By Vrsabha das
The Albanian Trip 2016
Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu foretold that the holy names would be sung in every town and village even in Kali-yuga. Owing to Srila Prabhupada, Krishna consciousness has spread almost all over the world. However, there are still some countries where there are no devotees or Krishna’s temples. Albania is one of those countries.
The first attempt to spread the sankirtana mission in Albania was in the late ’80s when HH. Bhakti-Vaibhava Swami (then HG. Avinas-Candra prabhu), together with three devotees from the former Yugoslavia, spent several days in Tirana. Then, in 2010. and 2011; a handful of devotees from the Karlovac temple (Croatia), led by Mohan prabhu, had a Harinam tour of Albania. Both times they stayed for five days and were holding Harinams in Tirana, Shkoder and Durres. In addition to singing the holy names, they were distributing Isopanisads and Atma magazines to passer-bys. After that, only in March of the last year, four Vaishnavas stayed for five days in Tirana and distributed around 700 Isopanisads in the Albanian language. These four devotees were: Lakšminath prabhu from Slovenia and three devotees from Croatia – Nayanananda prabhu, Vaikuntha-murti prabhu and Kripalu-Krishna prabhu.
However, it is important to emphasize that the sankirtana mission of distributing Srila Prabhupada’s books would not have been possible without two Vaishnavas. Višvabhavana-Krishna prabhu financially sponsored the printing of 2,000 copies of the Albanian Isopanisad, and the book was translated into Albanian by Murlidhara-Krishna prabhu from Prishtina (Kosovo). The last year’s experience of the devotees was so inspiring that there was enthusiasm to return back to Albania. Since due to personal commitments, three devotees from the last year’s mission did not have the time or opportunity to go on the mission this year – I took the opportunity and made myself and my car at Nayanananda prabhu’s disposal. He was the organizer of the mission ” The Albanian Trip 2016.”
In addition Nayanananda prabhu (a disciple of HG. Rohini-suta prabhu) and myself (a disciple of HH. Smita-Krishna Swami), about half a year prior to our departure to Albania it was known that the third member would be Trilokatma prabhu from the Czech Republic (a disciple of HH. Bhakti-vaibhava Swami). A few days before our departure it was uncertain who would be the fourth member of our team. However, Krishna gave a chance to the one who had the greatest desire – bh. Peggy (Predrag) from Split (Croatia). Although still without a guru and initiation, bh. Peggy is quite an experienced devotee who has been a member of ISKCON for 20-odd years. I witnessed his enthusiasm two years ago at the Woodstock Festival in Poland where he was enthusiastically distributing Srila Prabhupada’s books.
On the 3rd of May, a day before our departure to Albania, Trilokatma prabhu arrived at the Zagreb temple. Though we didn’t know each other by then, his face was familiar to me, perhaps from some of our Vaishnava festivals. He has been a member of ISKCON for nearly 30 years. After distributing books for many years in former Czechoslovakia, in the last decade Trilokatma prabhu has been a prominent preacher who gives public lectures and is responsible for public relations. After special and demanding training in Mayapur, in the last two years he has performed functions as a GBC supervisor for the Czech Republic and Slovakian yatras. Besides his numerous duties and responsibilities, he uses his talent of handling the photo and a video camera. He is also the cinematographer of the documentary film “Simple living, high thinking.” Owing to him and his professional camera, we now have high quality photo records of our tour. I am convinced that these photos will one day have archival value when the future Albanian Vaishnavas remember our pioneering mission to establish Krishna consciousness in Albania.
