Gurudeva's diary 26.03. English

[Srivas Thakur Das]

Dear devotees,
Please accept my blessings.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada.


Finally I will speak a bit about my experience with book distribution in India, especially in Maharashtra, the state, which capital is Mumbai. It is very, very dry here. The skin is dry and cracks, feet and hands are bleeding. This dry period goes until mid June, hen the rain season begins. So, it is going to become even more dry and hot. I wrote a report about it last year, if you can remember. The earth’s bowels are exposed, the trees are dry, the grass is yellow…and not even a drop of rain falls from the sky…It has been like that since November…
The devotees told me that there are places in Maharashtra, where a person survives with a bucket of water a day. It means that they have to do everything with this bucket of water: cook, bath themselves, etc…India is lacking water. Where I am there is water only every second day. The people have to keep some for later, as if it finishes they need to buy ater from a tank truck

Ujjvalla from Rio, came to Pandharpur to visit me, also Sri Krsna Murti and his wife, Bhaktin Lissandra.  Ujjvalla said that I am in Indian Piauí..... <:o)

The heat is unbearable; it seems as if we were living inside of an oven…this is the most austere period in India.
But as we are in Bharata-varsa, we learn a lot from it: tolerance, humility, austerity, patience, compassion, love towards another people, determination, enthusiasm, etc.

We were very busy here after the Srila
Prabhupada’s marathon, as we were preparing four festivals: Sri Advaita Acarya, Sri
Nityananda Trayodasi and two festivals for Goura Purnima: the first one was celebrated on the official day, the 8th of March, Thursday. And the second one was celebrated the next Sunday. About 800 people participated.

I will talk about book distribution in India and in the world, about the light of Kali-Yuga Pavan, Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu.

The Indians generally like to read, to hear. Here the marathon is mainly focused on the distribution of the Bhagavad Gita. The devotees even call it “Gita Marathon”.....and also the Krishna Book, only one volume, which is a Maha Book in the Sankirtan Letter chart.
I observed here that Sankirtan devotees from Maharashtra are too peaceful and they lack a bit of aggressiveness (in a positive meaning). The system they had was like that: they would take out a table with the books and a recording of a devotee speaking the glories of Gita in Marathi, quoting a poem by Saint Tukaram. And the people would naturally come and buy the books.
But I decided to go out to approach the people. How? I would ask: do you know Bhagavad Gita? The general answer would be: Yes, I know….so I would ask: Bhagavad Gita As It Is? I noticed that with this question the person would become unarmed, as they did not expect that question. So I would start to talk about the authorized Guruparampara, etc, showing them pictures, mentioning that this edition of the Gita as translated and published in more than a hundred countries in the world, etc. always with another devotee translating. In this part of India English is very little spoken. And generally people would take the book. It is very different from distributing the books in the West. We could say that Srila Prabhupada is making a revolution through the books he wrote. The majority of people have never heard about Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu and it is explained in the Sastra that in this age of Kali it will be impossible to achieve liberation, to understand the pastimes of Krishna, etc., without the intervention of Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu, the Supreme Lord Govinda manifested himself in this most beautiful and unique form to reveal the most extraordinary lilas, that occur in Sri Vrindavana Dhama, in the spiritual world.
He came to teach by his own example how to practice devotional service in such a way that the devotee can conquer Krishna. he revealed an ideal attitude of devotion through the Siksastakam and the teachings he passed onto his intimate associates Sri Rupa and Sri
Sanatana Goswamis.
All this is in Srila Prabhupad’s books. Without reading Srila Prabhupada’s books it is not possible to connect with Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu and without this connection there is no hope for liberation. In this way, Srila Prabhupada’s books are gradually entering into people’s hearts, transforming the lives of millions.

So always when you have an opportunity, please distribute Srila Prabhupada’s books. If you do it certainly Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu will give you all blessings.  Hare Krsna.

The next report will be about a very special visit I had in Nasik, a place where Sri Ramacandra, Srimati Sita Devi and Sri Laksman met Shurpanakha, Ravana’s sister…
Curiosities of India? In the next one, as the light will end in few minutes. Here the light is gone for at least 5 hours a day. Hari Bol!