“Salted Bread”
Sri Sri Guru Gaurangau Jayatah
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Recently, I read a book "Salted Bread", which speaks about difficulties and struggles of Krishna's devotees in the early days of our movement in the former Soviet Union. "Salted Bread" is a great source of inspiration for all book distributors who are daily meeting different challenges. It is especially effective for preaching to our rascal, ever complaining mind, because we can understand that our difficulties are nothing in comparison to what these great souls went through. They were all 22, 23 years old boys who sacrificed their lives for spreading Krishna consciousness by book distribution. Thanks to them, there are so many temples all over Russia.
It seems that many devotees have not read the book yet. Many senior devotees have recommended this great book. Below there are three sections which especially touched our hearts.
Your servant, Vasudeva Datta dasa
Sarvabhavana Prabhu at the Police station, p. 122
At that point, three large, muscular men started to kick me as if I was a ball. My nose was bleeding until I could not feel it any more. Then they asked me to stand up, which I did. One of them took hold of my ear and took me close to the metal door and asked me to place my fingers between the door hinges. I refused to do so. He then asked help from the other man, who placed my eight fingers there and started to close the door slowly while screaming into my ear, "Where are the books hidden, who is printing them, and where?" I do not remember what exactly happened after that, but after I came back to consciousness, I noticed that all my fingers were cracked and bleeding. While I was lying down there one of them took electric heater and brought it close to my face and screamed at me, "So now we will cook you, man! Let's see who is who, we will eat you up okay?!" My face and nose were burning. I closed my eyes so they would not be burned. Then another man came and asked the first man to take the heater away. I was screaming and trying to tolerate the pain. Two men took hold of my arms and took me to the bathroom and asked me to wash myself quickly. I looked myself in the mirror and closed my eyes immediately. I was all bloody and swollen and bruised. I had seen a face resembling that in the movies, but not in real life, especially not my own!
Sacisuta Prabhu's glorious departure in the prison cell, p. 240 (Told by one non-devotee co-prisoner)
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