While we were in New Plymouth the other day to run a few errands, Syama-gauri and I thought we'd try selling a few Gitas to a small quasi-spiritual book store in town, which also specializes in crystals, magic potions, fairy statues and incense sticks. A few weeks back, Syama-gauri had by chance meet one of the staff who worked there, and mentioned in passing that we had the Bhagavad-gita and other books from the East, and the store might like to buy some from us to display on their shelves. They showed some interest, and so we'd been been waiting for a time when we both needed to go to town to do a few other things on the same day.
It was known to us that the store was owned, managed and staffed by a group of spiritual healers and mediums, who, as far as I could tell, were pretty genuine. Over the last few months, they had been holding large public conferences where they would convince skeptics there is life beyond death by telling them things about their relatives that they could otherwise never have known. Our plan was that I would reach the bookshop first, coming from some errand that we were on, while Syama-gauri navigated the car across town to find a park and bring her bag with all the books.
I got there five minutes after closing time, but the manager decided to let me in anyway. I explained that I was from the Hare Krsna Temple, and that we had some books that someone from the store had shown some interest in. She looked very indecisive, and told me that they'd had a change of ownership two weeks back, and she would have to put it all before the new manager to decide before she could buy any of the books. I said that my wife would be along shortly with the books if she didn't mind waiting.
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