My Prabhupada marathon in Romania and Timisoara
For the 2022 Srila Prabhupada Marathon, I knew that I did not have a strong commitment or enough time to go out in Sankirtan (due to high load at work) like I did in 2020, for example.
Also, I knew I did not want to disappoint Srila Prabhupada, Sri Sri Gaura Nitay, my spiritual master (Srila Sivarama Maharaj) and all my siksa-gurus with poor results. In the Romania Yatra we have much more dedicated and competent Sankirtan devotees than I can ever aspire to be.
Being stimulated by friendly competition, and being driven by the inferior mode of passion, I started of thinking of a strategy like a fighter does. If he knows that he cannot win the competition with a knockout (KO), then he can have a shot by winning at points while avoid being KO-ed.
One month before the marathon started, I started consulting with temple authorities in Bucharest and Timisoara to see if they had candidates for a donation of a total of five sets of Srimad-Bhagavatam and Sri Caitanya-caritamrta.
With proper planning all the five book sets had arrived while the Marathon was on going. This Sastra Dana action gave me 5 x 72 points = 360 points, which is equal with distributing 1440 small books or 180 maha books.
I was able to get out and distribute books for a donation on each Saturday of the marathon for the first three weeks.
My break from work started on 22nd of December, when only 3 days of the marathon were left in Romania. The Romania and the Turkey yatras also had a friendly competition going where points were not accounted for, but only the total number of books.
To help with this motivating competition and to anticipate the last days’ great performances from both yatras’ outstanding Sankirtan devotees I decided to go for points again.
On my first day of going out full time, I distributed 108 small books in Sastra Dana mode. The remaining two days I went back to the regular mode of distribution.
In the last day (December 24), I met a gentleman (in the att. picture) who was very happy to complete his Christmas shopping with Bhagavad Gita and six small books.
I do not have any pictures of the few of people that were thrilled to find Srila Prabhupada’s books in their hands after searching and studying spirituality for some time.
In the end for Srila Prabhupada’s 2022 Marathon, my humble book distribution numbers were the highest in the Romanian Yatra.
What is awesome to see is the total number of devotees that got involved in this marathon and how we motivated and inspirited each other in this friendly and full of cooperation marathon!
Like some of my siksa-gurus say, there is no feeling that can match sankirtan!
Your fallen servant,
Bhakta Adi (Romania, Timisoara)
