The Nectar of Book Distribution

Giriraj Swami: Hearing the account of the book distribution was quite an experience and especially Durgapati Prabhu’s score. It is inconceivable how a living entity, wonderful living entity distributed so many books. But I must say that with all due respect one name was omitted in the appreciations and I feel obliged to mention the name now. That is the name of Svavasa dasa [applause]. Svavasa Prabhu has such deep conviction and inspirational and organizational qualities that he has really been the main factor in the steady distribution of large numbers of Srila Prabhupada’s books in the Los Angeles area. And also coming here after visiting other temples and it is also testimony to his leadership. I am just happy to see so many Prabhupada disciples who had been here for years working with Svavasa Prabhu. That is also very encouraging. And of course their focus is book distribution as it should be. 

In 1976 we were with Srila Prabhupada in a place called Wardha which is near Nagpur which is in the center of India, Maharashtra, and he said that when he sees that his disciples are enthusiastic to distribute his books, his own enthusiasm increases. And I was so struck by Srila Prabhupada’s statement because he seemed to have boundless enthusiasm, but he actually said, “When I see my disciples enthusiastic to distribute my books, it makes me more enthusiastic.” So this is no doubt an activity that pleases Srila Prabhupada and enlivens him and I am sure that in his spiritual presence he is pleased, beaming and smiling as if he were here in his physical form.

Everyone who plays a part in the effort also counts as part of the team. Srila Prabhupada gave the example that in the Indian railways they have this slogan, “Keep the wheels turning.” So he visited the administrative offices of the railways and there was the same slogan, “Keep the wheels turning.” So he was thinking, “What is the connection? Somebody here in the office behind a desk keeping accounts, what does he have to do with keeping the wheels turning?” But the whole effort is meant to culminate in one point, keeping the wheels turning, keeping the trains going and moving people. So he said in the same way all of our efforts are meant to keep the books going out. So everyone, on the level of finance, certainly the gift shop and the restaurant contribute, the cooks are preparing nice prasāda contribute, the pujaris are giving the devotees such enlivening darshans, they also contribute. All the different activities are meant to contribute to the effort of preaching and distributing books and attracting people to the temple as we heard from Govinda Datta Prabhu’s scores at the book table and Tadip Mataji and her associates, they distribute a lot of books right here at the temple. So anything that brings people to the temple also contributes to the effort. It is really a combined effort and everyone shares in the credit. But of course the front liners who really face the conditioned souls and all of the contempt and abuse that they may get, they do get special credit. But everyone gets credit.

Svavasa Prabhu asked me to speak about my experiences in distributing books. It began in 1969 when I met the devotees in Boston. In those days we would go out and chant. We didn’t have many departments really. In fact the whole temple was what came to be the new bhakta program. The whole temple was just like the new bhakta program. Everyone went to a whole morning program. Then everyone cleaned the temple. Everyone took breakfast. Everyone went out except for a couple of cooks. Most of the devotees chanted hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana and invariably a crowd would form. And then other devotees would go around the crowd and give them mainly magazines, Back to Godhead, and ask for donations. I personally never wanted to be out of earshot of the hari-nāma. I couldn’t face that energy without the protection of the holy name and also in awe of these devotees who could just go in the airport or wherever without that support and just with their inner conviction and determination.

I would be very enthusiastic. I would just literally rush from one person to the next. I just couldn’t wait to give them mainly the magazines. We had a few small books. So many of them took books and it was really new for the people of America. The philosophy, the kirtan, the sight of devotees—it was all new.

Svavasa Prabhu was mentioning different effects of book distribution that we may not see here. I would say that so many of the concepts in the books that were very foreign to people when we first began to distribute the books had become assimilated in the English language and in the people’s consciousness—karma, reincarnation. Any mainstream newspaper or magazine, they will use the words “karma” or “guru” or “reincarnation.” So many more people have become vegetarian. So these ideas have been assimilated by the public in general. Even if they are not completely convinced they are at least aware of the ideas and many of them are, so many people are, they believe in the next life, reincarnation, karma, and so on.

