Distribute books, not bugs.
Hare Krishna. Please Accept my most humble obeisances. All Glories to Srila Prabhupada.
I have left Australia and am on my way to America for Travelling Sankirtana. I always check for nectar from bds@pamho.net, so when I turned on my computer and saw the nice story from Rupa Raghunatha prabhu's wife Krishna Rupa I became inspired to write a story of my own. Firstly when I checked the internet I saw the news that 46 students were shot to death at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg Virginia. It was the worst mass shooting in American history. Bad news. I remember distributing books there in 1995 with Tara Dasa and Danakeli prabhu. It was the best University we had encountered. We all had done 30 or 40 big books that day. I remember one student, the first student that got books that day. I had approached him and he engaged me in a philosophical discussion for about ten or fifteen minutes. I was getting worried, because he seemed a little too curious, which is often the sign that the person is a fanatical christian and just wants to waste your time and try to convert you. Or just one of those persons who has their own philosophy. But then suddenly he said that he really is interested in the books and pulled out 50 dollars and took all that I had. I was shocked. Reallly impressed, what a way to start the day. The rest of the day went well. In the middle of the campus was a huge field with sidewalks across it from all directions of the campus which met in the middle. It was good for book distribution because it made it easy to avoid security. Sometimes the security guards don't like book distribution on the campus so they make it hard. The situation at Virginia tech was great. We stayed for 3 days and did hundreds of books. It was nectar. It's such a tragedy that so many students were killed there. I hope that such a tragedy will only inspire people to look in the direction of God and eventually Krishna. It seems like such a tragedy but in Irag right now at least that many people are killed everyday and most Americans don't even think about it. Some Universities have undergone an independent investigation of the tally of the death toll in Iraq and they have estimated that it is acutally around 25,000 U.S. soldiers and 650,000 Iraqi's. The news media lies to keep people from realizing the actual statistics so the Demoniac corporations that run the world can keep making profits off of the Military industrial complex and it's contracting schemes. Srila Prabhupada said that by distributing his books we can stop world wars. We musn't be distributing enough books.
I wanted to mention that Rupa Raghunatha prabhu and his wife Krishna Rupa who just sent in their story of how they were attacked on Harinama and how Krishna protected them was very inspiring for me. They are glorious devotees and are distributing books and preaching despite being attacked by the nondevotees and discouraged by the local temple authorities in Sydney. A few years ago some devotees in Sydney had ordered thousands of little wooden bugs from India that had little wire legs on them that wiggled when you held them. The devotees were sent out to distribute bugs and get donations and they called it doing sankirtana. The problem is that Srila Prabhupada said to Distribute books, distribute books, distribute books, not distribute bugs, distribute bugs, distribute bugs. It's very inspiring to see Rupa Raghunatha prabhu and his wife Krishna Rupa distributing books and preaching despite all odds and tests. I hope that next year when I go back to Australia for a few months I'll have their association. Lord Caitanya and Srila Prabhupada must be very pleased with them. All glories to the Sankirtana Devotees!
Your Servant,
Devaki Nandana Dasa
