By Giriraj Swami
My dear devotees,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
In a letter to me dated December 1971, Srila Prabhupada wrote, “Go on increasing books, and go on increasing my pleasure.” December is a special opportunity to focus on Srila Prabhupada’s desire that we distribute books—and thus increase his pleasure. As he wrote in the same letter, “I am most pleased especially to hear that you are distributing many books.”
tad-vag-visargo janatagha-viplavo
By Madhava Smullen
During COVID-19, we are missing out on devotee association. Lives of Service is an ISKCON News interview series that we hope feels like sitting down for a chat at the Sunday Feast with an old friend or a devotee you’d like to get to know. Told in their own words, it’s an insightful, inspiring, and at times humorous look at their stories and lives of service. We hope you enjoy this second installment in the series!
Madhava Smullen: Where are you from, and where are you based n
By: Navina Nirada das
For the first time the “Graduate Course on Book Distribution” is available now as a free online course. Two hours of videos, a comprehensive student handbook and lots of resource materials bring this course to life on your home screen. In the current times online courses and online book distribution are especially relevant and this offer makes both easily accessible.
The original course was produced by the VTE (Vaishnava Training & Education) in 1996. It became mandatory
You can tell when someone is reading Srila Prabhupada’s books:
So this actress looking middle eastern lady and her young son parked their Porsche, walked past my book table and went inside the grocery store. I actually remembered meeting them in the past and how she was kind of puffed up, so I didn’t expect much.
When they came out of the store, they walked straight towards me with a big smile and the boy was holding a $20 bill to give me. The mother was so warm this time and all happy to see me
The 2020 worldwide Bhadra Campaign saw devotees triple the Srimad-Bhagavatam set distribution of previous years, obliterating their initial goal of 10,000 sets. All told, over 22 countries and 150 cities participated to distribute more than 23,000 sets despite the challenges of COVID-19.Happy recipients of Srimad-Bhagavatam in North America
The Bhadra Campaign was launched in 2017, inspired by the Srimad-Bhagavatam verse 12.13.13, which states, “If on the full moon day of
A new interactive webinar by Global Duty Officer for Book Distribution Vaisesika Dasa, entitled “Be A Sage Page by Page,” will teach participants how to upgrade their lives by reading Srila Prabhupada’s books. Set to take place at 7:00am PDT on August 22nd on Zoom, it will also be broadcast on Facebook and Youtube. (Register here: https://beasage.carrd.co/)
The webinar will ramp up enthusiasm for Shravanam Week, an initiative by the ISKCON Ministry of Education to facilita
This book distribution story needs a little background. It’s like many stories from so many devotees all over the world, which give us a sense of the unexplainable magic of book distribution.
Those deeply mystical points in time, those strange moments, when synchronicity only gives a vague explanation for what just happened. Points in time when you just know deep down in your soul that Paramatma, the Supersoul, is actually the person doing everything. He is in the heart of the distributor, He i
“When the lockdown started, nobody thought we could distribute books, and everybody was worried about what would happen,” says Shyama Mohini Dasi, co-sankirtan leader at ISKCON Toronto, Canada. “But Vaisesika Prabhu encouraged us to think differently, and innovate.”
Every year since 2007, devotees at Toronto, ISKCON Silicon Valley, and other temples – inspired by Global Duty Officer for book distribution Vaisesika Das – have held a Bhaktivinode Thakur Marathon for the six
By Madhava Smullen
With ISKCON book distributors off the streets and staying at home due to the Coronavirus pandemic, you might think their service has completely ground to a halt. Instead, however, they’ve put all their energy into innovations such as mailing, contactless delivery, and e-books to distribute thousands of Prabhupada’s books at a time when people need them more than ever.
In North America, one of the teams most affected was New York City’s Yuga Dharma Ashram led by Rama Raya
Some of our devotees wanted to go out to distribute books door-to-door yesterday, Saturday.
I asked them to be extremely careful, by:
Staying at least 6 feet away from people when speaking to them. Sanitizing their hands after *every* interaction. Being vigilant to not touch their faces at at any time.
This group of distributors reported that, uncharacteristically, 95% of people opened their doors to speak with them. Most of them took books very enthusiastically, saying: “While we have to sta
My sister - nineteen-year old, wheelchair-bound, muscular-dystrophic Madana-mohana-mohini dasi from Pune, India—really wanted to participate in book distribution during the marathon month, in December 2019, because it is so dear to Srila Prabhupada.
Mohini’s health not being so supportive, she made a compromise: “I’ll just go to a few neighboring apartments, maybe give out a couple of books, and see how my body responds.” Later in the month, after gathering courage for many days, she and I fina
The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust has kicked off the New Year by launching its own podcast, “Sankirtan On,” to inspire devotees.
The podcast is facilitated by the BBT’s Marketing, Communications and Innovations dept and was conceived by the department’s director Vaisesika Das as a way to make sankirtan (book distribution and harinama) relevant to a younger generation.
Branding and social media manager Anukula Seva Das, technical expert Amanda Vikram Das, and host Ananda-Murari Da
It’s Monday morning. It’s cold, wet and windy. It’s time to face the world. It’s another day on book distribution!
I remember returning from my first day on book distribution and being advised to do the unthinkable – “go and have a cold shower!” What! I’d already been standing in the freezing cold all day! The logic was that a warm shower cleanses your physical body, but a cold shower cleanses your subtle body – all the negative energy that we absorb from a day in the urban jungle is cleansed a
This Christmas season, students from Alachua’s Bhaktivedanta Academy (BANA) participated in “Outreach Week” from December 16th to 20th. A tradition stretching back decades, and since 2008 in its current form, it’s designed to give students a positive experience of sharing Krishna consciousness.
“We carefully craft the experience, making it age appropriate,” says principal Visvambhar Aguilera. “For example, our youngest students visit a devotee’s home on the temple proper
Historically, ISKCON Brooklyn, New York, was perhaps the greatest center of book distribution in the world. In the 1970s, ISKCON Press printed Prabhupada’s books at 32 Tiffany Place near the Henry Street temple. The huge amounts of books distributed from Brooklyn, meanwhile, contributed much of the funds to build flagship ISKCON centers such as the Juhu temple in Mumbai, and Mayapur Chandrodaya Mandir.
For the past twenty years, however, book distribution came to a comple
Worries about terrorism, escalating healthcare and living costs, global warming, nuclear proliferation, and widespread violence are just a few of the concerns that plague people around the world. People everywhere are looking for peace, prosperity and happiness, but in Kali Yuga, these things are hard to find.
Fortunately, however, everyone can get relief from all material pangs by participating in Lord Caitanya’s Sankirtana movement. Sankirtana, the congregational chanting of the holy names, s
During this year of anniversary of 35 years, ISKCON Finland is not only preparing for Srila Prabhupada Book Distribution Marathon, but also trying to secure the future of the Krishna temple and our headquarters in Malmi, Helsinki (Vanha Helsingintie 14, 00700 Helsinki, Finland).
The City of Helsinki has promised to sell to ISKCON the land where the present temple building lies. The size of the land is 0.6 hectares, and the price is 300 000 €. The price is much lower f
Why is Sankirtan the prime benediction of this age?
Every day morning, after Mangla Arthi, Srila Prabhupada quote will be read! Being book marathon month, to inspire and motivate devotees to push the book distribution, we read Srila Prabhupada quote on book distribution.
Today’s quote is a beautiful letter to German disciples in the month of May 1977, where Srila Prabhupada explains how much blessings is showered even when one simply touches and sees it, what to speak of reading, distributing a
