Four Things That Happened After I Decided I Am Not The Doer
My godbrother Yasodeva and I were distributing books – the perfection of Vaishnava dealings – in Parramatta, Sydney. Srila Prabhupada called this place "pramada," because its full of crazies. I was off like a rocket. There were a lot of charity workers on the street, so I was walking from one end of Church Street to the other, trying so hard to be the doer. Even with all my expertise, nothing was happening. On my own I could hardly distribute even one book.
So I thought, “I'm just going to stand here in this spot under the rail bridge near Yasodeva, and if Krsna wants he will send someone to take a book.”
People were rushing by. I tried to stop a small Italian lady. She caught a glimpse of the book as she brushed me off.
She went about ten meters away and turned around to ask, “Is that Bhagavad-gita?”
I said yes, and she came running back.
“Oh, I've been looking for this book.”
She said that back in Italy her father had the Gita, and when she was eight, she was reading it, but her father told her not to. (I got the impression that it was because she was too young.)
She said “I've been looking for it ever since, on the Internet, everywhere.” She must be about thirty now. She gave a nice donation and happily walked away, reunited with her long-lost friend, Krsna.
I was impressed and wondered what else Krsna had in store. Next was a group of disabled persons in their motorized wheel chairs, with their caretakers. I decided not to try to stop the caretakers, as I have done so in the past and they have always politely said no.
I was careful not to be noticed as I glanced at one disabled person and tried to absorb the danger of taking birth again. As they all went past I was holding the Gita at ease with the back cover showing, in a way that made it almost impossible to recognize.
A female caretaker turned around. I thought she was going to get angry at me for looking at them. She walked back to me while looking at the book in my hand.
I was stunned when she said timidly, “Is that Bhagavad-gita?”
I said yes, while quickly revealing the cover. She said she had heard about it and had been searching for it. It was as though Krsna was right there in her heart asking her to take the book. She thanked me and ran to catch up with her group.
Next, an Indian man was eager to receive the mercy. I handed him a hard-cover SSR. We had a polite conversation about practicing Krsna consciousness in society today. He said he was a financier, and his company had lost nine million dollars of its investors' money. Still, he was so happy to meet a devotee that he gave me fifty dollars.
He said, “We need people like you to become politicians.”
He also gave me his business card, but something tells me not to invest with him.
Near the end of the day I was getting more books from my box under a tree, and two favorable youths come over to express their appreciation of the books they had received a few weeks earlier.
As I was encouraging them, a Council Ranger appeared and asked, “What's going on?”
Thinking he was there to bust me, as they usually do, I tried to make out that we were all friends talking and there was definitely no book selling going on. He politely waited as I invited the young bhaktas to our loft program. The Ranger got in on the conversation and said that he had received a call about some people flooding the street with flyers.
I told him, “They just moved down there. You can't miss them.”
The ranger walked off on his business.
After five minutes he came back and happily asked, “So what are you guys doing? Are you Hare Krsnas?”
I said yes. He was in ecstasy reminiscing about all his encounters with devotees over the years. He said he had become good friends with Shanti-parayana prabhu.
“Yeah, tell Shanti you met Ranger Sam. He will remember me. I've been to the temple for a feast. You guys are great!”
This was a bit unusual for me, but I just asked him, “Why don't you take a book then?”
He claimed he wasn't a big reader.
So I said, “Then take a small one.”
He said he was a Muslim, but he grew up in Australia and was taught that life was about making money, not bowing down five times a day. I just smiled and asked for a donation, and he gave what he had.
The moral to this story is that we can try so hard to be the doer, but if we just stand back and let Krsna do His thing, amazing things will happen.
Your servant,
Uddhava Dasa
