Thomas Merton distributes Prabhupada’s book…
Haribol prabhus,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. Here is a little story from our book distribution efforts so far this month.
It was late morning, before any of the lunch hour crowd hit the street. I stopped an older lady who was walking by herself. I asked her if she liked to read. She was friendly, but said she was not interested because she was Catholic.
"My parents are also Catholic", I replied, "Actually, I used to be an Altar Boy (assistant of the priest during mass)".
She was a little surprised. I quickly added, "Do you know of Thomas Merton?"
"Yes", she answered.
"Thomas Merton read this every book and he wrote a little commentary about what he thought of it. Would you like to read it?"
"Yes", she answered again.
So I flipped to the pages on the inside of the cover and showed her what Thomas Merton had written. She began reading it and about half way through she began reading it out loud, "…[our culture] 'lacks the inner depth of an authentic metaphysical consciousness' – Yes, that's true – 'Without such depth, our moral and political protestations are just so much verbiage.' – Yes, I agree with that."
However, she still remained unable to take the Bhagavad-gita. Seeing that she was not going to accept it, I offered her the Perfection of Yoga as a nice introduction. When she saw the title her last defenses fell.
"Well", she said, "My daughter is on the West Coast, living in the 'granola belt', and she is very interested in yoga."
Feeling happy to reciprocate, she gave donation and walked away with Prabhupada's book!
Your servant,
Nitai Rama Dasa
Canada