On Wednesday, the 4th of May at 6am, Trilokatma prabhu, Nayanananda prabhu and I set off from Zagreb to Split, where we ‘picked up’ bhakta Peggy. The car was full. Because of the four of us, our luggage and seven packages (800 books) – the shock absorbers were weighed down heavily. Fortunately, my Renault Scenic has a roof rack. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to take everything we needed. To cut a long story short, that day I drove over 900 km. We drove along the Adriatic coastal road, passed by Dubrovnik and continued along the coastal part of Montenegro. It was getting dark when we were driving along a narrow, rural road into Albania. We trusted the blessings of Sri Narasimhadeva should customs officers question us about 800 books. What could we have answered? However, everything went fine except that we were quite tired when we got to our destination an hour before midnight – at a youth hostel owned by a tourist company “Albanian Trip”. Even at that late hour, the traffic in Tirana was quite lively, and people were on the streets. After unloading the car and unpacking luggage in our rooms – we fell fast asleep. We had to rest for the next (the first) working day. The next morning we rested from the long journey, but we used the time to agree on a strategy and service assignment.
Since he is a good cook, it was logical that bhakta Peggy (except for the book distribution) takes responsibility for bhoga shopping, cooking and cleaning the kitchen. Trilokatma prabhu and Nayanananda prabhu were to focus exclusively on the book distribution and collection of e-mail addresses. I alloted myself two additional services. Firstly, I made a commitment to photocopy the sankirtan flyers. This is a flyer that I compiled ten years ago, which was translated into Albanian by Murlidhar-Krishna prabhu. It consists of two sheets of A4 paper that says what is ISKCON, who is Srila Prabhupada, what is Vaishnavism, the meaning of the Hare Krishna mantra, and next to Srila Prabhupada’s picture I put the contact e-mail address and our two website addresses for those who understand English (www.krishna.com and www.iskcon.org). I brought from Croatia 170 flyers, but very soon I need to photocopy more. To my surprise, photocopying in Albania is almost twice as expensive than in Croatia. The photocopied flyers I had to staple together and fold every morning. We were distributing flyers along with the books and going on Harinam. In my estimation, we distributed a total of about 1,000 flyers.
My second assignment was related to the desire to give a public lecture to students in one of the six universities in Tirana. While my three friends went out after breakfast to distribute books and flyers, I wandered around Tirana and visited three universities where local authorities were polite, but they offered me only false hopes and nothing more than that. Two days before leaving Tirana I got in touch with an English teacher from one of the other three universities. She and her authorities were interested, but there was too little time for them to be able to organise my speech because my offer came at a very short notice. This will most likely occur the next time we go to Tirana. In the meantime she started reading the book “The Science of Self-Realization’. I have started e-mail correspondence with her. Furthermore, I went (twice) to the headquarters of the national television, but I was denied by a suspicious receptionist lady. I have devised a plan how I will get around her the next time. But I will not talk about it now.
While I was on the first day vainly visiting various universities, my friends were distributing books on the streets of Tirana. The very first day they emptied a box of 115 books. On that day we didn’t have Harinam because we wanted to ‘feel’ how people would react and what their consciousness was like. Of course, Nayanananda prabhu had already known that, having an experience from the previous year. The success of the three of them, encouraged me to get out on the streets the following morning and try to distribute books. On a quiet promenade within only 70 minutes I managed to distribute as many as 13 books. I was encouraged. Now I will share with you some realisations that all four of us have experienced. The first realisation: It is extremely easy to stop people in Albania, especially when they see that you are a foreigner. For example, out of 10 people that we tried to stop, eight of them did stop and listen to what we wanted to say (providing they understand very little English).
The second realisation: There are a lot of young people in Albania. Women are clearly more numerous than men. There are a large number of students in Tirana. They will be happy to take a book, but you have to bother with them a little to persuade them to give you a donation. The books that we were distributing were already pre-sponsored so we did not have to bother about covering BBT costs. For that reason we were giving books even to those who offered less than what we had expected. For example; we were expecting at least 100 Lek. (1 euro = 138 Lek). Most of them gave less than 100 Lek. On the contrary, some rare individuals would give 200 and more Lek for a book. While distributing books, we tried to collect as many e-mail addresses as possible. In the end, we collected 54 of them.
