Only Prabhupada’s books
We went on sankirtan in Zenica Bosnia. I knocked on a door and a lady opened. While I was showing her the books she noticed the books and said, "My husband likes to read this books." "Please call him." I told her. "He's not at home, he's at work. He works as a barber." "Madam, please phone him and tell him that I have books for him." The lady phoned him and said, "There is a young man here with books that you like to read." I could hear him say, "Give him the phone." I picked...
read moreSatisfaction
Having walked into an office full of realtors in Kaohsiung, a city in the south of Taiwan, I looked around and decided that the best tactic to get these people to take books was to be bold – as loud and blasé as possible I said, "My Chinese is very poor," in my broken Chinese. "Is your English not bad?" This tends to bring a smile to the face of even the most stoic Chinese linguist. In this case, Mr. Chien, a slightly large and jovial gentleman in a suit, came forward, shook my hand and cleared a space for me...
read moreA Real Christian finds Krsna
At the Friday-night harinam in Auckland, I was lurking around the peripheries of the devotees and talking to passersby. I saw a respectable-looking Maori woman sitting on the steps of Aotea Square watching the harinam. I felt a bit intimidated to talk to her, as she held herself with gravity and had a look on her face which I grossly mistook to be fear or at the least distaste. I approached her anyway, and in response to my attempts at small talk, she reached into her handbag and pulled out “Journey of Self-Discovery”. With wide,...
read moreRoyal Automobile man gets Krishna’s special mercy
On Monday, the 20th of May 2013, I went to mangal-aratik, as usual. I did not immediately realize that in doing so I had locked myself out of my sankirtan van, as I forgot the keys in the ignition lock. Neither did I realize that this was, in fact, Krishna’s special plan to bless an employee of the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland with two books. Krishna says in Bhagavad-gita: “mattah smrtir jnanam apohanam ca, ..from Me comes remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness.” I usually carry a second or even a third vehicle key,...
read moreSooo greedy to distribute books
My sankirtan spot is right outside Crossways and Urban Yoga (our Hare Krishna restaurant and preaching center) on the main street of Melbourne. I stopped a boy, Shannon, who was attracted to the Bhagavad-gita. He decided to take the book and explained that he thinks young people don't realize they can die at any moment. He had been in a car crash at the age of eight and given a 20% chance of surviving. So after that experience he feels there is a purpose to his surviving, and he linked that to the Bhagavad-gita. I was so excited by the...
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