With minimal food, few facilities the Book Distributors work 16 hours a day to teach society about God

Book Distributors in International Society for Krishna Consciousness work tirelessly to distribute books to the general public 365 days a year. They go through so many travails and insults along the way, yet want to save a soul for eternity. The following are selected stories about book distribution.

Mahotsaha Prabhu recalls:

Really nice gentleman named TM from Long Island. He told me his name stands for Total Mystery! He received some of our books throughout the years like the “Science of self realization”, “Bhagavad Gita as it is” and the “Srimad Bhagavatam” first canto. He really liked the philosophy and when he saw us chanting in the park today he enthusiastically sat down with us to chant for over an hour while playing the shakers. I talked to him at one point about getting some more books and I told him that I want to show him a one of kind set because today is a special day, it’s the birthday of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. We went to the book table and I showed him some paintings of Mahaprabhu and explained how He came to give us the greatest wealth of the spiritual world.

I quoted the verse from Narottama Das Thakur “Golokera Prema dhana Harinam sankirtan” (The transcendental vibration of hari-nama-sankirtana is imported from the spiritual world). He told me that he remembers reading about Chaitanya in one of the books he already has. I asked him to please take the set and he can know everything about Lord Chaitanya and His amazing pastimes. I encouraged him and said that it’s a once in a lifetime investment and he agreed. He told me that he’s on his bike and asked if I could ship the set to his house and I said sure no problem. While he was giving me his address and paying for the set he added some extra money as a donation so I also included a “Sapta” set as an extra gift! Afterwards he sat down in the kirtan again for another half an hour! He promised to visit our ashram for a Sunday feast program.

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Five years ago, I did book distribution in Budapest in one of my favorite sankirtan spots, called “Stop Shop,” a posh shopping center. During the last week of the Srila Prabhupada marathon, I wanted to do BIG, especially because Sivarama Swami, my beloved guru, was at the temple. Every night he was waiting for us to return. He personally asked everyone, “How was your day?”

On one of my most difficult days ever in my life, around 5 p.m., I had only two more hours to go. I had done practically no books and had nothing in my pocket. This had gone on for four hours. Everyone was running away from me. People were shouting at me, sending me to hell, telling me to get a job, being harsh, and NO ONE TOOK A BOOK AND GAVE.

I was upset. So finally, having no other hope, I wrote a text to my Guru Maharaja, begging for his mercy. He immediately answered. He sent me a darshan picture of Shyamasundara (from the Krishna Valley altar). Shyama had an amazingly beautiful, huge turban in purple and blue colors.

Maharaja wrote: “I made this turban for Shyama. You must meditate on this turban while approaching people and keep the turban on your mind and project it to them. That will mesmerize them, and they will take books.”

It was an amazing instruction. I started to memorize the turban’s colors, what flowers were on it, and so on. When I had remembered it, I went to the first person. He was sitting in a big Mercedes. He was around sixty, and a girl next to him, his daughter. The window was closed, so I went there smiling, waving, and most importantly meditating on the turban and projecting it on the man. He looked out of the window and seriously made the gesture with his hands: NO!

I was now meditating on the turban more strongly, with an even bigger smile, and I asked him to open the window. Finally he started to laugh and opened the window. Keeping the image of the turban in mind, I explained to him what I wanted. He took out a 20,000 HUF note (around 60 EUR) and gave it to me saying: “I don’t want a book, but use this for your good activities.” 

I immediately started to beg him to please take a hard-cover Gita, but he said he was not interested and started to close the window. At that moment  his phone rang, and his ringtone was the famous Beatles song: “All You Need Is Love”.

When he finished the call, I cried out, “You like the Beatles!”

He said, “Of course.”                                                                            

“So please wait here!”

I ran to my trolley and brought a beautiful Krishna book to him. I showed him George Harrison’s words, ending with “All You need is love (Krishna).” 

The man laughed again and happily accepted the book. I asked for his contact info and spoke about Krishna Valley, our farm, and invited him. 

He promised to come the next year. This was the beginning of a wonderful friendship!

