SPRINGFIELD, MO – Area ISKCON book distributor, Bhakta Steve, enjoyed several pages of Beyond Birth and Death by ISKCON Founder-Acarya A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada earlier this month during a slow stretch on 25th Street.
“There just weren’t a lot of fallen souls on 25th that day,” recounts Steve, “I got bored with preaching to the bugs in the ground, and that’s when it happened.”
Steve was distributing copies of Science of Self Realization, On the Way to Krsna, as well as Beyond Birth and Death when he dropped one of the books onto the ground. While picking it up to touch it to his forehead, his thumb accidentally opened up the book and his eye caught the passage: “One of the differences between Krsna and an ordinary being is that an ordinary entity can be in only one place at a time, but Krsna can be everywhere in the universe and yet also in His own abode, simultaneously.”
“That’s good stuff, prabhu,” Steve explained, “That’s just really deep.” Adding, “After reading that, I figured there was probably more stuff like that in it.”
Vijaya Kumar das, Bhakta Steve’s sankirtana partner, was astounded that he had time to pick up the book, even if accidentally. “Sure, I can understand how his thumb could inadvertently open up one of the smalls, but how could he have time to actually read the thing?” Vijaya added, “I just don’t get it, he was such a fired up book distributor.”
However, Steve insists that it was only a few pages. “I didn’t mean to get all caught up in it or anything,” Steve argued, “But, I mean, have they read this? It’s really good!”
Dayananda das, the bhakta leader and Steve’s temple authority, concluded recently that Steve “must be in such maya if he is having so much time to be reading so many books like that.” Adding, “He is such a nonsense.”
When asked if he has ever personally read Srila Prabhupada’s books, Dayananda admitted that he has looked through them once or twice. “I have been meaning to get to them eventually,” he said. “We are warriors in Lord Caitanya’s Sankirtana Army, studying sastra is for brahmans.”
Accused of playing politics and stirring up drama, Bhakta Steve was at the center of a recent temple board meeting.
“I apologize for getting political, I have been out of line,” spoke Steve during the meeting, “I should have been distributing the mercy, not have been wasting so much of Krishna’s time.”
He added, “But seriously, have you read this? There’s some really good stuff in here!”
Area temple president, Arvin Patel, conceded, “while it is very nice to see this young bhatka so fired up about reading Srila Prabhupada’s books, he must remember that he is distributing so nicely to collect laxmi for Sri Sri Radha-Krsna. It is few pages now, but if unchecked he will be one hour every day reading, like that.”
Bhakta Steve has now promised to keep fully engaged in his service as book distributor, leaving the reading of Srila Prabhupada’s books to the fallen, conditioned souls he meets on book distribution.
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16 responses so far ↓
1 Michael // Feb 8, 2008 at 9:46 am
This is serious! Next thing you know they will start making Prabhupada’s books available in ISKCON temples. Who knows what might happen then?
2 Rati // Feb 8, 2008 at 10:40 am
Let me get this straight. When interviewed, he actually quoted something from one of Srila Prabhupada’s books? Not just something he remembers hearing “Swami/Prabhu X” say in a lecture?
Scary!
Anyway, it’s good to see that his authorities are making the stopping of this madness a top priority.
3 Praveen // Feb 9, 2008 at 12:02 am
you know, this sounds an awful lot like a certain bhakta we all know who loves talking about distributing books and saving people from this hellish western life but he never seems to really have a grasp of Vedic culture nor have I ever heard him talking about the Vedic scriptures in any depth.
BTW, I have some ideas for future articles, should I email them to you? will you respond? do you hate me? are you horribly busy?
4 blackcat99 // Feb 25, 2008 at 10:21 am
Bhakta Steve needs to be kicked out of the Temple. Don’t let him get away with this. Otherwise, other bhaktas might start reading the books too!!!!!
5 Manorism Das // Feb 25, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Just see how he is deviating from our Hindu Dharma! If he was at Bhaktivedanta Manor we would throw him in the kitchen to make kachoris for the Wedding Department.
6 JayaBlissNectar // Feb 27, 2008 at 9:04 pm
In Western society religious groups are perceived as falling into two groupings: mainstream religions, which do not proselytise in public, and cults, which do. Marketing of literature in public has probably done more to damage the public reputation of the Hare Krsna religion than any other thing. It is ultimately counterproductive.
There are other Eastern religion groups – Buddhists, for example – that have many times more Western adherents than there are devotees and they have never proselytised.
7 Haribol magazine // Feb 28, 2008 at 6:39 am
Sri Nava Sisksastakam
1. All glories to book distribution! It alienates the karmis, it extinguishes respect for the Vaisnavas, it spreads the belief that Vaisnavaism is a personality cult, it the financial life blood of the organisation, it increases the bank balance of temple, it increases the ocean of doubts and at every moment gives full taste of karma, and bewilders the devotee selling books.
