Barak Obama Gets Bhagavata Gita!
We were in Town Hall, Sydney, Australia. There was a big parade honoring the war veterans. Soon it died down and so did the flow on the streets. We now had several book distributors and not enough people to stop between us. Bhakta Sean wasn't feeling the vibe of the whole ordeal so we decided to go for a wonder down to Martin Place (another good sankirtana spot). I wasn't distributing many books at the time so I decided I would follow along and see if Krsna's mercy was available there. I had to push the trolley and keep up pace and this was distracting me from doing any books. I started to doubt the whole idea of walking all this distance. "Oh Krsna, Where are you taking me? What is the point of coming here?" I said within my mind, appealing to the almighty.
Sure enough, as soon as I stopped my book trolley on the wall, an Indian gentleman in a suit arrived. "What have you got there?" he asked, in a curious but very firm tone. I wasn't sure whether he was going to ridicule or if he was genuinely interested. I didn't really care at this point whether he was going to spit on me or insult me, any chance I had to distribute a book was worth the try. I showed him the books, gave him a quick talk over the subject matter, even though he seemed to know what it was. Then it came to the crunch, "we just ask for a donation" I said. He looked at me, fumbled through his wallet super casually, whimsically thrust $40 dollars towards me and took my whole stack. Before I could say anymore, he was gone. Surely Krsna arranged this whole meeting.
I was confident Krsna wasn't done yet. I bumped into another boy in Martin Place. I captured his familiarity when I found out that he was a stone mason (which is what my younger brother is training to be). I begged for some of my brother's piety as I tried to distribute a book to this boy. I wasn't sure how he was going to relate to a book on yoga, being a hands-on, working class man. I told him, "It's about how to understand the connection between the body, mind and soul." He said, "This is exactly what I have been trying to look into. What a coincidence." "There are no such things as coincidence" I replied, "If you honestly hanker for these things then the knowledge will come."
Your Servant,
Madhavendra Puri Dasa.
