My dear devotees,

Please accept my blessings. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

Camp: Bombay, ISKCON

December is the month Lord Krsna spoke the Bhagavad Gita on a sacred Ekadashi. It is also the time when ISKCON celebrates their annual book marathon and everyone concentrates on distributing books as the Brhat Mrdanga or Greater Mrdanga. The idea is that kirtan, represented by the playing of Mrdanga drums, can be heard for some hundreds of meters or a kilometer or less. But through the printing of books, a book may be heard even thousands of kilometers away. So book distribution was called by Om Visnupada Bhaktisiddanta Sarasvati Thakura as the Brhat Mrdanga and Srila Prabhupada taught us this and concentrated on translating the books from Sanskrit to English and subsequently, it was translated to Bengali, Hindi and over a hundred other languages. We hope that every member of the temple, Bhakti Vrksa groups, counselor groups, Namahattas, preaching groups, and all devotees alike, will engage in this special sacrifice on Brhat Mrdanga and distribute books during the month of December and the first month of January which is ISKCON's 50th anniversary here, in 2016.

In Delhi, 2,500 members of the congregation have each set for themselves some quota to participate in distributing during the marathon month. So if you can set for yourselves, each your quota for the marathon month, that will be a nice sacrifice to offer to Krsna. Lord Caitanya requested everyone to chant Hare Krsna - bolo krsna bhajo krsna karo krsna siksa - to chant, serve and transmit the teaching of Lord Krsna. So transmission could be by speech. But how many people can you speak to? It could be by book distribution by which more people can be reached. They can hear the words of the pure devotee and they can spend many hours reading the book. So every group can get the members' quotas and forward these to their Bhakti Vrksa servant leader, counselor, small group leader, etc. Everyone should make some quota, whether one book, 10 books or 100 books, or whatever. What they will try to do in a month.

Haribol! All glories to Sri Krsna Caitanya Prabhu Nityananda Sri Advaita Gadadhara Srivasa Adi Gaura Bhakta Vrnda.

Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

Yours in the service of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada,

Your well wisher always, 
Jayapataka Swami