Chasing a rhino on Gita Jayanti in France

GITA JAYANTI DISTRIBUTION IN FRANCE

By HH Janananda Swami

“The main thing is to distribute books more and more.
Letter to: Balavanta — Vrindaban 4 October, 1976

“The more you distribute books, the more you are blessed. There is no “more” or “less.” Everyone is blessed. [laughter] There is no such discrimination. But still, there is some competition. [laughter] Evening Darsana – February 25, 1977,

SHOOTING FOR THE RHINO IN FRANCE. (A term used by Srila Prabhupada – if you hit the target all we be amazed and if you don’t nobody expects it anyway.)

What better way to celebrate Gita Jayanti than to distribute as many Gitas as we can.

We came up with the idea that as there are 700 verses in the Gita, let us try to distribute 700 Gitas on sankirtan that day in France.

As the day approached, we upped the target up to 1008– other devotees in France had expressed their desire to be a part of the push. This would be the “highest in one day” for maybe 35 to 40 years. We optimistically hoped 54 devotees would take part to whatever degree.

The day began with dozens of devotees getting ready to take to the battlefield. “Armed with Yoga stand and fight”.

We got off to a rocket start in the train to the city. The devotees took their places in the phalanx.

500 Gitas (20 boxes) were driven to the city to be piled up in the city centre for the soldiers to refill their bags.

We initially kept a running score, but it soon became impossible to tell what was clearly happening. The boxes of Gitas were turning into flattened card-boards. The evening came and devotees started to return to the temple or home and submit their scores.

The biggest distributors were yet to clock in, but amazing results were showing up. We returned to the temple around 8 pm and got to work on the calculations. 800, 840 as late reports came in. We were remarkably 160 short at 9 pm with 2 devotees still to report – could they make it. 66 came from one – she had been working a job for 6 hours that day and did this in her spare time and after work. Then what we thought was the last score came in – 103. With a few others we were now at 1019. Incredible – what started as a “Chasing Rhino adventure” seemed to have turned into a reality. Nobody expected we could reach it with our little resources and humble crew.

Some devotees were shy to report their scores being so small. We would reassure them that every book counts and you never know, the book you distributed may be the one to reach the target.

At around 10 O’clock I walked out of the office and met one of the pujaris just about to retire. Earlier I had asked if he could at least distribute one book that day and almost jokingly asked him if he did and he replied – Oh yes, I did one – having already reached our target I said “anyways let’s report it. Every book counts!”
Minutes later the score had gone down – the administrator found an error – someone’s score was 12 books more than it should be – it had gone down to 1007.

Incredibly entering that one book brought the grand total for the day to 1008 exactly.

Not only that but 54 devotees took part in the book distribution throughout France.

Not only that but even though we were selling the books cheaper than cost in many cases the total collection added to the Gita Jayanti book sponsors came to exactly the amount we needed to cover the cost plus the standard profit within a couple of Euros.

Too many coincidences to think this was anything but Krsna’s direct hand at work. We made the target, organized to the best capacity, went out ourselves for 8 hours, worked together and depended on Krsna and He did the rest. It was ekadasi but the cooks were sending down to the battlefield tasty, sumptuous prasadam to keep the troops going.

Simple formula – “Just do it” – “We managed to shoot the Rhino” – (excuse the term) proving that nothing is impossible if we remember Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Srila Prabhupada’s transcendental book distribution ki jaya!