In January I invited my new friend, called István, to the temple and fed him maha-prasadam and showed him the temple. I learned that he owns the most successful private business university in the country. And he is also one of our country’s most successful businessmen. He is a billionaire (a millionaire in euros).

I kept up a relationship with him, and he started to give nice donations every year before Christmas and sometimes visited us. Two years passed, and in 2017 before Christmas I invited Istvan to the temple. He came, but he was very sad. He explained that his wife moved away from him and wants a divorce.

I promised him that I would pray to Krishna to help and ask Krsna whether He wants to help them fix their relationship. The next April, I invited Istvan to Krshna Valley for our cow festival, and he came with his wife, Katalin. István said that after six months, this was the first time that he’d met his wife, because she was interested in Krishna Valley.

During the two-hour drive, they argued so much that they wanted to turn back. But finally they reached the farm. They loved everything. Kati was mostly interested in organic gardening and natural living, while István was interested in meditation and philosophy.

To their great surprise, they met Astasaki Mataji, our head pujari, who had been a good friend of István’s for more than thirty years, so they had a lovely talk about Krishna consciousness.

A few weeks later, István called me and happily said that His relationship with his wife was fixed and she had moved back in with him. They were very happy together again.

He said, “The tipping point was that we finally found something that we both appreciated: Krishna Valley. We were so happy there. You know Mohana, Krishna saved my marriage. I’m eternally indebted to Him and to you.”

After this István started to come to the temple every one or two months, happy to eat prasada and talk and listen to kirtan with closed eyes.

In the same year, before Christmas, I asked István and Kati to come to the temple, and I introduced them to the service called Nitya Seva, or sponsoring a day of worship for the pleasure of Sri Sri Radha-Syamasundara in Krishna Valley for the next 10,000 years. I explained that we will invest their donation in real estate, and the yearly interest from the donation will maintain the worship on the day that they choose.

I also explained our philosophy of watering the root of the tree, which is beneficial for all.

Kati said, “Till now I gave donations to charities with the idea to help others, but what you are saying is that if i give for this, it will also be good for me, right? I like this!”

Istvan said: “You know, Mohan, to be honest with you, I’m an atheist. But I like what you devotees do, so I want to support you.”

They sent 14,000 euros and chose April 15th as their Nitya-Seva day, the day when they came to Krishna Valley for the first time and Krishna saved their marriage.

Last year before Christmas, I met István and explained that our Hungarian Food for Life foundation was in trouble, because we lost 75% of our governmental support. I asked him to help. He became enthusiastic and promised not just that he will support FFL regularly every year but he will approach his richest friends to become regular donors. 

“It’s my personal responsibility now,” he said.

He started his fundraising mission last December. He even visited the mayor of the district where our Budapest temple is and asked him to give FFL a building. We have also discussed that during the coming year we will go to business people together as a team and collect all the financial needs of FFL.

So the story has not ended. It will continue, and I’m sure it will have a happy ending.

Please, dear devotees, bless Kati and István and all the souls we try to serve by connecting them to Srila Prabhupada and Krishna, and give Your blessings to me as well to be able to continue my service and one day become  a real devotee.

Srila Prabhupada, ki jaya!

Your servant,

Mohana Dasa

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Super sweet guy named Zam from Brooklyn.

He ran into the Harinam about a year ago and took some books from us. Since then he’s been reading Prabhupada’s books and chanting “Hare Krishna” daily. He put a Jagannath sticker that we had given him on his work helmet for good luck and it’s been there for a year now! He’s working construction in the area where we’ve been distributing books for the past week and he’s been seeing us regularly. I’ve been talking to him and planting the seed for him to get a Mahat tattva. He was telling me that he wants to get serious about spiritual life and now that his daughter turned 21 years old he has more time to himself because she’s less dependent on him and his wife. He’s up to chanting 6 rounds of japa daily and he wants to increase it and become more focused on his Krishna consciousness. He got all the enthusiasm to take up the chanting on his own just from reading Srila Prabhupada’s books, it’s amazing!