Los Angeles Sastra Dana Newsletter Vol. 3, Issue 11
VANCA KALPA…
THERE IS NOTHING
BETTER TO REQUEST
By Mahat-tattva das
When the demon Kamsa learned about how the 8th child of Devaki was to kill him he decided to mercilessly kill all of Devaki’s children including the 8th one, Krishna. When Krishna finally appeared Devaki was in fear of Kamsa killing her baby. Although she knew that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and that no one can harm Him still because of her deep affection for Krishna she was in fear. Srila Prabhupada explains that this ISKCON society is like Krishna and is destined to spread all over the world but due to our affection we are in fear of demons trying to stop this movement from spreading. Therefore we are endeavoring like anything to spread it far and wide.
Srila Prabhupada wants us to replace all the mundane literature with Krishna conscious literature and that is a great task. We could say, a challenge as the world is huge and there are so many billions of people inhabiting it.
Sometimes we can see scientists studying nonsense things like for example the movement of snails. They see a snail in Los Angeles moving south. Then they measure the speed of the snail’s movement and they come up with conclusions like, “If this snail continues like this it will arrive at Laguna Beach in 35,000 years, 2 months, 8 hours and 6 seconds.” Sometimes in our eagerness to spread Krishna consciousness we think of ourselves like that snail who is going toward Laguna Beach. Although we are going toward that goal of spreading Krishna consciousness far and wide we are thinking we are moving slowly. Therefore we are requesting everyone to please help us in our endeavor. The task is great and we need all the help we can get.
Even when all the high court judges in the United States of America start wearing vaisnava tilak in the court rooms we will still continue to request the same thing: “Please help us in our preaching endeavor, endeavor to please Srila Prabhupada and the predecessor acaryas.” Why? Because there is nothing better to request. Preaching is our source of ecstasy. We relish it very much. We are detached, you may join us or not. We are happy. But if you join us we’ll be even more happy.
At present at the Sastra Dana program we need help with two things. First is distribution of books. We are distributing books to different libraries (public, high school, college), aged citizens’ homes, café shops, yoga studios, hospital waiting rooms, motel rooms and so on. There are so many ways how and where to distribute our books. Los Angeles is huge. Everyone of you also has friends, colleagues at the job and so many people you meet every day. You can save some of your hard earned money and buy books to give them. We’ll get you books for the cheapest possible price. Please contact us and we will help you engage in book distribution.
Another thing we need help with is donations. Thank you all for your generous donations. Please encourage others to join our program also.
