{"id":104974,"date":"2022-12-31T11:26:38","date_gmt":"2022-12-31T10:26:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=104974"},"modified":"2022-12-31T11:26:38","modified_gmt":"2022-12-31T10:26:38","slug":"sankirtan-stories-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=104974","title":{"rendered":"Sankirtan Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

My first distribution of a set of Bhagavatam<\/h1>\n

Posted on Dec 30, 2022 in Sankirtan Stories<\/a>, Uncategorized<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"During this year\u2019s book marathon in Durban, I met many people who had a change of heart. Not heart transplantations but a transformation of consciousness.<\/p>\n

A Christian lady whom I spoke with was going through difficulties. I told her about the Fifth Canto and what happens after one is involved in the four sinful activities. I gave her details, such as how eating meat puts you on a hellish planet, where in a pot of boiling oil, you are boiled alive.<\/p>\n

She became interested and took a Bhagavatam set. That was my first attempt at distributing a set of Bhagavatams.<\/p>\n

Krsnaloka Devi Dasi<\/p>\n

———<\/p>\n

Krsna made a man feel that he should buy some sets<\/h1>\n

Posted on Dec 30, 2022 in Sankirtan Stories<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"I was milking the cows in the afternoon, and an Indian family came into the goshalla. We had a talk as I was finishing the milking, and then I engaged them in bottle-feeding the calf Nishta.<\/p>\n

Afterward I offered to show them some books. The head of the family agreed to take a whole stack and gave a nice donation. I also mentioned that I had full sets of the Bhagavatam and Caitanya-caritamrta at home and encouraged him to consider taking a look at them.<\/p>\n

The gent replied that he had already spent a lot of money driving up to the farm from Sydney and didn\u2019t think it was possible at the time. So then I offered to bring him a Krsna Book. He agreed.<\/p>\n

Later, I went over to his cabin, which was right next to my place, and we had a nice talk about his family heritage and experiences in India.<\/p>\n

He said that his family comes from Visvamitra Muni (the guru of Sri Rama) and he knows a lot of the pastimes from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. His wife said that they\u2019ve often been to Vrindavan and they especially love Govardhana Hill.<\/p>\n

After that, they showed me their Bala Gopal, so I paid obeisances, and then we put the Krsna book next to the deity on the makeshift altar. Then I said goodnight and thought that was it.<\/p>\n

The following day he called me again and said: \u201cI\u2019m up at the Gold Coast shopping today, but I have a feeling that Sri Krsna really wants me to have those books. Could you please bring the Bhagavatam and Caitanya-caritamrita sets over? We\u2019ll be back about 7:30 PM.\u201d<\/p>\n

This pleasant surprise made me feel super inspired. So when I went to drop off the books I also took a Prabhupada-lilamrita set. I showed him the cover of the first part and briefly described Srila Prabhupada\u2019s journey from India to America. He agreed to take all three sets!<\/p>\n

We loaded them into the back of his car and then sat to share some realisations before I had to go deliver sweets to Govinda\u2019s. I gave him my bank details, and he transferred a nice donation which fully covered the costs.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I just spoke with him today and asked whether he could send a picture of his family with the books, but he said that they are in the process of packing for a move back to the place they used to live, so he will send a photo when they get settled again.<\/p>\n

He had started a Hindu Society at a community centre in the place they are going back to, and I suggested that he could rename it the Bhakti Centre or something more inviting and inclusive for Australians and tourists. He will consider that. I suggested, too, that he display the sets of books there and hold programs to read from them.<\/p>\n

He invited me to come and visit them, and I hope I can make it one day.<\/p>\n

Transcendental book distribution, ki jaya!
\n Nitai Gauranga!
\n Jaya Srila Prabhupada!<\/p>\n

Your servant,
\n Jiv Jago<\/p>\n

———–<\/p>\n

One tough day on sankirtan turned out well<\/h1>\n

Posted on Dec 30, 2022 in Sankirtan Stories<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"I\u2019ve been in Germany for a few weeks visiting my family and was trying to sell some books this past week while I had some time off from family visits. In the town where I was, it seemed to be quite difficult to distribute a lot of books to the many hard-wired Germans. A lot of people didn\u2019t speak much German or English, and many other fundraisers besides me were also on the streets. So I was meditating on something Devamrita Swami told me once \u2014 I should just think, \u201cI could meet one person whose life could be completely changed by our encounter.\u201d<\/p>\n

One day seemed particularly challenging. I met a young man who just finished school and told me that he started meditating a few weeks ago. He seemed very sincere and ended up taking a German \u201cScience of Self-Realization\u201d before walking off. Ten minutes later at a different spot, he came up to me again, and we started talking. I remembered that I was going to meet one devotee the upcoming weekend for lunch and kirtan, so I told the boy that he could come along if he wanted. He was very excited about the invite and really wanted to come.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, myself being used to the noncommittal Kiwi mood, he ended up coming. Together we took up an hour\u2019s drive to the devotee, and we had a very nice day taking prasadam and chanting Hare Krishna with some wonderful devotees. After being away from the devotees for a while and not selling books, I was thinking that there\u2019s definitely nothing so enlivening as giving Krishna to others.<\/p>\n

All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
\n Your servant,
\n Krishna Gopinatha Dasa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\"My first distribution of a set of Bhagavatam Posted on Dec 30, 2022 in Sankirtan Stories, Uncategorized During this year\u2019s book marathon in Durban, I met many people who had a change of heart. Not heart transplantations but a transformation of consciousness. A Christian lady whom I spoke with was going through difficulties. I told<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-testing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104975,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104974\/revisions\/104975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}