Lecture by Vijay Prabhu, Mayapur festival 2005
Lecture by Vijay Prabhu, Mayapur festival 2005
So, I would like to welcome everyone to our 1st book distribution seminar. Tomorrow the seminar will not be here, because we will have the book distribution award ceremony in the main tent. There will be three sannyasis speaking their realizations about book distribution, and there will be awards given out to book distributors.
One thing I wanted to discuss is the importance of book distribution. I am currently reading the latest book by Hari Sauri Prabhu. It describes how Srila Prabhupada received so many letters. But when he got letters with information about how book distribution is increasing in this country or that country, or in this temple or that temple, it gave him so much pleasure. Although he was ill, this made him feel healthier, just by hearing about the results of book distribution. So it is something that is very important.
There is so much ignorance in the world now. People are so bewildered, and are becoming more and more bewildered, through the internet, and on television. For example one can get five hundred channels on television nowadays. This is insane. This is completely bewildering people's minds.
But Krsna Consciousness is a positive alternative. In Australia, in the early days, the devotees had a traveling sankirtan bus, and on the side of the bus it said, "The positive alternative: Krsna Consciousness."
Book distribution is an adventure. We never know what is going to happen. Amazing things happen. Just like yesterday I heard an amazing story. A friend of mine, Tara Prabhu, was distributing books in the Miami airport. He distributed some books to one boy from Columbia. The boy went home and put the books on his bookshelf. The books remained there for five years, sitting there, waiting. A friend of his one day saw these books and asked him if he could borrow them during his upcoming trip to California. He read the books, and he was so inspired by reading them that he became a devotee. He looked in the back of the book and found the address of the L.A temple. He joined the temple. He began doing harinam everyday. At one point, his friend who had lent him the books decided to go on a vacation to Los Angeles. He was surfing, and when he came back to the beach, he heard some chanting, some karatals, mrdanga, and he found the sound attractive. He approached the harinam party and was looking at the devotees' faces. Then he saw his friend, his best friend, the one who had borrowed the book from him. He saw him in the crowd of devotees, chanting. He asked, "Hey, what happened?" His friend preached to him and invited him to the temple. Then that boy also started reading the books, and he also became a devotee. He is sitting here now, as a matter of fact, this brahmacari there. [applause.]
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