There is one incident that pleased Srila Prabhupada. On some days in Boston we would go to the Cambridge Commons near Harvard Square and young people would gather. There would be different groups playing drums and guitars and just people walking around, mingling. So we would go Sunday morning and we would also do hari-nāma. We had our circle of devotees chanting. Eventually we got a van and we’d actually pick up people from the park and invite them back to the temple for the love feast. By that time I had become more comfortable approaching people. I would like to be near the saṅkīrtana party but I was able to stray a little away for the sake of the service. 

I met a young man. He said he was already interested in spiritual life. I said, Oh, okay, what are your thoughts?” He said, “I have a guru.” He mentioned his name. “And I am God,” he said about himself. I said, “Oh, you are God?” He said, “Yes, you are too. You are God, I am God, everyone is God.” He said his guru was God and by following his guru he was going to become God. 

I said, “How do you know your guru is God?” “Well, he said he is God.” [laughter] So I said, “Well, if I tell you that I am the president of the United States, will you believe me? That is a much more modest claim than saying, ‘I am God.’ So if I tell you I am the president of the United States, will you believe me?” He said, “Yes.” He was committed to his philosophy. So I said, “Okay, I am the president. Then if I am the president and I ask you to do something, you will do it, won’t you?” He said, “Yes.” So I said, “All right. Take out your wallet.” He took out his wallet. I said, “Take out the money.” And there was a huge wad of notes. I said, “Give me the money.” So he did. And then I gave him some books and disappeared in the crowd. I thought at that stage it would be a good idea to just disappear in the crowd far away from him as I could [laughter].

Then I went on with my distribution. Somehow someone must have told Srila Prabhupada about it. He was in LA. He even mentioned it in a class that, “Our Giriraj met someone and he said he is God. . .” The way Prabhupada put it that to keep his prestige that person had to give me the money otherwise he had to admit that he was wrong.

There were so many nice experiences. It is true people insulted us but we didn’t take it very seriously because they were just totally bewildered by the modes of nature. [Nakatma?] Prabhu, did you want to say something?

Nakatma dasa: Did you order him to read those books?]

That is a good point. I should have ordered him to read the books. I am not sure if I did it in that mood, but I did tell him to read the books. But not, “You read every word of these books!”

So then a group of us went to India and in India the situation was different in the sense that most people didn’t have much money and Srila Prabhupada really wanted cheap editions of his books that people could afford. He mentioned the Gītā Press that in India every household would have one book from the Gītā Press and he said he wanted it to be like that with us. Every household should have at least one book from us, from the BBT.

So one year, it was actually quite late, it was 1977, the mahā That is in Allahabad. . . every twelve years is That is and every twelve That is—that is like one hundred and forty-four years—is mahā That is. They had something like eighteen million people or twenty-two million people. You go well in advance, you set up camp, and as we discussed in the morning about the Ardha-Khumba-mela, that is six years in between the full Khumba-mela. 

Fortunately or unfortunately we got a place that was way on the outskirts. When Srila Prabhupada came and saw the situation and he said that the organizers had cheated us. They got us to pay a good amount and then stuck us way out of the way. But Srila Prabhupada said, “Okay, we are in such a remote place, people will not come to us, so we have to go to the people.” And he said, “We should just take out lots of hari-nāma parties and go all over the camp with books.” 

We really became the sensation of the whole Khumba-mela more than if we had just stayed in our camp and we had a lot of people coming through. I remember just how all the different devotees contributed. It was cold. It was January. I remember one of the leaders said, “If you want to get these devotees fired-up for book distribution, going out early in the morning, you have to serve them good prasāda.” So every morning there was piping hot halavah [laughter] and it worked. Devotees were really wanting to go out in the cold. We were so many devotees. There were several hari-nāma parties. Each hari-nāma party had at least twenty people in it and then along with the chanters there would be at least six or eight distributors. 

And we did have a lot of inexpensive books because I remember learning some Hindi phrases and one was “Phata eka rupaya”: “Only one rupee.” And we had Sugam Yatra, that is Easy Journey. Janma Vriti Se Kare: Beyond Birth and Death. We would just wander around the crowd, “Janma Vriti Se Kare! Sugam Yatra! Phata eka rupaya!” and people would just gather around. They would snatch the books. They would pay but they just wanted those books. 

