Friends of the BBT Newsletter – December 07

In This Issue…

• Spotlight
• News in Brief
• People Profile
• Distribution Story

Spotlight

The Book Distribution Initiative

by Madhava Smullen

Book distribution has changed since the “glory days” of the 1960s and 70s. Most  devotees are now householders with jobs rather than fulltime missionaries. But is this necessarily a bad thing? Perhaps we can use change in our favor, take advantage of newfound experience, maturity, and wisdom, and create new, innovative methods that will usher in the most successful era of book distribution yet.

Vaisesika Dasa thinks so. Drawing on his years of experience as a book distributor, he’s collected the best practices from around the world and packaged them into “The Book
Distribution Initiative.”

Conceived in coordination with Gopal Bhatta Dasa’s Spiritual Strategic Planning Team, the program aims to bring the focus back to book distribution, which Vaisesika believes is foundational. It’s an old concept, but his approach is new and fresh. “Many
devotees feel that we need new models,” he says. “We want to create a culture that gives those who are not fulltime book distributors the support and facility they need to be inspired and contribute in whatever way they can.”

Like Vaisesika himself, The Book Distribution Initiative is simple, to the point, and bubbling with enthusiasm. Its six practical steps can be implemented in any temple or community.

First up is the Monthly Sankirtana Festival, celebrated over a long weekend. Using Vaisesika’s philosophy of “a lot of people doing a little bit, rather than a few people doing all of the work,” it gives congregational members the chance to have a comfortable, well-organized sankirtana experience. With Full Set Distribution, the second step, devotees install full Srimad Bhagavatam sets in their customers’ homes.

Third is the Smart Table, a self-serve book table placed in temple lobbies; some sell $20,000 worth of books ever year. Step four, its sister project, is The Smart Box, a smaller self-serve book display placed in  public restaurants, boutiques, and gifts shops. Its birth city, San Jose, now has fifty Smart Boxes making a combined $500 per month. Fifteen have also been installed in Boston, with a goal of twenty-five by the end of 2007. “

They’ve even made their way to Iraq,” Vaisesika says. “US soldier Partha Sarathi Dasa has installed several Smart Boxes at his military base, and each of them is selling twenty to thirty books a day.”

Read the rest of the article here >>

News in Brief

Prabhupada Marathon Arrives

December is here, bringing with it cold and crisp weather, and for most people, Christmas trees and presents.

But devotees are bundling up warm, shouldering their book bags, and heading out on the streets to deliver presents that do what no X-Box or shiny new bike can for its owners, deliver them from disease, old age and death.

International Sankirtana Minister Vijaya Dasa encourages everyone to do whatever he can this Prabhupada Marathon. “If 4,000 devotees could distribute thirty books during the month of December that would be 120,000 books distributed for the pleasure of Srila Prabhupada. That’s only one book a day to make a difference and change people’s lives.”

We suggest you give special attention to World Enlightenment day, on December 15th. And if street book distribution is not your thing, why not give books away to people you know, or donate them to a sankirtana devotee to give to others?

Whatever you do this December, we at Friends of the BBT wish you all a very happy Prabhupada Marathon.

Radhanatha Prabhu Passes Away

Radhanatha Dasa, known as “No
Excuse Radhanatha” to many because
of his determination to distribute
Prabhupada’s books despite extreme physical difficulties, passed away on October 24, at 8:22 p.m.

He was surrounded by his loving friends and admirers who were chanting the Holy Names with great love and affection. On October 26, amidst more kirtan and prayers, puja was per- formed at the crematorium and then his broken body was placed in the fire never to cause him suffering again.

We will miss this dedicated devotee with all his warmth, humor and devotion, and are glad we got the chance to speak with him. Read our article on his life from our June 2007 issue at:

http://friendsofthebbt.org/newsletters/Jun07.html

People Profile

Vijaya Dasa

Now the International Minister of Book Distribution, Vijaya Dasa’s discovery of his life’s calling didn’t come quickly. In search of a spiritual paradise where he could meditate with like-minded people, he took classes on Transcendental Meditation in New York City, wandered beaches in the Bahamas, and finally, pickpocketed and penniless, settled in Miami to read as many spiritual books as he could.

When one of them suggested the Bhagavad-gita in its reading list, he chanced upon Prabhupada’s edition, and immediately knew it was what he’d been searching for. Weeks later, he was chanting Hare Krishna at the Miami temple, a beautiful property that sat on eight lush acres full of tropical plants, flowers, and wildlife. He’d found his spiritual paradise.

Vijaya recalls: “After two months of washing pots, the temple president, Narahari Dasa, asked me if I was bold. I said I could be. And so my book distribution career began.”

But it was another seven years before he became a sankirtana leader, and seventeen uninterrupted years after that when the GBC finally recognized his steadfast service and requested him to become the International Sankirtana Minister.

Now he travels the world giving seminars and coaching devotees, collecting donations for poor third-world book distributors to buy vehicles, and compiling a mass distribution book from Prabhupada’s teachings.

But behind all this is his goal of fulfilling our founder’s dream that every home on the planet have at least one of his books.

“Prabhupada always said, ‘I have one disease: I only think big,’” Vijaya quotes. He adds, “I want that disease.”

Book distribution has suffered in recent years, he says, only because for a whole decade in the eighties we lost Prabhu- pada’s vision. Books faded. Out came paintings, records, stickers, candles, and any other quick money-maker the imagination could conceive of.

Read the rest of the article here >>

Cell Phone Magic

by Achala Dasa

Every book distributor dreads a cell-phone call to the person he’s stopped on the street. We’ve all experienced it: Ninety-nine per cent of the time, any chance of them taking a book is over.
But there’s always that one per cent.

Once I was trying to give a man one of Srila Prabhupada’s books when his cell phone rang. He answered it and spoke for a minute. Finally I asked him to introduce me to the person who had just called him.

“O.K.,” he said. “What’s your name?”“Achala,” I told him.

He handed me his phone, and I told the caller that I’d just met his friend and was showing him books from India on higher consciousness, yoga, and meditation.“I’ve been to India twice, and I’m really into Indian philosophy,” the caller replied. “Give the phone back to my friend for a moment.”

When they hung up, the person I’d been trying to sell a book to said, “My friend wants me to buy two books, one for each of us.”

He gave a donation far higher than what I’d been asking for and walked off, leaving me smiling in wonder.

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