Book Distribution Brings Out Kindness in People
While distributing books at Cal State Northridge University, I met a couple of students at my table who were asking about the books on display. They were both enthusiastic to take a Gita. After explaining the tenets of the Gita, I asked for a donation.
One of them enthusiastically gave a donation, but the other said, “I don't have anything to give.”
The person who did give a donation said, “No problem. I'll get it for you.”
He then gave another donation. I asked the one that had no donation whether she knew this person.
She said, “No, I've never seen him before.”
I said, “Well, that goes to show you that there's still hope in society. Here's a person you don't know, and he's going out of his way to help you.”
She was as surprised as I was and profusely thanked the young man.
The very next day at UCLA the same thing happened. I was talking to a young man about the Gita and showing him the pictures when another young man showed up and listened in. When I asked for a donation, the one that came while I was talking to the first person enthusiastically gave a donation, and the first person said he had nothing to give.
The second person, who turned out to be named Ryan, said, “It's OK. I'll get it for you. I like to do spontaneous acts of kindness.”
The young man receiving the kindness couldn't believe it and thanked Ryan for his kindness.
What I find with these two incidents is that book distribution brings out good qualities in the book distributors and in the people we distribute books to. One thing I suggest that devotees do: When someone doesn't have money for a book, give them a piece of paper with vedabase.com on it. All of Srila Prabhupada's books are on this website. Had these two persons not received a book I would have given them this paper so that they could still read the books. Most students don't have money, but they always get this paper from me and many of them go to the site and later thank me for directing them to it.
Your servant,
Vijaya Dasa