2. O Acarya, you have written many many books, and have explained the highest philosophical truths within your books. Alas! Devotees don’t read your books and the karmis have no way of understanding the Sanskrit phrases, what to speak of the average devotee. O Acarya! Such is the personality cult around you; I have not developed an attraction for selling your books on the streets or at airports.
3. One who is lower than the GBC, or the management committee, who is tolerant of gurukuli abuse, who has no desire to question the “senior” devotees but ready to give them respect at all times, can be deluded into spending hours selling books on the streets thinking it to be the highest seva.
4. I ask not to study sastra, or develop a taste for Harinama, nor develop myself. O Lord of the Universe, all I ask is to be the best book distributor in my area and have the best Laksmi points, birth after birth.
5. O Krishna, son of Nanda, I am your eternal servant, but I have fallen into the dreadful ocean of organisational personality cult. Please be merciful and allow me to be further deluded.
6. When will my eyes be filled with tears, my throat block with a faltering voice and heart break as I realise that book distribution will not give me prema.
7. A blink of the eyes become equal to a yuga, my eyes have become like monsoon clouds, and the entire universe has become void to me in the absence of streets on which to sell books.
8. The unfaithful Krishna may tightly embrace me, who am devoted to selling books on the streets or he may break my heart by making my third guru fall down. Whatever he decides to do with me, I will never give up book distribution.
8 Bhakta Reginald Das Goswami // Feb 28, 2008 at 8:02 am
EASY!!!
I thought this was a site for a bit of light relief…not a forum to publicly vent your personal gripes (no matter how valid they may be).
9 Bhakta Bhakta // Feb 28, 2008 at 9:00 am
Imao…that Sri Nava Sisksastakam is so funny and true…Of course the Taliban elements of our religion will find it maha offensive since it’s one of their scared cows…lol
10 Srila Mohammad Prabhu Goswami // Feb 28, 2008 at 9:10 am
Krishna Akbar!
I think we should have suicide book distribution on the streets. That’ll force the karmis to read the books….
11 Bhakta Godhead // Feb 28, 2008 at 10:49 am
I liked the picture of the curry muncher in the referee’s uniform. PZ.
12 TaruN // Feb 28, 2008 at 11:47 am
Is that a referee shirt or a Burger King uniform?
Flipping vege-burgers is one thing, but…
In 1972, PrabhupAd visited to 439 Henry St Brooklyn:
“Our disciples r going out selling books, but when asked what’s inside the book, they reply: ‘I don’t know. I’m the book seller, not the book reader.’”
SP went on: “Disciples have 4 businesses:
1) to print their guru’s books
2) to read their guru’s books
3) to distribute their guru’s books
4) to LIVE their guru’s books
13 Desi Dasa // Feb 29, 2008 at 4:45 pm
^^ Bhakta Godhead… “curry muncher” huh? Are you in the third grade? Dude, grow up. Satire is funny. The Hing is funny. Throwing around racially-charged juvenile terms in a pathetic attempt to look funny is, however, lame. It is even more lame considering the fact that you seem to follow a religious tradition with roots in India and an India founder-acharya (who, by the way, stressed “I am not this body” as the ABCs of spiritual life). Oops.
Seriously, I really wonder why we let crap like this go. I’, pretty sure that if someone had commented on a picture of a Black man with the phrase “watermelon muncher” the majority of us (BhG included) would find it repulsive.
(And for the record, I *know* that this is a humour site and I actually find this article — and the recent post on the Samskara blowout sale — quite funny. I just think it is sad and embarassing that some devotees think its okay to be so insensitive and tasteless especially towards Indian people. Sorry for the rant, I just felt that it needed to be said.)
14 Stuck // Mar 1, 2008 at 2:34 pm
In response to some of the comments here, I want to express my everlasting gratitude to whoever it was who distributed the copies of Bhagavad-gita and Science of Self-Realisation which I found in a secondhand bookshop, and which – literally – saved my life.
15 JayaBlissNectar // Mar 1, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Hello “Stuck”. Tell me – why did you choose this particular user name?
Obtaining books from a second-hand bookstore is an entirely more agreeable experience than being accosted in a public place by an over-zealous devotee keen to make his or her quota, and then suffering the indignation of having the change-up performed on you. The mood in which Prabhupada’s books were distributed for many years was grossly insensitive.
Moreover, I can only believe that if your time had truly come, you would have come across Prabhupada’s teachings via another means even if those two books you mention hadn’t been distributed in the way that they probably were. Books can make their way to people who need them without devotees resorting to methods that result in alienating such large numbers of people. When representing such a dignified spiritual tradition, utmost sensitivity should be employed when interacting with the public – they have a long memory.
16 Bhakta Godhead // Mar 2, 2008 at 8:24 am
Hey some naga deleted my comment…
*breaks brahman thread*
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