Speechless
I bought a box of Hindi Gitas from the Chandigarh ISKCON temple during a recent visit to India. I tried to distribute books in my neighborhood on my last day in Himachal Pradesh. I visited the extended neighborhood in my village. There I met a humble soul we used to call Chachu during my childhood.
When I told him that I wanted to give him something, he was emotional and thankful. When I showed him the Gita, he was speechless for a few moments. Then he shared a personal story with me and a few onlookers on the street.
He said that he'd had an elder sister, who died when she was eleven. His father was naturally attached to the girl. Even after her death, on his way home from the office he used to regularly visit the place where she was buried.
One day, while his father was at the grave, a person appeared in white clothes from the nearby bushes and told his father that his daughter (who was named Vidya) had moved on and was no longer here. The person asked his father to find the real vidya (knowledge) in the Bhagavad Gita. From that day on, his father stopped visiting the burial place and started reading the Gita. His father used to read a chapter a day, and he eventually knew all eighteen chapters by heart.
After his father died, the reading of the Gita in their home stopped. Now, after almost forty-five years, he said in a choked voice, he was getting the Gita again in his hand, similar to the way someone told his dad to read the Gita to receive real knowledge.
I considered this Srila Prabhupada's transcendental plot to deliver the Gita to a pious soul, who was just waiting. Immediately, I felt indebted to Prabhupada for showing us the importance of the transcendental knowledge.
Your servant,
Radha-krpa Dasa
