Russia – A Special Place
Recently, while attending the annual Russian festival, I heard from the sankirtan devotees about some special book distributors.
There is one team of distributors, father and son, both clad in saffron, who have great success distributing books together. During the sankirtan awards ceremony, they received awards for their outstanding service.
Then there is Vacaspati Prabhu, who has no arms. He's been distributing books for the the last fifteen years.
He tells people, "I have some great books I'd like you to see, but I can't hand them to you. Please take one or two from the bag on my back and have a look."
He's one of the steadiest book distributors in the country and one of the most successful.
Then Tulasi Rupini Dasi. She was distributing on one street for a number of weeks and doing well. A Christian nun was distributing Bibles there, but not so many. The Christian lady was surprised to see how steady Tulasi Rupini was and asked her why she was working so hard. Tulasi told her that the books themselves drove her to distribute them so actively, and she gave the nun some to read, so the sister could find out for herself. The nun was very impressed by the information and eventually started to chant Hare Krishna. When she became even more inspired by reading Prabhupada's books, she asked Tulasi Rupini whether she could also distribute books. So they became a team.
They now go to Vrindaban together every year and are close friends. She's still a Christian, and she's been a nun for over thirty years, so she is one of the senior nuns at the convent. Thus no one questions her actions.
Kuruvinda Dasi, age 73, was thinking, "I'm getting too old to do this. Better I stop."
That night Lord Caitanya appeared to her in a dream and embraced her. She woke up, crying in ecstacy. After that experience she was inspired to continue distributing books.
Acaryaratna Dasa is sixty and is the third biggest distributor in Russia. He is one of the most blissful devotees you'll see. He distributes about sxity big books a day, and on marathon days, a hundred.
A Major in the Russian army had a little interest in yoga while two devotees (privates) were stationed in his company. He heard that they were Krsna devotees so he called for them. When they were ordered to see the Major they were afraid that they had done something wrong, because a Major is a high ranking officer.
When they got to his office, he asked them, "Are you devotees of Krsna?"
"Yes, we are."
"I'm interested in yoga, too. What book do you recomend I read?"
"The Bhagavad Gita."
"Do you have one?"
One of them said, "Yes, I have one with me right now."
He handed it to him and asked for a donation. The Major was surprised that this private had the nerve to ask him for a donation, but it also impressed him as being bold. He gave a donation.
After that when the devotees would see him, they would ask, "Have you read it yet?"
"No, I have so little time."
This happened a few times. Then he decided to read the translations of the verses, so that when they would again ask him whether he had started to read it, he could reply that he had.
That night he had a dream in which Prabhupada said to him in perfect Russian, "It will be OK if you also read the purports."
He woke up startled. The next day he started reading the purports. Eventually he became a devotee while in the military and made some other devotees also. His name is now Ananta Krsna Goswami Maharaja.
Before he became a sannyasi, he was in charge of the BBT, and he started a program in which five percent of the book distribution profits go toward their health maintenance, getting vans, sending book distributors to India, and so on.
Your servant,
Vijaya Dasa
