Words of a Perfect Master
by Mahamuni Dasa
In the early days of ISKCON, not many books were available, and so we used to distribute Back To Godhead magazines. I was one of the top book distributors, distributing one to two hundred BTG's a day. I would carry a large stack of BTG's in my left arm, and hit the streets, approaching people. However, my motive was material. Since I had a heavy load on my arms, I thought the sooner I could get rid of them, the better it would be. So I would aggressively pursue a prospective customer and more or less, force him to buy the magazine.
Sometime later, Srila Prabhupada arrived in a nearby center, and all the devotees decided to go and visit him. Since there was no space available in the temple vehicle, I hitch-hiked my way to the other city. There, Srila Prabhupada gave a series of memorable lectures. A devotee asked Srila Prabhupada, "What is the most important thing in Krishna consciousness?"
Srila Prabhupada replied, "Chant Hare Krishna. This is the most important thing." Then he said, "This human form of life is very rare. Therefore, without wasting any time, take to this Krishna consciousness movement and make your life perfect. Krishna consciousness is MOST URGENT."
We were all fired up from having had the loving association of Srila Prabhupada, and we returned back to our temple in high spirits. I went back out to distribute, and that night when the scores were announced … a Bhaktin Julie had distributed more BTG's then me. I was shocked. I decided that the next day, I would outdo her. I took even more BTG's and was more aggressive. And still, by the end of the day, she had distributed more then me. The following day, I decided to trade places with her. I went to her and said, "Julie, you have been at this corner for so many days; people must be bored to see here you everyday. Why don't you try a new place and let me be here?" She humbly agreed and went to a new location. But still she did better than me!
Finally the next day, I decided to find out her technique for doing BTG distribution. I went to her and tried to hear what she said. As soon as a person came by, she would hand him a BTG and fold her hands and speak with great earnestness, "Dear sir, my spiritual master says that this Krishna consciousness is very urgent business. We should not waste our precious human life and take to it without wasting any time." She said this with tears in her eyes. Her message reached their hearts and people took the magazine due to her strong conviction.
I realized that she had a spiritual motive to distribute BTG's she sincerely wanted to share the message of her spiritual master and that enabled her to reach so many conditioned souls. I offered my obeisances to her and immediately accepted her as my shiksa guru. She later received the name Radha-kunda Devi Dasi. She stills distributes books in Vrindavan. Whenever we see one another, we offer obeisances to each other. But I bend much lower than her, because she is the one who gave me the spiritual motive to distribute Srila Prabhupada's wonderful books.