The third realisation: Their police are great! Minding their own business they didn’t approach us when they saw that we were selling ‘something’ on the street. We held five Harinamas. Three in Tirana, one in Elbasan and one in Durres. Without notifying the police, we would sit down (with tilak, in Vaishnava robes) wherever we wanted to and play for about two hours. Although at times the police officers passed by us, it didn’t occur to them to ask us who we were and what we were doing. I guess they were satisfied that we did not create havoc, and that our performance was peaceful. All of our Harinams had the same strategy. Bh. Peggy and I played instruments (he played the karatalas and I played the harmonium), while Trilokatma prabhu and Nayanananda prabhu were easily stopping people and distributing books. Within 90-120 minutes they would together sell about 60 books and give out as many leaflets.
The fourth realisation: In contrast to northern Albania, which is mostly inhabited by a Muslim population – southern and central Albania are multicultural, where people of different religions live. Most of them are Catholics mixed with a small number of Orthodox Christians and Muslims. As far as I could see – in Tirana, Elbasan and Durres there were as many mosques as there are in Zagreb. To my surprise, there was a statue of Pope Francis in Tirana. Those who are obviously Muslim ladies are mostly tourists from Turkey. Such religious diversity and mutual tolerance was a great relief for our sankirtana mission.
A handful of (mostly young) people asked us if we had a centre or temple where they could come, listen to lectures, learn something and associate with us. With a heavy heart we had to tell them that for now we didn’t have such a facility. All of these numerous realisations confirm that Albania is fertile ground for the spreading of the sankirtana movement. The potential is huge. There are a lot of young, intelligent people who could be cultivated and trained in Krishna consciousness. A lot of things can be done. I’m almost sure that a good public program (with lectures, bhajans and prasadam), could trigger an avalanche of changes in the lives of a large number of Albanians. Though not aware of it, they are ready for such a change. How about us, ISKCON missionaries and ISKCON as an institution – are we willing to invest efforts and resources in various projects with the aim of spreading Krishna consciousness in this, so far unconquered part of the world?
There is not a problem with the lack of enthusiasm and good will of a few of us who are willing to take on responsibilities and make efforts for the satisfaction of our beloved Srila Prabhupada – to create an Albanian-yatra. The problem is the lack of material facilities and financial resources. The four of us want to go back to Albania this autumn. However, in order to be more effective, we want to rent an apartment or house for about 2-3 months in which we could invite interested people. Unfortunately, the four of us do not have regular financial income to be able to cover the costs of renting a house (or apartment), heating, food, fuel for the car, and so on. Also, for now we depend on my car, in which we can accommodate a limited amount of books, which we can bring to Albania. Finally, we have a limited number of books leftover. And this is only one book – Sri Isopanisad. We need more titles. As you can see, we have enough of good will and enthusiasm. If you think that you can help in some way – please let me know. This support can be financial, printing or photocopying flyers, donation of books in English, a good idea or proposal, and so on. You can contact me at the e-mail address vrsabha@gmail.com
One day Albanian Vaishnavas will start coming to Mayapur and Vrindavan. The time will come when in Tirana and other major cities in Albanian there will be ISKCON temples, massive distribution of Srila Prabhupada’s books, public programs, etc. Only time separates us from our goals. However, if we are not quick and efficient – time is not on our side. Rather, it works for the demonic forces that steadily undermine the moral, traditional and spiritual values of people throughout the world, including Albania.
After the collapse of the dictatorial regime of Enver Hoxha and the fall of the Iron Curtain, the Albanian society began to open to the world; mainly the western, materially developed countries. And from there,only a few good things can come. It is obvious that in the foreseeable future, due to the negative impact from the West (mainly U.S.A.) the Albanian society will become imbued with various plagues of deep materialism and all kinds of madness that go along with it. Therefore, we need to act quickly and efficiently. We welcome all of you who would like to join our team in distributing books and preaching. Srila Prabhupada ki jay!
Your servant, Vrsabha das
Source: http://m.dandavats.com/?p=21983
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