A Suggestion
Hare Krsna, Prabhus,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
I'm in Brazil now, going out with the devotees and giving some talks on book distribution. Brazil is on the rise in book distribution. Many young men and women are joining and taking part in book distribution. An interesting feature of Brazil is that there is a very nice sannyasi here named Dhanvantari Swami, who teaches Bhakti-shastri. Every year he has about twenty students, and the course lasts nine months. What is unique about his course is that all the students distribute books for ten days a month for the nine months of the course. The idea is that as they receive the knowledge, they distribute it.
Distributing Srila Prabhupada's books several hours a month is something I'm trying to encourage devotees to do as I travel around. We don't have so many devotees living in the temples; therefore full-time book distribution is rare. Most of the devotees live outside. So for those of you who live outside, try to distribute books for two hours a week, eight hours a month. It's not that much time, and you will no doubt change the lives of the people who get books from you. Prabhupada said, "For those who are trying to live a comfortable life in Krsna consciousness, spiritual advancement will be very slow." Book distribution is not a comfort zone for the false ego, but it is for the soul: the soul likes to tell people about Krsna.
On that note, I'll leave you with a quote from a great soul in our Society. Her name is Daivisakti Devi Dasi. She has been distributing books since 1970 — 40 years nonstop. I recently received this note from her:
"When Sri Krishna allowed me to realize He exists, my first reaction was that I need to tell the world about Krishna. This was before I met the devotees. I could not figure out how to tell everyone I met about Krishna. Then, soon after, Krishna led me to His devotees and I understood that by distributing Prabhupada's books I could help other suffering living entities come to Krishna consciousness. Since then I have been trying to distribute Prabhupada's books to educate people about Krishna."
Your Servant,
Vijaya Das
