By Vijaya das
Dear devotees,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
I was recently asked by my Temple President, Svavasa Prabhu, to go to Silicon Valley (near San Francisco) to see how Vaisesika Prabhu has stimulated an explosion of book distribution there. Svavas Prabhu was hoping I could learn how to duplicate their success in New Dvaraka. I was quite impressed, to say the least. One weekend a month, all the devotees in the congregation go out to distribute books. During the month I visited they went out a little extra — two weekends — in honor of the disappearance of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura.
They call their weekend forays the Monthly Sankirtan Festival (MSF). It starts out with a Harinama on Friday night. Seventy devotees were on Harinama! At the Harinama they distributed 293 books! Good way to start off.
On Saturday morning the devotees arrive at the temple at 7:30. At that time they have a Brahma-samhita reading and a class given by Vaisesika Prabhu. Then they have more reading and then another class, on the Srimad-Bhagavatam. Then they take prasadam and go out.
Only 3 devotees live in the temple. The rest of the sankirtan party was made up of congregational members. What follows is the astounding report for the two weekends of MSF during the month of June, which I’m sure evoked a great shower of mercy from Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura upon everyone involved.
* * *
To pay special tribute to Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura on the occasion of his divine disappearance anniversary, the devotees of ISV (ISKCON Silicon Valley), along with their friends and families and visiting devotees from distant places, participated in massive Sankirtana throughout the Bay Area over two successive weekends in June, the weekends of June 20-22 and June 27-29. The team ISV goals for this event were to:
. Deploy at least 141 devotees for book distribution
. Distribute at least 4,501 books
. Collect at least 7,500 Laxmi points
On this occasion of Vaishnava Thakura’s divine disappearance (July 2), we are pleased to report that once again we have met all goals and surpassed the designated targets by setting new Team ISV records. The final results, which were offered last night at the Wednesday night Gita class, can be summarized as follows:
In all, 225 devotees participated, setting a new high for devotee participation at ISV.
A total of 7,393 books were distributed, setting another all-time high for book distribution at ISV.
In all, $16,514 in Laxmi points were collected, surpassing the previous record of $10,280, raised during the 2007 Bhaktivinoda Thakura MSF.
The devotees made 125 new contacts.
We are grateful to all participants, donors, and contributors for making this MSF a great success!
Bhaktivinoda Thakura Maha Sankirtana Festival ki Jaya!
* * *
If you would like to try this in your area, please visit the website distributebooks. com. I’m sure you will get some inspiration from this site.
Your servant,
Vijaya das
Hare Krsna Prabhus, a little correction. The name of the sankirtan festival in Silicon Valley is, “Monthly Sankirtan Festival” not ” Maha Sankirtan Festival.”
Krsne matir astu.
Your servant,
Vijaya Dasa
I do not know what Vaish’s secret is here in ISKCON Silicon Valley that makes the congregational sankirtan so ecstatic. People have asked me but I have been unable to explain or reduce it to a formula.
Of course Vaish’s own enthusiasm is contageous. I was not there to witness it, but one Sunday a few weeks ago Vaish sent the whole Sunday Feast crowd out in different parties to do door to door book distribution as part of the Sunday program. People who had never been to the temple before went out with more seasoned devotees to knock on doors, inviting residents to purchase Prabhupada’s books!
It should be understood that Vaish’s enthusiasm is as much for hearing and chanting and studying the books in the temple than it is for distributing them to the public. The congregation’s urge to distribute seems to overflow from our experience of bliss in studying and discussing the books together.
One thing Vaish does is lead us in reciting various prayers like Brahma Samhita and Rupa Goswami’s Namasthakam. It seems that the congregational sankirtan originates in these pure sound vibrations.
Somehow this program has attracted great souls like Praveena and Kishore, Neelam and Nilesh, Ramaswamy, Venkatesh, Bharat (who has distributed about 20 Bhagavatam sets in the last month or so), the Jariwalla family (who maintans the book warehouse in their garage and accounts for everything) and many others too numerous to mention. Their enthusiasm is also contageous.
The fact that 225 people participated in a tiny temple like ISV is truly astounding.
Parents took groups of small children to apartments, and the kids’ enthusiasm charmed people into buying books.
I am not lying when I say that even a dog (yes, a little furry Japanese-breed dog with pointy nose and curly tail, named “Yogi”) was distributing books at the Harinama in Palo Alto! He/she had a little backpack on with books in it and was really distributing books and attracting people. I had previously heard, “even a dog can do it”, but now I was amazed to witness for myself, a dog was doing book distribution!
One thing is that here, there is not so much a division between “temple” and “congregational” devotees. Those who have jobs, families, grhas (pretty much all of us) are not sidelined into a separate category of devotees who are not expected to fully participate in hearing and chanting as full-fledged devotees . . .