My Sankirtan Experience
Hare Krsna Prabhus, this story is a little longer than most, but if you have time I think you'll find it interesting.
Your Servent
Vijaya dasa
I was in Bangalore last weekend for business related travel and had the opportunity to taste and relish the nectar of book distribution while I was travelling on the airplane and at airports.
I was in a hurry to catch my plane, and in that hurry I decided to pack a couple of Bhagavad Gitas that we have for our Bhakti Vrksha, plus my wife, Vyjayanthi, also picked up some 18 small Prabhupada books from our bookshelf and placed them in my suitcase.
I had a rough start with absolutely no time to distribute any book at Hyderbad airport nor was anyone interested in buying books inside the aircraft (I even tried changing seats, but no luck). Hence I decided to chant my rounds. Krishna was very merciful that one person on the shuttle bus taking us to the terminal decided to buy a Bagavad Gita but had no cash, I took his number since he is from Hyderbad and this will be a good reason to invite him to the temple to take Darshan.
That day in Bangalore was packed with me conducting interviews, however, Krishna arranged some preaching opportunities during the gaps between interviews wherein I could preach to my colleague conducting interviews.
The next day (Sunday) I visited Jagannath Mandir and had the darshan and prasadam and came back home to find that I had a couple of hours free time. I took some Bagavad Gitas, couple of prior issues of Back to Godhead magazines from my sister (where I stayed) and with my books went around their housing complex knocking on doors. This was my first door-to-door book distribution experience, but it was quite encouraging and was able to distribute 2 big and 1 small books. I had to cut it short since it was time for me to leave for the airport, as it was about an hour drive to airport.
When I reached the aiport I came to know that the plane was late by 3 hours (a late-night departure). This was a great opportunity to go around distributing books. Again it was very difficult in the beginning with at least an hour passing by and no one intersted. About an hour and half had passed by but I had distributed only three small books. In due course I found an American interested to talk about spiritual topics but he would not buy any books. I persisted with this person for half an hour despite being aware that he was killing time.
Then Krishna smiled by allowing me to be an instrument in distributing about 2 more books and then the most amazing thing happened. I found a western lady still waiting for her plane whom I had approached an hour back. She'd turned down buying a book, citing that she has already all the books that she needs since she is returning back home from the "ART OF LIVING" 2 weeks camp in Bangalore. I approached her and asked how she came to know about "ART OF LIVING". She didn't speak a lot of English since she is from Urugway, South America. But she spoke enough and asked me what I wanted and said "okay what books do you have". I showed her a couple of books and slowly she started to focus on Perfection of Yoga. She told me again that she already is carrying a bag of books on Yoga but still asked me what this will teach her.
I told her about how Arjuna the greatest warrior came to the conclusion that to control the mind is more difficult than controlling the wind, and we started to have a conversation on meditation and she stated that what was taught in that "ART OF LIVING" class was very difficult. I simply told her that this books gives us a very easy process to control the mind through a very simple mantra. I sang the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra for her and she immediately started to repeat after me, trying the tune. I told her to keep singing the tune and chanting the Maha Mantra and at the same time I started to search my wallet and bag to give her a Mantra Meditation card. I could find none and was very dejected not able to give her the card so that the rest of her flight she could simply go through the maha mantra.
Then I saw that she opened the book and it was chapter 3 where in Srila Prabhupada introduces the readers to the Maha Mantra. She was very happy and we had another 30 minutes of discussion and actually a mini Maha Mantra sankirtan since she simply wanted to repeat the same tune of Maha Mantra. I noticed by now a bunch of people had gathered around and was listening and enjoying this conversation, anyway they had no choice since all the planes were delayed. This lady said she spent $850.00 + round trip plane tickets for this 2 weeks "course". By the mercy of Srila Prabhupada that just by seeing and touching Srila Prabhupada's one smallest book and reading one line her face expressed a great satisfaction and happiness (for a material cost of USD 0.50) that I am unable to describe in words. She finally thanked me from her heart for talking with her and giving her the book and she said when she goes back to Urugway she will visit the ISKCON center since she remembers seeing the devotees chanting and dancing for Hare Krishna maha mantra on the beaches.
When it was time for me to board the aircraft and while I was waiting in the line, I found one person interested in taking the only Hindi book that I had "Coming Back". I boarded the plane and occupied my seat and offered the only Telugu book to a passenger next (to the right) to me, who took the book immediately. Then someone from the back seat (diagonal left seat) called me and asked for the all the books that I had in my hand and while he was going through the books the person (diagonal left) from front seat turned back and asked me if I had books. I gave him the Chaitanya Mahaprabhu book; in the meantime the person from the back chose to buy Nectar of Instruction and returned back 2 books which the person in the front wanted to buy them and then I realized that I have only one book remaining which I offered to the lady in the front seat and she immediately took it.
When I got off the plane at Hyderabad and was walking towards the exit gate, I had only 2 Back to Godhead magazines which I offered to one of the fellow passengers walking behind me who took both the magazine copies and gave RS. 100 as a donation.
Lord Sri Krishna reciprocated by sending people from all direction to get Srila Prabhupad's mercy.
This was all amazing and I throughly relished the nectar of book distribution and the transcendental bliss to realize that in the space of less than 10 minutes 7-8 books were distributed. By the mercy of Guru and Krishna I got the opportunity to serve Srila Prabhupada's mission of Krishna Consciousness.
This was the first time that I experienced what I have heard over the last five or six years several times from Bhakti Vikasa Swami emphasizing how important and powerful it is to just get people to touch Srila Prabhupada's books and how Krishna will be pleased with us and reward us with so much transendental pleasure and bliss if we simply please Srila Prabhupada by distributing his books.
Your Humble Servant,
Sridhara Srinivasa dasa
