By Malini devi dasi
Dear Devotees,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
The Monthly Sankirtana Festival (MSF) of New Beginnings to honor Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, was concluded yesterday (March 27th) on Gaura Purnima, and the final MSF results were offered on this auspicious occasion to Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, Srila Prabhupada and their Lordships at the ISV temple in San Jose.
As stated in CC Madhya 23.1
cirād adattaṁ nija-gupta-vittaṁ
sva-prema-nāmāmṛtam aty-udāraḥ
ā-pāmaraṁ yo vitatāra gauraḥ
kṛṣṇo janebhyas tam ahaṁ prapadye
The most munificent Supreme Personality of Godhead, known as Gaurakṛṣṇa, distributed to everyone — even the lowest of men — His own confidential treasury in the form of the nectar of love of Himself and the holy name. This was never given to the people at any time before. I therefore offer my respectful obeisances unto Him.
Srila Prabhupada, our beloved Acarya brought this nectar of the holy name in the form of books like Srimad Bhagavatam, Chaitanya Caritamrta, Bhagavad Gita and many more. Taking the mood of Lord Chaitanya he taught this science of Krishna consciousness to everyone with out any discrimination.
In one of his letter to Kritiraja, Srila Prabhupada writes, “I want you, all my students, shall very vigorously try for this book distribution”.
Taking this order of Srila Prabhupada, following in his footsteps, Team ISV organized this MSF of New Beginnings to spread Krishna consciousness throughout the Bay Area and beyond.
Goals of this MSF were:
To distribute at least 4001 books (including at least 26 Caitanya Caritamrta sets)
To collect at least $6001 in Laxmi points.
To read a certain section of the CC or Chaitanya Bhagavat.
Expand contact-follow-up mobile app for book distribution.
To realize these goals, Team ISV spread the vibration of the holy names during the Harinaam Sankirtan at Palo Alto and did massive book distribution door to door distributing Chaitanya Caritamrta sets. Srimad Bhagavatam sets were also distributed and installed at homes.
Highlights of this MSF are:
· Both Adults (including College preaching team and Motel Gita team) as well as kids from Sunday school participated in this MSF. In addition, books were also distributed by the Smart-box team through smart boxes placed in various locations in the Bay Area.
· ISV Sunday school kids also contributed by distributing CC sets during door-to-door book distribution and purchased one for their own library.
· At a historic Sunday feast lecture ISV devotees spontaneously sponsored 30 CC sets for their friends and family.
· CC set was also distributed at the temple in return to the services provided to perform new car puja. CC sets were also distributed at corporate America and home programs.
· Motel Gita is on the verge of major breakthrough, to get orders from a franchise chain of motels instead of individual motel owners. This could potentially increase the Motel Gita orders by thousands. Also, ISKCON Las Vegas joined MotelGita team and placed over 300 books in Las Vegas area.
· Last but not the least as a new beginning, ISV is moving to its new location to improve and increase the broadcast of Lord Chaitanya’s message.
As we make this offering of the MSF results, we were pleased to report that all the goals had been successfully met and surpassed.
First, devotees participated in reading and discussing sections of Chaitanya Caritamrta, led by HG Vaisesika Prabhu over phone conferences and temple programs.
Second, with respect to mobile app for contact follow up, Hitendra Prabhu and Nilesh Prabhu expanded contact follow up mobile app for book distribution team. This will enable us to have an easy and efficient way to keep in touch with new contacts.
With respect to the books:
In all:
• More than 38 devotees participated in book distribution
• Team ISV distributed 9,133 in book points, including (74 CC sets and 12 Srimad Bhagavavatam sets)
• Team ISV raised $13,436.3 in Laxmi (including donations and sponsorships)
Acknowledgements
We thank all participating devotees, donors and Sankirtana leaders who contributed to this MSF, and last but not least we express our deepest gratitude to HG Vaisesika Prabhu for inspiring and guiding us at every step of our Sankirtana!
We pray at the lotus feet of Lord Chaitanya and the Lordships Sri Sri Radha Madan Mohan and Sri Sri Laxmi Narasimha dev to continue to shower their mercy upon us.
In separation from HG Rasika Shekhar Prabhu,
Your servant,
Malini devi dasi
(ISV Sankirtan team, San Jose)
The way these devotees have pioneered full set distribution reminds me of the early days of big books being sold. True, many of the sets were “gifted” to interested people like bhakti-vriksha members, family and friends, after being paid for by generous donations from the congregation, but other sets were sold door to door in apartment buildings, some to Christians and Muslims!
When the scores were read, I actually got tears in my eyes, and I could see that our guest of honor Malati was impressed. The goal was to do 26 Cc sets, and they not only smashed the goal, but nearly tripled it!
The only problem is, the N.A. BBT does not seem to be able to keep up with ISV’s full set distribution. They want to save some sets for other temples and the rumor I heard is that we cannot get any more sets for a while. :-(
In other good news, a group of devotees from various temples (Nandinin Kishori Mataji , Rohininandan Prabhu, Maha-Sundari Mataji, Sankarsan Prabhu and Harileela Prabhu) attended a Moteliers convention in Texas and took orders for 12,000 Bhagavad-gitas! Sankarsan and his wife opened their home to the devotees who had traveled on Gaura Purnima from Boston and Florida to attend the event. More than 2,500 motel rooms in the Austin, Texas area (capital of the state and home of University of Texas) will now have Gitas in the nightstand drawers. This effort could really have a profound impact on the culture of the world.
I just read Acyutananda Prabhu’s memoir “Blazing Sadhus”, which inspired me to also read Mukunda Goswami’s memoir “Miracle on Second Avenue”. These books (especially the latter) have reminded me of the spirit Srila Prabhupada instilled his disciples with, that they should go out and change the face of society. At first a handful these devotees were meeting with “the Swami” in a little storefront in the lower east side of Manhattan, but he was talking about an international “movement” that would bring Lord Caitanya’s names to every town and village in the world. From the very beginning he said that the chanting and the distribution of literatures was our program and would meet with success. We can see that a lot has been accomplished and much more will be accomplished if we remain sincere and we continue on with chanting and book distribution and “taxing our brains” on how to penetrate all levels of society with the message of Lord Caitanya.