Dood to Door
I was distributing in Auckland with a few Bhagavad Gita's, after an hour or so I ran out, we still had some SB 1.1.s, but I was lamenting a little because I'm pretty attached to Bhagavad Gita's. Bhakta Luke and myself went up to a door, a man answered, I told him we're monks, going around distributing these wonderful books about self realization and how to be satisfied and peaceful in life. He said he wasn't interested in taking a book but would like to give us a book. I said, alright, thinking we may be able to talk to him a little more and convince him to take a book when he came back to give us his book which I figured would be the book of mormon, since they like to give their books away. But to our surprise he brought back a Bhagavad Gita. When I saw the Bhagavad Gita in his hand and he was trying to give it to us, I naturally tried to convince him to keep it and maybe in the future he'll pick it up and get something out of it. But he was determined to give it to us, he wanted us to give it to someone else who may get more out of it. We reluctantly took it. As we were leaving we met another man in the driveway who had just pulled up, so I decided to show him the same book. He was interested and decided to get it. He said he didn't have any money on him so he had to go in his apartment to get a donation. I asked him if he lived in the top apartment or the bottom one, he said he lived in the top one, which happened to be the same one that the person who gave the book that was in his hand, lived in. Hare Krsna. As he was going in, Luke and myself couldn't believe it, and were praying to Krsna that his room mate not discourage him. By krsna's mercy he came back and gave a donation. Krsna fullfilled my desire to distribute another Bhagavad Gita, and amazingly it ended up in the the same apartment that it had come out of, Krsna is pretty tricky. He didn't want to leave. your servant, Vijaya das
I was in Melborne Austrailya just outside the food for life center distributing books. I saw a man in his early 30's approaching so I called him over. His name was Christian and in the course of the exchange he told me that he has been associating with devotees for about 14 years via Gopals, Food for life, the Temple, etc. I asked him how he first came into contact with the devotees. Christian explained that he used to be interested in martial arts, weight lifting, etc. Part of his display of strength was ripping in half thick telephone books and the like. One day whilst mainfesting his unbound strength he found a book entitled the Science of Self Realization by A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada."Ha, this book will be easy to meet against my prowess" thought the muscle clad Christian. Picking up the book and with all his strength trying to rip it into two, his attempts proved fruitless. Again and again despite mustering all his strenght he could not even make a slight dent in the book pages with his best endeavor. Finally Christian admitted his defeat and realizing that this was not an ordinary book he began to read the pages of the Science of self Realization, hence the beginning of his Krsna consciousness. After relaying his story, Christian noticed that I had a Srimad Bhagavatam part one with me . "You have some of the cantos with you", he said. "Yes you have read some before? "Part one and part two", he replied. "Well how about getting a full set?. "Alright I'd like one".
I arranged to meet Christian after the weekend and show him the set. He was enthused when I met him on Monday and he agreed to make a one hundred dollar deposit and pay back $100 monthly. He also expressed interest in reading the Caitanya Caritamrta because his mother has just read Bhagavad Gita and is thinking about Krsna consciouness more seriously.
I like book distribution because you never know who you are going to meet. Each exchange always deepens my understanding that Prabhupada's books are effecting this societies conciousness.
Your Servant,
Bhakta Tim
