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Oregon State University

The following letter was written to me by bhaktine Sara, who is currently chanting 16 rounds as a full-time student at Oregon State University. But first, a little history:

3 summers ago, Navina Nirada Prabhu sold Sara a book on Haight Ashbury, San Fransisco. Several days later, as all the travelling Sankirtana devotees were taking a week vacation at the beautiful "BIG SUR" National park 2 hours South of San Fransisco, Phalguna Prabhu met her and her highschool friend on a random forest trail near a river (what a transcendental coincidence!!) in the State park. She told him that she had just bought a book 2 days earlier and that she was spending one week in Big Sur with her English teacher and schoolfriends. (Her English teacher had organized a short summer tour for his students.) Phalguna Prabhu invited her to come over to our camp that afternoon for a kirtana and pasta prasadam. Sure enough, several hours later, she came along with her friend.

We were 15 brahmacaris. We had a tumultous spontaneous kirtan and honored a wonderful pasta feast cooked by Kaustubha Prabhu around a blazing camp-fire. Needless to say, the two teenagers were amazed and asked us to visit their camp. So the next evening, Phalguna Prabhu and I went there with some more prasadam and made friends with all of them. The English teacher was very nice to us.

I kept her address, and both Phalguna and I kept writing back and forth with her until today. At first, she had so many doubts. She was a stauch Buddhist. But, by Krsna's mercy, over the months of writing to her, she gradully began to accept Srila Prabhupada. And as I mentionned, she is now chanting 16 rounds a day and is very inspired by His Grace Ravindra Svarupa Prabhu's lectures.

So the following is a story she wrote to me regarding an old friend from highschool who became a devotee thanks to a book that SHE gave him in school after having received the other book from Navina Nirada Prabhu.

"Oh yeah, here's something that's pretty cool. I'm not sure if I've told you any of this yet, so I'll start from the begginning. Last November Amy and I went to the Portland temple. The kirtan was just starting up when a devotee walked into the room and prostrated. As he was prostrating, he kept on staring at Amy and I, and we were thinking "why is this dude staring at us?" When he got up I realized it was Chris, a kid that I was friends with in high school. He was now a dhoti-wearing, shaved head devotee! . Chris and Amy actually dated for awhile and he lived at Amy's house. In high school he always told everyone he was Hindu to be "unique" and impress people; he actually didn't know anything about Hinduism. Anyway, in high school I gave him one of Prabhupada's books.

So, when we saw him in November it was just bizarre. I thought that it was really cool, but at the same time I was a bit leary. Amy didn't expect him to stick around the temple for more than two months because he never stays anywhere longer than that, and admittably, I wasn't sure how long he would stay either. But when I went to the temple last week he was still there! He travelled to several temples on the sankirtan bus all winter, he is more and more attracted to Krsna consciousness everyday, and he's been completely clean of intoxicants for nine months now! He told me that it was the book I gave him in high school that completely changed his life. Of course, it was totally Krishna's arrangement. To me this is such a great example of how powerful Prabhupada's books are, and how addictively attractive Krsna is!"

To me, this shows how powerful a little following-up on our part is. Small gestures and letters go a LONG way in our preaching.

All glories to BOOK DISTRIBUTION!!!! ALL GLORIES TO SRILA PRABHUPADA!!

Your Servant,

Candrasekhar Acarya Das

Author: admin

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