A pretty sweet note to end on
I asked Kalyani Radha to come out and distribute books with me, and she enthusiastically agreed.
We arrived on Manners Street and had an hour allotted this sunny afternoon. For me it was a good start, one of those days when you feel that Krishna is trying to encourage you for getting out, by sending lots of nice people to take books.
Then I looked at how my friend was doing and saw that she had frozen. I could see how she was struggling with the mental barrier, and remembering being like that when I started, I tried to encourage her to get over it. The barrier was so thick that it was almost VISIBLE, something like a concrete wall. I started by giving some suggestions how to stop people. No reaction.
Then I said, “The worst thing that can happen is that they just say 'no thanks' and keep walking.”
She replied “No, the worst thing that can happen is that they actually stop! Because then I have to talk to them!”
“Well that’s not so bad. You’ve got two university degrees. Didn’t you talk to people at the university?” I asked.
“No!”
“Okay, why don’t you just start with trying to smile?” I suggested, since she looked as if she had just seen a dead man.
“I can’t,” she replied, keeping the stone face intact.
“OK, just try to stretch out your arm and hand them a flyer. You don’t have to say anything. That’s a good start.”
Then I told her a story of a bhakta who had distributed books without saying anything. She smiled slightly.
I kept distributing, and after an hour I had to go and pick up a form from the immigration center. She was still standing in her statuelike pose by a wall. I said that she could stay and try to distribute something while I was away if she wanted to. I could see that she really wanted to be able to do it.
When I came back ten minutes later, the most amazing thing happened. She suddenly jumped into the stream of pedestrians, swirled around and thrust a book into the hands of a bypassing girl. With a big smile on her face, a stream of enthusiasm poured out of her mouth and the girl reciprocated. The girl handed her some money and walked off with a book and a flyer. Suddenly Kalyani Radha was glowing as if hit by Lord Caitanya’s mercy, which seem to be what actually happened.
“That was a pretty sweet note to end on” she said.
And I agree, it was the most dramatic transformation I have ever witnessed in someone who was trying out the mercy grounds in Lord Caitanya’s sankirtan movement.
Your servant,
Karuna-purna Dasi
Wellington, New Zealand
