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Krishna, Please Don’t Let any of Those Bhagavad-Gita Copies Come Back Home With Us
By Promila Chitkara From Back to Godhead Is Krishna the center of our ambitions and transformations ? It was December – the month of Srila Prabhupäda’s book marathon! We were quite excited when we began book distribution. We remained excited throughout. The thought of reaching out to unlimited number of souls thrilled me. The results we achieved were seemingly in proportion to our efforts. Actually, the mercy we received during this time was much beyond the external effort or internal state. There were times when nothing...
read moreTwo Stories From Budapest
A few weeks ago, Bhakta Marcel invited a young man to the temple from sankirtana. The young man liked the book that he'd received, and he was open-minded. He sat down for a bhajan, and Marcel went somewhere else. After thirty minutes Marcel came back, and the young man was sitting in a shocked condition. Marcel asked him what happened, and he said “Unbelivable! The statues are dancing!" [the Deities of Nitai-Gauranga] He stayed in the temple throughout the evening and also started chanting. So Marcel is now looking after him....
read more“Atiya”. From the Harinama group of New York.
She was staring at the Harinam. I said, “Salaam alaikum.” She replied, and I began to speak to her about love of God. She asked about the goal of life and how to obtain it. I answered that we need to learn about the name, form, qualities and pastimes of Allah, and develop love for Him and that this Krishna book was about the pastimes of the Lord since He was a boy until He wrapped up his pastimes. By reading this, I told her, you can develop attachment for God and obtain His eternal abode and associate with Him. She was interested...
read moreSpeechless
I bought a box of Hindi Gitas from the Chandigarh ISKCON temple during a recent visit to India. I tried to distribute books in my neighborhood on my last day in Himachal Pradesh. I visited the extended neighborhood in my village. There I met a humble soul we used to call Chachu during my childhood. When I told him that I wanted to give him something, he was emotional and thankful. When I showed him the Gita, he was speechless for a few moments. Then he shared a personal story with me and a few onlookers on the street. He said that he'd...
read moreWSN November 2016 – World Sankirtan Newsletter
The month of November was good for Gainesville, Florida, which Srila Prabhupada called a remote corner of the world so far from the birthplace of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Gainsville is known for feeding students at the University of Florida. It still does that, but now it also has become a big center of book distribution because many students have become devotees and distribute the most valuable knowledge to people: the real higher education. In November, Gainesville was No. 3 among medium temples, with 5,147 book points, a 54% increase....
read moreArab Man Coming Back for Books Again and Again
While distributing books at the West LA College in Los Angeles, I was speaking to a man from Saudi Arabia. He is upset that there is so much fighting in the Arab countries. I showed him the picture in the Gita of how a wise person sees within everyone both a soul and God and therefore respects all living entities. Then I said, "If everyone saw like this, there'd no longer be wars around the world and there'd be no room for racism." He was so pleased to hear this that he gave a donation for a Gita, and I also gave him...
read moreAn Appeal to Sankirtan Devotees
Hare Krishna! All glory to Srila Prabhupada! My dear devotees, Please kindly accept my humble obeisances. I'd like to thank all of you for the wonderful services you all do for Srila Prabhupada! I also really wish to thank Vijaya Prabhu for his selfless, dedicated service to the sankirtan mission. His example is encouraging for everybody. This year is special for all the members of ISKCON. We are making bigger plans to do something special for Srila Prabhupada and our parampara. Over the last several years, the devotees in Nepal...
read moreFour Sets, One Person
I had a late start on Friday, July 1, 2016 (because of other services at the temple), but it was an excellent start. The first person I met took a Gita even though he could not even speak much English. This made me think it's going to be a fantastic day. It proved to be so after meeting George. This was at Chinatown in Sydney,Australia. George was born and brought up in Australia. He had not visited the temple, but was aware of it and appreciated the work done by the Hare Krsnas. He likes reading books and is reading one on the Upanisads....
read moreRasaraja Prabhu’s remembrance of Sri Nathji, who recently passed away
In 1981 or 1982, I went to visit the Chennai temple from the Detroit temple, where I'd joined ISKCON as a brahmacari. One morning, a gentleman in a suit walked into the temple for the Deity greeting, and the Chennai devotees very happily greeted him. After the arati, he was asked to give the class. He had come to Chennai on business, and straight to the temple from the airport. He gave a very good class. Near the end of the class, he mentioned the difficulties of the devotees in the USSR. He was getting the Gita printed in Russian, he...
read moreYoga Teacher Distributes Prabhupada’s Books
Mahadyuti Prabhu has shared many reports that after giving a class, he's distributed some books. I was inspired to follow in his footsteps at a recent yoga class. Before the yoga class, I told a devotee who's a yoga teacher that I was invited to lead kirtan at a yoga center and looked forward to distributing some of Srila Prabhupada's books. He told me to never distribute books to yoga students until I have a long-term relationship with them. But since I didn't know whether I'd be back in the region, I asked the yoga...
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