The news spread and people would compare books they had gotten with the books that other people had gotten and saw that there were other books they hadn’t gotten. So we would have people come up to us and say, “We want Sugam Yatra.” It was amazing. Literally the devotees were the sensation. They were the talk of the Khumba-mela.

So it is really true, something that might look like a reversal like we didn’t get a good location—there are so many examples, in a way maybe it is like that with [?] being closed off [?]—but that resourcefulness of the devotees just to get the message out.

And then one last story as we don’t have much time, there is two parts to this story. The richest family in India then was the Birla family. Someone had made an appointment for Srila Prabhupada to meet Mr. L. N. Birla in Calcutta. Srila Prabhupada called me into his room and he said, “They made this appointment but I don’t want to go,” because he had had a bad experience in Bombay. He asked someone for a big donation and the person had refused and it was very awkward. Srila Prabhupada said, “If I ask him and if he refuses, it won’t be good for him and it won’t be good for me. So you go instead.” So I said, “Well, Srila Prabhupada, what if he refuses me?” [laughter] And Srila Prabhupada said, “You are just a young boy. That doesn’t matter.”

So I went and I showed him the books. Prabhupada said, “Whenever you meet any big man, just take out the books and show him the books.” So I showed him the books and he said, “How much do I owe you?” So I thought, “He is trying to get out of his commitment just by buying some books.” I said, “We don’t give these books away for free. They are only for our life members.” “So how much is it to become a life member?” So I said, “It was Rs 1,111.” It was a pretty good amount then. Today it is also 1–1–11: January 1st of 11. So I said, “Rs 1,111.” He said, “Okay.” He called his secretary to bring him the check but that wasn’t why I came. Prabhupada wanted me to get a donation for Mayapur. So I asked about Mayapur and he said, “Well, we are building hospitals now.”

So I went back and gave the report to Prabhupada and he said, “Oh, you made a mistake. You shouldn’t have accepted his membership. You should have said, ‘These books are our presentation to you,’ and then kept that separate and then say, ‘but we are building a temple in Mayapur and we want you to help.’”

So that was in 1971. Six years later, maybe seven, it was December, we were having the book distribution marathon in Bombay, and I was going out with all the regular book distributors. Although it did occur to me that with the same effort that it took to get to sell a hundred books and get maybe two hundred rupees, with a fraction of the effort I could approach a big man with a big donation and subsidize the distribution of books, but still I wanted to participate, and it was very blissful.

Somehow that December I got an appointment with G. D. Birla, the head of the Birla clan and the father of L. N. Birla who I had met in Calcutta. So I went up to his office. It was on the top of Industry House in Churchgate, Bombay. It is amazing, swirling marble, black marble with green. . . bewildering. 

We went into his office and we were talking. Right in the middle of our meeting someone came in and said, “Mr. Birla, there is a very important phone call from overseas.” So he excused himself. And that was very fortunate because in that interval I just had a thought, I had a full set of books in the trunk of the car and I had an assistant Puridasa, he is in the LA area. I said, “Puridasa, I’ve got it! We have a full set of books—full Cc, full set of Bhāgavatam. Bring them up immediately!” “How am I going to carry them all?” “The Birla people will help you. Don’t worry.” 

So Mr. Birla came back in. I showed him the books. He was very interested. He was paging through them very carefully. And then he said, “How much do I owe you for these?” So I remembered and I said, “These are our presentation to you.” “No, no, I can’t take them without paying. I must pay.” I said, “No, no, these are our presentation to you.” [laughter] He is like up there negotiating with General Motors. He is really a tough negotiator and he tried every trick in the trade to get me to sell him the book and I would not sell him the books. He said, “Then I cannot accept them. If you don’t let me pay for them I cannot accept them.” I said, “No sir, in my mind I’ve already given them away. I can’t take them back.” [laughter] In the end he had to accept them. And then at the end I said, “But we are building a school in Juhu and we would like your help.” He said, “Okay, I will see what I can do.” And then about a week later we got a very big check in the mail.

That instruction that Prabhupada had given six years ago I remembered it and it was the marathon and I wasn’t in the habit of carrying full sets of Bhāgavatams and Ccs when I would meet people, but they were there because of the marathon.

Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!

Transcendental book distribution ki jaya!

Hare Krishna.