Blog
Experiencing Krishna’s magic
Recently, I got the opportunity to visit Baltimore, Maryland, to attend the 2017 American College and Research Library Conference. This event is attended by thousands of North American college librarians looking for new books. I traveled from Los Angeles with Sura Dasa, a veteran in book distribution. Together we experienced quite a treat. The first day started out very slow, with hardly anyone taking a book. I became restless and went for a walk outside. While chanting japa, suddenly I heard a big “Haribol!” from a person...
read moreThrilled and blown-away by special customers
In February, I had a book table set up in an Indian shopping mall in Atlanta. A lady walked by, along with her teen-age son. I called them over to give them some prasada. I gave both a spoonful of maha-halava. The mother said, “We have all these books.” The boy liked the new BBT book by my Gurudeva, Devamrita Swami, and she bought it for him. A couple of weeks later, the boy, Nikhil, approached my book table and put a nice donation in the donation box and asked for a Gita. I felt thrilled. He reminded me that I had sold him...
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An unsung hero
Last year, when I was in Ljubljana, Slovenia, I was invited to visit Belgrade, Serbia. In the 1990s the devotees there had a big temple, which eighty devotees lived in. There were thirty-five full-time book distributors. Now, unfortunately, they have no temple. But there is a book distributor carrying the baton: Dharma Dasa (an appropriate name). Before he joined ISKCON he was a hardcore atheist. But one day his mother came home with a Science of Self Realization. From time to time, she was going to the Sunday feast, and she would ask him to...
read moreGood Friday Magic
Today I went to Newtown, Wellington, to distribute books. As soon as I arrived I noticed that most shops were closed and the streets were quiet. I had forgotten that it was Good Friday! After a few exchanges on the street, I decided to go door to door. I knocked at the first door and waited to see who Krishna would arrange for us to meet. A moment later I met James and Emily, a nice young kiwi couple. They had actually just sold the house and were about to move to the south island. As I showed them Bhagavad Gita, their jaws dropped open. They...
read moreWaka Flocka, a heavy rapper, reaches out for books
Recently, while distributing books at the Ockechobee music festival in Florida, something fascinating happened. Around 5:30 pm, I had already finished distributing. All of a sudden a thought came to mind: “Try to distribute Prabhupada's books to Waka.” Last year, while I was distributing books on the Warped tour, I was handed a pamphlet promoting vegetarianism. I looked through it. There were quotes by famous people, and to my amazement there was a quote by Waka. He said something like: “How can I eat something that will...
read moreTwo in Toronto, Tony and Marcia, get books
Tony, a former student of electrical engineering, is now studying acting. He responded to my question, "Hey, do you like to read?" with a hearty "Yes, I love to. What do you have there?" From there, our conversation never looked back on a refusal. Tony continued to ask questions and accept books. He told me he is very logical: "If you can't prove it, I can't believe it." When I spoke of changing bodies, he accepted the logical possibility. His parents are from Ghana and Jamaica, but he was born in Canada....
read moreWater-management professional orders four thousand Gitas
A water-management professional visited the ISKCON Delhi Temple. He mentioned the future water problems coming our way, especially in India and China. Then Gopal Krishna Goswami arrived at the scene, met this water-management professional and sympathized with him regarding the problem. Gopal Krishna Goswami preached to him about the solution in the Bhagavad-gita. The real solution is to perform sacrifice. The water-management professional was convinced and immediately ordered four thousand Gitas. Bhagavad Gita 3.14 annad bhavanti bhutani...
read moreWorld Sankirtan Newsletter Feb 2017
Hare Krsna! Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada! What came over the devotees in Punjabi Bhag? I can’t figure out how they did so big: over five times more than the No. 2 temple in the world in February. An inconceivable 104,237 book points! Special mercy was flowing at this medium-size temple in New Delhi. Good news in Vrindavan: Rohininandana Balarama Prabhu distributes books in Srila Prabhupada’s Samadhi almost daily, and he recently told me that in the past two years he’s collected the contact information of...
read moreHave contact information in the book
While in Sri Lanka, where the Bhagavatam sets are flying out under the sincere management of Vasudeva Datta Prabhu, it came to my attention that a local devotee there became a devotee by receiving a book. He liked the book and was thinking how to find out more, when he found a stamp in the book that told him where the temple is and how to get more books. This is so important! We have to leave contact information in the book for those rare souls looking for it. Let's try to make it as easy as possible for them to contact us. Yes, there are...
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