Sankirtan Story
Hare Krsna,
A devotee in New Zealand has just received his masters degree in accounting, based on his thesis 'Spiritual Accounting,' (accounting at the masters and PhD levels means not number crunching, but dealing with the precepts underlying the entire accounting system). The new wave of accounting attacks the old school of concerning itself with only fiscal profit/loss. The new school says accounting should include ecological, physical health, and inner happiness evaluations–not just the bucks.
This devotee presented his thesis at an international scholars conference and had to defend his openly Vaisnava-based presentation against a top gun in the new school, an Indian Mayavadi, who insisted that Krishna is fictitious and thus the only solution to the global problems is to realize "everything is connected to everything else"–as pure undifferentiated oneness.
Our devotee "contained her" in an appropriate scholarly way and then walked off the podium and went on a "victory tour" among the professors there, distributing Prabhupada's Gita to three of them–asking and getting on-the-spot donations from each professor. (I'm amazed at his nerve– to be so bold in such an arena.) His final sale was to the Indian Mayavadi scholar herself–he told her: "Take a look at a real Gita." She meekly replied, "How much?"
Amidst international scholarly accolades and urges that he continue the same research, as a PhD, he has opted, at least for a while, to follow his own dream: a brahmacari on sankirtan.
Devamrta Swami
