a pretty good turn out of devotees. I spoke about the importance of book distribution, the consciousness of a book distributor while on sankirtan, what to say to convince someone to take a book, and book distribution pastimes.
Book distribution in Ukraine is not an easy thing as the people here are very poor. The average worker makes about $50 a month. There's one traveling party here that has five devotees in it that travel with a twenty one year old Russian station wagon. I couldn't believe it when I heard of the austerities they have to undergo. When it rains which is quite often they all five sleep in the car, even when it doesn't rain one sleeps outside while four sleep in. I asked the sankirtan leader, "Why don't you get a van? He said, "We pray every day." One of the devotees on this party is a doctor who after a short time of medical practice received a book from a devotee, after understanding that the body is just a dress for the soul and that the soul is who we really are he thought, "Why should I be so concerned with helping the body, better that I help the root of the problem." So he became a book distributor, just yesterday he had his biggest day by distributing 29 big books. Another devotee on this party used to be a detective on the police force, he's the sankirtan leader. I told these devotees that I would try to help them get a sankirtan van. So if anyone on this conference has some money that they would like to use in the service of book distribution you could send it to the LA temple, write the check out to "ISKCON" On the envelope you can put, "book distribution support" c/o Vijaya das. As I'm traveling around I'm sure I'll find many more sankirtan devotees in similar situations where they can't afford a sankirtan van so I plan on trying to help these devotees have facilities that allow them to have a good nights rest after working so hard and also have enough room to put a good amount of books. Srila Prabhupada said, "Your love for me will be shown by how you cooperate with one another after I leave."
Your Servant,
Vijaya Das
